The F1 2018 thread - #Blessed

Ad7 wrote:
satriales wrote:McLaren had a fire in their HQ this morning. Hopefully they didn't lose anything important.

Did they start last year's Honda up?

Hope it wasn't too serious, would have been a missed opportunity if the Honda jokes hadn't been posted!

There is going to be a lot of juicy gossip this weekend as teams have apparently been told about the 2021 regulation plans. AMuS is already talking about a budget cap of $150m being introduced.

I hope whatever they announce actually racing on most tracks will be a lot better, the cars need to be able to follow each other without having to hold back to save their tyres and ensure their aero works well. A budget cap would be a good idea as well, makes it much more appealing to new entries and existing teams not relying as much on pay drivers, enforcing it could be tricky though! Wonder if they'll announce any engine reg's at the same time as well, I know there was the first iteration of the new rules a while back but I dare say they'll have evolved slightly from then, if the teams have a budget they're not going to want to spend a huge chunk of it on engines.

Saying that as customers pay for their engines would this come out of their capped (theoretical currently) budget? Would be a little unfair if say Mercedes could spent X amount on developing the engines and then still have their full budget to spend on the rest of their car whereas a customer would have a good chunk taken away on their engines before working on the rest of the car. Unless they go back to basics on the engines making them cheap as far as f1 engines go.

The new set of rules should make it no limit on the number of engines/gearboxes per season. F1 was always about pushing the car to it's absolute limits even if it means things break, not dicking around saving fuel and engines.

Also, teams should be allowed to test in season a lot more so that development gains can be made, back at the start of 1998, McLaren were utterly dominant, yet thanks to testing and development, Ferrari were able to catch up after just a few races.

We also need a tyre war, some of F1's best seasons had tyre wars going on between two manufacturers.

Most of which would make almost any attempt to cut the costs of Formula 1 fruitless.

In some ways I do support the engine and gearbox limits, at one point teams were sticking brand new engines in just for qualifying and throwing them out afterwards, not exactly the best use of money in my opinion. I do think they are too strict currently, but that's what the manufacturers wanted, to show they can get reliability from high performance engines. I doubt even Mercedes will actually manage to get through the season using just the 3 power units, if they do then they've done a superb job once again. Considering the near future of road cars is electric you could argue for just going back to a simple V8 engine plus twin turbo setup to keep the power around what we currently have yet much cheaper engines on the whole and let Formula E be the road relevant series. A lot of standardised parts will help reduce the costs of the new hybrids (if they go down that route) but probably not as cheap as customers would like, a simpler engine would mean they could use more engines a year and not run the risk of them dying often meaning less penalties and hopefully better racing.

Testing is a big no no in my opinion, would just mean the teams with budget to spare would get further ahead and the others further behind, they've tried to meat halfway on testing on having in season tests around the races where they can test for a few days after a Grand Prix which is a good way to go testing on a budget.

I can't speak for the tyre war as I've never seen one play out but I seem to recall Bridgestone heavily favoured Ferrari forgetting the rest who ran their tyre's, were Michilin pretty impartial? It could work but I like the way all the teams are on a level playing field with one manufacturer, one of the few standard parts in F1 currently.

Robbo-92 wrote:I can't speak for the tyre war as I've never seen one play out but I seem to recall Bridgestone heavily favoured Ferrari forgetting the rest who ran their tyre's, were Michilin pretty impartial? It could work but I like the way all the teams are on a level playing field with one manufacturer, one of the few standard parts in F1 currently.

The thing about a tyre war is the unpredictability it can bring. Yes Bridgestone and Ferrari were pretty potent, but it was their closeness which led to them suffering a major drop in form come 2005 when the michelin runners got the upper hand. Also, the season when Bridgestone first arrived in F1 (1997) had some truly brilliant giant killing performances from smaller teams running the new tyre (instead of tried and tested Goodyears) including Damon Hill at Hungary in his Arrows.

Yes please to a tyre war, it's the easiest way back to good racing

I still can't get over how bad the halo looks. Utter abomination.

Max VestLOLpen

He's having some awful luck of late. Seems to be overdriving.

Alonso knows that 15th is at good as 1st in Q1, no need to go fast yet :shifty:

Both mcLOLrens beaten by both Torro Rossos :dread:

Both Toro Rosso cars beating both McLarens. Come back Honda all is forgiven :slol:

McLolen. Can only hope this reality check gives them a kick up the arse.

Lance StrLOL is proper miffed

Torro Rosso currently in 6th. Alonso on suicide watch

Snowcannon wrote:Both Toro Rosso cars beating both McLarens. Come back Honda all is forgiven

Nah, the Honda's will probably explode in the race.

Jam-Master Jay wrote:McLolen. Can only hope this reality check gives them a kick up the arse.

They missed top 10 last time but still got some good points in the race. Just need to get another Alonso train going.

That was a decent qualifying session, looks like it might be a case of the leader being track dependant as Mercedes have looked nowhere near as quick as they did in Australia. Hamilton is certainly on the better tyre's for the race though, just depends how quick he can get past that mighty Honda powered car starting in 5th

McLaren 'best chassis' Renault doing a stellar job, sadly they are nowhere near as good as they think they are, even though I was happy for Alonso getting P5 in Australia they did luck into quite a bit.

satriales wrote:
Snowcannon wrote:Both Toro Rosso cars beating both McLarens. Come back Honda all is forgiven

Nah, the Honda's will probably explode in the race.

I don't think it will from testing, the Melbourne failure was an assembly error on Gasly's car, the bumps from the track caused severe vibrations on the MGU-H with the huge kerb hit serving up a killer blow.

Honda have upgraded the bushings.

http://members.f1-life.net/race/66247/

The F1 2018 thread - #Blessed

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