The online racing simulator
Quote from Mustafur :Atleast 2 boring tracks will now be 1 boring track.

At least Montmélo is nice to drive though.
The Sky Sports F1 Show was brilliant, I'm really excited to see how they cover the live races, and we get to see all the GP2 and GP3 races too. At first I hated the idea of F1 on Sky Sports, but they've done it the right way, a dedicated channel, a great team and most importantly no bloody adverts.
and for we who didnt buy sky ?
Not that long to go till the first race of the year for Formula 1! Also what do you think of Sky Sports F1 HD?
yay vettel spun.
Looks like Ferrari is genuinely struggling at the moment. Turn in understeer and exit oversteer.
Is the 107% rule still in place this season? TBH the HRTs should NOT be allowed racing.
i'd accept an exception for de la rosa but not for Karthikeyan as he looked totally at sea in a car that's using up all his capabilities just to keep it on the track, leaving no capacity for realising whats going on around him.

i see HRT's web site is saying they wont be racing tomorrow so it looks like they'll not be looking for help from the stewards
Quote from tinvek :i'd accept an exception for de la rosa but not for Karthikeyan as he looked totally at sea in a car that's using up all his capabilities just to keep it on the track, leaving no capacity for realising whats going on around him.

i see HRT's web site is saying they wont be racing tomorrow so it looks like they'll not be looking for help from the stewards

What's their website now? hispaniaracing.com appears to be down, are they finally bailing out?
Loool what a great morning i'm going to put up the lineups on the qualifications as soon as I get the results sent over from F1.
Quote from NSX_FReeDoM :Is the 107% rule still in place this season? TBH the HRTs should NOT be allowed racing.

They aren't...

Quote :The Stewards received a request from HRT F1 Team to allow car 22 Pedro de la Rosa and car 23 Narain Karthikeyan to take part in the race under exceptional circumstances having failed to set a lap time within 107% in Q1.
The Stewards having considered all relevant material decide to not allow both cars to take part in the race in accordance with article 36.1 FIA Formula One Sporting Regulations.

The grid kinda looks silly with 18 cars fighting for positions and 6 just making up the numbers, including 2 barely up to GP2 speeds. Well, though in all fairness Catherham is struggling hard and is about to catch up with the bottom of the "old teams" pack.

Of course the fault doesn't entirely lie into Catherham/Marussia/HRT hands... As they were promised that 50M$ cap when they joined... But seriously, you would've expected Marussia and HRT to catch up a bit more, it's their third season now.

Maybe this "new teams" fiasco would have been avoided if there were rules allowing customer cars in some situations. Ugh... For once I agree with Bernie.
According to the Speed TV guys HRT had to practically start over from scratch this year which definetly didn't help.
Quote from Rappa Z :According to the Speed TV guys HRT had to practically start over from scratch this year which definetly didn't help.

They had to relocate to new facilities, along with a new ownership, team principal and pretty much all of the staff as well. At least since Thesan Capital bought the team from the original owners and Colin Kolles (team principal and responsible for 80% of the team's staff in 2011) left the team. Not easy stuff for HRT at the moment, and I really hope they can make it through this season.
The speed of the Lotus is definitely a positive surprise. It really shouldn't be surprise though as in 2011 they had a strong start and a good car in the beginning but after the beginning the wrong design decisions really made the car perform badly. And in 2010 and 2009 the then renaults were always in top 10.

Still early to say but biggest surprise for me was di resta being outside of top 10 while hulkenberg making it there. Looks bad for gatorham though. Even if Kovalaine had not had his last lap ruined by traffic the gap would have still been too big

And damn that painjob on the HRT is so butt ugly.
Quote from Hyperactive :And in 2010 and 2009 the then renaults were always in top 10.

Yea, but that said, Renault was nowhere at the end of 2009, remember? Even Alonso couldn't go further than Q1 at Abu Dhabi.

Quote :And damn that painjob on the HRT is so butt ugly.

Something tells me we won't see it very often.
Results of Qualification for the Austrailian Grand Prix Posted Below.

Attached images
Qualification Lineups.jpg
Qualifying - Hamilton heads McLaren one-two 17 Mar 2012


McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button got their 2012 world championship campaign off to the best possible start as they took the top two positions on the grid for the Australian Grand Prix at Albert Park on Saturday evening, and just to make things even better for the Woking team, Romain Grosjean put his Lotus third ahead of Michael Schumacher’s Mercedes and the Red Bulls of Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel.

Nobody got near to Hamilton’s 1m 24.922s, but Button’s 1m 25.074s put him ahead of Schumacher, who had improved to 1m 25.336s. The German’s time, however, was not sufficient to resist Grosjean’s 1m 25.302s, making it a tremendous return to full-time Formula One racing for the Frenchman.

For once the Red Bulls had no answer to their opposition, and Webber’s 1m 25.651s just edged out Vettel’s 1m 25.668s, with Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg a disappointing seventh on 1m 25.686s.

Pastor Maldonado will have his best Grand Prix start with eighth for Williams, on 1m 25.908s, while Nico Hulkenberg put his Force India ninth on 1m 26.451s. Daniel Ricciardo will start 10th for Toro Rosso, but did not record a time, as the team conserved rubber.

Earlier, Q2 had got off to a dramatic start when Fernando Alonso lost his Ferrari in the entry to Turn One, spearing backwards into the gravel. Just to rub it in for the Scuderia, at that very moment Hamilton and Button put their McLarens first and second, before the session was red flagged for five minutes to recover the F2012.

Right up until the end it seemed that Alonso’s 1m 26.494s might keep him in the top 10, but in the end he was bumped by Hulkenberg and Maldonado.

Jean-Eric Vergne got bumped by his own Toro Rosso team mate Ricciardo, his 1m 26.429s leaving him 11th for his Formula One debut ahead of Alonso, then came Sauber’s Kamui Kobayashi on 1m 26.590s, Williams’ Bruno Senna on 1m 26.663s and a very disappointed Paul di Resta on 1m 27.086s for Force India.

To complete a disastrous day for Ferrari, Felipe Massa was only 16th on 1m 27.497s. It was also a disappointment for Sauber, as gearbox problems kept Sergio Perez from running. He qualified 17th on the grid but, after the team decided to change the box on his C31, he dropped to 22nd.

Q1 had seen the shock elimination of Kimi Raikkonen on his return to F1, as he got caught out on the hard tyres as the rest of the field switched to softs and could only muster 1m 27.758s after a major wobble. Grosjean’s performance only underlined what might have been for the Finn. Behind him, 19th and 20th places were a big disappointment for Caterham, with Heikki Kovalainen on 1m 28.679s and Vitaly Petrov on 1m 29.018s. Marussia were very happy with Timo Glock’s 1m 30.923s, while Charles Pic impressed again with 1m 31.670s in his first F1 qualifying session. After Perez's penalty, however, Raikkonen, Kovalainen, Petrov, Glock and Pic all move up a place on the Melbourne grid.

Neither Pedro de la Rosa nor Narain Karthikeyan passed the 107 percent qualifying time, with 1m 33.495s and 1m 33.643s apiece, and will not race on Sunday.

Karthikeyan, Ricciardo and De la Rosa were investigated by the stewards for allegedly hindering Alonso, Schumacher and Kovalainen respectively. Whilst Karthikeyan and De la Rosa received reprimands, no further action was taken in the Ricciardo case.

It could yet be a long night in Melbourne, however, as there is talk that Red Bull and Lotus may decide to protest the much-talked-about 'F-duct rear wing' on the Mercedes.
nice copy paste
Quote from GreyBull [CHA] :The grid kinda looks silly with 18 cars fighting for positions and 6 just making up the numbers, including 2 barely up to GP2 speeds. Well, though in all fairness Catherham is struggling hard and is about to catch up with the bottom of the "old teams" pack.


They aren't catching, they are being left behind. Sauber, Williams and Toro Rosso now have definate point scoring cars. Caterham were lucky to catch a Williams on a good day last year.

Formula One Season 2012
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