Max Verstappen says he would have turned off the TV during the broadcast of the Australian Grand Prix
The Melbourne Grand Prix Circuit featured 5 on-track pass following the first lap of racing. That’s through the entire field during the opening round of the Formula One World Championship
In the closing 10-lap stint, Mercedes made a mistake that put the team behind Vettel following a pit stop. They couldn’t do much about it, Vettel just happened to luck into the virtual safety car, slowing Hamliton on the track as Vettel made his pit stop. The advantage was given to Ferrari at pit exit.
When they went back green, the faster Mercedes car couldn’t find a way around Vettel. In fact, he burned his tires clear off the car while aggressively racing in the dirty air.
“Completely worthless. I would have turned off the TV. Very boring,” Max Verstappen told the media following the Australian Grand Prix.
“You do your best to try something, and I was in DRS range all the time, but there is nothing you can do.”
You might be quick to assume that Melbourne is just another F1 circuit that flat isn’t setup for great racing. Monaco is the prime example of that. The sea-side circuit shouldn’t be a race track yet it’s still adored by the fans.
Verstappen says it’s the cars. The Red Bull driver dropped behind the car of Kevin Magnussen on the start and was stuck there for the duration of the race, until Magnussen had issues.
“The Haas team were a second slower than the Ferraris. They were just lucky that they came in front of us,” said Verstappen.
“And here you can’t overtake. Look at Hamilton and Vettel. And the same story with Alonso.”
“They were also much slower, but you can’t pass them. You try, but it doesn’t make any difference.”
“Even if you are one and a half second faster, it’s still not possible to overtake.”
The FIA knew all of these things were going to happen. They planned accordingly by adding a shiny new Drag Reduction Zone. A third zone, an addition from the 2017 event.
“Won’t help,” Verstappen said of the DRS addition. “It is more down to the cars, because there used to be no problem with overtaking.”
In other F1 news
Some of you might have been surprised to find the 2018 F1 Grand Prix on a new network. ESPN leased the rights to F1 in America. The Australian Grand Prix was their first showing.
There were a few bugs to work out of the system.
“We deeply apologise to Formula One fans for the technical issues that caused them to miss the first 20 minutes of the pre-race show for the Australian Grand Prix,” said ESPN in a statement.
“We are sorry that our first F1 telecast did not go as smoothly as we would have liked but we are taking steps to prevent those same issues from occurring in the future. We thank the fans for watching and for their incredible passion for Formula One.”
ESPN isn’t using their own broadcasters for the coverage. Instead, the broadcast team comes as a mirrored production of SkySports F1 from Britain.
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