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[racechick]

I'm so glad the talk is positive for Ross staying!

Oh yeah, and you can see Merc are a team which thinks on their feet. First out in Q1, first out in Q2, and judged it perfectly to set the best times possible in Q3.

I think the 2 stop strategy might have worked if Lewis just let the cars go by without a fight and not busting his left front when battling Alonso...but Lewis is a fighter, and occasionally that works against him in this Pirelli era.

damn pirelli's!!

[Ferrari man 009]

I'm so glad the talk is positive for Ross staying!

Oh yeah, and you can see Merc are a team which thinks on their feet. First out in Q1, first out in Q2, and judged it perfectly to set the best times possible in Q3.

I think the 2 stop strategy might have worked if Lewis just let the cars go by without a fight and not busting his left front when battling Alonso...but Lewis is a fighter, and occasionally that works against him in this Pirelli era.

If he let Alonso, Vettel and Massa past easier and done 2 stops, he would still have finished 5th!

[Hammer278]

How do you figure that...when at that point Lewis just had to do 1 more stop while the others had to do 2. Considering the trio who passed him made their stops about 10 laps after they passed Lewis, do you think they were 2 seconds faster per lap at that point? You might be right, they could've overtaken him again on track but its not a guarantee. I'm saying its a possibility he would've finished a bit higher (a podium would've still been tough) if he played the Pirelli game, Mercs strategy was pretty sound but just giving way to other cars is not in a racer's DNA.

[LRW]

Rosberg breaking down due to an electrical fault, still leaves little niggles over the Mercedes reliability.

[racechick]

Yes, that was unfortunate. Would have been likely 5th and 6th otherwise. I wonder though whether Rosberg might have kept to the two stop strategy?

[Hammer278]

Yeah would've been a good benchmark to Lewis if he had kept running. Too bad we won't know but Melbourne is a track which is difficult to gauge much, the pecking order might be completely different come Malaysia.

[FerrariFan63]

There's more to come from Mercedes. Their strategy didn't work for them, but they'll be closer to the top three teams next race, I predict.

[What's Burning?]

Mercedes did not look like the same team that was struggling to keep fifth place in the constructor's championship last year. I think the WCC may be more hotly contested this year than the WDC. Let's see how things unfold.

[scotty]

Mercedes dropped the ball on strategy really, but the overall effect wasn't particularly great. Having looked at the lap times a bit, had they stuck to the 2 stopper or ran a committed 3 stop from the start i think Hamilton would have been ahead of Massa and not fending of Webber at the end. I don't think a podium was possible for them regardless of the strategy though, the front 3 just had a bit too much extra pace (Hamilton could have gained track position, but we saw earlier in the race that it didn't make any difference for him).

[LewEngBridewell]

It'll be interesting to watch how Merc's development goes. The recent trends have been backwards, but if they can reverse that, then things will be looking lively at the sharp end.

[Hammer278]

Mercedes dropped the ball on strategy really, but the overall effect wasn't particularly great. Having looked at the lap times a bit, had they stuck to the 2 stopper or ran a committed 3 stop from the start i think Hamilton would have been ahead of Massa and not fending of Webber at the end. I don't think a podium was possible for them regardless of the strategy though, the front 3 just had a bit too much extra pace (Hamilton could have gained track position, but we saw earlier in the race that it didn't make any difference for him).

I thought it was ridiculous to have 2 DRS zones on a track like Albert Park where overtaking is not really a challenge.

[scotty]

Mercedes dropped the ball on strategy really, but the overall effect wasn't particularly great. Having looked at the lap times a bit, had they stuck to the 2 stopper or ran a committed 3 stop from the start i think Hamilton would have been ahead of Massa and not fending of Webber at the end. I don't think a podium was possible for them regardless of the strategy though, the front 3 just had a bit too much extra pace (Hamilton could have gained track position, but we saw earlier in the race that it didn't make any difference for him).

I thought it was ridiculous to have 2 DRS zones on a track like Albert Park where overtaking is not really a challenge.

The DRS zones didn't really do much anyway i thought, i can't remember all that many passes into T3? A lot more happened into T13, certainly at the front. I guess they negated the dirty air effect though, which isn't a bad thing in my view.

[Hammer278]

Almost all the passes were into T3. Surprisingly, hardly any passes (if at all) into T1, but it was too easy today to catch up to T1 and then breeze past in the 2nd zone into T3.

[LewEngBridewell]

Almost all the passes were into T3. Surprisingly, hardly any passes (if at all) into T1, but it was too easy today to catch up to T1 and then breeze past in the 2nd zone into T3.

It sometimes seemed as if drivers purposely didn't put everything into Turn 1, so they could have another boost for Turn 3.

[scotty]

I just remember a lot of stuff (certainly some the key passes in the race) going down into T13. I was drunk and tired though Probably gonna watch the race again later on anyway.

Almost all the passes were into T3. Surprisingly, hardly any passes (if at all) into T1, but it was too easy today to catch up to T1 and then breeze past in the 2nd zone into T3.

It sometimes seemed as if drivers purposely didn't put everything into Turn 1, so they could have another boost for Turn 3.

They got the DRS benefit from T2-3 regardless cause there was only one detection point. T1 isn't a passing place unless the driver got alongside or past on the straight, the braking zone is too short.