Formula 1 - 2015 season

[DJ12]

Yet if a certain Maldonado or Hamilton did it you'd be calling for the firing squad at dawn.

It was a stupid move by a desperate man. Only way he was every getting round the corner was by hitting bottas. Even if bottas saw him and gave him room round the apex kimi would still have hit him.

 

[Bludd]

http://www.skysports.com/f1/news/12...-units-to-be-same-specification-as-works-team

 

[Dave Baumann]

The regs were published on Sept 30 and Autosport points out that is likely to change. There is a F1 commission meeting coming up where engine regs will be discussed and likely changes pushed through.

Also these regs state that the championship is a minimum of 8 events and a maximum of 20, where the current (FOM) 2016 calendar is 21 races....

 

[Dave Baumann]

In season engine development allowed in 2016, token available stays at 32 (rather than dropping to 25, as per the previous set rules) and the parts of the engines that were due to be frozen beyond 2015 remain open, all with a view to closing the gaps. Prior year engines are allowed to be sold to customer teams as well.

 

[Rurouni]

The slight problem with that is when Honda do catch up, the probably will use most of their tokens, while Merc with a more mature engine will probably have more left over tokens, thus allowing them more in season development. There is also this possibility where Merc are holding some of the upgrade back (and hopefully still be competitive) and then apply it in season to give them a bigger advantage over their customers. Also since you can use 2015 for 2016, if TR do get 2015 Ferrari PU, hopefully it will be very cheap because it will cost them ranking in the championship which not only it would affect the prize money but also in terms of commercial viability.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

The idea is that overtime it becomes progressive more difficult to extract more performance from an engine. So if Merc design is already pretty good then its likely they won't be able to find extra performance as easily as those that don't have such a good engine.

In theory of course. Also Honda or others won't be catching up in just one season. Just look at Ferrari, much stronger this year than last year but still miles off the pace. Especially on short distances when Mercedes can give it full power.

 

[DJ12]

But surely that is the concern? Mercedes can work on making the engine work in mode 1 through an entire race or certainly give more power to the lower modes

 

[Davros]

if TR do get 2015 Ferrari PU, hopefully it will be very cheap because it will cost them ranking in the championship

how so?

 

[Rurouni]

If the 2016 PU is as fast as 2015 Merc PU (which is probably the minimum performance that they are aim) then it can decide whether the will be a midfield front runner or at the back of midfield. This could affect the prize money. Also commercially, companies should be more attracted to a successful team than not (outside of history), thus by being more in front theoretically they could have a bigger sponsorship. Although they are being supported by RB, it doesn't mean they should forget about money.

 

[Davros]

oh, the way you phrased it made it sound like they would be demoted or docked points for using an old engine
and wouldnt having a ferrari engine move them forward in the chamionship because the renault is rubbish

 

[Rurouni]

Compared to current engine, yes. But if we are comparing TR using 2016 Ferrari PU vs 2015 Ferrari PU, then they definitely will perform not as fast using 2015 PU spec. If TR pay the same amount to Ferrari as Sauber for the PU then it wouldn't be fair, especially if it would cost them position in the constructors championship.

 

[DJ12]

So whats classified as the 2016 engine? Surely the one they are using now, that is clearly the second best by some margin, is the 2015 spec and will be far better than what Torro Rosso have now. How will it cost them position?

Even if the 2015 PU is the one that was homologated in March, it's still way better than Renaults.

 

[DJ12]

Rosberg schooled on the first corner again, I'm sure he'll cry about being forced off but he tried to muscle Hamilton out of it so Hamilton hung him out to dry causing Rosberg to turn into him, despite what Rosberg says he wasn't in front so it was Hamilton's corner to do as he pleased and what's worse for Rosberg though is as soon as Hamilton closed the gap a touch when he had the race in the bag he blows it by going off. The guy is just not up to the task, mentally, as far as Hamilton is concerned, he's a whooped man. Definitely the number two driver in that team.

 

[Rurouni]

So whats classified as the 2016 engine? Surely the one they are using now, that is clearly the second best by some margin, is the 2015 spec and will be far better than what Torro Rosso have now. How will it cost them position?

Even if the 2015 PU is the one that was homologated in March, it's still way better than Renaults.

I'm not comparing 2015 Renault PU with 2016 Ferrari PU. I'm comparing what would happen if TR use 2016 Ferrari PU vs 2015 Ferrari PU. If you pay the same price for the PU, surely it would be unfair for TR because they could potentially be faster with the same money. If you can buy either i7-3770 or i7-4770 with the same money, which one would you buy? Would you be happy if you're restricted to buying i7-3770 even if i7-4770 has the same price? Yes, either CPU will be an upgrade from AMD CPU, but that wasn't my point.
Anyway, from what I've heard, the 2015 PU is going to be sold cheaper.. or at least on the plan about fixing the CPU price which had been rejected (I think 12M for new PU and 8M for old PU?).

Now the last race... It was certainly not a boring race. Plenty of stuff happening all the time. Only 12(?) finished.

 

[Bludd]

What an amazing race, it was full of incidents. Too bad Alonso's engine lost power, or McLaren could maybe have had their best result this year.

Anyway, congrats to Lewis Hamilton. A worthy champion (first lap, first corner was robust but not over the top imho), but Nico Rosberg was very annoyed. Him throwing his cap at Lewis wasn't cool.

 

[Lightman]

What an amazing race, it was full of incidents. Too bad Alonso's engine lost power, or McLaren could maybe have had their best result this year.

Anyway, congrats to Lewis Hamilton. A worthy champion (first lap, first corner was robust but not over the top imho), but Nico Rosberg was very annoyed. Him throwing his cap at Lewis wasn't cool.

I agree, that LH is a worthy champion again but I must defend Rosberg as he was quicker than Hamilton during most stages of USGP, he did qualify better and he was annoyed for a reason. It's not about what type of moves are allowed or disallowed in F1 racing but rather what rules Mecedes F1 set for their drivers racing each other. It's a different matter to make bold moves and push off the road other teams drivers and different for team mates at Mercedes. This was brought in place after last years Spa incident and from where I sit it looks like only one Merc driver adhere to it.

Regardless we have 3 more races to go and then bring on 2016 with RedBulls powered by wings and Renault making a miracle breakthrough with their new PU being best on the grid

 

[DJ12]

At the end of the day he turned into Hamilton not the other way around. If he wasn't such a dumb racer he would've backed out of it and tried to swoop round the other side or certainly just gave it up as lets be honest he cannot drive through a car. But yet again he lost 2 positions because he lost a macho pissing contest with Lewis.

Now if you seriously believe Hamilton caused them to touch watch the incident again. Rosbergs fault all day long. Hamilton was perfectly entitled to go round the corner the long way it's up to Rosberg to sort his own stuff out.

As for him being faster? Only on the inters. And crucially when Hamilton closed a few tenths at the end he bottles it. He cannot take the pressure at all. If there is no challenge from Ferrari next year we may as well give Hamilton his 4th title in Melbourne.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

but Nico Rosberg was very annoyed. Him throwing his cap at Lewis wasn't cool.

No it wasn't cool of Lewis to throw number 2 branded stuff at Nico. No need to rub it in.

 

[cjo]

No it wasn't cool of Lewis to throw number 2 branded stuff at Nico. No need to rub it in.

What should Vettel have done with the number 3 branded cap that Lewis handed him a couple of seconds before?

 

[DuckThor Evil]

What should Vettel have done with the number 3 branded cap that Lewis handed him a couple of seconds before?

No problem there. There are some subtle differences between these two cases. Perhaps Hamilton wasn't playing mind games, but I can understand Rosberg getting little bit pissed about. He is sitting there and having stuff thrown at him and that stuff being number 2 hat and thrown by your team mate who just beat you and them having a somewhat sour relationship in the begin with. This is different than Hamilton handing a hat to Vettel who is standing next to him and realistically wasn't battling with Hamilton for the championship or for the victory of the USA GP.