Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Monday, March 19, 2012
Australia has once again openend the F1GP season and overall it was a good couple of days. We've finally been able to get a feel for what the 2012 cars can do - who has made progress over the winter period and who has stood still? It seems that Ferrari have gone backwards and HRT are falling off the tail end of the pit lane.
Mercedes were looking like the big movers, unfortunately a gearbox issue dropped Schumacher out of the race and a late puncture meant Rosberg fell out of a points scoring opener. In the end it was McLaren adn Red Bull at the front, but they look like being challenged by resurgent Williams and Sauber teams.
In terms of medicine and rescue, it was all rather low key in the end. The V8 Supercars got a bit exciting when three cars literally stacked between Turns 3 and 4. Whincup got tipped which triggered a 3 car pile up (Ingall, Reindler, Douglas) with a 4th car sent off to the right (David Wall). It made for an challenging triage for the medical chase car coming up behind, but fortunately none of the drivers were significantly hurt. You can check out several videos on YouTube.
The F1 cars were largely well behaved. There was some bump and grind on the opening lap with a few subsequent mechanical failures. Pastor Maldonado saved up a fairly heavy collision with the wall approaching Turn 6 until the last lap, but again, walked away from the medical centre unscathed.
