Spain showed nothing has changed at Ferrari – Alonso

F1 Fanatic Round-up

Posted on

| Written by

In the round-up: Fernando Alonso says the gap between Ferrari and Mercedes in Spain shows he was right to leave the team.

Become an F1 Fanatic Supporter

F1 Fanatic is run thanks in part to the generous support of its readers. By contributing £1 per month or £12 per year you can help cover the costs of creating, hosting and developing F1 Fanatic today and in the future.

Become an F1 Fanatic Supporter today and browse the site ad-free. Sign up or find out more via the links below:

Links

Your daily digest of F1 news, views, features and more.

Fernando Alonso says 'nothing has changed' at Ferrari since he left (Sky)

"I was in the Ferrari last year half a minute, a minute behind Mercedes and on Sunday they were 43 seconds behind in Barcelona. Nothing has changed – and that is one of the reasons why l moved."

Ecclestone: Engine will be big challenge if Audi enters F1 (Adam Cooper's F1 Blog)

"The problem is the engine situation. I believe Honda thought it wasn’t a problem. I told them it would be"

F1 'easier than I expected' - Yelloly (F1i)

"The biggest difference for me was the power steering, just how easy it is physically compared to a GP2 car. I thought it would be harder, but I actually found it quite easy, so that was nice."

David Coulthard column: 'Slow cars disillusion F1 drivers' (BBC)

"You will very rarely hear them saying it publicly but, without exception, no-one in F1 likes the construction and compound range of the current tyres, and people are very negative about Pirelli as a result; hardly good PR."

Force India F1 team aiming to sign reserve driver (Reuters)

"We've always run a reserve driver in an integral role. The fact that we haven't got that at the moment doesn't mean we couldn't find somebody if we had to. That would be something we could achieve."

McLaren and Ron Dennis need a little more humility (The Telegraph)

"However embarrassing their plight, or however much criticism they receive, I do not think we will ever reach a point where it is attributed to his leadership of the company."

The Right Formula (The Buxton Blog)

"What does seem likely is that the unpopular fuel flow limitations will be removed, allowing more power, more torque and, it is hoped, an end to the hated and much maligned need for drivers to coast during a race. "

Lewis Hamilton to sign three-year deal worth £130m with Mercedes (The Guardian)

"'I will have some news for you in Monaco,' he said after his second place in Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix."

Tweets

Comment of the day

Red Bull’s complaining about their engines was overdue an injection of humour. Thank you, Philip:

Why would Red Bull want Audi’s help? They want to be the car in front not two inches off the lead car’s rear end.
Philip (@Philipgb)

Snapshot

GP2 drivers Pierre Gasly (above) and Nick Yelloly (above right) made their F1 debuts in testing yesterday with Toro Rosso and Force India respectively.

From the forum

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Stephen, Mclarengal and Quinn!

If you want a birthday shout-out tell us when yours is via the contact form or adding to the list here.

On this day in F1

Vincenzo Sospiri won the Formula 3000 race supporting the 1995 Spanish Grand Prix on this day 20 years ago.

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

124 comments on “Spain showed nothing has changed at Ferrari – Alonso”

  1. Simon (@weeniebeenie)
    13th May 2015, 0:04

    Great column by Coulthard IMO. Fully agree with all of his points regarding the speed of F1 today. It’s fast, but it could easily be a lot faster and just as safe.

    1. @weeniebeenie – While I have complained about some of Coulthard’s articles before, this one was pretty good. He makes some decent points about what could be done to improve the show. While I would never consider refueling at all, he even discounted his own argument for it, most of his other points are valid. Tires, aero and no DRS would be my biggest points points of agreement.

      1. Simon (@weeniebeenie)
        13th May 2015, 1:51

        I don’t think he ever advocated refueling (and I certainly wouldn’t either), he just cited it as one reason they’re slower, which is true. As he says though, plenty you can do whilst also keeping away from the pointless danger and lottery of refueling.

        I totally get the need to reign the cars in, and stop them getting too fast, but they’ve taken things too far on the whole. We shouldn’t be slower than 10 years ago, we should be at the very least the same. Safety is better than it was then, and will only get better.

    2. He makes good points, tyre management is too extreme indeed. A tyre should be able to do half race stints without any major measures.

      I don’t agree with the 2 meters wide cars, I think David is too nostalgic there, it’s like saying road cars design should go back to 1970s… things evolve, it’s our nature.

      1. Same here, I agree on everything except the 2m cars. I’m sure it’s possible to build good looking 1.8 cars.

        One way to make the cars faster is to not change the rules every year, keep that in mind.

        1. @paeschli indeed. Regulatory stability is key for consistent improvement.

    3. I thought his most important point was the same one that Gary Anderson brought up in Autosport:
      “Why I hate DRS”. DRS is evil because it’s a bandaid to solve an obvious problem: The cars can’t get close enough to pass because they are SO dependent on front wing aero! Use more underbody tunnels, etc…and Get rid of those front wings and the results (From Gary’s article)
      1) Drivers could race on track without destroying tires
      2) HUGE cost of front wings could be reduced
      3) Complex front wings are so delicate that even a simple touch breaks them and destroys a race
      4) The top teams wouldn’t be able to spend the smaller teams into oblivion on front wing complexity
      5) We’d actually see real racing on track rather than “passing in the pits” or DRS passes

      Great article but you have to be a “Plus” member on Autosport to read it.

  2. The Buxton Blog “formula” is the best one I’ve seen today. The others from David(BBC) and Martin(Sky) have some things which I still can’t agree! Like Will Buxton said not everything is wrong with the current F1! It just needs some little corrections and changes. But for me, and I know I’m being repetitive, one of the biggest change needed is equal budget distribution! The small teams would be more competitive even if the big teams could spend all they want. But I’m sure big teams like Ferrari wouldn’t spend 300 million every year without their extra bonus.

    1. F1 would benefit with at total revamp, it just shows how ignorant the likeable Buxton is, however there are indeed good things in today’s f1 and this good things will be used as an argument to keep the bad habits alive.

      1. @peartree how can you be so certain that F1 would benefit from a total revamp? There’s nothing to suggest that it would work at all. A full change could work, you’re right, but it’s more likely that trying to iron out most of the bad right now is far more likely to be an effective way of dealing with the issues at hand.

        1. @philereid @daved I think the teams have an excessive power over the ruling of f1 and this hurts racing. In my opinion changing this fact accounts for a total revamp. I like a lot of things about current gen f1 but it’s not fair to keep things as they are. The rulebooks have many flaws we could spend an entire weekend discussing it.

          1. @peartree
            Good points. Especially about the excessive power of the rich teams. The structure to govern and the absolutely “cartel like” power of that “Strategy Group” is illegal as can be.
            It will eventually get the current system overthrown when the EU finishes its glacial investigations.

          2. @peartree Okay, well that’s understandable then, it’s just you made it sound like you would pretty much change everything.

            I’m with you, I believe the teams have too much power. Also, what do you mean by “I like a lot of things about current gen f1 but it’s not fair to keep things as they are.” ?

          3. @philereid Answering your last question. I think above all there are 2 aspects of the current sporting regulations that aren’t fair. No free choice on the tyre allocation isn’t right. (Strategy group has fixed this for 2017)
            Secondly I don’t think it’s fair to have a powertrain regulation that effectively locks the performance advantage of certain teams via freezing of components. I’m pretty sure that F1 championships are run on a yearly basis and that at the end there’s a champion, with the PU freezing if a manufacturer gets it wrong the teams will end up carrying that penalty until the end of the PU rule-set which can comprise of many seasons rather than the end of one season one championship.
            To avoid unnecessary debating I tried not to be specific.

      2. @peartree
        And you’re forgetting that Bernie is the one that would drive through most of that “total revamp”. We’d get things like double points, DRS, sprinklers on the track to create “wet races”, more rich old 70 year olds with Rolex watches and less social media.

        I’d prefer that we just iron out the obvious things now.
        1) Force a better pay distribution so we keep midfield teams competitive and backmarkers alive.
        2) Get rid of the downforce from the expensive/complex front wings. Go with underbody tunnels so that we could keep the downforce/speed and allow passing with no DRS (because they could get close and pass without their front wings washing out in “dirty air”).
        3) Get rid of these degrading tyres so drivers can push.
        4) Let them up the fuel flow by 5-10% so they can hit 1000hp with as minimal of change as possible and keep the costs down. Merc is almost there now. 5% would do it for them.
        5) Wider tyres for better mechanical grip…again for more passing and less reliance on downforce from wings.

    2. I think Max Mosley’s idea is interesting, of having a voluntary budget cap where those that volunteer have greater flexibility in the regulations. However this would effectively create two formulas, so not sure if it is good or bad, just another thing that needs to be managed (can’t be worse than DRS).

      1. @ady
        I’d love to see what the teams would come up with under Mosley’s plan. It would be similar to what we’re seeing in WEC now where the Porsches and Audis trade the lead multiple times per lap because of the different strengths of the cars.
        At least it would be fun to see what tech makes the most difference with a cost cap on it.

        I’m sick of watching teams spend over $50 Million per year to add yet more twiddly bits of carbon to the front wings…simply to see them wash out in the dirty air as they try to get close enough to pass anyone. :(

    3. You need to get off that equal funds horse because it’s expired. Will never happen, doesn’t happen in most other sports, pointless argument.

      F1 needs 3 things, Speed, noise and characters. FOM and the FIA have removed all 3. It doesn’t matter if a team/driver is winning all the time when just watching him/her race and fighting the car leaves you in awe. Do you think drivers like Senna, Mansell, Villeneuve etc would be revered if they drove in these times? They’d just be another F1 driver because they’d be restricted in showing the things that made them stand out.
      If FOM and FIA don’t hurry up and understand this, F1 will die a very slow and boring death.

    4. See this is also another problem with F1.. the fans! They ask for too much and every fan wants different things! I agree with the speed because they are really slow nowadays! But those kind of problems can be solved with patience if some fans could have it! This “engine formula” is new, it needs time to fully develop and I’m almost sure when the engines are totally upgrade teams will work on the sound because they know that’s a thing that almost every fan ask for it! Now if in 2017 they go in the 1000kp direction, it could be even more faster to get to that point!

      Now, a total revamp like some people want would just be another year like 2014 with enormous costs and teams leaving!! They need to fix the problems of the current formula, not make a revolution!

      About the equal funds it could be achieved with a better group than CVC in front of the sport! Equal funds distribution (because everybody knows the big teams would still have more money with sponsorts and other stuff) and then bonus accordingly to the Constructor Championship!

      And finally, this is my opinion as a fan of F1 and I’m sure there’s a million of other different opinions out there like yours!

      1. And just to throw another fun and interesting idea circulating on the internet… it could work and some venues could agree with it!

      2. Another reason why teams shouldn’t have power over money distribution. I can’t understand teams having something to say about technical rules, but this bonus premium has to go away in the new contracts.

    5. Yes, in the end, more people mixing for wins will make F1 better. Too bad there’s no easy fix for that, apart from Horner’s weird equalization idea…

  3. From Will Buxton’s blog: “The only way one will get the close racing the fanbase, which lest we forget has not actually been effectively asked for what it wants, so apparently desires is by making the cars as equal as possible. The best way to do this is to reduce the differences between them. I’m not advocating a 100% spec championship. We might as well just pack up and create GP1 if we wanted that. But if you reduce the number of variables, it follows that you create the circumstances in which equality can move closer to reality.”

    I couldn’t agree with this comment *less*. One of the biggest problems with F1 recently is that it’s wildly overregulated in piecemeal ways, which leads to completely bizarre rules, like those that dictated the dong-noses of the last few years.

    If you look instead at WEC, you’ve got the single most exciting car in the last decade about to make its debut – the Nismo GTR-LM. Why? Because they found a way to essentially nearly completely subvert the existing rulebook & come up with a solution that is radically different than what everyone else is doing.

    If you create a nearly uniform “equality” through regulation, then smaller teams have no ability to innovate, and there are no significant radical approaches to the interpretation of the regulations. Lotus’ hideous double-prong nose is a great example of at least *trying* something unique, even though it wasn’t a success. These days, the only way a smaller team has to attempt to break from their “place” in F1 is through some sort of radical interpretation of the rules, but the rules are so stringent that virtually nothing can be done.

    To me, this is actually one of the main drivers of the insane costs of F1 – if no *fundamentally* different solutions are possible, then the only way forward is through incremental optimization, which is horrendously resource-intensive and expensive. Open the rules more, and you’ll have solutions that are different because the teams have different experiences & strengths, and optimizing for cost vs. optimizing for something else will force teams to find interesting and crazy solutions to the question of “how to go fast”.

    1. Finally, some of the press are finding the spheres to disagree with Bernie and point out the problems that should have been obvious even before their adoption, I am in general agreement with Coulthard, especially when it comes to the deplorable tyre design and regulation but don’t really think wider cars should be considered purely on aesthetics but if it is necessary for improved mechanical grip I’ll happily go with it.
      As for Buxtons piece I am in general agreement except for 2 reservations;
      1: As the Seppo has already pointed out we need lessregulated uniformity, we merely need stable rules to allow development to find the same performance for the majority.
      2: I don’t see how de-restricting the fuel flow rate will result in less coasting.

    2. I want:
      – Fast cars (especially in the corners, which is awesome to see)
      – Free tire choice
      – Free fuel consumption (no more coasting)
      – Room for technical innovations (aero, traction and engine wise)
      – The possibility for engine manufacturers to level the playing field
      – Traditional circuits (with gravel traps)
      – to see that F1 drivers really are racing on the limit

      I don’t want:
      – Tilke designed circuits, especially the streetcircuit ones
      – DRS
      – F1 behind a pay wall

      I couldn’t care less for:
      – how much money is involved
      – how will be prevented that teams cannot pay the bills anymore
      – hybrid engines
      – politics around all this

      I think this sums up the problem pretty well. Most F1 fans want to see the best series of all: the best drivers in the best and fastest cars on the best circuits. And for this kind of racing they are willing to pay a lot for a ticket. And in the last 10 years this all corroded.

      On the other hand: the fans really don’t care how much it all cost for the teams, they don’t. So this is a tricky situation to solve. But one advice: just look at what the fans want, and work from there, because it’s simple, without fans there is no F1 at all.

      1. petebaldwin (@)
        13th May 2015, 21:20

        Gravel traps are the wrong way to go but we need something to make it more costly to go off. There must be some sort of solution that guarantees you lose time if you go off but isn’t dangerous.

      2. @favmodo, I can’t for the life of me see how unrestricted fuel flow would reduce coasting, please explain how this would happen without resorting to bigger fuel tanks or refueling ?

  4. I think RBR as every team on the grid want the best outcome possible. What f1 needs to do is to make possible for everyone to contest every single yearly edition of the championship. In the current unfortunately it is practically impossible to overcome certain handicaps. Having an open F1 is not what teams want, teams want to win and fans want their brand names to shine, no one wants a fair f1 not to mention no one wants multiple race winners as shown at the start of the epic 2012 and 2013 seasons. Teams are like children, you can’t live them alone, they can’t rule themselves, it’s already remarkable they won’t manage to hurt themselves whilst you are looking the other way.

  5. We could play bingo with the Lewis Hamilton salary reports.

  6. Fernando Alonso sounds like the bitter man. Scraping for justification to be happy at McLaren/Honda even though Ferrari has won a race and is finishing on the podium every race. Like those are bad things.

    Fernando should be happy at McLaren since he made the decision to go there. I wish him and McLaren well. But trying to put Ferrari down while they are doing better than last season and McLaren is struggling to complete races comes off pretty weak though.

    Hope Fernando concentrates more on how McLaren is doing rather than bagging on Ferrari. Nobody should want to sound as bitter as Luca di Montezemolo.

    1. I think he is only saying this because of how many think he made a bad move. It doesn’t matter to him whether he is in second or last, he just wants to win the championship and will do whatever he can to do so.

    2. It’s actually journalists who keep asking him, hoping he is regretting a move. The truth is, like he said himself, unless you can fight for the championship, it doesn’t matter if you finish 2nd or 22nd. Ferrari will not win the title this year and neither will either of their drivers, so it’s all the same to Fernando.
      But as I said, journalists keep asking the same thing in a hope of provoking him and causing some cheap news…

    3. after every race they ask him if he regrets the move, what else do you expect.

      1. Yes, journos should ask him other things but he could well pick different words though…

        1. @jcost – Exactly.

    4. On the contrary, I think he is not bothered about how the team – Ferrari – progresses. How many times did he come second in the championship with them, twice, thrice? He couldn’t be bothered if they don’t win the championship. Been there done that, is how I assume he would see Vettel coming, say second to either Nico or Lewis at the end of the year.

      What the man is after is a championship winning car and team and I think his body language, at least on TV, with Mclaren shows he is ready to rock it out with the team for the foreseeable future.

      If it happens that he doesn’t win anymore championship, at least people can say he tried his luck elsewhere. Imagine what people would say had he opted to finish his career at Ferrari, staying with them for as long as Massa did and still went home empty-handed.

      You don’t get too much flack for doing something, you get a lot of it for not making a move.

      As for his statement, he was only answering a question. And to his credit, he has largely stayed quiet, since his departure, on commenting about Maranello even when a Sky Italia F1 staff used some unflattering terms to describe the man a few weeks ago.

  7. People who work in F1 need to take a step back sometimes and re-evaluate their statements.

    They complained about the lack of passing, so DRS was invented. It originally hailed as a great tool, now its derided.

    They complained about lack of unpredictable races, so Play-Doh tyres were invented. Once again, seemed like a good idea at first, not any more..20/20 hind sight.

    Its all knee jerk reaction. This is the the problem. There is no forward planning for what the formula could look like in years to come, all marks of a business that is not well run. The first thing that everyone in F1 needs to do, hopefully starting with Bernie, the teams and the FIA, is to sit in a room and decide what they want F1 to be. You could probably bet on the US and Iran coming to a nuclear peace agreement before the powers that be in F1 can come to any sort of agreement, and that is the single most pressing issue.

    F1 cant get along with itself, hence how can we expect it to get stronger in times of trouble? Everyone in F1 want a slice of the cake and eat it too, and its not working. I hope they realize that their collective unwillingness to come together for the future of the sport is akin to chopping off the hand that feeds you.

    Brundle or Coulthard or Buxton or Benson (God I hope not) can come up with what F1 needs to look like or be, but until it can all pull in the same direction, there is no point whatsoever.

    1. @jaymenon10, The problem is not uneducated complaints, it’s the poorly thought out responses from the top that are the problem, no-one should have needed hindsight to see the results of gimmicks like DRS and marshmallow tyres, all that was needed was a modicum of intelligence and the ability to think out cause and effect, but only a total mor on would fail to see that DRS and fragile tyres used together would completely cancel out any slightest good that either 1 used alone might achieve.

      1. Exactly, the problem is that people blame DRS for what is actually caused by the self destructing tyres.

        DRS in essence is no different from slip streaming. The tyres are what keep the drivers from racing. Keep DRS and give the drivers proper tyres.

        1. Disagree, not about proper tires but DRS. Slipstreaming is not a push to pass button and does not leave the leading car defenseless. DRS equals fake passes that have little to do with driver skill nor will they ever be remembered or talked about ad infinitum as great feats. DRS waters down F1 and means today’s drivers cannot be put in the category amongst the greats of the sport. Today’s drivers are not pushed to their limits, nor are the cars.

          1. ….+10000000000000 .Well said Robbie! Couldnt have put it more concisely or perfectly! #:)

          2. Slipstreaming does exactly that. It makes the following car go faster and leaves the lead car defenseless.

            Self destructing tyres water down the racing. It’s what makes the cars go so incredibly slow trying to preserve them. It’s indeed exactly the tyres which keeps them from driving on the limit!

            It’s what the drivers complain about, it’s what the educated fans complain about etc.

            Only the fans who don’t understand what’s happening who complain about DRS. Apparently they somehow even think DRS makes the car slower and no reach their limit …

        2. @patrickl The tyres do not give cars a 20kph speed gain on the straights, Thats 100% down to DRS & its 100% DRS that creates the boringly easy highway passing down the straights as a result.

          DRS in essence is no different from slip streaming.

          DRS is completely different to slipstreaming in that a slipstream doesn’t give you as big a speed gain & only works while your actually behind another car, As soon as you pull out to pass you are slowed down.
          DRS gives you a much larger speed gain & allows you to maintain that speed gain even after you have pulled out to pass & in some cases even when you have got ahead.

          Also lets not forget that you still get to use DRS if you were within DRS range at the detection point but get ahead of the car infront before the DRS line. Slipstreaming doesn’t work like that obviously.

          Additionally its nearly always possible to defend against a slipstream attack as you can try & break the tow of the car behind. There’s more often than not no defense against a DRS attack & thats what a lot of fans don’t like.

          And finally the other difference is that the slipstream works everywhere & is not regulated so that you can only use it at certain parts of the track which the FIA decide are passing zones.

          1. ….and thank you Roger for the expanded view! Again, very well put. #:)

          2. Wrong. The tyres do give them 20kph speed extra on the straight. The lack of traction means they cannot come out of the corner fast enough.

            That’s why drivers on slower tyres are already passed well beore the corner and then people start complaining about DRS. Which is dumb since it was the tyres that made it so easy.

            Two cars on reasonably similar performance gives good battles with DRS and none at all without.

          3. @patrickl I suggest you go back & watch some easy DRS passes.
            I’ve seen plenty where it was 100% DRS with no tyre effect & i’ve seen plenty of cases where the car infront pulled a gap out of the previous corner with no traction issues only to get highway passed purely thanks to DRS.
            I also suggest that ex-drivers like martin brundle & david coulthard who often critisize easy drs passes would know the difference between tyres & pure DRS.

            I would also suggest that even if it is as you say tyres & not DRS then isn’t that just proving the argument that we don’t even need DRS?
            Surely if DRS isn’t doing anything then we can drop the gimmick & let them race without artificial speed boosts.

          4. I have seen plenty easy DRS passes and always was it when the tyre differences was the actual reason for the overtake being easy.

            DRS is needed. They have tried to reduce aero dependence and that never worked. We don’t want to go back to processional races of the 2000’s.

        3. @patrickl, we need to get rid of both, to do that we need the following car not to be handicapped by turbulence from the car ahead.

          1. @hohum, Unfortunately that’s been proven impossible. It goes completely against the nature of F1 too.

            Aero development is not going to stop unless you turn F1 into a spec series.

            DRS is a good fix. The tyres ruin it though.

    2. DRS wasn’t ‘invented’, it was a required evolution of the natural progression. McLaren had come up with the F-duct to stall the rear wing on the straights, an ingenious idea and invention. Everyone quickly copied it, and then the F-duct was promptly banned, as F1 tends to do. But the benefit of reducing drag on the straights had been shown, and the FIA knew teams would seek ways to be able to stall the wings at speed, so the DRS system was a controlled compromise, which has been tweaked over the years, such as not allowing unlimited use in qualifying.

      The tires are made that way because in the past, we had refueling but no tire changes. Pit stops have always been a drawcard part of F1, so with the refueling ban, they needed to keep the pitstops relevant. I don’t like the rule of having to use both compounds, but glad that pitstops remain a feature.

      Personally I think they should loosen the restrictions of car design and fuel flow rates, but keep the fuel limit. One of the main points of F1 is that manufacturers design and build their own cars. That’s being heavily compromised.

      1. @selbbin I honestly don’t get what the fuss about having to use both types of compounds is about? If we didn’t have this rule, then in tracks like Monaco and Australia this year, teams would just run the prime tyre from the beginning and make 0 stops. Not to mention that in 2010 we would have had almost a pitstop-less season.

        1. No way these tires can last a race distance. Nor should they. Nor should they only be good for a few hot laps per stint. Nor should they get ruined just by being within 2 seconds of the car in front.

      2. Everyone quickly copied it, and then the F-duct was promptly banned

        @selbbin It is often forgotten that it was the teams who voted through a ban of the F-duct & not the FIA. The FIA simply voted through what FOTA gave them.
        http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/8670795.stm

        1. The teams need to approve changes on short notice. They simply decided that it would be banned for the season after that anyway, so why invest in it for the coming season.

          FIA banned it and the teams only allowed it to happen a season earlier.

      3. @selbbin,

        Pitstops have always been a drawcard part of F1.
        WRONG, wrong, wrong, no they have not!

        1. Ok, fair enough. But I like ’em.

    3. I fully agree with your statement! F1 needs continuation and to fix their current problems with a constant evolution but with the future in mind. Not it’s usual revolution every 5 years!

    4. You’re confusing problems with solutions. Lack of passing didn’t have to mean DRS.

  8. There are four groups of people to consider in F1. Spectators, rule makers, competitors and financiers.

    The only people who’s views line up are spectators and competitors. We want fast, exciting racing decided by skill and ingenuity.

    The rules should only be safety requirements, the more they try the influence the actual sport itself, the more they hurt it and drive costs up.

    Near spec series aero means there are no clever solutions, just endless optimisation of the same idea which means budget wins, not creativity.

    As clever as the engines are, we the spectators have no idea what’s happening under the cover. At least with KERS we could see how they used it tactically.

    I don’t have any idea what to do about tyres. Make them more durable and they won’t race harder, they will just find ways to nurse more life from them rather than using them hard.

    1. Not if they don’t have to stop or use the slower tyre they wont, read Coulthard again.

    2. @philipgb

      I don’t have any idea what to do about tyres. Make them more durable and they won’t race harder, they will just find ways to nurse more life from them rather than using them hard.

      I think it is a matter of extent. Drivers will save more durable tyres as well but not as much as they are doing it now.

      However, it is interesting that Coulthard refers to the WEC where “they push on every single lap through a 24-hour race”. As far as I know, this is not the case – different cars (sometimes even from the same team) drive different numbers of stints on one set of tyres. For sure, some cars are simply designed so that they nurse tyres better but the driver sometimes has to slow down a bit, too.

      So while something probably can be done about tyres (Michelin are also now saying that they would love to return to F1 but “tyres must become a technical object again, not just a tool to do a more-or-less spectacular show”), the “nursing” will never go away completely.

      1. @girts, it is also interesting to note that, whilst the drivers talk about how hard they are pushing, the evidence from the engineers suggests that they are reigning in the drivers.

        For example, last year one of Audi’s race strategists was interviewed ahead of Le Mans, and she pointed out that, because the ACO sets limits on the fuel flow and the total amount of fuel which can be used per lap (averaged out over three laps), the engineers are managing the drivers corner by corner to average out the fuel consumption over a lap, using variable delta times to ensure that the drivers can maintain a steady pace whilst staying within the fuel consumption limits.

        It would therefore seem to be the case that there is still a fair amount of driver management and driving to set delta times to ensure fuel consumption limits are not breached. It’s just the case that the radio transmissions aren’t broadcast and therefore there is nothing to give away what is actually happening between the pit wall and the driver.

  9. Nothing change in Ferrari from last year, Mr. Alonso?
    Vettel win with Ferrari this year, and you not last year…
    And that is a big change!
    The driver make the difference, Mr. Alonso!
    Vettel is better than you!

    1. well if you are waiting for an answer from him , don’t hold your breath !!! lol

    2. @jorge-lardone – Well, Alonso won races for Ferrari in 2010-2013, but the point he’s making is that Ferrari’s pace hasn’t really improved. Ferrari did just finish 43 seconds off the pace after all. IMO the Ferraris of the last two years have been further from the winning pace than they were in the previous five, but this year, they’re finding it easier to collect podiums because other teams (Mclaren, Red Bull, Lotus) have dropped off so badly.

      1. Ferrari´s pace improved, since they finishe 40 secs off leader when last year they finishe 1m24secs off…I think it´s an improvement.
        Ferrari is now 2nd place in WC, last year was 4th and already made more podiums than all 2014 season.
        Alonso made a mistake, Mercedes and Red Bull didn´t want him and he needs these politics to make people think he´s living a happy F1 Nirvana….but that´s a lie.

    3. @jorge-lardone, no offence, but have you completely missed the fact that the bulk of Ferrari’s technical department has been gutted out and replaced?

      Or the fact that – due to Montezemolo, as it happens – Ferrari’s budget for 2015 was significantly increased (rumours of an additional $100 million in funding have been circling around)? Or the outsourcing of huge chunks of engine development work to AVL? The fundamental overhaul of their wind tunnel, which was finally finished in 2014?

      Frankly, it is not “the driver making the difference” – it is the technical team making the difference, and Vettel’s influence is fairly superficial by comparison.

    4. So far Vettel is on course to finish below Alonso did in 2010, 2012 and 2013, i.e. 3 of Alonso’s 5 years despite having a near flawless season. Do you think Vettel will enjoy 5 more years of podiums and whilst not coming close to winning the championship

      1. That´s the difference between fighting 2 mercedes drivers that are competitive(VET) or only one Red Bull driver that was competitive while other would be in decline(Webber), it´s not equal conditions.

    5. That is your opinion @jorge-lardone – In my opinion, saying that Vettel is a better driver than Alonso is like saying that rotten eggs taste better than chocolate. I don’t even like Alonso, but he is the better racer. By the way, statistics don’t mean much. Statistically, Michael Schumacher is the best F1 driver of all time, yet more people (including me) regard Senna or Fangio as the best driver of all time. Vettel has the best statistics of the modern drivers but he is definitely not the best. Do not forget that he had life easy in his WDC years as his Red Bull was far superior to everybody else’s cars.

      1. @ultimateuzair

        Do not forget that he had life easy in his WDC years as his Red Bull was far superior to everybody else’s cars.

        Something’s rotten when you’re claiming that 2 of those 4 cars that could only win in the final round with the teammate finishing 3rd and 6th are “far superior” and “having it easy”. If you’re drinking that chocolate, you’re grasping at straws.

  10. So just checking, last year in Spain, Alonso was +1:27.743 behind the Mercs. Not the half minute or minute. And in Abu Dhabi he finished +1:25.813.

    I preferred his response earlier in the year about whether leaving Ferrari was a good idea “if they win the Championship, it was a bad idea” (I forget his exact words).

    But to claim Ferrari is in exactly the same spot as he was last year, even in Spain, is ludicrous. And if he is supposedly good for at least one grid position over any other driver in the same car, he’d have 2 wins and at least one or more 2nd places and be leading the championship right now. (Since if he was in the same car as Vettel or Rai, he’d do much better–at least that’s what some folks claim ;).

    1. As things are going they won’t be WCC or have the WDC. So in that sense they are in “the same spot”.

      A race win is a crumb, but he had enough crumbs and wants the whole loaf. Not too sure McLaren will give him that though, but even with all the heaps of extra money Ferrari threw at this car, they are still not there either.

    2. @uan – Your post was the inspiration to do an analysis of where Ferrari is time wise in races compared to last season. Thanks!

      After all, that was the point being made, though incorrectly, by Mr. Alonso. Totally agree with your comment about what Alonso said before being his best response. He should stick with that.

      Progress for Ferrari (or McLaren for that matter) towards Mercedes won’t happen overnight. It will come in steps. I hope both teams continue making progress to challenge Mercedes.

    3. But Ferrari have no chance at all in this year’s championship. I think that’s pretty clear.

      1. @john-h – Yes, they should stop making progress right away.

        ;-)

  11. I can see two things that has changed at Ferrari. Two big whiners out of the team now. Luca and Samurai.

    I surely wish Alonso wins another WDC. He has come close quite a few times. But he is starting to sound bitter and it is not the way to earn new fans or retain the existing ones.

    1. @evered7, Ferrari’s changes go a lot further than that – they changed the head of their engine division, their hybrid power division, their wind tunnel manager, their senior most tyre engineer and their chief designer are just some of the higher profile changes they’ve made.

      1. Yes sir, I know a lot of changes have happened but these couple of changes seem significant. They are not washing the dirty laundry in the public anymore. Helps with the team morale a lot when that happens.

    2. @evered7, A samurai would rather commit seppuku than fail….

  12. OK, it has been said, by Alonso himself, that Ferrari have not improved over last year. He even brought up the amount of time finished behind Mercedes in Spain as an proof. He said it was a minute or half a minute that he finished behind in 2014. It was 01:27 behind actually.

    His quote:

    I was in the Ferrari last year half a minute, a minute behind Mercedes and on Sunday they were 43 seconds behind in Barcelona. Nothing has changed – and that is one of the reasons why l moved. I saw nothing change for five years and l didn’t want a sixth or seventh.”

    That made me wonder what the real times were. Vettel actually finished 42 seconds ahead this year in Spain of what Alonso did in 2014.

    This simple table shows the lead Ferrari times behind, or ahead, for 2014 compared to 2015 race by race.
    Also, the place of the lead Ferrari is noted in parentheses.

    2014 – AUS – Ham – Alo(4) +35 seconds
    2015 – AUS – Ham – Vet(3) +34
    2015 = FERRARI 1 seconds ahead of 2014
    2015 = FERRARI 1 place ahead of 2014

    2014 – MAL – Ham – Alo(4) +35
    2015 – MAL – Vet(1) – Ham + 8
    2015 = FERRARI 43 seconds ahead of 2014
    2015 = FERRARI 3 places ahead of 2014

    2014 – BAH – Ham – Alo(9) +32
    2015 – BAH – Ham – Rai(2) + 3
    2015 = FERRARI 29 seconds ahead of 2014
    2015 = FERRARI 7 places ahead of 2014

    2014 – CHI – Ham – Alo(3) +23
    2015 – CHI – Ham – Vet(3) + 2
    2015 = FERRARI 21 seconds ahead of 2014
    2015 = FERRARI same place as 2014

    2014 – SPAIN – Ham – Alo(6) +01:27
    2015 – SPAIN – Ham – Vet(3) +45
    2015 = FERRARI 42 seconds ahead of 2014
    2015 = FERRARI 3 places ahead of 2014

    So far in 2015 the lead Ferrari in each race over the first 5 races has finished a cumulative total of 2:16 ahead of 2014 results.
    That is an average of more than 27 seconds per race improvement.
    The lead Ferrari has gained an average of nearly 3 places better in each race over 2014 in the first 5 races.

    Who could logically argue that Ferrari have not improved in 2015?

    1. The China Safety car in 2015 screws the Point as gap from Lewis to vettel is around 16-20 secs ,also the safety car in 2014 Bahrain race was even worse gap is even more than that by the finish.

    2. As the man said if they are second in the end of season he just don’t care.Can people understand that?I am sure that if he had stayed he would do better then Vettel but he would still be just second to Merc and at this point he is not interested in that anymore….only if stupid journalists would get that and stop asking stupid questions.

      1. @dex022 Only that Ferrari are not in the same place as 2014. They have improved quite significantly. They went from 4th fastest to 2nd fastest.

        So ideally Alonso should have said I want to be #1. Nothing has changed at Ferrari seems like a wrong conclusion.

        “l am very fully motivated. If we can be competitive soon it will taste sweet because we have started from zero and I think we will get points in Monaco,”

        Why is a man aiming for third world title happy that he ‘might’ get into points in Monaco. According to him, it shouldn’t matter if they score points or not unless it is 25/18 in each race.

        And he might as well got his third title in 2010 itself if he had managed to not crash in practice in Monaco or have a jump start in China. The team sacrificed a lot for Alonso as well. Not cool talking them down like this.

      2. @dex022 He could always don’t answer! He wouldn’t be the first or the last pilot saying “No comments! I’m now focus on McLaren, don’t want to talk about the past”!! Why keep answering Ferrari questions?! Pilots aren’t obligated to talk everything to the press!

        I would admire the great pilot that he is a lot more if his personality would go with it. He could be classy and respectful but much of the time he sounds bitter and arrogant with his answers!

      3. You’re sure are you? Lol

    3. @bullmello Excellent analysis, thank you for that! Ferrari have obviously improved their performance by any measure.

      What Alonso perhaps meant to say is that “they were behind the leaders last year, they are still lagging behind and I am not interested in that, I want to win”. It is also interesting that he is much more optimistic about the rest of the season than his team mate. Alonso thinks McLaren could score points in Monaco and even podiums in the second part of the year.

      He seems to believe that McLaren are more likely to keep improving over the next months or even years than Ferrari. It will be fascinating to watch that battle unfold, unless Mercedes or Audi keep spoiling the fun :)

      1. @girts – I sincerely hope Ferrari and McLaren both continue to make real progress against the leaders. That will be great to watch!

  13. I think Alonso is still finding difficult to accept the fact that although he had been the best driver on the grid for most part of his 5-year stint at Ferrari, Ferrari still decided to let him go. Which frankly even I am finding difficult to accept.
    But reading all the things that Alonso, Luca say to media and comparing it to what Vettel, Raikkonen and Arrivabene say to media, I think genuinely there was something wrong with the way Alonso operated within the team.

    1. But reading all the things that Alonso, Luca say to media and comparing it to what Vettel, Raikkonen and Arrivabene say to media, I think genuinely there was something wrong with the way Alonso operated within the team.

      Honestly, look back at 2010. The so called ‘atmosphere’ in the team was far superior to this new era of Arrivabene and Vettel. People had really high hopes of Fernando and the team was more motivated than they had ever been. It only took 3 to 4 seasons of non stop failures to start breaking the atmosphere in the team completely down.

      Arrivabene and Vettel are only 5 races in to the new era. Give them 2 to 3 seasons of not winning another WDC or WCC and just see how toxic the environment gets at Ferrari, and whether Vettel is replaced or not when he grows tired of finishing in P2 or P3 in the WDC

      1. There is a big difference between Vettel and Alonso that you´re forgetting… Vettel has already won 4 championships and beaten all the records for his age, he´s not running against time, as Alonso was.
        This is very important, i don´t think he cares if he has to wait 5 seasons to be a champ again.

    2. Many have said that Alonso is difficult to work with (I think you could say that about most geniuses though) and Ferrari obviously did not try to make him stay despite being well aware of his greatness so there is probably some truth to that claim. But tiny mistakes can lead to huge disasters and I think this is what probably happened to Ferrari and Alonso.

      A lot has been said about Ferrari’s “catastrophic” strategy mistake in the final race of the 2010 season but these things happen, it was nothing special. Only the consequences were painfully obvious that time so something had to be done, Chris Dyer had to be replaced and so on. That obviously did not help and Ferrari slightly missed the next opportunity to win the championship as well even if that would have been against all odds anyway. Ferrari tried to change things again (“Muttley! Do something!”) but it just did not work so Alonso and the team became more and more frustrated. Sometimes couples just break up and there is no one to blame.

      The point is that winning two world championship titles (or even just one) might have changed the picture completely, it is very possible that we would see a strong and motivated Ferrari team with a happy Alonso still driving for it today. And they were very close to doing it.

  14. I bet Alonso is missing Ferrari more than Ferrari is missing Alonso.

    1. I bet he doesn’t miss Ferrari at all. He’s been there done that and had to move on.

    2. Missing what? The prospect of finishing third this year?

      1. Who would rather finish thirteenth than third? I guess the answer is Alonso.

  15. Coulthard’s column is interesting and I agree with a lot of points but some suggestions are not feasible, at least not today.

    The bosses of the sport do not want a tyre war between different manufacturers, but I I don’t understand why. After all, there are chassis wars and engine wars.

    These wars are restricted by tight regulations and I do not believe that it would be possible to apply similar regulations (e.g. tokens) to a tyre war. Besides, the current engine war has several unwelcome side effects, such as significantly increased costs and dominance by two manufacturer teams. Even if the costs of a new tyre war were somehow brought under control, as Coulthard suggests, there would still be other unwanted consequences, such as increase of the performance difference between the cars. Another war is not what F1 needs at the moment.

    1. I disagree. War need not be used to consider what this is…a competition. It is a competition between engine and chassis makers, teams and drivers. The only reason Pirelli has agreed to be the sole maker is because going hand in hand with that is tires that are THE story…and too much the story in so many people’s opinion…they don’t even allow real racing right now. If Pirelli made reasonable tires we wouldn’t talk about them because they wouldn’t be so much the story of F1, and Pirelli then wouldn’t feel any marketing impact from being in F1. I think we need at least 2 tire makers in F1 which will result in better tires AND tires being talked about so they both glean benefits from a marketing standpoint, and the drivers and fans benefit from them being able to push the cars in what is supposed to be the pinnacle of racing, no doddling.

  16. How does Buxton think that removing the fuel flow limits will end the need for coasting?

    He really got that completely backwards. The fuel flow limit was set to prevent (or diminish) the need for coasting. If you have a fixed amount of fuel and a free fuel flow then it’s much more advantageous to pull up with full power and then coast to the next turn.

    Similar to what the drivers are doing now, but then much much worse …

    To prevent coasting they need to remove the total fuel weight limit. Although that doesn’t remove the insane need to drive slowly to preserve the tyres. Which in itself is much worse than the coasting.

    1. To prevent coasting they need to remove the total fuel weight limit

      I doubt if even that will work. Because as one adds extra fuel to the car, while the car becomes faster as it has more fuel, it also becomes slower as the weight increases.

      Right now F1 cars use 100 kg of fuel for driving 300 km. Lets assume you have the bridgestone-spec tyres, a fully reliable engine and other components that can be driven to the limit, then may be 150 kg of fuel may be needed (assumption) if one were to go full throttle all race. However, even this won’t be the fastest way to travel 300 km.

      The computer-aided strategists will then calculate saying that to counter the additional weight of 150 kg of fuel, it may be in the best interest to carry only 130kg of fuel and drive at 95-98% of the full power as that will turn out to be the fastest way to cover 300km.

      To sum up, what I mean is driving full throttle for complete race is never the fastest way (it never has been, conservation of fuel, engine, tyres have always been in F1). Don’t blame the tyres or fuel limits. If you want, blame the strategists and advanced computer technology which allows teams to optimize the race performance of cars to such detail.

      1. Taking along a bit more fuel easily offsets coasting. Otherwise you’d see coasting everywhere and not just in F1

  17. tgu (@thegrapeunwashed)
    13th May 2015, 9:19

    It’s a novel idea that McLaren might turn things around with a bit more humility: because that’s been the hallmark of winning teams in the past, hasn’t it?

  18. The excitement f1 brings is pretty much in a decline , likewise superstar images of the f1 drivers are coming down. We will see many good drivers in the future but will f1 produce anymore superstar drivers ( interms of public image and fan following)?.

  19. “Nothing has changed – and that is one of the reasons why l moved.”

    This guy carries so much pain inside. He’s toxic.

  20. “Alonso: Arghh!!!
    What happened Alonso?
    Alonso: It’s my elbow! This season, for no reason at all, it just hurts me a lot!!”

    Note: in Portugal, when someone has bad losing, it’s used to say that the loser has “elbow pain”. Because it hurts a lot… Isn’t that so, Mr. Alonso?

  21. I don’t know if anyone has mentioned this already, or if it was in your round up yesterday, but Martin Brundle wrote a very similar article to David Coulthard’s for Sky Sports. It is also worth a read, he makes a good point about teams sharing components that are essentially identical but have to be individually manufactured by each team at big expense to them. http://www1.skysports.com/f1/news/24096/9847076/cars-beat-drivers-in-barcelona-and-a-wish-list-of-changes-for-2017

    1. @williamstuart – Thanks for the link. I think is the better of the recent articles from Brundle, Coulthard and Buxton. There is a lot to agree with in Brundle’s points for improvement.

  22. ResultantAsteroid
    13th May 2015, 12:53

    The usual bitter Alonso ?!!

    As someone pointed out before, if (as he says) Ferrari did not “move forward”, and Williams “has not improved”, so how come Ferrari is not way in front of Williams, who were second fastest car last season ?!!
    Well, Ferrari’s official target for this year is two wins, if they get another win they will have achieved their target. Now, Alonso says by the end of the season McLaren wants to be targeting podiums, let’s remember this and check back again by Abu-Dhabi.

  23. I just wanted to discuss the point of fuel flow/lift & coast.

    Removing the fuel flow limit & even increasing fuel capacity would not stop lift & coast because teams will always push the boundaries to gain a time advantage by running as little fuel as possible.
    Look back to the V8’s, They could run tanks big enough to run the race without any fuel saving yet we always saw fuel saving because teams would under-fuel to save weight to gain a time advantage.
    Even when we had refueling you would see drivers doing some fuel saving to maximize there strategy.

    You look at other categories like Indycar where they still have refueling & you still see a lot of list & coast, In fact a lot of the understanding regarding how much fuel could be saved by doing Lift & Coast came from the Toyota CART & later there IRL program as they did a lot of testing with the Ganassi team & Scott Dixon to better understand how to save fuel & maintain performance.

    You often hear people talking about how WEC is now a long distance sprint race, But that is far from the truth as if you watch & listen to the in-car cameras you will see that they too do a lot of lift & coast. They don’t have to manage the cars as much as they used to but fuel/tyre strategy still requires management so while you will see sections of the race where there sprinting, Over a full race there still managing things.

    1. Yes!! Thank god, I’m not the only one seeing management all around motorsport racing! I think the only one without it, or at least not so relevant is MotoGP. But teams will always find “ways to win in the slowest way possible”, even the greatest Juan Manuel Fangio said that!

    2. Glad to see another voice which I agree with.

      ‘Lift and coast’ is ACTUALLY faster over a course of an F1 race rather than taking on extra fuel and going full throttle all race.

      The only way we can avoid lift and coast is if we ban racing teams from having sophisticated computers that simulate car performance accurately for a range of fuel levels. But that would mean that the pinnacle of motorsport goes back to the 60s.

    3. @gt-racer – Excellent points. Racing has always been a mix of strategies. Sometimes saving equipment (including tires) and fuel mixed with times of going balls to the walls.

      1. Personally I’ve never tried to argue F1 shouldn’t have, or never has had, tire and fuel management. I’ve always understood and agreed that is part of all racing series. What has not been a part of F1 in the past however, is the degree of management needed these days…as in…it is all about management and is never balls to the wall.

    1. @stefmeister – Excellent. Thanks for that. Also a good reminder for all those people who really believe F1 cars are so easy to drive now. With much more torque than previous to 2014 driving out of corners requires some serious throttle skills.

      1. @bullmello BTW Martin said afterwards that he found that modern cars are less physical to drive & in a way a bit less satisfying & he can see why drivers are frustrated but that at the time time the workload in the cockpit is “So extreme” & way beyond anything he experienced when he was racing & that he feels drivers like Senna & Schumacher would have loved all the adjustments drivers have to play around with to find extra performance.

        He ended by saying that he thinks the current cars are unquestionably harder to drive than the old 2.4ltr V8’s.

        They only showed a small part of the features they have as they spent a day filming & he apparently goes into a lot of different aspects on a modern F1 car.

        Full feature has been put on Youtube:
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEiyQ8aQGWc&hd=1

        1. Thanks @stefmeister I’ll check it out. I love Martin Brundle. He is by far my favorite media person in F1. As a former driver he has a great perspective and says what he thinks.

  24. Apex Assassin
    13th May 2015, 14:55

    Will finally gets it! “What does seem likely is that the unpopular fuel flow limitations will be removed, allowing more power, more torque and, it is hoped, an end to the hated and much maligned need for drivers to coast during a race. ”

    It’s about time he ceased being a politically correct NBC stooge! Obviously I agree with the quote and notion of racing, not coasting!!!

  25. Matthew Coyne
    13th May 2015, 15:25

    My opinion:

    aerodynamics need a serious looking at to reduce the “dirty air” effect which in turn will allow cars to follow closer, the changes they made to the front wing this year appear to have had a negative effect on this and made it more difficult.

    Some level aerodynamic grip needs to be replaced with mechanical grip (bigger rear tyres as a minimum) and the use of limited ground effect aerodynamics will help reduce the “dirty air” effect without slowing the cars down.

    Increase engine BHP to make the cars truely faster.

    Remove alot of the stupid restrictions that clog up the sport and make it more complicated than it needs to be for zero benefit.

    Tyres should be able to last at least half a stint of flat out use, Tyres need to degrade to ensure they provide an element of strategy but not so much so that drivers cannot drive flat out.

    I actually REALLY like the idea of the “lottery” system to provide the calendar for the year, if done right it generates hype, people will want to watch the draw to see if their country is chosen and people will rush to get tickets as a result of it. You would want a few “Seeded” tracks to ensure that the true classics are not missed off the calendar, you could even turn it into a league sort of thing where the “premier league” of tracks (say, silverstone, monza, spa etc) are guaranteed, with 10 tracks picked at random, based on the feedback of the fans, attendance figures etc tracks can be promoted or relegated to/from the guaranteed pool, giving us a different calendar every year. There would be complications but nothing that couldn’t be overcome and it would really generate some hype and the promotion/relegation system would DRIVE tracks to want to improve to ensure that they are the best.

    The BIGGEST problem of all, that stops any of this happening is the governance of F1. You have the teams with too much power meaning they can veto anything they don’t personally like, you have teams with their own deals outside of this (Ferrari, RBR) which do their own thing, you have the FIA wanting to change things but cannot due to all of the above. Racing teams are selfish by nature, if they can’t find an advantage in a rule change for themselves, they are going to veto it.

    For me, the teams should have a say, but it not should be the teams way or no way as it is today where everything has to be passed by a unanimous vote. It should be something like 75% in favour gets it through, enough to stop single teams like ferrari/rbr etc veto’ing a change that isn’t in their favour.

  26. So much to disagree with from Buxton there:

    The removal of fuel flow restrictions will never lead to less lift and coast – if anything there will be more because any period of >100kg/hour fuel flow must be countered by more saving somewhere else in the lap unless the fuel limit is increased. Even in that case, given that teams are already running with <100kg for some races anyway there is no indication that increasing the total fuel limit will lead to them running with more fuel on board – this will be a strategy call not simply a case of running with the maximum fuel allowed at any cost.

    The idea of secret tyre allocations is also a joke which sounds more like it would have come from Bernie. How about having a mandated list of fuel and oil types and selecting them randomly for each race? We are talking about hundreds of millions of dollars of the most hi-tech engineering in the world and then having a laugh about the fact that they don't know which rubber they'll be running on.

    Use of qualifying tyres – this is a backwards step. Tyre limits are in place to reduce costs, how would having to ship an extra 24 tyres per car (assuming they don't get to run any quali tyres in practice!?) help the small teams. This will just take a chunk out of their budget which will results in cuts elsewhere. And to what end – since the car setup will still need to be optimised largely for the race.

    His point about the front wing confuses the wing with the front impact structure. The complex planes of the front wing would not be fixed to the crash testing rig so his claims about the costs of wing and crash testing is not coherent. Less complex wings will not affect any spend on getting the optimal nose shape for crash testing and indeed may not cut costs at all unless the whole wing is spec.

  27. Something that surprised me while reading Will Buxton’s blog post is that there seems to be a suggestion of reintroducing refueling.

    Its surprising to me because bringing back refueling would have a negative effect on the quality of racing just as it did the last time. Sure it was at times interesting from a strategic point of view, But overtaking on the track declined because fueling strategy became far more important & far less risky for the teams than what was going on out on the track.

    The stats quite clearly show a significant drop in overtaking when refueling came in in 1994 with levels remaining low through the refueling era with a rise in overtaking when refueling was banned in 2010.

    Bring refeuling back & I pretty much guarantee that overtaking will decline again because teams will again go back to seeing fuel strategy as been more important & will again look to fuel strategy to pass cars in the pits rather than getting drivers to push to overtake on the track.

    From a purely personnel point of view bringing back refueling would be the final straw for me, It was something I wasn’t keen on last time but for much of the era I was working on the TV so it was never something I got too hung up on. But now when i’m already less than thrilled about things like DRS & The tyres, Then throwing in refueling will kill it for me & I can honestly say I’d simply stop watching altogether because its simply not what I want to see in F1.

  28. Current engines with no fuel flow restrictions in 2007 cars with slicks please.

  29. This was totally expected of Alonso. He wants to convince himself that the decision made is the best. Nothing new about it.

Comments are closed.