F1 2015

It is rather... Ahem... sexual with the champagne.

That's why we use beer when we win. We just sorta throw it around without all the shaking and pointing...

You guys have seen the Vettel GIF, right?

They don't seem to mind a little spray............

So an interesting finish to the Bahrain race. Ferrari and Raikonnen took a chance with the middle and ending stints so that he would finish fast- and it turned out really well. At the same time, it made Rosberg's mental state appear even more shaky- while I think Kimi would have passed him- that brake mistake looked really bad. And with Hamilton winning again, the gap is getting pretty wide between the two Mercedes drivers.

Great job for Kimi, BTW- his first podium in quite some time. Great drive.

Alonso and McLaren/Honda are still showing progress- finishing 11th, and being very competitive. He almost even made Q3. Too bad Button had so many technical problems over the weekend.

Manor- while you are, indeed, slow- it's really great to see you finish the race. They are projected to get a real 2015 car in Europe. Keep on the progress.

Great race at the front this time. Really happy to see Kimi on the podium.

It was quite entertaining watching Hamilton carefully not spray anyone with champagne except for Nico.

Great race. Nico had to work hard to get past other cars for position, but he's established himself as the definite #2 in the team. Kimi did a fantastic job.

The Ferrari team has a fun dynamic. Both drivers seem to be driving for fun, with nothing to prove. This means nobody can play mind games with them the way that Hammy and Rosberg do. And the team principal is great, I love the emotion every time something goes well. Although I suspect he'd just turn around and punch someone if the car breaks. I'm not usually a red car fan due to their special treatment, but they remind me more of 2014 Lotus than anyone else these days. And that's good.

Nice finish by Ricciardo The perfectly engineered engine, as defined by Colin Chapman.

Keith Tanner wrote: Nice finish by Ricciardo The perfectly engineered engine, as defined by Colin Chapman.

Yeah, but that was in the days when you weren't required to use each engine for 5 races!

This is true!

I realized today what was bugging me about the special treatment for Ferrari. I've been thinking of this as a sport. But it's not, it's a product like a TV series in the minds of those who own it and who market it very profitably. And Ferrari is the highly-paid name star. They may not be the best actor in the movie, but they're the ones who bring the eyeballs. Ferrari is Tom Cruise

and at times in the past they HAVE been the best actor … Jack Nicholson / Marlon Brando http://www.imdb.com/list/ls050274118/

6 of the best all time have been Ferrari drivers

http://f1greatestdrivers.autosport.com/?driver=10

On the race. Wow, that was a great race. Real cat and mouse stuff at the front, and lots of passing action lower down. It doesn't matter if Hammy keeps winning which makes the WDC a for gone conclusion, the races (except China) are excellent. WTF was wrong with DerVunderKid today. Three unforced errors culminating in him damaging his fron wing in an unforced off course that ended his podium shot. It would have been great to see a three way battle int he last five laps between Vettle, Nico and Kimi. Kimi would probably not have been allowed to pass Vettle though if it had come to pass. Great job by Massa on old tires keeping the recovering Vettle back in the closing stages too.

Shame about Button, he was well into the top 10 in FP2 as well. Oh well, at least Alonso got to finish ahead of him once for the season

Mannor have done an outstanding job.
Race one, no attempt to race
Race two, one car makes it
Race three, outside the 107% but allowed to race
Race four, easily inside the 107% cut off and get both cars to the finish, even with a tussle between the two. These guys are becoming my favorite underdog.

Saubers looked good again, and I love the simple clean livery, the nose is very elegant.

wbjones wrote: and at times in the past they HAVE been the best actor … Jack Nicholson / Marlon Brando http://www.imdb.com/list/ls050274118/ 6 of the best all time have been Ferrari drivers http://f1greatestdrivers.autosport.com/?driver=10

I hate dumb lists like this as they are always wrong. How can you not have Clark and Prost as 1 and 2. Also, despite their massive massive talent, I can never rate Senna or Schumacher that highly due to their reliance on underhand dirty tactics that take away so much from what could and should have been the two best F1 Careers ever.

This year I'm rooting for Ferrari, they are working hard, have two great drivers and deserve any success they get, I'd love to seem them take the Constructors crown with their drivers 2nd and 4rd in the drivers championship, but that doesnt make them worth so much more that could and should be spread amongst all.

Re: Honda's success in the turbo era- a very gifted technical friend of mine sent a very detailed letter to the Alfa Owner why Honda was "cheating" like Ferrari has been accused of many time- legal to the letter of the rule, but not fair.

The summary- Honda's fuel blend was very, very far from pump fuel, had a lot of nasty chemicals in it, the RON number was legal, but the elevated MON meant that their engine had a pretty big boost advantage. All very detailed in an SAE paper they wrote.

Interesting.

Which was a way to say that all of the Honda hype of being great engineers is a little out of porportion to what they actually did. Or a lot.

AND, to what Adrian just posted, very much raised the finishes by both Prost and Senna above what they may have actually done given more equal fuel.

alfadriver wrote: Re: Honda's success in the turbo era- a very gifted technical friend of mine sent a very detailed letter to the Alfa Owner why Honda was "cheating" like Ferrari has been accused of many time- legal to the letter of the rule, but not fair. The summary- Honda's fuel blend was very, very far from pump fuel, had a lot of nasty chemicals in it, the RON number was legal, but the elevated MON meant that their engine had a pretty big boost advantage. All very detailed in an SAE paper they wrote. Interesting. Which was a way to say that all of the Honda hype of being great engineers is a little out of porportion to what they actually did. Or a lot. AND, to what Adrian just posted, very much raised the finishes by both Prost and Senna above what they may have actually done given more equal fuel.

Eric, everyone was cheating on fuel back then. It was one Bernie E who was the first to do it. It wasn't that they had an unfair advantage, it was that everyone had an unfair advantage. You can't call them out for cheating unless you call out the whole grid.

Now, I will grant you Alfa may not have been cheating. They had a reputation for sticking blindly to the letter AND INTENT of the rules no matter what it cost them. Back when the FIA banned skirts and mandated a minimum ride height Alfa stuck to the letter and intent of the rule. The whole rest of the grid stuck to the letter, but not the intent of the rule. They all had super soft helper springs that allowed them to pass the ride height test in the pits, but as soon as you were on track they compressed and you had lots of underbody ground effect, way more than the Alfa's.

Creative rule interpretation, or circumstances where the whole gride is doing something is a far far cry from outright cheating like Benetton in 94 or Schumacher and Senna chopping people, driving them off the road etc.

Great race!

It was a fun battle at the front. Rosberg's personality is putting him into a #2 status in the team. He could have turned the race events into a story of how he was able to show his skills and without a car issue with the brakes he would have easily held off Raikonnen. Instead he talks about "blah blah blah, I suck and the car let me down" I wouldn't be surprised if MB buy out Rosberg's contract at the end of the year or let it end after 2016 to pull in Filipe Nasr or Pascal Wehrlein. Someone new to build the team around as Hamilton will be "old" by then.

I want to go back and watch the first stint of the race for Hamilton and try to see how he lost so much time to Vettel and Rosberg. My armchair team management skills told me he should have gone to the Medium tire in the middle stint. Why? Vettel and Rosberg will be battling each other so shouldn't have to worry about them in the long run. They will run themselves ragged. Raikkonen will be the focus as he hadn't pitted yet but Hamilton would have the Medium tire durability to use to adjust the middle stint to cover him.

All said and done it seem that both MBs were about to have brake failure. The brakes seem to be their weakness. Same as last year.

Speaking of that MB got into a habit of being very open about their car issues over last year when they were the only team that mattered. They need to try and close down that open pipe. Vettel probably had brake failure issues too but Ferrari won't be admitting that. Just like the other teams don't put their issues on the street.

I have loved Sauber for a long time now, ever since Jordan and Stewart F1 left the series, they are my go to team that doesn't have the big money. I loved that they put Monisha Kaltenborn in charge as she continues the Sauber way of quietly performing well in F1. The cars this year are visually excellent, none of the dark brooding colors, mostly black and silver that fills the rest of the grid. Nasr is doing well and Erickson must be very thankful to finally have a car to show some skills.

I wonder if Redbull will stay in F1. They seem to be crashing out of love after an excellent honeymoon. Ricciardo deserved a decent car this year but is lost. I can see him at McLaren Honda when Button decides he wants to go do ironman competitions more than racing.

Alonso did well with what he had. I could see his plan was always to let a car by just before the trigger for DRS then try to use DRS to keep up with them to help his lack of power.

In reply to Adrian_Thompson:

It seemed that the fuels were all special and continue to be special. The fuel companies may not get much from involvement in F1. However, I think the engineering team supporting MB from Petronas does more than just coordinate fuel shipments. I do recall during testing of one of the FIA Vipers we had the special fuel in tanks. Special as in highly filtered, with additives optimized within the specs, etc. They tune the fuel no different than tuning a showroom stock race motor using parts with specific measurements within the stock tolerances. (Eg. tallest pistons allowed in the factory specs with the maximum material removed from the bottom of the head per the factory specs.)

The MB brakes lasted almost all race - they were just one or two laps shy I think the NBC team overstated how much trouble Lewis was in, he knew he had a 5 second advantage over Kimi and only one lap to go, so he backed way off. If he'd had 5 laps to do, he wouldn't have backed off as much. I have lots to say about the very poor NBC coverage, usually I'll watch the BBC on time delay because 1) there aren't commercials every three laps and 2) they're better at commenting and MUCH better at post-race interviews.

It sure wasn't obvious in the broadcast why Hamilton lost that 5 second cushion mid-race. Even Hamilton was confused.

As for a Nico replacement - I'd like to see Bottas in a factory Mercedes. I think he could do very well for them.

Keith Tanner wrote: It sure wasn't obvious in the broadcast why Hamilton lost that 5 second cushion mid-race. Even Hamilton was confused.

It was fairly obvious to me -- they commented that people were coming out on new tires and doing laps 3 seconds faster than they had before pitting. Vettel pitted on one lap, Rosberg on the next, Hamilton the one after that.

In reply to Keith Tanner:

If you like the BBC, then track down SkySports. Martin Brundle does an even better job. He was possibly one of the best drivers never to win an F1 race, but he's an even better commentator.

I've watched Sky as well, we prefer the BBC coverage. Mostly because of Eddie Jordan hyperventilating.

In reply to Adrian_Thompson:

I'm just reporting this senior technical specialist's opinion.

They had better chemical engineers.

Nice to see SOMEONE mixing it up with MB, doubly fine that it's darling Ferrari, returning some of equity on Bernie's investment.

Too bad they didn't pit kimi one lap sooner on that final stint, he was plummeting into HAM's clutches but was in the lead. That track-position plus the new (chinese!) Pirelli grip may have pushed HAM's pace just that little bit more....

Nico's passes on the pony's cars were less than graceful, this was his best chance at beating HAM, he will become a wildcard soon.

Hopefully the heat of the summer & horse-breath on their neck will push MB out of their comfort zone.

So has Renault really found the engine problem, was it piston speed related?

from what I've read … that's the speculation for now … it takes days (maybe even weeks) to get new forgings (I'm assuming they use forged pistons) … and that's after any design changes, plus the inspection process and then production

the reporters were saying that Renault was suggesting "detuning" slightly and dropping the redline slightly …

In reply to Keith Tanner:

Oh man! Yes Bottas! Forgot about him. I just keep hoping Williams can step up and give him the car to show his skills.

aussiesmg wrote: So has Renault really found the engine problem, was it piston speed related?

Geez, it shouldn't be. These engines are allowed a 15k redline, but because of the fuel restrictions, they don't really rev past about 12k from my understanding.

z31maniac wrote:

aussiesmg wrote: So has Renault really found the engine problem, was it piston speed related?

Geez, it shouldn't be. These engines are allowed a 15k redline, but because of the fuel restrictions, they don't really rev past about 12k from my understanding.

To think they used to go 21k+!