Australian Grand Prix 2015, Melbourne - Race 1/19

smr said:
A 133.3 for jenson on his last lap to a 131.1 rosberg recorded in his, with a detuned engine in the mclaren and a pushing merc driver... that sounds quite a bit better than yesterday.
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Tire life, speed, fuel. The majority of Mclaren's laps were 3.5 seconds + slower than Hamilton's, he was lapped twice..... twice. Even at a 1:33 second average that means he finished over 186 seconds behind, over 56 laps that is well over 3 seconds a lap slower. He actually finished some 207 seconds over 56 laps he averaged being 3.7 seconds slower per lap.

it was a stupid race really, should have been two stop, it was fuel limited but Kimi/others went much faster while on softs largely because more grip means faster cornering, gain fuel efficiency by braking less for corners and maintaining a higher average speed. Rosberg was pushing within the context of being fuel limited and tire life/pit strategy likely effected overall speed. Rosberg sped up, then was over his fuel target, and slowed back down. Again the fastest in race lap was 1:30.9, qualifying was a 1:26.4 was it. An in race lap of 1:33... is meaningless, in qualifying with fresh tires, no fuel, and no fuel saving the Mercs were 4+ seconds faster, the Mclaren was less than 2 seconds faster.

It's also being suggested that once they knew a point was out of the question and they were fairly certain the race was over they turned up the engine as much as possible and pushed harder for the last 2-3 laps. I'm not sure how true that is, the more likely situation is that going so slow he had more tire life left than anyone and they realised they had extra fuel on board at the end of the race because there would be 2 laps less to do... so just put his foot to the floor harder and braked later into corners, apparently he was coasting into a lot of corners for fuel reasons... which again points to very little electrical harvesting/usage.

Either way, the average race pace behind was woeful, the speed at the end wasn't good enough and either they turned the engine up... and the speed sucked, or they threw fuel usage out of the window due to fluke circumstances... and speed wasn't good.
 
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I see Marko is threatening to quit again now the bendy-bulls aren't winning. Good riddance! Hopefully without a team that is just a cynical marketing ploy and the soon bucket-kicking of the poison dwarf F1 can regroup.

It is unfortunate that F1 has been struggling recently but an embarrassment and kick in the teeth is what it needs to refocus and come back better, billionaire leeches can't suck all the life out of the sport forever and a few more races of it flailing should wake them up. Sucks for now but our only hope of a decent series in the future.

Between TV rights being sold to premium services, the FOM's hatred of online features and charging through the teeth for the pitiful service they do provide. Midfield teams struggling to survive and daft rules limiting racing (Save fuel! Save engine! Save more fuel!) the series is being run into the ground.

At the same time the WEC organisers are struggling to find room for all the competitors that want to sign up!
 
For all its faults, or maybe this the fault, f1 is extremely competitive and hence expensive to join and easy to be embarrassed by.
We all like the technology, but the technology causes the lack of close competition.

You have to decide what you want

Having said that, I hate the VIP/look at me I'm rich culture. They are alienating the fans and right now they really need the fans.
 
Skeeter said:
How would a cost cap work when the engines are developed by suppliers to the F1 teams rather than the teams themselves?
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That's where the clever account and subsidiary companies would bugger it all up. In theory the minimum a company would sell engines for exactly what they cost so at least break even. If teams say the engine budget is x, then companies need to make an engine for that price. But in reality, merc and Ferrari wouldn't care about losing money in the engine department, so would sell them at a loss and take the hit.

And that is where a budget cap becomes tricky.
 
Renault Sport F1, Mercedes HPP and Ferrari S.p.A. are not competitors in F1 though, so the FIA can't regulate them.

They can limit the amount teams can spend on engines, and even set a maximum price for them, but they have zero control over what the supplying company chooses to spend.

Was it Mercedes (HPP) that are rumoured to have spent $0.5bn on developing the V6s? The FIA have zero control of them and therefore absolutely no ability to control what they spend.

The cost cap is about controlling what the teams spend to exist, not what the suppliers spend. I wonder what Shells anual budget is for F1 fuel development, or Totals on lubricants?
 
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233 said:
jesus, not normally into F1 at all but seing the Mercedes finishing 30+ seconds ahead of the rest of the field woaah,
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Thanks for that.

Skeeter said:
The cost cap is about controlling what the teams spend to exist, not what the suppliers spend. I wonder what Shells anual budget is for F1 fuel development, or Totals on lubricants?
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There's supposed to be knock on benefits for normal motorists as well, so it's not all dead money just to make a couple of prototypes go round a track 70 odd times while filling Bernie's briefcase with cash.
 
MagicBoy said:
There's supposed to be knock on benefits for normal motorists as well, so it's not all dead money just to make a couple of prototypes go round a track 70 odd times while filling Bernie's briefcase with cash.
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Oh I know. Mercedes etc don't build F1 engines because there's money in selling them, they do it because there's R&D ties to their other business arms, and marketing opportunities by association.

My point is that any F1 team spending cap would have no effect on controlling what a supplier company spends on developing the components they supply to the teams. Therefore suggesting a spending cap as a way to govern engine development would have no effect.
 
UTmaniac said:
Was about to post about RB threatening to pull out. After 2010-2013 RB domination, the expression involving goose and gander springs to mind! ;)
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Good riddance, one of the least sporting teams in the history of the sport. Someone will buy them out. They always did say they would consider they place in f1 if they started losing.
 
MagicBoy said:
Thanks for that.
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some sort of F1 fan elitism?

I might not be able to tell you what colour of underpants Maldonaldo wears on the third Tuesday of every month but even as a (very ) casual observer of
f1 it was an unbelievable display of dominance by Mercedes,

may only be one race in but I cant imagine the other teams are going to be able to pull 30 seconds a race out of their backsides any time soon.
 
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