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Great stuff!
To be fair Alonso normally passes 3-4 cars at the start anyway!
Lol'd at Ferrari's new mirror/wing solution
There needs to be a rule banning any aero fiddly bits outside of the "shell" of the car. Those bunny ears look ridiculous and getting the engineering aerodynamics right first time should be rewarded rather than spending mega-bucks in wind tunnels throughout the season to cover up faults.
Eg:
or
OMFG! I thought the Halo couldn't get any worse...
Hmm, now that explains why there was an FIA clarification about attaching mirrors to the halo. Hopefully they'll get the car all setup and FOM will ask them to run mirror cameras (forcing the reversion to the other style).
The problem with banning spending on certain things is that the money will still be spent, just on other things. Its like squeezing a sausage balloon. It bulges somewhere else.
Also, if you restrict development at a later date it doesn't allow other teams to catch up. One of the reason its more exciting now is that the rules have been fairly stable, so the gaps have closed up.
Aero will affect overtaking, so altering the way it exits the car by narrowing its affect will help. But it wont save money.
I'm skeptical about the proposal for a budget cap. Inevitably there will be some "creative accounting" to sidestep the problem, or that there will be offshoring of the manufacturing process.
As for money saving.....
You could cap aero development.
at the start of the season each team submits
3 x front wings (low downforce, medium downforce and high downforce)
3 x rear wings
3 x side pods
3 x barge boards etc
Thats all they can use all season in any configuration but cannot be develop further.
Could introduce token system on the above too?but once token is used (or part updgrade modified) you cannot keep the older version.
And much simple wings....there’s about 30 winglets on the right side of a front wing along. So define it as 3 elements only.
well that’s my 2p
The development race is very much part of F1, it would feel weird without it!!
It would but it can still be reigned in a bit. Just imagine the crazy shapes that would appear if you limited the number of front wing elements
at the start of the season each team submits 3 x front wings (low downforce, medium downforce and high downforce
The difference is that Ferrari has it's own wind tunnel, and a team of designers, so they can spend all winter making sure that their 3 wings are the best they can possibly be, as it doesn't matter how many iterations it takes to get there. The likes of Williams meanwhile rent space at the wind tunnel at Brackley, and they have enough money to make sure their one design works first time, as they can't afford to make more.
Limit wind tunnel time?
Mclarens new nose looks different! Not in a good way either!
Wind tunnel time is already limited!
If wind tunnel time is limited surely then it’s irrelevant if they have there own one or not? Having one makes it easier I guess.
As some one above said it’s about the teams of designers they have and the cfd they chuck at it.
@rick draper - mclarens new nose looks platapus Esque
groves and spoon shapes all over it!
Hmmm
L.L.Liam has made a good case for slowing down the development of aero to coincide with the gearbox/engine regs. If a driver has only used one power unit two-thirds of the way through a season then there could be a corresponding allowance made for a forthcoming aero package. It has a good tactical way of evening out the grid during the early races.
Somewhat extreme from McLaren, there's definitely been a lot of remedial (rather than scheduled) work done to improve the aero performance of the slowest Renault powered car on the grid. Will there be any unexpected consequences to the handling balance of the car?
Will there be any unexpected consequences to the handling balance of the car?
Biggest danger is probably that, if it's a dog, Alonso will throw his toys out of the pram and stomp off to Indycar mid-season, then his replacement won't be able to drive around the limitations of the car the way Alonso has been doing so everyone will see how unbalanced it is.
More seriously, unless the McLaren really improves in the next few races, I can see Alonso deciding that a 2019 Renault is a better bet than staying put.
@nickc - Williams have their own wind tunnel - in fact they have 2, a full scale and a 60%! (and other people rent space off them)
Force India, on the other hand, don't. They use Toyota's in Cologne.
I can see Alonso deciding that a 2019 Renault is a better bet than staying put.
At which point Mclaren will get their sh*t together and win some races in 2019 as Renault flounder in the mid-field!
There's one career rule in F1 - make the opposite decision to Fernando
EDIT: Do swear filters not work automatically here anymore? - Manual filter added by me.
Something tells me that the issue is with Mclaren's overall basic design and not the engine. Can't polish a turd - this appears to be trying to roll one in glitter:
As I said earlier, you ban or cap one thing and money is spent elsewhere. Limit wind tunnels and they spend the money on CFD. I don't think capping costs will work.
We just need to get the money for winning distributed fairly and via regulations and track design, make it easier to overtake.
We all want a race and part of racing is the development of the cars. That's engine, tyres and aero, so let them race.
Both Williams cars seem to be a terrible proposition. I gather that the team have parted ways with the chief designer, but this season looks like a complete write-off.
McLaren have gone from floundering around the midfield to floundering around the midfield with a new nose. That’s probably slightly unfair, given that there will be a lot of work going on to learn about that new nose and how it integrates with the rest of the car outside of a wind tunnel, the real test will be during Saturday’s qualifying.
Can’t polish a turd – this appears to be trying to roll one in glitter
I disagree, looking at that front wing head on you can see exactly what they are trying to do and it seems to be heavily designed with energizing the floor in mind.
The central hole for their s-duct, the holes either side to feed air on to the floor area via the two side planes and I would presume then on to the diffuser area, the inside of the wing again looks to be directing air to the floor and the outside dealing with moving it away from the front tyres. It might not look good but if it works you'd better get used to it cause it'll appear in various guises up and down the pit lane!
Never been a Mclaren fan but F1 needs Alonso up front fighting with the best, I really hope this update propels them and him forward.
Something tells me that the issue is with Mclaren’s overall basic design and not the engine.
They seem to have an inefficient aerodynamic setup, especially in qualifying trim. Their straight-line speed is quite a lot down on Red Bull, which means that they have too much drag, but without any payoff in downforce. However, in races, the car is much closer to Red Bull, so it seems to be related to one-lap pace. The new nose they ran in first practice today does seem to have improved things. Keep in mind that last year, Red Bull got things badly wrong with their car at the start of the year, but were massively improved once they understood where they went wrong and introduced new aero parts. Also, Renault will be introducing improved engines soon, so it's quite likely that both Red Bull and McLaren will close the gap to Ferrari and Merc. My guess is that McLaren will stay in 4th place, but will move clear of the mid-field teams and edge closer to the top three.
no one can seem to get the softest tyre to hook up and it looks like Kimi has blown an engine!
Offf, that won’t buff out. Brendan might want to contribute his pocket money to the repair costs.....
I disagree, looking at that front wing head on you can see exactly what they are trying to do and it seems to be heavily designed with energizing the floor in mind.
I understand what they are trying to do, however such big changes mid season does point to not having got close to it first time which, in the absence of being able to make big changes to the monocoque, points to them trying to rehash something without the full ability to do it properly. All that air being moved around in such a convoluted fashion surely can't be the most efficient way to do things.
In the words of Kelly Johnson, "If it looks ugly, it will fly the same."
I understand what they are trying to do, however such big changes mid season
You also understand that they're running late with the development programme and those parts should've been on the car in Melbourne? It's normal for the first major updates to arrive for the start of the European season, so can't see how this is a sign of desperation (yet)
It’s hard not to argue that the late season engine change hurt the balance of the MCL33 during the design phase. The Toro Rosso being as competent a package as it is will be down to either advance planning for a Honda engine at the conceptual stage, or a lot of collaborative effort.
McLaren is also running new fuel.
Cheers Liam, id forgotten that was on this weekend!
found a live stream so bed will have to wait 🙂
Rain rumoured for Barca....fingers crossed!
should make it exciting!
Agreed! Sounds like it's a bit cooler too, so quite possible those starting on the soft tyres wont get away with just one stop? Thinking that through, maybe the super soft starting tyres for Alonso will be more advantageous for him in the early stages as he won't have to concern himself with the increased degradation?
This season thus far deserves Alonso on the podium for this race!
Well that wasn't a great race
Amusingly bad tactical call by Ferrari for Vettel there. They didn't even have the excuse of being caught napping like Mercedes did. They really really thought about it....then made a shocking decision to bring him in under the VSC!
One of those races where cars simply can't get close enough coming on to the straights because of the aero wake in the proceeding corner.
Not great. Could have done with a bit of rain.
this is turning into a season of attrition, kimi engine and a force india merc went bang today. Bottas's motor was sounding pretty rough by the end. Begs the question have ferrari being stressing there engines more to gain early advantage (which for what ever reason has not materialized) and have mercedes been a bit more circumspect with theirs (or have more room "margin for error in their"/durable engines)
Begs the question have ferrari being stressing there engines more to gain early advantage (which for what ever reason has not materialized) and have mercedes been a bit more circumspect with theirs (or have more room “margin for error in their”/durable engines)
This is a very good question. It's going to be a long season for those engines.
I hope it doesn't lead to boring processional racing where everyone is preserving their motors...
trying and win (or for the most part) the season in 15 races would mean running them at the same levels as last year then hanging on or taking penalties in race 16 but a fresh engine for the final 5 races. Actually saying that I think that will be the plan for all teams (assuming engine don't fail early) the russian gp is going to be anyones 🙂
Is Grosjean the worst driver on the grid?
Grosjean the worst driver on the grid
He's really not very good. I'm amazed he's still gets race seats every year.
He is costing Haas so many points this season.
They're getting competitive at Haas…
Gasly: "Magnussen's the most dangerous driver I've ever raced against."
Leclerc: "Magnussen needs to understand he's not alone on track. Every time, it's him."
Grosjean: "Hey Kevin, hold my beer."
Seriously, what the hell was Grosjean thinking? I've never seen anyone do anything like that. Lucky to get away with a grid penalty if you ask me.