F1 2019 - News & Rumours

drunkenmaster · 28 Sep 2019 at 09:58

Spunkey said:
I'd imagine the Racing Point would swap their Merc engine for a much cheaper Renault at that point

Renault have charged more than any other team for engines for a long time, certainly since 2014 but I've heard since long before that as well. Now Renault could decide to drop prices to get teams back but it just doesn't seem to be their deal to do that.

Starting to feel like Renault could well be out of F1. Throughout the hybrid era up to end of 2015 they weren't really committed, they cheaped out on the engine because they were deciding between leaving F1 and buying a team which itself was nuts. If they were going to leave they wanted to leave end off 2013 and not waste any money on hybrid engines, once they got in they should have invested and bought a team to start 2014 and have a decent engine. Those decisions are still hurting them today. Then it took Horner, as I said at the time, quite rightly screaming at them publicly to decide to either leave F1 or buy a team. They finally bought a team and immediately increased investment in the engine. That 2015 Renault engine was laughable and RBR had their worst season since before 2009 as a result. 2016 they weren't brilliant but the engine made a big step in the latter part of the season, without Horner calling them out in 2015 they'd probably never have improved.

Now they are facing having tried to build a team but 4 years in producing nothing at all impressive, the engine isn't terrible any more but still massive reliability issues hit them early this year. If they don't have a single customer from 2021 then I think either we get new teams in 2022 (which actually sounds possible) or Renault are going to start seeing no real payback from the engines and I think will look to sell the team. In fact I'd somewhat expecting that Renault are going to be having talks with some people leading up to 2021 and if 2021 doesn't start well car wise, they'll push forwards with a sale.

413x · 29 Sep 2019 at 08:53

drunkenmaster said:
Renault have charged more than any other team for engines for a long time, certainly since 2014 but I've heard since long before that as well. Now Renault could decide to drop prices to get teams back but it just doesn't seem to be their deal to do that.

Starting to feel like Renault could well be out of F1. Throughout the hybrid era up to end of 2015 they weren't really committed, they cheaped out on the engine because they were deciding between leaving F1 and buying a team which itself was nuts. If they were going to leave they wanted to leave end off 2013 and not waste any money on hybrid engines, once they got in they should have invested and bought a team to start 2014 and have a decent engine. Those decisions are still hurting them today. Then it took Horner, as I said at the time, quite rightly screaming at them publicly to decide to either leave F1 or buy a team. They finally bought a team and immediately increased investment in the engine. That 2015 Renault engine was laughable and RBR had their worst season since before 2009 as a result. 2016 they weren't brilliant but the engine made a big step in the latter part of the season, without Horner calling them out in 2015 they'd probably never have improved.

Now they are facing having tried to build a team but 4 years in producing nothing at all impressive, the engine isn't terrible any more but still massive reliability issues hit them early this year. If they don't have a single customer from 2021 then I think either we get new teams in 2022 (which actually sounds possible) or Renault are going to start seeing no real payback from the engines and I think will look to sell the team. In fact I'd somewhat expecting that Renault are going to be having talks with some people leading up to 2021 and if 2021 doesn't start well car wise, they'll push forwards with a sale.

Agreed. If Renault aren't making money by selling engines it makes no sense in a company its interested in profit (and rightly so ) to keep going.
As a Renault supporter I'll be gutted. I already can only watch highlights Losing the team might be the nail in the coffin. Not sure.

Threads are botticelli noticeably quieter now.

Terminal_Boy · 29 Sep 2019 at 09:18

What is all this “reverse start sprint race” gibberish Ross Brawn was talking about on the Ch4 Quali highlights last night?

Mr Jack · 29 Sep 2019 at 11:35

Terminal_Boy said:
What is all this “reverse start sprint race” gibberish Ross Brawn was talking about on the Ch4 Quali highlights last night?

It's an idea for an alternative qualifying format...

Yeah.

CaptainRAVE · 29 Sep 2019 at 11:51

Mr Jack said:
It's an idea for an alternative qualifying format...

Yeah.

A completely stupid/gimmicky idea.

Mr Jack · 29 Sep 2019 at 15:11

CaptainRAVE said:
A completely stupid/gimmicky idea.

I don't think it's necessarily a bad format - it works well for some formulas - but its completely unsuited to F1. Especially current F1.

CaptainRAVE · 29 Sep 2019 at 15:30

Mr Jack said:
I don't think it's necessarily a bad format - it works well for some formulas - but its completely unsuited to F1. Especially current F1.

It’s too much like DRS - a bandaid to fix a symptom rather than the underlying cause. Hopefully the 2021 rules negate the main problem of cars being unable to follow closely and overtake.

KiNgPiN83 · 29 Sep 2019 at 16:37

There’s nothing even wrong with this current qualifying format... The only issues have came from the teams all trying to go out 2 seconds before the end and all at once.

chrismscotland · 12 Oct 2019 at 13:06

Supposedly Sochi, Spa and Paul Ricard are favoured for the reverse grid trial.

Not so sure about Spa but all for anything that might liven up Paul Ricard

Steampunk · 12 Oct 2019 at 14:41

chrismscotland said:
Supposedly Sochi, Spa and Paul Ricard are favoured for the reverse grid trial.

Not so sure about Spa but all for anything that might liven up Paul Ricard

Qualifying will be hilarious as all the top teams try to be the slowest around the track to get up front for the main race.

CaptainRAVE · 12 Oct 2019 at 14:54

chrismscotland said:
Supposedly Sochi, Spa and Paul Ricard are favoured for the reverse grid trial.

Not so sure about Spa but all for anything that might liven up Paul Ricard

An absolute farcical idea for F1.

Steeps · 12 Oct 2019 at 15:12

Should add Monaco to that list instead of Spa, and Abu at the end of the season when no one apart from the midfield really needs it because Merc would have sealed them already again.

UTmaniac · 12 Oct 2019 at 15:25

chrismscotland said:
Supposedly Sochi, Spa and Paul Ricard are favoured for the reverse grid trial.

Not so sure about Spa but all for anything that might liven up Paul Ricard

If they want to trial this, IMO there needs to be championship points up for grabs in qualifying, perhaps as much as a 50/50 split with the race (so qual winner who then wins the race gets 25 points overall).

Where to trial it is a tricky one, because choosing tracks where overtaking is easier (Spa; Monza; COTA; Silverstone etc.) will show us as good as it gets, while choosing a mix of circuits (eg. Spa; Monaco; Barcelona; Brazil) might help show us what chaos would typically ensue over a season.

I don't know what the answer is, in making modern F1 more watchable and less predictable. Part of me likes the idea of fixing parts of the setup (eg. wing angles) for a driver for the whole season, or giving them a limited number of tyre compounds to use as they please over the season (with obvious proviiso that Race Control can dictate wet weather compounds), so the cars with an advantage could radically change from race to race. Another wild idea would be to raise the minimum car weight while standardising the cockpit, so drivers move from team to team each race weekend, seperating the Constructors Championship from the Drivers Championship.

But then 2021 is just around the corner, with its new rules and regualations, promising to shake up the hierachy just like they promised in 2010, 2014 etc.

MissChief · 12 Oct 2019 at 16:11

UTmaniac said:
If they want to trial this, IMO there needs to be championship points up for grabs in qualifying, perhaps as much as a 50/50 split with the race (so qual winner who then wins the race gets 25 points overall).

Where to trial it is a tricky one, because choosing tracks where overtaking is easier (Spa; Monza; COTA; Silverstone etc.) will show us as good as it gets, while choosing a mix of circuits (eg. Spa; Monaco; Barcelona; Brazil) might help show us what chaos would typically ensue over a season.

I don't know what the answer is, in making modern F1 more watchable and less predictable. Part of me likes the idea of fixing parts of the setup (eg. wing angles) for a driver for the whole season, or giving them a limited number of tyre compounds to use as they please over the season (with obvious proviiso that Race Control can dictate wet weather compounds), so the cars with an advantage could radically change from race to race. Another wild idea would be to raise the minimum car weight while standardising the cockpit, so drivers move from team to team each race weekend, seperating the Constructors Championship from the Drivers Championship.

But then 2021 is just around the corner, with its new rules and regualations, promising to shake up the hierachy just like they promised in 2010, 2014 etc.

Agreed about the points otherwise the cars will stay in the pits or just trundle round going as slowly as possible. Ten points for first would mean they’d try to go as fast as possible, especially if they believe they have the car to win on Sunday.

CaptainRAVE · 12 Oct 2019 at 16:35

UTmaniac said:
But then 2021 is just around the corner, with its new rules and regualations, promising to shake up the hierachy just like they promised in 2010, 2014 etc.

It likely won’t. Someone will get a jump on everyone else again in some area eg the suspension and we’ll be back to square one. That said, I don’t know what the answer is. Reverse grids sounds like too much of an artificial attempt to mix things up.

KiNgPiN83 · 13 Oct 2019 at 11:50

CaptainRAVE said:
It likely won’t. Someone will get a jump on everyone else again in some area eg the suspension and we’ll be back to square one. That said, I don’t know what the answer is. Reverse grids sounds like too much of an artificial attempt to mix things up.

This is and has always been F1 though. Someone always gets the rules more right than others and the rest have to play catch up. This obviously costs them money which cost caps don't really help. I guess the way to do it is to limit the areas that can have money spent on them by standardising parts/sizes and only allow them to go after the areas that will allow the least performance benefit. That way if Merc and Ferrari want to throw money at getting 0.0012 out of an engine or something they are welcome to. (Which will obviously benefit their customers with better engines anyway.)

The biggest thing i'd like to see is them come through with cars that can follow and not be as effected by the cars in front. The F1 YouTube channel were showing the 2005 Suzuka race yesterday in full and one of the comments then was about cars not being able to follow each other because of all the aero... And here we are 14 years later with the same issue!

Although i do have faith in Braun that we may finally get followable cars. Imagine being able to ditch DRS because it's no longer needed?!

The_Abyss · 13 Oct 2019 at 13:37

nm - wrong thread.