2015 Austrian Grand Prix thread

[AndyL]

The Grosser Preiss von Österreich kicks off tomorrow so here are the session times - back to the "normal" European schedule.

Friday 19 June
Free practice 1 starts: BST 9:00 AM, local (CEST) 10:00 AM
Free practice 2 starts: BST 1:00 PM, local (CEST) 2:00 PM
Saturday 20 June
Free practice 3 starts: BST 10:00 AM, local (CEST) 11:00 AM
Qualifying starts: BST 1:00 PM, local (CEST) 2:00 PM
Sunday 21 June
Race starts: BST 1:00 PM, local (CEST) 2:00 PM

Apparently Alonso and the two Red Bulls are already heading for the back of the grid due to engine penalties. On the positive side for Alonso, he gets a new short-nose aero package on his McLaren.

[Storm]

Vettel faster than Mercs on a qually run where Hamilton made a few mistakes....hmm does that mean we "might" see a different front row tomorrow. nah don't think so.

[steveaki13]

I hope its a better race than we have seen for a while. Been a poor season IMO.

Austria can sometimes offer fun racing because of the layout. Lets hope for some this weekend.

[N4D13]

How many laps has Alonso completed so far? McLaren is starting to look like HRT at any Australian Grand Prix. :-/

[N4D13]

Whoa. Did anyone impede Kimi or did he just pull off a Badoer? :-/

Edit: according to the radio communication, that was a full-fledged Badoer. "How the **** did that happen?"

[steveaki13]

Whoops Kimi.........

Hope he can come through similar to Vettel did.

[AndyL]

Do we know why Kimi pitted early at the end of Q1? Had he messed up his last effort, or was he out of fuel?

[N4D13]

Oh dear, Sainz screwed up royally. He's almost a whole second behind his teammate. That's a shocker, considering that he's been doing great in quali for most of the season.

Edit: he's blamed it on traffic.

[Nitrodaze]

Redbull boss says the problem with the car is 20% chassis and 80% powerhouse. I have some doubt this it the real situation. Normally, the Redbull is usually close to a second ahead of the Toro rosso cars in their hay days. Now the Toro Rosso is as quick, even marginally faster than the Red Bull with both using the same Renault engines. Hence with the chassis at the level of where it use to be ought to see the redbull comfortably ahead of the sister team. I would think this accounts for Adrian Newey not penning the Aerodynamics on this years car. Whichever way you look at it, the chassis problem is more than 20%

[gm99]

Both Merc drivers bin it on their last lap, and they still finish in P1/2...