2014 Australian Grand Prix lap times and fastest laps

31 comments on “2014 Australian Grand Prix lap times and fastest laps”

1. 

   Sam (@)
   16th March 2014, 19:06

   I doubt Rosberg was pushing the car. He could easily build a gap to P2 by going fast under his limit.
   1. 

      James (@jimmyd13)
      16th March 2014, 21:10

      His fastest lap was on lap 19, so he was on a very high load of fuel, I reckon he could have done 0.5-1 second quicker if had wanted to extend at around lap 50, but he had no need to and was on medium compound tyres, we have definitely not seen the full power of the Mercedes yet and that seems a bit daunting, if they have even more domination in the bag than Nico showed today, hopefully they can quickly sort out reliability and then they’ll have 2 drivers on the podium.
   2. 

      Nick (@nick101)
      17th March 2014, 9:25

      So tell me, considering the flak that Button constantly get’s about only winning the championship because the Brawn was 1-2 seconds faster than the rest of the field (was never even 7/10ths faster than the field), if Hamilton or Rosberg win the title this year, will their championships also be so easily dismissed?
      1. 

         matt90 (@matt90)
         18th March 2014, 12:27

         Probably depends on more than that.Button had a noticeable drop off after the early domination. Apparently people wanted the winner to spread his best moments through the season, even if overall they still had the same number of highlights and lowlights.
      2. 

         Piero
         18th March 2014, 14:44

         No. Why? Because Hamilton already proved himself without such a huge advantage and Rosberg, if he wins it, will do it against a proved champion like Hamilton.
2. 

   Sam (@)
   16th March 2014, 19:08

   Fastest lap last year by RAI on old tyres (medium I think): 1:29.407
3. 

   Ean (@ean)
   16th March 2014, 19:11

   Daniil Kvyat4th fastest impressive
4. 

   Max Jacobson (@vettel1)
   16th March 2014, 19:15

   20 Sebastian Vettel: Red Bull-Renault – 1’49.947 (+17.469)

   Good job, Seb.
   1. 

      Chris (@tophercheese21)
      16th March 2014, 23:34

      @vettel1
      Considering the terrible shape his car was in, it actually isn’t a bad effort! Haha
5. 

   JamieFranklinF1 (@jamiefranklinf1)
   16th March 2014, 19:22

   37 laps of fuel more than Bottas and still faster, that’s very ominous.
   1. 

      Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
      16th March 2014, 19:33

      @jamiefranklinf1 True, although in terms of weight that’s quite a bit less than last year!
      1. 

         JamieFranklinF1 (@jamiefranklinf1)
         16th March 2014, 19:47

         @KeithCollantine – I had forgotten about that. But still, it works out to about 60 something kilos, which has to make a huge difference.
         1. 

            James Allen (@jamesallen1705)
            16th March 2014, 21:00

            He could have had his gf in the car and still won – a casual Sunday cruise :-)
            1. 

               Palle (@palle)
               16th March 2014, 23:57

               And because of the low noise engines we would have been able to hear her screaming all the way;-)
            2. 

               JKorz
               17th March 2014, 14:21

               Fiance not gf… ;)
               She looks like she enjoys the limelight.
6. 

   evered7 (@evered7)
   16th March 2014, 19:28

   Leaving aside the Mercs, the rest of the field seems close. I am not sure of RB because of the irregularity but Macca, Ferrari, Williams are more or less on the equal front. Macca>Williams>Ferrari by a very small margin. Force India probably ruined the stats by holding back Alonso. I would have liked to see Ricciardo chased by Magnussen followed by Alonso to see who was consistently faster.

   Wonder how much is the benefit of running in clear air this season.
7. 

   Mr win or lose
   16th March 2014, 19:32

   Wow… Rosberg drove the fastest lap of the race as early as lap 19?! That’s really cool. Usually drivers burn off some fuel right after the safetycar 1) to build up a gap and 2) to reduce their fuel load a bit more. In lap 24 or so Rosberg switched to “survival mode”, after which he was unable to improve his laptime. Possibly, if he really wanted, he could have driven somewhere in the 1:30s at the end of the race I think.
8. 

   himmatsj (@himmatsj)
   16th March 2014, 19:33

   Is that really correct? Rosberg FLAP on Lap 19? Man, if true, he could have gone more than a second quicker than that…!
   1. 

      Chad (@chaddy)
      16th March 2014, 19:39

      I guess without pole, he didn’t need to go for the “satisfaction”
9. 

   Neel Jani (@neelv27)
   16th March 2014, 19:39

   What’s interesting is that lap times were steadly dropping and the effect of fuel saving wasn’t as big as I thought. Good to see that.
   1. 

      Neel Jani (@neelv27)
      16th March 2014, 19:39

      steadily ^
   2. 

      Yoshisune (@yobo01)
      16th March 2014, 20:15

      There’s another interesting thing: the fastest lap in the race wasn’t too slow compared to quali pace. Rosberg did a low 1.29 in FP3 and a 1.32 in the race. So that’s roughly three seconds. It’s not a lot, I expected it to be a lot bigger due to fuel saving and reliability worries.
10. 

    Corrado (@)
    16th March 2014, 19:50

    It looks like Alonso’s Ferrari had some speed…. only too late.
11. 

    Bradley Downton (@bradley13)
    16th March 2014, 20:00

    I said to @mathers after the race that it looked to be like Rosberg was running at less than 80% today, this kind of backs that up. He could easily have gone so much quicker and still won by nearly half a minute, and that was only earned over 40 laps!

    This is very ominous, and if it copies over to the other races I just hope both or neither Merc’s finish the race because if it’s just one they’ll win completely unchallenged bar mistakes or issues.
    1. 

       Mathers (@mathers)
       16th March 2014, 20:14

       This shows what you said perfectly, this is very worrying for the rest of the teams, I just hope this track suited the car much more than the rest!
       1. 

          Mr win or lose
          16th March 2014, 20:56

          Albert Park is one of the toughest test for the machinery. The speed differences are usually larger than anywhere else – compare Vettel’s speed advantage in 2011 in Australia to the next race. But that’s probably only true for differences in aerodynamic efficiency. With the current rules, fuel economy is probably the big equalizer and as Albert Park is one of the most fuel-demanding tracks, the performance edge of the Mercedes’ may be even bigger in the next few races.
12. 

    Chris (@tophercheese21)
    16th March 2014, 23:48

    That is some scary pace from the Mercedes! With that kind of speed, I doubt anyone will catch them.

    Hopefully we’ll see Hamilton and Rosberg in close fights for victories.

    Should be a very exciting season.
13. 

    Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
    17th March 2014, 9:35

    Curiously Gian Carlo Minardi has just put his own interpretation of the cars’ performance out in a press release:

    Now it can be useful to analyse the lap times to have a better understanding of the real gap separating the teams’ performance. Rosberg’s Mercedes has been steadily around 1’32’’-1’33’’ low, whereas all other pilots drove around 1’34’’. Just towards the end Fernando Alonso (fifth at finish) drove around 1’32’’ low, getting close to the fastest race lap set by Rosberg (1’32’’478). Surely an encouraging result, even though a correct interpretation is not straightforward: we should know the data about fuel consumption and strategies too. In the current season the learning curve of teams will be very high: therefore, after each race, we can expect substantial evolutions and important adjustments.
    1. 

       US_Peter (@us_peter)
       17th March 2014, 17:27

       I keep trying to remind myself that the learning curve is going to be very steep, especially for the Renault engined teams who’ve done relatively little mileage compared to the likes of Merc and Williams. If not for that fact I would be very worried by Rosberg’s apparent advantage in Melbourne and what it will mean for the racing this season.
14. 

    rob
    17th March 2014, 12:26

    Wow. Schumi did 1.24 a whopping 10 years ago. What awesome progress formula 1 has managed…
15. 

    Ilanin (@ilanin)
    17th March 2014, 19:05

    Something else we can get from this set of times. Subtract the four safety car laps, and then add in another 115.19 to account for Rosberg’s second pit stop, and his average lap time over those 54 racing laps was a 1m 35.075. I suppose I should really add another eight seconds to allow Rosberg to get up to speed after a theoretical non-neutralised pit stop; if so, 1m 35.223s.

    Either way, that’s still faster than Kimi Raikkonen’s average of 1m 36.259s that was good enough for 25 points in 2013.

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