[Closed] The F1 2015 thread...

Lotus cars haven't been released yet...

http://www.grandprix247.com/2015/08/25/lotus-stuck-at-spa-as-renault-decision-delayed/

Some positive news to come from Justin Wilson's death...

http://www.planetf1.com/driver/55667788/73673/Wilsons-organs-donated-to-save-six-lives

...if you aren't on the Organ Donor register, do it today.

Lotus are ok because Renault are buying them out -

interestingly - there could be a return to the old green and blue racing colours

interestingly - there could be a return of an old renault driver

Renault are also in discussion with Force India so nothing is certain.

interestingly - there could be a return to the old green and blue racing colours

Aren't Renault's colours yellow and black?

Are they bringing René Arnoux back!? They must be on a tight budget! 😀

greeny/yellow and blue 🙂

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54million euro is what i heard , all agreed and just awaiting FIA approval before formal announcement in 2 weeks.

They were a carry-over from Mild Seven colours though. Subliminal sponsorship, like Ferrari's barcode.

interestingly - there could be a return of an old renault driver

Alain Prost?? He has a proven record running a team.

I'd love proper old school Renault colours...

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I can see why Remault want to terminate their relationship with Red Bull (all that criticism must be wearing very thin by now) but it feels like they may be making a mistake. By all accounts Red Bull have one of the best chassis on the track. If Renaulf go elsewhere then they are taking the bit that's holding the car back- the engine. Maybe if they pump a ton of money into Lotus they can make it work, but surely the best way to get the best results for the least cash would be to focus on the problems with their engine and stick with Red Bull?

I think they have let down all the teams with their engine. More likely the contracts wont be renewed for next year due to poor performance clauses.

That would leave them with no or very few engine customers. So from their point of view its best to buy a team. That way they will at least have one customer who doesn't (cant) complain.

oooo is Flavio still banned - dont think he is.
Renault, Falvio, Alonso - we're getting the Band back together.
all we need is Piquet ....

Wasn't flav banned from ever looking at an f1 car ever again? Thought his was lifetime but pat s only got a few years which is why he's back

This Alain Prost?

http://www.gpupdate.net/en/f1-news/328984/prost-regrets-becoming-formula-1-team-boss/

There is only one Alan Prost and he is currently co-owner of e.dams-Renault the team which won Formula E, who his son drives for. Handily his son is also a test driver for Lotus F1.

i think Flav was going to take the FIA to court over his lifetime ban and they dropped it, to 5 years, but cannot be sure.

I think Renault would also get some extra payments if it became a works team based on its History and Bernie's History-payment clause....

Not sure they would keep Maldo given his crash history probably outweighs the money his sponsor brings in.

a works Renault team really must be a draw for Alonso though - why not start the season fighting for 3rd and 4th with a works team, than grappling for 14th with a fragmented McLaren Honda team.

Decisions will have to be made pretty soon, and perhaps Alonso's "towing the line" for McLaren-Honda attitude will change once Renault's plans are made public....

At this stage I would like to announce that I have been talking to Haas F1 about a drive next season...

...as it appears everyone with a driving licence has had talks with them! 😀

Danica Patrick aint going there for sure - for all her hype she never quite lived up to expectation and was a bit accident prone. 8 years ago she might have been a contender - she never seemed to get over losing the Indy 500 with about 1 lap to go on a restart , 2009 i think it was - since then she's gone to the Indycar retirement home - NASCAR (ok thats a little unfair to NASCAR...)

more engine woes for mclaren 10 place penalty for alonso and 5 for button! got to wonder why they bother turning up 😆

Klunk if I was jenson I'd go just to laugh at Lewis's blonde hair.

any more claims about it being faster than renault and on a par with Ferrari this weekend?

they should just go about their business quietly instead of being on the defensive

not sure Mercs will get a challenge this weekend - Williams seems to have gone of the boil a bit, perhaps they will take the fight to the 3rd spot and below.

i remember the days when Ferrari would have a single special engine for Monza Qualy and the Race...

Rumours are that Lotus will be visited by bailiffs again this weekend. Looks like key suppliers aren't too happy about not being paid.

Lotus need Renault to sign on the line and clear their credit lines otherwise they won't make it to Singapore.

I thibk Honda are being very precise about comparing their ICE with the others. According to the letter of the regs I think the ICE is just the normally aspirated block, with turbo, mgus etc all classified separately. They've got well publicised issues with the whole harvesting and deployment of the hybrid component, and their axial turbo probably still needs work. I bet the Mercedes ICE runs like a bag of spanners without the rest of the PU components so comparing Honda to Renault is pretty meaningless.

thepurist - Member
I thibk Honda are being very precise about comparing their ICE with the others. According to the letter of the regs I think the ICE is just the normally aspirated block, with turbo, mgus etc all classified separately. They've got well publicised issues with the whole harvesting and deployment of the hybrid component, and their axial turbo probably still needs work. I bet the Mercedes ICE runs like a bag of spanners without the rest of the PU components so comparing Honda to Renault is pretty meaningless.

I think you're right about that. Eric Boulier said that they were lacking a lot in the electrical side of things compared to the other teams at Spa:

Eric Boullier
If you can properly manage the energy, because we have limitations per lap, you can use both of them to maximum. At Spa, we were lacking a little bit of power on combustion engine but we can't use 100 per cent of our electrical power which means it is a big hurt for us. To give you an idea here, we can't use it on the two straight lines and not even in the full straight line. When we know, Renault and Ferrari and Mercedes use it in all the straight line, in full.

http://www.crash.net/f1/interview/222568/1/exclusive-eric-boullier-qa-interview.html

A few people on F1tech forum think their MGU-H is crap, which seems plausible given their unusual turbo setup.

Some seriously thin looking rear wings this week:

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The Mclaren one looks like it's going to be a bit of a handful! 8)

Bad news for all the other teams - Merc have upgraded their engine!...

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/120601

so comparing Honda to Renault is pretty meaningless.

Well, barring mechanical failure, it looks like a Merc walkover this weekend. 😐

so why do Honda do it then?

Quite often it's because they're answering a question and only part of the answer is used to make the story which removes context. I don't know if that's what's happened here though.

As for Merc, it looks like their reliability upgrades have worked fairly well..

Looking at FP1 it seems that ferrari are as far behind Merc as Honda are behind Ferrari...

lets all do a rain dance... 🙂

ferrari could be sand bagging a little

you know what - McLaren Honda should just go totally illegal,
just forget the tokens and work restrictions and design limitations and just blow it all on getting the car up to speed - even getting fines , deducted WDC points everything, position penalties - because they are doing no good at the back....

I reckon the engine penalty regs will get an overhaul now redbull have done the same double change move as mclaren. I think docking wcc points would be a better approach with the penalty increasing for each additional pu component used. Grid penalties have been exposed as unviable, once you're at the back there's nowhere left to go so you might as well go to town. The extra stop go or drive throughs were ridiculous too.

The situation gets worse for McLaren - major sponsors now set to walk away...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/motorsport/formulaone/11845062/McLaren-set-to-lose-20m-in-sponsorship-next-year.html

Hamilton must have been to see a Sea-side fortune teller before he made the decision to leave for Mercedes!

Even Williams in their worst years were only at the back of the mid-field, not propping up the back of the grid.

wonder if redbull sent out ricciardo just to make sure mclaren didn't make 2nd qualifying with one car 😈

daily mail says mclaren want honda boss to resign. not giving url obviously.

the mclaren honda deal would no doubt have a clause about either side can cancel the contract if they feel the other company brings continued disgrace, shame, negative publicity to the other (as do most business 2 business contracts these days)....could mclaren invoke this clause?
i would say the decision time would be in the next month - because they would have to find an engine and accommodate it into the 2016 car designs now.

there is a rumour Cosworth are circling F1...............

[quote=back2basics ]there is a rumour Cosworth are circling F1...............

Well we've seen how well it goes developing a new PU for the current regs from scratch...

Oh dear, Deflategate has started.

[url= https://twitter.com/F1/status/640553709357830144 ]no further action[/url]

Just finished watching the race and now catching up on the aftermath!

Pirelli - please just leave F1 you are a disgrace to the sport.

Pirelli - please just leave F1 you are a disgrace to the sport.

Isn't it the FIA? They should define when the pressure needs to be the minimum pressure, they measured it on the grid with heating blankets turned off.

The rule was only bought in because Pirelli's tyres are fragile.

Really hope Michelin get the new deal, but it's not looking likely.

(edited)

another one of those FIA rules that are not really rules as there isnt a rule for the rule as to when the rule needs to be enforced and at what point the rule should be measured. so some teams are within the rule thats not a rule because of the no rule to enforce the rule, and some teams understand there is no rule to enforce the rule and argue the rule after the race, pointing out to the FIA that because there is no rule when to apply the rule then the rule doesnt apply to them....

rules are rules

To be fair to Fromula One they have found a new angle for us to talk about tyres and for that they do deserve our utmost respect
Anyway which team has the fastest car this year

Its such a shame it is has come to this as a "spectacle".
More overtaking with strategy than racing.
thanks aracer and toys it works great

Whiting in yet another FIA rule fiasco,

the guy should be sacked - he couldnt write a clear rule if he tried - and lets face it, millions of pounds of prize money is on the line here. for some reason the paddock just "accept it as f1"

if the National lottery was run like this, there would be a riot!

on a more serious note

No merc engine for red bull, and they have already split with renault for next year, that leaves Ferrari (or as i stated before perhaps Cosworth)
I think this could be the end for RBR as we know it - there is no way Ferrari let Ferrari engine powered become more competitive than them, and RBR want to win with the huge amounts of money they spend, so it could be the 'RB' in RBR will disappear....

Ferrari have claimed that they are happy to supply RB and will beat them in a straight fight.

So that's Renault effectively out. At least until they buy Lotus.

Big splash on Sky today that McLaren are out for the head of Honda motorsport.

@ScottChegg - i posted that headline a few posts ago, although it was Daily Mail so perhaps not the most reliable - but if its on Sky it must be 😉

I can't see what's in it for Renault, a lot of expense for little gain. Likewise for Honda which is putting in a lot of money for a lot of negative publicity.

If F1 isn't careful it will become a 2 engine format, with tyres that fall apart, hardly an attractive sell to an audience.

Honda (and Renault) will get there though - Honda are roughly where other teams were at the same point in the development cycle - they just chose to do it in public...

McL may well be after the head of Honda in order that they can sell the improvements that will be coming to potential sponsors - they're facing a big shortfall in their funding next year and without a visible change at Honda, it's hard to sell the story that they will progress next year, particularly when you see that Renault haven't managed to catch up this year.

Honda (and Renault) will get there though

How? the rules have baked in Mercedes dominance for another season.

Plus Honda have no recent track record on making a decent F1 engine.

I didn't say how long...

By all accounts while the token system sounds like it limits development, the people in the know are saying that all the key differentiators in performance can pretty much be completely changed within the tokens available for a season.

As has always happened, so long as there's not a massive change in the engine rules, Merc will have fewer gains to make and over time the others will catch up. Not to mention that other engine companies will poach Merc engine people to 'buy' information on what they're doing.

the people in the know are saying that all the key differentiators in performance can pretty much be completely changed within the tokens available for a season.

Which isn't much help if you don't know which bits to change to what.

Even Johnnie Walker are slated to leave McL next year, after a very long relationship.

They are in such a bind even a Renault engine looks to be an upgrade, and the fact that Arai-san thinks his engine is better than the French one undermines his credibility a whole lot.

They are in such a bind even a Renault engine looks to be an upgrade, and the fact that Arai-san thinks his engine is better than the French one undermines his credibility a whole lot.

The engine (ICE) maybe,which is all that's been said - the rest sure as hell isn't

Arai-san thinks his engine is better than the French one undermines his credibility a whole lot.

He didn't say that or at least not what people have understood it to meant. It's very clear that Honda's issue is fundamental to the energy recovery, not the actual generation of it (through fuel) in the first place.

It's all a big let down and sad to witness. The 'sport' (experiment?) is being run by too many dinosaurs! At this rate Formula E looks the far better proposition for sponsors!

I have said all along that the Fom needs a change. Get rid of the corrupt bent used car salesman and put someone who will move the sport forward with a vision in the current century.

All those shady deals with the teams and Bernie must really stuff up any kind of notion that it is really a sport. I for one hate the fact they refer constantly to F1 as a show as opposed to motor SPORT.
CVC must be looking out for middle eastern investors pronto.

I like formula E.. its fresh with f1 drivers in f1 like cars and fan boost ( whats not to like )

That's it, despite what the purists might say Formula E is current and innovative, they are working it up well and no doubt before long they will only need one car for a race as well as gaining speed. It's a pity A1 GP couldn't have done as good a job on the marketing front, that had the potential to be a lot bigger.

FTA is the only way its going to gain traction with cheaper tickets to live events ( never watched an a1 race unfortunately) . A panini album wouldnt go amiss 🙂

What is FTA?

Fta I assume is free to air TV, rather than going down the road bennies currently on to pay per view, 100 a year to watch the marussia channel or 1000 for the Ferrari channel bennies business model with ridiculous fees for race promoters and broadcast rights means that'll never happen, and the teams were sold on the current model as a way of increasing their own revenur/budgets.

Needs a complete change of strategy to bring it back into the realms of Fta and make it more open to new entries, but that would also mean changes through all the other fia series as they have to keep f1 at the top. We got here because spanky handed over the keys to squinty all those years ago, wonder what his motivation was for that...

I like formula E

Still not without stupid rules and unfair penalties. When a winning driver (Sarazin?) can be penalised for an 'overuse of power' it makes a mockery of he result.

[i]'overuse of power'[/i] Don't know but wouldn't imagine that is hugely different than xx litres of fuel in any other race series?

Yep or stating that a car needs to have a minimum weight after the race.

Especially as with a new E series, I can see that what they don't want is cars stopping out on circuit because the batteries are flat (given people's misgivings about electric cars leaving them in the lurch) so in this specific case, it makes perfect sense as you consider one of its primary goals is to promote electric car use (and I'd be interested to know roughly what % of capacity is left in the batteries at the limit of allowed power use) unlike most other motor racing series which aren't there to promote hydrocarbon fuel as such.

"When a winning driver (Sarazin?) can be penalised for an 'overuse of power' it makes a mockery of he result."

There ought to be a rule like that for Bernie 😉

Don't know but wouldn't imagine that is hugely different than xx litres of fuel in any other race series?

And isn't it stupid?

Isn't it much better to wring every last volt from it as you pass the finish line? And if you use to much it goes into limp mode. Rather than the artifice of 49 seconds (why?) onto your time.

Rhubarb.

F1 could employ very similar, and simple, fuel rules like that too. Every car gets xx litres of fuel at the start of the race, and how you deploy it is up to you. Want to keep it "green"? Just reduce the fuel for each new season (a la MotoGP).

WEC is now stupidly complicated in this regards too

F1 already does. You have up to 100l to use in a race. You can use/put in less (as some already are at some tracks).

Formula E doesn't want cars running out of power because people's (justified or not) view is that electric cars don't go far on a charge and will leave them stranded so they don't want to have race cars running flat on TV. No doubt as electric road cars become more popular they'd be less concerned about that and will eventually drop the rule.

Formula E doesn't want cars running out of power because people's (justified or not) view is that electric cars don't go far on a charge and will leave them stranded so they don't want to have race cars running flat on TV.

Whereas having to stop halfway through the journey to ditch one car and get into a whole new one is really putting paid to that view 🙂

Exactly Bez - stupid!!! And expensive, having to run 2 cars per driver

Exactly Bez - stupid!!! And expensive, having to run 2 cars per driver

I see what you did there.

I have to confess ....... 😀

nemesis - Member
F1 already does. You have up to 100l to use in a race. You can use/put in less (as some already are at some tracks).

Nope, you missed what I was saying. The FIA could ensure that every car starts on the same amount, no option to run more/less. NASCAR does/did this

They decided against changing batteries for safety reasons.

FE : The reason for the car change is also to bring in some element of strategy and human error without the need for an extra 20 people for a tyre change - although i do think its not the greatest way of doing this -
they should go down the soft/hard tyre route thats working so well for F1 - oh no wait......................

ok ok , FE could do with some rule tweeks for sure, and wider softer tyres for pitstops with batteries that can last an entire race distance would certainly help - perhaps they should do indycar style and restrict the number of people to change tyres to 2 (or even 1!)

they could also do with looking at track layouts to improve overtaking chances using the "boost" buttons/ fan boost, for sure its great to see the cars around London but if the track is so restrictive that it doesnt allow overtakes.........

Personally - i'm lovin the WEC over F1 at the moment

(and they too adopt a penalty for fuel "overuse" in the race just like FE)

From what I gather the more efficent the engine the less fuel needed at the start and lower the fuel mass effect and hence faster round the track. Or conversely it can run at higher power for longer and hence faster round the track. I see why the new merc engine is about efficiency rather than power gains and also Lewis seemd to be quicker and slurp less juice than others although that might also be because he is in clean air.

I wonder how much the cities have to pay to host the F-E, I'm sure its a hell of a lot cheaper than filling Bernie's pockets. Obviously they dont have the Tilka designs but at least it is instantly recogniseable to everyone and possible capture the imagination of more people

i think someone has been reading our posts
http://readmotorsport.com/2015/09/11/race-power-increased-second-formula-e-season/?

So Renault will either "either exit or run their own team". I understood that engine suppliers had to agree to supply up to 3 teams if they were asked to do so (Honda having an exception because they are new).

So is this statement the first step towards a total exit?

http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2015/09/16/f1-fanatic-round-up-1609-3/

more of a signal of intent .. if they dont allow them to run with one team then they are offski.
They have mentioned before the return on supplying RBR was minimal as Renault didnt appear in the the title of the team. Or atleast thats what I read into their statement. I remember the teams williams-renault and vodafone-mclaren-mercedes so I do understand their point.
It would be shame if they left but maybe this is what is needed so bernie can buck up his ideas otherwise its going to be a two horse race with the championship switching between ferrari and mercedes works team.

So if Renault buy a big share of Lotus will it have a Merc or a Renault PU for next year?