(He was world champ in a Honda all barr name.)

And engine.

That team is untimately what is now the Merc factory team.

To keep the championship alive, all you need to do is make it all count on the last race – i.e. the winner of the last race is world champion. Eliminate qualifying for that race – make the results so far determine grid position.

So why not just have a one race season? The whole point of a season is to find out who the best person is consistently…

This season I’ve really gone off Bernie, I’ve never liked him, but his recent comments not being interested in getting new fans into the sport as they can’t afford the brands of F1, pretty sure Bernie wasn’t born rich & if all the young man in the street fans disappear then Sky/BT/ITV/BBC aren’t going to be paying big bucks because if no-one watches they’ll have no interest in covering it.

bernie doesnt really care what people think..he’s just causing a stink to assert his authority. Apparently the divided and conquer mentality, unfortunately he has forgotten he has an employer who has intervened once this season already. I think its a last gasp attempt by bernie to show he has some power in the paddock.

Those shady backhand deals are long gone and the money men he dealt with before are being relived of their duties. So long bernie, you were lucky in germany to buy yourself out of jail.

Has Alonso definitely signed to McLaren then?

Well he’s told the King of Spain he has. Allegedly.

Two things Button has to his credit are

The ability to under perform
and to have plenty of excuses ready for the post race interview to blame someone/thing else for his poor performance. Its no wonder none of the top teams want him for next season

It’s funny. People who don’t really know much about f1 often say that. Few if any people in the sport seem to agree. I know who I’d take as credible.

SPOTY candidates just announced.

Odds on it NOT being LH?

Ah. That will explain why he’s been beaten by his teammate in the championship every year, even when his teammate has been a complete duffer like LH.

The ability to under perform
and to have plenty of excuses ready for the post race interview to blame someone/thing else for his poor performance. Its no wonder none of the top teams want him for next season

Even if that was true, which I don’t believe it is we have…

The Canada thing

Last twice in a race and still won it. That’s great driving and great tv

Oh and like Lewis when he was world champion he still had a team mate to beat

You can currently get 7/2 at Bet365, which seems incredibly good value. I’m just trying to work out the catch. Unless of course the golfists are all more likely to vote, as the current odds-on favourite is McIlroy
http://www.oddschecker.com/awards/sports-personality-of-the-year/winner

Lewis has made it now, he’s on BBC breakfast!

I think the thing with SPOTY is there’s quite a big section of people that watch that are into golf. When Cav won it there was 3 golfers in there with him which split the vote up. With there only being one I can imagine McIlroy will get a bigger vote. Still think LH will get it though.

2015 season starts today!!

Bottas tops the time sheets, McLaren not off to a good start:

James Allen on F1

McL off to the sort of start you’d expect, surely, especially as this is pre-preseason testing for them – we didn’t see any of the other teams test their engines this early this year (though for Renault it was about this good 🙂 ).

So if 2015 has started who the hell is driving for McLaren?!

Er…Stoffel Vandoorne, obvs (?!?!!)

‘Stoffel’ is a great name, he’ll go far.

Apparently not. They only managed three laps.

Decent showing from carterham I thought

I’m struggling to understand what Catherham are doing there.

Finishing ahead of Lotus, Sauber, Toro Rosso and McLaren Honda by the looks of it

Trying to make themselves look like a going concern with a future so someone wants to buy them I guess…
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Were they the only ones on next year’s tyres? What’s the difference?

Maybe Will Stevens paid for another go?

Short video of the sound of the new Honda PU in the Mclaren MP4-29H leaving the garage in Abu Dhabi.

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Как звучит "Хонда"? Первый выезд "Макларена" за полтора часа до конца тестов!

A post shared by Alexey Popov (@popovf1) on Nov 26, 2014 at 4:37am PST

rumours are of v6 powerplants for 2016, still with kers

allegedly they will be cheaper….. dont we hear that every engine change!

also a push for the unfreeze of engine development in season, to allow the big 4 to catch up to each other by pumping huge amounts of cash when they realise their engine is rubbish (coughferraricough)

McLaren only manage two laps in final day of testing. I’m actually sad that its all winding down for the year, it’s been an amazing season with an excellent result. Can’t wait for March 15th!! 🙂

March 15th? First test is Feb 1 isn’t it? Then all the car launches before that…

b2b I think you’re pretty safe predicting v6s in 2016 😉

Fair point! Should help to keep us ticking over the winter!

allegedly they will be cheaper….. dont we hear that every engine change!

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I’ve never understood how changing the rules to make things ‘cheaper’ actually makes things cheaper. R&D is by the far the biggest cost and constantly changing the rules to reduce the manufacturing/servicing costs a wee bit is going to massively increase R&D spending. The only way around this is a total budget cap but the big teams are never going to allow that.
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Whilst on the subject, the new engines. Supposed to use less fuel, but huge development costs last year to come up with a whole new system. In the spirit of allowing engineers to innovate and improving variety why not have engine rules which just say:
You can use whatever configuration/size/combination of internal combustion/electric motors you wish
Limit on turbo boost pressure for safety reasons?
Maximum fuel tank size is 100 litres, no refuelling. 90 litres next year…
At a stroke you have innovation galore and with decreasing fuel tank sizes an incentive to work on effeciancy too
(obviously simplified somewhat and ingnoring cost factors) When I started watching there were V8s, V10s and V12s all racing against each other quite happily.

totally agree @andrewh good post.

Raced against each other happily you say, but the ones with the deepest pockets still win in the end.

Stop changing the rules each year for sure, but try to clamp down on costs so small teams can come to the grid.

Also divvy up the winnings and funding more equally.

why not have engine rules which just say:
You can use whatever configuration/size/combination of internal combustion/electric motors you wish
Maximum fuel tank size is 100 litres, no refuelling. 90 litres next year…

Budget really. Such open regs mean people have to spend a lot to be competitive and then keep spending.

Also having a more limited scope is supposed to secure more closely matched racing but Merc screwed that up. But give it a few years and everyone’s engine will be very closely matched again.

The RB throwing toys out of the pram proposal for new V6s in 2016 is just stupid. RB have no issue with spending huge sums of money (they’re 2nd best funded after Ferrari), they just don’t like that they’re not winning right now.

Going back to the engines they propose would likely see Mercedes, Renault and Honda leaving the sport which would leave F1 in a right mess.

The new engines are great – there’s certainly application of the technology to the real world (hybrids seem like the short term solution to fuel price rises/climate change) and I actually really like that you can hear tyre squeal, etc in F1 now.

When I started watching there were V8s, V10s and V12s all racing against each other quite happily.

If you mean the early 80’s the turbo in-line 4 came in and mopped the floor with all those dinosaurs.

Going back to the engines they propose would likely see Mercedes, Renault and Honda leaving the sport which would leave F1 in a right mess.

I think Mercedes are tied in for a number of years (they have agreed to stay in return for a nice fat wedge of cash). They have been rumoured to have spent about £100M developing the current engine though so they won’t be happy.

As for Renault I can see them leaving F1 soon unless something happens to make them more competitive. Are redbull still signed up to use them next year?

I can see Red Bull switching to Audi for 2016. BMW have had their stint in F1 which didn’t go that well (didn’t they try to buy Williams?) so now it’s VAGs time to have a go and they obviously have merc in their sights and have been pressurising Audi to leave LeMas to Porsche and take on F1 were it will have a greater marketing impact.

The only other companies I could see coming back are peugeot as they are big on small turbo engines and hybrid or Ford as they have the funds. In all honesty I am not sure what Renault are doing in F1 these days. Yes they have a big sporting history looking back at the early 90’s with Williams and their lower rank single seat car engines but I don’t think now is right for them and they are struggling.

It was the early 90s when I started watching ScottChegg. The Benneton Fords were using V8s, there were a couple of V12, the Ferraris and I think possibly the Larousses with the Lamborghini engines. Did Minardi use them for a bit too? I think most others had V10s.
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Anyway, I think the less the rules impose the same solutions on people the more scope there is for innovation and for ‘men in sheds’ to take on the big teams. Look at probably the biggest change in F1, the switch from front to rear engines, the big budget teams of the day, Ferrari, Maserati, Alfa, Mercedes were all using big front engines but the rules were much less prescriptive and allowed an upstart British designer to fit a small engine at the back and beat them, they had just never thought of it. Same with turbos first time round, been allowed for years but no-one had really bothered with them until Renault and it became a game-changer.
I love the weird stuff, Brabham BT46B, Tyrell P36, will just not happen nowadays and then people moan because the cars all look the same

andrewh

I think that’s all just an eara that’s gone. All the big teams are pushing the limits all the time. Look at blown rear diffusers etc. I don’t think the big teams think there is “a method and” stuck in their ways. I bet if Ferrari were allowed they would build loads of different engine solutions and use the best and spend their way to the top

just on radio – no double points for end of season race next year.

Hope JEV gets another drive after the news he’s leaving Torro Rosso.