Melbourne Saturday in analysis: What is Red Bull’s real problem?

• oldest first
• latest first

• 8
• 16
• 32

In Melbourne, it’s already past 10:30 PM, and with that, today’s Saturday ends here. On our portal, things will naturally continue a bit, but we’re closing our ticker for now.

Finally, a reminder about the big daily analysis by Kevin Scheuren and Christian Nimmervoll. For about an hour, the two discussed the following topics:

-Red Bull problems
-Mercedes
-Fernando Alonso
-Ferrari breakdown
-Nico Hülkenberg
-F1-AI ChatGP
-Longrun data analysis
-Questions from channel members

Tomorrow you won’t have to get up quite so early; the race start is “only” at 07:00 AM our time. We will, of course, report back here in good time with a new ticker for “Raceday”.

Have a nice Saturday, enjoy our analysis, and see you tomorrow!

Read more Mexico Friday in the analysis: We explain the penalty against Red Bull!

Carlos Sainz and Pierre Gasly each secured their first victory in the internal qualifying duel against their respective teammates today. This means only five drivers now have a “clean slate”.

George Russell, Fernando Alonso, Nico Hülkenberg, Yuki Tsunoda, and Alexander Albon each lead 3:0 after today. What’s particularly astonishing is that from Lewis Hamilton’s perspective at Mercedes, the score is 0:3.

An overview of all qualifying and race duels of the 2023 season can be found here!

Ingo wants to know, regarding McLaren’s weak start to the season: “Couldn’t McLaren just take last year’s car? They were faster then.”

No, that’s not possible because the Technical Regulations have changed this year. For example, the rules for the underbody were adjusted for 2023.

Apart from that, it’s also not true that McLaren was faster last year. Lando Norris did finish P4 in qualifying in Melbourne in 2022.

However, he drove a 1:18.703 back then, while today he only finished 13th, but with a 1:18.119, he was also more than half a second faster than last year.

For the sake of completeness: Sergio Perez has received a special permit and is therefore allowed to participate in the race. This was necessary because he did not set a lap time in Q1 and thus missed the 107 percent mark.

Officially, he was not qualified for the race. However, the starting permission was, of course, still just a formality because Perez had been fast enough the weekend before. But we want to at least mention it.

… David Coulthard won the 2001 Brazilian Grand Prix. Also on the podium back then was a certain Nick Heidfeld, who was to secure his first of a total of 13 podium finishes in Formula 1.

This makes the German to this day the Formula 1 driver with the most podium finishes without ever having won a race. For that, “Quick Nick” had some pretty prominent teammates in his career …

Photo gallery: Heidfeld’s teammates: “Natural talent” Räikkönen, Vettel underestimated

“I don’t want to settle for 13th or 12th place, so I’m potentially overdriving the car a bit,” admits the Briton, explaining: “I haven’t found the rhythm I want yet and I don’t know exactly where the limit is in every corner.”

“Therefore, I’m probably not driving at the level I expect from myself,” says the McLaren driver, who also emphasizes: “The car is also difficult to drive, so you can easily go over the limit with it.”

And if you combine both, then mistakes like today’s in qualifying in Melbourne would result. “I ended up where I deserved to be,” says Norris.

His complete statements can be found here!

… is available here again in the video. It was “an incredibly great lap from Max,” praises Helmut Marko on ‘ServusTV’. And the first pole for Red Bull in Australia in ten years!

It’s no April Fool’s joke that Red Bull secured their third pole position in the third race of the season today. “Under normal circumstances, they must have both cars on the front row,” clarifies Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff.

And even in the long runs, the Bulls were “quite dominant.” Nevertheless, he emphasizes: “It is our duty and that of the teams trying to chase Red Bull to do our best to put on a good show.”

“That’s the great thing about this sport, that you just never give up,” says Wolff, adding: “You can have a bad race weekend or a bad season, but there are also moments when you are just happy.”

Let’s see what Mercedes can still do tomorrow.

If you watched our livestream today, then you already know: The Artificial Intelligence that is supposed to compete in Formula 1 from 2024 onwards was, of course, just something we made up! It’s our April Fool’s joke this year.

But the idea is actually quite nice, isn’t it? 😉

Read more Max Verstappen on Formula 1 future: “I could stop at any time, but …”

We already reported here in the ticker on Thursday that Michael Masi is also in the paddock this weekend. The former Formula 1 race director is now chairman of the Supercars Commission.

And because the Supercars are racing as part of the support program this weekend, Masi is also on site. “It was fantastic to be back as a guest of the FIA and Formula 1,” Masi reveals.

“It’s nice to meet so many good friends and see so many people, including my old team at the FIA,” says Masi. However, there was no discussion with Lewis Hamilton or Toto Wolff.

Both had already emphasized in the past that they had no interest in it. And Hamilton made that clear again this weekend when asked.

The Spaniard doesn’t buy it from Mercedes when they talk about a big crisis. “If you read their comments, their car doesn’t even seem good enough for Q3,” he smiles.

“But I don’t think it’s that bad,” he clarifies. The W14 may “not be as good as the Red Bull,” says Alonso. “But they are getting better and will soon be a candidate for victories,” he suspects.

Mercedes also won a race in 2022 “after a very bad start,” Alonso recalls. And they have the potential for that again this year. We are curious …

The FIA scales are a recurring annoyance for many drivers. Drivers are pulled out during the session and have to take a detour via the scales, which regularly leads to the timing being off.

Today, Yuki Tsunoda was the “victim.” He reports: “Qualifying was good. […] For Q2, we had planned two push laps, but unfortunately, the scales prevented me from completing my second lap.”

“Considering I only had one flying lap, I’m satisfied,” says the Japanese driver, who finished P12 and is now aiming for points. Teammate Nyck de Vries also made it into Q2 in his Melbourne debut.

“It was a positive session,” he reports after P15, admitting, however, that his last lap was not optimal because the tires had not been warmed up well enough. Overall, however, he was still satisfied.

The rookie also hopes for points tomorrow.

As always, Pirelli has ventured a small preview of the race and explains that a one-stopper should be the fastest option on paper tomorrow. The fastest option should be Medium-Hard, Soft-Hard should also be possible, albeit a bit slower.

“This confirms the decision to bring the C4 this year,” Mario Isola says, satisfied. Last year, Pirelli had offered the C5 tire, but it turned out to be too soft for the track and played no role in the race.

Thanks to the C4, there will be more options tomorrow than a year ago, says Isola. A two-stop strategy, using all three compounds, is also not ruled out, according to Pirelli.

At least that’s what Andrew Shovlin says, who reminds: “Max has shown incredible pace in both races so far. If that continues tomorrow, he will be able to save the tires and build a lead at the same time.”

Mercedes’ opponents are therefore Ferrari and Aston Martin. “And if we can stay ahead of them, we can be very satisfied,” emphasizes Shovlin, who explains that today’s result is “above our own expectations.”

He adds: “The softer [tire] compounds seem very vulnerable in the cool conditions. We tried to develop a setup that saves the tires in the race. Tomorrow we will find out if we succeeded.”

And if Verstappen (like last year) were to retire, then Mercedes might still be a candidate for victory tomorrow …

Alfa Romeo was the only team that lost both cars in Q1 today. Zhou finished P17, Bottas was even second to last in 19th. The Finn wonders and explains that he had “a bit too much understeer.”

“But it didn’t feel like that would cost half a second or so,” he ponders, explaining that he was “not entirely sure” why they performed so poorly today.

“I had some traffic, which accounts for a few tenths – but not half a second,” he shrugs. Because actually, they should have been able to fight for a spot in Q3 today. But that was clearly not the case.

The lap felt much better than the lap time suggests, Bottas emphasizes. Alfa Romeo apparently has some work to do.

The rookie already showed good potential recently in Saudi Arabia. However, his error rate in qualifying there was too high. And today, a mistake again cost him a spot in Q2.

He was on a lap that “definitely would have been good enough for Q2,” he reports himself. However, he made a mistake in the last sector and thus only finished P18 in qualifying.

“We will see better results once I put everything together,” the rookie explains self-critically, also recalling that he had to miss the entire FP2 on Friday due to a problem.

The lack of practice time certainly didn’t help.

Read more Tech3 Rider: Günther Steiner pursues this plan for 2027