Soldato
F1 2015 - Teams and Drivers - Who goes where?!
- Thread starter ~Mike~
- Start date
Soldato
Why all the smoke and mirrors over Alonso then?
Button is obviously the best bet financially and for driving a new engine
Ron has been promising a title sponsor since May, according to reports he's trying to persuade the Danes that KM is the next big thing, which he isn't . Unsurprisingly the corporations have opted to not chuck tens of millions McLarens way in the vane hope of getting value for money
They talk a good talk as always.
Soldato
Yeah, I think Alonso is a bad choice, especially if you don't give home a great car, he will get the best out of it but for too much cash.
I think something like sponsorship money (like you say) is what's holding everything up. There is no way they are deliberating which second driver is the best, it's got to be based on sponsorship or demands from Alonso/Honda etc.
Soldato
I imagine Honda really would like a Japanese driver in the lineup, ideally a race driver, rather than the test driver.
If Kob is no longer with Caterham, 2015 could be the first year without a Japenese driver for a while, shame as both Sato and Kobayashi have had seasons where they have contributed positively to the season with "banzai" overtakes.
If Kob is no longer with Caterham, 2015 could be the first year without a Japenese driver for a while, shame as both Sato and Kobayashi have had seasons where they have contributed positively to the season with "banzai" overtakes.
Taken from:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/30162869
That's a pretty impressive record considering the circumstances, certainly not in line with a driver who is on a downslope.
Soldato
If not on a downslope, on a plateau
bad car for a year or two more and that would be it.
That Honda run was an unmitigated disaster, the aero isn't suddenly going to be brilliant either.
bad car for a year or two more and that would be it.
That Honda run was an unmitigated disaster, the aero isn't suddenly going to be brilliant either.
Soldato
Honda will be roughly on target. Renault said they were 3 months behind schedule when the engines were homologated last year, so on that basis Honda are where Renault wanted to be at this point last year. The other difference is that they've ran the car on 3 days (2 of them limited admittedly) and got 2 months to fix the issues that Renault didn't have.
They'd have liked to have got more miles, obviously, but the plan was to learn the electronics, and clearly they forced that upon themselves - whether they were the electronics they wanted to learn about is another matter.
McLaren's pace was much improved at the end of the season, so clearly the aero department are working hard on the issues. They're not suddenly going to be on Mercedes pace of course, but they're certainly going to be much improved in this regard.
The far bigger issue for McLaren is the emerging infighting on the board. That's not going to impress Honda, Alonso or any prospective sponsors.
Of course this is a big issue for the driver line up (and therefore any winter development from the driver side) - but its always said that board issues at a football club shouldn't affect whats going on on the field - admittedly this isn't always the case , but its a similar situation as of that at McLaren.
Majority of the work going on now will be backroom staff and designers / engineers (who are most likely on permanent contracts, unlikely to be effected by board issues above).
As you pointed out its probably fair to say Honda would have liked a much more successful test than they had recently, but its not the end of the world at this stage (although they haven't got long to sort it out before it starts to hamper on track testing at the end of Jan), but its certainly do-able.
I don't know how senior the guy McLaren poached from RBR on the aero side was, but from early reports it appears he worked closely with Newey, and I understand he had some input into the late additions / changes this season, but obviously his input into next season's car (and even more so the '16 car) should be even more evident.
Soldato
I don't know what his job title is, but he's basically the head of aero it seems. It was his concepts they were testing (or scheduled to test) at Abu Dhabi. I don't know how different the 2015 car will be, but given how they were loading new aero bits on the 2014 car and the speed of development towards the end of the year, it seems the ideas will be fundamentally compatible with what's being planned for 2015.
He was very highly regarded a Red Bull, so presumably had Newey stepped aside earlier, he would have been moulded into his role.
Why are some of the engine manufacturers so far behind? Why can't they put a 2015 car on a rolling road in a wind tunnel? Wouldn't it enable the teams to sort these electrical problems and give a good indication of how the car will perform on track?
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Soldato
I stated a while back that Honda won't be on the pace immediately.
It will take at least 1 year to get on par with rival engine makers.
That disastrous test they had, was exactly what I expected. It would've been a miracle had everything gone off without a hitch.
Some people on this board believed that it would be possible - I have no idea where they got this idea from. It would be the first time in recent history where a new engine has been competitive/reliable from day 1, without any on-track testing.
I also stated that it might be better to use the Merc engine, as this would give Alonso a chance at the title, from day 1. But McLaren clearly have their reasons for bringing in Honda.
A better idea would've been to ditch the Merc engine mid-season and switch to the Honda engine. This way, they might have been competitive in Race 1, 2015. Again, McLaren, I'm sure, had their reasons not to play it this way.
Honda will need at least 1 year to get the engine competitive. Remember, they are starting 1 year behind everybody else. In 2016, I still expect them to be behind, however, they have Alonso on their team who will definitely be able to make up a small difference. The reason why they need Alonso is that Hamilton will have a faster car. Their driver will need to beat Hamilton, in a slower car. Alonso is the only driver who has any chance of this. Why else would McLaren re-hire a driver who they effectively fired? A driver with whom management were no longer on speaking terms with?
The aero - I am expecting McLaren to deliver good aero in 2016. McLaren usually have good aero.
For McLaren, 2015 will be a year of embarrassment, self-pity and excuses. But 2016 is where McLaren bosses will expect Alonso, Honda and their engineers, to deliver.
Still, for us fans this is exciting. Drivers switching teams always throws up unexpected results - making it difficult for us to predict who will win races.
Of course there will be a major improvement.
How many laps did they compete in that test? 20? I can't remember.
They didnt even get up to race speed.
So anything will be a major improvement.
Soldato
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There is absolutely nothing to suggest he's some aero god as yet. He worked under someone who proved himself on loads of cars at different teams.
He may be good, he could be crap. He may have only worked on the front wing at RBR and simply not get how to hook up the front wing aero into the floor/rear wing/rest of the package. An epic front wing with the wrong rear wing would create a crap car, it all has to work together. He may have tweaked or mechanically worked out ideas that Newey had or he may have come up with the front wing entirely himself and Newey then made it work with the rest of the car, it could really be anything. We really have no idea if he'll do a good or bad job till we see the car.
I don't think the Mclaren gained performance end of season from aero, or not mostly. They were known to be running a pretty rubbish fuel mixture compared to the other Merc teams, less efficiency and less actual power. I would bet that they eventually came up with a better fuel mix and simply moved up relative to Ferrari/RBR by having a faster engine. The FI looked crap all year frankly, just with a powerful engine and it was even beating the Mclaren, Mclaren only really leapfrogged a crap FI and in one move rather than through lots of small aero improvements so I'd bet it was fixing the fuel issue rather than aero improvements from a new guy.
Even with good aero next year, well, we won't easily know it. Red Bull with good aero/crap engine. lets be honest it's 95% likely that Honda will lack performance and reliability compared to Merc, if they are trailing will either Honda or Mclaren say "yeah, our aero is epic this year, the engine sucks though"? I sincerely doubt it.
Remember where Renault were in Jan/Feb 2014
Honda aren't any different to this , except its one or two months earlier (in comparison)
Renault also won multiple races this season
Soldato
Wall of text much?
I'll say TL;DR and follow up with this - Prodromou previously worked at McLaren from 1991-2005 then moved to Red Bull with Newey. He's not some wet behind the ears newbie.
F1 cars stopped being single designer creations in the very early 90s. With Newey having left F1 for the time being, it's time for the rest of his team to spread their wings.
I'll say TL;DR and follow up with this - Prodromou previously worked at McLaren from 1991-2005 then moved to Red Bull with Newey. He's not some wet behind the ears newbie.
F1 cars stopped being single designer creations in the very early 90s. With Newey having left F1 for the time being, it's time for the rest of his team to spread their wings.
