THE 2018 Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix was a cracker, with a big crowd and compelling racing across the board making for a great event.

Tackling the Adelaide 500 and the Grand Prix in the space of a fortnight makes for an interesting study into how vastly different the two events are.

Adelaide is non-stop action; there’s always something on track and then there’s always something off it, too. It’s a hot hive of activity which runs late into the night thanks to the concerts every evening.

The Grand Prix is so very different. It starts later and the day unfolds more gradually thanks to the FIA’s mandated buffer periods between Formula One sessions and everything else – that, and about four less on track categories.

Still, the differences make for two unique and contrasting events that are absolutely worth visiting.

Here’s how The Race Torque saw some of the more memorable moments from a weekend in the Sporting Capital of Australia.

HITS:

SUPERCARS LONGER RACES

THE 12-lap sprints weren’t thrilling, but the combination of 25-lap races, soft tyre and compulsory pit stops made for compelling racing. The mix of strategies between those who stopped early – looking for track position later in the race – and those who had fresh rubber at the end made for a good show in both longer races.

Next year, schedule permitting, the format should be four 25-lap races mirroring the same format this weekend because it’s hard to argue that its not the best Supercars show we’ve seen at Albert Park; a track not known for producing great races there.

F1 IN MAX ATTACK MODE

DEBATE the existence of Mercedes’ ‘Party Mode’ all you like, the current specification Formula 1 cars in qualifying trim are, frankly, astonishing. With more than 1000hp, sticky tyres and all of the aero in the world F1 cars are back rightfully as the fastest things man makes to attack a single lap.

Hamilton’s breathtaking pole position lap makes for compelling television, with the car on a knife’s edge between going really quickly.. or going really quickly into a nearby fence. For all of the issues around the Hybrid powertrains, their effectiveness in qualy trim is the best possible advertisement in the world for the technology. If only the cars raced with that verve, F1 would go a long way to recovering its lusture as the absolute ultimate in motor sport endevour.

Oh, and while they don’t sound ‘nice’, they’re definitely louder and more aggressive this year than in the past. While they’ll never compete with the glorious wail of the Cosworth V10 in the Minardi, at least you need to raise a voice to talk when the cars past unlike in previous years.

RACE OFFICIALS

WELL played Race Control.

As always, TV did not do justice to how dark and gloomy Albert Park was when the Supercars raced towards the conclusion of Saturday’s second race and there would have been every legitimate reason to call the race early on account of light; or lack thereoff.

It was properly dark in Melbourne when that race finished and if you weren’t there you probably can’t grasp how tricky the conditions were. Yes, the sun was poking through out towards the West, behind the weather front that brought the rain, but over Albert Park the heavy clouds loomed low and artificial light was the dominant source of illumination – not that there’s much of that around the circuit.

The rain that fell wasn’t high in volume but the drops were heavy and for a brief moment it was hard; hard enough for the fastest of settings on a road car’s wipers, for example.

As you can tell, there was every reason to call the race and the cynical amongst us would have probably expected it to occur.

But full credit to those in charge, they preserved, trusted their drivers to do the job and what resulted was the most spectacular Supercars show we’ve yet seen at Albert Park.

It was a superb, superb show.

SCOTT PYE

HE has been through a lot on and off the track, but Scott Pye’s efforts to hold out the seven-time champion in race five were remarkable.

In fading light, wet conditions and for a team that hadn’t won in eighteen months the Adelaide driver was resolute and inch-perfect in the defense of his race lead. That it would occur at an event that just so happened to have Zak Brown, a new co-owner of the Walkinshaw Andretti United enterprise, on hand and in the garage and watching was even more apt.

There’s a lot of water to go under the bridge yet, but it’s likely that Saturday evening performance will be one of the story lines of the season.

CRAIG BAIRD

Knocked off a three-time Formula One race winner and also a three-time LeMans winner in not one, but two Australian GT races and smoked the track record in the process. Still got it.

DALE WOOD

UNLUCKY to be removed fr0m the lead of the final race of the Porsche Wilson Security Carrera Cup Australia weekend when he was set to take a round victory, but the Supercars refugee has excelled on his full-time Porsche debut this season.

A first-up win in Adelaide was followed by three more this weekend in Melbourne until he was carted off the road. He recovered enough points to still score second for the weekend and also holds second in the standings heading into the next round at Phillip Island.

It’s early days but Wood looks to be Jaxon Evans’ closest title rival so far.

RAAF FLYOVERS

The annual FA/18 Hornet display at Albert Park each year is always a highlight, as is watching all of the Europeans come out of their offices in the TV compound to watch it. Then the C17 Globemaster lobbing over at the National Anthem at absolute zero altitude was mind blowing. Well played to our boys and girls of the air.

MISSES:

We’ll start with the obvious one and no, we can’t move on from this just yet.

THE HALO:

WHILE its introduction may not be a catastrophe in the sense of a major earthquake, the first weekend of a Halo-filled Formula one world was certainly not a world of positive publicity for the sport.

The device was openly mocked by several key networks and broadcasting talent, with Martin Brundle telling FOX Sports Australia that ‘It was the ugliest thing in a Formula 1 car since I last got in one,” as one such example.

Social media and even the Herald Sun’s daily newspaper cartoon openly mocked its introduction.

There was even a mini-spat amongst teams with McLaren reportedly unhappy at Force India’s last-minute deal with footwear brand, Havaianas, having earlier signed their own Halo sponsorship deal with a flipflop manufacturer.

Perhaps the most outstandingly inept part of it’s whole introduction was the fact that it almost completely blocks any meaningful use of the on-board camera located to the side of the driver – almost completely filling the forward vision so any cars in front are rendered invisible.

How did the FIA and Formula One – what with their highly publicised revamp of the world feed production – manage to miss that one?

Perhaps more time should have been spent playing with camera positions than new blockbuster movie-style theme tunes (which, ironically, we really liked).

We get the Safety issue – we really do. But F1 is supposed to be gladiatorial, sexy, extreme and yes, even slightly dangerous. Sure by the end of the weekend I could look past the Halo to the car underneath and within two years there will almost certainly be a more elegant solution to this issue – but there had to be better ways of introducing head protection than what we saw on the weekend.

DAN’S PENALTY:

IT is impossible to argue with the penalty Dan Ricciardo was hit with on Friday evening; He broke the published regulations and was justifiably penalised.

However it exposed another flaw in needlessly over-complicated regulations that make the sport indecipherable to the causal fans, let alone those who follow it with more verve than most.

Again, we’re not suggesting that enforcing that drivers go slowly under a red flag is a bad thing; but three grid spots for that infraction seems to be a remarkably harsh penalty and adds more confusion to an already confusing sport.

And while Liberty and the FIA say they’re singing to the same hym sheet, it’s this kind of stuff, even removing the Aussie parochialism, that hurts the ‘show’ aspect that the sport is looking to improve.

AUSSIE GT

THE UNIQUE nature of the Grand Prix’s TV deal means that, unlike all Supercar rounds, not every support race is shown. Some categories only get one chance to strut their stuff to the national audience the AGP delivers and in Australian GT’s case, it was their time on Saturday.

Unfortunately for the second straight year, their TV race was marred by a lengthy Safety Car following a crash by an Audi.

Yes the conditions were incredibly wet and yes there’s often little you can do – but it’s a shame a good field was unable to properly strut their stuff in front of what will probably be their biggest TV audience of the year – especially given the likes of Giancarlo Fisichella and Marcel Fassler were on the grid.

I feel for those on the GT grid who didn’t get the chance to show how good the cars and drivers can be for a second time this year.

WILLIAMS

A personal one here; it is so very sad to see the state in which Williams Grand Prix enters the 2018 season. When Formula 1 first came to Albert Park, they were the benchmark. 20 years later they were in the bottom three slowest cars there, and have resorted to a pair of pay drivers (as capable as Lance Stroll and the new Russian may well be) to top up their budget.

Formula 1 is Williams and Williams is Formula 1. They are inseparable and the sport is poorer for the team producing results as poor as they are right now. Here’s hoping Paddy Lowe can turn around their technical fortunes and they can go back to the point where they should be.

WORDS: Richard Craill
IMAGE: Mobil 1 Boost Mobile Racing / Hot Wheels Car Care products.