[Closed] The F1 2015 thread...

I think LH would need a style makeover to be allowed anywhere near Maranello.

They'd tolerate it if he was winning. Enzo on the other hand....

Anyone done Abu Dhabi? Planning a trip and am looking for hotels, probably not on Yas Island though...

Talk about VW entering F1 (again! 🙂 )

[url= http://www.pitpass.com/53764/Resignation-sparks-VW-F1-speculation ]Pitpass[/url]

Damn - was hoping it was going to be due to somebody else leaving

Just wait a bit, Father time wait waits for no man...

boblo - I reckon squinty would try to pay his way out of that too. 100M for fraud, 10B for the grim reaper...

Given that VW's portfolio includes at least four brands that would love some of the marketing cachet that goes with being an F1 engine supplier, I'd be disappointed to see Audi branding on the cam covers of a VW F1 engine.

Given that VW's portfolio includes at least four brands that would love some of the marketing cachet

Erm, Skoda F1? That [u]would[/u] be disappointing.

It's most likely to be Audi so they could trumpet all the Le Mans wins if they got anywhere.

I can't see Bentley being a marketing triumph; nor VW being 'sporty' enough.

Aren't you forgetting Bugatti, Lamborghini and Porsche being brands they can use?

Skoda F1

Marketing brilliance if they win.

Trumpet all the Audi wins at Le Mans, while showing that Ferrai and Mercedes aren't as good as a Skoda.

Fantastic trashing of other people's brands.

If they win.

It'd be Porsche though wouldn't it?

TBH - they could enter and compete as the VAG Group with brands allover it. Take over from the drinks company and immediately cut out the whinging ****ers.

It would be which ever brand they can make most profit off within in the Middle /Eastern hemisphere shirley?

run the skoda / seat feeder team to the VAG F1! Looks like they might make an entrance after all.

Aren't you forgetting Bugatti, Lamborghini and Porsche...?

Not a bit; but I can't see how potential Bugatti or Lambo owners would have their heads turned by an entry to F1.

Porsche have their own (very successful) race series; what do they gain?

But anyone who might get tingly at the thought of a Seat F1 car may just go and buy a Leon.

They hope.

I can't see how potential Bugatti or Lambo owners would have their heads turned by an entry to F1

igm - Member

It'd be Porsche though wouldn't it?

Porsche have stated on numerous occasions that they prefer to go GT racing as it has more relevance to their road cars than F1. I suppose as both sports veer further into prototype territory the distinction might become irrelevant.

ScottChegg

I can't see how potential Bugatti or Lambo owners would have their heads turned by an entry to F1.

Lamborghini have dabbled with F1 recently, Bugatti have extensive motosports heritage. If either returned to F1 it would be a very big deal. If they were successful it would be huge for either brand. Assuming that's the way VAG wanted to go with the brand. Success in F1 isn't about selling cars next week.

As much as I'd like it to be Bugatti (assuming it isn't all just baseless rumours), it surely has to be either Audi or Porsche. It can't make sense for VAG to run both of those in WEC as well as a F1 campaign, and presumably those are the brands they prefer to have running in high level motorsport.

I'd be disappointed to see Audi branding on the cam covers of a VW F1 engine.

Audi branding on an F1 car, how awful

[img] [/img]

I'd be disappointed to see Audi branding on the cam covers of a VW F1 engine.

To respond to aracer, while there's history with Audi and Grand Prix (but not Formula One, remember), the success and nostalgia bar would be set very high indeed...plus, I'm not mad keen on Audi as a brand.

Lamborghini and Porsche respectively have more recent F1 experience, the latter being a bit of a damp squib back in 1991 with Footwork, nee Arrows. Lamborghini very nearly bagged a partnership with McLaren at the tail end of 1993, but Ron Dennis was lured away by a deal with Peugeot...

If they wish to showcase their hybrid technology, then it would make sense for VW branding on the cam covers.

A damp squib? Maybe the 90s return but in the 80s thr TAG engine was originally developed by Porsche and carried their branding for a while, and that did OK I think. Well if you count race wins and world championship victories as doing OK

It would almost certainly be Audi. Porsche and VW are already established brand leaders in their respective fields all over the world, whereas Audi are (in most markets) third to Mercedes and BMW. As such, VAG seem to be placing heavy emphasis on marketing the AUDI brand (starring roles in almost EVERY Hollywood production) as it has the greatest potential for expansion.

BMW and Mercedes currently hold around 40% of the US luxury market, with AUDI at around 10%, by stealing only 5% from each of BM and Merc, AUDI could double their US sales.

It's going to be all about the numbers and the potential for increased sales. Heritage and prestige will have NOTHING to do with it.

@daffy has hit it on the head.

if VAG decide to return
IF!

meanwhile still now LH contract.... if it was all about more money perhaps it would be nice to see Merc simply say "no" and hire a young F4 star with a famous dad....
😉

Apparently not

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/32506081

Thats an 'unamed' Audi spokesman speaking to the beeb.

Its not the VW board.

Not sure if it rules out there other brands, either

Interesting update by the reliably-fantastic Nigel Roebuck on Martin Whitmarsh.

[url= http://www.motorsportmagazine.com/f1/nigel-newsletter/where-is-whitmarsh-now/ ]Linky[/url]

Agreed, that was a great article. I'll definitely be following Nigel Roebuck from now on..

Think it's fair to say that the new McLaren livery is a tad underwhelming:
[img] :large[/img]

They don't make it easy being one of their fans. CHUCK US A BONE FOR GAWD SAKE!

They only did this redesign because the plain chrome didn't look great on camera - it's just a stop gap isn't it until they get a proper sponsor (or should that be if they do...)

FWIW, I prefer it to the previous 2015 design but it's still pretty uninspired.

Would be better with less red - just too many 'swoopy' bits...

[img] [/img]

Oh... er.. hadn't seen the overhead view. That's really not good, is it (though to be fair, you don't get many overhead shots in the races)

They did well to get a sponsor called 'McLaren'! What are the chances, eh? 😉

They misspelt 'Maclaren'.

[img] [/img]

Hi-res pics...

http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2015/05/06/new-mclaren-livery-for-spanish-grand-prix-revealed/

Think they employed Hispania's old graphic designer?

[img] [/img]

You would think McLaren had more pressing matters that the colour of the paintwork at the moment.

How about getting to the finishing line?

Crazy I know but I've heard that the guys who design the livery aren't the same as the ones who design the car/engine so they managed to come up with the new colour scheme while the others worked to improve the car.

I suppose that the livery guys could help out on the engine but I suspect that painting it black and adding some red flashes (and maybe a pie chart or two) probably wouldn't solve the engine issues.

Separately, is the awful Honda reliability due to a sneaky but clever strategy to design the engine with no compromises for reliability knowing that the rules allow the engine to be freely updated for reliability reasons - eg playing the rules, accepting a crap start to the season but knowing that unlike Renault for example, once they sort reliability, they should have a good engine?

So , i guess now we'll see if there is team orders at Merc about Pole Sitter gets race win....

once again Lewis has no contract -

nice to see the McLarens with the new revised package and "turned up Honda engine" competing in the top 10 - oh no wait....................

Lauda didn't look overly happy about Rosberg out qualifying Hammy.

Long starting straight - good chance of them taking each other out in the first corner I reckon!

lauda has a bit of a bromance with lewis it seems

Oops Alonso

Ferrari challenge, yeah right 2.5 pitstops back (on the 2nd placed merc !!!)

Pitstops MUCH more interesting than the racing! Seems wrong to me. I thought it was about car racing?

it's quite funny that merc are looking to stretch out their first engine to canada and red bull are already on their fourth (without the chocolate pistons 🙂 )

new paint job, same crap car - whats the phrase about cannot polish a turd?
Alonso wont see out the season with them IMHO with some get out clause - end of button's career too and i still feel Ron will get the pish too....

Merc showed just how much they have over the Ferrari when they really need to pull out the stops (even with crappy pitstops), 45seconds between nico and vettel!
Hamilton looked like he was "the depressed, moody, no one loves me" version of himself - girlfriends or contract talks i suspect.

calling it a turd is being nice 😯

they ought to pay the front jack man danger money. I reckon the rear guy gets the easy job 🙂

The lotus man certainly showed commitment.. Rosberg had plenty in hand .. Hamilton is getting better in the interviews when he loses but the team made it harder but not the main reason he finished second.
Cant wait for monaco.. there should be some fisticuffs I suspect.

would lewis have beat nico on a 3 stop strategy if he hadn't got stuck behind vettel on the first stint ? would have been a close run thing

Merc need to sort out LHs pitstops.

I would have liked it if Mercedes had allowed Hamilton to catch up with Rosberg in his final stint there, even if it was ultimately pointless! 🙂

I'm at a loss to understand the McLaren. The aero package is actually quite good, remember they're running less downforce to reduce drag and thus flatter the engine compared to the competition. In slow corners, it doesn't want for mechanical grip (as evidenced in the slower corners of Bahrain and Malaysia), how the heck have they got it so wrong in Barcelona?

Power delivery and driveability have taken a backwards step.

My theory on the Honda engine is that they deliberately designed it with very little consideration for reliability - with the designs being so locked down but the rules allowing for changes for reliability or driveability, it does make sense to make a potentially powerful engine that you can then upgrade within the rules through the year so that it's hopefully on a par if not better than the Merc in the longer term.

Of course, that only works if you are willing to take a lot of pain until that point as the engine either has no power, poor reliability or both. And if you read up on how the hybrid engines work, you'll see that improving it can make massive steps as all the systems feed off eachother - if the IC engine is down on power then the energy recovery systems have to waste energy on keeping the turbo going, filling in power gaps, etc. You also run less downforce so have more braking and accellerating to do which further impacts that. That leads to driveability issues too which makes it even worse. Start to sort out all the various systems and you can make big strides (or not as Renault are proving...)

For me, that fits Ron's comments about needing a good engine to compete and given the year's head start Merc have, it's a logical way to try and achieve it I reckon.

No new parts went on the PU in Spain (at least not that used tokens - see reliability/driveability rules above) so they maybe just got the software wrong - JB's clearly wasn't right and FA's failing front brakes suggests that maybe the rear hybrid braking wasn't working right so they'd shifted brake balance forward to try and make up for it.

As to why Ferrari weren't competitive, it may be a little conspiratorial but it would make sense - the new engine flow rules are now in place which it's suggested may well have impacted Ferrari more than Merc.

and FA's failing front brakes suggests that maybe the rear hybrid braking wasn't working right so they'd shifted brake balance forward to try and make up for it.

Well I was partly right - the rear right brake apparently cooked because it had one of FA's visor tear-offs blocking the brake duct... oops 😳

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/32688667

Whilst I acknowledge the headline doesnt quite match the story, I'm finding all these quit threats incredibly tedious?

Toys/pram

I do think they'd sell up though (which is allowed under their 20/20 contract).

tbh let them quit - if thats what they want to do now the glory years (and drivers) are behind them, so be it - they are not unlike every single manufacturer on the grid (bar ferrari) who just up and quit when it suits them...
this has been the issue with F1 since the 80's when it ws seen as a tool to sell cars, rather than a smart engineer building upon an existing engine and putting it the back of some steel box with aero wings.

it might also shake up F1 if renault stop supplying engines and the grid becomes (effectively) a 2 engine marquee - forgive me honda but you've stated your not supplying customer engines just yet -

as for McLaren - considering this was thier big push for Spain, what a disaster - and it just goes to prove that you cannot just "turn up the engine"... was it me or were the tones from Button and Alonso slightly more edgy in the post race interviews than the "positive" lines from the previous races - perhaps they have seen the true "potential" in the car and the panic behind the scenes in McLaren....

[quote=back2basics ]was it me or were the tones from Button and Alonso slightly more edgy in the post race interviews than the "positive" lines from the previous races - perhaps they have seen the true "potential" in the car and the panic behind the scenes in McLaren....

tones? A bit more than tones from Button here - given what a master diplomat he usually is, this read as incredibly damning to me.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/32684346

F1 has been very good for Red Bull, however they could easily withdraw and spend the money elsewhere or just scale back the marketing budget. Car racing is hardly a business essential for them

I hope Red Bull do sod off - bunch of miserable, whiny, pathetic losers.

Can you imagine the moaning they'd do if Audi did come in and they went through the same troubles as Honda!? Christian Horner's head would explode!

All the great F1 teams have had troubled times, and Red Bull are nowhere near the sorts of lows that Williams have endured in recent times.

I just popped in to see if b2b was carping on about alonso quitting because he's not driving in the next test. Disappointed.

@thepurist 🙂

on another tack, it seems a certain "reserve" driver is not too happy at williams....thy cynic in me thinks it could it be the ulitmate in sexism that williams have employed here? simply put, they wanted some furore about the team, so hire "reserver" driver who is a female and then actually do nothing with her, even when they need a reserve driver (bottas)! seems she'll be off racing somewhere non F1 just after she gets a few free-pracice laps perhaps at Silverstone - also suggests that might be a PR stunt too....
i know williams employ women as part of the top brass, as have other f1 teams, but is it sexism to employ someone by gender to promote something because of lack of gender in that role?

[quote=back2basics ]i know williams employ women as [s]part of[/s] the top brass

fixed.

I presume Susie only got her drive in the first place because of her connections. Whilst she clearly is quite good, there are plenty of quite good drivers around and the question is whether she deserves to step to a race seat on merit.

Given the Tyre/Fuel management parade we have now rather than any actual racing, I'd have thought she'd be fine.

It's awful the whole thing, i watched the highlights and there were virtually none. Hardly any cars on the grid, 3rd placed car 45 seconds down, only top 7 ending on the same lap. But worse there is virtually no way of other teams catching up with Merc due to the daft token system. Add in dreary tracks in dull locations with half of the races being on Sky and it's a slow crash.

Unfortunately it is British engineering mostly on the line. Someone upstairs in F1 needs to get a grip on it and fast. Unlike though unfortunately :cry:.

dragon - F1 has always been thus (well, bits of thus anyway). Back in the day the MP4/4 lapped every car apart from the other MP4/4, so domination is nothing new. I don't recall the other teams moaning too much about it back then though, so maybe that's something that's changed.

I hear people saying they want F1 'fixed' but what does that mean? F1 needs to be the quickest thing around a track, and despite all the rule fiddling over the years it still is. I think people have some idealised view of what F1 has ever been and want to cherry pick the best bits of that to put together some pastiche series that takes the heroics of the 60s, the 'have a go' engineering of the 70s, the money of the 80s and the sound of the 90s and magically comes up with 30 cars racing wheel to wheel for 2 hours at 200mph.

So what can you do? Loosen the rules and the biggest budget (usually) wins. Restrict the budgets and the big teams walk. Make the tyres faster/more durable and we end up with the pit stop racing of the 90s. Oh, and while you're doing this to F1 you need to trickle it down through the entire FIA structure to ensure that GP2, GP3 etc aren't ending up quicker than F1.

Two things would need to change - first off the system for approving changes in F1 shouldn't be governed by unanimity or vetoes. The turkeys will never vote for Xmas. Second the control of the sport needs to stop chasing money and start ploughing it back into the sport. FOM should be a not for profit organisation run for the benefit of F1, rather than the benefit of FOM. But not even the short, squinty old turkey will vote for Xmas.

Dragon

Longterm Damon fan here. The DOUBLE champ Lapped everyone twice and 8 finishers from memory: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1995_Australian_Grand_Prix

He beat sixtimes German (edit) winner that day too......

aye good old Damon Hill and Coulthard - they someone take the best car on the grid and manage to struggle to win races most of the season - apart from when everyone crashes out - the only person Hill and Coulthard need to look at when blaming someone for not winning more championships is simple - IN THE MIRROR...

You know how good Hill was at developing a car right? He was well known for this.

The car he and Senna climbed into was almost undriveable post ban on TC etc. So Hill was there when it was bad/ugly and helped make it good.

Then Bennetton was caught with TC software still on their car..

Coulthard had double the starts of Hill with half of Hills wins tally.

best car in the field in 1993 - he didnt win title
1994 - car was not that bad as you make out (they won the constructors title, senna took 3 effin consecutive poles at the start ), yet he only won races because schumi had been disqualied from overreaction of him overtaking hill on the warm up lap , - he still had to take it all the way to the wire for the famous "collision", which everyone remembers yet forget that hill should have had the title already had he not crashed , spun off / squandered many a point/podium/race win positions from the entire season (like monaco if i remember, germany etc)
1995 had the greatest and most technically advance car in F1 - won the title easily.
he had made it in F1 as the best in the world, a driver without equal, commanding the respect and admiration of everyone....
williams dumped him
he then got picked up by one of the greatest teams in the history of the sport,
not ferrari
not mclaren
but
ARROWS

nuff said really

He chose Arrows. Tom Walkinshaw sold it to him. I still remember that overtake on Schumacher in Hungary in a bad car...

😀

Damon was ace! He was the last of the gentleman racers, but he gave his all and was better than the best on a good day (Suzuka 1994, even Schumacher was incredulous). He knew how to get the best out of a car and in classic Brit style, he would sometimes punt the best car on the grid into the gravel when he suffered a bout of the Yips.

Coulthard was another. A superb driver when he got out of bed the right side, the lantern-jawed wonder was responsible for some epic maneuvers, for example attempting to pass Schumacher on the inside in France, 2000 with one hand on the wheel as he was gesticulating with the other. He was no stranger to the Watsons too, but that made him interesting to watch - will he win or will he stuff it into the pit lane wall?

I strongly suspect that Maldonado is an asset for Lotus because their sponsors are guaranteed air time in the most dramatic fashion. He may be a bit of a loose cannon, but he's self deprecating to a fault.

Damon was ace! He was the last of the gentleman racers,

I'd still take the "chav" from stevenage any day.

ttempting to pass Schumacher on the inside in France, 2000 with one hand on the wheel as he was gesticulating with the other.

[img] [/img]

Brilliant stuff, I agree 😀

best car in the field in 1993 - he didnt win title...

1994 - car was not that bad as you make out (they won the constructors title, senna took 3 effin consecutive poles at the start )...

... yet he only won races because schumi had been disqualied from overreaction of him overtaking hill on the warm up lap...

he still had to take it all the way to the wire for the famous "collision", which everyone remembers yet forget that hill should have had the title already had he not crashed , spun off / squandered many a point/podium/race win positions from the entire season (like monaco if i remember, germany etc)

1995 had the greatest and most technically advance car in F1 - won the title easily.

he had made it in F1 as the best in the world, a driver without equal, commanding the respect and admiration of everyone....

williams dumped him

he then got picked up by one of the greatest teams in the history of the sport,
not ferrari
not mclaren
but
ARROWS

nuff said really

apologies for the mistype i missed a year, thinking 95 was 96
i noticed you failed to mention / desccribe the 95 season - that was a disaster of a season for Hill again with numerous crashes, mistakes just like coulthard again in the williams,
"1996 had the greatest and most technically advance car in F1 - won the title easily"

My mate of 20yrs+ ribbed me for years over my choices of drivers to follow in F1 - Hill, JPM (stop eating burgers and drive!), MikaH (but I was late to the party with Mika) and finally Lewis.

I just couldn't get my head into Schu's style/or how he did things. Damon, for me came to the sport way too late. 32 wasn't it? Schu was 22. Damon was already in the twilight of his talent then- best potential gone?

If Graham hadn't have passed away prematurely would we have seen Hill in F1 in the 80's? What would have happened?

Sorry I'm a fan.

forgive me honda but you've stated your not supplying customer engines just yet

That would be a hard sell; who'd have them at the moment?

And agree with the Damon fans. A much underrated driver who knew his craft and was not given the opportunity to hone it at the optimum age.

Unlike these days when children are parachuted in to F1. Barmy

I know- imagine Lewis starting his F1 career in two years time.