Australian Grand Prix 2012 - Albert Park - Race 1

[bonzo]

does anyone want to buy my monza ticket?

1euro OK?

[theforce]

Just saw the qualify results: can't believe I slept in. Maybe we are sandbagging

Come on guys, we were warned of our pace so this shouldn't come as a shock. I would start worrying by the time of European races.

Who knows, top 4 could be possible tomorrow!

[Honzus]

There is some truth there. Its not as bad as it looks i guess. The times are really close. So, like someone else said before in this thread, if we sort out the balance and unlock that hidden potential, we could be back on top.

Just small joke from my side:
1) that is perfect the car has hidden potential
2) disaster is, that even in Ferrari they dont know where it is and how to unlock it.

[tifosi_kaka]

McLaren is the most solid team at the moment. No any gimmick, it just works.

Mercedes, I suspect their DRS duct is playing a big role. We saw the inlet in the rear wing, we saw the slot gap in the front wing. Well, DRS only plays a major role in qualifying, so they'll probably not as strong in the race, we'll see. But that DRS duct certainly isn't going to help in the race.

Renault, with a rookie driver, I doubt they can mount a serious challenge on the title. And they cannot out-develop the big teams like McLaren.

Red Bull, who knows whats up with them. Perhaps its true that Adrian Newey ran out of ideas after losing the blown diffuser. That was his strong point.

This leaves McLaren alone.

Well Newey is definitely going to keep trying until he finds the optimal exhaust and diffuser solution. Which I think will bring Red Bull back to at least matching McLaren. I think the RB8 is a good car, only that it also suffers from lack of rear-end traction on the exit of corners, most probably cost by bad exhaust design.

So expect RB to become strong again in a few races' time.

I'm not so sure about Renault (Lotus), Grosjean has done so well in it, and I wonder what Kimi can do on full speed. Maybe Lotus will be strong as well, at least the 4th team on the pecking order.

Expect McLaren to be ahead of the field with a slight advantage over Mercedes. Car wise the two teams should be similar, but I would rank the McLaren drivers as better than the Mercedes pairing, hence the slight advantage.

[Stormsearcher]

Just small joke from my side:
1) that is perfect hte car has hidden potential
2) disaster is, that even in Ferrari they dont know where it is and how to unlock it.

Nyah. We'll be the team to beat by the 3rd or 4th race. i have faith.

[F2002]

does anyone want to buy my monza ticket?

I'll wait a bit more, as I'm sure the price will drop further.

Just joking of course, but anyway all we can hope for is that the "major upgrade" we have in May does the trick, and that everybody else stops developing their car in the meantime.

As for the other comments by other posters about personnel, we don't really know the ins and outs of how the team works, who does what, how are decisions taken, etc., so it's really impossible for us to make any sort of judgement of who should take the blame.

[Hornet]

does anyone want to buy my monza ticket?

lol, I hope you're just kidding. Well, you are, right

Last year's Monza look great man, Even if we did not win, and we lost the title too, but Alonso, a Ferrari driver up on the podium was reason enough for the fans to celebrate. Even Alonso was amaze by the sea of red fans flooding the circuit road during the podium.

We may well still see a Ferrari driver up there this year, regardless of what happens.

[ducksick_ang]

By raw calculation, how far we behind McLoser? 1 sec or more? If we cant find the pace back to European GP, then we'll in deep trouble. Finger cross...

[Suzie]

I very much hope that a lot of you are eating your words come the end of the season, I really do. Some people on here would only be happy if Fernando was cloned and put in the other seat, to be honest.

I look forward to seeing if we can turn it around over the rest of the weekend and in the coming races. The rest of you can enjoy your hissy fits and your comfy armchairs from which you are such great experts about possible 'changes' within the team.

[Rishu]

Guys, forget Ferrari & lets try and enjoy the season. It will be a fantastic season looking how close the grid is. I am very happy for Gosjean & MS. And very pleased to see RB further back. Lets see how good the finger kid is when he is in traffic.

[Stormsearcher]

Well Newey is definitely going to keep trying until he finds the optimal exhaust and diffuser solution. Which I think will bring Red Bull back to at least matching McLaren. I think the RB8 is a good car, only that it also suffers from lack of rear-end traction on the exit of corners, most probably cost by bad exhaust design.

So expect RB to become strong again in a few races' time.

I'm not so sure about Renault (Lotus), Grosjean has done so well in it, and I wonder what Kimi can do on full speed. Maybe Lotus will be strong as well, at least the 4th team on the pecking order.

Expect McLaren to be ahead of the field with a slight advantage over Mercedes. Car wise the two teams should be similar, but I would rank the McLaren drivers as better than the Mercedes pairing, hence the slight advantage.

Agree. The mcLaren looks pretty much untouchable atm. However, i like schumis chances better than Nicos (who was clearly buckling under the pressure in Q3). The old war horse might make it interesting at the front, especially if he manages to sneak ahead of lewis at the start OR if its a wet race.

[F2002]

Guys, forget Ferrari & lets try and enjoy the season. It will be a fantastic season looking how close the grid is. I am very happy for Gosjean & MS. And very pleased to see RB further back. Lets see how good is finger kid is when he is in traffic.

Well said.

[Stormsearcher]

Guys, forget Ferrari & lets try and enjoy the season. It will be a fantastic season looking how close the grid is. I am very happy for Gosjean & MS. And very pleased to see RB further back. Lets see how good is finger kid is when he is in traffic.

Oh yes. This should be fun. Can vettel really win from a back row start?

[Sianellen]

I very much hope that a lot of you are eating your words come the end of the season, I really do. Some people on here would only be happy if Fernando was cloned and put in the other seat, to be honest.

I look forward to seeing if we can turn it around over the rest of the weekend and in the coming races. The rest of you can enjoy your hissy fits and your comfy armchairs from which you are such great experts about possible 'changes' within the team.

Totally agree with this

[OSS EL BOSS]

Well mates, its time for a real revolution inside Ferrari.

[Suzie]

Guys, forget Ferrari & lets try and enjoy the season. It will be a fantastic season looking how close the grid is. I am very happy for Gosjean & MS. And very pleased to see RB further back. Lets see how good is finger kid is when he is in traffic.

Stop being so rational! It's going against the spirit of the thread.

[khizerk]

McLaren was able in 2011 to create from a crap hell of a car within 2 weeks. Yes, it was by copying, but we weren't able to even recognized our problem and try to do something with it. Between the last test and now, it's like anything have changed on the car.

Yeah as I said it was by copying. I don't care if we throw the first two races out and use them as testing grounds with aero paint and all....just get the balance sorted out. I believe its the front pull rod in the act too...the way its understeering on corner entry.

[luicchi]

By raw calculation, how far we behind McLoser? 1 sec or more? If we cant find the pace back to European GP, then we'll in deep trouble. Finger cross...

1.6 sec.
it hurts

[Stormsearcher]

Yeah as I said it was by copying. I don't care if we throw the first two races out and use them as testing grounds with aero paint and all....just get the balance sorted out. I believe its the front pull rod in the act too...the way its understeering on corner entry.

Is this even possible? It might be worth a shot if we are really having trouble understanding the car.

[Ste]

I very much hope that a lot of you are eating your words come the end of the season, I really do. Some people on here would only be happy if Fernando was cloned and put in the other seat, to be honest.

I look forward to seeing if we can turn it around over the rest of the weekend and in the coming races. The rest of you can enjoy your hissy fits and your comfy armchairs from which you are such great experts about possible 'changes' within the team.

I don't think that's the case. I think we just need a consistently quick driver in the seat alongside Alonso.

We aren't going to win a Constructors Championship with a driver constantly a second or so slower, nothing to do with being an expert, it's just blatantly obvious.

We would be saying the same if Alonso performed poorly for 2+ seasons. Everyone complained about Raikkonen when he performed poorly, this is no different.

I too hope we can turn it around and that both of our drivers win races and bring us the Championships this year. Obviously.

[F1NAC]

Well mates, its time for a real revolution inside Ferrari.

It was last year .

[NanoTheQuickest]

We knew about the troubles with the car and I'm sure it will be sorted soon enough but both Fernando and Felipe were awful today!

Fernando knows damn well you can put a unstable car on the grass if you want to stay on track.

And Felipe, I think he's just lost it under pressure!

[Hornet]

Its ALL Lucas Fault since All Ferrari problems Started few years back when Brawn Todt etc left and then Rriding Over Nigel Stepney (am NOT excuseing what he did) but he should got the job and not Costa . Luca failed to replace the Brain pool . Costa and rest are FIRED UP TO PROVE APOINT to LUCA not ferrari not us fans . Its Personal !!! Fopr Costa prob best thing happend to him leaving Ferrari as No Mystical Ferrari Preasure on him .
.

If we were to look at things from a technical perspective, I'd say Costa should have been shown the door a long time ago.

This is just my opinion so I may be wrong, but here's why. When the FIA revamp the diffuser rule to shrink it, it was obvious that we have to find a way to maximize the smaller diffuser we ended up with. Lets disregard the double diffuser here, that was a bleep in the rules which eventually got ironed out, so we're back to this miniature diffuser.

One of the obvious path was to increase the air flow over the diffuser. So, IMHO, this is why teams starts to move away from push rod to pull rod suspension. By placing the suspension lower, you could make the rear tighter. This was so obvious almost all teams moved to pull rod. Except Ferrari. Costa said later on that he thought it was too big of a risk to move to pull rod. Well, looked what happened when we stubbornly stick to something we now. Eventually we had to admit that pull rod was the way to go.

Now, we're at the early stage of "discovery" with this pull rod suspension while other teams have already mastered it. The problem we have now is to be expected, as it takes time to learn a new concept. The longer we wait, the worse it is.

So now, we're paying the price.

Sometimes when you see the crowd all moving towards a particular direction, we cannot ignore it. It means they are up to something. 10,000 fans can't be wrong.

[Rishu]

Stop being so rational! It's going against the spirit of the thread.

Relax Suzie, most of the members here are dissapointed, and rightly so, but you know they have anger only because they love Ferrari. Isn't it?

[sheikomatic]

I am totally chilled out, but I watch F1 for such a long time, that based on experience from the past I can make real picture about situation.

The car is written off after 12 DAYS of testing with obvious problems and three practises and one qualy, but the main problem is that ferrari isnt able to solve these problems but what is more Ferrari is not even able to understand them.

Fernando isnt written off he was able to do some time in top 10 today but the car.....

And Felipe (I was and still am his fan) is lost when the car is not perfect, he is below average these days...

Our development we can see in the last year (bad copy of EBD, bad engine mapping, bad copy of front wing)....

I think this is reality and nobody can hide decreasing progress through the last years

BUT my support is ALWAYS there, Forza Ferrari!

+1, on spot

EBD ban looks to be introduced to slow down the Red Bull, close up all the teams and also saving the championship from being too predictable
Thought that the EBD ban will bring our Silverstone performance this year. But what happen today is the opposite, the EBD ban hurts us more

No matter what you, you can't develop a car by 2 seconds. We achieved a significant jump early on last year because the windtunnel was wrong and we just had to go back, get the new data and do a bit of tweaking. This year, that's not the case....you don't even know what the problem is or where to start. You can say its the exhaust but you don't really know how to correct it as yet.

So...easy way to go. Make a replica of the mclaren :D. Whether we want it or jot, domenicali is definitely out this year. Luca is not known for his patience.

+1, realistic. Very early development of the F2012 and the use of Toyota's Cologne wind tunnel made this even more embarrassing.

[khizerk]

Just small joke from my side:
1) that is perfect the car has hidden potential
2) disaster is, that even in Ferrari they dont know where it is and how to unlock it.

I think we have been naming 'a problem' as 'hidden potential'. Put a parachute behind the car, you can still look at it and say hmmm...it does have potential to go fast. :P

Really happy to see schumi up there. Please don't let Hamilton win!

[Cemz85]

alonso has said to the press that maybe he couldnt have improved his time, and after fp3 they where expected a result like this..
Also said atleast he is 1 second quicker than massa

[tifosi_kaka]

Just small joke from my side:
1) that is perfect the car has hidden potential
2) disaster is, that even in Ferrari they dont know where it is and how to unlock it.

I agree that there's some slight problem with the team now, but I don't think it's as serious as what you said. I think the team is actually too hot-headed going for innovative features such as pull-rod front suspension, exhaust pipe etc. but they didn't realise whether those designs were really helpful.

I honestly question about the effect of the exhaust pipe. Whatever direction they blow it didn't create the amount of downforce as anticipated. And that pipe looks like interrupting airflow to the diffuser. Also seeing that no other teams have tried this solution on, I wonder if the team should really scrap the exhaust pipes and go for the McLaren/RB style exhaust design.

I'm not comfortable either with the fact that Minardi, the slowest team in the field, was the only team to use the pull-rod front suspension 10 years ago, with no other teams following.

I guess the team need to calm down and find a way to prove the benefits of the above designs or find out other problematic areas. A sad but true fact is that while the McLaren lost only half a second compares to last year, we are losing more than one second. We should be losing the least since our blown diffuser hasn't been the most effective last year. So in other words the aggressive designs of F2012 have definitely gone backwards compared to the 'conservative' designs on the F150.

[Alessandra]

Both Brundle & Hill called our car "undriveable'. I didn't see any interviews with a team member. Have we hearad anything from them? I look forward to hearing something

[luicchi]

Last year the responsable was Aldo Costa , which is now in Mercedes, yes Mercedes . this year the responsable is who???Fry?Tombasis?Stefano?Me?....
Everyone in Ferrari said this year car would be agressive, quick and a step forward....and in the end 1.6 sec. off the pace and out of Q3. Alonso saying that our car is slower than the others by 15 Km/h.
As a fan ....what can i call to this???