Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 2,074 total)
  • The F1 2015 thread…
  • the-muffin-man
    Full Member

    Only two weeks to go until the 1st car launch – Force India on 21st of Jan.

    The off-season really isn’t very long, is it!

    jimster01
    Full Member

    Congratulations Mr & Mrs Button.

    Certainly is a short off-season, can’t wait until testing begins.

    Defender
    Free Member

    Not these days, with more races make the season longer.
    I that the Korean GP has been dropped already!

    PJM1974
    Free Member

    If they can’t find a way of making the V6s sound better then I sincerely hope they’ve found a solution to the penis-nose issues plaguing the cars last year.

    Also, Maldonado. Why?

    the-muffin-man
    Full Member

    Also, Maldonado. Why?

    Unfortunately, without him Lotus would have gone the way of Caterham and Marussia!

    nemesis
    Free Member

    They still may…

    I think the V6s sound fine FWIW. I like that you can hear tyre squeal and other noises now.

    Looking forward to the new McLaren/Honda livery though I suspect that will be the highlight of their year, particularly if they can’t argue their way out of the ridiculous engine freeze/non-freeze rulings that the FIA have had to make due to yet another rules cock up…

    The noses will be quite different this year they reckon and more uniform.

    njee20
    Free Member

    I think the V6s sound fine FWIW. I like that you can hear tyre squeal and other noises now.

    Agreed, and ms njee20 objects less to the noise, so I get away with watching it while she uses the iPad or whatever!

    jimster01
    Full Member

    See Honda are already on the back foot

    thepurist
    Full Member

    Agree about the v6 sound -went to Monza last year and it was great to hear tyre squeal and all the other stuff. The old skool supporting races were a bit of a monotone drone in comparison, albeit a LOUD monotone drone.

    the-muffin-man
    Full Member

    See Honda are already on the back foot

    Only if the engine they’ve built is worse than the opposition – it could be awesome!

    thepurist
    Full Member

    Its the 4 engine limit that’d affect how they manage their allocation when others will have 5. Though wonder if they could get round some of the development issues by making components out of exotic materials then being allowed to change for cost saving reasons.

    jimster01
    Full Member

    Honda aren’t able to develop the engine during the season atm whereas anyone running last season are able to.

    ampthill
    Full Member

    I’m happy with the sound of the V6s. I thought last years cars were good to watch with them moving around a bit more

    Ideally we’ll have a few teams at the front this year. But but is supposed to be a race and you can’t really blame some one for winning

    jota180
    Free Member

    As the performance of the engines converge over the next season or two and the limiting parameters once again turn to aero, I hope the likes of Williams can keep up with the mega buck outfits.
    I fear not though.

    thepurist
    Full Member

    Jimster – my point was that even if Honda build a Merc equivalent they’d still have to run each engine for longer so either performance or reliability needs to be sacrificed.

    Williams have been doing some smart hiring lately and should start to reap the rewards of that with an increased budget. They’ll never be on red bull or Ferraris funding level though.

    fr0sty125
    Free Member

    Hopefully resurgent McLaren Honda will take the fight to Mercedes while Ferrari implode.

    EDIT

    Every team has a 4 engine limit per a driver for 2015

    thepurist
    Full Member

    Frosty aiui that’s still TBD because of Korea being on one of the FIA’s published calendars, taking the number of races to 21 and triggering the clause that allows a 5th engine. Obviously some are now saying the calendar with Korea wasn’t the original so the 5th engine isn’t allowed…

    jimster01
    Full Member

    Honda’s argument is they are not allowed to develop the engine during the season,this being their first season using this technology, the competition are.

    Hardly fair imo.

    Chest_Rockwell
    Free Member

    I hope Kimi steps up and beats his new team mate this season. He was a bit below par last season so I’m not overly confident he can do it.

    the-muffin-man
    Full Member

    The whole ‘allowed to develop their engine’ thing is being made to be a much bigger issue than it is.

    There’s an excellent article by James Allen about it here…
    http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2015/01/arms-race-game-changer-what-do-the-latest-changes-to-f1-engine-rules-mean/

    But essentially – yes, Ferrari, Renault and Mercedes can develop their engines for as long as they want during the season, but it can’t be raced. As soon as they turn up to a race with their 2015 engine that’s what they are stuck with for the rest of the season, as that will be their homologated 2015 version. They can’t tune it any more through the season.

    Until that moment they HAVE to run their 2014 engine with no modifications. They can’t run an interim engine, or half-way house, or any other mods. Its the 2014 engine as they finished the last race.

    This means that Merc could turn up at the first race with their 2015 engine with 80 or 100bhp more than the others and be out out sight before we get to the European races.

    The others have to be very careful not to leave their new engines too late.

    Junkyard
    Free Member

    I though the issue, not addressed in your link, is that because Honda did not have an engine last year they cannot update it

    from BBC

    There are two important ways in which Honda has more restrictions on it than its rivals did in 2014. Last year, the rules said each driver could only use five engines; any more and there were stringent penalties. This year, that number has been reduced to four. For everyone, including Honda.
    So although Honda is being treated as if it was in its first season in terms of being banned from doing in-season development, it is being held to the same restrictions in terms of engine usage as other manufacturers. That is despite Mercedes, Ferrari and Renault having a year’s experience of using the engines which Honda does not have.
    And while Honda is not being allowed to use 32 tokens this year, nor will it next year. In 2016, it will be restricted to 26 tokens, the same as everybody else

    Also they can enter their engine later as well as clearly Honda need an engine to start with and then that is it and nothing can be changed
    I dont really see how you can treat the manufacturers differently and claim its fair tbh.

    the-muffin-man
    Full Member

    I though the issue, not addressed in your link, is that because Honda did not have an engine last year they cannot update it

    They’ve had a year to see what the others have done though. They can’t run a 2014 engine at the start of the season as they never had one. When they start the first race that is their engine for 2015.

    They can’t do another engine with more updates later in the season as that would be a 2015 b spec!

    The only loophole that has been found is when the 2015 engines have to be in place. It was assumed that would be the first race, but Ferrari and Renault have argued that it can be anytime during 2015.

    hora
    Free Member

    Hondas new back. What do they expect? A title in 2015? I imagine Alonso is bricking it in a way.

    the-muffin-man
    Full Member

    Glimmer of hope for Marussia!…

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/30881741

    jota180
    Free Member

    Honda also now get to work on engine dev throughout the year

    http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/117386

    nemesis
    Free Member

    The FIA wouldn’t have had a hope of holding up the ban on Honda developing in year if it was taken to court given that it’s clear that the intention of the rule was not to do that. As usual, drama created by poor rule making.

    Anyway, it’s great that it’s been sorted in a (IMO) fair way now.

    As to Honda’s performance, I’d love to be wrong but I just can’t see that they’ll produce a Merc beater right from the start. Just because they know the performance of the Merc engine doesn’t really give them much help – they all know the aero performance of say RB but that doesn’t mean they can replicate it and aero is much more visible than engine components, etc.

    Not to mention that real world experience is massively beneficial and all the other engines will have moved on from 2014.

    I’d reckon on a decent engine but not quite up to Merc which they can develop and get more on parity come 2017 and beyond.

    chrismac
    Full Member

    I agree. The engine in the mclaren wasn’t the problem. They had the best engine. It was the rest of the car and the drivers that were the problem

    thepurist
    Full Member

    Part of the problem for non works merc teams was that they didn’t have the ability to do the same level of integration of the pu as merc did. That shouldn’t be a problem this year as the engine is known, and McLaren have had the opportunity to work with Honda to achieve something similar. So I’d expect better engineering solutions from Williams and FI will bring them closer to the works team especially at the start of the year, but budget will still be the limit on their aero development in season.

    boltonjon
    Full Member

    Fingers crossed that Honda can get up to the sharp end of the grid and that Williams can continue their recent resurgence 🙂

    jota180
    Free Member

    Reading a piece quoting Pat Symonds

    Don’t forget that the other PU manufacturers will indeed be chasing after Merc but Merc will also be developing as fast as they can.
    It’s possible that the engine un-freeze will benefit Merc more than the others, they’ve already shown themselves to be better than the rest, they stand a good chance of keeping that advantage going.

    shermer75
    Free Member

    Does anybody know if the BBC will be showing any coverage of the testing in Jerez?

    jota180
    Free Member

    I doubt it, not really much to see TBH

    shermer75
    Free Member

    I’m excited about it. Maybe it gets shown somewhere online?

    P-Jay
    Free Member

    Can’t wait – Lewis and Nico will continue to slug it out, hopefully with Fernando and Kimi in the mix – I’m not much of a fan of Jenson, a more than decent bloke, but imo he chased money over fast cars for years, stayed in F1 by the skin of his teeth when Honda pulled out and rode a clever double defuser to a WDC, anyway the point of this character assassination is I really liked Kevin Mag and think McL should have chosen him over JB

    stumpy_m4
    Free Member

    Very pretty Williams

    nemesis
    Free Member

    Apart from the small cock…

    PJM1974
    Free Member

    The nose still resembles a vacuum cleaner attachment.

    *Sigh*

    I know we can’t un-invent the science of aerodynamics and the new V6 engines are a technological marvel but I do wish that we could have something as beautiful as the Ferrari 640 and McLaren MP4/6 racing these days.

    fr0sty125
    Free Member

    I imagine this will be the most common sort of nose with Mercedes and Ferrari taking a different approach.

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 2,074 total)

The topic ‘The F1 2015 thread…’ is closed to new replies.