F1 Most liked posts in thread: 2015 - F1

Firebro17 · Jul 12, 2015

Sounds like FIFA corruption to me.

Zapski · Jul 13, 2015

There's been races there for some time now, GT and FE. So, unlike New Jersey, it's not a new venue.

Steve · Jul 16, 2015

Some of this seems insightful...unfortunately.

Cracks appearing between Honda and McLaren (bbc.com)

15 July 2015

By Allan McNish
BBC F1 analyst

Fernando Alonso scored his first point for McLaren-Honda at the British Grand Prix. That one sentence sums up just what a dire situation that team are in at the moment.

It has taken nine races for a man many regard as the best driver in the world, in a team that has the target of winning championships, powered by an engine produced by one of the world's leading car companies, to score a single point.

It became obvious at Silverstone that cracks are appearing in the relationship between McLaren and Honda - just seven months into a 10-year contract.

When the partnership was announced, McLaren chairman Ron Dennis talked of repeating the domination of the last McLaren-Honda era in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

But this Honda is not the same as that Honda.

On and off track there is more competition now. Back in 1988, when McLaren-Honda won 15 of the 16 races, only Ferrari had a turbo engine, but it wasn't as good as Honda's and Ferrari's drivers were not as good as Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost.

In the road car marketplace, Honda has been overtaken by Nissan and is now the third-biggest Japanese manufacturer, not the second.

Back then, Honda used their racing programme to filter through engineers so they gained experience. It was very much an engineering-led company. Now, its ethos seems to have shifted.

If you look across motorsport, Honda is struggling everywhere except the British Touring Car Championship. Honda does not seem to be the same company with the same racing spirit it had in the past.

Honda only started developing this F1 engine just over two years ago. Mercedes worked on its turbo hybrid F1 engine for four years before the rules changed in 2014. That lack of preparation by Honda is showing.

It is quite clear to everyone in F1 that the Honda engine is responsible for the vast majority of McLaren's performance shortfall to Mercedes.

I suspect Honda realise that, too - if they do not, they're blind - but there is not a lot of evidence so far that they know how to fix it.

Communication breakdown

I was McLaren-Honda's test driver back in the early 1990s when Senna and Berger were race drivers, and I learned a lot back then about the sort of difficulties European and Japanese companies can have when they work together. In Japan, I did all of the development of the Honda V12 engine that raced in F1 in 1992.

When the Japanese say, "yes, we understand", it doesn't necessarily mean what we would take it to mean. It means they understand the words coming out of your mouth. But it doesn't necessarily mean they agree, or that they know what to do about it.

I'll give you an example. Back in 1991, McLaren were developing two gearboxes as a response to Ferrari, who had introduced the first semi-automatic gearbox in 1989.

There was a McLaren semi-automatic one, and a fully automatic box that Honda were working on.

The idea behind the Honda one was that you left the pits and it did everything for you thereafter. Except it didn't work.

We did a three-day test at Suzuka and I think I went past the pits once because it was jumping up and down doing whatever it wanted.

After the test, Honda said: "Can we take this to Budapest and race it?" I said: "Well, you can take it to Budapest, but you ain't gonna be racing it."

It was intended as a sort of dismissive, throwaway, 'you cannot be serious' kind of remark. But they took it at face value - yes, you can take it to a race.

That caused lots of problems internally. But the gearbox never saw the light of day.

In that context, it's very interesting to see that Indy Lall, who was the test team manager closely working with Honda back in their first period with McLaren, is back on the scene after many years out of F1, as an old hand with an understanding of the problems.

McLaren were 2.9 seconds off pole at Silverstone. At least two seconds of that - and probably even more - is the engine.

In F1, that is a lifetime. It is going to be a long, hard road ahead.

Not only does Honda have to make a huge step forward - probably a whole new engine, looking at where this one is - but at the same time the competition is marching on. And it is hard to see how they can ever catch up.

Allan McNish was talking to BBC Sport's Andrew Benson.
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minimark · Jul 17, 2015

Sounds like Kimi is out and Bottas is in at Ferrari next year... Wonder how many times Kimi will start and park before the end of the season?

Steve · Jul 17, 2015

I don't really remember the Mexico GP circuit so I had to search a bit to understand what they're talking about here. The course will go through a baseball stadium? That was hard for me to visualize.

Tilke: Peralatada corner had to go for safety reasons (grandprix247.com)

17 July, 2015

Renowned Formula 1 circuit designer Hermann Tilke says the loss of the fearsome Peraltada corner from the Mexico layout was unavoidable.

The legendary, sweeping, high-speed end of the lap at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez is legendary, but it has been left out as Tilke heads the renovations ahead of Mexicoâ€™s return to the calendar after more than two decades.

â€œWe simply had no space on the outside of this great curve in order to have the required run-off area,â€ Tilke told Speed Week. â€œAnd the corner is so fast that it is absolutely a must for safety.

â€œAnother idea was to keep the corner but move it inwards, as we have done at other circuits as well,â€ he explained. â€œBut we were limited because of the stadium.â€

Tilke is referring to a baseball stadium that is now located on the inside of the Peraltada.

â€œAlso,â€ Tilke continued, â€œit was the wish of the promoter that we take the circuit through this stadium because it will be really spectacular for the fans. About 40,000 people will be sitting in there.â€

Tilke said that although time will be tight ahead of the 1 November race date, he is confident Mexico City will be ready.

â€œThe works are still in full swing,â€ he said, â€œand I assume that we will finish only shortly before the deadline.

â€œBut that is not a specifically Mexican problem, but itâ€™s normal on these new or rebuilt circuits. There is a lot to do, but nothing that is a great worry.â€

The corner was where Formula 1 legend Ayrton Senna suffered one of his biggest crashes when he flipped his McLaren at high speed after going off track. He walked away uninjured.
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From Wikipedia:

The circuit has an elevation of 2,285 m(7,500 ft); the thin air causes difficulties for both the drivers and their cars.

The circuit has an extremely fast final corner (the peraltada) before a long start/finish straight, and thus reminded some of Monza; however, unlike Monza's parabolica curve, the peraltada curve is slightly banked, allowing even more speed through the corner. It was at this corner that the younger RodrÃguez crashed, although it is unclear whether this was due to excess speed or suspension failure. After the last F1 Mexican Grand Prix in 1992, a baseball stadium was built on the inner part of this curve. When the Champ Car series began using the track in 2002, the peraltada curve was partially bypassed by a series of sharp turns entering and exiting the baseball field; re-entering the peraltada halfway through.

After the Peraltada comes the long 1.2 km front straight. During the original turbo era in Formula One the faster cars were regularly clocking speeds of up to 330 km/h (205 mph) on the straight.

In the 2005 NASCAR Nationwide Series season, there was a chicane on the main straightaway to slow the cars down. They also introduced a curve between the short course and the Ese del Lago to bypass the latter, but avoiding the stadium detour.

The Grand Prix circuit underwent a significant renovation under the direction of Hermann Tilke for the return of Formula One in 2015. The front straight was slightly extended and reprofiled to accommodate a new media center and paddock. The iconic esses between turns 7 and 13 were significantly modified; the prolific, high radius turns largely diminished and some replaced with fixed angle turns. The baseball field portion of the track was also altered to a low speed left-right combination. At 4.313 kilometres (2.680 mi), the course is approximately 170 metres (560 ft) shorter than the previous Grand Prix layout, and Mexican Grand Prix organisers predict lap times of around 75 seconds and speeds in excess of 328 km/h (204 mph) for the current turbocharged Formula One cars, which eliminate the adverse effects of altitude present in naturally aspirated cars.
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Here's the stadium inside the corner.

A mockup of the course through the stadium.

And the full course.

Steve · Jul 17, 2015

Jules Bianchi died today, aged 25. RIP.

I think he's the first F1 driver to die of injures since Senna.

Nathan · Jul 17, 2015

Tis a shame.

B.A.D. · Jul 17, 2015

Very sad to hear.

Nathan · Jul 17, 2015

Silly Season!

There are some pretty credible reports coming out of Italy suggesting that Valtteri Bottas has been signed to replace Kimi Raikkonen at Ferrari in 2016. The move has been rumoured for some time and the well-connected Corriere dello Sport says it will be announced after the end of July, which is the date at which Raikkonen’s 2016 option would need to be taken up. If confirmed, the deal will mean a big financial boost for Williams as the team had a five-year contract with Bottas, of which this season is the fourth. That would mean Bottas would have to buy his way out of the Williams contract – with Ferrari presumably providing the cash. While on paper the move is not really logical for Bottas, the future of Ferrari is more clearly defined than the future at Williams, as the Grove team is still not back in the ranks of F1’s big spenders. Such a windfall will do the Williams team no harm at all. This is likely to get the F1 driver market moving and it will be interesting to see what Williams will do, although a deal with Nico Hulkenberg would be the obvious step, as the German has already been a Williams driver, back in 2010. He was not retained in 2011 because the team needed Pastor Maldonado’s money and had already had a deal with Rubens Barrichello. Hulkenberg had been hoping for a chance at Ferrari but if Bottas is confirmed, his best option is Williams. The other man who Williams might like is Daniel Ricciardo. His contractual status is not entirely clear as he’s not keen on giving detailed answers, so it is safe to assume he’s not completely locked in for 2016. One other option that might be possible would be for McLaren to pay for Williams to take one of its youngsters, to help them out developing into future stars. There is even the possibility that Jenson Button might return to the team where his career started 15 years ago. In recent days Jenson has been making it quite clear that his future at McLaren is not certain and that was probably sending a message to Williams. This would be a neat bookend to his F1 career and would help McLaren open the way for Kevin Magnussen and Stoffel Vandoorne to both move up the ladder.
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minimark · Jul 17, 2015

RIP Bianchi and God bless his family. [emoji21]

Crashton · Jul 17, 2015

Rest in peace Jules. You will be missed.

Nathan · Jul 20, 2015

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzkxI_Kyhf4"]F1: Off the Grid: Extended Jules Bianchi Conversation - YouTube[/ame]

Dave.0 · Jul 20, 2015

So how long until they retire Michael Schumacher's #1 ?

Steve · Jul 24, 2015

I didn't see any of the practice today but apparently it was eventful. I understand Perez crashed and his car flipped. He's okay but Force India skipped FP2 while they tried to work out just what happened. Raikkonen lost most of his nose (the entire wing?) after driving over some curbing. No one seems to know why that happened. Ricciardo's engine blew up but it was near the end of FP2 (I think) so he didn't miss much. It was an old engine they decided to use up during practice so it won't cause penalty issues.

In the end, the Red Bull pair split the Mercs on the time sheet at the end of FP2. And Alonso was 8th! Okay, so it's just Friday practice. Still interesting.

FP2 top 10:
Hamilton
Kvyat
Ricciardo
Rosberg
Raikkonen
Sainz
Vettel
Alonso
Bottas
Massa

Nathan · Jul 24, 2015

Thanks for posting the BBC radio podcast

Steve · Jul 24, 2015

Qualifying start time chart.

B.A.D. · Jul 25, 2015

OMG...just watched the post-quali interview and had to go back and watch the facial expressions of the second place qualifier as the pole sitter was talking. No hiding his frustration!

ScottinBend · Jul 25, 2015

minimark · Jul 26, 2015

Watching now!

cerenkov · Jul 26, 2015

That's what you get when you're content with 2nd. If he'd been trying for 1st then that probably wouldn't have happened.

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