In the round-up: Carlos Sainz Jnr says McLaren were delayed by power unit problems during Friday practice.
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What they say
A tricky Friday for us. We’ve had various issues in the car, especially in the second session coming from the engine and also coming a bit from the mechanical parts in the car. But still we managed tocomplete our programme more or less, just in time. We would have loved to do a bit more laps and prepare ourselves better for Sunday but unfortunately we were changing a lot of stuff in the car during the whole session and we got a bit delayed. So it means we have margin of improvement for tomorrow, it means we need to be confident because we know we have margin of improvement although the midfield as always looks very, very tight and very exciting.
Renault looks to have under control what happened it just meant that we were a bit compromised for FP2. But I think everyone could be a bit compromised for FP2. Mercedes and Ferrari engines normally are conservative so we will see what happens tomorrow but at least we know we have a good margin for tomorrow.
Quotes: Dieter Rencken
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Social media
Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:
The glamorous world of #F1! In the #AusGP booth with @BobConstanduros and @cameronvdd during Free Practice 1 🇦🇺 pic.twitter.com/h1WtycEk0S
— Sean Kelly (@virtualstatman) March 15, 2019
This better be a three way fight for the title. Six drivers battling it out for 21 races is the best we can possibly hope for this season. #F1 #AusGP
— Josh Holland (@Josh_Holland5) March 15, 2019
What's the smelliest corner at Albert Park? Over to @LewisHamilton:
"It's strange because wen you go through turn 13 it smells like burgers and fries and stuff around there. It's horrible. It's a really bad smell!!"#F1 #AusGP pic.twitter.com/UX6x6A1XN1
— RaceFans (@racefansdotnet) March 15, 2019
Kubica was asked if he has soaked up the atmosphere from the crowd at Melbourne:
"When you drive you don't have time. Especially with our car, we are fighting quite a lot to stay on-track."#F1 #AusGP pic.twitter.com/S39Xr9VMsI
— RaceFans (@racefansdotnet) March 15, 2019
- Find more official F1 accounts to follow in the F1 Twitter Directory
Links
More motor racing links of interest:
Aus GP: Free Practice (Red Bull)
Pierre Gasly: "On the engine side, we had a small loss of power on the last lap and after some checks, it turned out to be a minor sensor issue."
Australian GP: Friday (Racing Point)
Sergio Perez: "These first two sessions were quite difficult for me and I am not really happy with the balance of the car and the tyres yet. We had many new parts on the car today and we still need to fully understand them, so we tried to come up with the best possible compromise for tomorrow."
Australian GP free practice (Toro Rosso)
"This circuit isn’t easy, but I think our pace looks good so far and I’m slowly building up confidence. I took it a bit easier after the spin in FP1 and once I got back up to speed we went on with the programme, trying a few more things on the car. "
Blash: Whiting will be irreplaceable in F1 (Autosport)
"Most importantly two young children have lost the most loving and adorable father. And he was, he just devoted everything to the kids. He spent the last week with them."
"It is highly regrettable that Formula One and MotoGP have to be paid for,” Walker says. “There will, inevitably, be major losses in viewers. I will watch them both because I’m madly enthusiastic but a higher percentage are only mildly interested and you do not pick up those viewers. Fanatics are a small hard-core but the sport gets a hell of a lot of money from TV. I don’t know what the answer is."
Why F1 got it wrong with fastest lap rule change (The Telegraph)
"Imagine a frantic rush to the pits from those in 15th-18th with four laps to go. With no chance of scoring points in the regular way, they still have something to race for."
Grand prix, gross price (The Age)
"Melbourne’s boosters always claimed that because of a soulfully close relationship between bumper bar Bernie and the late, leaning Ron Walker, we got our race at mates’ rates. But did we? Do we?"
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Comment of the day
Cyril Abiteboul has a point about the unfair advantages ‘B-teams’ create, says @Johnrkh:
I agree having a B team offers a huge advantage over single-team entrants.
Yes, as Abiteboul pointed out, they can and will get technical support from the ‘A-team’, giving them an advantage over other midfield teams.
But it also potentially works the other way as I mentioned last year. The ‘B-team’ can be run as a real time test bed for new parts, as we did see from the Toro Rosso/Honda deal. This has reduced Red Bull’s development time considerably I would say.
@Johnrkh
From the forum
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faulty (@faulty)
16th March 2019, 0:56
Really looking forward to the paddock diaries. Or did @dieterrencken not make the trip down under?
@HoHum (@hohum)
16th March 2019, 1:31
Burgers and frys, ummmh yummy, cabbage not so, but then I’m an omnivore not a vegan.
bob
16th March 2019, 1:37
On the upside Robert, sounds like the issue is grip & it would be a little unsurprising if Williams didn’t have suspension issues if they had to change it mega quick after Catalunya – there’s a chance they can sort that issue out fairly quickly.
I just watched some history around the fan car and the 6 wheelers – seems like the FIA was more lenient enforcing their wishes in the good old days – compliance time-wise. A more reasonable approach with Williams interpretations may have been more beneficial to everyone (excluding a few they might have beaten to points-less positions).
Aldoid
16th March 2019, 2:09
So becoming vegan makes regular fast food smell bad? That’s a new one… Lewis does say strange things sometimes but this certainly a new kind of strange. There must some kind of universal law at work that causes people to become more annoyingly self righteous when they go vegan.
Duncan Idaho (@didaho)
16th March 2019, 2:22
On the upside Robert, sounds like the issue is grip & it would be a little unsurprising if Williams didn’t have suspension issues if they had to change it mega quick after Catalunya – there’s a chance they could sort that the emanating issues out in the near term.
I just watched some history around the fan car and the 6 wheelers – seems like the FIA was more lenient in compliance time enforcing their wishes in the good old days. A more reasonable approach with Williams interpretations may have been more beneficial to everyone (excluding a few they might have beaten to points-less positions).
BaKano (@bakano)
16th March 2019, 5:21
It seems to me that a lot of people are forgetting about the possibilities of someone going for the fastest lap not to get a point, when they are outside of top 10 BUT to steal a point from someone that is in the top 10 and has the fastest lap (possible scenario when someone made a late stop and is charging through the backfield).
Or the usage of the so called B-teams to steal the point from a direct competitor, let’s say for instance Kvyat going for the fastest lap so that Bottas gets 1 point less in that race…
Renee (@renee)
16th March 2019, 6:09
But if Bottas was to win the hypothetical race then Kvyat having the fastest lap won’t take points off Bottas, he still gets 25 points for winning. It would only be possible if Bottas also would post the quickest lap during the last 10 or so laps of the race. And I believe it’s not often the winner gets the fastest lap. It’s usually someone charging through the field coming back to the front.
Jere (@jerejj)
16th March 2019, 9:54
I agree with the COTD on both of the aspects brought up.