Motorsport Off Topic Thread

Surprised not much talk about Spain yet with a lot of rumours around in the past few days.

Ferrari bringing a large aero update, no new engine but may test their new engine at Barcelona to see where it's at reliability wise.

Honda may be spending a couple of tokens on a couple parts. Also said to be bringing a larger intercooler along with likely some engine reliability upgrades.

RBR are said to be bringing an entire B spec car effectively. Seems they have a short nose ready with rumours of insane amounts of crash testing before they finally got one to pass. If that is all true it points to what I think is the entire aero update work for the 2015 car was effectively hinged completely around the short nose, when it couldn't pass a crash test they ended up running mostly 2014 aero. With the short nose in place the entire 2015 aero package can be installed. With the amount of crash tests rumoured and the amount of time that would have taken, it would certainly appear like they intended to have it for the start of the season. They think they'll gain over a second.


Renault, not sure, is that 6 weeks for the piston up yet or close to it? Can't remember if it was after Malaysia or China they said it would take at least six weeks.


Also rumours that Merc are going to have updates ready for Canada and will be attempting to get these engines to the end of the Canada GP, in which case they'll have 3(maybe 4) engines with updates to last the rest of the season while Ferrari will have one less. People wondering if that explains a lot of the reason Mercedes aren't as far ahead in the race as was expected, running ultra conservative on the engine and doing as little as possible to win to try and get the engine through 6 races.
 
The leaked race list for 2016.

The proposed 2016 calendar
April 3: Australia (Albert Park)
April 10: China (Shanghai)
April 24: Bahrain (Sakhir)
May 1: Russia (Sochi)
May 15: Spain (Barcelona)
May 29: Monaco (Monte Carlo)
June 12: Canada (Montreal)
June 26: Britain (Silverstone)
July 3: Austria (Red Bull Ring)
July 17: Europe (Baku)
July 31: Germany (Hockenheim)
August 7: Hungary (Hungaroring)
August 28: Belgium (Spa)
September 4: Italy (Monza)
September 18: Singapore (Marina Bay)
September 25: Malaysia (Sepang)
October 9: Japan (Suzuka)
October 23: USA (Austin)
October 30: Mexico (Mexico City)
November 13: Brazil (Interlagos)
November 27: Abu Dhabi (Yas Marina)

Wonder how many will back out. In other news McLaren have backed the 2017 engine changes. And Bottas maybe off to Ferrari in 2017.
 
deuse said:
In other news McLaren have backed the 2017 engine changes.
Click to expand...

Well, not really...

Eric Boullier says McLaren would welcome regulation changes in 2017 because the team will be fully prepared to exploit them compared to this season.

Honda’s arrival has been hailed as McLaren’s best opportunity to beat Mercedes having previously been a customer of the 2014 constructors’ champions. However, so far McLaren has struggled due to reliability issues and the team has failed to score a point in the opening four rounds of the season.

With Toto Wolff saying the sport could be set for “a spectacular new formula in 2017", McLaren racing director Boullier says a change in regulations would be seen as an opportunity for his team.

“I’m trying to make my car fast, he has some time to do politics and make some jokes,” Boullier said when informed of Wolff’s comments. “Any changes we support, because we are ready and especially in two years we would be more than ready to fight.”

Honda is the only engine manufacturer at present which was not competing in F1 at the start of the current regulations, with Mercedes, Ferrari and Renault all developing their power units for the start of the 2014 season.
Click to expand...

en.f1i.com/news/10701-boullier-keen-on-2017-changes.html

Toto Wolff says the key F1 stakeholders are working towards introducing a “spectacular new formula in 2017”.

Mercedes dominated the 2014 season under new power unit regulations, with the team winning all but three races while the sport itself saw some quarters unhappy with the lack of noise and slower lap times. With television figures steadily declining, Wolff says Mercedes is willing to engage in conversations about how the sport can adapt to deliver a better show and reveals discussions have taken place about major changes in two years’ time.

“The discussion about a 1,000hp engine has been around quite a while and I appreciate very well that it needs to be a spectacular formula and if that’s the way forward then we should continue to work on it,” Wolff said.

“But there are various groups coming together in terms of how the 2017 rules can look like and in terms of power unit and the chassis side. [On Friday] there was a very valuable meeting, Charlie [Whiting] was there and Bernie was there. Concepts are being put in place to make it a spectacular new formula in 2017.”

When asked if a return to V8 engines was on the cards in order to deliver the new formula, Wolff replied: “No.

“I think all engine manufacturers are pretty clear that the current engine architecture with the hybrid component needs to stay in place, this is the direction we’ve headed to and this is at least at the moment the current status between Ferrari, Renault, Honda and Mercedes.”
Click to expand...

en.f1i.com/news/9875-f1-working-on-spectacular-new-formula-in-2017.html

McLaren have said they would not block any changes, which is unsurprising considering they aren't doing well at the moment and a change is a good opportunity to make leaps, but the talks sound like changes to the engines are highly unlikely. Wolff has pretty much confirmed the V8 idea is dead too, thank god

Sounds like typical F1 tbh, lots of talking, lots of rumour, nothing actually happening.

Edit: Boulier doesn't specifically mention engines at all in that article. Is there a longer transcript or have you just extrapolated 2017 rules to mean engine?
 
Last edited:
Skeeter said:
Edit: Boulier doesn't specifically mention engines at all in that article. Is there a longer transcript or have you just extrapolated 2017 rules to mean engine?
Click to expand...

I think deuse is probably going with F1Fanatic's view:

Keith Collantine said:
In the round-up: McLaren racing director Eric Boullier says the team would support changes to the engine regulations in 2017, which could potentially lead to an increase in power.
Click to expand...

Which seems to be based on just a small amount of projecting, since they only link to that same F1i article.
 
Yeah I've not found anything more on it.

Its a bit of a leap but not a massive one. Also not really a surprise as McLaren currently have very little to lose from a change to the current regs. Expect more resistance from those teams doing well at the moment (case in point, Ferrari have gone a but quiet now they are back up top :p).

Deuses snippet made it sound like they had agreed on 'the' engine rules for 2017 and McLaren had backed them, when actually all they have done is have another nice little chat with Bernie and Charlie. I wonder if they have nice biscuits in those meetings?
 
Blame the European governments. EU tracks funding themselves simply cant compete with a government backed proposal from countries like this.
 
Hockenheim is pretty naff (imo) since they dropped the 200mph section through the forest. The slipstream battles down there were quite special. As long as we get a good track design, I don't mind what country it's in, from Alaska to Timbuktu.
 
But isn't the problem that very few of the new tracks are good, while the old ones are? Monza and Spa are both on the endangered list.
 
A McLaren spokesperson said: "We have revised our car's livery, improving its visual impact, optimising it for not only bright sunshine but also for the floodlights increasingly used in twilight and night races.

"The result is a dynamic, predatory, graphite-grey colouration, complemented by McLaren-dayglo 'Speedmarks' and keylines, reducing the reflection issues caused by our latest chrome-silver treatment."
Click to expand...

It will divide as always, personally I think it looks awesome.
 
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