The F1 2015 thread…

Great driver, but sulky teen right now..

Glad they got the big hitter for the interview

Bring on Bernie’s track sprinklers for next season!

Awesome race and a deserved championship for the Hammer. Let’s hope Ferrari close up again next year to give a better fight, Seb and LH are the best drivers on the grid, really want to see them go at it.

Looks like Macca’s could be on an upswing too!

It does feel like Hamilton v. Vettel could be a classic rivalry in the making

On Rosberg; he keeps bringing up his mistake. He did throw it away, but why focus on his fallibility?

Rosberg in a Williams in 2017?

What was Onslow doing up on the podium?

Someone’s got the hump…..

Just finished watching the race after an evening of radio/tv/phone silence.

Classic race, so many twists and turns. Did anyone else see the look Paddy Lowe have Rosberg after he wanged his cap back at Hamilton? Also noticed Rosberg giving his champagne to Lowe on the podium. Felt sorry for Rosberg up until the above at which point he just came over as a petulant twunt.

I thought Elton John was some old dear when it showed him in hospitality watching the race.

Rosberg throwing that hat back is one of the funniest things I’ve seen

Rossi finished an impressive 1.15 behind, the Manors are normally about 4 minutes down

Good race. Only saw the highlights, but lots of chopping and changing.
I didn’t think Hamilton was going to get a win, even after the last safety car allowed him onto new tyres it looked like Rosberg just had to stay on the track….erm, oh dear!!

I does seem that Rosberg can’t handle the pressure of Hamilton behind him, even if he’s not even that close.

Not sure why Button managed to finish so much higher than Alonso; was it purely down to tyre life towards the end? Alonso had the upgraded engine, didn’t he?
As good as Button’s 6th place was, I think the relatively high attrition rate in the race helped him out, as well as Sainz Jr getting that 5sec penalty.

Alonso’s engine died toward the end.

I think Rosberg just misunderstood what Lewis was doing…handing out ALL the hats.

EDIT – And in fairness, Hamilton did run him out of road at turn one. Racing line or not, he simply didn’t turn the wheel in the corner knowing he could run him (NR) out and not lose position. Rosboob was right…it was aggressive.

congrats to Lewis, he has been epic in that car this year, if not a little pushy towards his teammate on the track sometimes – but winners are built that way – personally Nico has been the biggest disappointment this season, i thought he could blossom outside of Schumi’s shadow but he is the new Barrichello.

no one brought up he may have been told to “slip off” and let Lewis past? ;p

sounds like were getting a new engine to line up against these Hybrids – possible the bravest thing the FIA/Bernie have ever come up with – is it sensible – time will tell – will this lead to the big manufacturers who have poured millions into hybrids getting a little miffed and leaving when they see a cheap V6 COSWORTH-MANOR pass them on the straights 🙂

Daffy – Yep. Seb didn’t seem to need to start throwing hats.

To be honest I just don’t like the way Hamilton comes across (he may be lovely in real life of course), but you can’t argue with his drive this year.

I’m no fan of how Hamilton conducts himself but he’s been the better driver at Mercedes and they have the best car so congratulations and the best driver/car combo won.

Aside from the fact Hamilton did run Rosberg off the circuit at the start it was Rosbergs later mistake which lost him the race.

I have no problem with LH.
To me, he just seems like a normal bloke who’s only ever had one aim in life.
We can laugh at his hair and clothes, but how would you or I react to the money and pressure he has?

I feel a bit for NR, but there can only be one number one, and he’s not it.

Because he was sitting there sulking rather than paying attention.

EDIT – And in fairness, Hamilton did run him out of road at turn one. Racing line or not, he simply didn’t turn the wheel in the corner knowing he could run him (NR) out and not lose position. Rosboob was right…it was aggressive.

He carried a lot of speed into the corner (in order to get alongside to claim the line) and I doubt very much he could turn any tighter – he slowed down just enough so that he could make the corner, not enough so that he could make the corner whilst leaving space outside him. Which he’s not required to do. Did you watch any of the rest of the race, and see all those other drivers fail to stay on the track at turn 1 when attempting passes there? LH managed it on cold tyres in the wet off the start – those suggesting he should have left more space for NR on the exit are being rather unrealistic. NR could have always done the cutback like LH did when NR attempted the overtake there.

Congratz to Lewis I say.

Have to counter that with not being a fan of F1 but you don’t get to win something like this consistently without a huge amount of talent and support from the Crew.

What a race, the ‘trick’ to making an exciting race seems to be cancelling practice sessions.

Aye Rosberg’s got the arsehole, not just because he lost the championship, more to do with the first corner ding-dong I think, it was super agro and a bit foolish considering Lewis’ position – he could have taken them both out and handed Vettel 25 points enough to almost kill Rosberg’s chances of getting second in the WDC which his team will want and worse still giving Vettel an opportunity and you don’t give someone like Vettel an opportunity. Still, it all worked out alright in the end and however peed off Roseberg is, his team is hardly going to complain to the Stewards.

Really glad Lewis did a doughnut at the end, I don’t know who is engineer is but “be careful with the Car Lewis, just bring it back” balws to that, he deserved it and the fans especially deserved it.

more passes like that please. firm but fair. that wasn’t even a bold dive, which would more than likely have taken both out.

Great race, really pleased for Hamilton. Hopefully got a few more Championships in him yet!

Pinched from facebook

The 2015 season in five seconds

there does seem to be a distinct difference bewteen the top consistent drivers of championship material and the rest. Rosberg cracked but not for the first time. Thats not to say its poor but could you see the same happening with Hamilton, Vettel ( bar canada), Alonso and even Button.
Its interesting comment from Juan saying Hamilton finds it difficult when on the back foot which I dont agree. The top guys can come from behind and win races ( win from p2 – p2X). Great moves from the Torro rosso boys. I felt a bit disappointed with Kvyat and Kimi crashing

For me, you see the great drivers as being those that win when they have a car that should’t really allow it – Senna, Schumacher, Alonso, Hamilton in recent times. This is something Alonso said recently of Hamilton (obviously not referring to the last couple of seasons though).

Vettel may possibly be there too – this year has certainly gone some way to repairing his rep after 2014 at RB.

Rosberg makes me thing of Coulthard especially with his post-career admissions of his own limitations – he’s admitted that while he wasn’t fundamentally any slower than Hakkinnen, he just missed that ability to get a fraction more out of the car when he really needed to an on a consistent basis. That’s the difference between those that typically win WC and those that don’t.

EDIT – ref turn 1 – yes, aggressive, possibly more aggressive that you should be with a team mate but certainly nothing fundamentally wrong. NR knew that’s how it could pan out and by my reckoning with nothing to lose, I reckon he left himself there knowing how it could turn out. Again.

I’m with most others it seems in that I think turn 1 was aggressive, yes, but not illegal. Especially at the start if you’ve lost the inside line you know the guy inside is going to push you wide on exit, the key is to anticipate it, concede that corner and line up for attack with a better exit line (ie undercut on exit). Rosberg seems determined to fight that corner, and not play the slightly longer game. Difference between a thinking racer and a fast driver (which Rosberg undoubtedly is). And besides, as many have said anyway it was in Rosberg’s hands in the end and he bottled it, simple as…..

The hat thing is funny, I hadn’t seen initially Hamilton hand the 3rd place hat to SV just after tossing Rosberg’s one over. I get the impression that Rosberg knows now that he can’t beat Hamilton, that was a beaten man sat there regardless of how many times he comes out with “I will improve and fight back next year”.

I also find rosberg’s mechanical systematic approach a slight limitation as he seems to be one for going back and anaylsying to understand without really adapting to the conditions. It certainly plays out when plan A isnt working he needs confirmation from the pitwall rather than getting on with driving around the problem with what he has got. You cant really hide when your team mate is much faster in the same machinery.
Hamilton is mentally stronger than before and has Rosberg beaten on that front

Williams seem to run hot and cold with their setups – the car must be on a knife edge of performance, or, they are just going backwards and are perhaps looking at the 2016 car already.

well, thats almost 2015 titles all over, lets hope we get a 2016 start where at least 4 drivers are in with a shout of the WC and it goes right to the wire, then we can see what lewis, and all the other drivers in the hunt, are made of, instead of this domination that we have…

Can’t see that next year – LH seems to have the measure of NR so that’s one driver out. Similarly KR doesn’t seem likely to compete with SV so that’s effectively only one driver who could challenge LH.

I can’t see RB, Williams, McL, Renault/Lotus or STR providing a good enough car to compete with Merc and maybe Ferrari though the whole season.

Evening. I honestly don’t get the Lewis knockers.

He’s a racers racer. Alonso rates him. A bloke who drags the best out of a car historically himself. The start yesterday? He was robust and that was hard racing. What do you want organised choreographed procession? People moan when it’s a procession then people moan when it’s robust. Nico rammed Lewis from behind on the tyre- that he (and anyone with a half a brain) would result in a puncture. Yesterday was ‘down to the first corner in greasy conditions). I kinda feel for Nico tbh. He was fed up, dejected. He must have been thinking ‘just my luck to be in the right car, at the right time with the wrong team mate. Webber must have felt the same. No Seb would have meant a title I bet during those 4yrs that Seb won from Webber.

In England we love bashing our success. What a weird people we are.

I rate Lewis. Who could ein the title then spend 5yrs questioning if that’s it. He came back, tamed that raw talent (and to me) became a thinker as well as a racer.

Nico is just like Coulthard was with Mika. A good driver, not a great and starting to make mistakes abound. If I was sat in that room I’d have been frustrated, pissed off and thoroughly fed up. Just like him.

Anyone remember the time Mika made a mistake, crashed out and knelt in the trees crying?

As for Lewis’s fashion .. 😆

Nothing to do with me!

He must have been thinking ‘just my luck to be in the right car, at the right time with the wrong team mate.

His trouble is, I could name 2, if not 3 other “wrong team mates”, and that’s just the really obvious ones.

Now that Hamilton is being thought of as one of the greats it’s interesting to look back at how he stacks up against his team mates so far.

Rosberg is obviously getting a thrashing this year, although it was much closer last year.

Hamilton beat Alonso in is rookie year, a pretty astounding achievement when you think about it.

Him and Button were fairly evenly matched, which makes you think that maybe Button deserves more than one World Championship.

Button has been quite a dab hand over the years at getting himself lined up for seats in good cars then somehow getting himself out of them again in order to take up seats in crap cars. (Along those lines anyway. Vaguely. I can’t be arsed to check the details)

Disagree on button v Hamilton. Part of what makes Hamilton good is his turbulent years where he seemed to have basically lost the plot. He then refound himself?

Everyone has their peak, their talent window. He seems to have a different level. Next year he’ll be even more relaxed, more confident.

Did his ex play with his mind? I had an ex who drove me to dispair, made me lose rhyme and reason. Couldn’t trust her but I was hooked. Darn near destroyed my mind.

Well that’s how I see it.

Last year LH had a higher share of mechanical failure, which made it closer than it might have been. This year NR has had a higher share. If you exclude that factor I don’t think there’s a huge difference – LH has beaten him every time when they’ve gone wheel to wheel both years.

Him and Button were fairly evenly matched, which makes you think that maybe Button deserves more than one World Championship.

Button is my maybe “wrong team mate”. He’s certainly a worthy world champion, but probably not quite as good as LH or FA, though not as far off as NR is, because there are some things he is the best at.

i have to say some great talent on the grid, verstappen, sainz, ricciardo, kvyat, bottas, hamilton, vettel, alonso, nasr, hopefully palmer next year, just wish raikkonen, massa, button etc would free up some seats.

my dream grid would be

merc – hamilton and ricciardo
ferrari – vettel and verstappen
williams – bottas and sainz
mclaren – alonso and kvyat
redbull – rosberg and
torro rosso – rosenqvist and vandoorne
renault – palmer and button
marussia – ????
force india – hulkenberg and eric vergne
haas – grosjean and nasr

Bah, i suspect tthis RBR situation is not going to come to anything – a 1 year engine contract with Renault (with clauses to not to be negative!) to give them breathing room for this new V6 engine formula in 2017 or if VW decide to come in, i also suspect that deal will come about and Bernie will suddenly agree that Renault is a historic team and pay them 50-odd million they are waiting for in order to fund the Lotus takeover/works team…

Bad news if they force through these ‘alternative’ engines – especially if RB are going to use them – the whole thing around equivalence for engines is that it will effectively give Bernie/the FIA the ability to manage how competitive the teams are.

And that ultimately is what Bernie wants – to break the power of the teams who are now too powerful in his mind since they control who gets a competitive engine – see RB’s issues. As usual it’s all about power/money.

VW/Audi/etc won’t be coming in, not in 2017 at least (look at Honda’s position having rushed their engine development compared to Merc who took 4 years) – you might have noticed that VW have bigger issues at the moment than spending millions on F1

totally agree @nemesis.

The FIA backed themselves into this corner allowing teams to have the power and being weak and indecisive when it came to real hard out decisions in order to control costs / direction of F1. Todt i feel always thought (like governments thought about Banks) that they would “do the right thing” by F1, and realise now its too far gone to save.

I suspect the real reason the v6 tender is for 2017 and not 2016 (which could be achievable) is to give the big manufacturers breathing room and negotiate a deal with the FIA. which again will be a half-hearted looked good on paper type deal, thats got us into the mess – the manufacturers will look after their works teams with A spec engines and everyone else will get B-spec or nothing if they start complaining, all for 10mill EU per power unit.

personally they should just drop all engine regs and instead bring in a fuel restriction per season of how much petrol/diesel they can use, and all other energies must be either gathered from the engine or braking (ie. kers/hybrid/flywheel/kenetic) during the race.

let anyone and everyone build “engines” / “pu’s”.

speeds can be controlled via tyre compound/sizes and aero regulations instead.

I like the idea of no limits to innovation but if there are no restrictions, it’ll just end up being who can spend the most on innovative new technology and that will make it even more likely that one team has an even bigger advantage over the others.

As I see it, the intention is to force the teams into a position where they accept a price cap and/or rules that allow two tiered engines (eg current spec and previous year’s spec) along with a minimum number of teams that must be supplied if there’s demand.