Motorsport Off Topic Thread

Given Mercedes are at their limit of customers, who's going to lose out?

I'd have shouted make believe if it weren't for the out of the blue Renault/Lotus rumours, which suddenly make an awful lot more sense.
 
this_is_gav said:
Given Mercedes are at their limit of customers, who's going to lose out?

I'd have shouted make believe if it weren't for the out of the blue Renault/Lotus rumours, which suddenly make an awful lot more sense.
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I expect it's all dependant on the Lotus deal. Basically a straight swap between RBR and Lotus for their engine providers.

It would put Aston Martin in the same sort of position Infiniti currently are. Good news for everyone really, except Lotus :p.

Edit: It's exactly the same setup as the Infiniti deal, being setup by the same guys:

The talks are understood to have been instigated by Aston Martin boss Andy Palmer and its director of marketing and communications Simon Sproule, both of whom were credited for Infiniti's long-term sponsorship deal with Red Bull when they worked for Nissan.
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Skeeter said:
I expect it's all dependant on the Lotus deal. Basically a straight swap between RBR and Lotus for their engine providers.

It would put Aston Martin in the same sort of position Infiniti currently are. Good news for everyone really, except Lotus :p.

Edit: It's exactly the same setup as the Infiniti deal, being setup by the same guys:
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Would Lotus leave? They may as well with Renault engines.
:-/
 
There is no engine limit, supplying three other teams is allowed without FIA permission, with FIA permission there is no limit and ultimately there isn't much reason for the FIA to deny it. If Renault are incapable of making a decent engine then it's better for the sport that more teams have competitive engines.

Considering people are banging on about using regulations to even up the field, well, here you go this is the perfect way. You can open up the engines as much as you want but people can still screw up their engine, Honda had no limits and turned up with this POS. Renault had a better engine and with a further year managed to make it worse. The two options are open up some regulations(which through reliability updates that people ignore is virtually unlimited upgrades anyway) and HOPE Renault in particular and Honda actually make a good engine, it's by no means a certainty. The other option is allow more cars to have access to what is already known to be a best engine. So put more people definitely on level pegging engine power wise or hope that two companies that have screwed up completely could possibly not screw up again?

As such it isn't remotely dependent on the Lotus deal. It's also, rather weirdly, been said that Renault buying Lotus was also looking like the end of Renault engines for RBR and TR, and that if they got the deal done soon it would still be expected Lotus would use Mercedes engines in 2016. It would give Renault a year to ignore on track engine development, stop working with 2 teams and trying to fix on going week to week problems. It would free up a lot of time to focus on making a new engine rather than rushing to get one done sooner and then having to find ways to improve that engine all year.

Could we see RBR go Merc, TR go Merc or Ferrari, no Renault at all next year(except in branding on the Lotus car) then in 2017 Renault bring an engine and... well, we see if it's any good at all.

If 2016 has no Renault engines and everyone except Mclaren on Ferrari or Merc engines it would be a significantly better season.
 
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drunkenmaster said:
There is no engine limit, supplying three other teams is allowed without FIA permission, with FIA permission there is no limit and ultimately there isn't much reason for the FIA to deny it. If Renault are incapable of making a decent engine then it's better for the sport that more teams have competitive engines.

Considering people are banging on about using regulations to even up the field, well, here you go this is the perfect way. You can remove the 'limits' on engine regulation but that doesn't automatically mean someone will get it right. Merc got the current engine regs done right, 3 other teams at their first attempt haven't, Ferrari got it closer to right after a further year, Renault went backwards rather than forwards. This is all aside from the fact pretty much the whole engine is open to updates through reliability improvements and tokens don't have much scope on what you can and can't do. So one way you could say hey, Renault have 30 more tokens.... but they could screw up the upgrades and make a worse engine or one only marginally better. The other option is to say, how about we just let more teams have a Mercedes engine, that way we already know the outcome, more teams on the same power level engine wise.


As such it isn't remotely dependent on the Lotus deal. It's also, rather weirdly, been said that Renault buying Lotus was also looking like the end of Renault engines for RBR and TR, and that if they got the deal done soon it would still be expected Lotus would use Mercedes engines in 2016. It would give Renault a year to ignore on track engine development, stop working with 2 teams and trying to fix on going week to week problems. It would free up a lot of time to focus on making a new engine rather than rushing to get one done sooner and then having to find ways to improve that engine all year.

Could we see RBR go Merc, TR go Merc or Ferrari, no Renault at all next year(except in branding on the Lotus car) then in 2017 Renault bring an engine and... well, we see if it's any good at all.

If 2016 has no Renault engines and everyone except Mclaren on Ferrari or Merc engines it would be a significantly better season.
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It would definitely be a shame for me personally to have what could be a single engine in f1
But can't be fun to be stuck with Renault engine and know you can never perform.
 
Shock horror as F1 Strategy Group produces a sensible proposal!

Ground effect aerodynamics proposal for Formula 1 2017 revamp

One of the proposals to make Formula 1 cars significantly faster for 2017 involves the return of ground effect underbodies, AUTOSPORT has learned.

F1 is looking into ways to make the cars several seconds per lap faster in the future, and the FIA has invited teams to submit their own proposals following last week's Strategy Group meeting at Biggin Hill.

Ideas being discussed include attempts to increase downforce but to reduce the loss of aerodynamic performance when following another car closely.

Under the current regulations, F1 cars produce their downforce from a small rear diffuser, the rear wing and complex front wings.

The front wings have become so complicated in recent years because they are crucial to the airflow downstream on the car, and that means the effects of following another car closely are even worse than in the past.

A proposal put forward by Red Bull is to alter the proportion of downforce produced by the wings and the underbody.

A longer underbody tunnel, similar to that used in F1 in the late 1970s and early '80s - and currently used in GP2 - is included in the proposal.

This would increase downforce and also provide aero performance more equally to the front and rear of the car.

It is believed cars would then be less affected by following others closely, and make it easier to overtake without the assistance of DRS.

In order to prevent car performance from reaching the runaway levels seen with the ground effect cars of the early 1980s, a spec floor has been suggested by one of the independent teams - although a design for this has not been finalised yet.

AUTOSPORT understands that if teams are required to design their 2017 cars around a spec floor design, the cut-off point for a decision to be taken would be March '16.

In the current proposal, however, the front wings are set to remain complex, with the only change being an increase in width in conjunction with the wider tyres that are expected to come in for 2017.

With the front wing remaining relatively unregulated, there is the potential for it still to have too much of an effect on the rest of the car's aero and therefore still make following closely on track difficult.

Counter proposals to Red Bull's initial suggestions include limits on front wing development to maximise the effect of the ground effect design.
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It's not perfect though, as they aren't sorting out the massively overly complex front wings. But its a shift in the right direction. Fat tyres, 2m wide cars, ground effect and then add a limit of 3 elements to the front wings, and you have... Well.. Exactly what us half intelligent fans have been bleating on about for a decade!
 
CaptainRAVE said:
Just watching the goodwood festival of speed programme and Heidfelds hill climb in the mclaren...you just can't beat that sound :(
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That run took some huge brass ones.
Cold tyres, cold brakes and pretty much at no point was under full control. Hugely impressive run, and also the reason modern F1 cars aren't timed and just do demo runs.
 
So either:

Aston Martin Williams Martini Racing
Aston Martin Sahara Force India F1 Team
Aston Martin Red Bull Racing
Aston Martin Lotus F1 Team

:/
 
I think they've now said that they haven't had any informal talks with Red Bull - so not sure if that means the talks were formal rather than informal, or that they didn't take place at all.

I can't really see how this would help Aston's image at all - doesn't it just make them look like a hanger-on? Do they think they really need the visibility? Is Aston Martin that obscure as a brand? Seems like a weird idea to me. I don't know if it's done any good for Infiniti - I haven't really noticed loads more of them on the road here since the Red Bull sponsorship.
 
I doubt very much that the UK is the target audience for this.

For every 1 person in the UK who sees Infiniti or Aston Martin on the side of an F1 car, hundreds of people in Asia see it.
 
Looks like Roberto Merhi is looking to take over from LOLdonado as the most dangerous man if F1.

At the end of the Renault 3.5 race in Austria he slowed way to much after the line and Latiffi ran into him whilst fighting over the line with someone else.


:eek::eek::eek::eek:

FYI he was removed from the second race of the day as punishment.
 
I agree with MagicBoy (and Mehri), that penalty was super harsh for what was nothing more than slowing down after the end of the race and off the racing line. Latifi was very slow to react.
 
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