Quote:
Ferdie said:
Great being back chatting with you guys about F1! Winter was long... It was a very enthralling race yesterday but I would stay calm until the dust settles. Things will become clearer in the upcoming races and I wouldn't base my comments on Melbourne alone.

Kovalainen exactly performed as I expected and he will come closer at Hamilton once he is feeling more comfortable at McLaren. However I suspect the later might just be the little edge faster on a consecutive basis. Kovalainen hit the pitlane limiter when removing one of the visor's sheets on the straight. I still have to see how Hamilton will perform under pressure, he is much too smooth on the outside to me. His path was very fortunate so far.
A lot has been said about Ferrari above, I agree with Dr. Phil on Raikkonen. His flaws are rather unusual for his temper and I don't find it to be due to the lack of TC and engine brake. Maybe Mrs. Raikkonen is giving him the willies? Let us see how he will fare in Malaysia. Massa? Oh well...

Glock's accident was caused by a bump in the runoff zone, how can stewards approve such tings on an F1 track? Other than that, he proved to be a worthy successor for Ralf Schumacher. Maybe even more than that.
Kubica might set some highlights reg. laptimes, he seems to be less consistent under pressure in comparison to Heidfeld though. Just as Williams, there is said to be more to come in terms of performance. I guess Renault and the above two will fair depending on development speed during the season.
Barrichello's mistake was caused by sending him out of the pits to early, the following turbulence might have kept him from looking at the lights. Button might just have resigned, much as Villeneuve did at BAR a few years back.
My eyes are on Bourdais, since not many Indy/Cart champions have made a successful transition to F1 in recent years. Cars and driving characters are just much too different and F1 cars are less forgiving reg. laptimes when you don't drive it right at the edge. Villeneuve, and possibly Bourdais, might be the only ones to master it.

It proves how much difference a great driver can make, in my eyes the most consistent and flawless ones made it to the finish yesterday (save the ones dropping out due to mechanical failure).
One thing we should not forget, current rules & tires favor drivers with very smooth driving, i.e. Hamilton or Heidfeld. To me it is obvious that Alonso and others like Kubica were very good with the Michelin tires. Their adhesion graph was much different than of the current Bridgestone's. The significant drop in engine output just supports it as well.



Quote:
temm said:
The most interesting thing about the race for me was that all four Ferrari-engined cars, with the new ECU made by McLaren, failed to finish.



Yes, that's too funny (wouldn't there be so much money involved). Not only has espionage been the dominating subject last season, it has to be the team punished severely to own the ECU supplier. Who makes such rules? Maybe that ECU should be programmed to run the FIA's decisions as well.




Why the ECU is supply by McLaran?