2012 Australian Grand Prix Discussion Thread

[AdrianSutil]

BBC viewer here, so can finally get on the forums now I know the result.

Brilliant race I thought, as Australia usually is anyway. Mental last lap! Couple of personal points:

* Good race for McLaren, surprised Hamilton got jumped by Vettel at the second stop though. But the car looks really fast so expecting more wins this year.

* Pleased to finally see Webber score a 4th or higher at Australia, but lost too much time before the safety car to make a serious impact. Vettel still looks good for the title.

* Ferrari. Awful qualifying, solid race. From Alonso anyway. Massa just looks awful.

* Schumacher was unlucky with his retirement, he was looking really quick. Rosberg, what the hell is going on with him?! Just kept going backwards.

* Rykonen looked solid, deserved his points. Shame for Grosjean, but he turned into Maldonado too early, so his fault. But the car looks good and quick.

* Saw nothing of Hulkenberg sadly and Di Resta looked to be the worse of the midfield runners. Sneaky move for the final point so kudos to him.

* Boh Vergne and Ricciardo impressed my a lot today. Confident racing at the front during the stops and good scrapping late on. Ricciardo did a brilliant sneak-move at the very end.

* Again, Kobayashi and Perez looked good. What we all wanted too see. Sauber have some real talent there.

* felt so, so, sorry for Maldonado. An excellent race, all over with half a lap to go. It didn't even look like much, but we all know the gap between good and bad is minimal. Senna was hindered by his crash, but I reckon he wouldve scored points. Williams on the up? Hope so.

* as for the last three: Caterham looked poor, compared to their pre-season pace. HRT were
not here and Marussia were badly off the pace. Same old sadly.

Good start to the year overall, the midfield battles are going to be so, so close

[mario]

What I saw was Vettel catching up Hamilton since he had free track. It's true that Button seemed to have something more under his sleeve, but I wouldn't say Hamilton is definitely Button's greatest threat after what we've seen today.

Hamilton was having a bad day and was a bit unlucky with the pitstops. Even so the fastest Red Bull only beat the slowest McLaren by a very small margin. I take this to mean that on average the Mclaren is better than the Red Bull and that in most races the greatest threat to Button will come from someone with the same machinery, that is Hamilton.

In a way Vettel has been somewhat fortunate though - he was a touch fortunate that Schumacher's gearbox packed in when it did and allowed him through, because being stuck behind Schumacher for a few more laps could have cost him more time, and the chance to leapfrog Hamilton later in the race. Still, it looks reasonably balanced between Red Bull and McLaren, even if Whitmarsh has hinted McLaren have more pace up their sleeve (plus Hamilton seems moderately happy with the situation in part because he was struggling a little with the tyres).

Speaking of performance, Maldonado was surprisingly competitive - it was unfortunate that he crashed out so close to the end of the race, but being able to chase and pressurise Alonso was a decent showing. Williams might still be happy with that though, since it looks like they have a car that is quicker than a few factory teams (and it has been some time since we could say that).

Oh, and why did Rosberg suddenly slow down at the end of the race?

He might have picked up a slow puncture from running over the debris from Maldonado's accident (it looked like the car was behaving slightly oddly).

On another note, I have to agree that Massa's performance today was sorely lacking. In Alonso's hands, the car was not that bad on medium to high fuel (albeit less competitive as the fuel loads burned off), but Massa was regularly a second a lap or more off the pace of Alonso and chewing through his tyres quite rapidly.
It almost seems to stem from his comments the day before - he was saying that the car was disappointing and appeared to be worse than he thought from the winter tests, and he just didn't look confident on track (he wasn't really attacking the pit entry in the same way Alonso did, for example). It was as if he'd already made his mind up that he was going to struggle and have a bad race, and turned it into a self fulfilling prophecy, whereas Alonso tried to highlight the positive side to the car as well as the negative in his comments.

[Warren Hughes]

I was impressed with the BBC coverage; although it wasn't a full race and it wasn't live, it was still easy enough to follow what was going on even in such an eventful race. My impressions:

- Mercedes seem to lack the race pace to match their one lap speed. Although it would have been interesting to see how Schumacher would have gone if his car hadn't broken, he was defending for his life at the time and it was clear the Red Bull was faster. The way Rosberg fell back into the midfield doesn't bode well for their aspirations of challenging up front, I would say.
- Reports of Ferrari's demise have been greatly exaggerated. If Alonso hadn't binned it in Q2 I'm sure he would have been comfortably in the top 10 in quali, and his pace on heavy fuel was good. Of course, they still aren't where they want to be because Maldonado was all over Fernando's rear end in the closing stages.
- Speaking of which, major step forward for Williams. Hopefully they can keep it up and reap some rewards from the potential that the car undoubtedly has.
- What a last lap!!! I have no idea how Kamui ended up 6th, but Sauber were better than I was expecting. Perez also impressive from last on the grid. Di Resta was extremely lucky, in my opinion, to nick a point on the final lap after an anonymous showing. Force India appear to have gone backwards, but Hulkenberg had the edge on PDR in quali so he might have done better if he could have avoided the first corner chaos.
- Marussia deserve some credit. Don't forget they haven't done any testing and they managed to get both cars to the end - better than Caterham managed. Don't they say it's easier to make a reliable car quick than a quick car reliable? And I believe they equalled their best result as well with Glock's 14th.

All in all a terrific Grand Prix and one that throws up a fair few questions and points of interest for the season. Looking forward to a great year and I just wish I was able to see all the races live.

[BlindCaveSalamander]

GRSJN fanboys QQing now.

Having a running vendetta against a driver's fans - especially a perfectly harmless driver who doesn't do annoying stuff like winning anything - is dangerously close to trolling.

Are there even any Grosjean fanboys? Is it not just people saying, "Give the guy a chance and don't be such a d**k about it"?

Yeah, pretty much the only person who's identified themself as a Romain Grosjean fan was DOSBoot, and that was on the last page. Fair enough, there might be on other forums, and they might be dickish about it, but there's nobody like that here.

Overall, I have to say this was a great race, hopefully the rest of 2012 will be similar to this.

[DOSBoot]

GRSJN fanboys QQing now.

Having a running vendetta against a driver's fans - especially a perfectly harmless driver who doesn't do annoying stuff like winning anything - is dangerously close to trolling.

Are there even any Grosjean fanboys? Is it not just people saying, "Give the guy a chance and don't be such a d**k about it"?

Yeah, pretty much the only person who's identified themself as a Romain Grosjean fan was DOSBoot, and that was on the last page. Fair enough, there might be on other forums, and they might be dickish about it, but there's nobody like that here.

Overall, I have to say this was a great race, hopefully the rest of 2012 will be similar to this.

I never really stated the I was a Grojean fan, I was making an insult to the one that insulted the Grojean fans. Which I thought was in pretty bad taste. I'm acually more of a Button/Webber guy. If fact, I'm mostly neutral when it comes to the drivers. Sure we've all insulted drivers on this site, me included, and that's probably fine. But when someone insults a fan of a driver, I think that's going to far.

[Nuppiz]

Oskari Saari during the Australian GP safety car phase: "I'm glad that they didn't allow the HRTs to race, because they could've had trouble getting past the safety car when regrouping!"

[Peter]

Schumacher's race pace actually didn't look too bad. He was losing ground to the McLaren's, but not too much, and I think he was conserving his tyres for the time being. Vettel looked faster, but he didn't necessarily shoot up to the back of him, and probably wouldn't have passed him out on track anyway.

[S951]

wasn't a bad race that shame schumacher had a dead box can't believe the reverend binned it on the last lap but then again did lol a bit thinking oh christ really now! next weekend should be pretty interesting and a more sociable time

[FullMetalJack]

Oskari Saari during the Australian GP safety car phase: "I'm glad that they didn't allow the HRTs to race, because they could've had trouble getting past the safety car when regrouping!"

PDLR wouldn't have had trouble. Karthikeyan would have passed the safety car, and then blocked it's lap.

[DonTirri]

Oskari Saari during the Australian GP safety car phase: "I'm glad that they didn't allow the HRTs to race, because they could've had trouble getting past the safety car when regrouping!"

Yeah. Saari has some great lines at times. I laughed so hard at that that I woke up my girlfriend. And he had a point too

[AndreaModa]

Oh, and why did Rosberg suddenly slow down at the end of the race?

He might have picked up a slow puncture from running over the debris from Maldonado's accident (it looked like the car was behaving slightly oddly).

I'm almost certain he hit the turn 11 bollard on the final lap having passed one of the Saubers and messing up his entry into the corner which subsequently ruined his front suspension and caused all the last lap drama for the final few points places as the cars bunched up as Rosberg toured round.

[Row Man Gross-Gene]

Grrrrjjjjnnnn fan here! When I saw he was third I was very pleased. When he went out, I said: "bathplugging Maldonado!" though I didn't want to see Pastor retire either.

Rrrmmmnnnn fluffed his start a bit, but he seemed to have good pace, I think he'll have a good season.

I also like Button so it was a good race. Though like the g-man, I'm a little bit Swiss in that I tend to like most of the drivers, none are worthy of hatred, and many are probably pretty good guys.

[Peter]

I just realized. Vir-err, I mean Marussia finished 14th and 15th. That really is rubbing salt in the wounds for HRT. Looks like this may be the year Marussia finally doesn't finish last in the standings, unless HRT can have similar fortune in a race of high attrition.

[Wizzie]

- Marussia deserve some credit. Don't forget they haven't done any testing and they managed to get both cars to the end - better than Caterham managed. Don't they say it's easier to make a reliable car quick than a quick car reliable?

On the contrary actually. It was the problem McLaren had in 05/06. First time round, they had a rocketship which had a tendency to blow itself to bits but in 2006, the reliability improved but they just couldn't take it to the Renaults and Ferraris up front.

[eurobrun]

While I don't like GGGRRRRSSJJJNNN and probably never will, my comments about GGGRRRSSJJJJNNN supporters was based on some people I know on other forums so sorry if I offended some people.

[CoopsII]

Was it just the BBC edit or was Melbourne a race without any 'dead laps'? You know, those laps when its just happening, nobody trying anything (think back to the early 00s). Superb race.

[AdrianSutil]

Was it just the BBC edit or was Melbourne a race without any 'dead laps'? You know, those laps when its just happening, nobody trying anything (think back to the early 00s). Superb race.

There was probably a few laps like that, but with so much going on anyway, you really didn't notice.

[Boomstick]

Schumacher's race pace actually didn't look too bad. He was losing ground to the McLaren's, but not too much, and I think he was conserving his tyres for the time being. Vettel looked faster, but he didn't necessarily shoot up to the back of him, and probably wouldn't have passed him out on track anyway.

Well to be honest before he went off on turn 1/2 the car didn't look to happy, he had a lot of trouble putting the power down at the apex of turn 2 for the 3 or so laps before he went off. Tyres?

(Was at turn 2)

Williams.....woah now thats more like it! Pastor (untill he binned it) was really on it, and Senna didn't seem too happy with the car after having a Torro-Rosso punt him off

The Saubers looked slow....very slow, but they seemed fast...I suppose its what we are after.

The Force India's looked like the Ferrari's. They just didn't seem happy in the mechanical traction area's.

The Mclaren looked like it had everything spot on. Planted and fast. The Lotus was similar, but not quite there yet.

The Merc was the same as the McLaren, but looked slow in the race (tyres I think)

That all I really noticed.....Oh and the Malrussia's plaint job. Nice!

[AndreaModa]

Was it just the BBC edit or was Melbourne a race without any 'dead laps'? You know, those laps when its just happening, nobody trying anything (think back to the early 00s). Superb race.

There was probably a few laps like that, but with so much going on anyway, you really didn't notice.

They cut out a few laps - notably around lap 10-20 if I remember rightly, and also the laps under the safety car, but most of the race was actually broadcast which was pleasing!

[Ferrim]

Don't know why, but I love this video of the start taken from behind the fence:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0dSYMsi ... re=related

[DanielPT]

Ferrari spurred on by performance in the Australian Grand Prix

"Considering how sh*t we were Saturday, to have one of our drivers finish fifth is very important"

"Looking at the championship it is vital for me to score these points because otherwise I might get the boot at the end of the year"

"We improved since that rubbish qualification yes, but I must declare myself very unhappy nevertheless because despite our technical team being constantly shuffled we still have ludicrously high expectations set by the boss. Our engineers now have a clear vision of what is wrong with this car, despite everyone else knowing it was a dog ever since they saw it at the first day of testing and should work fast to solve it before Luca becomes trigger happy."

"We have understood the problem with the car, which is the car itself and now must understand the way to fix quickly although no new chassis will come, which means that it is highly probable we will be without wins this season and me and Alonso move on from the team in very different ways."

" The car will be the same in Malaysia but we will try random stuff because there is not much else to lose, really. We will bring updates for the other races and hopefully it will get better"

Too harsh or too soon?

[Wizzie]

Ferrari spurred on by performance in the Australian Grand Prix

"Considering how sh*t we were Saturday, to have one of our drivers finish fifth is very important"

"Looking at the championship it is vital for me to score these points because otherwise I might get the boot at the end of the year"

"We improved since that rubbish qualification yes, but I must declare myself very unhappy nevertheless because despite our technical team being constantly shuffled we still have ludicrously high expectations set by the boss. Our engineers now have a clear vision of what is wrong with this car, despite everyone else knowing it was a dog ever since they saw it at the first day of testing and should work fast to solve it before Luca becomes trigger happy."

"We have understood the problem with the car, which is the car itself and now must understand the way to fix quickly although no new chassis will come, which means that it is highly probable we will be without wins this season and me and Alonso move on from the team in very different ways."

" The car will be the same in Malaysia but we will try random stuff because there is not much else to lose, really. We will bring updates for the other races and hopefully it will get better"

Too harsh or too soon?

I have to say this translation is infinitely better that what Domenicali probably said

I do agree with him though that Alonso will probably be looking for greener pastures at the end of the year should the car continue to be shite. I mean, this is the third year in a row where Ferrari have given him a sub-par car (As Red Bull should have easily taken the 2010 championship if they hadn't been so useless). But, as posted elsewhere, the question would then be what would his options be for 2013?

[DanielPT]

I have to say this translation is infinitely better that what Domenicali probably said

I do agree with him though that Alonso will probably be looking for greener pastures at the end of the year should the car continue to be shite. I mean, this is the third year in a row where Ferrari have given him a sub-par car (As Red Bull should have easily taken the 2010 championship if they hadn't been so useless). But, as posted elsewhere, the question would then be what would his options be for 2013?

To be honest, he didn't said that. I just added it there because it is what might happen. Besides, judging from his quotes, he was in great effort to not say that himself!

Oh, and he really said that he hoped the car would get better. Can you imagining it in the next meeting with Montezemolo? "Are you sure this will fix the car?" "I hope so..."

[Ferrim]

Alonso has a deal with Ferrari until the end of 2016, and he renewed at a point on which Ferrari weren't looking great, IIRC. I don't think he's looking to finish his career anywhere else. He's changed a lot, for some reason; he seems to be less worried about winning championships and more relaxed. Remember when he would always complain about his car not being good enough, about his team, about the press...? These days he's always supportive of his team and saying positive thinks. He's always been very jealous about his privacy as well, but now he's opened Twitter and Facebook accounts, and since he divorced he's been seen with a couple of women (while it used to be hard to see him with his wife outside an F1 circuit!). In spite of all that, from the outside it looks like he's driving as well as ever, and that's what matters in the end. It's a bit like Button actually, but of course Jenson has a better car (and I'm not blaming him for that; that car could very well be Alonso's if he had been clever back in the day).

[LionZoo]

Schumacher's race pace actually didn't look too bad. He was losing ground to the McLaren's, but not too much, and I think he was conserving his tyres for the time being. Vettel looked faster, but he didn't necessarily shoot up to the back of him, and probably wouldn't have passed him out on track anyway.

Well to be honest before he went off on turn 1/2 the car didn't look to happy, he had a lot of trouble putting the power down at the apex of turn 2 for the 3 or so laps before he went off. Tyres?

(Was at turn 2)

According to his comments, he was already struggling with the gearbox a few laps before it failed completely.

[Waris]

my face when Maldonado crashed on the last lap:





I think Williams must be cursed or something, now that they've replaced Barrichello with Senna. I'm missing Barrichello and kept thinking he was still driving, only to remember Senna was in that car. I like Senna, but in a way, it seems like justice that he kept failing this weekend. Maldonado, though... that just reminded me of when Räikkönen punted Sutil out at Monte-Carlo in 2008. ARGH! By the way, that car is the same car (in a way, you could say) as Kazuki Nakajima used to drive, who also had a bit of a penchant for crashing out near the end of the race...

[AdrianSutil]

I wouldn't worry about Maldonado just now. He's an absolute monster on street-type tracks and we still have Monaco, Valencia and Singapore to come, so expect a strong showing there. The car seems to be a massive improvement over last year too. He will score a decent haul of points. I'm predicting Williams to finish between Force India and Toro Rosso in 8th, which after their horror of 2011, isn't that bad a result. It's one race, and let's remember, he isn't the first driver to crash on the final lap. Hamilton ended his (admittedly slim) Championship hopes at Monza in 2009 and the Barrichello/Hakkinen crash at Silverstone 1995 was for 4th place.

[mario]

I wouldn't worry about Maldonado just now. He's an absolute monster on street-type tracks and we still have Monaco, Valencia and Singapore to come, so expect a strong showing there. The car seems to be a massive improvement over last year too. He will score a decent haul of points. I'm predicting Williams to finish between Force India and Toro Rosso in 8th, which after their horror of 2011, isn't that bad a result. It's one race, and let's remember, he isn't the first driver to crash on the final lap. Hamilton ended his (admittedly slim) Championship hopes at Monza in 2009 and the Barrichello/Hakkinen crash at Silverstone 1995 was for 4th place.

The car definitely looks like a much better package compared to last year - OK, it'd be harder to come up with something worse - and with Ferrari likely to remain off the pace until we return to Europe (they are planning to bring a major upgrade for the Mugello test), Williams do have a chance right now to score quite a few points in the next handful of races if they can keep this sort of performance up. With Sauber still struggling to maximise the car over a single lap, Force India seemingly having fallen back a little and Mercedes chewing through its tyres, they have to take advantage of it as quickly as possible - my only fear is whether their drivers are capable of doing so.

On another note, Vettel seems to believe that McLaren look to have a slight advantage this season, with a hint that Red Bull might have designed the car to be a touch lighter on its tyres than McLaren. He definitely mentions that he struggled to build up his tyre temperatures after the safety car, whereas Button was able to pull away reasonably easily and he was struggling to drop Hamilton initially. http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/98200
That might explain why Red Bull were perhaps not quite so competitive in qualifying - OK, it is only one race so we shouldn't make too many assumptions, but if Red Bull were struggling a little with tyre temperatures over a single lap, that might go some way towards explaining Red Bull's relatively weak qualifying performance compared to their race pace. It'll be interesting to see whether they continue suffering from that problem in the next few races.

[karsten]

are pic and vergne going to be the forgotten drivers of this year? time will tell!

jokes aside, i think i never spoted pic for a secon in the whole race and had no clue he got a drive

[Ferrim]

Do you remember 2009, when Williams started the season with a car that only was clearly slower than the Brawn?

After five races they were lying 8th out of 10 teams, having only scored 4,5 points (14 points in new money) and behind such horrible cars as McLaren (13 points with that crapbox), Renault (one podium in the whole season!) and Ferrari (no points in the first three races!). At the end of the year Williams were 7th with a car that I remain convinced was good enough for 3rd in the constructors.

I'm fearing a similar thing could repeat this year.

[mario]

Do you remember 2009, when Williams started the season with a car that only was clearly slower than the Brawn?

After five races they were lying 8th out of 10 teams, having only scored 4,5 points (14 points in new money) and behind such horrible cars as McLaren (13 points with that crapbox), Renault (one podium in the whole season!) and Ferrari (no points in the first three races!). At the end of the year Williams were 7th with a car that I remain convinced was good enough for 3rd in the constructors.

I'm fearing a similar thing could repeat this year.

I think that might be a touch optimistic, as in the opening stages of 2009, you would have to say that the TF109 was probably a slightly better car - remember that both Toyota's had to come from the back of the field into the points in the 2009 Australian GP after having their qualifying times stripped, were pretty competitive in Malaysia and arguably should have won the Bahrain GP but for their botched race strategy. The RB5 was also pretty handy in the opening races as well, but it was probably the case that neither the team or the drivers were really quite prepared for the situation they found themselves in.
I agree, though, that the FW31 was a solid car in the opening races that year, but Williams did blow some of their chances quite easily - Rosberg's early switch to the super soft tyre in Melbourne, for example, worked for about a couple of laps but cost him heavily after that. It didn't help either that Nakajima was in the second seat; he might have brought free engines with him, but was frankly lacklustre in 2009 and probably cost Williams a lot of points - and money from FOM - as a result.

[DanielPT]

Do you remember 2009, when Williams started the season with a car that only was clearly slower than the Brawn?

After five races they were lying 8th out of 10 teams, having only scored 4,5 points (14 points in new money) and behind such horrible cars as McLaren (13 points with that crapbox), Renault (one podium in the whole season!) and Ferrari (no points in the first three races!). At the end of the year Williams were 7th with a car that I remain convinced was good enough for 3rd in the constructors.

I'm fearing a similar thing could repeat this year.

I think that might be a touch optimistic, as in the opening stages of 2009, you would have to say that the TF109 was probably a slightly better car - remember that both Toyota's had to come from the back of the field into the points in the 2009 Australian GP after having their qualifying times stripped, were pretty competitive in Malaysia and arguably should have won the Bahrain GP but for their botched race strategy. The RB5 was also pretty handy in the opening races as well, but it was probably the case that neither the team or the drivers were really quite prepared for the situation they found themselves in.
I agree, though, that the FW31 was a solid car in the opening races that year, but Williams did blow some of their chances quite easily - Rosberg's early switch to the super soft tyre in Melbourne, for example, worked for about a couple of laps but cost him heavily after that. It didn't help either that Nakajima was in the second seat; he might have brought free engines with him, but was frankly lacklustre in 2009 and probably cost Williams a lot of points - and money from FOM - as a result.

Well, today you seem to have a Nakajima and a first season Sutil at the wheel which means that no matter what the car can do they will keep under performing and crashing, respectively. If this keeps going I wonder how much longer it will take before they regret sending Rubens into retirement... Also, the problem of Williams these days is that they can't keep developing the car like they used to. I think that they can't even match neither Toro Rosso nor Force India on that department as weird as it seems. In 2009 they went against better funded teams and that early advantage quickly disappeared. About blowing chances, yep, strategy was never Williams strong point since I can remember so not even there they can rely on. At least they have some pace this year compared to last year so maybe they can get lucky and score some good points before fading in the later stages...

[mario]

Well, today you seem to have a Nakajima and a first season Sutil at the wheel which means that no matter what the car can do they will keep under performing and crashing, respectively. If this keeps going I wonder how much longer it will take before they regret sending Rubens into retirement... Also, the problem of Williams these days is that they can't keep developing the car like they used to. I think that they can't even match neither Toro Rosso nor Force India on that department as weird as it seems. In 2009 they went against better funded teams and that early advantage quickly disappeared. About blowing chances, yep, strategy was never Williams strong point since I can remember so not even there they can rely on. At least they have some pace this year compared to last year so maybe they can get lucky and score some good points before fading in the later stages...

The development rate of Williams relative to the bigger teams may not be strong, but realistically Williams cannot hope to develop a car as quickly as teams that have a budget that is two or three times bigger and greater technical support from its suppliers (such as full factory support from Renault for Red Bull against customer status for Williams). The picture isn't totally disastrous when compared to their rivals in the midfield though, since they generally tend to be around the same level when compared to their rivals, and these days that is the sort of competition they are likely to face (in 2010, for example, Williams seemed to become stronger as the season progressed, with both drivers able to pick up points finishes at the expense of Force India).

That said, I agree that their drivers and team strategy both leave something to be desired - Maldonado might have shown promise in Melbourne, but needs to show that sort of consistent form and cut out some of his sillier errors from last season. Melbourne, as others have pointed out, is a circuit that in theory suited his particular driving style, so Sepang might be a harder test for him and the car, particularly given Sepang has a number of aero dependent high speed corners.
As for Bruno Senna, the verdict is still kind of out, in part because his performance last week wasn't entirely his fault (including the collision with Massa that saw him eventually retire). The pressure is still going to be on Bruno to deliver - and Maldonado's performance in Melbourne will put the pressure on him as the car looks reasonably competitive - but it still seems a little debatable whether he can deliver.

[Wizzie]

WTF1 presents the latest F1 video game craze... SUPER MALDONADO KART!

[JeremyMcClean]

WTF1 presents the latest F1 video game craze... SUPER MALDONADO KART!

Watch out Codemasters, this game will give you a run for your money!

[Pedestrian]

I wonder how much longer it will take before they regret sending Rubens into retirement...

Rubens was old and I fear he would be holding them back. The current drivers are young and ambitious and have at least some potential.

[DanielPT]

WTF1 presents the latest F1 video game craze... SUPER MALDONADO KART!

That is just too good man!

[Cynon]

WTF1 presents the latest F1 video game craze... SUPER MALDONADO KART!

BRILLIANT!

[David AGS]

[quote="Waris"]my face when Maldonado crashed on the last lap:



First glance: I thought it was Peter Sauber!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[AdrianSutil]

WTF1 presents the latest F1 video game craze... SUPER MALDONADO KART!

The star Maldonado got for the pass on Grosjean was epic