Force India seeking Australian GP fixes – Perez

31 comments on “Force India seeking Australian GP fixes – Perez”

1. 

   mmertens
   9th March 2017, 0:20

   Watched the video of Bottas lap, by the sound, it looks they were running the engine in a very conservative mode. And the car looks really stable under braking and in the corners too. They re looking hard to beat. Hope Ferrari can challenge them!
   1. 

      Roth Man (@rdotquestionmark)
      9th March 2017, 8:14

      Yes I was thinking that as well, it was like a Sunday drive. The extra width and the fat tyres look great on the on-board shot.
   2. 

      nase
      9th March 2017, 10:10

      I’m a bit intrigued by the claim that he was flat out through turn 9 as well. It didn’t quite sound like that. While it is true that high centrifugal forces and friction can lower the revs even without the driver lifting off the throttle, resulting in a sound that’s difficult to distinguish from a real lift.
      But in this video, it sounds like he gets back on the throttle slightly after the apex (0:52 in the video), but, crucially, it happens before he decreases the steering angle significantly (which would elmininate the effect I mentioned above).

      In short: Flat out in turn 9? Not yet, by the looks (or sounds) of it.

      Still a very impressive glimpse at the 2017 generation of cars. The grip is breathtaking, I winced when he tackled turn 2, because his approach would’ve definitely lead to a spin with last year’s cars, and I couldn’t quite relax before he came out of turn 3. And that’s without feeling the slightest bit of the forces that the driver experiences …
      1. 

         Jere (@jerejj)
         9th March 2017, 16:35

         @nase As far as I can tell from the engine sound, he didn’t lift off at turn 9.
         1. 

            nase
            10th March 2017, 14:02

            @jerejj
            Yeah, I have to correct myself. Now that I’ve listened to the engine sound on a different device, it does sound like he was indeed flat out. Back on the first device again, there’s an audible step in the engine noise after the apex …
            I guess it’s much more likely that a headphone distorts sounds in a way that creates the impression of a sudden change instead of the other way around, so that settles it.

            But I can already see the problem with that: if you’re able to take this corner at full throttle in clean air with relatively little fuel, following another car closely must be a nightmare.
2. 

   Biggsy
   9th March 2017, 0:56

   Looking at that Jamie Price’s tweet, I’m reminded just how much it irritates me that most of F1 journalists aren’t really journalists at all, but a bunch of opinionated semi-insider blowhards.
   1. 

      Andre Furtado
      9th March 2017, 1:09

      Agreed
   2. 

      grat
      9th March 2017, 2:38

      What’s more likely to be the case is “when it happens, it will be luck”.
      1. 

         socksolid (@socksolid)
         9th March 2017, 7:21

         When it happens it will be drs.
   3. 

      Tristan
      9th March 2017, 2:45

      Gods forbid people share their opinion, damn… He’s not even a journalist by the way so I guess you’re right on that point.
   4. 

      Tristan
      9th March 2017, 2:45

      Gods forbid people share their opinion, damn… He’s not even a journalist by the way so I guess you’re right on that point.
   5. 

      Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
      9th March 2017, 2:58

      I generally dislike those types of comments. Jamey’s was in my view a good question.

      I saw the Bottas onboard, earlier I had watched a lap of Hamilton of test1. That first onboard showed lots of understeer. This lap shows a much more balanced car almost perfect car, just a little bit of understeer, the car wasn’t completely flat at 9 and there was a little bit of wheel spin come the end of the lap. Above all incredible to see the Ultra soft perform at Barcelona. I’ll be bold and claim Mercedes aren’t going to be quickest come China, the first medium high downforce track.
      1. 

         Jerejj
         9th March 2017, 6:38

         @peartree As far as I can tell from the engine sound he indeed stayed entirely at full throttle at turn 9.
      2. 

         anon
         9th March 2017, 7:32

         @peartree, if you believe that, then whom do you believe will be ahead? Are you putting Red Bull ahead, for example? If you saw the onboard footage from Ricciardo’s lap, the car looked like the handling balance was worse than Mercedes’s car (he ran wide at Turn 3 and was having to make quite a few more corrections than Bottas did during his fast lap).
   6. 

      ExcitedAbout17
      9th March 2017, 6:47

      most of F1 journalists aren’t really journalists

      Jamey surely isn’t; he’s a photographer!
3. 

   Jay Menon (@jaymenon10)
   9th March 2017, 1:49

   I’m not convinced Alonso should quit just yet, because there is a very good chance that Mclaren will win as soon as he quits!

   Lets put things into perspective.

   Honda have a rubbish Power Unit, that’s a fact (which has been unfortunately proven time and again). However, unlike past seasons where development was restricted by the token system, Honda have free reign to develop the PU. So far, there hasn’t been anything to suggest that there are fundamental design flaws, so they should get better. The other thing to consider is that, Honda has the full backing of its board with respect to funds. Probably only Ferrari have that amount of freedom when it comes to finance. So, they will be working 24/7 to get the issues fixed.

   As Alonso said yesterday, they should get better as the season progresses. Let hope they potentially unlock the so called chassis performance from the MCL32. Lets say Honda turn up at Silverstone with a PU that can extract its max potential, what would Alonso do? Possibly sign an extension for year? I think after all the dramas they’ve been through over the last couple years, he probably owes it to himself to stick it out another year…also, no harm in popping another 40 million in the bank!

   He’s not done yet. I remember Jenson saying a few years back that Fernando is the fittest driver on the grid…he hasnt changed his regime as far as I know!
   1. 

      Minardi (@gitanes)
      9th March 2017, 3:57

      Alonso could race another 5-6 years at the highest level in my opinion. He’s a bit different in the respect that he’s never really had the ultimate 1-lap stunning pace – just tremendous race craft, intelligence, and relentless motivation.

      Alain Prost cruised to the championship at 38 years of age – demonstrating little to no loss of any of the above. And with his natural fitness, he could have kept going a few years afterwards too. I’d put Fernando firmly in that same category.

      I’m not convince Honda will ever get it right – so I think his future does lie with another team and that he will win another title.
   2. 

      Todfod (@todfod)
      9th March 2017, 6:25

      @jaymenon10

      I’m going to disagree with your assumption that Honda will eventually make an engine that is good enough.

      I think if we’ve learnt anything from the past 3 seasons, it is that Honda are not capable of producing a good power unit. It’s not that they don’t have the finances, it’s just that they don’t have the talent or the skill set. They do not welcome outsiders to guide them and they do not have expertise within their own organisation. So no matter how much money you throw at it, it will continue to fail.

      Engine development in F1 is a constant ongoing process. In 2017, Honda are 3 years behind their competitors, as compared to 2016, where they were 2 years behind their competitors. So, instead of performance convergence, we are seeing performance divergence. With the development rules of all competitors being the same, and with Honda having the slowest improvement rate, it’s more likely that Honda will be 3.5 years behind next year, and maybe 4 years behind in 2019.

      So, I’m going to say that Honda will never come good… and it’s just a matter of time before the embarrassment reaches a peak level and they pull out of the sport for good. F1 is not for amateurs… Honda should have realised that by now.

      Regarding Alonso, his best chance is either Bottas underperforming OR Hamilton and Mercedes’ relationship deteriorating in 2017. If either happens, he’s got a good shot at the seat.
      1. 

         Jay Menon (@jaymenon10)
         9th March 2017, 6:42

         @todfod

         You make some really good points. To be fair, Honda did make gains last year although they were ultimately hamstrung by the layout of their PU.

         This years, theyve gone and designed the whole PU, so essentially they’re back at square one?

         I’m going to give Honda one more chance. If they dont improve as the season wears on, then thats that.
         1. 

            BasCB (@bascb)
            9th March 2017, 8:17

            Well @todfod, as @jaymenon10 mentions, they did put themselves in a tough position with their approach to the engine with the way they wanted to make the turbo work.

            THey must have known relatively early that they would have a hell of a job making that setup work at all (I’d say they did never really manage) and in the first year they soon learned that they couldn’t make it run fast enough to be of benefit. But with the token system there just weren’t enough tokens available to completely redo the powertrain.

            Now they have started anew, at least the setup is not their own special thing, they can now take things they spy from others too. But they are at the start of the development. Just look at the mileage Renault had despite having 3 teams in the running and having had to change a bit less than Honda had to. I wouldn’t say it’s a lost cause yet.
            1. 

               Todfod (@todfod)
               9th March 2017, 9:02

               I do agree that the token system handicapped them in 2016, and it would have been tokens spent on a flawed engine philosophy to begin with so there was no major scope of improvement.

               But if Honda has copied Mercedes’ layout for 2017 and still has a power output lower than their flawed design of 2016 then you have to seriously consider the fact that Honda does not have the expertise to compete in this sport.

               I do not even want to get started with how poor their reliability is because I’m sure they will sort it out at some point of time in the season, but by then, Mercedes, Ferrari and Renault have already made giant strides in their performance levels due to the lack of a token system.

               Renault are facing problems as well, but there problems are more on the reliability than the performance front so far. At no point in time have they found themselves with the wrong shape of an oil tank … or find themselves with the combination of lower power output and worse reliability.
   3. 

      JimG (@jimg)
      9th March 2017, 12:55

      @jaymenon10: I hope that you’re right about Honda having more freedom to improve now that the token system has been scrapped, but there are still penalties for going over the PU quota aren’t there? So they can’t bring fresh PUs whenever they want to without triggering those at some point.
4. 

   UNeedAFinn2Win (@uneedafinn2win)
   9th March 2017, 5:44

   Fascinating how little adjustments Valtteri makes during the lap. His left hand adjusts behind the wheel, I assume the brake balance, maybe twice, but his thumbs never even leave the wheel let alone taking off a hand.
   1. 

      ExcitedAbout17
      9th March 2017, 6:54

      And how good is it that the official F1 feed now shares these videos.
      Last year they had hardly anything, and this year we’ve seen hot-laps, insightful interviews (Brawn), and testing summaries.

      Thank you Liberty.
      1. 

         BasCB (@bascb)
         9th March 2017, 8:10

         Exactly “excitedAbout17” the big news here is that suddenly we start getting some footage from testing, showing things like this lap!
      2. 

         xcm
         9th March 2017, 19:54

         X2, I have been really surprised by libertys social media rethinking.

         It really is embarrassing and disappointing to think the people running formula1 for the last 10 years didn’t understand social media (YouTube even!) in the slightest…

         Social media showed me how awesome and technologically advanced these cars are, I wouldn’t be watching single seater racing otherwise.
5. 

   Neil (@neilosjames)
   9th March 2017, 8:02

   I’d disagree with a line in the CoTD, that Alonso has been ‘living off his reputation’. He’s a driver who has got quite a bit better with age, and I can’t honestly see any significant drop-off in his performances from when I think he hit his peak (2010-2012). I genuinely believe 2016 Alonso would beat 2006 Alonso to that world championship.

   Thing is, I think most of us have just got used to the idea that when an athlete hits 32, 33, he only goes downhill and can no longer perform at the highest level. I have that very ‘fact’ stuck in my head, and I do believe it’s true for most athletes, but there are individuals who buck the trend.

   As long as his heart and mind remain in it, I think he could have at least another three years after this one. And I think if the McLaren thing goes sour, he’d be the perfect choice for the only midfield team with the resources to become title-chasing front-runners again – Renault.
   1. 

      BasCB (@bascb)
      9th March 2017, 8:12

      I agree with you there @neilosjames. It was pretty clear to see what value Alonso brings to McLaren, some of the results in the last 2 years really were exceptional and I think he will keep doing that.

      The team already mentioned that they would be happy te be able to keep him on if they can.
6. 

   Maciek (@maciek)
   9th March 2017, 8:48

   Unfortunately I’m afraid that the cotd may be right. Sigh. I’d really like to see Alonso at least be able to compete at the front end. Shame.
7. 

   Craig Woollard (@craig-o)
   9th March 2017, 10:18

   The only realistic option for Alonso may be Renault, but I’m not convinced that they are putting the right people in the right places, although I’m expecting them to make big gains this year. Sure, they’re throwing money at this project, but so did Toyota.
8. 

   Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
   9th March 2017, 13:26

   The number of offers Manor made was an eye-opener – as was the fact none of them had £5 m plus a business plan worth £43 m to hand, given that the sale attempt started before the season ended. Granted that anyone depending on sponsorship wasn’t going to get through, given that large sponsors take a year to attract, but one would have thought that wouldn’t have been a problem for the likes of Ron Dennis or some of the conglomerates that were said to have been interested…

   Motor sport at the F1 level is, financially speaking, a mess, and not just because of the unequal distribution policies…

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