The teams agreed on 5 for this season. So now it's up to the FIA to change the rules so I believe.
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/118232
Bahrain Grand Prix 2015, Sakhir - Race 4/19
- Thread starter Shimmy
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The teams agreed on 5 for this season. So now it's up to the FIA to change the rules so I believe.
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/118232
Caporegime
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Meh, Alonso has been comparing Q1 times to Q1 lead and claiming massive gains. In China they were what 1.8 behind Vettel... but the Merc's didn't even do a soft time, they'd have been a full second ahead even not pushing hard, easily, and that would be a good 2.8 second difference. What was the gap in Australia, oh, 2.9 seconds.
Using the fact that the fastest car felt safe after the first race(in the dry) to run on the harder tire in Q1 as evidence of 'gains' is ludicrous.
Other comparisons have been based on fastest lap time, equally absurd. Hamilton's car had gone an almost entire full 3 race weekends by the time it did it's lap... at the END of a long stint where the tires were no where near maxed out in speed vs Alonso's time on fresh tires then comparing it two the times done in Australia where both cars had fresh engines and the Mercs were pushing significantly harder.
These are artificial gains you can only see if you completely ignore reality. Mclaren have improved some but they had a fight with Perez who at that point in the race had no where near the speed of his team mate, likewise they had a fight with Maldonado who also at that point in the race was no where near the speed of his team mate... though had been faster than him to that point.
Perez was having an issue on a stupid tire strategy and when he got on the faster tire he pulled out what, 20-30 seconds on Button even with some car damage(caused by Button). Maldonado had an almost certain mgu-k/rear brake issue which likely caused the pit lane lock up and possibly the spin... fighting with a broken Lotus isn't a sign of improvement.
Using the fact that the fastest car felt safe after the first race(in the dry) to run on the harder tire in Q1 as evidence of 'gains' is ludicrous.
Other comparisons have been based on fastest lap time, equally absurd. Hamilton's car had gone an almost entire full 3 race weekends by the time it did it's lap... at the END of a long stint where the tires were no where near maxed out in speed vs Alonso's time on fresh tires then comparing it two the times done in Australia where both cars had fresh engines and the Mercs were pushing significantly harder.
These are artificial gains you can only see if you completely ignore reality. Mclaren have improved some but they had a fight with Perez who at that point in the race had no where near the speed of his team mate, likewise they had a fight with Maldonado who also at that point in the race was no where near the speed of his team mate... though had been faster than him to that point.
Perez was having an issue on a stupid tire strategy and when he got on the faster tire he pulled out what, 20-30 seconds on Button even with some car damage(caused by Button). Maldonado had an almost certain mgu-k/rear brake issue which likely caused the pit lane lock up and possibly the spin... fighting with a broken Lotus isn't a sign of improvement.
Caporegime
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It doesn't particularly matter in the end. Renault/Honda are currently on course to blow WAY past 5 engines a piece for the season, certainly way beyond 4 for races only. Ferrari/Merc look pretty strong but might go 1 over, not a huge deal.
If Honda or Renault get reliable/fast enough to compete then so what, take a 5th or 6th engine at a race they believe their car doesn't suit then use it for another 3-4 races where they can compete. If they are at the point where they need a new engine every weekend or every other weekend, they are also likely to not even be finishing that many races(a la Kvyat/Verstappen this weekend) and so what do starting penalties even matter.
The penalties aren't really going to make a difference, the engine either becomes reliable enough that it only effects 1 in 4 or 5 races, or it stays as crap as it is now and... who cares.
Soldato
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Or even funnier, Rosberg tries to punt Hamilton off the tack but loses his front wing.
Would love to see the interview afterwards.
Would love to see that. Lewis would probably moan after the race saying that Rosberg was driving too close to him and that he wanted to win too much.
Soldato
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How can you possibly know if it will matter yet? Merc's reliability was sufficiently good last year, and has been so far this year, but all it takes is a manufacturing defect early in an engine's life, and if it goes pop, that's that engine down, and you're down to 3 with zero miles on the 4th... while your competitor might be fine.
It won't stop the teams ramping up/down the engines according to their scheduled shelf life, but you can't possibly know whether you'll need that 5th component yet.
Caporegime
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Sounds like Renault have an engine piston problem and it won't be fixed within the next 6 weeks.... goes from bad to worse. Could be looking at Canada before a fix in June. Will we see Kvyat/Verstappen type failures in every single race till then. Could be that the specific problem doesn't cause a single other failure. If it's a fault that has as yet only caused Verstappen's failure then it might not be something that will consistently happen every time.
Caporegime
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Teams have failures every year, that is normal. Merc/Ferrari lets say either takes a 5th engine and gets a penalty, they have the speed to get into the top 6 easily again so any point loss will be limited. That is one race then that new engine will last for another 4-5 races. It's simply not enough to push Ferrari past Merc. Best case scenario for Ferrari frankly is that Vettel gets 3rd in every race, losing 10 points in 10+ races this year but gaining 10 back once in a blue moon simply isn't enough.
Honda/Renault are SO unreliable as it stands and not actually very competitive points wise... that who cares if they take a penalty.
There are two options for them, reliability improves say some stage after half way in the season but they've burned up their engine allocation. So they take a new engine, have a meh race starting from the back but another 3-4 clean races... still a massive improvement on no reliability and starting higher up but failing to finish or finishing out of the points. Or reliability doesn't improve... they take engines every race or every other race... but if reliability sucks that badly they won't be finishing many races anyway so again what real difference is it going to make.
We have a case where the stronger teams have good reliability and one race penalty isn't going to hurt them enough to change the title fight in general. The other case is where the currently unreliable engines are so bad they will either continue to fail every race regardless of how many they take and who the hell cares, OR reliability improves and one penalty in every 4-5 races is still a dramatic improvement on where they are today.
Deleted member 651465
D
Deleted member 651465
Classic McLaren.... produce a dog of a car, spend half the season developing the car at crazy expense and effort, only to end up level with their competitors at the end of the season.
IF they show good pace at the last race, then maybe 2016 could be their year. That's just a massive ask though
IF they show good pace at the last race, then maybe 2016 could be their year. That's just a massive ask though
Oh cool. We didnt hear anything about it over the China weekend so I assume no FIA rule change has happened yet?
That article also sounds like its a full 5th engine rather than just one limited to only being used on Fridays?
Caporegime
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The thing that really irks me is, people keep saying along the lines of Mclaren have made a plan where by they start off slow and get great.... then act like it's a sure thing. No, it's a plan, the 2013 car was a plan, the 2014 car was a plan... the 2014 Ferrari car was a plan, the Lotus 2014 car was a plan, all plans that went bad. Mclaren are fully capable of building a crap car, in the past two years they've been god awful.
I'm not saying the engine won't turn out to be great but this "Mclaren say it WILL be really fast in the future so it WILL be fast in the future" thinking is ridiculous. It could be, but it could be a disaster, the engine could be a disaster all year and not competitive next year or the year after. Same goes with the chassis, people saying it looks good in corners so it must be a great car, take any car and drop 2 seconds off the pace and it would look better in corners. Everyone looks tidier when going slower, great cars or horrible cars all look easier to drive going slower.
I actually hope it's good because I want more competition, we've had too many teams and engines being terrible lately. But the chance of them knocking the engine and chassis out of the park... when rushing development of both, they are slim. My money was on precisely the problems they had in testing because regardless of the quality of engineers, doing something in 18 months that only one team cracked when spending 3 years on it and the other two teams did a poor job spending 2.5 years on it, is almost impossible.
I would say the odds on chances are that Honda remain pretty dire all year and aren't brilliant next year. I figured 2017 for the first time they might be genuinely competitive anywhere near the front. In the midfield or closer to the midfield, sure, because FI are terrible, and RBR/TR have their own problems with engine.
I'm not saying the engine won't turn out to be great but this "Mclaren say it WILL be really fast in the future so it WILL be fast in the future" thinking is ridiculous. It could be, but it could be a disaster, the engine could be a disaster all year and not competitive next year or the year after. Same goes with the chassis, people saying it looks good in corners so it must be a great car, take any car and drop 2 seconds off the pace and it would look better in corners. Everyone looks tidier when going slower, great cars or horrible cars all look easier to drive going slower.
I actually hope it's good because I want more competition, we've had too many teams and engines being terrible lately. But the chance of them knocking the engine and chassis out of the park... when rushing development of both, they are slim. My money was on precisely the problems they had in testing because regardless of the quality of engineers, doing something in 18 months that only one team cracked when spending 3 years on it and the other two teams did a poor job spending 2.5 years on it, is almost impossible.
I would say the odds on chances are that Honda remain pretty dire all year and aren't brilliant next year. I figured 2017 for the first time they might be genuinely competitive anywhere near the front. In the midfield or closer to the midfield, sure, because FI are terrible, and RBR/TR have their own problems with engine.
You know, there must be a good reason why it takes you four ******* paragraphs to state the most incredibly obvious stuff drunkenmaster. But for the life of me I can't figure out what it is 
Moving on - won't be watching this one on principle. If I want to watch a boring race in a crapsack part of the world I'll watch a NASCAR Xfinity race at Fontana. At least then there'd be a slim chance of seeing something halfway interesting! Here's to hoping for an improvement to the show when the circus reaches Europe (no law against optimism, eh?).
Moving on - won't be watching this one on principle. If I want to watch a boring race in a crapsack part of the world I'll watch a NASCAR Xfinity race at Fontana. At least then there'd be a slim chance of seeing something halfway interesting! Here's to hoping for an improvement to the show when the circus reaches Europe (no law against optimism, eh?).
I can't see them being with Renault for much longer if the issues continue, unless they've got themselves stuck in a pretty binding contract.
Caporegime
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A lot of people don't believe Ferrari or Merc would sell them an engine but tbh, I don't believe that. I don't know where their contract would be currently in terms of getting shot of Renault. If Renault don't step it up soon TR and RBR would have to think about buying a different engine.
Even if they are under contract with Renault does that actually stop them getting another engine. IE maybe they have to buy engines off Renault, so maybe they effectively owe them 25-30mil a year. But can they not also give Merc 25-30mil for an engine, if it would jump RBR from a 5th to a 2nd/3rd place in the constructors financially would they end up better off? Spend 30mil extra on engines but make 50mil more in constructors or sponsorship money.
That also assumes there aren't clauses in the contract with Renault for performance or reliability that means they couldn't break it.
I don't think the most recent Bahrain races have been too bad, last year in particular for the Merc. battle.
However given the start of the year and the changes to noses seemingly leading to a decrease in being able to follow closely, maybe it will revert back to Boreain.
I guess another safety car period could happen to close up the field like 2014...good odds based on the last few races.
Last year was ok to be fair, Danny Ric giving orders to Vettel and a spine tingling duel between Ros and Ham, hope that happens again. I genuinely think Rosberg will outqualify Lewis here, he's gotta be proper angry now.
Let's not forget that Rosberg can out qualify Lewis, the last time he did it was in Brazil where he beat him fair and square in EVERY session of the weekend.
If he doesn't win this weekend then it'll batter his confidence surely.
I hope he does the same again this weekend, not because I favour one driver over the other - but purely to keep the title race alive and interesting. Vettel's had a win, so too has Lewis so the three of them gunning for the title would be brilliant.
Let's not forget that Rosberg can out qualify Lewis, the last time he did it was in Brazil where he beat him fair and square in EVERY session of the weekend.
If he doesn't win this weekend then it'll batter his confidence surely.
I hope he does the same again this weekend, not because I favour one driver over the other - but purely to keep the title race alive and interesting. Vettel's had a win, so too has Lewis so the three of them gunning for the title would be brilliant.
I read elsewhere that ferrari's intercooler arrangement is more effective than the one mercedes use, which means they suffer less of a loss in power when it gets hot.
I don't know how big the difference is, but coupled with everything in the sky video fingers crossed it's hot in bahrain!
I don't know how big the difference is, but coupled with everything in the sky video fingers crossed it's hot in bahrain!