Kubica ‘can drive at 80% of F1 tracks’

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In the round-up: Robert Kubica says he is able to drive around 80% of tracks on the current F1 calendar.

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Is this the kind of daring thinking Liberty need to make a success of F1 in the USA?

Go to Indianapolis and race on the oval please. Just forget the rule of minimum lap length for one race and any other rules that ban F1 from going to ovals.

I would love to see the innovative front and rear wings that teams would make, the alternate pressures on the left and right side tyres that some would try and the dizzying top speeds that would be reached.
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78 comments on “Kubica ‘can drive at 80% of F1 tracks’”

  1. 80% and he still would’ve been a better choice than Bottas at Mercedes.

    1. OmarRoncal - Go Seb!!! (@)
      7th February 2017, 0:23

      @tonyyeb this sir, very true.
      About COTD, @sumedhvidwans is right. Or make it even better, let the best Indycars go to the same qualifying and race both categories together!
      Yeah, that is too much to ask, but something tells me that F1s and Indycars would be almost evenly matched, and I want to know how good Will Power or Juan Pablo are against Max, Seb and Lewis. Alonso and Kimi would definitely like to have a revenge with that old pal of MONTOYA!

      1. @omarr-pepper Why would Kimi or Alonso want revenge on Montoya? It’s not as if he was superior or quicker than them.

        1. @mashiat, I agree – the comment makes no sense when Kimi beat Montoya whilst they were team mates, with Montoya being sacked from the team because of his relatively poor performance against Kimi. As for Alonso, given that he beat Montoya to two WDC titles, I don’t see what possible motive he could have for wanting “revenge” against Montoya either.

          Neither driver has any real grudge against Montoya, and moreover I really doubt that they would be that bitter more than a decade after he last raced against them (they probably barely remember who he was now).

          1. anon, OBLITERATE is the word you were looking for in respect to kimi vs montoya :D

        2. Haha thats true!

          The only guy who would want revenge on Montoya would be that poor camera guy Montaya punched years ago.

    2. It’s funny… cause it’s true.

      1. f1 would be down significantly on power on an oval as the lack of breaking would make mgu-k generating near impossible although the mgu-h would be working overtime.

        I would still love to see this.

        1. Down compared to the usual 60% full throttle tracks perhaps but not down compared to indycars.

    3. Why all the negativity for Bottas? Not one word of support from the previous commenter’s.
      Bottas excelled in the junior formulas. He drove well when Williams had a chance to get results. Most of all, he got to F1 on talent alone. At the time of his promotion, he was a prodigy with the future in front of him. OK, the last 2 years haven’t shown the results we might like to see from him. But he has been a good amount better than Massa and at the end of the day, it’s all about beating your team mate. It’s hard to find exceptional results when you are close to the top teams. It’s easier at the top and also at the bottom. It’s even harder when you are in a team that won’t take the risks that FI liked to take.
      I think Valtteri will do OK next year. Hamilton is good, so an upset like Ricciardo did to Vettel is probably not on the cards. But then if you had stood back before the 2014 season, almost no-one gave Ricciardo a chance of upsetting Vettel either, so it isn’t impossible. Especially if RB is closer and Hamilton loses motivation after years of dominating. (Like Vettel did)
      I am not calling an upset here. In fact I highly doubt it. But Valtterri is no chump and a 1 year contract will ensure that his motivation is very high. Hamilton has done it all, but Valtteri still has it all to do. I actually expect a close challenge between them, but expect Hamilton to come out on top.
      The positive that Valtteri can take out of this is that no-one expects anything from him. Matching Hamilton or getting close will be seen as something special. If he beats him, then he will be seen as a god. It’s always better to be the underdog than to have the weight of the world on your shoulders.

  2. Oh Robert… I’d so like to see you back in an F1 car. Just a test, it doesn’t matter. We have to put an end to this story… those last few days in that radical R31, setting the fastest lap and all… it makes the whole thing a lot worse…

    As for Indy… I don’t know if I want to see drivers that have absolute no experience racing ovals doing just that. It’s a completely different skill, and they’d be doing it as part of a championship. I’d be like having a road race in the middle of the WRC championship.

    1. there is no chance of Kubika racing a F1 car again.

  3. Sorry, but being able to drive at 80% of tracks rather suggests he’d be somewhat less than optimal at all of them.

    1. Which is basically what he says in the article … do doesn’t suggest that he could race JUST HE’D LIKE TO HAVE A GO

      From the article ….

      When asked if he would accept an offer to test F1 now, Kubica: “Yes. Today I would answer differently – I would like to try a Formula 1 car.

      “It has been a while [since I drove one], so I would have to prove myself – but I think I could do it well.

      “I would like to relive the thrill of the Formula 1 experience. I have tried many simulators, and I am convinced that I would drive at 80 percent of the F1 tracks – but not all of them.

      “I also have to point that that testing a Formula 1 car is one thing – a race weekend is something totally different.

  4. In reference to COTD, Don’t see it happening as F1 cars are not designed to run on ovals & I don’t think its even something most of F1’s fan-base would even be interested in watching.

    F1 cars would be easy flat all the way round a place like indy even if you cut a lot of the downforce away & that along with how much power the current engines are producing would produce the sort of speeds that simply aren’t safe to even consider. If there doing 220+ at Monza with downforce on I could see them doing 240+ with less downforce in an oval configuration & as interesting a concept as that may be I don’t want to even consider what an accident at those speeds would look like.

    You could cap engine power to reduce speeds but then your probably in a situation where its easy flat out all the way round (Which TBH it probably would be anyway due to how much grip an F1 car produces even in a lower downforce setup) & that wasn’t fun when Indycar were doing it so it’s not something that would be fun to watch with an F1 car.

    1. Given that they will have hardly any harvesting of electrical energy going on (no breaking), who knows what actual power these engines would have. Then again, the heat part would work marvellous.

      And they would probably have to refuel 1-2 times. Since refuelling would take maybe 5-10 minutes (no fast filler ventiles anymore) we would probably see the cars that can make it on one stop instead of 2 win the race. A race to be slow enough, but fast enough. Not sure id’t be all that exciting.

    2. indy would not be easily flat in an f1 car. The banking at indy is not very steep for an oval and by the time you trim downforce levels things start getting interesting. Power output without breaking harvesting is the big question mark though.

    3. RogerA I hate this argument with a passion. Who cares they are not designed to run on ovals? That’s precisely the point, we need more fish out of water like tracks in order for teams to not have everything sorted out thursday night on the computer. They are cars, they have four wheels, an engine, the steering wheel turns left,they can bloody well race on an oval.

      1. They weren’t designed to run on the banking at Indy before and yet somehow they managed to do that a number of years between 2000 and 2007, albeit Michelin screwed up one time.

      2. @mrboerns In that case I’d much rather see lifted F1 cars on gravel tyres competing in the WRC.

  5. When it comes to the idea of running a modern F1 car on the Indianapolis oval, the reality is that you would need a completely different car just for that one race. As it is, IndyCar uses a completely different aero kit for Indy and the other high speed ovals, and a lower boost pressure so that the engines will last. For Formula One to even consider racing on a superspeedway, at minimum there would need to be considerable changes to the design of the cockpit for safety purposes (F1 cars don’t usually risk a 350kph+ crash into a wall with no run off), substantially different tyres, changes to the engines and ERS (there’s no way the current engines would survive the sustained loads of a decent length race on a superspeedway) and refuelling would need to be reintroduced. Then, if you actually wanted an interesting race, you would need to make substantial changes to the aero regulations to reduce downforce and drag. You would then need a different rule set for the race (which drivers would be unfamiliar with), as a standing start would be weird on an oval at best, the pits need to be closed when the safety car comes out, the actual rules of passing and defending need to be changed (on an oval, if a car has ANY overlap, they NEED to be given room, otherwise the racing becomes simply unsafe and no one would be able to make any passes). Then, throw in the fact that these drivers have, for the most part, never raced on an oval in their life so they are unfamiliar with the strategy (both for passing and pitting) and etiquette of oval racing, as well as other aspects like using a spotter. All in all I’d much rather just watch the IndyCar race (as I already do) because those guys know what they’re doing in these races, and they’re in cars designed for the purpose.

    I like the sentiment of the idea but it simply isn’t practical.

    1. Most of your very negative post is false, one part is true is that the drivers do not have a clue about ovals, cue smaller teams subbing a pro oval racer for that round … Very exciting to contemplate…

    2. OmarRoncal - Go Seb!!! (@)
      7th February 2017, 4:39

      @vmaxmuffin and to disagree with you, Rossi won it on his first attempt. And he was just an average F1 driver.
      Hulk won LeMans at his first attempt and he’s also a (kind of) average driver in F1. These F1 drivers are quite ready for anything. I’m sure that if Kimi had been more hardworking in WRC, he would have won w couple of races.

      1. Rossi fluked it, and hulkenburg had the fastest car, they did not win because of any great individual speed, others in both races were faster.

        1. Total and utter rubbish.

          1. no, it is true – give your thoughts why you think it is rubbish. ill give my evidence, Hulkenburg did not set faster times than his teammates, and Rossi was slow and lucked in with fuel strategy that wasn’t a strategy from the start, he lucked into the strategy at the end, he probably saved fuel by being slow.

          2. KPCart. It works like this –

            Rossi won the race. He did this by crossing the line before anyone else. Or, putting it another way, he completed the race distance in a faster time than anyone else.

            Hulkenburg won the race. He did this by crossing the line before anyone else.

            Nothing was fluked. Fact.

        2. I wouldn’t say “fluked it” is the correct terminology. Many (all?) of the Indy 500 races are won by a strategy that plays out through the race. Just as it has in MANY of the previous 500’s, the race winner ended with the best strategy that day. Taking anything away from Rossi is wrong.

          1. +1

            This.

          2. Rossi, through luck, skill and race management, wound up being in a position where an extreme fuel-saving run would save him one stop, and put him at the front of the grid.

            He literally coasted across the line, having run out of gas about quarter of a lap earlier– and couldn’t have done it without his engineer, his team (who provided drafting services late in the race), or without knowing when to accelerate, and when to coast– accelerate into the corners, coast out and down the straights.

            Yes, there was a bit of luck that put Rossi in place to win– but a whole lot of skill by the entire team, including the driver, got him across the line first.

    3. A much better idea surely would be to make all of the DW12s available to all of the F1 drivers and have an F1 Indy 500 later in the season. Ever since I’ve been aware of the Indy 500 (around they year 2000) I’ve craved to see how F1 drivers would do on the Indy oval. Seeing Kimi, Montoya, Alonso, Hamilton race at an average speed of 200mph over a lap, inches apart from each other is a tantalising thought. Those Indy drivers are made of stern stuff, you’ve got to have a screw loose to want to race there, they demand utmost respect, which is why if any current F1 drivers did race there then they would get a LOT more respect than they are currently given. Hardcore.

      1. Rossi just won it and nobody is saying he is the nexg big thing. Still, I remember the good old Indy days, with Fittipaldi vs Mansell in 1993, and many F1 drivers shone in Indy cars back then. That Cart IRL division killed single seaters in the U.S.

    4. I like the idea of oval racing, but your comment here lays out briefly, and completely why this doesn’t happen already, and why if you like oval racing, you should watch oval racing, including Indycar and Nascar. Etiquetee, driving style, and even dynamics of the cars themselves are a totally different take on motor racing – all valid and all have their place in the sport as a whole.

      What I believe Liberty should be doing, or can do, is not really tinker withe F1’s rules, leave that to Brawn, in collaboration with the teams, and in partnership with the various commercial entities, who also want the show and spectacle to be everything F1 can be. To that end, the real addition to the show should be the experience, the support races, the access to the thrill of the pitlane and all that motorsport has to offer. If F1 cars are to be used on different/other tracks than the prescribed 21 races, why not a return to non-championship races, with a more Race-Of-Champions style approach to which cars are used, which drivers take part, and allow a different side of motorsport to be supported by all who currently follow F1, and all those who wouldn’t normally watch any racing other than F1 to see other disciplines, and perhaps even deepen grassroots motorsports takeup by many more people.

      I’d like to see more fan-friendly add-ons to the normal weekend, perhaps a stock super car race between nominated F1 drivers around Monaco on Thursday evening for nothing more than glory, fun and the crowd, and seeing a McLaren 675 racing against Ferraris, Zondas and the like, the possibilities here are endless and none of them involve ruining the rules, or changing points systems or chassis regulations whilst adding something to the show for all involved.

  6. I certainly am not surprised BMW have ruled out returning to F1. I would in fact be surprised if any other big car company announce an entrance into the sport. The future is not Formula 1. Definitely not as it is.
    For all F1 fans’ ridicule of FE, the sport has continued to show steady growth. Year on year it becomes bigger with even more manufacturers showing interest. Could the reason probably be because Internal Combustion Units in road cars no longer generate as much excitement as the prospect of making cars electrically propelled and autonomous?
    Cars surely will be autonomous. And with autonomy goes the cranky, polluting, 19 century internal combustion engines to be replaced with a quiet, relatively clean and exciting technology suitable for the time.
    F1 will survive…but for a few more years before it gets overtaken completely by progress.
    If Formula one really wants to remain relevant in the future, it should not keep hugging this ancient technology –

    hybrid

    it may be called, while watching Formula E run away with the glory of what everyone, apart from FIAT Group I guess, are massively investing towards.
    So Formula One, in my opinion at least, is at a crossroads. I hope the right choice is made.
    To those in opposition of F1 changing for the future, think of this, for all the trotted reasons F1 has not really gained new audience over the last couple of years, and most importantly, this Uber/Lyft/Didi Chuxing generation are not showing interest. It is an eye opener that while major motor sports are bleeding spectators and notoriety, Formula E is on an upswing.
    As for BMW, I will not be surprised if they pop up in FE just like Mercedes Benz are planning to.

    1. Of course FE is showing strong growth. A newly planted seed tends to grow quickly. Big trees, though. Their growth is less evident.

      1. @andybantam
        F1 has lost a third of its TV audience over the last decade, and struggles to fill grandstands at races that once sold out.
        That isn’t growth, and while the figures have stabilised in the last couple of years, Liberty are going to have to do something special to turn the sport around and achieve growth.

        1. @beneboy

          You’re right, F1 is not showing any growth. But that wasn’t my point.

          My point is that FE is showing strong growth, but growth will slow as the sport expands and the laws of diminishing returns start to apply.

          I’m board of this trend of looking over at FE to see what they’re doing to try and find an answer F1’s problems. It’s apples and oranges. It’s a completely different proposition. Good luck to them, but I’m not bothered about FE.

          F1 just needs to get less boring, less clinical. Take it back to basics.

          The pay TV thing has been done and can’t see that changing. To be honest, Liberty Media are a media company. Apart from expanded online access, I can’t see much changing.

          This sport is dying on it’s backside. There’s very few passing viewers, so not much chance to appeal to new people (unless they want to pay for a years’ expensive subscription for something they might not like – I doubt that much), the never ending shots of celebs with their rich mates sucking on champagne in the rich seats alienates people, the gimmicks suck the life out of each race for the sake of season ending overtaking statistics…

          If I didn’t start to watch this sport during the early 90’s and the fact I’m trying to relive some of that racing, I’d have stopped watching this sport a long time ago.

          1. Wow, so you have ZERO knowledge of marketing and maintaining your market share. If you think that somehow FE and F1 are so very different that there’s no impact on F1 from FE you’re beyond clueless. There is a demonstrated movement of YOUNGER fans to FE from F1 as shown by multiple articles and research from Jag, Panasonic, BMW, and at least 4 racing/car magazines. Those same fans who everyone said would move on from drifting as they ‘grew up’ and come back to ‘real’ racing, oh wait they haven’t and Formula D has huge crowds at its events.

            As for pay TV, who do you think pays for this on OTA ‘free’ TV?? Someone is getting paid to show it and it sure as HELL better not be me or tax money in ANY POSSIBLE way. Let me pay for the things I want, or buy the products who support the things I watch, and the rest (esp ESPN) can go to hell. There’s NO sustainability in ‘free to air’ TV, even the NFL can not make it go and they get anywhere between a third to half the TVs in the US to watch their programming for 17+4 weeks of each year. Two of the broadcasters reported losses for the coverage for 2015 and that was BEFORE a 15-20% drop in viewers for 2016. All OTA worldwide is struggling as online and digital marketing takes cash from ad campaigns, sister works in campaign marketing for a large firm and they have 25% of the TV budgets as they did 10 years ago but the marketing budget is 30% higher than ever before.

          2. Ex-F1 fan, would it be possible for you to provide links to those sureys which you claim have been done that provide evidence for your claims? Agag’s statements in the past indicate that whilst he has been targeting younger viewers, he has generally been trying to tap into those who are currently not interested in motorsport rather than trying to take those viewers from other series.

            Are you sure that there is a sustained movement of younger fans from one series to another, or is it more the case that Agag is targeting a different demographic to begin with and is therefore creating his support base amongst a different group of people?

            After all, Agag has talked about making a serious pitch towards people who are aged between 10 and 16 and has talked about how he is pitching the series towards those who are more interested in consumer electronics (saying that he wanted to go after the market that desire a smartphone rather than a Ferrari), which is a markedly different profile to your average F1 fan.

          3. Ex-F1 Fan. Do you need a hug?

            Please, feel free to direct your baseless argumentum ad hominem towards someone else. If you can’t do that, please furnish your ramblings with some sort of references.

            Thanks in advance.

    2. I won’t say I agree or disagree with you, we are still in an uncertain territory, but I see where you are coming from. I particularly don’t like the electric technology, but it seems the industry is heading that way. A few years ago I would have put my money on hydrogen powered cars, mainly because you could still carry your fuel, hence improving autonomy. Also it would make more sense in the world of Motorsports (Formula 1 included)

      Regarding BMW, they won’t pop up into FE. Why you ask me. Well they are already in it with the Amlin-Andretti team. They will be testing the ground these couple of years, and probably make a full-on appearance in the near future

      1. @johnmilk

        All until a car fully fueled with hydrogen crashes in to a barrier, leaving nothing but a small to medium sized crater…

        That’s the trouble with hydrogen…

        1. @andybantam

          That is why technology evolves, and we investigate, develop and makes things work. There are quite a few hydrogen cars on the road already, surely they have managed to make them safe.

          At the beginning we struggled to contain electricity, and to make a combustion engine work, but here we are, both those things work very well. Of course there are hurdles that the technology needs to jump, where can we get hydrogen for example, costs of the fuel and the cars. But I think we are passed the point of worrying about craters, the development is a bit more advanced than some people think.

          1. @johnmilk

            Although, I agree that technology has improved, we are certainly not passed the point of worrying about hydrogen leaks causing explosions.

            Hydrogen is one of the most, if not the most, difficult fuel to store safely. It’s highly combustible, is colourless and odourless. We’re a long, long way from seeing it raced.

            Batteries, too, are not perfect. Hence each driver requiring two cars per race at FE events. They take too long to charge.

            That’s not taking in to account the fact that the manufacture and disposal of batteries is incredibly harmful to the environment (yet they’re sold to us as a green device), they’re inefficient, they’re temporary, they’re mostly charged using fossil fuels etc etc…

            Battery technology is folly. Hydrogen is the way forward, but we’re a long way off yet.

        2. You do realize that same argument was made against gasoline powered cars as well, right? Why would a hydrogen fuel cell be any more or less volatile than gasoline? For that matter, have you ever seen what happens when a lithium-ion battery catches fire? They are literally impossible to put out.

          1. Very true, but gasoline is volatile, meaning that the vapours burn, not the liquid itself. It smells, too.

            Hydrogen gas, though. Boom! And it’s over.

            I’m not saying that it’s not viable, just that it’s not viable just yet.

    3. Michael Brown (@)
      7th February 2017, 16:57

      I’ll watch FE when they get rid of FanBoost

    4. FE is slow and boring. I think F3 cars are probably faster.

    5. This whole FE thing relevant to F1 is pointless. What to you expect? F1 to start going slow and change batteries etc?
      If it is losing audience now then it will plummet with something like that. FE can afford to do it because it started from zero. F1 has an audience to please.

      Also all the doom and gloom about F1 not having same viewing numbers is exaggerated. First pay Tv is a big reason for the fall and second today entertainment in everywhere. Nothing can have the audience it had 2 decades ago. There is big competition for people’s free time. From youtube, to Tv, to cable, to just internet browsing, to Hollywood and video games and smartphone apps, to pdf books to other sports etc etc.
      So many things you can use for your free time that every entrainment business has a really big battle to steal some of your time.

  7. Anyone got a good guess as to the 20% of track’s he’d be no good at?

    Monaco is an obvious one, Shanghai perhaps another? Canada?

    Over to you…

    1. Basically any track with demanding low speed corners. Monaco, Shanghai, perhaps Bahrain and Mexico? How about Spa’s first corner? Marina Bay in Singapore? Suzuka’s Hairpin?

      1. You can just go wide in Spas first corner its no problem.

        1. That’s hardly optimal, @rethla. If you have to go wide in order to make a corner, you are in fact not making the corner. Instead, I’d say he is “leaving the track and gaining an advantage”.

          1. Yes and he would be stupid to not do that whatever hes capabilities are. Alonso is considered the best and hes within the track limits 80% of the time at best.

          2. @rethla
            Is there something in the air today? That’s the n-th rubbish post I’ve read so far today.

    2. Singapore wold be top of the list too, 24 corners a lap over 2 hours… and I’d imagine Baku would be a bit punishing as well because that has tonnes of corners one after the other, for the first two-thirds of the lap anyway.

    3. “Anyone got a good guess as to the 20% of track’s he’d be no good at?”

      The pit lanes

    4. Yeah I feel like it’s probably going arm-over-arm that’s the issue, I think he mentioned the cockpit side gets in the way.

  8. Re COTD.

    No. Just no.

    1. @andybantam
      I second that. Emphatically.

      1. I honestly can’t imagine anything worse.

        I understand the intricacies of oval racing, but, and here’s the rub, it’s soooo boring…

        … incredibly dangerous, too.

        IndyCar can keep it.

  9. I think the biggest problem with running at Indianapolis is the Indycar guys feeling their territory invaded. Worse still if F1 is quicker.

    But the idea is a good one. Instead of doing all the cut and paste Tilke tracks, how about some variety, so that designers have to balance the needs of different challenges over a championship. More tracks like the old Hockenheim would be a good start, and something bumpy with some extreme camber and gradient changes (laguna corkscrew). If it creates a different set of challenges, it adds variables, which could lead to surprise results.

  10. Courtesy of F1’s absent superstar: drop what you are doing and WATCH THIS CLIP.

    …if you have retained the capacity for rational thought, you might want to know that Kubica actually won the Janner Rally…and took the lead on that, the eighteenth stage, despite a marked deficit in headlights!!!

    1. @william-brierty, That’s a nice video. I enjoyed that. However, in WRC he has crashed more times than I can count. Often, he was over-driving the car, or reaching above his talent.

      I felt increadibly sorry for him when he had his accident, but F1 has moved on. The grid is filled with some super talented drivers right now. There is no place for Kubica. He isn’t the driver he once was, and shouldn’t waste anyones time trying to do a job which he cannot fully fulfill.

    2. Its a fantastic video for sure. Kubica is a bit of a crazy nut behind the wheel to be honest. It explains how he was able to plant that Renault on the front row in Monaco, as well as why he was rallying in Italy in the off-season. For sure he is missed in F1, but its great he is still racing at a high level. After watching this video I think that LeMans is well-suited to him (just let the nut drive all night) and probably his goal.

  11. I find oval races very boring and really hope it will never happen in F1.

  12. Another thing to take into consideration when thinking about racing on the Indianapolis oval is whether Pirelli would be able to make tyres capable of withstanding the cornering loads…

    1. Of course they would, imho. I see no reason why Pirelli couldn’t make any type of tire just as well as any other tire maker. The only problems they’ve had is when asked to make tires with a gadget component to them while having their real track testing time limited to the bare minimum. Give them an unencumbered mandate to come up with proper tires, and give them the common sense amount of testing time on an actual car as it will be raced, and no problem whatsoever.

      1. Thinking a bit further on this, I wouldn’t be surprised if they already have a very good idea of what tire they’d have to make. They’re racers and I just wonder if out of pure interest and as a fun excercise, let alone the possibility they may have considered working within the series in the past, they may have already done a lot of research into the loads and tire wear etc that Indy’s tires require. It has perhaps always been a thing for them to know what others in the industry are doing with tires.

  13. Meet the mastermind behind F1’s best engine (F1i)

    I thought this was well worth reading. There is a some playing up the less important stuff and downplaying the more important, which is understandable, but there are gems to be found. Some weeks ago I had come across an article from a year or two back on the different manufacturers power unit layouts. Two things I had noticed were the distance between the exhaust turbine and the air intake turbine, and the distance between the latter and the intercooler, so I was interested to see if he would comment on these, which he did. I wasn’t aware they had put the MGU-H inside the oil tank.
    Here is one quote I liked:

    In motorsport, there is only one graph that matters, and that is: performance improvements against earth days. All you want to do is push that up.

    One of Mercedes big achievements was reducing the time taken to redesign a cylinder head from 4 weeks to just 4 days, and yet keep the quality of the job the same or better.

    1. I’m sure all other manufacturers reduced their times too, but 4 days is not necessarily an advantage with the slow token system and 4 or 5 engines a year.

  14. Michael Brown (@)
    7th February 2017, 17:13

    I’d like to see F1 on the Indy oval; it would add variety to the calendar. The issue I see is that the brakes won’t be used, so the MGU-K is pretty much useless

    1. And how is that an issue?

  15. Instead of having F1 race at ovals I’d rather have the teams releasing their drivers to race in others sports. I’d love to see Vettel and Raikkonen behind the wheel of a 488 GT3 at the Spa 24Hs against a McLaren steered by Alonso, Button and Vandoorne. I’m pretty sure Grosjean would do a one off for Haas in NASCAR too, and surely Hulkenberg wanted to defend his title at Le Mans in 2016.

    That being said, F1 drivers are no longer the undeniable top. There’s many GT racers that without a doubt would have no problem beating any of the current F1 drivers in their sport, neither do I think if we’d bring in half the F1 field into the WEC suddenly Jani, Hartley, Lotterer or Buémi would be out of a job. For sure Kimi his stint in the WRC is another great example.

    1. @xtwl The interesting thing is that all four of those drivers were juniors of the current Red Bull team, but dropped. Buemi retained a long relationship as test driver, same for Jani with demos.

  16. Evil Homer (@)
    8th February 2017, 12:23

    So what do you do here?
    Kubica was such talent and its such a shame. I say give the guy a proper test and see what he can do, based on his injuries it seems unlikely he can compete in F1 again but stranger things have happened – Pastor won a race didn’t he!

    1. he would do as good as any other f1 driver at the test tracks f1 uses. at a few tracks he might have to lift his right hand at full lock turns like in Monaco, but even with one hand he would be fast – he was in Rallying – he did 180 degree turns in rallying -He won 14 stages in WRC in the worst car as a privateer – Kimi won one stage in a decent car with 2 capable hands. Lets wait and see, Toto Wolf is a good friend of Kubica, has let Kubica drive Mercedes f1 simulator, offered him f1 test, gave him a dtm test, offered a lot to Kubica, I’m sure he will give Kubica an F1 test now that Kubica has said he is ready to do a test.

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