Formula 1 - 2015 season

[DJ12]

There had always been a dominant team, mclaren, Williams, Ferrari and red bull in recent times, all clearly ahead of other teams. It's what the sport does.

And in fairness ferrari for once are showing themselves to be up for the fight. They have designed a good engine and the car is much improved over last year's and they may even put in a challenge later in the year.

Red bull can go for all I care, the team will remain under new owners.

There's only room for one set of drama queens and Ferrari have had dibs on that for many many years.

 

[Phil]

Arguably though, it's not the team that is the dominating factor, but the engine. How is this different to say, when we had two tyre suppliers and some teams, irregardless how good their car was, found themselves on the wrong tyre and couldn't compete? Is that a kind of formula that is good for the sport?

 

[Rurouni]

Button is overrated anyway. Apart from Brawn he never really performed.

I see that some people thought that Button is overrated, but why Button is overrated? Where is this overrating him come from? From what I read, most Button fans don't think that he was the fastest guy out there. Most of them acknowledge that Alonso and Hamilton is faster. Most of his fans also acknowledge that he is sensitive to the setup of the car. Most media don't think he was the fastest. When I watch FoxSport Asia (where F1 is being broadcasted around here), the commentator also not really rating him (and dare I say, they are underrating Button).

Anyway, he was performing in most of his years in F1. He was the best rookie, not so good 2nd year (and 3rd? I forgot). He was good in his Honda's year (relative to his team mate) except for the dreadful 2008. His result was only slightly lower than Ham when they were together. If this what you called never really performed, then which driver that is really performing constantly? Alonso? Ham? then?

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

The team designed the engine.

In a "open" formula you will always have a situation where one or two teams come up with a very good solution and other teams trying to copy that. It has always been like that even from the days with the Alfa's and Silver arrows in the old days with their big engines, ground effect, active suspensions and all kind of electronic aids, double diffusers etc. I'm pretty sure that if you are going through the history of F1 that in at least half the seasons you'll find one team in one way or another had a superior design dominating.

If you want to see fair racing you should watch a spec series.

 

[Phil]

The team designed the engine.

Was this directed at me? Which team designed what engine? Sauber? ForceIndia? Lotus? RedBull? No clearly not. Not even in the sense of Mercedes, since the engine is developed externally by Mercedes and has nothing to do with the team that is situated in Brackley.

 

[DJ12]

Arguably though, it's not the team that is the dominating factor, but the engine. How is this different to say, when we had two tyre suppliers and some teams, irregardless how good their car was, found themselves on the wrong tyre and couldn't compete? Is that a kind of formula that is good for the sport?

With the exception of the first few Williams-Renault years and Ferrari's Schumacher era (accepted wisdom was Mercedes had the best engines anyway), the engines have been in other cars, so clearly not just about the engines, although it's clearly an important part, it's not the be all end all. Just look at Red Bull last season, they managed to win a race on merit. (the other two gifted to them)

 

[Phil]

I'm not sure what good there is in bringing up Schumachers era. It's rare that a single team like Mercedes has dominated in the way it has, even if you include the 2011 season of RedBull.

Right now, since the V6 turbos, there is a very big performance gap between engines. And we have tokens that put a limit to how much an engine supplier can change.

You bring up RedBull in 2014 as a means to show that it isn't just the engine. That's a fair point. However, RedBull also had a way better chassis/aero despite all compromises they needed to make to get more or less on par with Williams. Arguably, the races RedBull won in 2014, were also races where Williams made mistakes and should have been there to pick up the points. From the Mercedes engined teams - it's only the works team that had a substantial budget and was already on top of their chassis and aero in 2013. McLaren, Williams and ForceIndia were nowhere. Fast forward to 2014 and both Williams and ForceIndia did rather well despite similar budgets. If this doesn't show how the engine is a significant factor, I dont' know what is.

 

[DJ12]

Was this directed at me? Which team designed what engine? Sauber? ForceIndia? Lotus? RedBull? No clearly not. Not even in the sense of Mercedes, since the engine is developed externally by Mercedes and has nothing to do with the team that is situated in Brackley.

The engines may be made in a different place, but if you are suggesting the brackley based team had no input into the engine design, you are wrong. I believe they gave a set of parameters on weight distribution etc. to the engine team and they delivered.

And of course Ferrari will be exactly the same.

Right now, since the V6 turbos, there is a very big performance gap between engines. And we have tokens that put a limit to how much an engine supplier can change.

I don't think there is, last year it was rumoured Mercedes were around 80bhp up on the others, in the v8 days, they were 50bhp up, certainly on Renault. I think more important that power is how it's applied.

Renault have made a pup of an engine, that is no reason to punish Mercedes in my opinion.

 

[Dave Baumann]

I thought it was due to a difference between the merc pu being more optimised since merc have a good idea about the engine from conception while customers only find out when its fully built, that was the case last year it was discussed a bit here:

That was last year when the chassis started development (relatively) blind with an entirely new engine concept. They've all had a year to work with it and will have a far better understanding of integration and packaging; indeed Lotus (even though they are newest to the Mercedes stable) were cited as taking some interesting approaches to cooling and packaging. Even though there are engine developments for this season they are unlikely to be radically different in terms of demands.

 

[Phil]

The engines may be made in a different place, but if you are suggesting the brackley based team had no input into the engine design, you are wrong. I believe they gave a set of parameters on weight distribution etc. to the engine team and they delivered.

I never said they didn't have any input. It still doesn't change the fact that the race teams don't design the engine. Surely, the sport is bigger than the 3.5 works-teams, so we shouldn't focus on just Mercedes or RedBull. The fact is, the teams don't design engines - it is designed by the engine supplier. In Mercedes's case, this is done in Brixworth by Mercedes AMG High Performance Powertrains. Look at it from point of a non-works team, like Sauber. They, as an established midfield team, dropped way to the back, partly due to the fact that the Ferrari power unit was no where in 2014. Williams on the other hand, went from nowhere to finish 3rd best in the WCC. From the point of Sauber, the outcome to their 2014 championship was pretty much out of their hands, despite what wonders the team might have achieved on the chassis/aero side.

If we had 10 engine manufacturers, effectively 10 works-teams, then I wouldn't mind what is effectively an "engine formula". Because they'd be playing a rich mans game of who builds the strongest car. But if you do have an engine dominated formula with only 4 suppliers among 10 teams, having the right engine is more crucial than what your team designed. I'm not sure I think this is necessarely good for the sport. At least prior to 2014, one could argue that RedBull as a team did the best job, which is why they dominated the sport.

 

[Dave Baumann]

Let's not forget that it's unlikely that Mercedes ran their engine anywhere close to max. With the gap they have they didn't need to.

If that were the case then it would highlight the aero gap even further as the same would not be true for Williams and the other Merc powered teams. They will want to score as high as possible as early as possible as better funded teams are likely to have more rapid development through the year.

 

[DJ12]

The engine isn't dominating though, Red Bull finished second in the constructors with the worst engine, Ferrari are likely to finish second this year.

There's no doubt the engine is good, but it isn't the dominating factor. Else, Williams would be second, Lotus third and Force India fourth, which we know isn't going to happen.

Williams rise could be attributed to numerous factors as they had a complete change around in the design team after their worst season for decades, sure the engine was a key factor, but not the only one.

 

[Dave Baumann]

They were basically running in fuel saving with Button instructed to do a lot lift and coasting and they even limited the fuel flow. The fuel consumption is bad because they can't run full power, and probably with the current detuned engine, they are bellow the maximum km/l that the engine could potentially do.

I can't find reference to it online now, but I thought I heard a post race interview with Button also pointing out that when they were running at the speeds and the manner they were it was also difficult keeping the tires and brakes in in the correct operating window, thus further impacting performance.

 

[Dave Baumann]

Arguably though, it's not the team that is the dominating factor, but the engine. How is this different to say, when we had two tyre suppliers and some teams, irregardless how good their car was, found themselves on the wrong tyre and couldn't compete? Is that a kind of formula that is good for the sport?

Again, except the rest of the customer teams are showing that this clearly is the team that is making the difference - putting the engine in the back of the any of them has not suddenly made any of the race winners. Force India were one of the slowest this weekend; Lotus has climbed, but the drivers are pointing out that the chassis is also way better behaved than last year; and Williams, no stranger to leading and winning championships are still ~1 second behind.

However, the Formula 1 being an engine dominated formula is not really a new thing, its just not been seen for a long time with the stability of the pervious rules, and a lot of us haven't really "grown up" with F1 being that way. For the past 10-15 years aero has been the most single prominent factor in F1, but really, how is that good for the sport? How does that serve me in looking at relevancy to the outside world? At least with the new engine rules you can look to some applicability to something you can potentially purchase.

It frustrates the hell out of me when the likes of Horner or Marko comes out and says "we need to change the engine rules because they are too complicated"; you know they wouldn't be saying that if Renault had got their act together, and for my money these engines are the most interesting thing to happen in F1 is decades - cutting fuel usage by at least 1/3, driving hybrid technologies forward is 100% applicable to any road user out there, and directly relatable to me as an occasional Prius driver. I say let engines be part of the differentiator for a while, as this more relevant to the average punter than many other factors; if they all allow this engine rule set to mature then eventually things will plateau with a narrower performance band between the manufacturers and something else will become the dominating factor.

[Note - I do get agitated over other technologies banned by F1. Active Suspension, CVT, ABS, etc. are all technologies that are relevant to standard road cars and development in them for F1 can help bring costs down and waterfall quicker to road cars.]

 

[mczak]

[Note - I do get agitated over other technologies banned by F1. Active Suspension, CVT, ABS, etc. are all technologies that are relevant to standard road cars and development in them for F1 can help bring costs down and waterfall quicker to road cars.]

You know though, if they'd allow all new technology, surely by now they wouldn't have a driver in the car ;-).

 

[Dave Baumann]

You know though, if they'd allow all new technology, surely by now they wouldn't have a driver in the car ;-).

Yes and no. Of those ones cited, ABS is probably the one that I care about least as not being in the sport - its cost point is such that it has basically waterfalled to nearly all new cars availble and it is the most "driver aidy". Active suspension is something that the teams have just spent more money on replacing with Hydraulic systems (even with the FRIC ban) and CVT's may replace gears, but the drivers would then likely have direct controls over the rev points.

Take a look at the Hamilton pole lap linked to earlier - as well as gears and DRS he's basically changing brake balance nearly every corner. Good drivers & teams will always find ways to control the technologies available to exploit an even better lap time.

 

[Davros]

Brawn, a car that was as dominate as the Mercedes and he still only just won the championship.

I never realised mercedes had the best car for the first 7 races and then were eclipsed by redbull, mclaren and ferrari

 

[Dave Baumann]

Yes, to be fair, Brawn GP could never maintain the development pace of the other teams because they had to go through hefty layoffs during the season as their funding was pretty mush solely residual money that Honda provided. They won on the strength of their initial interpretation of the rules and then proceeded to be overhauled once the others got up to speed.

 

[IainF]

Yes, to be fair, Brawn GP could never maintain the development pace of the other teams because they had to go through hefty layoffs during the season as their funding was pretty mush solely residual money that Honda provided. They won on the strength of their initial interpretation of the rules and then proceeded to be overhauled once the others got up to speed.

Yes and in that context it seems a little unfair for people to be criticising Button's performance, in fact the opposite. For large parts of his career Button has had to deal with some terribly under performing cars, arguably that one year with Braun was the first time he had a truly competitive car and he delivered a WDC with it. In absolute pace no he is not as quick as Hamilton or Alonso and while I would not cite the number of wins versus Hamilton as some proof of his superiority, I would say he was not shown up by Hamilton and the two had some great contests in races at a time when the Red Bull drivers (Vettel & Webber) were taking each other out. Someone made a comment that his development skills did not help McLaren over the last few years, but that is a bit ridiculous really, the driver can help the team go in the right direction by giving good feedback but if they have a fundamentally non-performing design (e.g. due to wind tunnel issues giving false data) then there is not much that a driver can do than just point out and demonstrate they have a bigger issue. It isn't a magic wand..

 

[IainF]

What Red Bull did was legal at the time, based on loopholes in the rules. There's no doubt that every team tries to take advantage of any possible loophole they can find, Red Bull just did it better than the rest at the time.

That is very debateable in the case of bendy wings, the issue was that the FIA did not at the time have a garage test that was in any way representative of the load on the wing at speed so they got away with it. I agree that every team looks for loopholes in the rule, that is fair enough, however there is a difference between a loophole in the rules versus a loophole in the compliance testing.

The question really is though let's say for the sake of argument that it is ok to make the racing more competitive by changing rules as necessary to outlaw technologies that a dominant team is using; what specific technological advantage do Mercedes have that none of the other teams do that you could then limit or ban? People keep citing the engine but honestly that really does not make much sense given their margin over the other Mercedes engine teams. I may have missed something as significant in influence as say blown diffusers or FRIC but I haven't really seen anything specific they have that somehow gives them the crushing advantage. It just seems like they have got a great combination of entirely legal components that work fundamentally the same way as those components used by other teams. All well and good saying, "hey let's gimp Mercedes so that the other teams can be competitive," but what are we saying here? Stick an anvil in the cockpit? Make them run less fuel than everyone else? It all smacks of becoming a bit artificial if we start going to the lengths where we just penalise teams with coming up with a better car for a what, just into the second season of the new regulations...