Formula 1 2015: General Discussion Thread

oneofakind32

On Manor...

If they are not allowed to race with their 2014 car at the start of the year they still have a certain number of races to get there 2015 car up and running right?

If the teams have said no to there 2014 car already I don't think thats going to be a runner. I think their best shot might be to try and get the car done before "The European Season" (if such a thing still exists) and join the grid then.

People who have seen there 2015 cad designs have described it as "The most radical design on the grid" it would be a shame not to have them on the grid and also have less than 20 cars is a little pathetic.

Gillespy

ScumLord wrote: »

Weren't the 2014 F1 cars as fast at the Brazil GP as any car previously because the track is at altitude and the turbo helps counter the lack of air?

Record pole I think but Rubens set a faster time in a practice session in 04. Expect it to be beaten this year. Resurfacing played a part also.

Pity Mexico doesn't have recent times to compare when they go back there this year

AMKC

oneofakind32 wrote: »

On Manor...

If they are not allowed to race with their 2014 car at the start of the year they still have a certain number of races to get there 2015 car up and running right?

If the teams have said no to there 2014 car already I don't think thats going to be a runner. I think their best shot might be to try and get the car done before "The European Season" (if such a thing still exists) and join the grid then.

People who have seen there 2015 cad designs have described it as "The most radical design on the grid" it would be a shame not to have them on the grid and also have less than 20 cars is a little pathetic.

I don,t think they would let them join by the time the European races start. A team is only allowed to miss 3races either at the start or during a season if they miss more then they can not race in the next season or during the season that is starting if they miss the more than the first 3races. So Manor can miss the first 3races of the season but if they are not there by the 4th one well then I don,t think they will be racing this year.It would be great to see them make it but if not then maybe they could keep rebuilding and get back in next year.

Jordan 199

Less than 30 days to the opening race of the season. The petrol is slowly starting to flow through my veins again :cool:

GT_TDI_150

Should they increase the fuel capacity / max amount used during a race now that the price of fuel is coming down?

v3ttel

Jordan 191 wrote: »

Less than 30 days to the opening race of the season. The petrol is slowly starting to flow through my veins again :cool:

It's all fun and games until one of your energy recovery systems fail.

Zcott

Force India are saying they won't be able to make it to the next test and will only be present at the final Barcelona test. Doesn't bode well.

veganrun

LIGHTNING wrote: »

It would be beach justice if they don't get out and Maurissa do

Was just thinking something similar myself. They seemed to block Marussia from running 2014 cars and now Force India seem to be in a spot of bother themselves. I wonder if that chicken is going to come home to roost!

Charlie-Bravo

F1:Behind the Wheel presented by DC on at the moment on BBC World News. Not sure if it's recent?!

***edit: It seems to be a new 3-part series. First episode shows the lead up to the final race of 2014 and the after events at the factory and also celebrations in Germany. the next couple I believe will cover the lead up to 2015 season.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/n3csxl75

Jordan 199

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQzMrbDtndE

mb1725

Reminded me of Colin Chapman's famous sketches:

Mitch Connor

Zcott wrote: »

Force India are saying they won't be able to make it to the next test and will only be present at the final Barcelona test. Doesn't bode well.

has this changed? I saw on twitter the other day pictures of them loading the car and gear while saying 'on the way to testing' or something like that.

racersedge

Mitch Connor wrote: »

has this changed? I saw on twitter the other day pictures of them loading the car and gear while saying 'on the way to testing' or something like that.

I believe they are bringing last years car to the test with the plan of collecting data on the 2015 rubber.

veganrun

Ferrari reveal F1 concept car. It definitely looks different!

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/117711

Going Strong

racersedge wrote: »

I believe they are bringing last years car to the test with the plan of collecting data on the 2015 rubber.

There's still persistent rumours/gossip that the team won't be ready for Melbourne as they're either way behind on building up the 2015 tubs or else only have one solitary tub so far due to suppliers being unhappy about not getting paid. Apparently, Force India have a reputation in motorsport suppliers circles of being the worst offenders when it comes to not paying their debts on time.

ScumLord

mb1725 wrote: »

Reminded me of Colin Chapman's famous sketches:

It's crazy how little car there was back then.

Zcott

And back then the wheels weren't even round.

F1 fanatic

All drivers must keep the same helmet design for the entire season. Don't know how everyone else feels about this but it makes sense to me.
Was getting a bit tired trying to keep up with Vettels.

He has apparently had 60 different designs in his career

Going Strong

No more helmet changes? Well, that's a relief. There I was reading article after article about the funding crisis in F1 yet all along the teams had a cunning plan to solve it all at a stroke. No more helmet changes! Sure, that must save thousands in costs right there!

Gillespy

Brundle gets his way. Consistency is good. I never cared for all the messy designs and special commemorative helmets anyway. I want to be able to tell cars apart instantaneously.

Infoanon

LIGHTNING wrote: »

Meh its not going to save that much, sure the lunch bill for a team would be enough to buy a few helmets

Depends on the team - I recall Prost going ballistic when an excited Jean Alesi threw his helmet into the crowd at the Canadian GP - the expensive comms equipment wasa factor in Alains fury.

Ghost Train

I presume they can still change it a little as long as the base colours are same? Stick a few diamonds in for Monaco

GT_TDI_150

I thought that Schumi's helmets used to be 20k ... cant remember where I read that but for some reason that sticks in my head.

F1 fanatic

According to Arai its about €4500 per helmet with each driver using about 15 a year.

No cost saving as they will still need to use the same amount of helmets.
As said before it will be good to be able to easily recognise drivers.
I could be corrected here but i don't think senna ever changed his Helmet. If you show that design to anyone they would instantly name the driver.

ScumLord

F1 fanatic wrote: »

According to Arai its about €4500 per helmet with each driver using about 15 a year.

That sounds pretty cheap for an F1 helmet. I'd guess they're all custom built to the specifications of the team and the driver, it's not like they could use an off the shelf helmet. You could pay €4000 for a good consumer helmet.

I don't see why they'd go through 15 a year either.

F1 fanatic

That price was based on Lewis Hamiltons helmets and usage for McClaren 2011, probably not including radio kit.

clear thinking

The rulers of F1 seem to be having a bit of a panic attack at this stage. There seems to be no strategy and very much a make it up as you go along mentality. This helmet thing is the latest symptom. Yes, older fans like me will like the one helmet design rule, but who flipping cares that much.

They are talking of throwback cars to 2000mm widths, but the narrower cars were brought in to reduce the possibility of wheels crushing a drivers head; the future of the engines is a constant mess, this 1,000bhp is a joke, 750bhp was always the tipping point 3.5l, 3.0l and 2.5l engines kept that lid in place (or thereabouts). 1,000bhp was too dangerous in turbo cars in the late 80's and that hasn't changed. I'd love 3.5l v12s, but the reality is that v10s or v8s were better. Same with the new units, imperfect maybe, but if it is cutting edge then it is a mistake to regress.

smellslikeshoes

Knew they would knock it on the head(:pac:) sooner or later, it used to be the case that if a driver changed his helmet it was a big deal now it's just "meh". Just think of how memorable guys like Senna's helmets were, it adds something to the F1 brand when helmets are easily recognizable.

clear thinking

smellslikeshoes wrote: »

Knew they would knock it on the head(:pac:) sooner or later, it used to be the case that if a driver changed his helmet it was a big deal now it's just "meh". Just think of how memorable guys like Senna's helmets were, it adds something to the F1 brand when helmets are easily recognizable.

Could say much the same about the paintwork on the cars. Williams seem to be the only team that can cobble up a good looking paint job. How ferrari manage to ruin red I do not know, but the black 'go-slower' stripe needs a respray.

clear thinking

LIGHTNING wrote: »

??

"1,000bhp was too dangerous in turbo cars in the late 80's"

What does that even mean? The tracks are so much safer these days and the cars are a quantum leap ahead in terms of crash structures. The Mercedes road division can get 350+bhp out of a 4 pot engine, BMW can get 550+ out of a V8 and they are just road engines. They were getting 1500+ back in the 80's.

I'd love 3.5l v12s, but the reality is that v10s or v8s were better

Again what do you mean?

Same with the new units, imperfect maybe, but if it is cutting edge then it is a mistake to regress.

Ferrari persisted with V12s for years after the last turbos were ditched, even though V10s and V8s won all the championships. They were not cutting edge, but sounded great.

Scaling up to 1,000bhp with more downforce and and wider track negates all the track and car safety advances. The reason it is safe is that hard lessons involving Senna and Ratzenberger were learnt. Easliy forgotten it seems.

clear thinking

LIGHTNING wrote: »

Sorry but you are talking nonsense. Ferrari were stuck in the past and Renault saw the future was turbocharged. Everybody laughed at them at the start but they had the last laugh.

"Scaling up to 1,000bhp with more downforce and and wider track negates all the track and car safety advances"

That doesnt make any sense, you think if they go above this magical 1k hp rating that all of a sudden drivers are going to be dying left right and centre?

Improvement in car/track design wasn't just due to Senna, if you think that then you don't know your F1 history.

Eh no, you are cleary not sorry as you went ahead and said it, and said it wrong: when turbos went out ferrarri built V12s that won a few races at high speed tracks due to the peak power advantage but won no championships. The similarity to now is obvious. V12s sounded great but won sh*g all. Renault weren't forced to build a V12 in 1992 to make the sport sound better, they won with engines that didn't sound as good as v12s.

Get a grip, it is obvious that if power goes from 750 to 1000 it automatically makes the cars faster and more dangerous. If there is more down force as seems to be proposed drivers will handle the difference but again that wil increase cornering speeds - if something breaks on a car they will be going a lot faster than they were in 2014 and there will be a higher risk of injury.

It's obvious the administrators are throwing out safety to chase money.

ScumLord

The big problem with F1 is that they've made it pretty difficult to watch. They've restricted it paid for sports channels so they've cut their live viewership by a pretty large percentage.

If they got it back on freeview TV they might have a better chance of pulling in advertisers.

Gillespy

Any 70 year old worth their salt has Sky these days.

aphex™

I remember reading a few years ago that the f1 viewer figures included people just flicking through the channels. That's a lot of non-f1 fans putting on BBC 2 to see what's on and cursing that the f1 has run over.

Gillespy wrote: »

Any 70 year old worth their salt has Sky these days.

No idea what that means.

TheDoctor

Have never had Sky. Stream anything Sky related on the laptop

Gillespy

Gillespy wrote: »

Any 70 year old worth their salt has Sky these days.

Pay TV ain't as popular outside these aisles. even here the sports channels are fairly specialist.

Zcott

Gillespy wrote: »

Any 70 year old worth their salt has Sky these days.

I'm not paying a huge subscription to watch nothing but F1. I don't care for movies and reruns of old sitcoms and everything else.

Jordan 199

Testing will restart again today at Circuit de Catalunya and will run for four days.

Driver schedules for the test.

Going Strong

Zcott wrote: »

I'm not paying a huge subscription to watch nothing but F1. I don't care for movies and reruns of old sitcoms and everything else.

And not a lot of F1 either. There's feck all on really except for repeats of profiles about retired drivers. There's been complaints as well about the poor coverage of the first pre-season test. Grand when there's an F1 race on but, as the BBC have half the season anyways, not much of an investment there.

It would cost me an extra tenner to get F1 on Sky and I'm already paying €38 a month for something that I hardly watch. That's an extra €10 every month whether there's F1 worth watching or not. I'll pass thanks.

At the end of the day, F1 needs my eyeballs on their antics far more than I need to watch cars go round and round every other weekend for half the year.

tripperman

we have sky sports here and been honest we only keep it for the rugby and soccer and nfl, but for the f1 the race weekends is all i watch when there not on bbc, for the rest of the stuff filling the time its non stop repeats im sick of now

Mike Litoris

So far McLaren seem to have got their sh*t together. Anyone know what tyres they're using? Hamiltons gone home with the bum squirts!

F1 fanatic

Its not to late to get it right.

Renault solved alot of issues in the last few days before the season opener last year. Think Honda are a bit ahead of where renault was this time last year.

Jordan 199

Sauber has added more yellow to their car:



Looks better with the yellow mirrors and yellow stripe on the nose. Nice to see big numbers at the side too.

This is what the Sauber looked like in the last test:

Joeseph Balls

Thats not a bad looking car infairness. Hated it at the start

smellslikeshoes

Poor merc, looks like they worked all winter to sort out their cars breaking down but now its their drivers that are breaking down :pac:
Hamilton unwell and Rosberg with a bad neck.

zombieHanalei

I'm struggling to imagine how on earth two cars manage to collide at a test session...

Joeseph Balls

zombieHanalei wrote: »

I'm struggling to imagine how on earth two cars manage to collide at a test session...

What? Who?

Mike Litoris

One of them was a woman.........--> <--

smellslikeshoes

Joeseph Balls wrote: »

What? Who?

Susie Wolff and Felipe Nasr

TheDoctor

Mike Litoris wrote: »

One of them was a woman.........--> <--

Bingo!