https://www.skysports.com/f1/news/12433/11662004/australian-gp-the-verdict-from-friday-practice
Hopefully it is more reliable than last year, heard it had a lot of stream quality issues, but they had time to fix it. How much is for one year?
$80USD for the full package with instant DVR. Just so many races out of my timezone through the season it’ll be worth it to instantly watch a race when I wake up without seeing any spoilers (well hopefully they don’t use spoiler thumbnails or anything! haha). It’s a 7day free trial this first week, so if the quality stinks I’ll back off.
Surprise surprise mercedes had plenty under the hood. Imagine that. Still randomly gonna pick Leclerc to win. Just seems right.
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Vettel and front two have Max close for the wild card at the start. Mercs surprised me, but Melbourne is an isolated track. Going well here doesn’t mean you have a car that will go well all year.
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Well that was good. Not for Ferrari, but for all the rest. Awesome Bottas performance, a surprising RB Honda, a close battle in the mid field. And just after the first race the +1 point for the fastest lap already makes sense, made the racing even more tense.
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Oh dear for Ferrari. Taking a pause from the excitement of season opener. Melbourne is isolated in what car gets better performance, but Ferrari has to be slightly shocked based on Cataluyna, however Catalunya is not a representative track either. Bottom line still confused as to who has the better car.
Mid field was on fire. Still think it was a processional race when I think about it, all the gimmicks gave us things to watch.
Spoiler
Only one thing for sure, RB Honda will be the party spoiler this year.
Again a wheel issue for Grosjean. Sainz and Riccy having a bad day. Pity for 3 of them.
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Oh and it was good to see the aero changes worked more or less. Instead of a 2 second gap between cars they followed each other in drs distance the second half of the race.
Yes Melbourne is different but you can’t blame it when you have a 60 second gap between the Merc and Ferrari that is a bit too much. 58 laps, 60 sec, a second slower, ambarrasing especially after all the hype of the tests. This feels like the beginning of the v6 turbo era 
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Good point, however if Vettel had Leclerc’s pace, he would have all over Hamilton. Disagree?
Just think Ham and Vet’s car lacked pace for whatever reason.
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They only lacked space because of the early pit stop. Of course Leclerc was faster near the end but before that he was behind Vettel sometimes more than 10 secs. Like the gap between Ham and Bottas. Before Hamilton making an early pit stop, the gap between them was around 5 sec. But that was not the optimal window, Bottas was faster on older softer tyres. When Bottas finally pitted and made it back out they had a 12-15 sec gap and could have been more seeing Bottas’ fastest lap was a second better than Verstappen’s on the 56th lap but he did not push at all.
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good breakdown. Did not understand why Merc thought to cover him.
Hamilton and the Merc always want to cover Vettel because he is the championship contender. Even if with just 3 points or 1 they always want to score more than Vettel. Okay Bottas had a great race but that does not mean he is immediately equal to Hamilton in the team. I would love to see a stronger Bottas but after the last two years I have my doubts about him. Please prove me wrong Bottas If the Ferrari is really out of the race at least make Hamilton suffer for that 6th championship But it is too early to suggest that and we have 20 races left.
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F1 biols down to whoever has the most bad days. Vettel lost by 3 spins and 1 crash last year. think about
And Bottas is famous to have a bad day. Or a bad month…or months
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he had awful luck and then team orders at a track he owns broke him
Like Butty said, turns out this extra point is worthwhile afterall. That was fun. Loved to hear Bottas flat out say " I WANT 26 points". That is a hungry driver. What a perfect race from him. Only team not interested in the point was Ferrari. No reason they shouldn’t have pitted Leclerc if they weren’t going to let him past Vettel. Just an awful weekend all around for them. New face in the pitlane, same strategy problems.
I really hope that midfield is that close on a track where you can pass. Renault, Alfa, Haas, Torro Rosso, India all with a car right by eachother. Poor showing by Gasly, never got going after the bad qualifying and stayed stuck behind people all race ending up in the midfield. Honestly looks hopeful that everybody is in the race for “best of the rest” besides Williams of course. I don’t even know if they should be on the grid!
Biggest moment of the race was Max passing Seb with ease then cameras instantly cut to Ricc-y retiring. Rough stuff.
Edit: sounds like Hamilton lost a chunk of the floor of his car and that’s why Bottas had so much more pace. But I’m not taking anything away from the Finn. He had a perfect race.
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I like Hamilton, but I don’t think he lost anything. Excuses of beaten driver. I reckon Ferrari wanted no risks, just wanted all the points safe on weekend they expected more. I actually understand their logic.
So much speculation in the press based on a unique track. Getting slightly bothered by it. Season is long. Let’s just soak in a good race and hope for 20 more like it. Random thought.
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Cheers to that. Could’ve used some more passing as always, but Melbourne was plenty interesting. Enjoyed it. Hope for more!
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