australian gp

As mentioned last Friday, it was the Australian Grand Prix this last weekend.

I actually found the whole weekend kinda... I dunno, stressful feels like the wrong word, but basically I seemed to have so much to do anyway and then adding in watching all of the practice and qualifying and the race itself meant the weekend was fit to bursting. Plus of course I lost an hour, as mentioned yesterday.

A big part of the problem is that I seem to have found myself with the weekends where I clean my flat aligned with the F1 Grand Prix weekends. I'm pretty sure that last year it was the other way around - the non-flat cleaning weekends were aligned with the F1 GP weekends.

This also has other knock on effects in terms of timing. On flat cleaning weekends I do my food shop on the Friday evening after work, but I hadn't really planned it through properly and did quite a big shop. Usually I'll just get the few essential bits and then use a self-service checkout so it's quick, but this time it wasn't so it was quit elate before I got back.

That then meant that I didn't have the time to watch both Friday practices in the evening, and there was a bit of cascade effect - stuff got pushed back and then other stuff got pushed back. It was all a bit of a mess really.

Anyway, the race itself was okay.

Australia can be a bit hit and miss - sometimes you'll get a great race with all sorts happening, and other times it can be a bit processional. I'd say the race this last weekend was somewhere in between. A few things happened, but it wasn't up there as one of the best ever.

I think also there were hints that these new ideas they've had about the adjustable rear wing (or DRS) and brining KERS back could be a bit of a bust. It's too early to completely write them off, but the anticipation that suddenly they would be overtaking all the time was proven to be something of a false hope.

I dunno - I think the problem is that both are relatively subtle effects and so the impact they have is difficult to notice. In the American Indycar series I understand they have a proper "push-to-pass" button that is a lot clearer and they can press it a limited number of times per race and it's obvious to spectators.

Both KERS and the DRS have graphical displays when you're in car, but it's not like a big light flashes on the car itself. Also, clearly this last weekend even the combo of KERS and DRS isn't that huge an effect. Certainly it seemed to help on a few occasions, but the tussle between Massa and Button showed it's probably not as clear cut as all that.

What seems like it might have the biggest impact is the new tyres - the Sauba cars both managed to go quite a long way on their tyres compared to the front runners, but the fewer pit stops they needed meant they were up in the points.

I'd say if we're going to introduce Mickey Mouse "fixes" instead of addressing the real issue of the car's huge reliance on wing-generated downforce then it should be much clearer and have a more significant impact than the DRS and KERS, like the tyres.