Formula 1 has announced that it is calling off the opening round of the 2020 season.
The first race of the new F1 season was scheduled to take place around Australia’s Albert Park circuit this weekend. Despite fears of the coronavirus pandemic F1 surged ahead with plans to kick of its season of racing while several other major sporting codes have called a halt to activities.
Earlier on Thursday afternoon the McLaren team released a statement detailing their withdrawal from the race weekend due to a positive coronavirus test by a team member.
Towards midnight on Thursday all team principals were huddled in a meeting to discuss the way forward. By three am Australian time no decision had been made despite several rumours running rampant that the season-opener was to be postponed. Fans and journalists alike waited seemingly in vain for an official update from the power that be but nothing was forthcoming. It wasn’t until several hours later than an announcement was made that a majority of the teams had decided against racing this weekend.
“We appreciate this is very disappointing news for the thousands of fans due to attend the race” the official statement read. “All parties took into consideration the huge efforts of the AGPC [Australian Grand Prix Corporation], Motorsport Australia, staff and volunteers to stage the opening round of the 2020 FIA Formula One World Championship in Melbourne, however concluded that the safety of all members of the Formula 1 family and the wider community, as well as the fairness of the competition take priority”.
Though there are several aspects that needed to have been considered the amount of time that was taken before an official announcement was forthcoming has not endeared F1 to the racing community of its fans.
While Bahrain has already announced a race ‘behind closed doors’ it is difficult to imagine that it can go ahead. Similarly, the threat that Vietnam could soon be added to the postponement list, along with Australia and China, remains very real. The best-case scenario for F1 2020 is a season-opening race in Zandvoort. But even this remains up in the air.
“I was waiting to put a lap in and wipe the smile off your face”. This was the jibe Lewis Hamilton directed at Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel after Saturday’s qualifying session. “What goes around come around” was Vettel’s retort at the time but he also responded on Sunday with an opportunistic win the opening round of the 2018 season.
Hamilton withstood a challenge for the lead of the race from Kimi Raikkonen in the opening lap as Red Bull’s Max Verstappen slipped to fifth behind the Haas of Kevin Magnussen. The Dutchman’s race suffered further when he oddly spun in the middle of turn one.
All who put money on the fact that Mercedes and Hamilton were going to scamper off into the distance wouldn’t have seen a great return on that bet. Not only did the Mercedes not disappear into the distance but also Raikkonen kept him within three seconds for all of the first stint. Elsewhere, Valtteri Bottas was making slow progress from fifteenth after binning the Merc in qualifying a day earlier.
The race seemed to settle slightly just before the forced retirement of both Haas drivers. Kevin Magnussen was the first to pull over with a loose wheel and Romain Grosjean suffered the same fate one lap later. It was desperate situation for the American team who were running comfortably in fourth and fifth at the time. While Magnussen pulled off in a safe area Grosjean’s Haas required the deployment of the Virtual safety-car (VSC) and later the real safety-car.
Raikkonen and Hamilton had made their respective trips through the pitlane while Vettel remained on track for several more laps. As it were his pitstop coincided with VSC period during which all drivers must run to a minimum laptime. Bizarrely, Hamilton ran well below the prescribed laptime and ceded the lead of the race to Vettel.
The bunching up of the field behind the safety-car also allowed Daniel Ricciardo back into the action and onto the gearbox of Raikkonen. However, while the Aussie got within seven tenths of the Ferrari he never looked like making a pass for the final step on the podium.
Further adrift Fernando Alonso emphasized McLaren’s comeback with a fine fifth ahead of Verstappen in sixth. Nico Hulkenberg brought his Renault home in seventh ahead of Bottas in eighth and McLaren’s Stoffel Vandoorne in ninth. Carlos Sainz snapped up the final point on offer in tenth despite fighting off severe nausea in the cockpit due a drinks bottle failure.
Many will term Vettel’s win lucky but opportunistic is better-suited and fairer descriptor of events. Ultimately, it was Vettel’s pace, and Ferrari’s strategic call, that was the determining factor. Though he ran slightly adrift of his teammate and race-leader Hamilton in the opening stint of the race he remained within touching distance. When the VSC, and later the safety-car, was deployed he was close enough to take full advantage of it.
Similarly, he had enough pace to hold off Hamilton and push the reigning world champion into waving the white flag with a handful of laps to go. The VSC and safety-car has been a well-known and accepted variable in F1 for decades. It’s not luck but merely a part of the sport.
Vettel and Ferrari will come away from Australia with a significant boost in confidence and a doff of the cap to the strategists.
There are few things as sweet as the hope and eagerness that accompanies the week before the start of a new Formula 1 season. Right now every enthusiast’s expectation is sky high. Their optimisms and expectation ready to be encouraged or sunk by the unpretentious but all-powerful stopwatch.
On Friday morning the cars will trundle out of the pitlane and onto Australia’s Albert Park circuit for the first official practice session of the 2018 season. A warm, fuzzy feeling will fill your heart as a smile spreads across your face: F1 2018 is a go.
The famed part-time Albert Park circuit in Melbourne will host the season-opener for the 22nd time. At 5.3 kilometers in length it remains somewhat of an outlier in terms of layout. As it utilizes public roads, and even part of a car park, it is more akin to a street circuit. These unique characteristics do have the ability to soften a car’s shortcomings as opposed to a track such as Bahrain’s Sakhir International circuit.
Twelve months ago in Australia Sebastian Vettel stepped onto the podium and Ferrari made a clear statement of intentions. Ultimately, 2017 didn’t go the way the Italian team would’ve predicted or wanted but they have learned valuable lessons from it. But Ferrari doesn’t start the 2018 season in quite the same standing as it did last year. A big question mark lingers over the Scuderia and if they have closed the gap to Mercedes or even fallen slightly off the pace. Pre-season testing was difficult to read but still many persist with the opinion that Ferrari is not in Mercedes’ league.
Instead it’s Red Bull who has seemingly made the bigger step forward. But still, despite the dynamite driver pairing of Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen, their biggest Achilles heel remains the Renault engine’s power deficit. However, if the RB14 is what its pre-season form has suggested then they may hit the ground running in Australia.
Meanwhile the midfield looks like it is poised to deliver some close racing as several teams find themselves in close contention. The surprise of this pack may be the American Haas team who appears to have made a step forward in almost all areas. Contrastingly, Williams and Sauber are likely to duke it out at the back of the grid.
For McLaren, who have endured harrowing reliability in pre-season, there will be nowhere to hide. So many of the team’s issues over the last few years were heaped onto Honda’s shoulders. However, despite having a new partnership with Renault the problems persist. Despite this Fernando Alonso and co are optimistic about the season and insist there is nothing to be concerned about.
We may pour over countless points of data and hundred of laptimes from testing and scrutinize every picture taken in the two weeks but the fact remains that the true pace of the 2018 contenders will only be revealed come race day.
The wait for the 2017 Formula 1 season is nearly over as it heads into the first round at Australia’s Albert Park circuit.
This weekend one of the most dramatic overhauls of F1 regulations will finally come to life as the battle commences for the 2017 championship. From a purely visual perspective the wider tyres and different aerodynamic layout of the cars present a rather different, but appealing, new look to Formula 1. They will be much faster too and may be up to five seconds a lap quicker than their predecessors.
With the new era comes a change in several sporting regulations too. For the tyres Pirelli have attempted to provide more durability so as to allow drivers to push harder for longer before it begins to degrade. Whether this will have a detrimental effect on strategy, cutting down on the number of stops, remains to be seen.
Should it rain Down Under the race will longer start behind a safety-car. Instead, the safety-car will take the field around the track until it is deemed safe to re-start in which case the cars will line up on the grid for a standing start. Further, the launch off the grid has been tightened up where it concerns the clutch. It’s now up to the driver to find the correct bite point, without any pre-programmed settings, and to ensure the best start without getting wheelspin or bogging down the engine.
The eight days of running, across two sessions of testing, suggested that the top three teams might be the closest they’ve been since the start of the hybrid era. Lewis Hamilton has been on record calling Ferrari the favourite. Race drivers Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen shied away from such declarations but there is no denying that the Scuderia have made an impressive step forward. So impressive in fact that it is likely the team to beat in Australia. But they aren’t buying into the hype though as Ferrari president, Sergio Marcionne, has insisted that Mercedes are still ahead.
For their part Mercedes have announced that it will be running a second, upgraded, specification of engine in Australia. While reports are that it would’ve been introduced later on because of reliability concerns to the timetable has been moved up. There could be several reasons for this but the likelihood is that Mercedes is feeling slightly nervous about the Ferrari hence the early introduction.
What is a fact is that both Ferrari and Mercedes were sandbagging at different times during testing in Spain and the true pace of both cars will only be revealed in Saturday’s qualifying session.
Along with Ferrari and Mercedes, Red Bull are tipped to be part of the front-running group the true pace of the RB13 is the biggest mystery of the top three teams. While Renault has made impressive progressive with its 2017 power unit it is still behind the Mercedes and Ferrari. Despite this, given the street-like layout of Albert Park, Red Bull is very much the dark horse. While they are well capable of springing a surprise with all things being equal it’s unlikely to be for the top step of the podium.
As part street-track with a layout comprised, mostly, of medium speed corners, the Albert Park circuit is an outlier on the calendar that is unlikely to present the truest representation of the pecking order in 2017. Nevertheless, at the end of it there will be twenty-five important points and it is the first step of a 2017 season in which it seems that there might finally be a three-horse race.
Hamilton finished 0.360s clear of his Mercedes team mate Nico Rosberg, but the session was decided and all drivers out of their cars with over three minutes left on the clock. There was not a single car on the track for the final 5 minutes of the session and drivers were walking down the pit lane to get weighed in while there was still time left in the session.
There was no frantic final shootout, no final flurry of lap times, nobody rushing for the line to secure their positions on the grid. Just driver after driver accepting their fate and leaving the final minutes of qualifying to the two Mercedes drivers to decide which of them would start ahead of the other.
The live elimination format also failed to deliver on the mixed up grid that F1’s decision makers had hoped for and pretty much castrated Q3 of the first qualifying session of the 2016 Formula One season.
Ferrari, who should’ve been shooting it out at the front with the Mercs opted to complete just one run in what seemed to be a bid to save tyres for the race. The gap between Hamilton on pole and Sebastian Vettel who finished third on the grid stood at 0.838s with Kimi Raikkonen finishing fourth place – 1.196s off Hamilton’s time.
Photo: Scuderia Ferrari
Vettel said he couldn’t see why everyone was surprised. “We all said what is going to happen. It happened,” he said.
“We were told to wait and see. Now we saw and I don’t think it was very exciting.
“It was a bit crazy in the beginning with all the cars pushing and trying to do a lap before they get kicked out so managing traffic is busy but for no reason because the time is there in the session to do it.
“For the people in the grandstands, I don’t feel it is right way to go as there are no cars to watch. They want to see Lewis, Nico, Kimi whoever pushing to limit at the end of the session when the track is supposed to be at its best.
“I don’t think we need the criticism now, we had the criticism already but surely it is wrong way to go. That is what we said.”
Max Verstappen secured his best qualifying result finishing fifth on the grid for Toro Rosso after a single Q3 attempt, ahead of Felipe Massa, Carlos Sainz Jr. and Daniel Ricciardo.
The new rules resulted in the bottom three in Q3 limited to just one lap before the clock caught up with them and they were knocked out. The top eight will all start the race on the super-soft tyres they used to set their fastest time in Q2.
The majority of the action in qualifying came from the opening stages of each session with the flurry of confusion and excitement in Q1 setting everyone up extreme anticlimactic disappointment. What should have been a thrilling introduction to the 2016 Formula One season – especially after the exciting build-up in FP3 – ended up an absolute disaster, or as Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff called it, “rubbish”.
Sergio Perez and Nico Hulkenberg were 9th and 10th respectively and opted to return to the pits rather than attempt another lap and get themselves through to Q3. Valterri Bottas’ minor error at the final corner without enough time to finish another lap (instead of only being required to make it over the line to start another one) saw him finish in 11th place.
Photo: McLaren-Honda
McLaren had impressed in FP3 and there were great expectations that we would see at least one of the two Woking machines in Q3, but seemed to have been caught out by the new format with Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button also being caught out by the 90 second clock and finishing 12th and 13th on the grid.
Renault made it through to Q2 albeit significantly off the pace. Joylon Palmer and Kevin Magnussen could only manage 14th and 15th respectively.
The absolute confusion of the Q1 session saw Daniil Kvyat being knocked out while he was in the pits and missing the cut for Q2 along with the Sauber, Haas and Manor drivers.
The FIA are clearly going to have to rethink the introduction of this format. The majority of the drivers have come out saying that the new qualifying format does not work and team principals are not impressed either.
It’s important to reminder that these are the folks who voted this new qualifying format in but it would seem they’re ready to eat the humble pie and call for change.
Photo: Red Bull / Getty
Red Bull team boss Christian Horner believes the sport needs to apologise to Formula 1 fans and called for the new qualifing format to be scrapped immediately.
“It didn’t really work for me,” Horner said. “We have not really put on a show.
“To have Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen in fast cars not taking part with five minutes to go is wrong.
“We need to learn from it and address it quickly. I think it needs to be done for Bahrain, personally.”
Niki Lauda also came out saying that the new qualifying format was “terrible” and added that Bernie Ecclestone and Jean Todt make decisions without discussions with anyone else and then only present them to the teams to vote.
Photo: Mercedes AMG Petronas
Toto Wolff didn’t hold back either, “I’m the first person to say that we shouldn’t talk the sport down but when the evidence is there before your eyes, you cannot shut them and deny reality,” he said.
“The new format is pretty rubbish – much too complicated to follow and a damp squib at the end with nobody running. These were the downsides that we expected to see – and they outweigh the upsides, that much is clear now.
“We wanted to listen to the promoters who were calling for a change – but my personal opinion is that we have found the wrong solution and we need to think carefully about what we do next.”
Opinions have been flying around Twitter since the disastrous end to the qualifying session as well.
Twitter user @GrandPrixDiary drew a very good analogy which summed up the second half of qualifying quite well:
F1 qualy is like a boxing match, where the fighters don’t come out for the last round because they didn’t have time to put their gloves on.
At the time of writing, our @F1_Madness poll has a very telling story to tell. Over 75% of voters feel that the new qualifying format is “utter rubbish”.
Even F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone is unimpressed with qualifying, saying that, “It was pretty crap. But this is what we’ve got, until we can change it.” Let’s hope that happens soon.
Lewis Hamilton made it a clean sweep by going fastest once again in the final practice session ahead of the Australian GP. The British driver edged out his Mercedes team mate Nico Rosberg, finishing 0.176s ahead of the German to top the final practice session time sheets with a stonking time of 1:25.624s.
While the Mercedes team are still ahead of the field, it is refreshing to see the dominant gap shrinking – Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel completed the final practice session only two tenths behind the Mercs and the entire field of 22 drivers are seperated by only 3.648.
The scene is definitely set for a brilliant qualifying session which will take place in a brand new knock-out format. Vettel’s final practice time was set before the two Mercedes drivers who set their times on a rapidly improving track which suggests their could be plenty of action toward the end of qualifying later this today.
There was no sign of rain throughout the entire final practice session and conditions continued to improve throughout the entire 60 minute run.
Toro Rosso proved to be very impressive with Carlos Sainz Jr – who is running a 2015-spec Ferrari engine – splitting the two Ferraris to go fourth fastest, two tenths clear of Kimi Raikkonen. Max Verstappen brought his Toro Rosso home 6th fastest ahead of Valterri Bottas and Daniel Ricciardo.
Felipe Massa finished ninth fastest and Force India’s Sergio Perez rounded out the top 10.
The two McLaren drivers showed that the team seems to have made some encouraging progress with Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button setting the 11th and 12th quickest times respectively. Red Bull’s Daniil Kvyat was 13th, ahead of the leading Sauber of Marcus Ericsson and Renault’s Kevin Magnussen.
Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg finished 16th fastest with Renault’s Jolyon Palmer behind him.
Some action in the pitlane saw F1 rookie driver Rio Haryanto and Romain Grosjean colliding early in the final practice session when they were both released at the same time.
Haryanto was able to get out shortly after with a new front wing bolted to his car, but Haas chose to change the floor as well as the front wing on Grosjean’s car before getting him back out.
Haryanto finished the session 22nd and last on the time sheets, but only two tenths adrift of team mate Pascal Wehrlein.
Grosjean completed the fewest laps of anybody with 11 and ended the session 19th – a 0.008s shave slower than team mate Esteban Gutierrez.
The new format qualifying format will make its debut just a little later this morning. Will Mercedes continue to dominate? Or could the rest of the field be in it to grab it from them? Join us on Twitter @F1_Madness for live interaction, commentary and chat throughout the session.
Final Practice FP3 Classification:
Lewis Hamilton Photo Credit – Mercedes AMG Petronas
The Mercedes F1 team suffered pretty mixed fortunes in another practice session dominated by unpredictable wet weather conditions. Lewis Hamilton finished on top of the time sheets once again in FP2 ahead of the Australian Grand Prix, while his team mate Nico Rosberg suffered a crash into the barriers at turn 6 during a very wet session.
The wet weather put a real damper on FP2, with conditions only improving ever so marginally during the session. While we got to see some slick running during the first free practice session, drivers were not able to run on anything better than Pirelli’s intermediate rubber during FP2.
Most teams preferred a cautionary approach with seven drivers failing to set a time and three not venturing on to the track at all for any FP2 running. Nico Rosberg’s turn 7 crash early on in the session caused extensive damage to the front wing of his W07. Rosberg was forced to abandon his Mercedes track side for fear of causing further damage to the car. Team Principal Toto Wolff confirmed that Rosberg had been running one of the team’s new S-duct noses. Mercedes does have spares for later in the weekend but sent Hamilton out with an old spec wing so as not to risk losing another one.
With Rosberg forced out of FP2, team mate Hamilton was left to head up the field. He posted a time of 1:38.841. The time was nearly 10 seconds slower than his top time posted for FP1. It was good enough though to finish nearly half a second clear of Nico Hulkenberg in his Force India. Force India are looking impressive – Sergio Perez had set the fastest first and second sectors before losing the rear of his car in Turn 12. There was potential for him to better Hamilton’s time but as conditions worsened his chances of taking a time at the top were quickly snuffed.
Kimi Raikkonen was third quickest for Ferrari, followed by Daniel Ricciardo and Carlos Sainz. The McLaren duo of Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button followed in sixth and seventh places.
Sebastian Vettel – who had not completed a timed lap in FP1 despite being the first driver out on track – set the eight fastest time with Sergio Perez and Daniil Kvyat rounding out the top 10.
Esteban Gutierrez ended the FP2 session 11th in the Haas and Pascal Wherlein finished 12th fastest ahead of Romain Grosjean, Rio Haryanto and Rosberg. The remaining seven drivers chose not to set times and Marcus Ericsson, Felipe Nasr and Max Verstappen opted to remain in the dry comfort of their pit garages.
The weather for tomorrow is currently still rainy at times but more favourable than Friday conditions.
Lewis Hamilton started his title defence in glorious fashion to claim his first pole position of the season ahead of the Australian Grand Prix.
Hamilton set a time of 1:26.327, over half a second clear of his team mate Nico Rosberg with both drivers enjoying a good lead over their rivals.
Rosberg may have done better had he not needed to abort his provisional lap after running off onto the grass at the penultimate corner. Hamilton’s provisional time was at 1:26.419.
Rosberg then set his only lap time of the session to finish in second place while Hamilton stormed to a time 0.594 seconds clear of his team mate.
Felipe Massa brought his Williams home in third place ahead of the two Ferraris of Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen.
Valtteri Bottas struggled a little through Q3 and needed to abort his first lap. He went on to run wide at the end of his second lap and finished in sixth place. Bottas emerged from his Williams with an apparent injury of some sort to his back. Rob Smedley confirmed that he may have jarred his back a little and the Finn was seen limping off to the medical centre. There has been no further confirmation of the situation.
Australian home favourite, Daniel Ricciardo, has had a tough weekend all round but managed to get his Red Bull qualified in seventh place ahead of Toro Rosso rookie driver Carlos Sainz Jr.
The Lotus team managed to get both of their drivers through to Q3 and French driver Romain Grosjean finished ahead of Pastor Maldonado to round out the Top 10.
Felipe Nasr narrowly missed out on a slot in Q3 and will start ahead of F1’s youngest ever driver, Max Verstappen. Verstappen put in an impressive performance in Q1 but had a “big moment” in Turn 5 during Q2.
Daniil Kvyat faced a massive upward struggle during FP3 and despite seeming unlikely that he would even start his qualifying, he managed to post the 13th fastest time.
The Force India duo Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez came in next followed by the Q1 drop outs Marcus Ericsson, and the McLaren drivers Jenson Button and Kevin Magnussen.
The McLarens were excrutiatingly slow with Button finishing almost 3 seconds off the pace. The big expectations for the McLaren Honda partnership have left many fans very disappointed and desperately worried about what is going on with the MP4-30.
The Manor Marussia team will not be allowed to take part in the race after failing to get their cars onto the track this weekend.
It has been a long wait. But the wait is almost over. In a few days time we’ll hear the unmistakable sound of an F1 engine coming to life on the Albert Park Circuit for the 2015 Formula 1 Rolex Australian Grand Prix.
Pre-season testing did throw up some surprises but what it mostly showed that Mercedes have stepped up their game more than the other teams. There were some dramatic improvements from other teams but it just seemed that Mercedes, who were sandbagging at the test, are still supremely fast.
Lewis Hamilton goes into the season as defending champion and will want to defend that title from hard fighting team mate Nico Rosberg.
Further down the grid the shakeup at Ferrari and McLaren will make things exciting. Sebastian Vettel has said that he wants to emulate 7 time world champion Michael Schumacher and bring Ferrari back to their former glory. The sacking of staff and streamlining of business processes at Ferrari have yielded some very positive results so far. Although he will miss the first race of the season, Fernando Alonso is back at McLaren for some unfinished business at the team. If their pre-season form is anything to go by, he is going to have another tough season.
Elsewhere on the grid, we have rookies Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz Jr driving for Toro Rosso, while Will Stevens will drive for Manor Racing with no word yet on their second driver. Felipe Nasr makes the jump from GP2 into F1 and Marcus Ericsson is at Sauber after leaving the now dissolved Caterham F1 team.
A new addition to the Formula 1 calendar is the addition of the Mexican Grand Prix at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez. The is still no confirmation about the German Grand Prix yet after the Nurburgring was dropped due to funding concerns.
It is a brand new season, with a few new drivers and with some new look teams. There is everything to play for once again.
Below are the broadcast times for the 2014 Formula 1 Rolex Australian Grand Prix (All times are GMT+2):
Melbourne will continue to host the Australian Grand Prix until 2020 after a new five-year deal was finalised. After a year of negotiations a new contract from 2016-2020 was signed with Formula One Management in London last week to keep the venue on the calendar.
Albert Park has hosted the Australian GP every year since 1996 when it switched from Adelaide and has established itself as a firm favourite amongst both fans and drivers alike.
State Premier, Denis Napthine, seems keen to capitalise on the success of Australia’s home-grown hero Daniel Ricciardo who celebrated his second Formula One win in Hungary last week, and is is hopeful that it will continue to entice large crowds and TV audiences.
“This is a terrific announcement that reaffirms Melbourne and Victoria as the sporting and events capital of the world,” he told the 3AW radio station. “We’ve secured another five-year deal for the grand prix and we’ve secured a great deal for the people of Victoria that’s a better deal than the existing deal.
“The new deal is on the same terms as the existing contract in that it will be the first race of the season, it will be in March each year.”
“Within this contract we hope to see Australia’s own Daniel Ricciardo win the Formula 1 Australian GP and become World Champion.
“Formula 1 is a key pillar of Victoria’s major sporting events strategy. This calendar is unrivalled worldwide, commencing with the Australian Tennis Open and Asian Football Cup in January, followed by the ICC Cricket World Cup in February, the Formula 1 Australian GP in March, the AFL Final Series, and the Spring Racing Carnival,” Dr Napthine said.
In recent years F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone has threatened to axe the race, but in a press release he was supportive of the event. “I congratulate Melbourne for the excellent way in which it presents Formula One to the world.”
The Australian GP has become the traditional opening race for the F1 season since 1996 – except for 2006 and 2010. The new deal also means Albert Park will become one of the longest-serving venues on the F1 calendar.
