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2017 FORMULA 1 ROLEX AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX

Albert Park


Entry List


History


1986 - Mansell tire explodes and a three way battle for title ends with Prost winning the first back to back championship since 1960.


1990 - Nelson Piquet wins the 500th Grand Prix


1991 - Ayrton Senna wins the soaked Australian GP, the shortest race in history

Spotter guide



Timetables
all times are local

Friday 24 March – Sunday 26 March 2017

Practice 1 Friday 12:00 – 13:30
Practice 2 Friday 16:00 – 17:30
Practice 3 Saturday 14:00 – 15:00
Qualifying Saturday 17:00 – 18:00
Race Sunday 16:00 – 18:00

another season kicks off, this race will mark 20 years for me watching all races non stop

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Motorsports trend for 2024: everything is a bad taste joke now

Yay! The long wait is over! We will see the new spec cars in action!



And it's going to be shit and boring af. Or not, we just have to watch. During the turbo era the Australian GP hasn't been that great as it used to be. So maybe this time?

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"Indy doesn't give you a second chance. You have to earn it."

Mercedes 1-2, bad race, no rain.

Followed by long xpert analysis itt about how the new rules have ruined racing.

I usually have quite a positive Melbourne weekend due to that VLC stream listed on D'arcy's site that lets you watch the entire weekend, from Aussie Racing Cars practice to the end of the F1 race.

It's when we get to the Bahrain-China-Russia part that the season suddenly loses all the anticipatory hype built up.

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RIP Birmingham Wheels: here's some of the crash videos I recorded when it was there:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIaKIE ... 5t9d5PvoHA

Twitter:

http://www.twitter.com/paulhadsley

1 week to go?
*insert meme of excited person here*

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TBK Premier League Prediction Game Champion 2010/11

My Flickr photographs
My rubbish YouTube channel

Every year the off season feels shorter and shorter. Wasn't Abu Dhabi just 2 weeks ago?

I'm still unsure where to watch the race. Local sports channel has raised the price 500% within just a few years for F1. Hopefully there will be other streams available than mere 250kbps vipleague stream.

At least this year the qualifying will be less embarrassing than last year. Since the weekends looks to be dry, there shouldn't be big differences to the Barcelona testing results. Naturally Melbourne is a different kind of track and they cannot use the setups from the previous seasons due to the regulation changes. However, I predict Mercedes and Ferrari will lead the pack.

Thus, from the Finnish point of view one couldn't be more excited about the season opener. There's a great chance that either Bottas or Kimi is on the podium. Obviously I'm skeptical that either can beat their team mates in normal circumstances. But wouldn't be surprised to see Bottas setting top time in FP1, where it doesn't count.

The very silly testing season is ridiculous. It doesn't seem to save that much costs and it only helps the teams who are reliable from the get go. Very limited possibility to catch up, let alone, develop from one week to the other. I hope Red Bull have an ace in their cards, that car looked very basic.

I liked the original qualifying of last year. So many smart people, and so many people got it wrong, badly. It would have caused a lot of qualifying upsets, which was its purpose. Sadly, everybody just wants boring borefests. Even in qualifying now. Please bring back single lap qualifying, or something like the 2003 qualifying format.

Either way, same as above. I hope there will be a decent stream. I don't have any TV and I doubt there will be any channel i can get that shows F1. If I had to pay like 10 euro's per month for a decent stream, I just might do it. But I probably stick with a crappy stream, since the new owners don't seem to be in a hurry to do any streaming. Yes, I know, contracts. But seriously, unless internet streams are explicitly forbidden in every countries contract, what's the problem? Seems like youtube or even facebook is the obvious perfect match, considering the large audience.

It does feel shorter, especially if the off season has nothing memorable.



And now that Canal+/CMore is taking over the prices will quite definitely go up even more. The quality of their product has gone down too. Selling this as a Finland 100 years, the most blue and white season ever, both drivers in top teams is only going to make them charge more. I'm pretty much the only F1 follower (who watches all the events possible) in my work place where we design and build motorsports products. We've had both Jari-Matti Latvala and Kimi Räikkönen visiting the facility in the near past, giving autographs and everything. And people don't follow the sports, other than what they can get from the news. That's telling a huge story how it is with PPV! Out of about 400 people I can only name two or three person who watches the sport today! That's about 1:100 ratio in a group of people who should be the most potential fans! But hey, let's double the prices because it's the best F1 season ever for Finns. We probably have something like 100 to 200 thousand people watching when back in the day it was two million and up! Thank goodness it's so much easier today than ten years ago to watch it from stream over internet! Last year I was able to watch one race during family holiday at Bulgaria and one race in car while my wife was driving.



As it goes, Finns are always more on the skeptical side and ready to mock their stars even before they've done anything. I'm going to give half season for both Kimi and Valtteri before making any conclusions. Then I'll go to Hungary to help them to take the first ever Finnish 1-2 finish.

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"Indy doesn't give you a second chance. You have to earn it."

Will be interesting to see how McLaren/Honda will do. If they car is showing the same pace / problems like in testing, I think the interviews with Alonso will be interesting.

Minor rant here, but I wish that the main sponsor for races were more "layman" brands rather than rich guy stuff like "Rolex".

My gf who doesn't follow the sport much, watched some of the Formula 1 official Youtube channel videos with me (including the 2016 recap), and made the remark that it's all packaged as a luxury, "glamorous" and jet-set sport, rather than something for the average guy to follow. NASCAR caters much better to the masses, it's in the top 5 most popular sports in the US - ahead of the NBA according to some surveys - because they nail this aspect.

Minor rant over. I love racing, I like F1, I'll be waking up next sunday and turn the TV on like some sort of brainwashed slave. It's an abusive relationship and I feel dirty, but it's always so exciting to see the new cars and driver line-up in action.

I'm hoping this will change with the new owners. They do seem to be willing to move away from Bernie's idiotic exclusivity and make it more approachable for the average viewer.

That's because the only people who can afford a Paddock Club pass are multi-millionaires.

F1, presented by Lidl.

Indeed, the marketing is not aimed at the average Joe.

Lidl is now sponsoring one of the biggest teams in bicycle racing, and could even take over the team completely next year. So they have money.

I'm truly sorry.

they say 1 lap qualifying isn't fair, so make at least Q3 as 1 lap only for everyone. they have the same shot, clean track and so

we don't want fairness, we want randomness

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Motorsports trend for 2024: everything is a bad taste joke now

Yes, a sorry nostalgic. V10 did sound nice, but todays engines are the way to go to show commitment to the environment. Besides, in the V10 era the racing was not...




I'm also sorry.

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"Indy doesn't give you a second chance. You have to earn it."

I always liked it. Should have been done with full tank or empty tank. Now with refueling gone it would be nicer IMHO as some drivers ran low fuel and pitted on lap 3.