What other sports do you follow?

[Firnen]

Draper has finally fixed his fitness issue, is less injury prone (for now) and is getting the results matching his talent. @Lorric must be happy! (I am too, Draper is a likeable guy, he, Rune etc. are the Sinner-Alcaraz challengers I want to root for, not Medvedev or Zverev).

[rpo.castro]

There were some talks that the start of the race could be antecipated because they are expecting rain Spa 2021 style.

Antecipated? I read the exact opposite, the start could be delayed by one hour because the worst of the weather should be in the Australian morning.

That's was the rumour 24h ago. There is not much slack to delay the start due to the sunset in Melbourne. But seeing the caos in F3 race I don't if we will have race.

[matt]

SPOILER ALERT, F1
















Ferrari should have spent the money on Newey rather than on Hamilton, because if the car is not world-championsip material Lewis can do little.
McLaren screwed up a P1-P2 once again. They will have plenty of opportunities though.
Great race of Antonelli, while other rookies had a rough start.
I'm baffled by Haas: they decided to stay on Inter (the only ones) because rain was coming, then they changed decision, put slick tyres, rain started soon after. They had nothing to lose with the slowest car anyway, cowards. They missed a double points chance, maybe even a podium opportunity with Ocon.

Albon well done on P4, Sauber with good points (Hulkenberg P7), Stroll (!) too (P6).

[Lorric]

SPOILER ALERT, F1
















Ferrari should have spent the money on Newey rather than on Hamilton, because if the car is not world-championsip material Lewis can do little.
McLaren screwed up a P1-P2 once again. They will have plenty of opportunities though.
Great race of Antonelli, while other rookies had a rough start.
I'm baffled by Haas: they decided to stay on Inter (the only ones) because rain was coming, then they changed decision, put slick tyres, rain started soon after. They had nothing to lose with the slowest car anyway, cowards. They missed a double points chance, maybe even a podium opportunity with Ocon.

Albon well done on P4, Sauber with good points (Hulkenberg P7), Stroll (!) too (P6).

Hamilton at least showed his great skill in the rain, he kept it on the track while most of the others couldn't, I was rooting for the gamble when he briefly led but it wasn't to be. But otherwise, yes, the car doesn't look like a front runner, LeClerc isn't going to be able to do much with it either on this evidence. But the season is long, last season really showed us how much things can change...

Anyway, very happy with Norris' win, fending off Max who was right on his tail! That was tense indeed on the highlights, which were 13mins long! Normally it's 7 or 8 on the F1 Youtube, so hopefully that's changed this season. Russell coming in 3rd is excellent as well.

[rpo.castro]

Ferrari had no pace but Leclerc was 4th and then Ferrari decided to screw up. With so much rain they decided to keep with hard tires on the rain.

Ferrari behind Antonelli, Albon, STROLL, and Hulkenberg. Ridiculous.

Red Bull took also too much time calling Max to pit for inter after Piastri slide and splash.

Antonelli slowly took his car from bottom to top, all other rookies including Alonso crashed. Bearman didn't but he takes no good memories from Melbourne.

[rpo.castro]

Marc Marquez and Ducati are a combo completely impossible to beat, 4 races, 4 wins, 2 poles and I believe 2 fastest laps. His brother, 4 races, 4 2nd places.

The question is will Marc lose any race? Probably let his brother win one or another.

[Firnen]

Ferrari reminded everyone from race one that they are a meme team: clown strategy, ridiculous communication in the team radios, and an underperforming car.

McLaren has a huge advantage for now over everyone else. Very bad that Piastri lost the 2nd place points with this mistake, we want to see at least a title fight between the teammates, and if Piastri falls behind the pressure will be extreme both on him, and on McLaren to play with team orders.

[matt]

Ferrari looks much improved in China. P1 for Hamilton in the sprint qualifying.

[Lorric]

I saw the clowns writing off Hamilton when he's been in the Ferrari one race weekend and was rolling my eyes, but I wouldn't have dreamed he could bag a pole on his second weekend. Outstanding. The clock has been turned back years to a fromt row of Lewis and Max.

5th and 6th for Russell and Norris. McLaren 3rd and 6th, Ferrari 1st and 4th and Red Bull 2nd and... 20th.

[Ricardo]

Big surprise Lewis handled the car this fast so good. I expected only after 5—6 races him to beat Leclerc.
McLaren overestimated themselves and underestimated the trackevolution. Strategic mistake that they will set right in the race. And in the real quali plus race. Can Lewis keep Norris back (Max won’t)?

[rpo.castro]

These tracks from beginning of the season aren't a good marker for the season. Ferrari in the past has always been good in Australia and not so in rest of the season. We used to say that only in Europe we would see the real team ranking. The problem is that Europe now comes a lot later in the season so having this yo-yo results is not unexpected.

Also Norris committed two errors in each fast lap in Q3 that prevented him to get better. Lets see what will real qualifying and real race bring.

About this sprint qualifying in top8: 2 Ferrari, 2 McLaren, 2 Mercedes and some say the true Red Bull drivers.

[matt]

Historic moment, the first Hamilton win with Ferrari! (ok, it's a sprint, but still...).


Verstappen and Piastri gain a few points over a disastrous Norris (P8).

[Lorric]

He left them all behind.

Russell did good as well. Let's see if Norris can recover for the GP and if Hamilton's surge continues...

[rpo.castro]

This was the 7 WDC Hamilton. Absolutely majestic, mastering the tyre degradation, making incredible laps in the end of the race. Only Verstappen tried to pressure in the beginning but was overtaken by Piastri.

But for real qualifying natural order again: Piastri, a surprising Russell in P2 Norris 3rd, Verstappen 4th. Hamilton beating Leclerc again locked 3rd row for Ferrari. Isack Hadjar 7th, with both racing bulls in top 10 together with a Williams.
Liam Lawson put the Red Bull in 20th and last form 2nd time in a row. That's for you Marko!

[Lorric]

Already summed up above, but great qualifying for the Brits here, 2nd, 3rd and 5th! Hamilton outqualifying LeClerc again is really impressive. Top 8 were within half a second!

I can only imagine the Red Bull is particularly undriveable if you're not Max this year, Lawson was not this bad in the baby bull, and the baby bulls are going well this year. Or maybe you just need to be of a certain high skill level to even manage what previous Red Bull teammates managed, and if you're below that, you get this.