Interesting perspective from Jon Noble on Alonso’s comments (the ones that b2b ‘interpreted’ earlier)

http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/frustrated-bored-fed-up-what-s-eating-fernando-alonso/

Makes a lot of sense that.

I think people have very short memories,
when we had unrestricted testing, Ferrari dominated and very few teams had the budget to catch up – except McLaren… pre Ferrari domination, with the exception of Benetton Renault, it was Williams for a couple of seasons and before that, well we all know, McLaren had it for a quite a few seasons too.

I do question why all of a sudden with Mercedes domination it all comes to the fore –
lets face it, if there was testing allowed, who is to say Mercedes wouldnt have billions of upgrades (and money) in testing to keep them even further ahead.

if we allow unrestricted/lots of testing the smaller teams will struggle even more and the only way F1 could survive is customer cars,
perhaps that is why its only McLaren, Ferrari and RBR that are pushing for it – a way to increase profits by selling on customer “packages” and ensuring the middle-to-lower pack will do as they wish and STAY in the middle-to-lower pack.

At the moment i’m not sure what the answer is to F1 – i think it needs to decide if its almost-unrestricted freedom and the pinnacle of motorsport for big car manufacturers,
or
if it wants to be a highly restricted but slightly more open to everyone to “try their hand”.
either way, its has to be able to deal with the ups and down of the financial and economic issues that the world now goes through and not bleat on about the glory days and start making some of its glory days now!

I finally watched it last night – was going to whizz through the recording and just catch the highlights of it.

As it turned out, the only bit I fast forwarded was the safety car bit.

A great race 🙂

Testing’s always been a bone of contention, but it’s just a symptom of the larger haves/have nots thing, teams that have more money and smarter processes will always thrive whether there’s no testing, some testing or unlimited testing. Even that’s not always so simple, bear in mind Ferrari had the biggest budget and best test facilities of any of the teams and went without a WDC title from ’79 until 2000.

Kimi confirmed for Ferrari for next season…

http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2015/08/19/raikkonen-to-stay-at-ferrari-in-2016/

I do like the way F1 teams find loopholes in the rules! Use 2 new engines and only get penalised for 1…

New engines for Alonso and Button at Spa

I do like the way F1 teams find loopholes in the rules! Use 2 new engines and only get penalised for 1…
http://www.grandprix247.com/2015/08/20/new-engines-for-alonso-and-button-at-spa/

I’m quite glad about this one though. Those stacked up penalties like McLaren had in Austria were starting to get a bit annoying

has pastor crashed recently.. yes he has in fp1 at spa 🙁 ooofff that ncb has gone again..

oh dear maldonado has crashed 😀

Haha brilliant! If nothing else is going on you can always rely in Maldonado for entertainment!! 🙂

that honda engine is still running slow .. maybe taking it cautiously. I think its a bit cheeky taking a couple of new ones at the same time. I presume anyone who needs a new engine above their allocation will put in a couple.

Taken from crash.net here
The drivers entered into the 2015 Formula 1 World Championship have used the below listed number of power unit elements during this season so far (After 10 rounds of 19)

ICE: Internal Combustion Engine
TC: Turbo Charger
MGU-H: Motor Generator Unit – Heat
MGU)-K: Motor Generator Unit – Kinetic
ES: Energy Store
CE: Control Electronics

Mercedes
Lewis Hamilton
ICE: 2, TC: 2, MGU-H: 2, MGU-K: 2, ES: 2, CE: 2
Nico Rosberg
ICE: 2, TC: 2, MGU-H: 2, MGU-K: 2, ES: 2, CE: 2

Red Bull-Renault
Daniel Ricciardo
ICE: 5, TC: 3, MGU-H: 3, MGU-K: 3, ES: 2, CE: 2
Daniil Kvyat
ICE: 5, TC: 3, MGU-H: 2, MGU-K: 2, ES: 2, CE: 2

Williams-Mercedes
Valtteri Bottas
ICE: 2, TC: 2, MGU-H: 2, MGU-K: 2, ES: 2, CE: 2
Felipe Massa
ICE: 2, TC: 2, MGU-H: 2, MGU-K: 2, ES: 2, CE: 2

Ferrari
Sebastian Vettel
ICE: 3, TC: 3, MGU-H: 3, MGU-K: 2, ES: 2, CE: 3
Kimi Raikkonen
ICE: 3, TC: 3, MGU-H: 3, MGU-K: 2, ES: 3, CE: 3

McLaren-Honda
Fernando Alonso
ICE: 6, TC: 6, MGU-H: 6, MGU-K: 5, ES: 4, CE: 5
Jenson Button
ICE: 6, TC: 7, MGU-H: 7, MGU-K: 6, ES: 3, CE: 4

Force India-Mercedes
Nico Hulkenberg
ICE: 3, TC: 3, MGU-H: 3, MGU-K: 3, ES: 2, CE: 2
Sergio Perez
ICE: 2, TC: 2, MGU-H: 2, MGU-K: 2, ES: 2, CE: 2

STR-Renault
Max Verstappen
ICE: 5, TC: 3, MGU-H: 3, MGU-K: 3, ES: 2, CE: 3
Carlos Sainz
ICE: 4, TC: 3, MGU-H: 3, MGU-K: 3, ES: 2, CE: 3

Lotus-Mercedes
Romain Grosjean
ICE: 2, TC: 2, MGU-H: 2, MGU-K: 2, ES: 2, CE: 2
Pastor Maldonado
ICE: 2, TC: 2, MGU-H: 2, MGU-K: 2, ES: 2, CE: 2

Marussia-Manor-Ferrari
Will Stevens
ICE: 3, TC: 3, MGU-H: 3, MGU-K: 3, ES: 2, CE: 3
Roberto Merhi
ICE: 4, TC: 4, MGU-H: 4, MGU-K: 3, ES: 2, CE: 3

Sauber-Ferrari
Marcus Ericsson
ICE: 2, TC: 2, MGU-H: 2, MGU-K: 2, ES: 3, CE: 3
Felipe Nasr
ICE: 2, TC: 2, MGU-H: 2, MGU-K: 2, ES: 3, CE: 3

Well at least McLaren are beating the rest at something! 🙂

McCartney so slow on the straights! I hope the engine is turned down.

oh dear maldonado has crashed

An interesting addendum to the Maldonado Crash site

Maldonado Penalty Counter

The man makes Taki Inoue look like Ayrton Senna

high speed blow out for Rosberg follow by 200 yard skid. I wonder if it’s related to the new fancy rear wing ❓

New trousers for Mr rosberg. 😯

new pants for Mrs Rosberg… just watched the inside edge of the tyre wear through..

ericsson did well to clear the stick out barrier.. some very lucky racers out there today

Did Honda say exactly which Ferrari engine they were going to be equal to? At the moment it’s looking more like a 1965 model than the 2015. Sounds like they’re still having harvesting problems so can’t have consistent power for more than a lap or 2.

@thepurist – lol 🙂

Blinding lap from lewis ! those maclarens are embarrassing still nearly 4 seconds back 😯

I’m at Spa this weekend. I can confirm the McLarens are not only slow, they also sound very sick.
The Mercs sound very sweet. It’s louder than I was expecting too.

interesting how BBC interviewed a bigwig at mclaren just before Q1 (not Ron dennis btw) who immediately stated how mclaren engineers worked so hard over the break on the chassis – blame games are starting to appear.

IMHO honda will not be with mclaren next year

Mclaren with 105 place penalties this weekend. 😯

Its amazing how the pinnacle of motorsport has turned into a farce, Small wonder why people are tuning out.
Mclaren PR must be in overdrive in damage limitation. Merc in the Mclaren and Honda to buy Manor anyone?

I don’t think we’ll see a Mercedes engine in a Maclaren. Did Merc not terminate the last deal with Ron because he started building road cars which went against a clause in the contract?

FeeFoo according to “sources” the Honda is meant to sound like that. But quicker.

Is it looking like rain there. Love a Belgian gp with proper mixed conditions!

wonder if the mercs worrying about each other will mean they get jumped at the start again.

jodafett

No. they just didn’t want to pay thats it

Anybody surprised that rosbergs start suffered more than others when he wasn’t being briefed during the formation laps?

And Williams… It’s almost like Sam Michael never left…

The Williams mixed tyres….reminds me of the McLaren of old with their comedy pitstops with Lewis 😆

Why wasnt Nico punished for closing the gap in the VSC?

seems like the mercs have taken it up a notch over the break, they would probably still win using the harder compounds in the race and qualifying

vettel seems a bit miffed, maybe cutting the corner at eau rouge every lap on old worn tyres not perhaps the best idea.

Yeah can’t believe he says he didn’t run off the circuit. Maybe he wants his tyres to fail with a pffft rather than a bang but I can’t see pirelli bring too apologetic this time.

Nico closed the gap because the drivers control how close they drive to the “virtual safety car lap time” NOT to the gap between the cars – lewis probably dozed off or dreamin of some new gold chain to buy while instead of his digital dash.

only a merc team implosion could deny the title to them

the penalties in f1 are a bit of a noddy joke – why not let them change engines but deduct WDC points instead for each engine change – at least that way we see some accurate racing on the track instead of a multitude of grid penalties.

i thought with all the retirements at the start of the race we’d see mclaren 1-2 and everyone saying what a miracle honda have done.

Mclaren Cosworth anyone?

It’ll be mclaren renault. The disaster will be complete.

Nasty crash for the British driver Justin Wilson in Indycar.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/motorsport/34037413

Looks like another driver crashed, and a piece of debris (nosecone I think) smacked him on the head. He then went into the wall. From the reports today it seems he was out cold instantly and remains in a coma.

🙁

Sadly he’s gone

RIP Justin

sad sad day – he was a nice guy – career hampered with injuries…

R.I.P Justin, it was a pleasure to know and work with you.

Can’t imagine how his family must feel.

RIP 🙁

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYqLKo-gOxQ[/video]