2013 FORMULA 1 ROLEX AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX

PRERACE
21/10/13 Round 1: 2013 FORMULA 1 ROLEX AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX: The inaugural race of not only the 2013 season and for Mercedes driver, Midnight LMR. But also for the LMR Mercedes AMG Petronas team as a whole. The team will be looking to get a good placement and set off their season well.



QUALIFYING
Going into qualifying the Mercedes team, along with its test driver, II Alex P II of FORCE INDIA looked very strong. The drivers had narrowed down the setups and had many practice races and qualifying runs during the week leading up to the race. James and Alex had several times in the high 1.24.s and Chris had been preparing to run a different strategy, to qualify on the harder Prime tires for a longer first stint and a two stop race rather than a three stop which is what most of the field would be doing. Qualifying looked good throughout as James times continued to quicken throughout the session and Alex ended up on pole. With connection issues and late arrivals, meaning some drivers would end up at the back of the grid due to missing qualifying, Chris made a decisive call and opted to test only his setup and never record a time, therefore starting at the back of the grid that qualified but getitng to chose fresh tires for the race start, a decision that would turn out to be cruicil later on. Qualifying results were Alex on pole, James in 4th and Chris in 10th.



RACE
The race proved to be a more difficult challenge to the LMR-backed trio as James' Mercedes suffered terminal failure after qualifying and was not able to be repaired in time for the start of the race. Now, though Alex qualified on pole, a poor start put him in a bad position on the outside of turn 1 and after a chase through the mad dash, he ended up in the backend of the Ferrari of Fireblade9696, losing his front wing and forcing him to make an uscheduled pitstop for new tires and repairs. Chris' pit strategy put him on a conservative first stint on fresh primes to set him up for the two stop race, but some early opportunities allowed him to catapult up into 5th by the end of the second lap and be right in the middle of a 3-way battle for 3rd between the Ferrari of Fireblade9696 and the RedBull of GT RACER 2012. This was to be a great battle that would last all race and all 3 drivers would change positions multiple times on track and in the pits. Unfortunatly this battle would also mean that Chris would have to drive harder than anticipated and the Mercedes W04 that is notorious for tire wear already, changed the pit strategy.



Final stops and some great defensive driving by Mercedes put Chris in 2 second lead over 4th and 5th place and he began to pull away slowly but conserving the tires all the while. With 8 laps to go the Mercedes driver overshot the high-speed chicane at turns 9/10 and went into the grass losing time but being awarded an off track violation of 10-secs by the stewards. Unfortunalty Chris has lost radio communication with his pit crew and was unaware that the penalty would not be enforced in the end, so this started the sole remaining Mercedes driver on a mad dash to build a 10+ second gap to the Ferrari/RedBull trio behind him. Over the next 6 aps he grew the gap from 2.6s to 10.4s but then the Mercedes tire demon roared its ugly head and in the final 2 laps the W04 became completely undriveable as the works driver fought it all over the track and the RedBull, having shaken off the Ferrari and with much better tires, charged forward. The two cars came down to the final chicane before the front straightaway and the RedBull dived inside, to avoid a collision and thinking that he was going to have to take the off-course penalty anyway, the Mercedes driver ran wide and gave up the corner and the final step on the podium. An unfortunate ending to a very promsing first race but nonetheless the LMR Mercedes AMG team did score its first points of the season. Alex retired around lap 10 with issues to the car.



RESULTS
1st Appleguy201 25 pts
2nd GT RACER 2012 18 pts
3rd Midnight LMR 15 pts
4th Fireblade9696 12 pts
5th ii aM Tooley x 10 pts


CONSTRUCTORS CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS
1st Ferrari       38 pts  
2nd Red Bull    18 pts
3rd Mercedes 15 pts
4th Williams 10 pts
5th Sauber 8 pts
6th Force India 0 pts
7th Mclaren 0 pts
8th Marussia 0pts
9th Caterham 0pts
10th Torro Rosso 0 pts
11th Lotus 0 pts

DRIVERS CHAMPIONSHIP
1st Appleguy201 25 pts
2nd GT RACER 2012 18 pts
3rd Midnight LMR 15 pts
4th Fireblade9696 12 pts
5th ii aM Tooley x 10 pts
6th Manz Like chaz 8 pts
7th Djlandrover
8th IBlueJBBRexI
9th xThEMuFFInM4Nx
10th COOL AND GROOVY
11th Ca5ino Royale
12th: Tsmith97
13th: II Alex P II    0 pts

Not bad guys! Shame about James's bad luck, but you guys have plenty of time to get more honed in for the next round!

Thanks boss, tough day with all the work that went into it. Seems James was not meant to finish a race anywhere today  

Yeah I feel bad for him. He was doing so well in the P1 car before the lag out

I'm gonna write the tech department at Kmart and tell them to let him have better connection next week  

That's what I was thinking

Hey news update:

The FIA has determined that the win by Lotus driver, Joshuaw29elite, has been stripped and the driver has been banned from competition following a long investigation, dubbed Cheat-gate. We won't bother to get into details but basically due to the findings and the impact upon the podium it moves LMR Mercedes AMG driver, Midnight LMR, into 3rd place for Australia so the LMR F1 team scores its first podium in its first event. Great job to both drivers and a great result for the team!

standings updated above to show correct results now