The Formula 1 teams are ready for the Australian Grand Prix – and if they aren’t, they only have a limited amount of time left.
FOM’s two big Boeing 747 will be loaded this weekend before travelling to The Land Down Under.
Only eight test days pre-season testing have been allowed his year, which is a big contrast to some seasons ago, where testing was unlimited.
Therefore it’s very important for the teams to run as much as possible. The reigning World Champions Mercedes were the best at that; they managed to do almost eight days without interruption. In fact they drove so many laps that they had to swap the drivers, because they got too tired!
The newcomer Haas only did 1/3 of the kilometers that Mercedes did, but they still showed impressive lap times when they ran.
Renault didn’t really have the pace at the early tests, but you will never know what will happen during the season. Who would imagine that Romain Grosjean would be on the podium in 2015 with Lotus?
As an extra joker, the drivers will be allowed to choose their tyre allocation themselves. The rules are so complex that the commentators will surely have a lot of fun explaining them – along with the new qualifying rules. The new rules include a knock-out system where the slowest driver will be eliminated every 90 seconds, before only two drivers will fight for the Pole Position at the end.
But can anyone beat Mercedes?
It looks very unlikely, since they haven’t shown any reliability issues during the tests. But perhaps the new tyre rules can spice things up a little, if Mercedes chooses to run on some of the more conservative tyres while other teams might take an additional pit stop but opt for some of the quicker compounds.
We will know a lot more when the five red lights go out, and the drivers have driven the 58 laps of the Australian Grand Prix.
