[Closed] The F1 2015 thread...

Alonso's silence is deafening.

there is something amiss, either in his Health, or something in the car - rumours are of electrical shock.

if the FIA have decided to do a crash investigation, and the reasons are being covered up by McLaren, it could be very bad for them when it concerns the safety of a driver.

Agree. Something isn't right. For a start it was a very weird accident. My spider sensors are tingling.

Hes not twitted since and he was a daily twitter user before.

it'll be a big kick in Rons face if he doesn't start the season.. although with K-mag they have a decent number two.
I wonder if the cracks are appearing the Ronando relationship.

I wonder if the cracks are appearing the Ronando relationship.

Or there could be another possibility other than that or a mechanical issue with the car - and I hope to heck that this isn't the case...

...it's entirely possible that Alonso may have a neurological condition that caused the crash and has been flagged up during his hospital stay. His three day stay in hospital and absence from social media may simply be under doctor's orders to rest.

As I say, I sincerely hope that this isn't the case.

I think Alonso's just worked out that he can feign injury and have a nice break while jb and kmag endure the reliability nightmare of the flyaway races, then hop back in the car in Europe when it might stand a chance of finishing.

Wonder if mchonda will manage a full race sim by Sunday.

What sort of race simulation? Egg & spoon?

McLaren would need to reengineer Honda's spoon to make sure it didn't fail. They could use a carbon fibre/spoon expert for that, but they're hard to find...

[quote=thepurist ]McLaren would need to reengineer Honda's spoon to make sure it didn't fail. They could use a carbon fibre/spoon expert for that, but they're hard to find...

.. not if you know where to look.

Lotus have a new development driver.......

What is being developed? PR?

Manor/Marussia are likely to be bailed out by the man behind Ovo energy.

Manovo to the grid in Australia? They claim to have built a new car from eBay finds and the bits that fell off Max Chilton's car last year.

Looking forward to Manor F1 making the grid

I would be, IF they had paid of their creditors from last season rather than renaming the company and acting like nothing happened.

They have agreed to repay creditors through a voluntary arrangement. All legal. How much the creditors will get though is another matter.

If they went bankrupt and started as a new team they wouldn't have been eligable for last years prize money.

I quite like the look of lotus' development driver. [img] ?20150226181413[/img]Is it better to have more teams on the grid than less? I'll be rooting for the underdog and I suppose that includes Mclaren 🙂

Although stranger things have happened like Brawn GP I'm sure all the guys in F1 work their nuts off no matter where they are in the pecking order.

Please stick it to Farce India and relegate them to the bottom !

From the Beeb...

Jorda, who finished 29th in last year's GP3 feeder series

Logically then, there are at least 28 better drivers who don't get a look-in because they are less photogenic?

Watch out Merc, Lotus are coming!

They have agreed to repay creditors through a voluntary arrangement. All legal. How much the creditors will get though is another matter

Logically then, there are at least 28 better drivers who don't get a look-in because they are less photogenic?

In recent times F1 hasn't always been about who is the best driver. The ability to bring money either via direct cash injection or attract new sponsors is also very important.

Whaddya mean, in recent times...?

Lotus are coming!

...the Lotus mechanics may be coming! 😉

Im looking forward to how Buttom gets on with Alonso in the team. Button has always claimed to be a top driver so now he is racing one in the same car he isnt going to be able to blame the car for the poor results when he finishes behind Alonso.

I thought Button gave a good account of himself against barichello and Hamilton too. He was mighty in canada 2011.
I reckon williams for the win and merc and 2nd williams for 2/3. Expect a few cars to blow up, notably JB's Mclaren, 1 red bull, 2 Farce indias, 1 Sauber and a lotus. 😉

There will be a big gap from merc/ williams to the mid table. Ferrari, Lotus, Red bull, Force india, Sauber, Mclaren,Torro rosso and Manor.

Button has always claimed to be a top driver so now he is racing one in the same car

You may find he did when Hamilton was his team mate, in fact, I'd put Hammo above Alonso these days.

Bosh.. thats gone and blown the doors off.. w06 on softs .... the rest are still wondering what they need to do to catch up.

that Merc lap, means Bernie will be
a) putting in some quick and stupid rule change ideas to spice up the show
b) pushing behind the scenes Ferrari and RBR to give Todt hell about how legal the merc might be and also (a) as well 🙂

last thing the sport needs again is another white wash - expect (a) to come into play after about race 3.

Its only testing. Yeah the mercs quick but nobody really knows anything until p1 in oz. Remember a few years ago when redbull hadn't shown anything special in testing then blew everyone away. Anyway I quite enjoyed last season because merc allowed their drivers to race, unlike the dominant years of Ferrari and RB.

http://hasmaldonadocrashedtoday.com/

I never believe what testing = to the 1st race, We don't know what set up and test there doing or if they are using the 2014 engine.

Its nice to see the Manor team back on the grid, was looking a little short on numbers at the end of last year.

I wish they would take some of the rules away.

I would love to see that basic rules as this.
1) the car must fit into this box.
2) no changed can be made of 5 races
3) 50 points will be lost if the drive gets hurts in a accident that the car is at fault.

F1 is not a cheap sport why do cost cutting

Also on the note of Lotus test driver only benign there for her looks.

What about Susie Wolff from Williams?
Not a bad looking lady.
[img] [/img]
Also her hubby is Toto Wolff who is Executive Director of Mercedes. Williams use Merc engines and Toto does have a stake in Williams (he just sold some of shares this week) Wonder if he as done some arm twisting to get her there?

[quote=h1jjy ]Also her hubby is Toto Wolff who is Executive Director of Mercedes. Williams use Merc engines and Toto does have a stake in Williams (he just sold some of shares this week) Wonder if he as done some arm twisting to get her there?

More to the point he was executive director and a major shareholder of Williams F1 when she was signed - I don't suppose he had to twist many arms. I'm not sure she'd still be there if she wasn't any good though (whilst he still has a stake, it's now fairly small and I don't think Merc have any influence).

Are those heels longer than her shorts? Don't they get in the way a bit when operating the throttle and brake?

I do believe that they need to get some females to be 1st team drivers and not just back up/ test drivers as that would help to stop the dropping viewer numbers and get some different people to watch F1.

Also how odd does it look to see Vettal in Red

F1 is not a cheap sport why do cost cutting

Without some sort of cost control, the big manufacturers and odd pop maker will out spend and drive other teams out of the business.
When they've had enough, they'll simply walk away and leave nothing behind, the independent teams have to be caterered for and given the chance to compete

Maybe all teams should have one male and one female driver on the grid

3) 50 points will be lost if the drive gets hurts in a accident that the car is at fault

Thats a recipe for chancing it though isn't it

I think, sadly, the rules have to be quite strict to deal with things like safety

For example you haven' banned rocket or jet power

Is it any tyres that you like?

Eric Boullier fears McLaren-Honda's reliability woes mean it could be months before the team's MP4-30 is a competitive car.

[url= http://www.planet-f1.com/driver/3213/34257/McLaren-may-not-be-competitive-until-Europe? ]Linky[/url]

Hell that’s a massive admission for McLaren ahead of the 2015 season, Ron will not be happy

Everyone else has had a year to develop their turbo engines, so it's no surprise to see McLaren struggle here. The car is pretty radical too, I'd expect it to be very good on the slower tracks if they can get decent driveability out of that Honda unit.

I don't think anything that he is saying there is news - it's been admitted publicly for weeks that they wouldn't be ready for Melbourne, and long before that everybody expected that it would take them a while to get the new power unit sorted. You need to look at their testing in the context of what other teams were doing last year - it doesn't look all that bad in comparison, and some of the teams you'd have written off based on early 2014 testing didn't do so bad (anybody remember RBR's testing - bets being placed on whether they'd make the finish line?)

The thing is, JB or FA being WC this year is a long shot, but then anybody other than LH or NR being WC this year is a bit of a longshot, and actually I wouldn't be all that surprised if McLaren pick up a race win later in the year. They might even end up the only team to closely challenge Merc by the end of the year - unless one of the other major teams is massively sandbagging, it doesn't look like anybody else will be doing that out of the gate.

chrismac - Member
Im looking forward to how Buttom gets on with Alonso in the team. Button has always claimed to be a top driver so now he is racing one in the same car he isnt going to be able to blame the car for the poor results when he finishes behind Alonso.

When JB and LH were both at McLaren JB scored more points over that period.

Post first title LH went through a mix of erratic, low self belief etc. Crashing into people etc.

He came back.

JB carried on trundling along. Someone you could place in the top six for years.

I'm quite suprised how much of a gap the other teams are from mercedes this year. I could see it happening in the first year as the integration of the engine and chassis would favour the works team but in the second year clearly the other teams should have a years worth of data and photos of the meec to play with.

The gap is enormous considering some teams using the same powerplant is it just aero that makes the difference.
If this is the case is Newey could be mistaken that it is an engine formula, after all the Rb managed to haul the renault engine to a few wins.
I'm pretty sure the mp29 won a lot of plaudits last year in the unveiling.

The gap is enormous considering some teams using the same powerplant is it just aero that makes the difference.

..and the driver

The thing is from the lap time improvements we've seen in Barcelona this week compared to last year, it's clear that the cars have all made some big improvements. As such, I reckon it's fair to say that while Merc were dominant last year, even they were a long way off the absolute maximum possible under the current regs. So, given their headstart from last year and the room for improvement, they've all progressed roughly the same amount (though McL and Ferrari arguably made fundamental mistakes in their chassis designs so have probably improved more), leaving Merc still out front.

So, money where your mouths are. Top 6 in Oz (assuming no crashes...).

I'm going for

1 Rosberg
2 Hamilton
3 Ricciardo
4 Vettel
5 Raikkonen
6 Kyvat

And an additional bet that McL will not finish either car, Maldonado will hit someone.

So, money where your mouths are. Top 6 in Oz (assuming no crashes...).

I'm going for

1 Rosberg
2 Hamilton
3 Ricciardo
4 Vettel
5 Raikkonen
6 Kyvat

1. Hamilton
2. Rosberg
3. Bottas
4. Vettel
5. Ricciardo
6. Alonso

Er... oops I seem to have somehow forgotten Williams 😳

My revised listing

1. Rosberg
2. Hamilton
3. Bottas
4. Ricciardo
5. Vettel
6. Massa

And at least 1 point for Max Verstappen.

[quote=nemesis ]And an additional bet that McL will not finish either car, Maldonado will hit someone.

I'll take you on for the first part if not the second. FA to finish 6th 😉

RB's 'new' colour scheme

http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/red-bull-racing-unveils-2015-f1-livery
[img] [/img]
[img] [/img]

I preferred the camo one 🙁

1. Rosberg
2. Bottas
3. Ricciardo
4. Hamilton (places lost due to car issue caused by Rosberg)
5. Massa
6. Kvyat

Bonus: McLaren both to not finish.

I'm hoping that McL can spring a RB14 and turn up at Oz with a car that miraculously runs to it's pace but I can't see it right now but I suppose we said the same last year...

1. Hamilton
2. Bottas
3. Massa
4. Ricciardo
5. Vettel
6. Grosejean

Both Mclarens fail to finish, Sauber to score points.
Pastor to fall off the track on the 1st lap in an incident that's entirely his own fault.

I don't 'get' the doom and gloom etc around the McHonda car. Its a brand new engine/aero partnership- it wont be competitive until 2016. How can ANYONE expect that sooner?

Honda are starting afresh again. Even with a good engine (Merc) for seasons Mclaren have been nowhere really. So how can you expect a new partnership and new engine to be anywhere but retirements and maybe one podium?

It's not doom and gloom though it's clear that even considering how a new car/engine could be difficult, McL weren't expecting so many problems. Merc managed it better than McL have comparing 2014 to 15 for example and I reckon that given a year of learning about the engines, Honda would have hoped to be closer to the 2014 Merc testing that the 2014 Renault.

As to the car, as I think I posted some way back in this thread, McL, like Ferrari, made wrong decisions (as they turned out to be) on the fundamental design of the 2014 car which they couldn't fix in the year. With that sorted for 2015, there's no reason they shouldn't have a decent chassis this year.

There are a few people who reckon that if they can get it running reliably then it'll actually be pretty competitive - eg up with the Williams, Ferrari, RB, etc. Merc look untouchable right now though...

The Mercedes factory team will have the best engine. Williams/lotus etc will have a unit that's [i]slightly[/i] less amazing than the full fat version. Ferrari and Renault won't have made up their deficit from last year.

Honda have the chance to bring in an engine that has the legs of the Merc; but not necessarily straight out of the box. I reckon Australia will be a race they have to finish. Then they will turn up the boost and the real Honda will show itself.

It sounds different to the other engines. Why?

They reckon the control electronics haven't yet been optimised which wouldn't be a surprise when the others have a year's more experience. There's also suggestion that Honda are doing something different with cutting cylinders (like their road cars) when not on full throttle.

I remember last year where everyone was expecting a high failure rate at the first race which never materialised. I wonder if everyone was up at 11 over testing.

I expect this year to be even more exciting than last
oz prediction

Rosberg
Hamilton
Massa
Bottas
Vettel
Kimi
Grosjean
Ricciardo
Kyvat
Hulkenberg
Maldonado
Alonso
Verstappen
Erikson
Stevens
Nasr -dnf
Sainz -dnf
Button - dnf
Perez - dnf

[quote=nemesis ]There are a few people who reckon that if they can get it running reliably then it'll actually be pretty competitive - eg up with the Williams, Ferrari, RB, etc. Merc look untouchable right now though...

I have no expertise at all, so basing my opinions on guesswork and hunches (is there anybody on this thread who isn't), but reckon there's a chance it could be ahead of the rest of the pack once up to speed - the tight packaging around the PU certainly looks to be an improvement on what everybody else is doing, provided it brings some real benefits to the rear aero. I'm sure it's incredibly optimistic, but I don't think there is any evidence yet that the Mc couldn't be up with the Merc - we're yet to see anything like the full potential, whereas with the other cars you'd expect they were fairly close to race spec. unless somebody has found a way to get good data from testing whilst sandbagging.

I think that's about right - No one thinks McL have been running at full power yet, particularly given the need to try and actually get some laps in.

I can see McL having a bit of a nightmare at the first few flyaway races and then taking a noticeable step once they're back in Europe. fingers cross I'm wrong though - aside from anything, I want another 2010 season where there are three teams capable of winning.

Mind you, Rosberg V Hamilton will hopefully be another close run thing.

Good summary here I reckon
http://www1.skysports.com/f1/news/22058/9738457/order-order-where-the-teams-stand-after-the-final-pre-season-test-in-barcelona

To the McL size zero (still can't quite believe that got past Ron - I'd have expected "Technically optimised, volume minimising design concept" or similar...), this pic shows how tight it is - the rear of the car (from behind the driver) looks really long but it's just an optical illusion because of how elongated it is behind the radiators

[img] ?20150301134641[/img]

Mind you, Rosberg V Hamilton will hopefully be another close run thing.

Lewis broke him though last season. All it'll take is another close wheel thing during an early race and Nico will need a sports Psychologist/therapy session to cope with self-belief.

I'm not sure. That's an easy soundbite to claim but LH was the one who was making mistakes most of the season. If Nico can up his racecraft a little then he could well be just as competitive this year, maybe even more so. Especially when you see what happened to LH last time he broke up with Shirtswinger.

Oh and I hope he's not getting distracted again...
http://www.ok.co.uk/celebrity-news/lewis-hamilton-career-change-popstar-jay-z
(sorry for the OK link but this does seem to be the world LH lives in)

Mind you, Nico has a kid on the way...

[quote=nemesis ]Mind you, Nico has a kid on the way...

Which reminds me of what Alonso said after pwning Schumacher in 130R

"At times like that, I always remember that Michael has two kids."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/legacy/andrewbenson/2009/12/schumacher_fighting_the_sands.html

Edit: the video is always worth watching again

I'm not convinced that it actually makes a difference for many drivers (and Schumacher is definitely one of those IMO) but for some and at some point in their career it may do.

During testing, do they only have 1 car for the whole weekend or will they use both cars in turn? I read someone sauber had 4 cars with them, 2 2014 and 2 2015 spec.

They're only allowed one car at tests.

Is that one car for each test, or are they allowed to swap each day? I don't think FI ran two different cars at a single test, but not sure what the rules say.

Not 100% certain of that fine level of detail but I expect they're allowed to have a spare car in parts there so that if they total one they can still test but they're not allowed two cars running and probably not two cars built up (since that would have been a massive help for McL for example and given that they didn't do that, I expect it's not allowed).

On that basis, if you were a driver would you want to drive the one that's been tested or a nice new one for the beginning of the year?*

* I apologise for the terrible oversimplification

The way F1 cars are is that they're near enough completely dismantled between races and many parts replaced (they have a fixed life) anyway so a 'new' car is generally a mix of parts anyway. Typically the chassis are made at the start of the year and used through the year, only replaced if they break or if they don't sometimes feel quite right. I think you're asking the question from the view of testing as being something that checks a complete car over which it doesn't. It's really there to check the design and components rather than the specific car as a whole.

Carlos Sainz 4th fastest?..Ouch that'll hurt some F1 egos... 😆

Most of them leave their egos at home for pre-season testing

Ok my predictions:

First race, on the Friday Nicole Sherzingerwinger announces she is pregnant to some new RAP star. Lewis finished 12th.

Hora in finally providing some relevant insight to F1 shocker 🙂

Any more?

seems mercedes had turned their engine up to 11

http://www1.skysports.com/f1/news/12472/9739841/toto-wolff-reveals-that-mercedes-used-just-one-engine-during-pre-season-testing

I wonder what broke ..

I don't think they had a failure did they? More likely just that some components wore faster than expected while others wore less.

I'll retract my suggestion above about finishing order in Australia then:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/31713292

pretty big news isn't it?

They really are careful now following the Bianchi incident.

Now, can KMag beat Button 🙂

The real problem McLaren have is the car. They had the best engine on the grid last year in the Mercedes yet were a country mile off the pace. Therefore the problem was the car. The design team behind that hasnt changed so I dont see them being competative. Its hard to see Honda producing a better engine than the Merc at their first attempt. Give them another year then yes they could

Something still smells fishy with the whole Alonso saga, very odd.

That's really big news - not so much in many ways because of teh one race but more the way they're playing safe with head injuries - quite correctly IMO - in the past, the driver would have decided whether they were safe to race or not and I reckon almost to a man, they'd race regardless.

I'm not sure that Bianchi's accident is actually that relevant though - that's the sort of accident where the driver racing again soon is irrelevant against the fact that their life will be, at best, very different to before. This could potentially shape some season's outcome for the World Championship where a driver has a bad crash one race (or before the race) and doesn't compete in the next one where in the past they would have.

Ref last year's McL we've already covered that and a big jump is perfectly possible though unlikely to close the gap enough to Merc to really bother them even if the Honda was on a par (which again is unlikely).

The design team behind that hasnt changed

Yes it has. They've recruited Peter Prodromou from Redbull and he's totally changed the design of the 2015 car.

Something still smells fishy with the whole Alonso saga, very odd.

+1

All very strange. Supposedly Alonso's 'people' have been making demands to McLaren for information in relation to the accident. They'll regret taking him back - as good a driver as he is, he's a team wrecker, not team builder.