Formula 1 2020 - General Discussion Thread (See MOD warning on first post)

Cork Trucker

ELM327 wrote: »

I don't remember, but it was done to prevent the ferrari dominance

Yes that was the primary aim. Michelin mastered it where Bridgestone couldn’t

Cork Trucker

ELM327 wrote: »

As a lifetime ferrari fan I hope they don't get hamilton. (unless the era of crap ferrari is going to continue!)


A new non italian backroom team is needed. Seb would have been perfect, as would max, danny ric, or any of a few others.

I agree with you, but Hamilton is drawn to Ferrari because of what Senna said.

They are too loyal to their own, Montezemolo brought in Todt though.

Dont be at yourself

The new Daimler CEO made interesting comments to Sky Sports about Merc’s future in the sport; that it requires financial controls (cost cap etc) and also carbon neutrality — so sounds like continuing on with hybrid in the new engine formula will be a requirement in order for Merc to stay, at a minimum.

Their dominance is very frustrating; the racing from 3rd place to 10th was brilliant over the weekend — RB, Ferrari, Racing Point and McLaren all look capable of beating the other on their day.

ELM327

They should go back to how it was in the last turbo era. Allow the turbo v6 engines (I think they also used I4 in the last turbo era) while also allowing NA engines with larger displacement. So you#d have a mercedes V6 hybrid running against a V8 redbull or ferrari.

Alternatively, allow whatever configuration you want, but specifiy a max fuel amount allowed to be used during the race.

Frank Bullitt

https://twitter.com/adamcooperF1/status/1280186283583770624

Threats of a horses head in a bed have worked.

muckwarrior

muckwarrior wrote: »

I can't remember who here was arguing that Norris didn't deserve his place on the grid, but I think that argument can be put to bed now.

Love to know who said that.

pjohnson

Ferrari need a Zak Brown type to completely gut the current team and reassemble it.

Anjobe

ELM327 wrote: »

And he did nothing.

^^^^^^

Deleted User wrote: »

Love to know who said that.

pyramuid man

On another note, I find it interesting that a Renault customer team again are outperforming the works outfit.

Redbull outperformed the latest Renault incarnation but that was forgiven as they were a team in disarray given the financial problems that Lotus had.

Then McLaren become a customer and they are outperforming the works outfit again.

All the focus being on Ferrari is giving Cyril (cant spell his surname) a lot of breathing space but in fairness, its time for a change of management in Renault.

There is a reason Daniel Ricciardo ran out the door as quick as he could...

Cork Trucker

pyramuid man wrote: »

On another note, I find it interesting that a Renault customer team again are outperforming the works outfit.

Redbull outperformed the latest Renault incarnation but that was forgiven as they were a team in disarray given the financial problems that Lotus had.

Then McLaren become a customer and they are outperforming the works outfit again.

All the focus being on Ferrari is giving Cyril (cant spell his surname) a lot of breathing space but in fairness, its time for a change of management in Renault.

There is a reason Daniel Ricciardo ran out the door as quick as he could...

Because McLaren are on the up with their chassis and will have Mercedes engines again next year?

tigerboon

quokula wrote: »

There are still a lot of mitigating factors to other team's position relative to Mercedes in fairness. The current hybrid formula was practically designed by them, after the three manufacturers campaigned for different directions (Ferrari wanted to keep V8, Renault wanted a flat 4, Mercedes wanted what we now have), and Mercedes were basically developing their hybrid engine for a year before anyone else.

Throw in the absolute nonsense that was engine tokens and extremely limited testing days while all the other engines suffered reliability problems that they had no opportunity to recover testing time from, and Mercedes basically had a two year head start, that everyone else has spent the following 5 years slowly catching up on while the rules have been kept stable so Mercedes have never had to go and rethink anything on their power unit but just continue to evolve it.

In the old days, when Ferrari were dominant the rules were regularly tweaked to send them back to the drawing board and help even things out. When Red Bull were dominant things like their perfectly legal blown diffuser got banned to try and even things up.

But Mercedes seem to have way too much political influence over everything right now, to the extent that development paths other teams have gone down have been shut down by the rule makers sending them backwards despite no evidence of illegality being found, while they actually worked in advance with Mercedes to give them the go ahead on stuff like DAS.

The advanced development also means catching up will cost big money. Innovation and building to new rules is relatively cheap. It's the following on refinement/tuning that costs the big bucks and that's where stable rules also benefit Mercedes. It's not as if Mercedes engineers are light years ahead of all the engineers of the other teams.Their budgets just enable it.

skipper_G

tigerboon wrote: »

The advanced development also means catching up will cost big money. Innovation and building to new rules is relatively cheap. It's the following on refinement/tuning that costs the big bucks and that's where stable rules also benefit Mercedes. It's not as if Mercedes engineers are light years ahead of all the engineers of the other teams.Their budgets just enable it.

This is just patently untrue, when rules changes it benefits the larger teams with more financial resources. Because they can afford to divert people to work on designing for the new regulations while keeping the development going to refine the existing package. Smaller teams with less resources can't run massive scale development to two regulation sets. What happens with stable regulations is the field spread closes up, its exactly what we are seeing now with the midfield getting closer to the front.

Anjobe

tigerboon wrote: »

The advanced development also means catching up will cost big money. Innovation and building to new rules is relatively cheap. It's the following on refinement/tuning that costs the big bucks and that's where stable rules also benefit Mercedes. It's not as if Mercedes engineers are light years ahead of all the engineers of the other teams.Their budgets just enable it.

So the new engine regs benefited Mercedes as they got a jump over the other engine suppliers, and then keeping the regs table since then also benefits Mercedes? That seems quite contradictory, the conventional wisdom is that stable regs should enable the others to catch up, as the ongoing process of refinement and tuning as you call it produces diminishing returns.

ELM327

Deleted User wrote: »

Love to know who said that.

It was me, and he lucked into a great podium here in a race of attrition with two fortunate penalties at the end.
I'm delighted for the guy but he's mediocre at best. Stoffel 2.0

El_Duderino 09

ELM327 wrote: »

There's a difference between it being illegal and it being asked to be discontinued.

Salient point is that without the additional fuel flow above the legal rate, they're 0.7 of a second down on last year and were a midfield team in Austria. Austria isn't even highly engine sensitive. What will they be like in Monza or even Silverstone?

ELM327

I thought about the engine regs overnight and I think my proposal earlier makes a lot of sense.
Run whatever engine you want but you only have 105kg of fuel for the race.

ELM327

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

Salient point is that without the additional fuel flow above the legal rate, they're 0.7 of a second down on last year and were a midfield team in Austria. Austria isn't even highly engine sensitive. What will they be like in Monza or even Silverstone?

No one is disputing that they are blatantly off the pace now that the loophole has been closed.


Austria is more grip and aero centered than power. I suspect in a track like Monza without improvements they will be embarrassed.

El_Duderino 09

ELM327 wrote: »

It was me, and he lucked into a great podium here in a race of attrition with two fortunate penalties at the end.
I'm delighted for the guy but he's mediocre at best. Stoffel 2.0

I cant agree with that. He was solid last year. He showed speed in qualifying by beating Sainz who is on his way to Ferrari next year. He was outscored 2:1 in the races by Sainz which is fair enough for a rookie. But he never looked miles off Sainz pace, he just wasn't as crafty as Sainz which is exactly what you expect in a rookie. This race was a solid performance and of course he benefited from the attrition. That's not his fault. Without attrition and penalties he would have driven a lovely race to 5th/6th (best of the rest including beating Sainz and might have beaten Vettel).

He might never be an all time great but he's almost certainly not anything like Stoffel

guyfo

ELM327 wrote: »

I thought about the engine regs overnight and I think my proposal earlier makes a lot of sense.
Run whatever engine you want but you only have 105kg of fuel for the race.

That would be Pandora's box in terms of costs, and with no hybrid all the manufacturers would probably use the door fairly sharpish.

You must own a fine pair of rose tinted glasses...

ELM327

It would, but it would get rid of teams that don't want to be there except for hybrid. Let that crap move to formula e where it belongs and bring F1 back to where it was, the pinnacle engine driven series. In the 90's when I started there were v12,v10 and v8 on the grid.

mickdw

ELM327 wrote: »

It was me, and he lucked into a great podium here in a race of attrition with two fortunate penalties at the end.
I'm delighted for the guy but he's mediocre at best. Stoffel 2.0

Looks quick to me.
He also held off Sainz near the end. A swap around there and Sainz might have been on the podium instead.
People would then say Sainz showed his class by making the most of the opportunity.
As I see it Norris put himself in the mix, did the overtakes when needed, played hardball with team mate when it mattered and then put in the fastest lap of the race when it was critically important to do that. That is the stuff of champions. It would have been all too easy to mess up a corner pushing hard on the last lap.

Anjobe

ELM327 wrote: »

It would, but it would get rid of teams that don't want to be there except for hybrid. Let that crap move to formula e where it belongs and bring F1 back to where it was, the pinnacle engine driven series. In the 90's when I started there were v12,v10 and v8 on the grid.

Where would F1 be without Mercedes, Renault and Honda though? A Ferrari works team, a couple of Ferrari customer teams and anyone else left in the sport forced to try and source engines from the likes of Cosworth etc? Doesn't really sound like the pinnacle of anything.

ELM327

Anjobe wrote: »

Where would F1 be without Mercedes, Renault and Honda though? A Ferrari works team, a couple of Ferrari customer teams and anyone else left in the sport forced to try and source engines from the likes of Cosworth etc? Doesn't really sound like the pinnacle of anything.

Is that what it was then?

Anjobe

ELM327 wrote: »

Is that what it was then?

[SIGH] No, because Honda and Renault were among the leading engine suppliers then. If those manufacturers leave the sport because new engine regulations are not relevant to them where are the alternatives?

ELM327

Anjobe wrote: »

[SIGH] No, because Honda and Renault were among the leading engine suppliers then. If those manufacturers leave the sport because new engine regulations are not relevant to them where are the alternatives?

So, they will leave the sport now , although they did not the last time these rules were in place?

Anjobe

ELM327 wrote: »

So, they will leave the sport now , although they did not the last time these rules were in place?

Yes, if you haven't noticed car technologies are changing fairly rapidly at the moment. Development of screaming V8s, 10s, 12s etc is of no interest to motor manufacturers anymore.

Mitch Connor

ELM327 wrote: »

So, they will leave the sport now , although they did not the last time these rules were in place?

Because the world, and engine developments and direction are completely different.

ELM327

Yes that's a fair point but I still think the option should be explored as part of the new rules after this set.
The power units are too complex

Anjobe

ELM327 wrote: »

Yes that's a fair point but I still think the option should be explored as part of the new rules after this set.
The power units are too complex

Dislike of the current power units and a desire to return to previous glory days is entirely understandable, but F1 is really caught between Scylla and Charybdis. There appears to be no easy solution to squaring the circle of controlling costs and keeping the car makers on board while remaining the pinnacle of motor sport and delivering the spectacle everyone wants.

skipper_G

ELM327 wrote: »

It was me, and he lucked into a great podium here in a race of attrition with two fortunate penalties at the end.
I'm delighted for the guy but he's mediocre at best. Stoffel 2.0

This shows how little you actually understand racing and F1