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Your daily digest of F1 news, views, features and more from hundreds of sites across the web:
Brawn 'excited' by results from F1's aero research (ESPN)
"We've bought the geometry of the old Manor 2017 car because we wanted to have a generic model that we could use in CFD modelling to at least give us a basis."
Ferrari could lead others out of F1, warns Marchionne (Reuters)
"I think that Ferrari has the strength to drag others as well to an alternative championship."
Ferrari boss 'expects a lot more' in 2018 (BBC)
"Marchionne added that Vettel was 'very emotional' and described his errors as 'like the fouls of a great footballer who is under pressure'."
Aston Martin feels the 'disruptor' in F1 2021 talks (Motorsport)
"There's no competition around that bottom end. Let's get rid of the heat recovery on the turbocharger. That's got hundreds of people working on something that is not so relevant."
F1 feels pressure to answer tax questions (FT - registration required)
"It paid just $8.5m in taxes in 2016, up from $6.1m a year earlier. Its pre-tax profits totalled $450.3m ($463.6m) in 2016 before taking account of interest, depreciation and amortisation."
Mercedes close to breaking 1000bhp barrier (Autosport)
"We're close. I'm sure that'll happen at some point."
Russell aiming to get his 2018 priorities right (F1i)
"If I perform really well in FP1 sessions but not performing so well in Formula 2 it makes my cause a little more difficult, so I need to get my priorities right."
Corporate takeover: Highlighting the huge expansion of Motorsport Network (Sidepodcast)
"I started collecting a list of properties owned by the Motorsport Network, and it turned out to be a lot bigger than I thought it would be. By request, here's the list as it stands today."
"What Bernie says is probably true: one needs to be a dictator to make F1 function properly, but he seems not to have understood that beneath the smiles, the Liberty men in F1 are quite happy to tell Ferrari where to go, if push comes to shove."
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Comment of the day
Is bringing costs down a worthwhile goal even if it doesn’t lead to closer racing?
You often hear people say that if you solve the budget/spending ‘issue’ that the competition will get closer but i’m not so sure that would be the case.
I don’t think introducing a budget cap or reducing cost’s significantly is going to end up with teams currently in the mid-field suddenly able to look at wins or regular podiums, I don’t even think it’s going to result in the gap from the top 3-4 teams to those behind getting that much smaller.
I’m not saying that reducing cost’s is a bad idea as I do think it’s something that needs to be looked at seriously, I just don’t think doing so will do what a lot of people seem to think/want it to do.
@Stefmeister
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MrBoerns (@mrboerns)
19th December 2017, 0:26
@stefmeister you mean… that’s not how the formula works
gunusugeh (@gunusugeh)
19th December 2017, 7:09
overtaking ?? ….hmmm, just remove the DRS, that will give us a lot of actions ….. every body happy ….. except Lewis hamilton
Jere (@jerejj)
19th December 2017, 7:32
@gunusugeh ”hmmm, just remove the DRS, that will give us a lot of actions”
– Wrong, removing it wouldn’t give us a lot of action unless following another car closely through the corners was much easier. It has to stay at least as long as following another car closely through the corners that lead to the straights is too difficult due to how the cars are designed Aerodynamically.
SoLiDG (@solidg)
19th December 2017, 7:35
The same Hamilton known for his great overtaking skills pre-drs era?
ECWDanSelby (@ecwdanselby)
19th December 2017, 12:33
What on earth…?!
socksolid (@socksolid)
19th December 2017, 12:36
The same hamilton who said after the brazilian gp that none of his overtakes were special because of drs made it so easy?
Jere (@jerejj)
19th December 2017, 13:17
@socksolid His easy-looking passes in Brazil were much more down to the fact he had a fresh engine and some other PU elements than the drivers he overtook on his way through the field. The engine/PU power advantage was by far the most significant factor if not the only factor behind his easy-looking passes.
Jason Miller (@flatdarkmars)
19th December 2017, 0:29
If Ferrari were to “drag others as well to an alternative championship”, it would probably work out about as well as the IRL / CART schism for all concerned.
Egonovi
19th December 2017, 7:47
Or like the various world titles one sees in boxing due to competing promoters.
But the fact that they can still does not give them the right to demand more money (or other favours) for the same performance. FIA/Liberty should call their bluff, whilst making F1 an even stronger sporting and commercial success (which will be the strongest deterrent).
And Ferrari should not expect any favours in an alternative series. The owner of that series will not be able to attract any real competitive teams if they give Ferrari a special deal. And with only one serious competitor it will not be a strong series.
It will be a clear lose-lose solution.
Joao (@johnmilk)
19th December 2017, 14:52
or they could call it Formula 1, have preferential treatment, get a bigger slice of the cake and all the decisions have to be accepted by them, otherwise they could veto any new rules, etc…
oh wait!
Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
19th December 2017, 21:28
I don’t think Ferrari’s trying to make a split work as well as CART/IRL… …it’s planning on making it work as well as Formula 1 2009’s split.
In other words, its ideal circumstance is not splitting at all, but getting every (or nearly every) other team in F1 to agree with it (perhaps making some inconsequential-to-Ferrari concessions to secure that) and to corner the authorities into accepting its wishes. It just so happens that historically, threatening to quit and making the appropriate preparations has proven the best way to secure that.
BasCB (@bascb)
20th December 2017, 7:02
I am as convinced as you are @alianora-la-canta that all this breakaway talk is about getting a group of top teams to hold together and foce Liberty into caving in on giving more equal money so that the big teams keep their unfair advantage.
As a fan of the sport, I can only hope that Liberty plays it differently than Bernie did and manage to achieve a change there.
Chris
19th December 2017, 0:38
Good riddance Ferrari, it’s called Formula 1, not Ferrari 1.
Jere (@jerejj)
19th December 2017, 7:39
@Chris +1.
Zomtec
19th December 2017, 8:41
F1 = Ferrari 1st?
regs (@regs)
19th December 2017, 10:34
We need championship where champion is set by sport, not where Ferrari is set champion by rules. So we wouldn’t miss.
Neil (@neilosjames)
19th December 2017, 0:46
Disagree with COTD… I think bringing spending levels closer together would – or at least, should – bring performance closer together. Forgive the extremely simplistic examples, but…
Team A: Huge budget, can afford to work on 10 different performance-enhancing projects at a given time (let’s say three wing designs, two turning vane designs, three floor designs and two sidepod designs). Then they can pick the best one.
Team B: Low budget, can afford to work on 4 different performance-enhancing projects at any given time (one of each). No choices available here.
Again, it’s horribly basic and doesn’t touch the real depth of the issue, but that’s a large part of why a huge performance gap exists. Team A can afford divide up their huge workforce and piddle away resources down several blind alleys in the quest to find the one alley that actually goes somewhere and adds performance.
Team B can’t, so they end up 1+ seconds down the road, unable to do anything about it because they simply do not have the necessary resources to keep up.
(Obviously ‘more R&D resources’ isn’t the only field-spreading factor, but it’s a biggie, so I chose that to focus on).
Sonics (@sonicslv)
19th December 2017, 3:52
@neilosjames I don’t think the premise of your example is correct. F1 design is too complicated to have multiple people each design their own improvement, let’s say 3 people working on 3 different front wing improvement in Team A. We know this because Mercedes or Ferrari never brought 2 different spec of new parts to see which is better, they just compared it against the old spec.
However, bigger resources is undeniably bigger advantage. But they come from the designers not having to deal with minor things and more importantly the ability to pay for better human resources. There’s no way a team with Sauber or Haas budget can afford to hire Alonso, Hamilton, or Newey. Considering the talked budget cap proposal excludes driver and key personnel salary, the big teams will still have big inherent advantage and I tend to agree with COTD outcome.
Jere (@jerejj)
19th December 2017, 7:38
@sonicslv +1.
Rahnarl Smenves (@rahnarlsmenves)
19th December 2017, 11:37
Hum, the teams consistently talk about their iterative process of design as trial and error in their R&D departments. What you’re saying, that they stick to a single project at a time, doesn’t reflect that states made by all the teams when they talk about their cars’ development. Eddie Jordan has a lot to say about this, he usually goes on and on about how smaller teams need to be conservative with their designs, simply because they don’t have money to iterate.
Neil (@neilosjames)
19th December 2017, 12:03
They only brought one to the track. Didn’t mean they didn’t test five more in wind tunnels/CFD before arriving at the decision of which one they were going to track-test…
Phylyp (@phylyp)
19th December 2017, 1:16
Heh, and I thought Motorsport was only motorsport.com. Interesting to see that James Allen’s site is also owned by Motorsport, I thought that was an indie.
toiago (@toiago)
19th December 2017, 1:26
@phylyp It is relatively recent, I think. They have been buying other sites. Just yesterday or the day before they announced that they had also bought the biggest dutch motorsport website.
Phylyp (@phylyp)
19th December 2017, 2:54
Thank you for that context @toiago
Egonovi
19th December 2017, 8:00
If they’re on a buying spree and fanatic about f1, what could be the next target :)
Phylyp (@phylyp)
19th December 2017, 1:17
Also, a big +1 for Joe Saward’s message to Bernie.
Neil (@neilosjames)
19th December 2017, 1:39
I remember when Motorsport.com was a rubbish little site, entirely written and filled by the horror show that is GMM, seemingly surviving on scraps of ad revenue.
Interesting what a new owner and a bit of investment (and a Blob-like mindset) can do…
Trayambak Chakravarty (@major-dev)
19th December 2017, 9:52
But they’ve gone to a stupid subscription based model that is literally the most annoying thing on earth. Every good article is hidden behind a paywall.
mantresx (@mantresx)
19th December 2017, 1:54
So @keithcollantine have you been approached by Motorsport yet??
What would you say if they came with a big offer?
On one side I don’t like that everything is centralised and the risk of loosing the truly independent journalists, but on the other it can help grow a site and community much more, also there’s nothing wrong with rewarding (financially speaking) many years of hard work from the author… so yeah it’s a tricky one.
Jere (@jerejj)
19th December 2017, 7:37
@mantresx +1.
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
19th December 2017, 10:07
@mantresx @jerejj I’ve been my own boss for eight years now and I’m not in a hurry to change that!
I do take pride in F1 Fanatic’s independence, that’s why it’s right there in the masthead. And I have seen a lot more comment lately about the growing reach of Motorsport Network, particularly after the acquisitions of Autosport and GP Update.
Related to this, a change I’m considering for the round-ups is signalling where different media outlets have the same owners. This wouldn’t just apply to Motorsport Network but others like Newscorp, whose titles appear here often. What do you think?
jack (@jackobite)
19th December 2017, 10:59
Most of my F1 news come from F1fanatic,
I think I might be bias if I seen something came from Newscorp since I cant stand Murdoch, (did he sell that last week?) still if they report Ham is playing the piano I guess its just a story, Id be more interested in you filtering out stuff that’s possibly wrong or hype and highlighting it tho.
RB13
19th December 2017, 12:45
I think that’s a fantastic idea Keith. If there’s any bias, grouping articles from the same owners would make this abundantly clear. Big thumbs up from me on that!
Joao (@johnmilk)
19th December 2017, 14:55
Keith, let those important things to the side, launch a new logo instead
ruliemaulana (@ruliemaulana)
19th December 2017, 17:19
Yes. Motorsport acquisition spree would made round-up article much harder and ironically less important since it will show the same news everywhere. I admit I’d bookmarked F1i and Motorsport this year because those two mostly capture all things F1 these days.
F1F graph and statistic article were the best feature here but obviously not the one that capture the most attention since most fans doesn’t like to face or learn the fact that contradict their preference. They prefer to express their opinion on when controversial things occur not after official fact news presented. On the other side, stats and facts after the race was always great because we could found some depressing and hilarious facts there. That’s a bummer since we knew which one took the most effort.
What makes F1F difference is it successfully create user base that had the time and knowledge to expressed their opinion in long and comprehensive comments. I knew you don’t like to entertain unconfirmed news but maybe you could start some of them and packaging it on an opinionated article with some poll to create user engagement. Maybe you could add some “Keith’s Insight” in round-up article highlighting important but least reported news. I don’t think it would be harm to be more opinionated.
When I don’t like the idea of F1F using Spot.IM which could lead to moderation nightmare, I still think using live updated Ajax add-on on comment section would be a great addition. We didn’t need to refresh the page to see that there was a new comments.
Scalextric (@scalextric)
19th December 2017, 3:37
Manor and overtaking seems counterintuitive.
In other odd news, here’s HAM playing the piano forte.
Sonics (@sonicslv)
19th December 2017, 4:00
@scalextric Should be close enough to raced F1 cars I presume? On the other hand, if they can tweak the rules so even a Manor can overtake easily (aero-wise) it should be good news for us XD.
Michael Brown (@)
19th December 2017, 5:09
Maybe the goal is to overtake a Manor without needing blue flags
Jere (@jerejj)
19th December 2017, 7:35
@scalextric @sonicslv @mbr-9 +1.
sethje (@seth-space)
19th December 2017, 15:16
The car was designed to follow other cars and perform. The ideal partner for this project i guess.
PantoneZ
19th December 2017, 5:31
Marchionne must realize that the prospect of joining a championship that is completely stacked in favor of one team is a poor one. Honestly, he must go home at night and think, ‘man… I can’t believe I actually said that.’ What’s worse is that he thinks we’re dumb enough to believe it. Are we?
Jere (@jerejj)
19th December 2017, 7:35
@PantoneZ +1.
Markp
19th December 2017, 19:08
Or he means the proper teams go with Ferrari and get an equal share of a bigger pie than what’s available to teams now, Ferrari included. If the proper teams had their own championship no more compromising for the lowest common denominators (Williams et al) As many engines as they want every weekend amongst other things denied now due to the nothing teams.
Boomerang
19th December 2017, 6:07
It is very interesting that people working for Aston Martin have a stance that conversion of heat into mechanical energy isn’t so relevant at all. Just few lines below that text we can read about Mercedes hitting 1000bhp soon, if not already, converting more than 50% of heat energy into mechanical work. These opposite attitudes may lead to much more disruption than anyone of us might consider to be fun. What if, Ferrari pulls out of F1 and persuades Mercedes to do so. That is possible scenario. That would be fun to? It is sad to see that a company that built cars for James Bond (that’s how I’ve learned they exist), packed with all sort of gadgets we loved to see, is opposing technological progress. Current PU layout is expensive and complicated many will say. Isn’t it the same with todays cars. Does anyone know about the car manufactured these days without power steering, ABS, ESC, or similar systems that draws any serious attention on the market… A true disruption indeed is when people living in the past endeavor to shape the future of anything. That’s the disruption indeed!
Egonovi
19th December 2017, 9:02
What does AM mean with a Turbocharger without heat recovery?
Is it one of those old superchargers?
Or do they only want to use an eTurbo (potentially together with a decoupled MGU-H)?
anon
19th December 2017, 9:48
Egonovi, what they mean by that is completely eliminating the MGU-H – they don’t even want an eTurbo design, which would be too complicated for them.
They probably wouldn’t even make the engine themselves – they’ve talked about shipping that job out to an independent like Cosworth, and all Aston Martin would do is pay a bit of money for the right to stick their name on the engine cover – which is why they’ve also talked about severely curtailing the amount of hours that can be spent on the dyno and heavy standardisation of components.
To be honest, I’d be a bit wary given that Aston Martin’s current owners are reportedly gearing up to float the company on the stock market in the latter half of 2018. https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-aston-martin-m-a-exclusive/exclusive-aston-martin-owners-rev-up-for-2018-exit-with-lazard-hire-idUKKBN1E92MD
It suggests to me that Palmer is really looking for a cheap way of garnering lots of headlines for Aston Martin to generate interest in the company ahead of the IPO, and at a time when the company is looking to launch a number of new models (they are launching the DB11 Volante, the new Vantage and the new Vanquish models in 2018). He knows that it is a quiet time in the motorsport world, given that we are in the off season in F1, so any headlines he creates will be widely shared given there is little else to report on.
I would not be surprised if, after the important launches and the IPO takes place next year, Andy Palmer will then find an excuse to back away from F1, though probably continue to stir some speculation until their new halo car is complete (in order to milk the association with Newey for as much as possible).
Egonovi
19th December 2017, 10:10
Thanks Anon,
If AM does not even intend to build their own PU’s then they should stay out of those meetings.
digitalrurouni
19th December 2017, 13:18
Well they already took the MGU-H out of the 2021 motors which is a shame if you ask me because recovering energy from heat is the best idea if you want efficiency.
Roth Man (@rdotquestionmark)
19th December 2017, 7:01
Well the aerodynamic/overtaking CFD work Ross has implemented has to be the best move Formula One has made in a lot of years? I know they’ve loosely looked at it in the past and Patrick Head put together a good proposal a few years back (a little like the direction Indy Car are taking) but this seems much more purposeful. Shame we will have to wait until 2021 until the results from this and the new engine regs can be imposed.
Jere (@jerejj)
19th December 2017, 7:36
@rdotquestionmark +1.
Jeanrien (@jeanrien)
19th December 2017, 8:39
Great move from Ross but in the same time I feel sad for F1 state. Isn’t it suppose to be the pinnacle of motorsport? I don’t think limiting teams in CFD has that big financial impact, eventually limiting the number of runs but not the quality of it…
Especially that good correlation on CFD could decrease the use for wind tunnel which is much more costly.
At least it is good that they are looking into the dynamics of two cars following each other. That’s really hurting the current formula.
Robbie (@robbie)
19th December 2017, 12:43
@rdotquestionmark I agree with you about the ‘best move’ sentiment and am a bit surprised it hasn’t caused more excitement here, although there may be many posts yet. I think this is huge, and it should also stop some people in their tracks around here who have continually complained that Liberty ‘is not doing anything’.
Not sure why you think we will have to wait until 2021 though. I can see some of their findings, as they decide on directions to go with respect to wings and their sizes and shapes, floors, diffusers etc, being implemented incrementally so as not to catch the smaller teams out too much in the development/resources race.
Roth Man (@rdotquestionmark)
19th December 2017, 14:13
Yes that surprised me also @robbie I thought this was huge. The most positive thing I’ve heard in years. Not as emotive as Ferrari threatening to quit though apparently.
I hope you’re right, I just assumed this would all come in for the new wholesale regs in 2021, it may be they piecemeal these changes in.
@HoHum (@hohum)
21st December 2017, 1:10
+1
Gary
19th December 2017, 7:46
The direction Liberty wants to take F1 – inexpensive motors, budget caps, spec components – sounds an awful lot like Tony George’s formula for the IRL.
Two years ago I asked Sergio Marchionne why he allows Bernie and CVC to capture so much of the enterprise value when it is Ferrari, et al that produce that value. He told me “stay tuned”.
Egonovi
19th December 2017, 8:15
You wouldn’t solve it by ‘Ferrari, et al’ simply taking more of the enterprise value. The only way to move forward is for all teams (on equal footing) to have an equity stake in Liberty.
That’s how you focus on growing the cake/pie rather than fighting for the biggest slice.
PS any more insights or beans you can spill Gary?
Robbie (@robbie)
19th December 2017, 11:08
Not sure I understand the point. Do Liberty want ‘inexpensive’ pu’s, or just less expensive ones? Budget caps have been discussed for a couple of decades. Spec components have also been a reality for years. All racing series have to consider these aspects all the time. So I don’t get the comparison specifically to IRL which had probably, just a guess here, 5 or 10 percent of the the F1 budget. The only thing that reminds me of IRL and Tony George would be if Ferrari indeed left to form their own breakaway series, in which case they would be needing to consider all the same aspects.
As to SM ‘allowing’ BE/CVC so much of the enterprise value? Did he have a choice or a say? Perhaps the extra 80 to 100 mill a year they got didn’t hurt? What did ‘stay tuned’ mean? That BE would soon be gone? Or that they themselves would be?
Egonovi
19th December 2017, 8:17
One wonders how long Jason Somerville’s contractual gardening leave is.
With all the competitive data and unlimited modelling, even 2 years seems short.
Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
19th December 2017, 21:32
It might be, but it’s already been established that the FIA’s contractual jurisdiction (Switzerland) considers anything above 3 months illegal. We’re lucky there was this much of a delay.
Bennie
19th December 2017, 8:34
I wonder if Ross Brawn’s ultimate goal if to create a stock spec car? Something they build to test the rules etc before revising them. But once you’ve gone to all that effort, why not sell it to the lower level team’s and new entrants as a cheaper way into the sport?
Also interesting to hear his comments about the restrictions on CFD. I wonder if these restrictions are what hindered HRT and some of the old new entrants who tried to design the whole project using CFD.
anon
19th December 2017, 10:12
Bennie, you are probably thinking of Virgin Racing (prior to it becoming Marussia and then Manor), which did try to go down the route of CFD only in an effort to save costs (HRT and Caterham used a combination of CFD and windtunnel testing).
In the case of Virgin Racing, the problems there were not the limitations on the number of hours they could spend doing CFD development work. The teams are effectively given a maximum number of hours that they can spend doing either windtunnel testing or CFD modelling, but the teams are allowed to exchange one set of hours for another – in other words, a team can convert a day of windtunnel testing time into an equivalent amount of time running CFD models instead.
The problem that Virgin Racing had was that their CFD models were incorrectly calibrated against data from previous windtunnel model tests and from data collected on track. Even then, it was difficult for them to resolve the source of that issue until much later in the season – that said, the VR-01 had a number of systemic design flaws (for example, the early season problems with the fuel tank being undersized after their fuel supplier was unable to meet their pre-season objectives for fuel density and combustion efficiency) that meant that the team stopped development fairly early on into the season anyway.
As it happens, after those calibration problems, Virgin Racing stopped using just CFD to model their cars, and instead switched to using a combination of windtunnel testing and CFD modelling.
Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
19th December 2017, 21:34
Virgin did CFD-only purely to save money. As such, it was more likely restricted by the consequences of a lack of money than the lack of CFD power (which was considerably less restricted in 2010 than it is now).
Egonovi
19th December 2017, 9:12
I cannot open the FT article, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Bernie’s F1 had so much debt that it made hardly any taxable profit.
Why so much debt you ask? Simply to pay dividends to the owners early (before the profit is made) via your favourite tax haven tax-free scheme.
That’s how you bleed money from of a company and become rich without paying taxes.
It’s not good for the company, but you can solve that simply by selling the company before it starts declining (he was probably a few years too late on that bit).
anon
19th December 2017, 10:23
Egonovi, the reports that I recall seeing at the time suggested that CVC were taking sizeable dividends out of F1, but the reason for that was that their investments in the Australian media market had gone badly awry and they were using the money they were taking out of F1 to stabilise their investments in Australia (Channel 9 was one of them, which was racking up fairly heavy losses at the time and forcing CVC to pump money into that division).
Michael
19th December 2017, 9:56
You do realize that hamilton is one of those who told publicly that they don’t like DRS.
Tony Mansell
19th December 2017, 10:21
That’s COTD !? ‘I don’t think it will work’ .. OK, thanks for that stunning insight .. and for why wont it work?
Love that Aston Martin are already throwing their opinions around before they are even in the sport, sorry,bar stickers. Reminds me of when Jaguar, BMW & Toyota were jumping up and down in the early 2000’s demanding this and that and the other. It was a salutary lesson of what can happen if you cowtow to manufacturers. One F1 should remember as we go further into this awful era of hybrid rubbish. Tell me one person who cares that Mercedes are nearing 1000bhp ? Yet people still purr about that Brabham (was it ?) that did the same and maybe more 30 years ago.
anon
19th December 2017, 10:49
Tony Mansell, there are so many fables around the turbo era of the 1980’s, but in reality a lot of the figures that are thrown around are rather dubious.
I know that a number of former mechanics from that era who now have a business in restoring the cars and engines from that era, such as Geoff Page, have said that most of the legendary power figures were either made up or based on adulterated data (such as using flash pressure readings from starting up a cold engine, which always substantially overestimates the power output), including the claims that surround the BMW M12 engines.
In fact, pretty much everything that is written about the BMW M12 engines and their supposed legendary power outputs is a load of rubbish – they did not reuse old engine blocks from road cars (they were brand new blocks that went through a carefully curated process of heat treatment, strengthening and modification), nor did they stick them out the back of the office to weather them or get employees to pee on them. Nor, for that matter, did they ever use “WW2 rocket fuel” mixtures either – that has been completely debunked by a former Wintershall employee, who confirmed that it was a bog standard toluene mixture that most other teams were also using.
There is a lot of romanticism and rheumy eyed nostalgia about that era, but a lot of the legends about those engines are garbage by people who want to make that era sound more macho and talk up their prowess. In reality, a handful of the engines could briefly hit high power outputs in qualifying trim for a few years (1985-1986), but couldn’t sustain it for more than about a lap and were often wrecked afterwards.
Tony Mansell
19th December 2017, 11:41
And that is the trouble with everything post internet. We are left with all of the facts and none of the glory. I was aware it was qually trim but as some engines were only built for qually then its hardly the point. 1400bhp was always an outlandish claim but hay my point was, are we getting excited by Mercedes getting 1000 bhp?
Computer says no
JimG (@jimg)
19th December 2017, 12:36
Computer says no, human says yes!
Humans like round numbers, so 1000bhp is a milestone. But it’s still just a number. If they had said that they were about to break the 745.7kW barrier, who would care then?
I think that the point anon was making was that even if earlier engines made over 1000bhp it would have been for short periods and probably wrecked the engine. In the current era the same engine which makes over 1000bhp will have to last for six or seven race weekends, which is quite an achievement!
As for “We are left with all of the facts and none of the glory”, er, what? Would you prefer to hear from a bloke down the pub that F1 cars make 2000bhp and race upside down in tunnels at 250mph, or to know the actual facts from a (more or less ;-) reliable source?
Tony Mansell
19th December 2017, 13:50
Eh what to ‘eh what?’ You may not have grown up in the era before everything could be known at the touch of a button but I did, and as a wide eyed boy we heard many stories of derring do that now could be googled and ruined before we had a chance to be inspired by them. Some were true, some just a little exaggerated, not to the silly proportions you use to make your point may I add.
But if you don’t already understand this, I cant tell you.
anon
19th December 2017, 15:09
Tony Mansell, then I guess that we will have to differ, because to me it is much more interesting to see what Mercedes are doing now than hearing the same tiresome guff being repeated again and again until, instead of being a charming story, it ends up binding people to a pastiche of the past.
jack (@jackobite)
19th December 2017, 10:39
Ferrari can go anytime I wouldn’t miss them.
Still I do agree they could drag out some others with them, Id love to hear the sell to Merc…. “you come with us we take most of the cash prizes you lot split the rest…only Ferrari get a veto tho.. you know just the same as it is in F1”
Markp
19th December 2017, 19:16
Many people would though. They are easily the single biggest and most important element in F1 to many round the world. I hope they get their way just to troll lots of Internet moaners.
Girts (@girts)
19th December 2017, 12:23
According to Marchionne, “you could work more on the show, perhaps a better choice of circuits, using more DRS, generating more uncertainty, unpredictability and overtaking.”
Good luck with the “choice of circuits”. I am sure that Liberty Media cannot wait to get rid of the Russian or Arab money. More DRS? Yeah, let us make it even easier for Hamilton and Vettel to get back into top three in case they have fallen back for some reason.
Seriously though, I believe that “turning F1 into NASCAR, with cars all the same” (not literally, of course – some room for engineering creativity should still be left) is the only realistic option if one wishes to achieve closer racing and more unpredictability.
Robbie (@robbie)
19th December 2017, 13:01
I think Marchionne is playing politics here. Brawn and Liberty are looking at everything from all angles and from what I gather, they seem to only want to improve everything about F1. They have talked of bringing back some older traditional venues for example ie. keeping the DNA of F1 alive. They have indicated the US GP style of driver introductions wouldn’t work in Europe and other parts. They have not indicated they will be turning it into a NASCAR-like spec series.
We all know there has been a big imbalance between the have teams and the have-nots for a long time. What has Marchionne ever offered as solutions to the problems? Very little of any substance from what I can tell, that would take anything away from their have position. Understandable from a business standpoint I suppose, but to then make threats as if everything can’t be changed too much or they’ll leave, is to disregard the bigger picture. But then I guess Marchionne thinks they, Ferrari, are the bigger picture.
Because I think Liberty and Brawn are on the right track and aren’t looking to do the things Marchionne is fear-mongering about, I predict Ferrari will not observe enough changes to cause them to leave, yet changes there will be. And because I choose to look at the glass half full for F1’s future, and I don’t think F1 will be ‘taken away’ from us with poor changes, I will continue to follow F1 post-Ferrari and not the series Ferrari might go to or form themselves.
Robbie (@robbie)
19th December 2017, 13:07
Just wanted to add too, I think Brawn’s research has only just begun really, and so even he doesn’t yet know everything about the direction they’ll go, which makes it folly to criticize him at this point. They took over officially last February, less than a year ago. Marchionne is drawing a line in the sand prematurely, but I suppose that’s all he can do for now as there is only so much he can possibly know.
Jere (@jerejj)
19th December 2017, 13:21
@robbie Last January to be precise, but yes, less than a year ago anyway.
anon
19th December 2017, 15:46
@robbie, they might have said they wanted to use traditional venues, but what venues have they actually proposed so far?
Currently, we’ve had a suggestion of reviving the Turkish GP, a proposal for a street race in Copenhagen, a proposal by Bratches for two further street races in unspecified parts of Asia (Vietnam being suggested as one possible option), proposals for a street race in the Netherlands and proposals for a street race in either Las Vegas, New York or Miami.
Now, out of those proposals, Copenhagen, Vietnam, New York and Miami are all venues which have no F1 heritage at all behind them, and I would not be surprised if the second Asian race that Bratches is proposing would also be another random location that has no historical association with F1.
Las Vegas has the association with the handful of races held there in the 1980’s in the car park of the Caesars Palace hotel, though those races are generally ranked as being fairly terrible events and any new such event would almost certainly steer as far clear as possible from being associated with those races.
The Turkish GP is hardly what you’d call a historic event, having started in the mid 2000’s, and even then there is uncertainty over whether that will really happen.
As for the Netherlands, that is the only proposed nation with something of a tradition of holding F1 races, though not for over 30 years. However, Zandvoort is unusable for F1 (even back in its day, it wasn’t really fit for use at times), and we know it will not be worked on to bring it up to scratch, whilst we know that Amsterdam and Rotterdam have both rejected the proposal, making a Dutch GP unlikely.
It means that, out of the six suggested venues, only one would be in a nation that could be broadly considered as a “traditional” location for F1, and even then it would not be in the venue which was associated with F1, but be yet another generic street race. I wouldn’t say that, so far, Liberty Media have been offering that many choices which would be a return to traditional venues (the only traditional venue – Paul Ricard – which is returning to the calendar in the near future was in fact signed up by Bernie, and Liberty Media had nothing to do that that deal).
Robbie (@robbie)
19th December 2017, 18:01
Fair comment but haven’t they also hinted at ensuring venues like Silverstone, which has been under threat, remain, as one example? Ie. as you point out not so much adding older venues as I perhaps awkwardly suggested above, but ensuring no more disappear from the calendar.
anon
19th December 2017, 20:03
@robbie, the response from Liberty Media about Silverstone has been mixed – they have said that they are committed to the idea of a British GP and that they want to hold further talks with Silverstone, but at the same time they have also said they will not renegotiate the terms of the contract that Silverstone signed with Bernie.
Similarly, Carey has flirted with the idea of a street race in London – though it seems more likely that Liberty Media will content itself with show events, like the one they ran this year – so currently the future of the British GP beyond 2019, and whether Liberty Media are still prepared to hold the races at Silverstone, has not yet been resolved.
In addition to that, the contracts for the German, Belgian and Japanese GP’s all expire in 2018. Spa has, in the past, had concerns over extending their contract, though the increase in crowds due to Verstappen might mean that the venue can make things meet in the near term; meanwhile, you would presume that the Japanese GP will probably also be extended.
However, right now there is uncertainty over whether the German GP will stay on the calendar after 2018 – the owners of the Hockenheimring do not want to move to an annual contract and have hinted that they are prepared to drop the event given that, with rather weak crowds in recent years, they’ve been losing money on the race. The Nurburgring, meanwhile, is still in a financially poor state and are not interested, even if they did revert back to the old system they had where they alternated with the Hockenheimring.
Liberty Media have talked about possibly moving the event to another circuit, but it is quite possible that it might be dropped altogether after 2018.
Robbie (@robbie)
19th December 2017, 23:28
@anon Good stuff. You’re a great add to this site.
Michael (@dedischado)
19th December 2017, 18:57
On the subject of aerodynamics, how much rear downforce is achieved from the rear diffuser and how much from the rear wing? A thought I had a while back is to reduce the dirty air by increasing the percentage of rear downforce that comes from the diffuser(s) either by increasing size or going back to the double diffuser. If the rear wings were reduced in size, would that reduce the dirty air and enable closer following?