Formula 1 - 2015 season

[Kaotik]

I know the link doesn't say it, if my memory serves me, it was in Sky's broadcast where Wolff said it after the race. I'll try to dig up the broadcast today

 

[Bludd]

Scarbs has written on some of the technical innovations in the Honda PU for Autosport

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/118626

 

[Kaotik]

McLaren has new paintjob in Barcelona:


Personally I like it overall better than the old one perhaps, but the nose is terrible, the 2nd red stripe makes it look like it has 2 noses. They should have just stretched the upper red stripe all the way to the front

 

[Lightman]

I like it much more than old one

New, better looking paint job = better performance?? Will they get to Q3 on Saturday?
Can't wait!

 

[zed]

Spanish GP winner Odds

Lewis Hamilton $1.45
Nico Rosberg $4.00
Sebastian Vettel $8.00
Kimi Raikkonen $10.00

#5 = $81.00

I won't be doing this before every race (it prolly won't vary much anyways) but its not healthy for a competition, how can ppl argue otherwise. You get much more even odds in the rugby world cup later this year and there you don't have the factors of motorracing during a race eg burst tire,crash etc i.e. a team is not suddenly gonna have half its players break a leg and have to retire during the game

New Zealand 2.40
England 5.00
South Africa 5.00
Australia 8.50
Ireland 8.50
France 17.00
Wales 17.00
Argentina 51.00
Scotland 101.00
Samoa 201.00 etc

 

[DJ12]

Odds generally reflect the money that's being put down. But Hamilton is clearly in a league of his own right now.

 

[Kaotik]

For the first time ever, Räikkönen hinted that Ferrari didn't treat him and Alonso equally last year:

“In the end in the team there’s two cars and, yes, we fight for the Drivers’ Championship as the drivers, but the team wants to win the manufacturers’ championship and you need to have two cars for that. In the end Ferrari wants Ferrari to win and they will give us both the same chances and fair treatment. So it’s up to us. We try to behave as well as we can against each other if we have to race, we try to beat each other, but in a good way and in the interests of the team.”

Asked if the current situation hadn’t always been the case, Raikkonen replied: “It’s different than last year and it’s a lot better.”

http://www1.skysports.com/f1/news/2...ed-with-improved-situation-at-ferrari-in-2015

 

[Pete]

Dunno what made me watch Q2 yesterday, but Kimi was on fire (verbally). Toward the end of the session: "Do you want to keep going doing laps and laps? Because I get absolutely nothing out of this."

Further delight today, per BBC: `Raikkonen's race engineer: "OK, Kimi, we have a wrong setting." Raikkonen sarcastically: "Excellent. Excellent."'

Maybe the rumors are true and Ferrari won't renew Kimi in favor of Bottas? Or maybe his comments and quali placement are just a bad weekend. The car updates might not suit him.

And watching Grosjean's carbon fiber skin around the engine peel and then explode off his car in Q2 was kind of neat.

 

[Kaotik]

Nah, the Bottas is just a rumour and currently the closest press sources for Ferrari seem to think that Kimi will get another year.
Shame about his Q3 though, malfunctioning tire blankets ruined the extra set for Q3 which meant he had to try to get time on used tires

 

[jacozz]

Pretty boring race today. The mercs are back in total dominance. Next race in Monaco is impossible for track overtaking and should be either scrapped or reconfigured. Lets hope for rain

 

[Lightman]

Pretty boring race today. The mercs are back in total dominance. Next race in Monaco is impossible for track overtaking and should be either scrapped or reconfigured. Lets hope for rain

I have an idea for Monaco! As a special historic race they should race historic cars from 70's and 80's! That would be interesting and challenging! And before you say that these cars are too precious to risk crashing, teams can cheaply build replicas to race in.

 

[Davros]

Everyone loves Monaco.
Ive never been a fan, I even avoid it in racing games

 

[itsmydamnation]

I have an idea for Monaco! As a special historic race they should race historic cars from 70's and 80's! That would be interesting and challenging! And before you say that these cars are too precious to risk crashing, teams can cheaply build replicas to race in.

reverse grid order from the last race

 

[Billy Idol]

Race was ok. I hoped in the beginning that Vettel is closer to the Mercs, until he got destroyed

Now I hope that this initializes a fight between Ham and Ros, instead of Ham winning every race.

 

[DJ12]

Any lingering doubt that Ferrari have "caught up" should be well and truly dispelled right now. It was great seeing what a capable driver could do with the shackles released on the Mercedes. Eye opening.

Mercedes are clearly running well within themselves during most races, I guess the "show" needs them to make it look like it's close now Ferrari are the closest challengers.

Ferrari probably have a stipulation with FIA which forbids Mercedes from whooping them.

 

[jacozz]

About the circuit in Catalonia, and quite a few other tracks in f1. The main problem is the layout of the track. Having a high speed corner just before the main straight is bad. The chasing car can't be close enough due to the turbulent air the car in front makes and therefore losing aerodynamic grip. An easy thing to correct this would be to make a low speed corner before the main straight instead. One could also make the first corner after the straight tighter.

An alternative method would be to ban wings on the cars.

 

[Kaotik]

I don't think it's that simple, Barcelona was apparently last year, too, the place where Mercedes's lead was biggest percentage wise

 

[Kaotik]

About the circuit in Catalonia, and quite a few other tracks in f1. The main problem is the layout of the track. Having a high speed corner just before the main straight is bad. The chasing car can't be close enough due to the turbulent air the car in front makes and therefore losing aerodynamic grip. An easy thing to correct this would be to make a low speed corner before the main straight instead. One could also make the first corner after the straight tighter.

An alternative method would be to ban wings on the cars.

Apparently the "secret" how Bottas has now kept both Vettel and Kimi behind him is in the car itself - according to Kimi the dirty, turbulent air behind Williams is far worse than behind any other cars, making you lose far more grip than you do behind the rest. This couple with fast corner behind main straight is disaster for any overtaking attempts

 

[Lightman]

Mercedes was so strong compared to Ferrari and others because they seem to be the only team which mastered Hard Tyre. On mediums Mercedes was between 0.5 and 0.7s quicker than Ferrari, but on hard tyres it was easily 1.5s per lap. That's why Ferrari didn't cover Hamilton's stop as they knew their only chance of beating him was with 2 stop strategy.
On the race circuits with more abrasive surface and softer tyres Ferrari will mount good challenge, but show me races with hard tyres as one of the options and Mercedes will walk over competition there!
It is something they inherited from 2012/13 challenger to some degree as previously Merc was great over 1 lap due to how hard they worked tyre but not so good on longer stints because of tyre overheating. Now they can keep tyres in the right window and still can work them hard for one lap pace. I'm not sure is all down to down-force, it must be something in their suspension geometry and setup.

 

[IainF]

I don't think it's that simple, Barcelona was apparently last year, too, the place where Mercedes's lead was biggest percentage wise

Barcelona has never been a track that makes for particularly good racing, even with DRS. They really should change the layout there to promote more overtaking, however I suspect the fact it hasn't been done already is in part because it has been used for many years for pre-season testing and it would invalidate years' worth of data if they changed it. Not to mention also the cost of changing the circuit is born by the circuit owner of course and they already have to pay ridiculous fees to even put on an F1 race in the first place. I never quite could wrap my head around how in any sane world Formula 1 does not pay the circuits to host races rather than the other way around.