2017 Australian Grand Prix team radio notes: Practice

2017 Australian Grand Prix radio notes

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Jolyon Palmer hit the wall, Felipe Massa hit trouble and F1’s newest driver got held up by one of his most experienced rivals.

Here are the highlights of what the drivers had to say during today’s practice sessions.

First practice

Daniil Kvyat reported his car was touching the ground early on.

Kvyat: “What do you think yourself?”
“From our numbers it looks OK but we have to look again.”
Kvyat: “A lot of chattering, scrubbing.”
“OK maybe a bit of the rear pushing the front. We are a bit low on rear pressure with the blowers, we have to look at this.”

Hamilton: “Check my boots when I come in.”

Daniel Ricciardo was notified of a minor problem at Red Bull:

“The GPS is intermittent on my side so I’m going to struggle with traffic”.

Stroll: “It’s better to cool this lap, I have traffic.”
“OK, copy that.”

Tyre management advice for Valtteri Bottas.

“Watch those tyre temperatures. It’s going to be the right-front.”

Sainz: “A bit too much on the nose mid-corner. Stability is good.”

“Verstappen: “I keep losing sync of the gears.”
“Understood, Max.”

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Vandoorne had a reminder about his about engine settings:

“Timed laps in yellow G4.”

“Would you like another go?”
Verstappen: “The tyres start to drop off quite a bit now.”
“Happy to box?”
“Yep.”

Sebastian Vettel reported a possible MGU-K problem at the end of the first session:

Vettel: “There seems to be some issue with the K.”
“OK turbo two, we’ll look into it.”
“No issues with the K now from our side”
Vettel: “Button is full surge, issues under braking and pick-up.”
“OK, slow down and box.”

Verstappen received information on his rivals’ lap times.

“For info first lap for Bottas, ultra-soft high fuel, 28.4. Daniel [Ricciardo] 29.2.”

“Handbrake is latched.”
Perez: “Yes, don’t worry I need this.”
“Checo we see you’re already working to help he front-left in high-speed. This is where the front-left and rear-left is suffering, high-speed.”

Romain Grosjean was held up by Hamilton during the Virtual Safety Car test:

Grosjean: “OK I guess we don’t have the right to overtake cars, correct?”
“Yeah you shouldn’t overtake.”
Grosjean: “Lewis is very slow so I’m asking is on the right of the car…”
“Yes.”
Grosjean: “Just ask Charlie [Whiting] what we do.”

Second practice

Magnussen had a frustrating second session
Kevin Magnussen was improving his technique in some of the quicker corners when he hit trouble.

Magnussen: “How much is it in the last sector?”
“Four-tenths in the last sector, it’s more the last corner, honestly. Turn 11/12 as well.”
“You improve massively the second sector, it was corner nine-ten, much better, very good. Eleven-twelve getting there.”
“Slow down and box, we can still shift.”

More traffic problems for Stroll, this time involving a world champion.

Stroll: “I got blocked by Raikkonen”

Raikkonen: “Stroll is going slowly, or he’s not going slowly?”
“Now he’s pushing now, sorry, my mistake. Apologies with Stroll, Kimi. He ended up boxing that lap anyway. Don’t know what he was doing.”

“Just need to be careful with catching the left clutch paddle on lock by the looks of it. Turn four, last lap.”
Stroll: “No it was a bump, it wasn’t the clutch. Or maybe because of the bump my knee hit the clutch.”

Jolyon Palmer only did six laps in the first practice session due to a car problem, then crashed early in the second session:

To Palmer: “Loss is under braking everywhere, as to be expected with the limited mileage.”

To Verstappen: “Max, Palmer has been exceptionally slow on his slow lap. You’ll see him coming through, track clear behind.”

Palmer crashes.

“Are you OK, Jo?”
Palmer: “Yep, fine.”

“Big shunt, Palmer. Box if you can.”
Verstappen: “I couldn’t box, mate.”
“OK, bright it around. Red flag, Max.”

An electric problem halted Felipe Massa.

Massa: “Engine’s off.”
“OK, understood.”

Grosjean went off twice during the session. This occurred after he locked a brake at turn three.

Grosjean: “OK I’m in the gravel, coming back out. Can you check where I braked?”

“Keep an eye on the dash for the tyres, Danny.
Kvyat: “Yeah unfortunately not much I can do.”
“OK, OK.”

“Checo current pace on lap five and six similar to the Toro Rossos. They have been able to lap faster, they’ve done one or two laps up to eight-tenths quicker but general pace now is very similar. You’re generally three or four tenths quicker than Grosjean.”

Max Verstappen went off at the high-speed turn 12.

Vandoorne is told: “Could be stones on track, turn 12, take care.”
“Update on tyres and balance when you can.”
Sainz: “Quite towards oversteer a lot of the time.”

Magnnusen’s frustrations continued.

“Mode push, mode push. Box, box, box.”
Magnussen: “OK, box now.”Q
“Sorry Kev. OK stop on the marks. I think we have again the same issue.”

Stroll: “Rears going away massively.”

Vettel: “There is a bollard on the track, entry of turn 16.”

2017 Australian Grand Prix

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Author information

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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10 comments on “2017 Australian Grand Prix team radio notes: Practice”

  1. Awesome!

    Quite a lot of transcripts already, out of curiosity @keithcollantine is it easier this year to get this sort of info?

    1. @johnmilk This isn’t a full transcript of everything which was broadcast, just the most interesting exchanges I noted during the two sessions. It seemed like there was a lot more chatter in the second one.

      1. @keithcollantine I haven’t seen the sessions live yet, was trying to understand if Liberty is broadcasting more things compared to last year, and since you have posted it already I fell under the impression that was the case as we only saw this at the end of the weekend and there was barely no communications in the FPs

  2. Like this, can’t remember if you did it last season but it’s super useful and concise.

    1. Nope, this is new :-)

      1. This is very good info, thank You, more of that, please, Keith:-)

  3. What was up with Hamilton’s boots? Couldn’t he check them himself?!
    Two left boots? Wrong race number displayed on right boot? Had Bottas filled them with something?
    It’s all questions and no answers on the first day of a new season…

    1. He was probably talking of his wheels

    2. For whatever reason, he boxed, and changed his driving shoes. Was shown in a clip during FP1.

  4. I like these condensed immediately after session highlights articles much more than waiting a day or two for the full transcripts. Keep up the good work Keith and team.

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