F1 2015

Monza

Not a favorite track of mine in it's current form but better than most.

MB Domination continued unless they get bad starts. I think if the Spa start is replicated in Monza it would be Perez-Ricciardo-Hamilton-Vettel-Bottas-Loti-Rosberg exiting the first chicane.

Hamilton said he got a great start but other teams were closing the whole run to T1. So great for MB seems to be less than great for most others.

I wonder if Williams will finally have things go their way. Maybe steal a win!

Mercedes runs a lot more downforce than the other cars, because they can. When the cars are bunched up, and they don't have a corner where MB can exploit their higher cornering speed, the other cars will be faster on the top end.

In reply to racerfink: Yea, Mercedes clearly has a special aero package. Much like Red Bull did in the last few years before- where GIVEN the amount of drag they can run to finish a race, the Mercedes has more efficient downforce.

Spa vs. Monza- they are a very interesting contrast of tracks- Spa is basically in the middle of the woods near a couple of pretty small towns- so there's not a whole lot around it. Monza is in a park set in the middle of Monza, which is a suburb of Milan.

Love both tracks. Being 2 of the 4 old F1 tracks still running (Monaco and Silverstone being the others) they are very worth going to.

Would have loved to go on Spa, but we HAVE run on Monza. Very, very, very cool. Matter of fact, I'm wearing the race t-shirt from that event. Talk about having a lot of time to think about how important each foot of the track is.

I think the downforce of the MB cars is untested. Meaning they can just pile on downforce since the power is so dominant. They haven't been challenged except for tire degradation issues on their car or some screw up.

I am curious if power of the other engine makers gets closer if MB will be able to show efficient downforce.

In reply to Advan046:

that assumes that the other cars that are using MB engines have a big power deficit. Which would be very much against the rules. Williams does ok, but isn't that close- unless the engine makes up that much for a horrible car. FI does ok- and have had some great low drag cars before- so they should have been rockets last week. Fast, but not MB fast.

Yeah, Mercedes isn't just good in the powerplant department. They have a total package, including a driver that figured out the new generation of cars faster than just about anyone else on the grid.

Keith Tanner wrote: Yeah, Mercedes isn't just good in the powerplant department. They have a total package, including a driver that figured out the new generation of cars faster than just about anyone else on the grid.

Yes Lewis understood how to strategize and deploy his setup and technique within the new rules from the first race. He was always fast but somehow figured out how to be fast with less fuel usage than Rosberg. Good show so far.

In reply to alfadriver:

Not saying MB suck with downforce but don't see it as proven superior yet.

As far as power equity to customers...well not everything is common between teams. "Sorry Claire and VJ your airboxes don't seem to bolt onto the new MB design. Try a redesign for next race."

So some interesting news watching practice- MB is changing engines- not because of wear, but using their tokens to change to a 2016 spec. And it makes more power.

And for this weekend, this is just for the factory team- so your point Advan- is utterly and totally 100% correct this weekend. So far, they are the fastest through the speed traps.

Well I think we are about due for Lap 1 Turn 1 pile up. I say verstuffen tries to take three cars in the braking zone touches the grass and takes out both MBs as well as Massa then Vettel gets high centered on debris while the McLaren guys have a fault in start mode that deploys all of their kers as they hit the brakes the first time so they both go into the runoff and colide with debris.

Yeah I have too much crazy imagination.

Oh I think the point was I fear MB power will be negated by their poor starts.

In reply to alfadriver:

Yeah I have been one of the factory guys to tell a team this very thing. Thus my certainty that it happens in F1. In that case it was a drivetrain design tweak for only our factory guys.

In reply to Advan046:

They claim to roll this out for the rest of the season- but this IS the 2016 engine- no progress will happen in off season. MB figures they have a few months of testing, which they wont get for the off season homologation Feb target.

One interesting note- this engine is designed for a specific PETRONAS fuel. Which is a MB sponsor. Not sure how that will effect the non PETRONAS teams.

Spoiler alert: Contains finishing order.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/120682

This explains the weird radio thing at the end. I wonder what the outcome will be?

I was also shocked by that thing that happened on the start, and the smoking thing that happened near the end. Neither of those things seemed to be very common.

I know they have to finish the race with enough fuel for the stewards to test and confirm that it meets the regulations … are those regs. so open that the fuels aren't the same across the board ? if so … what's the purpose in the testing

"When you start in second place and end up last by the first corner it is not ideal."

Always the master of understatement.

There is no worry of being a spoiler in this thread. It is fair game.

To answer the fuel question... Teams submit their formulation to the fia at the start of the season. The fuel taken after a race must match that formulation submitted.

They are allowed to change as long as they resubmit

I don't believe any teams share fuel formulations.

Rosberg blowing up was interesting but not surprising. He was complaining a few times this weekend about the engine.

Boring ass race. Blah.

wvumtnbkr wrote: I don't believe any teams share fuel formulations.

And that's the problem- the 2016 Mercedes engine is specifically designed for a PETRONAS fuel. Which isn't available to the rest of the Mercedes customers. So that will be interesting.

With Rosberg running a 2015 spec- it appears that Ferrari has made some great grounds, which has been already countered by Mercedes- seeing how fast Hamilton was.

wvumtnbkr wrote: Rosberg blowing up was interesting but not surprising. He was complaining a few times this weekend about the engine. Boring ass race. Blah.

as have been most of them … at least up front .. but back in the pack there was some pretty good racing … especially seeing Kimi coming from dead last (though he'd already made up a couple of spots by T1)

alfadriver wrote:

wvumtnbkr wrote: I don't believe any teams share fuel formulations.

And that's the problem- the 2016 Mercedes engine is specifically designed for a PETRONAS fuel. Which isn't available to the rest of the Mercedes customers. So that will be interesting. With Rosberg running a 2015 spec- it appears that Ferrari has made some great grounds, which has been already countered by Mercedes- seeing how fast Hamilton was.

But all the MB factory engines have been optimized for Petronas fuels. So that's nothing new. There's actually a Petronas lab inside the Mercedes pits at every race - we got to see it at Texas last year. The Sky announcers mentioned that Red Bull was on their fifth fuel formulation of the year, and it was good for something like a 40 hp gain. So fuel is obviously something that can be used.

Killer race. There was lots going on, just not necessarily at the very front. Dominant race by Lewis, as usual. That's impressive on its own.

In reply to Keith Tanner:

So if the engine is optimized for PETRONAS fuel, how does that make the customer engines equal? That's shaky.

FWIW- my computer is constantly autocorrecting PETRONAS to all caps. Driving me nuts.

alfadriver wrote: In reply to Keith Tanner: So if the engine is optimized for PETRONAS fuel, how does that make the customer engines equal? That's shaky. FWIW- my computer is constantly autocorrecting PETRONAS to all caps. Driving me nuts.

IDK, but unless there is specific wording in a Merc contract, it would seem that if a team used a different fuel supplier, said supplier would have the option to blend its' own concoction.

As far as Monza goes, Mercedes was real lucky to avoid a penalty for the tire pressure fiasco. Teams have been dinged for fractions-of-a-millimeter/kilo violations many times in the past; violations that were unintentional or not. Maybe the team exploited a loophole or were victim to a badly conceived, written and implemented regulation but rules are rules. But, without enforcement, we get Nascar.

Honestly, though, I think the final ruling was justified because gifting Ferrari a win at their home race would have been a far worse PR nightmare for the FIA.

What I think is odd about the inflation issue- this was a new directive from Pirelli, even though they and the FIA told everyone that the tires are safe.

The new "rule" implies that they are not.

Plus- why is it a rule that Pirelli has a spec pressure that is a rule as opposed to recommendation? Let alone the spec changing.

In reply to alfadriver:

The tires are "safe" when run under the guidelines specified by Pirelli. The problem is two-fold in that the guidelines have been inconsistent and cumulative over a couple of season and (more importantly, imho) the teams have been running their tires outside the recommendations, like using lower-than-recommended pressures and drivers driving beyond track limits.

Pirelli is in a sucky position because they build the tires to parameters mandated by the FIA and then the teams/drivers abuse the tires above their design capabilities. On top of that, prima dona drivers beotch and moan about Pirelli's product when their (and the their teams') behaviours are two thirds of the problem. Well, maybe two fourths since the tires are built to a spec.

alfadriver wrote: In reply to Keith Tanner: So if the engine is optimized for PETRONAS fuel, how does that make the customer engines equal? That's shaky. FWIW- my computer is constantly autocorrecting PETRONAS to all caps. Driving me nuts.

The engines will be mechanically equal, but it's up to the customer teams to feed and cool them properly. Seems reasonable.

The tire pressure was a minimum spec to help the tires survive the race. But the measurement technique wasn't thought out and the FIA admitted that after Mercedes called them on it. If you want to blame someone for the spec, blame Vettel's whining after he wore out his tires at Spa.