[jeevan007]

THIS JUST IN..!!

Formula 1 bosses have agreed to ditch the controversial new elimination qualifying system for the next race.
The previous system will be re-introduced for the Bahrain Grand Prix on 1-3 April after criticism of the new knock-out format at the season's first race in Australia on Saturday.

The teams made a unanimous decision at a meeting in Melbourne on Sunday.
"We wanted to improve the show and we went in the wrong direction," Mercedes F1 boss Toto Wolff said.

"It shows there is common sense in F1."
The decision to change qualifying was instigated by F1 commercial boss Bernie Ecclestone.
The 85-year-old voted in favour of the new system, although he had wanted to introduce a more radical approach that would see the fastest drivers after qualifying demoted on the grid to try to promote closer racing.


But Wolff said that Ecclestone would fall in line with the teams' decision.
"He agreed to it," Wolff said. "I spoke to him and he sees it was the wrong decision.
"You can't blame anybody because we really tried to optimize the show and we got it wrong.

"I am not quite sure he is happy to go back to the old format because he'd like to shake things up, understandably. But it is better to go back to the old format rather than staying with what we've invented yesterday."



Source: BBC.com

[rohitoasis]

The race turned out better than the qualification. Fun to see a rookie team in top 10. The race in the front was not so special but the delightful tiff for the last three two positions for the Torro Rosos was worth watching. Haas at 6th with Gorsjean was appreciable for a rookie team.

And finally seeing ex teammates in the podium was fun. Was expecting a bit more teasing and fun between the two.

[ecenandu]

Originally Posted by F2005

That was a very bad accident. Thank God, Alonso is safe

Reminded me of Jacques Villeneuve - Ralf Schumacher crash in 2001 Australian GP. Thank goodness, Alonoso walked off unhurt. TV feed only showed Gutierrez car then I saw mangled remaining of another car, scary sight, actually. Alonso was walking gingerly at first, nothing bad at the end, thankfully.

What an arrogant prick Max is turning out to be, Jeez. That kid has to take it bit easy. What does he think about himself, did he wanted Carlos to move out of his way, always.

[RocketRaccoon]

Uploading some close up pictures of the Alonso crash.

[anubshar]

Great race it was. Vettel was unlucky today that Red flag came at the wrong time and he had to make an extra pit stop. Ferrari lost on strategy else they would have started of with a win.
This season will surely be more competitive as Ferrari has improved a lot and can go after Mercedes till the end

[StarrySky]

Relieved to see Alonso come out uninjured from that crash. The first shot of his mangled car on TV had me very worried. But he emerged from the debris soon after.

Ferrari lost the race on strategy. The red flag didn't help. Shame about Kimi. We would've had an on-track battle for the lead had Ferrari switched to mediums after the red flag. Rosberg knew that Vettel had to stop again soon enough, so he was just trying to stay close enough to Vettel, without destroying his tires. Worked out well for him. Hamilton recovered well from a poor start.

I am not sure how much the gap has closed in race conditions between Ferrari and Mercedes. We had a battle for podium positions due to mega starts from Ferrari drivers and poor starts from Mercedes drivers. It need not happen every time. If Mercedes had kept the 1-2 from the start of the race, I am not sure Vettel would've had a shot at the win.

Good race and points for Haas/Grosjean.

Verstappen behaving like a spoilt child.

Williams seems to have gone backwards. STR and RB seem to be definitely ahead of them. STR, however, are not going to get any engine upgrades. So they are likely to drop down the pecking order as the season progresses.

Renault reportedly spent the least amount of engine tokens ahead of the season, but the engine did not seem to lack too much in the race. This probably means that RB are going to be a big threat when those upgrades come in.

[Hatari]

Scary crash, was tough to fathom how Alonso even fit into the cockpit after the wreckage.
Great to see him crawl out straightaway.

Kudos to Mercedes, got it spot of with the Mediums when no one else even thought of them. Top of their game. There is still enough of a gap to Ferrari.
Toro Rosso the team to look out for.

McLaren inspite of improving, will not have a huge impact due to their low top speed.
Will constantly be stuck behind slower cars.

[Maky]

I've steadily lost interest in F1 the past year but decided to watch the first race regardless of my waning interest in this sport. I'm happy I tuned In as I really enjoyed the season opener!.

Lewis making a poor start really was responsible for making the race that much more interesting to sit through till the end.
I am surprised at how good the Ferrari is given this is only the first race, I think they may catch up with Mercedes by mid-season and perhaps even surpass them!
An excellent first race for Haas team!. I hope they become a strong mid-field and perhaps even challenge the top guys in forthcoming years. An American team can only be a good thing for Formula One.
McLaren while better than last year I'm not sure If they'll be challenging for the world championship this year. Macca is my favourite team and It still annoys me how they could have screwed it up so badly. On the bright side at least they don't have reliability Issues.
Nice to see Renault back as a full works team, especially in that pretty yellow livery. The 2016 season would be nothing more than a team rebuilding exercise for them and I think they can be a force in 2017 or 2018 If all goes well.

This year I'm cheering for Rosberg as well as Hamilton equally. I've been a big Hamilton fan and not so much the german but have gained a lot of respect for Rosberg past couple of seasons and I hope he will be a world champion.

[jfxavier]

I thought someone else might want to start the race thread this year. Sorry if anyone missed the race due to the thread not being there. GC



My takeaways from the race:

Everyone has improved vastly compared to last year's times. The max. improvement from McLaren of course. The quali time set by ALO could have put him on the front row last year.

The max. speeds show that the field is closer together compared to last year.


Reliability issues for Honda seem to be under control. Now the only way is upwards and onwards. Bring on the updates, please.

Williams' Valtteri Bottas was the first casualty on reliability for replacing a gearbox. McLaren fans cannot hide their grin. Kimi didn’t want to be left out of action and his turbo was literally breathing fire today.

Well done to Grosjean and Team Haas for P6 and potentially drive of the day as Romain defended that spot for more than 20 laps. A little help with the red flag timing is always welcome.

Shout out to Jolyon Palmer and Renault as well for a strong debut, though late race saw them unable to keep up.

Condolences to Kvyat who, for the second year running, failed to make the start.

Start seems to be the Achilles’ heal again for Mercs this year. The race pace does not seem so outlandish as their quali pace. The famous Quali mapping for Mercs is something really.

HAM stuck behind VES for lap after lap shows how front wing aero dependent the cars are. If you jump the Mercs at the start, there really is hope for others this year.

As the race progressed, Verstappen became increasingly agitated. Something for the young MAX to work on.

[Aditya]

All posts related to the 2016 Australian GP moved to a new thread.

[polopm]

Originally Posted by jfxavier

I thought someone else might want to start the race thread this year. Sorry if anyone missed the race due to the thread not being there. GC

Attachment 1488249

My takeaways from the race:

Everyone has improved vastly compared to last year's times. The max. improvement from McLaren of course. The quali time set by ALO could have put him on the front row last year.

The max. speeds show that the field is closer together compared to last year.
Attachment 1488248

Reliability issues for Honda seem to be under control. Now the only way is upwards and onwards. Bring on the updates, please.

Williams' Valtteri Bottas was the first casualty on reliability for replacing a gearbox. McLaren fans cannot hide their grin. Kimi didn’t want to be left out of action and his turbo was literally breathing fire today.

Well done to Grosjean and Team Haas for P6 and potentially drive of the day as Romain defended that spot for more than 20 laps. A little help with the red flag timing is always welcome.

Shout out to Jolyon Palmer and Renault as well for a strong debut, though late race saw them unable to keep up.

Condolences to Kvyat who, for the second year running, failed to make the start.

Start seems to be the Achilles’ heal again for Mercs this year. The race pace does not seem so outlandish as their quali pace. The famous Quali mapping for Mercs is something really.

HAM stuck behind VES for lap after lap shows how front wing aero dependent the cars are. If you jump the Mercs at the start, there really is hope for others this year.

As the race progressed, Verstappen became increasingly agitated. Something for the young MAX to work on.

Nice summary !
It was obvious that overtaking was so difficult. Hamilton suffering behind Max was a case . McLaren pace was pretty good. Fernando would have fought for the points yesterday if he did not have the accident. Merc definitely need to sort out their starts.
If the mercs would have pulled away, I bet Ferrari would have suffered in the turbulent air unable to pass. A solid debut to Renault and Palmer, the guy impressed .

Mad Max did his CV no good by ranting. Proved his age, you cannot win the battle in few corners or laps. Sometimes you need to wait and have patience.

[greatgyan]

It was a good race overall, Mercedes drivers losing places at the start surely added to the spectacle! But Just can't get my head across Ferrari's logic of sending Vettel out on super soft tyres after the red flag, specially since they knew that Mercedes was planning to go to the end with medium tyres on both Hamilton's and Rosberg's cars. Perhaps Ferrari knew something which we don't.

Scary crash though After the crash, that Mclaren looked like it had taken a trip to the scrapyard. Not sure if any of its components or parts stand usable for the future races. At one point, the car was literally flying across the gravel trap about 3-4 feet above the ground, somersaulting during the flight!! looked scary!
Thank god Alonso was able to walk away unscathed from the crash. Kudos to the safety standards of F1.

Performance of the Toro Roso's was really encouraging, the 2015 Ferrari engine seems to be really helping them. Sure Red Bull must be wondering if they made a mistake by opting not to go for 2015 Ferrari engines.

HaaS have made a really positive and encouraging start. If they manage to sustain this momentum, we'll have a really tough fight between the Force Indias, HaaS and Toro Rosos for the midfield positions. Throw in good performances by the Mclarens and the Renaults, and we'll have an amazing battle in the midfield right through the season.

Broadly speaking, I see another season being dominated completely by the Mercedes boys, unless Ferrari manage to pull a rabbit out of the hat. But I really hope Rosberg gives a tough time to Hamilton this time.

[gtonsing]

Maybe it was the absence of races during the winter break or its generally more exciting than last year - Enjoyed the opening race for 2016. Let it be the start and not the highlight of the year.
The Alonso crash is indeed horrifying. That he was able to walk away from that (and his shell of the car being intact) says a lot about the safety measures that have been put in place in the car.
HaaS to be 2016 targets for SFI? If taken at this stage, looks like Sahara Force India has a newbie challenger for the middle rung!

[tharian]

I was wondering how Alonso managed to get out of the car before Gutierrez who's car was upright.

[phoenixash]

Originally Posted by greatgyan

It was a good race overall, Mercedes drivers losing places at the start surely added to the spectacle! But Just can't get my head across Ferrari's logic of sending Vettel out on super soft tyres after the red flag, specially since they knew that Mercedes was planning to go to the end with medium tyres on both Hamilton's and Rosberg's cars. Perhaps Ferrari knew something which we don't.

Broadly speaking, I see another season being dominated completely by the Mercedes boys, unless Ferrari manage to pull a rabbit out of the hat. But I really hope Rosberg gives a tough time to Hamilton this time.

Yup, just going by conventional knowledge that the Super-Softs are traditionally 3s - 3.5s faster than the Medium tyres at optimum operating temperature but last only 15-18 laps, I'm not convinced that Ferrari have made very great progress against Mercedes.

The fact that despite knowing the Mercedes cars were running the Mediums after the restart and intended to go till the end, if Ferrari sent out their drivers on Super-Softs it was probably with the assumption that their cars would be atleast 2s faster than the Mercedes, which they clearly weren't. If they had run Mediums throughout Vettel would probably not even have been assured the podium.

Also, judging by the qualifying pace, where Hamilton was over 0.5s clear of the Ferrari's, this looks like another Mercedes-dominated season.

In the interest of the sport, let's hope not though! Looking forward to Bahrain in 2 weeks.