Grosjean “waited a year and a half” for brakes fix

56 comments on “Grosjean “waited a year and a half” for brakes fix”

1. 

   Optimaximal (@optimaximal)
   26th April 2017, 0:07

   Red Bull want to hold onto Sainz because they don’t seem have enough quality talent coming up the ranks. All they seem to have is Gasly – nobody else is F1 ready.

   Also, didn’t everyone already point out that McLaren’s current colour isn’t actually Papaya Orange?
   1. 

      matiascasali (@matiascasali)
      26th April 2017, 0:46

      nop, its pantone 021 ☺
2. 

   MrBoerns (@mrboerns)
   26th April 2017, 0:30

   Sources have revealed the Kingdom of Troy has recently begun discussions with King Agamemnom about him potentially providing consultancy Assistance to speed up work on troy’ s City Planning which has suffered from poor diversity as well as being down on wooden horseys.
   1. 

      Phylyp (@phylyp)
      26th April 2017, 6:12

      @mrboerns :-)

      I’d love to hear how the Mercedes F1 bobbins explain to Dieter/the board why this is a good thing for Mercedes.
      1. 

         Stephen Crowsen (@drycrust)
         26th April 2017, 7:38

         My guess is Mercedes will make a mint on the patent fees.
      2. 

         Todfod (@todfod)
         26th April 2017, 10:12

         @phylyp

         They know the odds of Honda catching up are one in a billion, so why not get some good publicity over it showing that Honda has a lot to learn from Mercedes.
   2. 

      Todfod (@todfod)
      26th April 2017, 6:22

      +1
   3. 

      Clive Allen (@clive-allen)
      26th April 2017, 11:45

      A classical comment indeed! Such a pity that it raises thoughts of Hector and Achilles and heels… :D
3. 

   Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
   26th April 2017, 0:47

   Bah, come on McLaren… so you’re doing a proper papaya orange for Indy but that hideous thing that’s breaking down so much around the world is looks like it was designed by a 3 years old?!
   1. 

      Clive Allen (@clive-allen)
      26th April 2017, 11:47

      In my opinion the orange (or whatever you want to call it) is horrible anyway. Bring back the old Marlboro packet of fags!
4. 

   Strontium (@strontium)
   26th April 2017, 0:59

   I’m surprised that Brembo didn’t fix the issue this year, with the new brake regulations, although something leads me to believe that Haas may have been part of the issue. Many teams use Brembo (I think) and they don’t seem to have had this issue to any notable degree. The other manufacturer’s brakes seemed to be quite similar on the Haas, so I’m not convinced blaming the supplier is the best thing.

   Although I’m sure they have a better understanding than I.
   1. 

      Chris (@tophercheese21)
      26th April 2017, 2:18

      +1

      Whilst the article explains that the changing from one brake supplier to another is not as simple as just bolting on the new discs and pads and away you go… BUT… I do wonder why it took them so long to make some real tangible progress on the brakes, or at least make the switch. Especially when you consider that the brakes are arguably the most important component on a car.

      I think the car this year has looked better (albeit we’ve only seen them in 3 races so far), but man, some of the races last year the car was just straight up unsafe and unfit to race. I hate to say it but the FIA probably should have stepped in because it was getting so bad towards the end of the season (Sepang) that some serious injuries could have easily occurred, and there’d be the usual “FIA launches investigation into…” and “should’a, could’a, would’a”.

      I believe Haas tested some CI brakes in China, and found improvement almost immediately. Hopefully they can get it sorted quickly, because I’d hate to see Grosjean or K-Mag lying in a hospital bed due to faulty brakes.
   2. 

      Phylyp (@phylyp)
      26th April 2017, 6:15

      I’ve always had a sneaking suspicion that it was the BBW tuning that was to blame for rear braking issues. Its a complex bit to get right, since you have to combine and balance both kinetic harvesting and actual braking effectively.

      I remember Ferrari was quite sensitive and Kimi had a few instances where the rear snapped away from him, most notably on hairpins. I wonder with the Ferrari powertrain and extensive sharing between Ferrari and Haas, whether Haas have inherited this issue, and have not solved it due to something that makes their car different from Ferrari (e.g. weight distribution).
      1. 

         frood19 (@frood19)
         26th April 2017, 9:19

         @phylyp raikkonen’s issue was more related to throttle response. when he spun in canada at the hairpin it was because he still had the launch mode engage from the pit stop. kinetic harvesting wasn’t related to raikkonen’s spins as far as i recall. also haas’s problems have not been limited to the rear brakes.
         1. 

            Phylyp (@phylyp)
            26th April 2017, 16:45

            @frood19 – thank you for correcting me, particularly with respect to Kimi’s issues.
   3. 

      Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
      27th April 2017, 3:03

      @strontium I think it’s in Romain’s nature.
      Ferrari is exclusively on brembo’s, most of the time Red Bull is either using pads or rotors made by brembo. AP has fell out of use and Carbonne industrie is still alive and well, not that many choices. On motogp every single rider is on Brembo brakes.
5. 

   Macrob
   26th April 2017, 1:21

   I would most definetely put Perez first on Ferrari than Sainz, I wouldnt even think about it…
   1. 

      caci99
      26th April 2017, 9:25

      Sainz burned the bridges with Ferrari on his way to McLaren. He was a bit bitter about Ferrari when he left their junior program. Nothing is impossible, but Ferrari prides itself too much to swallow it.
      1. 

         MattyPF1 (@mattypf1)
         26th April 2017, 21:49

         You mean Perez burned the bridges to Ferrari, not Sainz
      2. 

         Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
         27th April 2017, 3:05

         I don’t think Ferrari’s pride is the problem here, Ferrari’s pride is a myth, as is Sainz’s talent. He’s an average F1 driver, the rest is all talk. These cars are going to sort out the men from the boys. Kvyat is coming back at Sainz.
   2. 

      GechiChan (@gechichan)
      26th April 2017, 10:15

      Agreed, Checo is better than Sainz, just look at how he took out Stroll without compormising his own race :D
      1. 

         Fran
         27th April 2017, 8:34

         Tosh .
6. 

   @HoHum (@hohum)
   26th April 2017, 1:38

   Standing re-start ? The one that comes to my mind is Monaco 20?? when Vettel stole the win by getting new rubber on the grid, hope they ban that or someone will be tempted to order a new Piquet Jr. event while suspicion will fall on completely innocent teams if the cards fall that way.
   1. 

      David-A (@david-a)
      26th April 2017, 2:07

      @hohum That was actually a rolling restart in Monaco 2011, and didn’t involve anyone stealing anything.
      1. 

         @HoHum (@hohum)
         26th April 2017, 6:24

         @david-a, I stand corrected, thank you, and I didn’t mean “stole” in the literal sense, more in the sense of buying something for a lot less than expected.
   2. 

      Strontium (@strontium)
      26th April 2017, 10:06

      @hohum if I’m not mistaken, tyre changes, and working on the car at all, during red flags has been banned this year
      1. 

         C
         26th April 2017, 17:24

         So is stocking up on Powerunits.
      2. 

         @HoHum (@hohum)
         27th April 2017, 0:28

         @strontium, Thanks, I guess even FIA must get something right eventually.
7. 

   MaddMe
   26th April 2017, 4:29

   ‘Sources have revealed Mercedes may help Honda’…

   Sky revealed that little gem during the practice of the Bahrain GP, after they noticed communications between McLaren and Mercedes at China.
   1. 

      Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
      27th April 2017, 3:14

      Sky didn’t reveal, Sky saw a very public conversation between Andy Cowell and Mclaren personnel, Sky’s rumour was that McLaren were going to either get Mercedes engines or as it has been rumoured for a while that some guidance might be on the cards. The arcticle above is not meant to be fresh news it’s meant to cover the gap between GPs for the publication in question.
8. 

   Todfod (@todfod)
   26th April 2017, 6:26

   I think it’s finally rock bottom at McLaren Honda.

   Honda acknowledges that they don’t have the skill set or expertise to succeed and are hoping on the advice, consultancy and guidance of a rival to catch up. Mercedes will help them because they know Honda is an absolute joke and will never pose a threat to them in Formula 1.
   1. 

      Stephen Crowsen (@drycrust)
      26th April 2017, 8:19

      If the report that Honda-McLaren are seeking help and advice from Mercedes is true, and I have no reason to believe it isn’t true, then it makes the departure of Gilles Simon, the ex-Ferrari engine expert, more unusual. Was this because Mercedes weren’t prepared to help Honda while he was on their team?The rumour is Simon left because he and his ideas were being ignored, not because Mercedes were frightened he might steal some of their technology. If Honda don’t want the help of people from outside of Honda, and they are within their rights to not accept outside help if they don’t want it, then why would you even think of accepting help from Mercedes if you don’t want to accept help from an ex-Ferrari engineer?
      As I understand it, both Mercedes and Ferrari are using Mahle’s Turbojet technology, although I’m not sure if the version used by either teams is the same. If both Mercedes and Ferrari are using Mahle’s Turbojet technology, then there isn’t any reason why Honda, if they signed the appropriate agreements, couldn’t use it as well, but why would you even think about using Mahle’s technology when you weren’t prepared to listen to your engine expert employee?
   2. 

      hobo (@hobo)
      26th April 2017, 18:23

      @todfod – I agree that Honda are at or near rock bottom, but the rest of your point is a bridge too far, in my opinion.

      Both Renault and Ferrari and brought in lots of outside help just to get their engines back up near Mercedes’ power and reliability. This is the first year that either engine is really a match for the Merc (in this case, only the Ferrari unless the Renault upgrade shows something), and this is 3 years into the new regs plus prior years of development. I’m not saying Honda don’t look like right idiots, because they do. But bringing in outside help isn’t new.

      From Mercedes’ side, would you rather help out a struggling former customer, get good PR, and have a built-in excuse for any potential continued future domination? (Hey, we tried to help!) Or would would like to risk either Honda coming after your staff or the FIA/other teams changing the rules to hurt you? Merc helping Honda is a win-win as far as I see it.
9. 

   Joao (@johnmilk)
   26th April 2017, 7:27

   Sainz has to worry about this season first and then the future.

   He has to soundly beat Kvyat for RB to notice him, otherwise he might stay on the midfield, or worse, both him and his team-mate will have to race elsewhere.
   1. 

      Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
      27th April 2017, 3:18

      @johnmilk Sainz made a lot of noise about his China drive. Sainz made so much noise that most of the f1fanatic community seem to miss the fact Kvyat has comeback at Sainz early this season.
10. 

    Fran
    26th April 2017, 8:39

    l’m unsurprised that the FIA meeting didn’t raise the safety issue of Grosjean running around with no brakes at their recent jolly meeting. Hoping Haas have extricated their contract suitably to allow Big John to show his potential. Ricciardo is the future of Ferrari l hope.
11. 

    Unicron (@unicron2002)
    26th April 2017, 9:04

    ‘Who remembers the last standing restart?’ I would have been here a loooong time trying to get that answer! Spa 2001. I was wracking my brains as to why it happened but I got it – Luciano Burti’s horrible crash into the tyre barriers.

    Am I wrong in think that pre-2002 if a race was red-flagged within a certain number of laps then the race was restarted and those laps were deemed not to have happened? Or was it just on lap one? Nurburgring ’76 and Spa ’98 spring to mind but I’m sure there are shed loads of others.
    1. 

       Fran
       26th April 2017, 15:57

       Wasn’t there a restart after a monsoon where Smedley called Massa ‘baby’?
       1. 

          DAN
          26th April 2017, 17:02

          That race was never restarted Fran if I remember correctly. Sepang ’09, the race hadn’t reached 75% completion therefore half points were awarded.
       2. 

          Andy (@andybantam)
          26th April 2017, 17:04

          No. The race was abandoned and half points were awarded.
    2. 

       Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
       27th April 2017, 13:05

       Yes. There was the then-infamous “Case A, Case B, Case C” regulations. Case A applied if the stoppage occurred before then end of lap 2, and resulted in everything that had occurred up to that point being ignored, except that any car unable to return to the pits under its own power was ineligible to restart. One infamous example is Nurburgring 1976, which Niki Lauda officially didn’t start due to this rule. Anyone who has seen a photo of him since can confirm that in reality he did start (since it was his fiery accident – resulting in obtaining serious burns – that caused the race to be stopped in the first place).

       Case B happened if a race had managed to get past 2 laps but had yet to reach the 75% mark. Then the results went back 2 laps (so the lap of the stoppage, plus the lap prior, were ignored) due to timing limitations when the rule was originally introduced. The race could be restarted under a shortened procedure, which varied slightly depending on what year it was done. Half-points were awarded if restart was impossible or impractical, due to the race not being as challenging as a regular-length race (at least on paper). This is why the only woman who scored points in F1, Lella Lombardi, in fact only has half a point to her name: the race in which she was successful was stopped early.

       Case C ruled that if a race completed more than 75% of race distance (before the countback rule applied), it was treated exactly as if the chequered flag had been waved. No attempt at a restart was permitted.

       This ended at the end of 2003, because the utter farce that was attempting to decide who won Brazil 2003 convinced the powers-that-be that the decades-old rule needed a simplifying overhaul.
12. 

    NewVerstappenFan (@jureo)
    26th April 2017, 10:07

    Honda really should get help from Mercedes…

    Strong Honda engine would be good for the sport…
13. 

    jodrell (@jodrell)
    26th April 2017, 10:18

    Why does F1 have to have a standard engine anyway…I realise that’s kinda the point of Formula racing but should we really be that limited in our thinking?

    Restrict manufacturers on the types of fuel they can use, the amount of those fuels, and the max power output of their engines and let them do whatever they want. Restrictions on how those rules are interpreted should only be restricted further on safety grounds.

    Innovation is one of the things I really enjoy in F1 and the rules right now seem determined to stifle that. Even the change announced yesterday banning fins and T-wings…great. Now if they weren’t painted we wouldn’t be able to tell the cars apart again :-/
    1. 

       GT Racer (@gt-racer)
       26th April 2017, 23:26

       @jodrell I think that part of the thinking in terms of mandating an engine formula is that when we had more open engine regulations in the past everyone tended to end up doing the same thing because 1 engine format always tends to end up been a better all-round solution to the others.
       As such rather than have manufacturer’s waste money going down one route only to then have to spend more when they switch to the package that works it was felt best to have everyone start out on what the manufacturer’s felt would be the best of the packages that were proposed.

       I also think there is an element of not wanting to have to play around with any sort of performance balancing to ensure equality between multiple configurations which can get quite messy at times.
       1. 

          jodrell (@jodrell)
          27th April 2017, 9:33

          agreed, but I think WEC have managed that balance very well. Ideally you’d have some way of testing the max power output at the circuit on a dyno or something, but we know all the teams would find a way of putting their cars into a low power mode to cheat that.

          I just like the idea of different teams doing their own thing and finding their own solutions to open problems. The alternative is to go the other direction and if not provide a standard engine at least specify more standard parts. Here’s an engine block. Don’t change it but attach whatever you like to it??
          1. 

             GT Racer (@gt-racer)
             27th April 2017, 12:23

             @jodrell Difference between F1 & WEC/Sportscar racing in general is that performance balancing has always been a part of that type of racing while that sort of thing has never really been a part of F1 & isn’t really what F1 is about.
             1. 

                jodrell (@jodrell)
                27th April 2017, 14:48

                Then someone needs to figure out what F1 is about. Apparently it’s about exposed drivers, open wheels & as much overtaking as possible with no ‘artificial’ aids.

                It’s about the best drivers in the work in a team sport backed by the best teams in the world who are the best not just because they can spend more than someone, else even though they’re constant development race, apart from the time they’re forced to take a holiday in the middle of the season.

                It’s about about a vast number of people working together then sending one man out on his own to prove that he’s the best in the works with no assistance, apart from the things the team are allowed to tell him how to use and where to drive.

                It’s about manufacturers having the freedom to create their own unique cars within the constraints of rules so strict that they all look almost exactly the same to the point where you could barely tell them apart if they weren’t painted.

                It’s about all the cars running the same type of engines, in order to equalise performance, that take years to develop and then expecting them to make significant changes to them in weeks when it turns out that some of them are so woefully underpowered the teams using them might as well jog round the track.

                I love this sport and I’ve followed it since the early 80’s, and I dunno about you but it feels to me like F1 has a bit of an identity crisis?
14. 

    Fukobayashi (@)
    26th April 2017, 10:24

    Re: COTD, I feel like Sainz’s stock has dipped slightly following his clumsy shunt in Bahrain and absolute refusal to accept any responsibility. He’s a great driver but it seems the frustration is finally getting the better of him, it must be hard seeing Max doing so well when he was absolutely toe to toe with him at STR aside from inferior reliability in their first season together.
    1. 

       Fran
       26th April 2017, 15:55

       I think it unjust to make such an assumption after one error, do you judge all people like that?
15. 

    BJ (@beejis60)
    26th April 2017, 14:47

    I found a hidden bleeder (in an awkward spot) on my brake prop valve last night.

    Took me 8 years to fix my brakes…
16. 

    Colin (@theniloc)
    26th April 2017, 18:17

    Surprised at the lack of coverage of the Sauber Honda deal or did I miss that?
    1. 

       Fran
       26th April 2017, 18:24

       It’s hardly something to shout about, my grandads step through was quicker
17. 

    John Beak (@johnbeak)
    26th April 2017, 19:05

    Thank you for the wishes, Keith :3
    Also HB Dani Kvyat who shares his birthday with me. It was funny when he drove alongside JEV whose birthday was yesterday (which also happens to be my gf’s birthday). Also note that both of these drivers use the date of their birthday as their racing numbers.
    It almost seems like all the cool people were born in a single week of April ;) Until you remember who was born on the 20th…
    1. 

       Mashiat (@mashiat)
       26th April 2017, 19:55

       @johnbeak He may be horrible, but you can’t deny he was very cool indeed with that swaggy mustache.
       1. 

          John Beak (@johnbeak)
          26th April 2017, 20:05

          Well, he played an important role in the success of Mercedes and Auto Union in the 30s and was instrumental in laying roots for what is now the Volkswagen concern. Cannot argue with that.
          And yes, moustache 3:
18. 

    Nunu
    26th April 2017, 20:04

    Why Invite Mercedes under the hood and see the futuristic wonder of a Honda motor – thought it was a big Secret how this motor looked like inside? Hmmm what do I know – I’m just a stupid fan…

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