F1 2022 - Round 3: Australia

I'm not much of a Ferrari fan but really looking forward to a lot of Ferrari-engined cars near the front this weekend.

Definitely setting my alarm for it. Have you watch the races live, as I hate having to dodge the news/social media channels for spoilers. And boards.ie is a big spoiler too!

I suppose with a big enough cup of coffee it might be enjoyable and I'm not going out this weekend due to an imminent holiday and a resulting fear of catching covid so we'll see. Might watch it in bed.

Nope going to lie in and watch the highlights. I have no problem with highlights for qualifying its just the race highlights I hate because of the adds.

I get up at 4:30 for work so this is a breeze! 😁

Should be an interesting weekend! Looking forward to the novelty of setting an alarm and watching it live in the morning with a cup of coffee (well, Qualy anyway as I’m out Sat night!).

Interested to see how Danny Ric does on home soil despite the McLaren problems, and how the new track and DRS zones work. I already foresee an issue like Saudi with the 2nd DRS detection point as it’s located on a very slow corner before the pit straight so I’m sure people will be trying to play the game.

Merc have made some small change to the rear wing apparently. Most online commentary I've read seems to suggest they'll be in much the same position as they were in at Jeddah.

Lego must have been pissed that McLaren changed their livery for this year! The livery changed about a week after the lego was released.

where are you, thats like Hawaii or similar to be that far behind, right? even North American westen seaboard is midnight or later by then

Stat being bandied about that since the first Albert Park GP in 1996, there has only been 1 overtake for the lead of the race.

But if memory serves, that was 1998 when the mclarens switched places for the lead. Mika came in for an unexpected pitstop and lost the lead. The team said their radio was hacked. So they made Coulthard give him the lead back.

So of that's the only overtake for the lead, and there are almost no overtakes anywhere else on the grid, why in the name of jaysus have we been wasting over 20 years starting the season with a guaranteed borefest? The stories of how wonderful a city Melbourne is don't help the racing even if they're trotted out 20 tines a weekend.

Very happy they've made efforts to improve the track. It's all coming at once. The track improvement, the additional DRS and the new regulations. But if these 3 changes can't produce some overtaking then therea re plenty of tracks that are willing to take Melbourne's place and can provide some actual excitement. They should get rid of it before it gets grandfathered into the lore of f1 and fans can't consider dropping it.

"Nothing we change on the car makes a difference at the moment," Hamilton said, "so that's the difficult thing.

"You get in very optimistic and make changes and then it doesn't seem to be wanting to improve. We made some changes into P2. P1 was better and P2 ended up being a bit harder for me. It's just a tricky car.

I'm beginning to believe the engine might be the issue. The other Merc teams all have big issues too. Is there a design flaw in the engine which only a chassis/aero redesign will fix.

ah the days of me staying up or getting up are done, i ll watch the highlights, pretty shocking to see how bad the mercs are so far

Hill also overtook Villeneuve for the lead in the 1996 race. Maybe they mean that one?

Not sure about the changes but saw Albon complaining about the barriers too close to the track coming out of a few of the bends. He's expecting some crashes during qualifying as even in practice some drivers were close to them.

Whoever made up that stat mustve stopped watching after the 96 race.

I recall in 2000 Barichello passing Schumacher for the lead as they were on different strategies, more a team order but still an overtake.

And in 2002 i remember Montoya overtaking Schumacher for the lead who then retook it a few laps later and Alonso overlook Button in 2006.

Montoya and Alonso's were on safety car restarts though.

Will definitely be up for the qualifying and the race, can't wait. Recorded the practice, wasn't getting up for that 😂

I'm in California, race is on at 10pm on Saturday night

Be interesting to see how fatigue/jet lag affects the drivers come race day. Already seems Magnussen is a bit under the weather - I wonder if it’s due to jet lag symptoms.

Of course the teams will all have nutritionists, trainers etc to get the drivers as adapted as possible, but ultimately jet lag is very individual no matter the precautions.

From personal experience, I’ve been done that journey twice for some extended periods - the first time I had pretty much no jet lag and could get on with life very quickly; 2nd time I was wiped out for 10days despite managing it the same way as before!

Ultimately could lead to some mistakes in Qualy or especially an extended race - this is the most dramatic time zone change they have had in almost 3 years, and they usually say going east is worse than west!

Just like Vegas.

Christ...

I’m jealous of my brother who lives in Melbourne.

Set my alarm for 6am thinking qualy started then….! Feel like I’ve lost an hours sleep now🙈

Stroll and Latifi!

Have to say Latifi destroys another car.