Australian GP 2018: The Big 3 Battle

The 2018 Australian Grand Prix will be driven on the Albert Park Circuit.
Who will winn the first F1 race of the season on the 25th of March 2018? Will it be  Sebastian Vettel in his Ferrari SF71H or shall 4 times World Championshipleader Lewis Hamilton beat him at this first Formula 1 battle? What will Daniel Riccardo & Max Verstappen of Red Bull achieve in the RB14?

Great time to make a bet on this first grand prix of 2018 see F1 betting odds.

Herewith the last team & drivers releases of the Formula One Testing days.

Mercedes W09

Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport complete over 1,000 laps in 2018 pre-season testing
Date:                              Friday 9 March 2018
Drivers:                          Lewis Hamilton (AM), Valtteri Bottas (PM)
Track:                           Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya
Circuit Length:              4.655 km
Laps Completed:          Valtteri 104, Lewis 97, Total 201
Distance Covered:        Valtteri 484 km, Lewis 452 km, Total 936 km
Best Lap Time:              Valtteri 1:18.825, Lewis 1:19.464

Having completed over 1,000 laps in pre-season testing, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport leaves the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya with a positive feeling and is excited to start the 2018 Formula One season in two weeks’ time.

• Lewis was first behind the wheel today, focusing on race simulation
• Valtteri drove the F1 W09 EQ Power+ this afternoon, gathering important tyre data
• The Mercedes-AMG F1 W09 EQ Power+ completed a total of 1,040 laps or 4,841 km during winter testing
• Mercedes-Benz Power Units today completed a total of 2,309 km

Lewis Hamilton:It’s been a really positive test. We got through everything, reliability has been great. Everyone has been working their backsides off and doing a tremendous job, I’m really proud of the team. We’re happy with the info that we’ve got. Both the car and the track are a lot faster compared to last year’s race here. In my last run during the race simulation today I was doing 1:19s – that’s my qualifying lap time from 2017 every lap. It’s still difficult to know exactly where we are in comparison to Red Bull and Ferrari and we won’t fully know that until we get to the first race. But I feel like we’ve got as much info as we could in order to equip us with the best data to go to the season opener. The preparation has been really good in the time that we had.

Valtteri Bottas: Today was a very good ending to testing. As a team we completed more than 200 laps and I put in more than 100 laps in the afternoon. So that’s very positive and I’m very happy with the progress. Now we need to keep working for the week and a half before we travel to Melbourne. It will be interesting to find out where we will be. We got the Medium and the Hard tyres to work quite well. I think we still have issues with blistering on the softer compounds. Hopefully it will be different in Melbourne, but on the new track surface here in Barcelona we had some difficulties. The team has done a great job over the past two weeks. I really enjoy working with the team and I can’t wait to get racing.

James Allison: Eight days of winter testing is a punishing schedule. All of us out here at the track and those who have supported it back at the factories are feeling the cumulative loss of sleep. But I think we can look back on these two winter tests with some satisfaction, having designed, planned and then executed a very complex series of tests with some competence. The loss of time caused by the inclement weather during the first test is something that Andrew Shovlin and his team were able to nimbly work around and come back with a good programme. We finish winter testing feeling like we’ve explored the car and the tyres. We know that we put a good amount of kilometres onto it without any significant reliability difficulties and feel that we have in the car a good, strong foundation on which to build our 2018 campaign. Both drivers seem to like the car, it responds well to set-up changes and has shown a good turn of speed. I say that with caution because even with all the mileage we’ve done it’s chastening to note that we have not yet come close to completing the full life cycle of core components such as the engine and the control electronics.

Although we make our best efforts to try and figure out our competitive position, we don’t know what the other teams are going to do between now and Melbourne and we don’t really know with full accuracy what they’ve been doing here. So there’s all sorts of reasons to be cautious – but this has been a good winter test. For now we can be content that we’ve managed to deliver that, and we look forward to Melbourne.

Ferrari SF71H

Sebastian Vettel Ferrari SF71H Catalunya Barcelona 2018

On his last day of testing, Vettel completes a trouble-free GP simulation

Montmelò, 8 March –Winter testing has now ended for Seb Vettel. The next time he meets up with the SF71H will be in Melbourne, for free practice at the Australian Grand Prix. The final day of testing for the German champion was given over to a programme that included set-up and tyre evaluation with different fuel loads, the classic race weekend simulation that signs off winter testing for every driver. By the end of the day, Seb had completed no fewer than 188 laps (equivalent to over 875 kilometres,) in all conditions, including a false start test, with other cars on track. His best lap was a 1’17”182, set on the new Hypersoft tyres that are making their debut this season.

“The times on these test days don’t mean much,” repeated Sebastian. “The important thing is that the SF71H has proved to be very strong, allowing us to run all day without any significant problems. We are still working on some things for the first race and it’s not really possible to make any predictions based on the performance of the other teams, because everyone is running a different programme. However, I’m happy for the guys in the team.” It was cloudy and chilly this morning at the Catalunya circuit and then a bit milder in the afternoon, with an average temperature of 15 degrees (28 track temperature) with a few gusts of wind.

Testing ends at Catalunya: 157 laps for Raikkonen

Montmelò, 9 March – The second and final winter test at the Catalunya Circuit has now ended. Today, Kimi Raikkonen was behind the wheel of the SF71H, having recovered, after being indisposed over the past few days. He rattled off 157 laps, the best of them in 1’17”221, set using the Hypersoft tyres. Scuderia Ferrari’s programme included set-up work and a race simulation, running different types of tyre and fuel loads. This was the hottest day of the entire two weeks of testing, with temperatures over 20° and the track around the 37 mark.

“Overall, I feel we have a good package,” was Kimi’s assessment. “For sure the weather at the start of testing wasn’t ideal, but we have finished with a couple of pretty good days. The car gives me a good feeling and, even if there are still a lot of things to improve, its reasonably easy to drive and it reacts to the various set-up changes. However, no one can say where we really are, compared to our rivals. We’ll have a better idea in a couple of weeks in Melbourne and then, in general, after the first few races of the season. I like racing and I can’t wait to start.”

Over the two test sessions, the Scuderia Ferrari drivers covered a total of 929 laps (286 for Kimi and 643 for Sebastian) equivalent to 4324 kilometres.

Red Bull RB14

BARCELONA TEST 2 - DAY 4

Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull RB14 Catalunya Barcelona testing day 1 2018

Daniel Ricciardo brought Aston Martin Red Bull Racing’s pre-season test schedule to a close with the day’s fourth fastest lap of the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, a 1:18.327 set on supersoft tyres. The next stop now for the team is the Honey Badger’s home race weekend in Melbourne, the opening round of the 2018 F1 season, in a little less than a fortnight. And after a productive second week in Barcelona, Daniel admitted that he’s relishing the prospect.

“We had some strong pace in testing at times, but then you see what others are doing and then you’re not sure anymore, but I think we’re looking OK. I think we still have to find a bit of time, we still have things to improve, but I think we are close enough to be in the hunt,” said Daniel. “It’s been a good winter, we did a lot of laps and we’re definitely feeling better about ourselves than we did 12 months ago. For me, I’m glad testing is over, it’s not that exciting, especially when you’re in the middle of a long run on a good bit of fuel! I’m looking forward to Melbourne now, that’s what my sights are set on. I’d love a good result there. We’ll try to come out with strong intentions. I think we can be close and I’m looking forward to a battle.”

Head of Race Engineering Guillaume Rocquelin added: “This week has been extremely productive and it was a similar story today, even though we covered fewer laps than on either of the past two days. In the morning we conducted a lot of aero work and stuck to the medium tyres. In fact, that was the case for most of the day. We made some changes in the afternoon and Daniel had a run on the supersofts later on, and he set an encouraging time on those. Overall, it’s been an excellent week of testing for us and we learned a lot about the RB14. Now we have two weeks to analyse all of that info and act on it before arriving in Melbourne.”

BARCELONA TEST 1 - DAY 4

Max Verstappen brought Aston Martin Red Bull Racing’s first week of pre-season testing to close today in a stop-start session that was again affected by the conditions at the Circuit de Catalunya and by niggling technical issues. In the morning the team opted for limited running on the damp and cold circuit, with Max putting in 18 laps and focusing on short runs and aero testing. With the track drying in the afternoon more aero work was conducted before a mechanical issue affected running. A late spin for Max then saw his day end prematurely.

“Today we didn’t do any performance laps, but when you have conditions such as this, which are not ideal, then it’s best to just focus on making sure everything is working in the way you want and that the data you’re getting correlates to what is happening in the wind tunnel and that’s what we did,” said Max. “We had a couple of little hiccups today and then in the afternoon I had a little moment where I went into the gravel, tried to the reverse but it got stuck. However, I’m quite happy with the car so far, and maybe the second week will show a bit more how we compare against our rivals. I certainly hope it’s a bit sunnier next week.”

Head of Race Engineering Guillaume Rocquelin added: “Not an ideal end to what has been a pretty tricky week. In the early morning the track took a long time to get to a condition where we felt there was any point in running, and then we focused mainly on aero work. We were finally able to run on dry tyres from about 2pm onwards. We had a reliability issue in the afternoon, and Max had a spin, which led to us calling a halt, but the issues we had are easy fixes and in general we’re pretty happy with how the car runs, so now it’s about building on what we have. The real difficulty this week was in not being able to maximise the time available and that was a bit frustrating. However, we are reasonably happy with what the RB14 delivered in its first outing and we now have a bit of time back at base to work on next week’s test, when hopefully the weather conditions will be a bit kinder.”

Let's countdown for the Formula One 2018 season!

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