Agreed, I'd love to have it in the F1 app to have running throughout the race.


This seems to me to be an obvious solution, McNish was on about this as well, and I agreed with his take on it as soon as he said it.
Having said that, we must also consider the driver is part of the team and it is the team that's being punished.
Do you (or anyone else) know if this has been proposed in the past?

Where's Forza Ferrari? He would have loved this race

He probably exploded with rage.

There's only one word for the 2014 F! - Boring!!!!!

Sadly, on what I've seen so far, I'd have to agree.

Halfway through today's race, I suddenly realised I was actually reading a magazine rather than watching the TV!

Tyre saving, fuel saving, noise abatement. I can see the FIA's point, but I'm not particularly interested in "Formula Toyota Prius"!

Been going to ask this for a couple of weeks especially with Lewis and his 'performance' in the race in Oz.

I think Alonso knows he can't win a championship driving the "cavallino". He has wasted his better years (actually he's still doing that, so that's why I use the present continuous ) in a team unable to give him a decent car.
Despite the fact he never had a competitive car, he managed to finish in a much better position than his car deserved.

I've read something about going to McLaren next season again. The Japaneses want him to drive the car, as they provide the engine. If I were him, I would prefer going to Marussia before going again to McLaren.

How was that then? Apart from the Williams bust--up, the race was pretty uninteresting. As a fan of Hamilton, I'm happy that he won in such a convincing manner compared to his team mate. The Merc is a real best...I just can't fathom why Rosberg had such a tough time in keeping up with Hamilton.

So a great result for Merc. Great result for Hamilton, Rosberg will be happy too. But I can'y help but feel that we just have 2012/1013 style dominance again, just with a different team.

The engine sound or rather lack of it didn't really bother me in Oz but in this race it seemed more noticeable in it's absence. I think because the race was a rather dull affair anyway, it occurred to me that the noise of a screaming engine is indeed part of the overall sensory experience of F1.

Pleased for Hamilton though - very much deserved...

Kinda reminds me...

I wonder how come we didn't have the same spectacle of drivers wrestling cars around the track which we had in Oz?

The Sepang circuit is kind of "flowing" rather than "abrupt" so that might be something to do with it but the first series of corners saw plenty of battles for position and the cars all looked perfectly stable and docile.
I wonder if, despite the teams' best efforts with simulators, it took Oz before they woke up properly or, perhaps, the lack of traction was somewhat unforeseen and the boffins have already been twiddling torque maps for the hybrid engines?

Point being, the Oz race was exciting to watch, regardless of what the cars sounded like, but when you have a fairly sedate race I guess people end up thinking about stuff like the noise in lieu of anything more interesting.

not helped that for the next 7 races we are stuck with the droning tones of Bruno Senna during the practices ..nice chap but not blessed with the interesting stick

As a casual follower of F1 it always amuses me how the sport is constantly mucking about with the rules - different tyres, new brakes, no brakes , less fuel, more fuel, new wings, less wings, large nose, smaller nose, DRS or no DRS, now double points in the last race (!) and now we have the hilarious engine noise change:


What next, the circuits' tarmac is altered because it's the wrong shade of grey?

That's your view!

This is the worst situation ever for F1. Save fuel, tyres and don't drive closer than 2 seconds behind. Don't use too much fuel per lap, wait for energy recovery to rebuild , press this button, press that one. WTF is this playstation?

Yep, that just about sums it up I reckon..

Sound a lot like the turbo era in the 80's.


Sounds like the "grooved" tire era when drivers were obsessed with sticking to the racing line to make a pass.

Perhaps Australia held more interest because it was the first with new cars, but i didn't find the actual racing any different to this one. Fuel saving, tyre saving, dropping back and maintaining a constant gap to the car in front rather than being able to push just turns races into processions. DRS makes every overtaking maneuver look the same and most of the time too easy.

I want to see flat out racing and that surely produces the best spectacle. The noise doesn't bother me we will all get used to that, i am far more concerned with what i am seeing visually.

The noise doesn't bother me one iota and I can appreciate that the engines now are at the very forefront of technology, which is where F1 needs to be. Plus they will be faster than last year within a few races.

However there doesn't detract from the fact that after only two races the initial optimism that the 2014 changes would bring a big shake up to F1, has been replaced with the same sinking feeling of countless years that we're in for yet another dull season.

Come on, we've now reached the stage where we can see the effing petrol gauge for each car.

Strange, as any other sport I'd be excited that a Brit has the chance of the WDC this year, but the sport seems to have completely lost its way.

The danger is that F1 becomes a sprint version of the World Sportscar Championship. I can appreciate the racing as a type of enduro racing where the car is far more important than the driver but that's not the point of F1. I think it's too early to say where we are with these new cars as a lot of teams are being very conservative with their set-ups and strategies. I do think it will settle down and we'll see some better racing as the season goes on. I don't think fuel will be the big factor it has been as the power units get tuned and tweaked.

You have not been able to follow a car closely for at least a couple of decades. Travelling in a cars dirty air has always been a problem. Many a time over the last couple of decades, you were able to catch the car infront, but werent able to overtake it. Thats why they brought in DRS, to allow a car to pass, once they got up close to the car infront.

The race wasnt too bad, true, the first two, possibly three places were fixed after the first lap. However there was some action in the id field. The main talking point was Massa not letting Bottas pass. Funny how much more was made of Vettel than Massa.

For those who have sky, watching Ted interview Claire (?) Williams, was excellent. He didnt let her get away with a wishwashy PR answer, when asked about Massa. She was defiantly squirming and was uncomfortable. Well done Ted!! Need more interviews like this.

Didn't see it but doesn't sound much like TK. He's usually very diplomatic even when trying to get to the truth, a rare commodity in F1 these days. I wonder if TK would have been like that with Dennis or Horner or Domenicali. Actually i can imagine TK going after Stefano and Eric Boulier quite happily, I don't think either intimidate him but RD definitely does and I think CH does a bit too.

I am constantly surprised how much freedom the media, Sky especially, have in the F1 paddock. They appear to be able to wander anywhere and stick their lenses in anyone's face with the exception of the garages.

I agree, its not normally like Ted. It will be interesting if CW gives him another interview in the next race.

The F1 fraternity dont like being pushed into a corner.

Edit - another note on the Massa incident, after the race, one of the race engineers said, that if Bottas was not able to overtake Button, they would have swapped the drivers back. So Massa would have finished ahead of Bottas. However this was not relayed to Massa during the race. No doubt, the team have had words with both drivers, and some ground rules have been/will be laid down.

Edit - Here is the interview

I'm sure the obvious Love-In between Sky & Williams has been noted around the paddock so maybe this was a deliberate attempt to redress the balance and re-establish some journalistic integrity? I have a feeling that now it's apparent that Willaims' resurgence isn't quite to level we expected from pre-season that Sky might distance themselves a bit more and give LH & the RB team more attention again.

Sky have a bigger love with LH. So much so at times its embarrassing to watch.

After the race, when the top three drivers were in the 'waiting room' just before they go out onto the podium, Rosberg and Vettel were talking in German, whilst Lewis just sat there. I think Rosberg has started with the little mind games.

That friendship wont last till the end of the season.

Didn't see that - switched off as soon as the checkered flag fell. That must have been an interesting dynamic.

How dare two people talk in their native tongue?