Rate the race: Australian Grand Prix
16th March 2008, 6:12 by Keith Collantine 40 Comments »
What did you think of the Australian Grand Prix? Rate the race out of ten for how much you enjoyed it and leave your comments below.
{democracy:10}
40 comments on Rate the race: Australian Grand Prix
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Rabi said on 16th March 2008, 6:21
absolutely awesome race, lots of drama, lots of action and lots of twists.
what a start to 2008 god bless the banning of traction control!
Scott Joslin said on 16th March 2008, 6:26
Good start to the season ! Bring it on!
Craig said on 16th March 2008, 6:30
Excellent race, full of action and drama – mostly due to errors rather than skill!
Who on earth voted for 1/10?! A Ferrari fan perchance?
John said on 16th March 2008, 6:37
exciting race.. nice win for hamilton and good to see heidfeld and rosberg on the podium. But I was crushed when Bourdais crapped out I was screaming at the television. Between that and Button going out it was a tough start to the year for me.
sumedh said on 16th March 2008, 6:38
Excellent race…
only 5 teams finished..
Nelson Piquet Jr. is a joke though
Steve Robbo said on 16th March 2008, 6:40
If this is what we’re in store for this year, we are in for a great season. A very exciting race asa result of banning Traction Control and Engine Braking.
Ratboy said on 16th March 2008, 6:51
What happened to Piquet Jnr i missed that bit i did see he was successfully reversing back through the field!
Keith Collantine said on 16th March 2008, 6:53
Stopped with a car problem halfway through, was well off pace up until then.
Daniel said on 16th March 2008, 6:55
Great race… Barrichello being called to the pits during safety car was a shame, he could have been on podium otherwise…. Bourdais didn’t deserve that engine failure… Still, I’m quite happy that Raikkonen didn’t start ahead of Massa… Like Rabi said, god bless the banning of driver aids!!!!!!!!
George said on 16th March 2008, 6:56
Keith, somewhere you expressed a desire for a cracking race, but I don’t think you expected this outcome!
At least Bourdais can claim the moral victory of scoring points for the team.
No vehicle with Ferrari power finishes the race! Amazing!!
del said on 16th March 2008, 7:08
Fantastic race, really enjoyable, even if a bit painful being a Ferrari fan. No TC has spiced things up, plenty of driver errors – at least 4 significant ones from the red cars for example. I hope this was just an aberration from them, normal winning ways next week?
Nico Savidge said on 16th March 2008, 7:24
del sums it up. For a Ferrari fan, this was a hard race to watch (and I doubt my family appreciated me screaming at the TV so late…). But as a fan, it was great – I had some friends over to watch it, and one of them left an F1 convert!
Rohan said on 16th March 2008, 7:28
It was alright, lack of TC had less than nothing to do with it though.
Jingles said on 16th March 2008, 7:34
What a dramatic start to the season, non-stop action from the beginning to the end and results that few would have expected. Great race for Nico Rosberg and Williams, Kovalainen was very unlucky with the timing of the last safety car, otherwise McLaren had a perfect weekend.
The attrition rate was very high, especially after last year when it seemed like there was just the odd retirement here and there. Both incidents between drivers and reliability issues for some teams led to a great and action packed season opener.
Bloody awful race for Ferrari with both drivers making mistakes (I wonder if Kimi was drunk) and reliability is not looking strong. Räikkönen did perform well from his lowly starting position but better reliability and without the mistakes he would’ve definitely finished on the podium. Massa did not look good, spinning out after the first corner and then a bit of hesitation while passing Coulthard which ended in a bang. I’ve gotta say that from the tv-footage the F2008 looked like a real handful to drive at times, especially when driving in the wake of another car, and with some of the upcoming races being the hottest on the calendar and with it looking like the F2008 is held together by gaffer tape, they could face a monumental task off closing the gap to McLaren when the european races start.
Heidfeld drove as he usually does; good, reliable driving but completely anonymous on the track, in contrast to Nakajima who was involved in "a few" incidents throughout the race. Kazuki was lucky to get all the way after breaking his front wing on Kubica’s diffuser. He did score 2 points though so it wasn’t all bad. Rosberg in the other Williams was fenomenal, taking advantage off the starting incidents and driving strong to the end, which gave him his first podium finish, one that I don’t expect to be the last.
You’ve gotta feel bad for the tiny teams, Bourdais did some solid driving and did really well to keep Alonso behind him until his engine expired, and who knows where Vettel could have finished without the early retirement, Bourdais did score 1 point but Toro Rosso could’ve had much more. Both Force India and Super Aguri had bad weekends with their respective drivers all having early exits.
Renault had a race of mixed fortunes, Alonso showing that he’ll be a contender for "best of the rest", but Piquet not looking good at all. He seemed really easy to overtake and to top it off had to retire. And yes, with Kubica and Heidfelds performance I now rank BMW as one of the top teams. While Kubica was fueled low he wasn’t really that low compared to Hamilton, and would’ve been well up there without Nakajima driving into the rear of his car.
Honda is the surprise of the weekend, looking like they weren’t going anywhere through winter testing but looking to be there in the pace with Renault, Williams, Red Bull and Toyota. Still not near perfect though, Button retiring at the start and Barrichello doing a combined Albers, Nakajima and Massa, exiting the pits without the fuel hose fully released and mowing down one of the pit crew
in the process, and then exiting the pits against red lights. It would be really surprising if he isn’t disqualified, considering Massa and Fisichella both we’re when they exited against reds in Canada 2007.
A disappointing weekend for Red Bull, with Webber’s race ending before it really began and Coulthard getting nudged off and out by Massa. It seems like they have very good pace though, and if the Gearbox issues from last year have been solved they’ll be contenders for the positions behind the three top teams.
Toyota looked like, well, Toyota. Trulli keeps on being Trulli and Glock doing some impressive rally-style jumps and retiring in the process. Seems like they’ve made some progress though, with both drivers qualifying in the top ten but then retiring in the race.
Finally, what a great race and weekend for Hamilton. Great driving and good timing on the last safety car, and Hamilton did what was expected of him and won. Looks like Kovalainen is not at all far off Hamilton’s pace though, Lewis will have his hands full with keeping his teammate at bay as the season progresses.
Gman said on 16th March 2008, 7:36
Great race to start the season, and quite interesting for a first-time viewer!! I was very happy to see Williams make the podium in the first race, and hopefully they will continue to build on that performance as the year continues.
I can’t wait for the next round, although the time difference will make it a bit tough on those of us along the eastern seaboard of the U.S.. In any event, great first race for me.