2015 Australian Grand Prix grid

2015 Australian Grand Prix

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Row 11. Lewis Hamilton 1’26.327
Mercedes
2. Nico Rosberg 1’26.921
Mercedes
Row 23. Felipe Massa 1’27.718
Williams
4. Sebastian Vettel 1’27.757
Ferrari
Row 35. Kimi Raikkonen 1’27.790
Ferrari
6. Daniel Ricciardo 1’28.329
Red Bull
Row 47. Carlos Sainz Jnr 1’28.510
Toro Rosso
8. Romain Grosjean 1’28.560
Lotus
Row 59. Pastor Maldonado 1’29.480
Lotus
10. Felipe Nasr 1’28.800
Sauber
Row 611. Max Verstappen 1’28.868
Toro Rosso
12. Daniil Kvyat 1’29.070
Red Bull
Row 713. Nico Hulkenberg 1’29.208
Force India
14. Sergio Perez 1’29.209
Force India
Row 815. Marcus Ericsson 1’31.376
Sauber
16. Jenson Button 1’31.422
McLaren
Row 917. Kevin Magnussen 1’32.037
McLaren

NB. Valtteri Bottas qualified sixth but will not start the race due to a back injury.

No time:

Will Stevens, Manor
Roberto Merhi, Manor

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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67 comments on “2015 Australian Grand Prix grid”

  1. What a lap!

    1. 39 poles

    2. he is going to catch vettel”s pole record this season

      1. I’d be surprised if he doesn’t at least match Senna’s victory tally (while surpassing Vettel’s) too.

  2. Good show by Ferrari
    Evenly matched teammates. If I were a betting man would put my money on Ferrari for a podium likely RAI. Itvwull be a battle of attrition and I expect ROS to not likely finish the race. Exciting battle ahead.

    1. Sainz 1 – 0 vestappen
      Vettel 1 – 0 Raikkonnen
      Ricciardo 1 – 0 Kyviat

      1. Wait for race results !

    2. Why would Rosberg not finish the race? The Merc has run so smooth all pre-season…

      But Rosberg crashing out Lewis and Vettel winning his first race in a Ferrari followed by Kimi and Massa would be great…

      1. I think that both Mercs and Ferraris taking each other out would be even better!

  3. This season is going to be very interesting indeed! Can’t wait for McLaren vs. Manor in Malaysia! Will be the battle of the season!

    1. You broke my sarcasm detector!

      1. it’s not that much sarcastic afterall…

    2. You made my day

    3. And Manor with the livery McLaren was suppose to change – Red-White

  4. Confirmed: Hamilton will win the championship at least 3 races before the end.

    1. Its just the first qualifying. What a conclusion.

      1. And people have been saying it before the season started, so what difference does qualifying makes?

    2. Yep. I had Mexico as the race he seals his 3rd Championship but being brutally honest they might as well give it to Hamilton now. No way Rosberg has the beating of him over a season.

      I’m growing bored of all this domination. We haven’t had two different teams/drivers battling for the championship since 2012. At least I’ll hopefully have a good scrap between Williams and Ferrari to entertain myself with this year.

  5. Well, Renault did a good job…

    1. Well. Last year, it was still possible to believe that the engine was crap and the chassis was good but this year, both seem crap.

      Seriously, the Toro Rosso seems on par with the Red Bull.

  6. Did Rosberg make a big mistake in sector 1? He lost 6 tenths, yet matched Lewis over the rest of the lap.

    Nonetheless, quite a surprising qualifying. Hamilton destroys Rosberg. Raikkonen matches Vettel. McLaren and Red Bull far worse than expected.

    1. No, Lewis was consistently quicker in the first sector throughout qualifying. No doubt Nico will be up all night on his mac trying to make sense of it all.

    2. How Räikkönen matching Vettel counts as a surprise?

      1. @huhhii
        Vettel had the advantage all weekend long in qualifying mode. Kimi’s final lap was quite a surprise. With that being said, I expect the pair to be evenly matched on race pace.

        1. @huhhii
          Kimi last lap was on New set and Vettel was on Used set mentioned by Sky if Vettel was on fresh set i expect the 1.4 sec gap to P1 reduce atleast by a tenth

          1. But why would Ferrari give used option tires for VET? Sound slightly weird.

          2. Vettel was on new softs too.

          3. @huhhii Tactical Interests, I heard he save it for Sunday.

          4. @HUHHII

            Because he didn’t have new ones left. He used one set in Q1 and he used his last on his first Q3 lap.

          5. They said to save a set of tires for Sunday. Might be for 2nd stop

  7. larry onyekwere
    14th March 2015, 7:10

    from LH Q3 stonking lap time, i am 100% certain that the reason why he hasnt signed a new contract by now must be his obvious demands that his telemetry shouldnt be shared with his team mate. he is in another world

    1. The Sky tv side by side Q3 lap in-car showed lewis in 4th gear to ros in 3rd in the same corner; don’t know about Lewis being ‘in another world’ but he has some craft above Rosberg in his setup. I don’t blame him for wanting to keep his information private.

  8. Dear Lewis, why did you improve your already great lap at the end of Q3? My predicition was a 1:26.400.

    1. @danton205 Isn’t it telling that that is what you care about instead of the actual pole sitter? I was more focused on P1 being around my predicted time rather than the person who was on pole as I already knew that…

    2. I had predicted a 1’26.412, but I had Rosberg on pole.

      1. @paeschli Me too, 1:26.699 though. Didn’t expect them to find that much.

    3. I had Lewis at 1:23.325…why couldn’t he have been 2 hundredths faster! ;)

  9. Oh dear oh dear. McLaren are backmarkers. I feel so sorry for Button and Alonso (and Magnussen to a lesser degree). Oh no.

    It’s very good to see the Ferraris and Williams right in there, but I can’t help but feel that Alonso made an incredibly bad decision. The Ferrari is looking the best it has been for years, and the McLaren is right at the back. I do feel very sorry for him at the moment.

    1. Oh and Felipe Massa once more proves just how good he really is.

      1. @strontiumI do think Vettel (Bad S1) and Bottas (Last corner) could’ve been ahead… But mistakes are a part of the sport and those who don’t make them earn the positions aswell.

    2. I feel bad letting the comment section influence my race predictions. I put Bottas in my top 5 instead of Massa.

    3. Alonso is this year’s Maldonado.

    4. Come on, you’re exaggerating about Ferrari being the best in years… I think you must remember that between 2010 and 2013, the difference between the top team (RBR) and Ferrari wasn’t as big as it is now, in 2015, and they even won races every year. The big disappointment was 2014 indeed. 2015 looks better at the moment, but only that they don’t seem to be like the 3rd-5th team on the grid (depending on the race). But they’re still very far from the top team (at least 1 sec deficit?!) and the way things look so far a victory seems out of reach for 2015 too… unless both Mercedes cars DNF. So, in my opinion, at the moment, Ferrari – performance wise – still is in worse shape than 2010 -2013!

    5. They said they wouldn’t be competitive until Europe. Are they in Europe yet?

  10. The time difference between the 2 Saubers is incrediblly high.

    1. @danton205 I think we know which one would get the boot if Van der Garde has to race

      1. Yes we do, it would be Nasr because he brings less money to the team:P

        1. Actually, Nasr brings more money than Ericsson.

  11. Joni (@theflyingfinns)
    14th March 2015, 7:15

    Have to say, counted out Felipe a bit, expected Vettel and Bottas ahead of him. A bit disappointed to see the Finns lose to their teammates, although Kimi only lost .033 and gets the “clean” side of the grid, and Valtteri made a mistake, so hopefully next time the positions are reversed :)

    Race will be interesting between Williams & Ferrari, Massa will be hard to overtake with Williams’ straight line speed, so Ferrari’s best chances are the start and pit stops.

    Other notes: Shocked with McLaren being last; surprised with Red Bull not being closer to Williams/Ferrari; props to Sainz, Nasr and Lotuses

    Can’t wait for tomorrow

    1. Massa is a great starter though. I think P3 could be sealed by T3.

    2. I’m more shocked over the 5 second difference more than being last. Even Caterham and Marrusia were about 3-4 second behind last year.
      I get it the engine isn’t at full mode because they are worried over reliability but still how low are they running it to be 5 seconds away? Are they like using only 500-600hp?

  12. Looked like Rosberg schooled by Hamilton, anyway his mistake in S3 are quite unusual though, but that’s great Lap from Hamilton.
    Also Vettel is better than I expected, I wonder how much will Alonso regret about his decision in joining McLaren.

    1. @deongunner Well, the guy does have 4 titles, 39 wins, …

    2. @deongunner

      I wonder how much will Alonso regret about his decision in joining McLaren.

      Ferrari are 2nd/3rd best team right now, about 1-1.5 seconds slower than the fastest team. That’s exactly where they were from 2010-2013. Alonso took a gamble, and it hasn’t paid off (yet).

      1. I can’t see Alonso securing a third world title in the future.

      2. @kingshark 1-1,5s slower than the fastest team? So basically you’re saying Alonso is worth a full second or are you talking about Q only? I do think Alonso is the top driver on the field but the ’12 car wasn’t 1 second slower and neither was the ’10 car…

      3. That’s exactly where they were from 2010-2013

        Really? I think we saw different F1 seasons. Because you’re not saying that ALO got more than one second from his car, isn’t?

        1. @oletros @xtwl
          I know, Ferrari was much closer to Red Bull in 2010 and 2012 than they are to Mercedes now. I was just making a point to those who say that all of the sudden Ferrari have became “much better” again. Actually, they aren’t much better right now than they were in 2011 or 2013.

  13. Well this is a thing that I wasn’t expecting and you dont’ see very much!
    Specially last year…
    https://twitter.com/sebvettelnews/status/576664543872487424

    Hope they can keep this “united team” atmosphere for some time!

    1. The page doesnt exist anymore…. Could you tell what was in that link?

      1. @mjfifan https://twitter.com/sebvettelnews/status/576667472142565376 and https://twitter.com/sebvettelnews/status/576690243585253376

        This would never happen with Alo/Kimi last year! It’s refreshing, but let’s see the rest of the season.

  14. People forever say they want to see the drivers make a difference but I can’t think of a qualifying session where almost all team mates had such large gaps between each other. The lead drivers of each team all produced stonking laps relative to their team mates.

    The exception being Vettel and Kimi. Now were they both great laps or both average?

    1. I think it was largely to do with the wind, and how well the drivers could improvise with the unpredictable conditions. There were falling track temperatures and a strong wind that was giving drivers problems into turns 1, 3 and 15.

      I found this quote pretty interesting: it also potentially suggests that Mercedes’ huge 1.4s advantage was possible an anomaly and other cars may be (around 0.4s?) closer in the coming races:

      Asked how come Mercedes’ superiority had apparently stretched since last year, a senior team member wasn’t convinced that it had. “I think actually a lot of that was just Lewis. The car’s superiority was probably more like how Nico’s lap showed it – maybe around 1sec. Lewis’s was just an amazing lap in those conditions. He’s in the midst of contract negotiations and suddenly you see the difference that calibre of driver can make.”
      http://www.motorsportmagazine.com/f1/reports/2015-australian-grand-prix-report/

      1. @philipgb And as for Vettel and Kimi, I think their laps were probably both quite average (relatively speaking): both drivers said that the Ferrari could have been third. Raikkonen made a mistake at turn 3 and lost about 0.3s, and Vettel said that he wasn’t pleased with himself and that “there was more performance to be found”
        https://www.racefans.net/2015/03/14/raikkonen-and-vettel-believe-third-was-possible-for-ferrari/

  15. Anyone know where I can locate race simultaion timings from the pratice sessions please?

    Been searching far and wide with no luck.

Comments are closed.