F1 2013

DonDaddyD

It's kicked off, Mercedes has a good foundation to build upon. Ross Brawn looks like he knows how to manage Hamilton, though its a long season and Rosberg may get jealous.

Ferrari are unusually quiet... Most interesting thing will be the driver reshuffle at the end of this season. Webber, Massa, Di Resta and Bianci could all take a turn in the merry go round.

But most importantly, who is to new tottt next to Eddie Jordan?

Dalton

That will be Suzy Perry then!

Can't stand EJ, or his taste in shirts!

First.Aspect

Suzi Perry doesn't do it for me. Squeaky voice, a bit trite, and I keep expecting her to review how the iPad is performing before handing over to a berk in stupid glasses to give a toy helecopter group test.

Lee McKenzie on the other hand....

DonDaddyD

Eddie's asttitude towards her was very late 80s early 90s. I was expecting him to give her a mild tap on the bumbum and say "come on now dear"... What with the prompting, correcting and telling her where to take the reporting as part of his answer...

Anywho... Superb race, hate him or love him, Alonso is a great driver. Hamilton did well and that was nail biting stuff at the end. Back in form Kimi worries me but clearly this season is going to be dependant on team developments going into the middle and later part of the season.

First.Aspect

I'm interested to see how Vettel does now that there is no communication between garages. I sincerely hope that what comes around goes around. If nothing else he's ensured that he will probably have to have a weak team mate for the rest of his career, which is a touch short sighted. I'm sure RB aren't happy that they've just made their second car much less appealing for the likes of Kimi.

This season is all about tyres made of cheese. Its a farce really and I can't wait until Pirelli leave the sport. Soft tyres which degrade predictably is one thing, but these are absurd. Whichever team figures out how to make them work for more than 10 laps will stretch away during the middle of the season. I wonder if that might be Ferrari and McLaren, since they've both gone for a different fronst suspension setup from the rest.

Hamilton has to stop going mental on fresh tyres. The pattern for him is to flatter the car for a few laps then drop back towards Rosberg. He has to be cleverer, like Alsonso (who I agree is the class of the field).

greg66_tri_v2.0

I'm not an Alonso fan, but when DC said "There's Alonso's girlfriend in the Ferrari garage ... and his other girlfriend", I *really* started to hate him.

Not quite sure what Mclaren were thinking giving the no 2 seat to Perez.

EKE_38BPM

This season is shaping up to be pretty good.

Alonso is a brilliant driver, he's as good as Massa usually isn't.
Mercedes are doing better than I expected. Ross Brawn and Lewis Hamilton could be a good pairing. They both know how to get the job done (not that Ross and Michael didn't) and I see the team moving forward.
The Red Bull drivers are having a very public spat. Good for entertainment and probably for holding Vettel back.
McLaren usually develop the cars better than the other teams so may come good later on in the season.
Kimi is a class act. You know what you are going to get from him. Grosjean is getting better. I find it interesting that for the last year or so Lotus have been referring to themselves as some sort of variation of "The Enstone Team". Going alone as privateers in the future?...

The tyres are made of cheese, but its the same for everyone, so I don't see it as much of an issue. Not like the days when there were two tyre suppliers. They all have to learn how to get the best of the tyres, or drive around the problem.

After a few years of stability, the rules are changing next year, so its the last year of evolution rather than the revolution that we will have next year.

First.Aspect

The problem with fromage pneus is that you don't get to see who is fastest very often. I grew up watching bonkers qualifying setups with tyres made of PVA which lasted about 3/4 lap. That was fantastic, but didn't really tell you much about Sunday, so you ended up with cars out of position to mix things up. Then on Sunday there seemed to be some predictability on how hard people pushed and tyre wear. Tyres aren't exactly the most expensive line item on an F1 car, and the restriction on their numbers is also artificial. IF there were more sets available, you'd get a wider range of strategies and there would be a place for the JBs of this world as well as some who are more exciting to watch.

These Pirrelli tyres have no rhyme nor reason to them and its artificially shuffling the field. Bridgestone were TOO good, but I preferred it that they were never the focal point of a race.

Someone asked why Perez at McLaren. Its because Perez managed to do a 1 stop race several times last year, and that counts for a lot with these tyres. He wouldn't be anywhere near a top drive in any other era. By the same token, Gilles Villeneuve wouldn't get close to a top drive now, and neither for that matter would Nigel Mansell. Prost would be much faster than Senna over a GP distance etc.

Big_Paul

There was very little in the way of actual wheel to wheel racing today with the exception of Vettel's banzai last lap, I think it was best summed up by the faintly ridiculous spectacle of Button asking if he was allowed to "fight" the cars overtaking him, it's more about who can master the technology than about raw speed.

The whole Red Bull situation is a joke too, they won't do anything in case they lose their golden child, and Webber knows he's liked by the team owner, so he'll happily take the wages and enjoy it while he can as his career won't get any better.

Mr_Cellophane

Greg66 Tri v2.0 wrote:

I'm not an Alonso fan, but when DC said "There's Alonso's girlfriend in the Ferrari garage ... and his other girlfriend", I *really* started to hate him.

I think he actually said "There's Alonso's girlfriend in the Ferrari garage ... and a girlfriend" meaning a friend of his girlfriend.
No big arrow for Lewis "THIS GARAGE ->"

DonDaddyD

I like the uncertainty that the tyres bring. It'd be rubbish if the cars never had to pit because tyres could last the whole race.

One thing I'd like to see is the inclusion of diesel engines, don't know why just think it'd mix it up a little.

Alonso is getting the best punani/s in F1 - I want to hate him but that's part of the point and you should never hate a player.

As for drivers, Seb is a punk always has been, always will be. Kimi is looking shit hot. Grosjean has matured. With Sutil back Di Resta looks decidingly average again and probably be a mid-table driver until he loses his seat. That said I will never understand why McLaren went for Perez and not DiResta. I can see Rosberg throwing his toys out of the pram. Webber knows he has got 1-2 more seasons left and not at Redball, Riccardo will be his replacement, so he may as well just get on with driving this season and bitch about Seb next season when he's driving for Force India or Lotus. Hamilton, cannot claim to be the fastest driver on the grid anymore, he's damn quick but Kimi and Alonso appear to be better racers even when in shite cars.

PedalPedant

EKE_38BPM wrote:

I find it interesting that for the last year or so Lotus have been referring to themselves as some sort of variation of "The Enstone Team". Going alone as privateers in the future?...

This seems unlikely to me. The only teams operating as just themselves is Williams and I suspect that is because they can't find a big enough single sponsor willing to buy into the team. Even McLaren are officially Vodafone McLaren. Although I understand Vodafone are pulling out next year.

The team have been based at Enstone since the Benetton days. The real question might be how long can Tony Fernandes afford to back the Lotus team. If he pulls out perhaps they'll revert to Toleman ;-).

PP

graeme_s-2

PedalPedant wrote:

The team have been based at Enstone since the Benetton days. The real question might be how long can Tony Fernandes afford to back the Lotus team. If he pulls out perhaps they'll revert to Toleman ;-).

PP

Fernandes is nothing to do with the current Lotus team. He owns Caterham (formerly Team Lotus). Lotus (of Enstone) aren't actually owned by the Lotus car company. They're owned by a Luxembourg based venture capital group called Genii Capital who bought them from Renault. Lotus cars are just the title sponsor, a bit like the way professional cycling teams work (eg Garmin-Sharp isn't owned by Garmin or Sharp).

PedalPedant

Graeme_S wrote:

PedalPedant wrote:

The team have been based at Enstone since the Benetton days. The real question might be how long can Tony Fernandes afford to back the Lotus team. If he pulls out perhaps they'll revert to Toleman ;-).

PP

Fernandes is nothing to do with the current Lotus team. He owns Caterham (formerly Team Lotus). Lotus (of Enstone) aren't actually owned by the Lotus car company. They're owned by a Luxembourg based venture capital group called Genii Capital who bought them from Renault. Lotus cars are just the title sponsor, a bit like the way professional cycling teams work (eg Garmin-Sharp isn't owned by Garmin or Sharp).

Ah yes, I'd forgotten about the whole Lotus / Caterham shenanigans. I wonder how Colin Chapman would feel about all this were he still alive.

PP

rick_chasey

Real golden age for drivers at the moment. Awful lot of quality and exciting drivers.

In no particular order Alonso, Vettel, Hamilton, Raikonnen, even Button in his own way.

Very competitive too. Occasionally feels a little too artificial. DRS should be less liberally applied. It negated any value in track position which ruins a lot of wheel to wheel racing and turns it into a time trial this weekend. But broadly a great era.

greg66_tri_v2.0

Rick Chasey wrote:

Real golden age for drivers at the moment. Awful lot of quality and exciting drivers.

In no particular order Alonso, Vettel, Hamilton, Raikonnen, even Button in his own way.

Very competitive too. Occasionally feels a little too artificial. DRS should be less liberally applied. It negated any value in track position which ruins a lot of wheel to wheel racing and turns it into a time trial this weekend. But broadly a great era.

Agree both these points. Rare indeed to have five WC drivers in the field, all the more so as they all have competitive cars.

But I'm unconvinced about tyres ("you've got a good set, and a comedy set, and you've got to use the comedy set") and KERS ("it's like a video game, right? You press this button and you get more power. But you can't press it too often, see") or DRS ("overtaking will be a lot easier because you'll suddenly have a handicapped car in front of you").

I'm willing to bet a reasonable sum that at some point the FIA has had a serious discussion about having garden sprinklers randomly fire up to drench certain corners of the track.

It needs to be a bit less like Total Wipeout.

PedalPedant

Greg66 Tri v2.0 wrote:

But I'm unconvinced about tyres ("you've got a good set, and a comedy set, and you've got to use the comedy set") and KERS ("it's like a video game, right? You press this button and you get more power. But you can't press it too often, see") or DRS ("overtaking will be a lot easier because you'll suddenly have a handicapped car in front of you").

It was particularly disappointing to see drivers sitting out Q3, including Vettel, because of the ridiculous rule about using the tyre you qualified on to start the race.

Bring back a full on qualifying tyre and let them use whatever the hell they want in the race I say.

DRS may well become less effective over the next few races as many of the teams are working on developing wings that stall above a given speed. This effectively gives you DRS on every straight without pushing any buttons. Must be pretty hairy as a driver not knowing quite when you're going to get your downforce back again though ;-)

PP

EKE_38BPM

PedalPedant wrote:

EKE_38BPM wrote:

I find it interesting that for the last year or so Lotus have been referring to themselves as some sort of variation of "The Enstone Team". Going alone as privateers in the future?...

This seems unlikely to me. The only teams operating as just themselves is Williams and I suspect that is because they can't find a big enough single sponsor willing to buy into the team. Even McLaren are officially Vodafone McLaren. Although I understand Vodafone are pulling out next year.

The team have been based at Enstone since the Benetton days. The real question might be how long can Tony Fernandes afford to back the Lotus team. If he pulls out perhaps they'll revert to Toleman ;-).

PP

The only teams that are "Works" teams are Mercedes and Ferrari. Everyone else has title sponsors (even though Mercedes are officially Mercedes AMG Petronas F1).
The full offical names of the teams are:
Ferrari: Scuderia Ferrari (Stable of Ferrari)
Mercedes: Mercedes AMG Petronas F1
Force India: Force India are Saraha Force India F1 Team
Red Bull: Infiniti Red Bull Racing
Lotus: Lotus F1 Team
McLaren: Vodafone McLaren Mercedes (Vodafone are pulling out and Honda will be replacing Mercedes in 2014)
Toro Rosso: Scuderia Toro Rosso (no team is allowed to run more than two cars, so Red Bull very cleverly named their second team Stable of Red Bull in Italian)
Sauber: Sauber F1 Team
Williams: Williams F1 Team
Marussia: Marussia F1 Team
Caterham: Caterham F1 Team

So going by those names the privateers are Ferrari, Lotus, Toro Rosso (yeah, right), Sauber, Williams, Marussia and Caterham. All of the others have sold their naming rights. You could almost say that the "Enstone team" have done the ultimate job of selling their name by being called Benneton, Renault & Lotus and not keeping their own name at all.
Apart from Ferrari, the common denominator with the privateer teams is not challenging for titles.

Tyres and refuelling: Having an F1 car which could finish a race without refuelling or changing their tyres would be dull. I think two pit stops is about right, so, if the hard tyres lasted ~40% of the race distance and the softs lasted ~30% then that would work out as using either two hards and a soft or two softs and a hard (assuming you still have to use both tyres in the race). Refuel at each pit stop and regulate that the fuel tank should be able to hold ~45% of race distance so that there is still room for fuelling tactics (heavy fuel, hard tyres and a longer stint or light fuel, soft tyres and a sprint).
I want to see the race cars race, not just nurse their fuel and tyres until the end but I still want to see tactics. A series of tactical sprints I suppose.

BTW, next year's rule change stipulate that fuel will be restricted to 100kg/h and the engines will be 1.6 litre V6 turbos in a bid to improve fuel efficiency and relevance to road cars. Exhausts will blow up instead of down so blown diffusers will disappear. I wonder what they will sound like?

PedalPedant

EKE_38BPM wrote:

The only teams that are "Works" teams are Mercedes and Ferrari. Everyone else has title sponsors (even though Mercedes are officially Mercedes AMG Petronas F1).
The full offical names of the teams are:
Ferrari: Scuderia Ferrari (Stable of Ferrari)
Mercedes: Mercedes AMG Petronas F1
Force India: Force India are Saraha Force India F1 Team
Red Bull: Infiniti Red Bull Racing
Lotus: Lotus F1 Team
McLaren: Vodafone McLaren Mercedes (Vodafone are pulling out and Honda will be replacing Mercedes in 2014)
Toro Rosso: Scuderia Toro Rosso (no team is allowed to run more than two cars, so Red Bull very cleverly named their second team Stable of Red Bull in Italian)
Sauber: Sauber F1 Team
Williams: Williams F1 Team
Marussia: Marussia F1 Team
Caterham: Caterham F1 Team

So going by those names the privateers are Ferrari, Lotus, Toro Rosso (yeah, right), Sauber, Williams, Marussia and Caterham. All of the others have sold their naming rights. You could almost say that the "Enstone team" have done the ultimate job of selling their name by being called Benneton, Renault & Lotus and not keeping their own name at all.
Apart from Ferrari, the common denominator with the privateer teams is not challenging for titles.

I see what you mean. I think I mis-understood what you meant by privateer. Do Marussia and Caterham count as works teams? They are both named after car manufacturers.

EDIT: Just to clarify. There are strictly no privateer teams in F1 as customer cars are not allowed. I'm referring to teams that don't operate under the name of their corporate owner or title sponsors. To me that's just Williams and as you mentioned Sauber (I'd forgotten about them).

PP

DonDaddyD

Rick Chasey wrote:

Real golden age for drivers at the moment. Awful lot of quality and exciting drivers.

In no particular order Alonso, Vettel, Hamilton, Raikonnen, even Button in his own way.

They're not World Champions but I'd like to throw in Massa, Webber, Rosberg (to a lesser extent) as when they have a purple patch they can really mix things up with the above five drivers making things really competitive.

The mid table is as exciting as the frontrunners.

Very competitive too. Occasionally feels a little too artificial. DRS should be less liberally applied. It negated any value in track position which ruins a lot of wheel to wheel racing and turns it into a time trial this weekend. But broadly a great era.

DRS helps to negate anyone single car dominating, but then makes things seem artificial in that anyone can over take anyone and then it becomes less about the skill of the driver and more about the aerodynamic advantages of the car. It was fun for the first few seasons but I'd be glad to see it go. KERS - or whatever its called is cool as that adds an element of strategy, i.e. you can save it up and use it at a cruicial time... like NOS is a drag race.

I'm a fan of the tyres, though the super comedy soft seem pointless and silly.

iPete

A video worthy of an F1 bump.

http://youtu.be/oeO2q8FzcnM