Australian Grand Prix 2011 - Qualifying Thread

[bkircher]

Soooo lets do an ultra fast recap. Vettle is insanly fast, Massa, well is being Massa, Alo is doing his best, and Ferrari needs to find about 2 seconds in pace. Ya, gonna be a tough year. O_O

[vcs316]

Gutted.

What happened? We looked like we were struggling all 3 sessions!

Positives:

Both our drivers made it to Q3. Hopefully strategy will play its role and maybe we can finish 4th & 5th. Podium looks wayyyy out of our reach..

[alonsonum1]

Gutted.

What happened? We looked like we were struggling all 3 sessions!

Positives:

Both our drivers made it to Q3. Hopefully strategy will play its role and maybe we can finish 4th & 5th. Podium looks wayyyy out of our reach..

to be honest i dont think podium is out of reach. i know we are all dissapointed right now but if we step back for a minute. we have qualified 5th - thats not a bad result at all. yeh we would love to be on the front row, or the second but we arent, we are on the 3rd row of the grid, theres no 1 other than red bull and mclaren infront of alonso so hopefully he won;t have to worry about gettin past Petrov or Rosberg or anyone. he can just concentrate on gettin a good start , possibly take button on the first corner n go from there. anyone would think we had qualified 18th !!!

[Raz]

in that interview with lee, alonso seemed rather perplexed, and note how he was thinking about Sepang already?

[Alessandra]

Alonso seems a little bit puzzled too, says that we are normally 1 second in front of Renault and Sauber and that we looked close to Red Bull yesterday. He said that today wasn't representative of Ferrari's pace...hope he's right!

That's interesting. I hope he's right too.
Rather looks as though you can tell something from practice Another pet theory down the drain.

But, tomorrow is when the race happens...............

[gvsnraju85]

How could Vettel be half a second faster that last year in qualifying....last year we had DDD.....theis year single diffuser should have reduced the downforce.....This means that red bull have not only found the downforce that was lost due to the new diffuser but have also managed to increase it

[DanielM]

On second thoughts, it could just be a case of not being able to switch on the tyres in the cold conditions. We are still NO MATCH for redbull who didnt even use kers in qualifying. I dont understand how we can be so much slower than them than last year when it was only 3-5 tenths.

[hogo]

So basically we have the 4th fastest car. They hid that well during testing... For sure I thought we are second at least! But now I think that even if we get on the podium, it's gonna be out of darn good luck.

[alonsonum1]

So basically we have the 4th fastest car. They hid that well during testing... For sure I thought we are second at least! But now I think that even if we get on the podium, it's gonna be out of darn good luck.

no 1 wins a championship without a bit of luck my friend ...

[LeonKennedy]

no 1 wins a championship without a bit of luck my friend ...

The thing is that we need a lot of luck... to get to the podium.

Seems like that to win the championship we need a miracle at least... haha

[tifosi_kaka]

On second thoughts, it could just be a case of not being able to switch on the tyres in the cold conditions. We are still NO MATCH for redbull who didnt even use kers in qualifying. I dont understand how we can be so much slower than them than last year when it was only 3-5 tenths.

But we were almost the only ones not being able to switch on the tyres? That doesn't look good.

[Kyss4k]

It seems that Hamilton had KERS failure so he didn't use it too. How those two were so fast without it?

EDIT:
McCheaters are flexing now too:

[FFFerrari]

Alonso did what he could, the car just couldn't deliver more. On the other hand Massa had a lot of trouble and it seems he is as lost as he was last year. There is still slim hope for a podium, but I'm betting Fernando finishes fourth tomorrow and Felipe somehow manages to crash. And I think myself as a realist.

[Forzi]

to be honest, i think the car we have is fast, maby even the 2nd car on the grid, but the problem is the tires. Prety much every single lap we did had atleast 2 or 3 slips which costed us close to a second. Maby its the track? Or its smth we did on the past two weeks? I mean we had good constant laps, the team was happy, felipe loved the tires and there was no slipping all over the track or cold tires involved. The only diference i see between us and rbr is that they have a very flexible front wing and a big fat hole in the back.

[anotherfinemess]

My worry is, melbourne is usually a Ferrai tracK.

[steelstallions]

This was racing on a virtually empty tank. Tomorrow will give us a better idea of the total package we have. If its a reflection of today then we have more work to do than I expected after the build up to this weekend.
I am a little disappointed, but this weekend is not over until the fat lady................

[hogo]

to be honest, i think the car we have is fast, maby even the 2nd car on the grid, but the problem is the tires...

but tires are the same for everybody. If our car can't use them properly it's our fault, not Pirellis.

[Hornet]

to be honest, i think the car we have is fast, maby even the 2nd car on the grid, but the problem is the tires. Prety much every single lap we did had atleast 2 or 3 slips which costed us close to a second. Maby its the track? Or its smth we did on the past two weeks? I mean we had good constant laps, the team was happy, felipe loved the tires and there was no slipping all over the track or cold tires involved. The only diference i see between us and rbr is that they have a very flexible front wing and a big fat hole in the back.

And that big fat hole may be a key difference too. Its blowing on the lower wing element. Even McLaren came up with that radical side pod to channel more air to that area, and their air outlet is blowing on the wing element too.

For some reason Ferrari hasn't utilize the air output to focus it there, rather ours disperse it vertically

[Curbs]

Agree, we can´t blame anything other than ourself. Ferrari has started a bad habit after the Brawn/Schumi era. They just talk, talk talk, big fancy words. Time to deliver?
It´s important to be ready from the first race we said in the winter. Now it will be more of, "the season is long, and we have to work hard", and chase as always.
What happend to the extreme solutions? The aerodeparpent got free hands, to be agressive. We seem to be more conservative than ever.

We run in testing, mile after mile, yet McLaren who run the least come up with a car thats near the Bulls.
I think we should focus on technical things, to get an agrerssive car with pace, rather than just run and run to understand the tires.

[scuderiafan]

Call me mad, but i think Alonso can win tomorrow. All we need is a hot race, and if Alonso gets a good start, we could be in business. Remember, Massa last year got from 5th to 2nd. I know it was raining, but it is a good omen.

COMON!!!!!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/moto...ne/9436863.stm

Alonso's intrerview

[scuderiafan]

AND, remember 2008? Great testing, but Felipe was only 4th after some great preseason testing, and Kimi was 15th. We ended up having the pace in the race.

So, keep tha faith!!!

[epiclyaddicted]

Right, easy with the doom and gloom guys!

I'm disappointed as well, as much as anyone, not particularly because of P5 and P8 but rather due to the gap from pole. But that pace wasn't truly representative of our car. The temperatures were cold, and the track is very green, so I think we just weren't able to get our tyres working, hence the fundamental lack of grip. Schumacher probably had the same problem.

We had a good car all throughout pre-season testing, and it suddenly hasn't become a slouch! Just take a chill pill people.

The race is tomorrow, and this was only the first of 20 Qualifying sessions of the season, not all of them will be the same.

Forza Fernando! Forza Felipe! Forza Ferrari!

[FIAT PALIO]

Ferrari are only good in winter testing......

[Hornet]

I'm hoping for a hot weather too tomorrow. Clear sunny skies and all.

I'm also hoping that our car is somehow too gentle on the tires that we can't get the heat in on a 1 lap sprint (nothing new for Ferrari, really). But come race day on a sunny weather, we can make it last longer and be competitive

[SanderV]

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/90230

Alonso says 5th was more or less expected. Anyway, let's hope for a good race tomorrow.

[tpe]

I'll wait for the race. But, it reminds me of 2005... I hope that I am wrong though. Anyways, if we cannot set the tyres on temperature, then how we managed to do that during the winter with lower temps?
I just hope that the package is not good in 1 lap. By the way, do we know if our wing flexes?

[Corey]

I wonder what would our position be if the season opener was at Bahrain. Will the F150 suit the Bahrain circuit more?

[Schumyboy83]

Truelly shocked, Thougt we could have mixed in abit with the RB and Mac's, Still 5th not all bad, And like Fernando has said, Kubica quilied 6 or 7th last year and finished 2nd, Although the race was wet-dry,

Everything crossed for our boys tomorrow,

[scuderiafan]

The main issue is the tyres. But what is so bad about them?

Now, the team have to find out, and hope their race pace is as good as it was in testing.

[Raz]

Flexing Cheats!