The F1 2015 thread…

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!

Congratulations Mr & Mrs Button.

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

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

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?

Also, Maldonado. Why?

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

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.

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!

See Honda are already on the back foot

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.

See Honda are already on the back foot

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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…

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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

Glimmer of hope for Marussia!…

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

I doubt it, not really much to see TBH

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

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

Williams breaks cover…

http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2015/01/20/williams-fw37-first-2015-f1-car-pictured/

Very pretty Williams

Apart from the small cock…

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.

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

More pics of Williams…

http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2015/01/21/new-nose-rules-headache-fw37-design-williams/