F1 Testing 2015: Week 3 Barcelona (26th - 1st)

Massa got involved in multiple shunts and even the Silverstone one, a significantly worse driver in Chilton managed to avoid that crash by going round the left. Massa panicked, locked up his tires and turned, spinning his car and smashing into Kimi, had he not panicked and locked up he would have driven around the right of Kimi and gone on to probably finish in the top 5 with that car which was great that day(just screwed up qualifying iirc), maybe even a podium finish.

he manages to hit anything and everything and has for years. He didn't beat Bottas because he can't stay out of trouble. Bottas improved over the year, ultimately you need a fast car under you to improve and become a top driver. In the first half of the season Bottas didn't dominate Massa in qualifying, second half it was almost a completely one sided. Bottas I think maybe just had a few more bad tactical calls from the team, a few more stupidly long stints that hurt both drivers throughout the year.

If they can like Merc improve tire wear they'll finish more races higher up and have a probably great season, but I'd put money on Massa getting into needless trouble throughout the season.

Perez/Massa crash, meh, Perez was sticking his nose out to think about diving up the inside of Vettel, but I think as the car behind you have to expect the car in front to be doing that. Perez could have avoided Massa, but Massa could have left more room, put himself needlessly close too early really. I think both are to blame a bit rahter than neither being to blame.
 
Locky said:
I don't understand why mclaren don't make their own engine..
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Massive cost and little gain for the size and type of company they are.

F1 engine manufacturing is a massive cost and is more about marketing by association for companies with large road car manufacturing arms.

McLaren are not a big road car maker who need to promote themselves by putting their name on the engine cover of other cars. They market themselves enough as a chassis manufacturer and a team.
 
robbiemc said:
At this rate I can't see them [McLaren] even making it through the 107% qualiying rule :(
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I've been thinking the same. This is a very real possibility.
In order to be more reliable, they will probably turn down the settings of the car and when this happens performance will suffer big time.

I still dont understand why they switched to Honda - to expect an engine which is at least 1 year behind the rival teams, McLaren could not possibly have expected to be competitive this year at all. I said last year that if they could get Alonso and stick to the Merc engine, they could be competitive to win races and with a bit of luck, may end up with a title winning car. With Honda, they were always going to struggle.

Its quite shocking that McLaren did not seem to foresee this scenario. I stated a while back that if they did want a Honda engine in 2015, their best chance would've been to switch to Honda engine in the Summer of 2014, so they could start 2015 with a decent engine.

Usually, when you make decisions by committee, they are safe decisions. On this occasion, that does not seem to have worked out.

Here's a post I made in October 2014, but even before then I knew that using a brand new, undeveloped engine was going to be a struggle (in the first year).

I honestly cant believe how Honda and McLaren didnt forsee this. And going into the first race of the season, without Alonso, in a car which could struggle to make the 107% rule and even if it does, will more than likely break down after 15 laps - this could be one of their worst seasons ever.

And to really rub salt into Alonso's wound - his old team might have a competitive car, which in his hands, could have delivered a WDC!

And with regards to the WDC 2015 - it is looking like as if all Hamilton needs to do is turn up. He could probably win the title by starting at the back of the grid in every race. I am tempted to place a big bet on him winning the title.
 
sunama said:
I stated a while back that if they did want a Honda engine in 2015, their best chance would've been to switch to Honda engine in the Summer of 2014, so they could start 2015 with a decent engine.
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You keep saying this... but how would this have ever worked or been a possibility? The Honda engine wasn't ready, and even if it was, it wasn't homologated so they wouldn't be allowed to use it anyway...

Not to mention the contractual nightmares it would have likely caused...
 
Matteh said:
You keep saying this... but how would this have ever worked or been a possibility? The Honda engine wasn't ready, and even if it was, it wasn't homologated so they wouldn't be allowed to use it anyway...

Not to mention the contractual nightmares it would have likely caused...
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You can tell him this till your blue in the face, he will still ignore you and persist in posting it.

It was impossible for McLaren to switch to Honda last year. The only engines they could run in the 2014 season were those that were homologated by the 28th Feb 2014, which the Honda engine wasnt.

Sunamas plan requires a time machine...
 
I believe the move to Honda power was partially down to Martin Whitmarsh - might explain why he's currently residing in the bottom of the lake at the MTC! :D

Honda are suffering from not having another customer team to supply its engines to.

Renault at least knew the issues at their "works" team Red Bull could be ironed out with 3 customer teams testing the exact same engine and electrical systems and provide them with the telemetry they needed to improve from there.

And to really rub salt into Alonso's wound - his old team might have a competitive car, which in his hands, could have delivered a WDC!
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Alonso knew the risks involved and what he was getting into. The MP4-29 wasn't a quick car despite having easily the best engine in it, this combined with the knowledge of the state of the Honda engine tells me that he wanted out of Ferrari desperately and for Hamilton not to re-sign for Merc in 2016.

i can imagine his contract has an arms length of get-out clauses in it and with McLaren's current testing form one of those will probably be activated down the line...
 
The cost of this season being a disaster AND development towards next year being massively held back is frankly lower than midway through 2014 making a deal with Caterham to give them 50mil pay off some/most of their debt and give them free engines for a couple years.

In terms of turning it down for reliability, they haven't yet run it at high power for a long period, it's been braking down while turned down. Then haven't I don't think gone beyond a 10 lap stint and I don't think they've done 3-4 laps while turned up to max at all(or if they did performance was no where near what they needed).

I think Caterham banging in say an average of 75 laps each day of the test AND, again 20 races 20 qualifying sessions, 60 practice sessions, 4 in season test days and 2 media test days of another team would be even more worthwhile. It could easily shave 1-2 years off the Honda engine becoming genuinely competitive.

Testing is entirely insignificant compared to a full season of racing because first, you do more in a season but you get to use two cars rather than one. The amount of extra testing an extra car would provide throughout this year is monumental compared to 12 pre season test days.

All three engines last year had drivability issues last years testing, the cars that ran more got on top of it quickest not surprisingly. Renault with 2 cars down are now taking longer to tweak the engine... again that shouldn't be surprising. more data, more running, but also 2 more engines to try different modes and see if they work. You aren't sure exactly which way to go to improve drivability, maybe lay down more electrical power earlier, maybe later. Now what is better, try one new mode on one car which has a decent chance of not dying, or running it on 3-4 different tweaks to the power delivery, reduce the risk of getting no useful running on the day AND get to compare various settings/tweaks and see which improved the car the most.

They were insanely arrogant and just figured in half the development time they could turn up like Merc last year and just put in lap after lap. Merc(and merc teams in general) did that last year because they put years more than everyone else into the engine to begin with. Honda put less time in but figured they'd turn up and do great despite spending less time on the engine. They've rushed it, missed lots of things and are doing by far the worst of the 4 engine makers comparing first years. Again don't forget Honda got a chance to run this engine on four separate days in November, with a two month gap to their media day and then a week or two till the first test. They had WAY more data(from Mclaren running last year) copied the best engine concept, had more testing, bigger gaps between testing, months between tests and are still doing worse.
 
I don't see the McL/Honda deal as being particularly bad for any one party, if it's successful. What I find truly mind boggling is the single team deal Honda signed. TBH, if I were Honda I would have looked very carefully at Manor/Marussia and Caterham and offered one of them, whichever looked most likely to get to Melbourne very preferential treatment on running the Honda engine. The single team deal they signed has done them more harm than McLaren themselves. Renault and Red Bull's seasons were basically saved last year by Caterham and to some extent by Lotus and the miles they were able to put onto the Renault power unit in pre season. Honda haven't had that luxury. They are WELL behind and I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if they don't finish a race before the European portion of the season starts. Poor, poor decision making by Honda.
 
How do we know they didn't try and get more teams? Its not as easy as you make it sound. Those with the cash would buy one of the better engines (Lotus) and the bottom teams weren't easy wins. Marussia already had a free supply of engines from Ferrari, and Caterham had entered a partnership with Renault that stretched to their road car arm too.

Maybe Honda only have a single team because nobody else wanted a Honda engine?
 
Are the Merc. nose cameras completely legal in that area, or are they massively bending the rules to the point where someone will complain?
 
They look in the same place they were with the original mounts and the same place as last year, so they are fine.

If they start to show flex though... well :p.
 
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