Motorsport Off Topic Thread

teh_captain said:
Looks like Manor Marussia with be powered by Mercedes engines for 2016.

http://planetf1.com/news/manor-and-merc-confirm-engine-deal/
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Under the agreement, Manor Marussia F1 Team will be supplied with current-year Power Units throughout the term
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Ok, so from that we can assume the Current -1 talks look to be coming to nothing, as Marussia would probably have liked the $3m saving.

So.... the interesting thing now is wether the Ferrari offer to RBR gets taken off the table if they will have to provide current spec engines.
 
Outcast said:
Hopefully not.

Jenson is smart enough to recognise if Honda are not likely to have made any MAJOR steps forward for 2016.
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His choice was retire or stay as is. It was a Mclaren option not his. He didn't go "hey the engine is looking great for next year, I want to stay". It's a case of "well Ron will sue me if I try and do other racing so it's retire or get paid £12mil to stick out the contract I agreed to.... so retire fully or stay put".

Who cares that he's staying, it's in no way a sign that Honda will be competitive next year, it's highly unlikely they will be. Improved, you would hope so, enough, meh. I think what is most likely going to happen is a fairly large step forward in performance but still suffer from reliability that rules them out of being realistically competitive.

They chose the wrong engine design, that can be fixed, but unlike Ferrari who went with the wrong design Honda didn't have the reliability. They have said as much that their in house testing wasn't finding all the faults that the engine produced on the track. Their testing is insufficient, that makes me believe that a engine of the right design will still suffer from reliability issues.

Proper testing in the lab means coming to the first test with a near flawless engine which only needs to be made to work with that years car, electrical faults, crossed wires, overheating electronics, melting cables and finding fixes for all those things.

Look how bad reliability is on the honda and how long it took them to improve it only a small amount, Renault with an unreliable engine and they still haven't brought their updates. These engines require extremely long development cycles, you can't find major problems in the first test and have them fixed by Australia. If you find a major problem in testing you won't fix it before Spain at the earliest. Mercedes had a reliability issue that prevented them using their highest mode and that didn't get fixed till Canada. Renault had a relatively simple piston redesign and that took 2-3 months and they stated at the time it would be 6 weeks minimum. Honda brought a significantly less reliable update to Canada.

If Honda are failing at the testing in the lab stage, then they will almost certainly find a lot of reliability problems when they hit the track and as above the fixes for those problems won't come quickly.
 
Skeeter said:
Ok, so from that we can assume the Current -1 talks look to be coming to nothing, as Marussia would probably have liked the $3m saving.

So.... the interesting thing now is wether the Ferrari offer to RBR gets taken off the table if they will have to provide current spec engines.
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That or Merc know that there is no hope in Manor fighting them for position.
 
Outcast said:
Hopefully not.

Jenson is smart enough to recognise if Honda are not likely to have made any MAJOR steps forward for 2016.
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He wasn't smart enough the last time when honda had them floundering around underpowered for years. Even at the end Honda were rumoured to be 50+ HP down on the better engines. He was also not smart enough to dismiss all the promise of the mega things Honda were supposed to have for this year.

Not that I blame him, he's taking money in the same way we all would and webber did in his last years. If he actually believed Honda would get it right next year he wouldn't be getting frustrated and be having the digs him and Alonso have. That motivates no one.
 
Skeeter said:
Ok, so from that we can assume the Current -1 talks look to be coming to nothing, as Marussia would probably have liked the $3m saving.

So.... the interesting thing now is wether the Ferrari offer to RBR gets taken off the table if they will have to provide current spec engines.
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Unlikely, I have no idea why anyone cares about the 3mil savings, that 3mil is dramatically cheaper than putting that money into chassis development. An engine 0.5-1 second a lap faster, Merc/RBR barely gain that per season from 50 times the aero budget a team like Marussia have, that is the cheapest 1 second lap time gain possible. It's the single best value improvement you could possibly make in reality.


Ferrari are just playing hard ball, I swear I'm the only one I've seen suggest/mention it anywhere at all but the deal doesn't have to be one sided. Ferrari can definitely say we'll let you have X if we get Y. Red Bull have things Ferrari want, Newey for one, many other good aero guys, tire guys, who knows. Maybe Ferrari agree to give RBR current engines but they want Newey in return to work for them part time for a few years. Don't ask don't get, could be any number of staff they were already trying to poach from Red Bull who are under contract and RBR could allow to go to work early in exchange.

Ferrari and Merc don't want RBR out of F1, they will give them current engines, the only question is what Ferrari get out of it in return.
 
KiNgPiN83 said:
How many teams can an engine manufacturer supply? Maybe they are trying to max it out so they 'cant' supply RB and TR. Or is there no limit?
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Everyone has an opinion but ultimately I honestly don't think anyone knows the current rules. There was at one point a limit on number of customers you could supply which was 3 in addition to the works engine so 4 total on the grid. There is mention from people that this was a soft limit and the FIA can allow more if asked to.

Others think the limit is history, others think it's a hard 4 engine limit which can never be changed... so who the hell knows.

If we get RBR in Ferrari engines and TR taking Honda engines.... TR are absolutely screwed. If TR and RBR have engines, with Sauber and Haas having contracts I don't see how they can do so unless the rules allow it or Ferrari/Bernie are planning on giving Sauber a bit of cash to go use a honda engine or something.

As usual something fairly basic like that is never mentioned in Sky's coverage when they bang on about who will get what engine.
 
smr said:
Funny how on the autosport forum everyones saying "Great news etc." and on here it's the same old Doom & Gloom and negativity.
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It's great news for me, Jenson is a top bloke. I just hope he got a 1 +1 as if Honda come good in 2017 he'll be deserving of a decent shot after having basically test driven a dog for two years.

Jay
 
Would rather see jb in a prototype at le mans, than trailing around the back of the field in F1. Can't see McLaren leading in 2017 either and JB has to be close to leaving.
 
I'm glad JB has stayed on. Did McLaren have any other choice than to agree and pay him more too? They would have been right up the swanny if he'd have gone considering the uncertainty around Alonso too. They're hardly going to get good sponsors or development from K-Mag and Vandoorne.
 
Glaucus said:
Would rather see jb in a prototype at le mans, than trailing around the back of the field in F1. Can't see McLaren leading in 2017 either and JB has to be close to leaving.
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I'm not necessarily saying they are going to be on top, but they appear to have made some fairly bad design errors with the current PU, if they can correct these and build on that then maybe they can produce a half decent runner. I'm sure Jenson would be happy to see out his career in a solid midfield car.

Jay
 
Just throwing this muppetry out there...

McLarens exclusive deal with Honda was for ONE year.

I wonder if RBR will be Honda powered next year ? Laugh ? At the minute I'd agree but if that does happen then that would surely say a lot at Hondas PU's for next year ?

No.. Well... There must be a silver lining somewhere that hasn't got a 3 pointed star on it !!
 
Outcast said:
Just throwing this muppetry out there...

McLarens exclusive deal with Honda was for ONE year.

I wonder if RBR will be Honda powered next year ? Laugh ? At the minute I'd agree but if that does happen then that would surely say a lot at Hondas PU's for next year ?

No.. Well... There must be a silver lining somewhere that hasn't got a 3 pointed star on it !!
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I've had similar thoughts, wouldn't it be funny - sort of :rolleyes:

Andi.
 
Honda have already confirmed they are not going to supply any customer teams until 2017 at the earliest, Renault have confirmed they won't supply any customer teams next year either, and Mercedes have confirmed they have declined to provide RBR/STR with engines next year.

The only supplier offering any sort of contract is Ferrari.
 
Skeeter said:
Honda have already confirmed they are not going to supply any customer teams until 2017 at the earliest, Renault have confirmed they won't supply any customer teams next year either, and Mercedes have confirmed they have declined to provide RBR/STR with engines next year.

The only supplier offering any sort of contract is Ferrari.
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Hmm maybe Red Bull should be asking Nissan/Infiniti. This is going to be interesting but I suspect Ferrari will cave in now having lost Manor to Mercedes.

At this rate maybe Mercedes could sit out next year and let the rest have a fun year.

Andi.
 
andicole0 said:
Hmm maybe Red Bull should be asking Nissan/Infiniti. This is going to be interesting but I suspect Ferrari will cave in now having lost Manor to Mercedes.

At this rate maybe Mercedes could sit out next year and let the rest have a fun year.

Andi.
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Didn't think Nissan/Infiniti make F1 engines. The branding on the RBRs is simply because Nissan is a partner of Renault and wanted to advertise their luxury brand. The engines were always Renault and they got a little advertising space. Can't see how Nissan/Infinit could start an F1 engine programme now for March 2016 without ending up like Honda. There simply isn't enough time.
 
I can't believe RB/TR would put themselves in this position without having some sort of backup... It seems a really really stubborn thing to do.

Its quite sad that all the stuff outside of the racing gets spoken about more than the actual racing itself!?! :D:o:p
 
Skeeter said:
Honda have already confirmed they are not going to supply any customer teams until 2017 at the earliest, Renault have confirmed they won't supply any customer teams next year either, and Mercedes have confirmed they have declined to provide RBR/STR with engines next year.

The only supplier offering any sort of contract is Ferrari.
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I'd miss the toro rosso boys and ric but not really kvyat that much. wouldnt care about not seeing rbr again though, not exactly the most endeering sports team that ever graced the planet.
 
smr said:
wouldnt care about not seeing rbr again though, not exactly the most endeering sports team that ever graced the planet.
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Problem is, if RBR go then Torro Rosso are gone too. And F1 doesn't need the grid to shrink any more than it already has.
 
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