First off, news has come down that Giedo van de Garde has temporarily withdrawn his various motions and notions, so as to allow Sauber F1 to actually race this weekend.  This also has the side-effect of allowing Sauber Team Principal Monisha Kaltenborn to leave Australia once the weekend is over.  There are two things behind this, undoubtedly.  First, the lawyers on both sides must have come to some sort of agreement regarding compensation for the aggrieved driver.  The wonder of it all is how the cash-strapped team could guarantee anything along those lines.  Second, it became crystal clear that van de Garde would never drive for the team.  Oh, make no mistake, the courts could have said "yes he is" and he'd be named... but when he walked into the team paddock yesterday for his seat fitting, every team mechanic walked out.  Every.  Single.  One.  I don't care what the judges and lawyers and bailiffs say... if your mechanics hate you, you aren't racing.  You wouldn't make it to the end of the pit lane before breaking down.  So there you go: Sauber is racing in Australia.  More on this to come, clearly.

As far as the two practice sessions went, there are four conclusions to be drawn:

1) Mercedes will do it again.  They were a second clear of the next best teams, and they weren't even trying hard.  Expect a repeat of 2014, except maybe more wins.

2) Ferrari might just be back.  From all appearances, the SF15-T is a much better drive than last year's F14T.  It might be on-par with the Red Bulls, which means it could, in theory, be contesting for podiums and wins.  In theory.  In practice, with three teams (Red Bull, Williams and Ferrari) jousting for second-best, someone's gonna lose out.

3) Expect nothing from McLaren.  The team is having serious problems with their new Honda engines.  Combined with faults of some kind, the MP4-30 had Jenson Button saying that they might do well to start 18th on race day.  There are only 20 cars, and two of them are Manor chassis that have yet to turn a wheel in practice or in anger.  That's how bad it is for McLaren right now.

4) Engine problems may doom everybody.  Daniel Ricciardo's Red Bull had an engine change after P1 yesterday.  Felipe Massa's Williams had a water leak that may lead to an engine change as well.  Cars only get four "power units" to last 20 races, and this is happening now?   Oh boy... Manor might actually be in the BEST shape; their 2014 power units are at least a mature technology now, with well-known flaws and foibles.

P3 and Quals coming up later tonight.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 07:49 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 459 words, total size 3 kb.