In the round-up: Bernie Ecclestone says F1’s wrangling over potential new engines would not have happened if Mercedes had agreed to supply Red Bull.
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Bernie Ecclestone extended interview (Sky)
"Really and truly Mercedes should have supplied an engine. If they were to have given an engine to Red Bull none of these things would have come up."
Mercedes engineer Benjamin Hoyle at centre of spy row will not join Ferrari (The Guardian)
"It’s not true he was on the verge of joining us. What he did concerns only him and the company he was working for."
Williams hitting 2016 F1 aero targets says Rob Smedley (Autosport)
"The car we have in the windtunnel for 2016 and the 2015 car we have now are significantly different so we couldn't do anything from an aerodynamic point of view."
How Ferrari returned to the front: The outlook for 2016 (ESPN)
"You can say with absolute certainty it's more of an engine formula than it was at the end of the V8 era, because with frozen engines what could you do? But this formula that we enjoy today is much more like F1 used to be."
F1 needs to 'get its act together', says Stuck (Motorsport)
"Plus this funny Drag Reduction System (DRS) – the guy who is behind opens the wing and passes. F1 has to come back to its raw roots: to become a sport where the driver becomes more important."
New McLaren already ahead of 2015 car (F1i)
"As we are currently talking now our car for next year is already developing more performance than this year’s car."
Erster Test war ein grosser Schock (Auto Motor und Sport - German)
Perez says he made a major step forward with his car's set-up in final practice at Spa.
Lewis Hamilton talks Kobe Bryant retirement and a second Canadian Grand Prix (The Sun)
"(Canada is) such a huge market for Formula One. It’s a shame, because we only have one race in each country."
Driving in Formula 1 – Michael Schumacher, some background (Willem Toet via LinkedIn)
"He would experiment with ratios, driving styles, racing lines and also use it to assess setup changes. After a few years Michael decided he knew how to drive a F1 car now and didn’t need the speedos any more, but that was a learning exercise for him."
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Comment of the day
The top names have changed at Manor, but do the back-of-the-grid strugglers still deserve some affection?
This is a team, maybe the team, who, of all on the grid, has the burning flame and desire for success. They have been through so many things, faced so much unfavourable odds, that they deserve massive respect just for keep racing.
Think about it. The three bottom teams signed in to compete in F1 in the first place, with their only hope being the engine cap cost – which never happened. This left them hanging dry in the air, and an air of uncertainty has surrounded them ever since. Marussia spend three years in limbo, barely able to scrape with HRT. Timo Glock was their biggest hope, and he left in 2012. The team looked likely to collapse, as HRT’s folding only increased this likelihood.
Then, a young, fresh and hugely talented Frenchman, going by the name of Jules Bianchi, came into the scene. He was a Ferrari protege, the biggest name in their young driver’s academy. Jules was very quick in 2013, and his team mate, Max Chilton was a very safe pair of hands. For once, Marussia had a solid season in F1.
Then, in a warm May afternoon, at the Monaco coastline, Jules Bianchi scored points for the team. This, as Eddie Jordan said, “brought them of age”. Things were looking bright, as the team kept beating Caterham all season long. But on the Japanese Grand Prix, we all know the tragedy that hit them next. The world was shocked… Rest In Peace, Jules.
2014 ended with Marussia collapsing. But somehow, on early 2015, a new hope came. Manor rose, once again, “like a phoenix”, and showed up in Australia.
Their story reminds me of Brawn GP’s. More than any other team, Manor deserve a shot at victory. They have showed tremendous passion, have recovered from uncountered hits, lost their finest boy, carried on a weight almost too much for them (competing in F1), but they still go on.
They have earned it.
Keisoglou Alexandros (@Keisalex)
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Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
10th December 2015, 0:06
If Mercedes had offered Red Bull an engine, it would have have been powering 1/2 of the grid and Bernie would now have a hydra to fight for political power. Or is Bernie still bearing a grudge against Manor?
kanan
10th December 2015, 7:33
Formula Mercedes.
NewVerstappenFan (@jureo)
10th December 2015, 10:35
Good point, then give engine to Ferrari and Renault… And leave Mchonda to power GP2..
BasCB (@bascb)
10th December 2015, 10:54
I think you are perfectly right there @alianora-la-canta. I don’t think he is bearing a grudge agains Manor anymore, although he might depending on what he knows that we don’t know about their plans for the future
Biggsy
10th December 2015, 0:12
Why are we still having to read Bernie articles? Why feature him? All of the things he says make no sense on the face value, while the real story is always the same anyway.
People are now going to start debating about should, could, would, when all of the discussions should stop at the fact that Mercedes doesn’t really have to do anything, and it’s Red Bull’s job to find their own engine. It’s not Mercedes’ worry what will Red Bull do after shooting themselves in the foot. Especially since they are a team that would gladly stab anyone in the back for a penny.
No one should really worry about Red Bull, except Red Bull, because Red Bull doesn’t care about anyone except Red Bull.
anonymouscoward (@anonymouscoward)
10th December 2015, 0:22
I like this
Melchior (@)
10th December 2015, 5:13
That’s right about Red Bull.And of course Mercedes only care about Mercedes and Ferrari only care about Ferrari ;)
drmouse (@drmouse)
10th December 2015, 8:41
As they should. You don’t see Man U caring about Man City or Arsenal, or any other sports team caring about another. They are in it to win it.
It’s up to the governing body to ensure that the sport goes in the right direction, in our case the FIA, and to some extent FOM. FIA seem incompetent, and FOM (or at least it’s owners) are only in it for their own short-term gain.
Solo (@solo)
15th April 2016, 9:45
From what i have seen Mercedes may care about Mercedes but it doesn’t only care about Mercedes. And this goes even stronger for Mclaren. They care to some degree about F1 too.
Red Bull and Ferrari are the only two teams that only strictly care about their bottoms and nothing else.
BasCB (@bascb)
10th December 2015, 10:58
Don’t you like the game of reading/hearing what Bernie says and then figuring out how far away from the truth/reality it is and what his motive is in saying it Biggsy? I have seen that as an integral part of following F1 for at least the last decade.
Asanator (@asanator)
10th December 2015, 16:08
+1
mickey18 (@mickey18)
10th December 2015, 0:17
Is someone able to clarify for me whether any TAG engineers will touch the Red Bull power unit? Or is it purely a name thing?
Paulo Ruiz (@omegadetra)
10th December 2015, 0:48
TAG and TAG Heuer have nothing to do with each other any more, meaning that TAG Heuer is pretty much just a watch company sponsoring Red Bull and badging the Renault PU. So unless we can expect the watchmakers to have a say in the PU development, I think it’s strictly a name thing.
BasCB (@bascb)
10th December 2015, 11:06
It is purely a name thing @mickey18. They will be running exactly the same Renault engine as the Enstone team (with Illien as an external advisor to Renault to get that engine into the right direction).
As @omegadetra mentions, TAG has sold the TAG Heuer watch brand years ago. TAG is focussing more on Aerospace currently, while the watch brand is owned by the luxury brand group that also owns Vietton and several other brands. It is purely about branding, as Renault did not want to see its brands associated with Red Bull anymore.
It is possible that the TAG Group owner had to give his fiat to the watch brand sponsoring Red Bull this way though (as he owns the TAG branding used in F1 on McLarens Porsche engines), he is currently still part owner of McLaren but Ron is supposed to be working on finding the money to buy those shares.
Picasso 1.9D FTW (@picasso-19d-ftw)
10th December 2015, 13:21
maybe they’ll do the timing belts
BasCB (@bascb)
10th December 2015, 13:33
:-)
mickey18 (@mickey18)
10th December 2015, 14:58
Cheers!
I’ll have to do my background reading on the companies.
Philip (@philipgb)
10th December 2015, 0:52
Really and truly Bernie should have supplied teams more funds. If he were to have given more of F1’s revenue to the struggling teams none of these things would have come up.
Really and truly Red Bull should have shared Adrian Neweys expertise. If they were to have given aero data to other teams none of these things would have come up.
Really and truly Lewis Hamilton should have let other drivers past him. If he were to have given places to Rosberg and Vettel none of these things would have come up.
Really and truly F1 should have been free to air with lower track admission prices. If they were to have given a fair price to spectate to the fans none of these things would have come up.
Dom (@3dom)
10th December 2015, 13:19
:-)
R Cardwell
11th December 2015, 20:25
This made my day. :D
MtlRacer (@mtlracer)
10th December 2015, 2:47
What’chu talkin’ ’bout, Lewis?
He has no clue what it’s like to be an F1 fan in Canada and is just pandering to the Toronto media!
Yes, we have what is one of the best and most exciting races on the calendar (present year being the exception), but the main broadcaster, TSN, produces zero content related to F1 — all they do is retransmit FOM video using BBC audio. The big innovation this year was sometimes having the BBC pre-race show, but they’ve been known to cut the broadcast before the podium interviews. The french-language broadcaster, RDS, at least makes an effort to hack together a 30-minute bi-weekly tele-magazine, and they have their own pre-race show.
I can only hope coverage will improve in the coming years as long as Lance Stroll can become a serious contender.
Steven (@steevkay)
10th December 2015, 15:34
I was wondering what he was talking about – I know a couple of people who watch F1 casually but Canada is far from being a “huge market.” There is good potential for growth if there were some national interest – like you said, Lance Stroll – but really to get the country interested Stroll will have to be the next Gilles Villeneuve. We have one race at (what I think is) Canada’s best circuit located in a place which is most likely to have the most interest in F1 (which is in Quebec). Like you said, TSN doesn’t really bother with F1, RDS at least makes an attempt at it.
If anything, the next serious racing series I’d like to see in Canada is WRC. We’re covered in snow for a good part of the year, so it’d be nice to be able to take advantage of that.
Fritz
10th December 2015, 3:52
Free to air now we are talking. if you have a good product to sell the advertising should be paying for itself. I used to watch every race now I must wait for thursday night IF it is showed or pay a lot of money more. That is why it is better for me to watch Formule E. And if I want to I can download the whole race weekend. The Formule E racing, website and twitter is also better. why do I watch Formule E again? it’s not the Bernie is greedy he went through a divorce that cost him a lot of pension money. Hi must save for his old day……..
mateuss (@mateuss)
10th December 2015, 7:52
@Fritz PM me.
ColdFly F1 (@)
10th December 2015, 6:13
Even though most of us disagree with Bernie, I actually can go along with his argument.
There are only 4 PU manufacturers, of which 3 are extremely tight with a major constructor. And it is not like a new PU can come on stream overnight (look at Honda). Therefore, there should be a bit more freedom/options for constructors to chose a PU manufacturer.
However nobody is stopping Bernie from contracting a 5th PU supplier to enter F1, and make that ‘standard’ PU available to all teams. They should be using exactly the same technical regulations (1.6l turbo hybrid).
If Bernie/FOM want to keep those PU’s cheap then they should subsidise those units.
But in this PU saga the big fault lies squarely with RBR; they had a solid PU contract for 2016 and themselves decided to tear it up before securing a new one.
PS – Bernie really looks/sounds old in this video.
favomodo (@favomodo)
10th December 2015, 8:22
Always difficult to make something decent out of all the different stories that are thrown at us, but the word is that Mercedes did talk with RBR about the engines, but they couldn’t go further into the negotiations until RBR broke their contract with Renault (because Mercedes have some ties with Renault). So RBR did, but after that Mercedes had second thoughts (or maybe this was there plan all along – no, that’s too conspiracy minded), and left RBR in the cold.
Robbie (@robbie)
10th December 2015, 17:29
My understanding of it was that Merc also wanted to discuss marketing opportunities with Red Bull if they were to have their engines…ie. What would be in it for Merc to risk giving RBR their gold for a PU? Answer: they wanted it to be a big marketing win, which is certainly very understandable since they would be risking losing the Championships by feeding RBR their unit. They wanted assurances that there would be a net gain for themselves to supplying RBR.
drmouse (@drmouse)
10th December 2015, 8:53
I completely agree. This could be done. We should definitely not have a second set of tech regs just for one manufacturer.
If Bernie/FOM want to keep PU’s cheap then they should subsidise them. It’s not for the manufacturers to subsidise the teams. They could, quite easily, do a deal whereby they buy the PUs from the manufacturers, then supply them to the teams at a reduced rate. Or they could change the distribution of funds to ensure all teams can afford the engines, bringing in a cost cap at approx the current supply price*.
* Le’s say cost cap is brought in at €20m. Each team is then guaranteed, say, €20-30m for taking part, then prize money is awarded on top of that. Prizes (and preferential payments to the top teams) could be reduced to keep total paid out the same, or FOM could stop being leeches and just pay at least part of this out of their own share.
BasCB (@bascb)
10th December 2015, 11:15
Actually it would have made perfect sense if the FIA had put a cost cap for engine deals into the rules from the start @drmouse, @coldfly. Since they failed to do so at the start, then yes, the easiest way would have been for FOM to help the teams field the bills.
But really as Bernie mentions, the cost had hardly any significance in the argument here, apart from being used as a scape goat. Afterall, Red Bull are the last team to be in trouble over the cost of their engine deals.
As for the matter of the contracts with regards to engines @favomodo, the funny thing is, Red Bull had a valid engine deal with Renault all the time. They only adviced Renault the intention to quit, but never actually got around to agree on a cancellation. In the end both parties agreed to continue with changed parameters in the contract (Red Bull paying more to get an unbranded engine). So really its only guessing as to who was gaming whom in this saga.
Stephen Crowsen (@drycrust)
10th December 2015, 16:47
If you have a price cap then all that will happen is the manufacturer will pass cost increases to the customer via stealth, e.g. less expensive components, increased software licence fees, increased prices for software updates, increased prices for “non-essential” software packages, etc.
Girts (@girts)
10th December 2015, 6:20
I guess Mercedes don’t want people going around with begging bowls.
MazdaChris (@mazdachris)
10th December 2015, 11:09
@girts which is a really odd attitude in a customer/supplier relationship. This situation where customer teams must approach suppliers, cap in hand, and beg for them to supply them with power units, is pretty unacceptable really. It puts entirely too much power into the hands of the four manufacturer teams, who can effectively close out other teams from being able to compete. There would be nothing stopping the power unit manufacturers from collectively deciding that nobody is going to supply a specific customer team, and then that team would be forced out of the sport. That’s a completely impossible situation, and action absolutely needs to be taken to take that power away from engine suppliers.
BasCB (@bascb)
10th December 2015, 11:25
I think its a grave mistake that the rules did not include a minimum amount of supplies a manufacturer had to be willing to do (at least one?) and a cost cap for such a package from the start of this rule change @mazdachris, @girts, a bit like what was put in place for the aero kit rules in indycar. That way manufacturers would have to decide for themselves up front whether they wanted to invest as much and end up selling for less.
Off course that also has its pitfalls, as the current Indycar supply is said to be to low to cover the cost of building one, setting Honda and GM up with having to subsidise, and with Lotus dropping away they have to do so for half of the field instead of about a third.
But in this case I am really not that much more worried about the 4 manufacturers being “all powerfull” instead of it being Bernie alone who does the dividing and conquering. Afterall, there is a better chance that one in 4 companies would be willing to budge than in getting Bernie to stand down.
Unless you behave as Red Bull did to their partner off course, and even then, in the end Renault did agree to continue with the supply. Red Bull was never in a situation where it did not have a supply of engines. But it had wanted to get a better one. That was one of the arguments of the manufacturers too – that they DID NOT bring about a situation where a team did not have any engines.
MazdaChris (@mazdachris)
10th December 2015, 12:05
@bascb Well they can argue that for sure, but if Renault had pulled the plug on their operation (which there was a genuine danger would happen) then RBR would have been left without a supplier. The fact that there was ever even the potential for it to happen is worrying enough. I work in incident management, and one of the most fundamental principles is that you don’t simply wait for an incident to occur when you know there is the potential for it to happen in the first place. Prevention is better than cure.
In an ideal world, I would say that you’d have a number of power unit suppliers, and that they would need to make a commitment to supplying a specific number of customer teams, such that the whole grid is supplied. And there should be additional capacity there as well to ensure that if one manufacturer did drop out, then the allocation from their customer teams could be distributed among the remaining suppliers. This should be part of the requirement for supplying power units in F1. And fundamentally, if you are a supplier and you have capacity to supply an additional team from your allocation, and a team comes to you wanting a supply, there should be no option for that supplier to refuse.
I also believe that there is some misdirection going on about the cost of supply for these suppliers. Mercedes would have you believe that they supply teams at a loss, but that’s not strictly true. If you consider simply the per-unit cost of supply, plus the additional support costs, then this is something which should come in well below the current customer price point. What Mercedes are doing is adding the development costs to the cost of supply – something I don’t believe should be acceptable since they would be developing just as strongly if they were only supplying themselves. Effectively the customers are subsidising the development costs for the manufacturer. Cost cap should be rather the simple cost of supply and support, with an additional option to extend support to other areas such as gearboxes, fluids, etc etc, to the point of a full technical partnership.
Well, that’s what I think anyway. I know there are people who have very strong opposing viewpoints.
BasCB (@bascb)
10th December 2015, 12:56
I don’t think that is true really @mazdachris. We only have Red Bulls statements saying that would be the case (Renault always stated that they would fulfill existing deals).
There is no reason why Renault could not have let Red Bull use the engines for a further year, be it without much in the way of development. Sure, it would have been a bad deal, but it would have been an engine.
I see a situation that was mainly manufactured by Red Bull in cooperation with Bernie to try and get Red Bull a better engine to make it easier for them to win again (and therefore both stay in and also giving more competition to Mercedes itself). In effect Mercedes and Ferrari just called the bluff here, seeing that it was about powerplay here.
In my opinion they would have done better had they just offered a lower price to their customers to make sure that they had the smaller teams clearly with them. Now they used the Veto and the argument over cost nor control was really solved in either way and they have just upped the stakes with none of the key players wanting to give way.
As for building in contingencies. We are absolutely in agreement about the rules having a huge gap in their framework in not providing an obligation to provide engines for a maximum price to customers in case of a real need.
Then again, in reality it is clear that the manufacturers see this obligation to supply as well and have confirmed that they do so (in this case Renault agreeing to continue the Red Bull supply), and Ferrari still supplied Manor this year despite them not having paid even the money for last years supply at the start of the season. So in practice this risk is not a real risk, but it is dependent on the parties to do so.
Sadly the cost is quite unclear yes. Mercedes have stated that the price they ask is below the manufacturing cost. Given these are more or less prototypes, it might even be true (as this makes for a very high portion of cost going to tooling with the low volumes involved), and the more expensive part is apparently the hybrid part. When we carefully look at what Ferrari say about the matter they seem to admit that they regain (part of) the development cost from their customers.
Also lets not forget that they do not sell any hardware but a service, including a team of engineers who run the engines, finetune and analyse them. Its not just about the bolts, blocks and camshafts.
When we take look at what the cost of the Indycar engines are those go for significantly less. But with knowledge that both Honda and GM have to subsidise those, its not quite as clear where the real cost is.
But in the end, its not really relevant to me where the exact cost is. We do need a compromise on the price. But Bernie is not really interested in any compromises. He wants back power and needs to crack the power of the manufacturers to do so.
Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
11th December 2015, 18:31
There used to be a rule that if 2 manufacturers of engines existed, each had to supply up to 60% of the grid if requested, and if 3 existed, each had to supply up to 40% of the grid if requested. Still wouldn’t help in this 4-manufacturer situation (maybe require each to supply 30% if requested?) but it would have helped with this situation. I still think Red Bull created their own problem, and am thus unsympathetic to their specific situation, but I can see this cropping up in the future, and mandating % supply would help solve it.
Costs are also an issue, but not really a solvable one due to contracts.
Girts (@girts)
10th December 2015, 13:54
@mazdachris @bascb I agree that the current situation is not good for F1. No matter how aggressive Red Bull have been, they should be able to find more than one supplier, who offers them engines. The problem is that this is not a typical customer / supplier situation. The “market” is very small and buyers and sellers also compete with each other.
That is why I do not think that this problem can be resolved by simply forcing engine manufacturers to supply a certain amount of teams. In my opinion, it would not make sense, it would be unfair (such major rule changes should be announced several years in advance) and it could also have different side effects. Firstly, engine manufacturers would then fight to supply the weak teams. Even if that was somehow regulated, it would also encourage certain teams to stop power unit development and completely shift focus on aero / chassis development. I do not think that an aero war is better than an engine war.
The current engines are obviuosly too expensive and too complicated and that is the problem that should be solved. Ecclestone and Todt are right to take action but they seem to have different goals so I wonder how this is going to end. The manufacturers will have to cede ground at some point but will F1 really get affordable engines and more competition or will Red Bull and Ecclestone be the only winners when the dust settles?
BasCB (@bascb)
10th December 2015, 14:17
I don’t think the engines are “too complex” at all @girts. Yes, they are high tech. But they are also incredibly efficient and offer interesting knowledge that can help improve CIE/hybrid cars in the next years.
The only real innovative part is the MGU-H, and it would be a real shame if they ditched it.
The cost is not really a big issue. And it certainly is not somethign those in power in F1 are really concerned about, as proven by all the desicions they make it is just a handy argument to use now.
Girts (@girts)
10th December 2015, 14:50
@bascb If they are not that complex, then why have Honda and Renault struggled so much and why did Ilmor, AER and Mecachrome become interested only when the recent FIA tender was announced? Engine manufacturers should normally be fighting to get into F1 and Red Bull should have done a deal with one of them for 2017 a long time ago. Apparently, it either takes too long to build a competitive V6 hybrid engine or it is too complex. I also appreciate the high-tech hybrid technology and I do not want to see it go but you always have to find the right balance.
Also, I do not think that costs are unimportant here. If we are talking about ~€10 million that a team allegedly now has to pay extra every year, then it is not peanuts.
I completely agree with you about all the power games and Ecclestone’s agenda but it does not mean that the current situation is right.
BasCB (@bascb)
10th December 2015, 15:56
1. why are they lagging behind: Renault failed to invest enough in time (building up a good team up front) and Honda started 3-4 years later than Mercedes and Ferrari @girts. Not to mention that Honda set themselves an even highter target, they want to get it to be super good and tiny. So far they have not been able to meet their own targets.
Ilmor, AER and Mecachrome all responded offering a slightly modified stock engine, they only need relatively minor adaptations to fit with the FIA brief, no doubt the FIA had looked at what is available because they wanted to be able to get the engine short term. Cosworth, who even does have a basis for a V6 hybrid, clearly stated that the project would not be viable for them because of the time and money involved in starting from zero even for this simpler engine.
Also, all three companies that offered their engines have ties to Red Bull and or Bernie.
But lets look at the argument for real.
Do you think that 4 different companies building engines is bad? Just look at how many engine suppliers figure in other racing series. Most frequently there is no competition at all (one designated engine supplier), then we have cases where 2-3 companies supply engines. Does anyone have more than 4?
The cost for making top racing engines is too high that an indepentant company can affort to pay for it. Unless they tie up with a manufacturer (like Cosworth and Ford in the past, or Illmore with GM for the Indy car engine) or get granted a contract for a single supply (which are not all that cheap either, see GP2) no one is going to be able to do that work.
It really comes down to whether we want to go for a single engine formula – something BE would be in favour of, especially if he can sell the engines like in GP2 – or do we want engine competition. If we want competition, it will be expensive, and the only ones who can really afford to do that are manufacturers, and even they want to see some benefit from it for their wider business to “sell” the project to their managment.
Yes, it is a large chunk of money. And I do not think it should come out of the budget of the independent teams to pay it. It should be a clear desicion what way to go and either the manufacturers should field the bill, or the series should provide the money to pay for it. Therefore it is important that a compromise between the manufacturers and FOM on the cost should be reached.
Stephen Crowsen (@drycrust)
10th December 2015, 20:57
I disagree. These engines, while expensive, are probably close to the minimum cost they can be for what they do and the amount of research that has to be done to keep up (or stay ahead).
The easiest way to reduce the cost of an F1 engine is to make the specification for the F1 engine one where there are more supply options. This is because price is often dictated by rules of supply and demand. If your rules make it difficult for manufacturers to meet the requirements, then there won’t be many suppliers and prices will be high, and if there is a lot or research required to keep the engine competitive, then prices will be even higher. If you changed the rules so it was easier for manufacturers to meet the requirements, and there was less of a need to do research to keep your engine competitive, then prices will be lower.
Neil (@neilosjames)
10th December 2015, 8:18
Maybe so, Bernie. But if you hadn’t sold the sport to a bunch of greedy, blood-sucking parasites, lots of bad things might not have happened.
So you’re probably the wrong guy to complain about Mercedes.
WilliamB (@william-brierty)
10th December 2015, 8:18
Wow, Nicholas Latifi is being strongly tipped for a DAMS GP2 seat. He must have found the Canadian investors that always evaded Robert Wickens – or, Red Bull don’t fancy spending millions on Gasly’s career.
PorscheF1 (@xtwl)
10th December 2015, 9:05
@keithcollantine Thanks for mentioning the WRX post, hard to find anything about it.
NewVerstappenFan (@jureo)
10th December 2015, 10:37
F1 is a team sport… If RBR attracted Mercedes better, maybe they would have them…
Greg Kingston (@gregkingston)
10th December 2015, 12:15
I’m surprised that this news didn’t get reported in the round up: http://www.flagworld.com/news/2015/12/09/mclaren-honda-and-jenson-button-renew-partnership-with-santander-uk-plc/
Newsworthy for McLaren, but also newsworthy for other teams sponsored by Santander, as they were supposedly pulling the plug on all their F1 sponsorship arrangements.
Harald
10th December 2015, 13:03
Getting really tired of the old ‘going-back-to-the-roots’ hash that Stuck and others come out with. As if it wasn’t all about the car from day one in F1.
Things like: “Another important thing is to take off these funny electronic gimmicks, how can you adjust the brake balance during the race?”
Electronic gimmicks on an F1 car, imagine that. Adjusting the brake balance during the race, wow.. As if anything outside normal road car driving is too advanced and therefore have no place in a Formula one car.
Robbie (@robbie)
10th December 2015, 17:37
Gotta draw the line somewhere and the fact is the current cars do not give us the sense that the driver is taxed. Stuck is right. They need to simplify and put this back in the hands of the gladiators on the track. This current format does not give them a chance to be gladiators. Way too much conservation going on, not to mention the get-put-of-jail-free card that is DRS.
Harald
10th December 2015, 18:25
Gladiotors, that’s swords and forks right?
Again the illogical argument to simplify to make it more taxing. With all the things going on in the cockpit nowadays, it’s quite taxing. That’s what the drivers themselves say. Reducing the workload will make it less so. I just can’t fathom how the opposite could be argued for.
William Jones
11th December 2015, 4:09
If you reduce the workload by taking away the gadgets that the drivers have to tweak, you’re not going to get drivers doing less in the cockpit, they will still be working at their maximum rate, only they will have to use their skill in driving to replicate the gizmo that got taken away.
Harald
11th December 2015, 9:07
So driving is then as we know it from road cars then just turning the wheel and operating the gas and brake pedal, yes? Anything else is not ‘driving’? How about clutching then? Maybe take away the gearing thing as well so the drivers can ‘drive’ more?
The truth as the drivers will tell you is that the challenging part of being an F1 driver today is the complexity of things that are on top of just turning the wheel. Today’s driving means more than operating pedals and wheel. It’s adjusting brake balance, diff settings etc etc (even corner by corner), adjusting style according to the stints and tyre etc. Drivers have MORE control now. Saying that it’s less driving for no other reason than it’s different to what driving was perceived to be about before just doesn’t make sense and is disrepectful of current drivers.
Luca Nuvolari (@nuvolari71)
10th December 2015, 14:19
Great article about Schumacher. Not later than a week ago, one of my best friends here in Abu Dhabi, told me another good story about MS. My friend has worked at Ferrari for 11 years and won 5 world championships with Michael in his team. He was telling me that he would sit in the car before free practice, feel the throttle pedal range and tell the mechanic that it was not 26 mm as he asked but 27 mm and asked to adjust it properly. He was incredibly sensitive and paid attention to every smallest detail. Furthermore, despite of being very severe, he was very very fair and extremely generous, arriving to the Ferrari Christmas dinner with very generous gifts to all the mechanics. He was a fury when Barrichello was faster than him (not very often) and next race he would demolish him with even more hunger than ever. As a Ferrari fan, I still thank him for the incredible stretch of wins on our Ferrari and it hurts horribly to see him in such a disgraceful condition now.
btcamp (@btcamp)
10th December 2015, 16:40
Re CoTD: I’m sorry but I always think it’s ridiculous when people say any team or driver “deserves a shot at victory”. So should every other car on the grid pullover and call it a day because Manor “deserve” a win? No team deserves a win, and no driver deserves a championship. F1 isn’t a sport that gives out participation awards. Victory is earned, not deserved.
David Not Coulthard (@davidnotcoulthard)
10th December 2015, 17:19
F1’s roots were of Alfa Romeo, Ferrari (with bought chassis), and Mercedes (and Cooper and Lotus) domination, no?
That aside Hans Stuck did raise valid points in the article.