Motorsport Off Topic Thread

deuse said:
I feel sorry for the F1 fans(if any) in Azerbaijan.

"The price listed on the Formula One website for a ticket in the main grandstand over the three-day race weekend is US$665, more than twice the average monthly salary in Azerbaijan of 460 manats (US$287)." :eek:

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/oil-crisis-takes-shine-of/2482444.html
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Ouch. Even allowing for the sensationalist headline grabbing article to have picked the most expensive ticket, even the cheapest tickets are $225, and there doesnt appear to be any GA. It will be like Bahrain and China, nobody there.
 
deuse said:
I feel sorry for the F1 fans(if any) in Azerbaijan.

"The price listed on the Formula One website for a ticket in the main grandstand over the three-day race weekend is US$665, more than twice the average monthly salary in Azerbaijan of 460 manats (US$287)." :eek:

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/oil-crisis-takes-shine-of/2482444.html
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I don't think that's too dissimilar to the situation in India or Malaysia. The average salary in Azerbaijan is largely irrelevant though as, due to petrochemical wealth, there's enormous disparity of wages and wealth across the country. There's more than enough wealth in Baku to afford those tickets, and a healthy expat community too.
 
The thing about the 'Halo' is that it likely wouldn't have prevented Massa's Hungary crash as the dislodged spring was very small and could easily have passed through and still hit his helmet.

I much prefer the idea of a full canopy. A wheel and tyre could weight 10lb+ so I'm yet to be convinced that such a structure (the Halo) could withstand the impact at high speed. Last thing we want is something small, thin and rigid flying around the cockpit at high speed.
 
The_Abyss said:
I don't think that's too dissimilar to the situation in India or Malaysia. The average salary in Azerbaijan is largely irrelevant though as, due to petrochemical wealth, there's enormous disparity of wages and wealth across the country. There's more than enough wealth in Baku to afford those tickets, and a healthy expat community too.
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Malaysia tickets start at £7.
 
MissChief said:
The thing about the 'Halo' is that it likely wouldn't have prevented Massa's Hungary crash as the dislodged spring was very small and could easily have passed through and still hit his helmet.

I much prefer the idea of a full canopy. A wheel and tyre could weight 10lb+ so I'm yet to be convinced that such a structure (the Halo) could withstand the impact at high speed. Last thing we want is something small, thin and rigid flying around the cockpit at high speed.
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The 2 recent deaths from head strikes in FIA single seaters (Henry Surtees and Jules Bianchi) would not have been prevented by that halo either, so I'm not sure what problem the FIA are thinking that will solve given that it doesn't relate to any recent safety concerns?
 
Surprised there's no mention of engine tokens being scrapped from 2017 onwards. This is hugely significant. Next season will still be a Mercedes benefit but after that engine development will be largely unrestricted with the only limitation being that you'll still have a limited number of engines a year (so will only be able to bring in a new change when you use a new engine).

At last we might get back to a situation where uncompetitive engines aren't being held back by arbitrary development restrictions.
 
Skeeter said:
The 2 recent deaths from head strikes in FIA single seaters (Henry Surtees and Jules Bianchi) would not have been prevented by that halo either, so I'm not sure what problem the FIA are thinking that will solve given that it doesn't relate to any recent safety concerns?
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Why is the FIA important in that sentence? You can't learn from other series?

Henry Surtees' life might well have been saved by the halo. All it needed was the wheel to have been deflected by a couple of inches... if it were to be passed down to lower formula, which it surely will at some point.

The anti-roll bar spring which hit Massa might have been deflected away by the halo's future visor that was mentioned too. The spring might have just smashed straight through the visor but it might have been enough to have slowed the spring.

All conjecture on my part of course.

The problem is the FIA is nearly always reactive after big accidents and seldom proactive, and sadly Bianchi is a case in point for that (and they still didn't learn in Silverstone last year), as was Imola 94 and Monza 2000 and Melbourne 2001. Motorsport will always be dangerous and the moment it stops being dangerous is the moment it becomes boring* - half the thrill in motorsport is that it gives an adrenaline rush - but there's no sense in leaving such obvious problems to chance or luck or whatever your belief system is.

If something can be safely implemented and it's not ludicrous, then get it done. If it is ludicrous then make it less ludicrous if you can but still get it done. It might not save a life, but who knows.


* perhaps that's part of the problem with F1 at the moment?
 
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kaiowas said:
Surprised there's no mention of engine tokens being scrapped from 2017 onwards. This is hugely significant. Next season will still be a Mercedes benefit but after that engine development will be largely unrestricted with the only limitation being that you'll still have a limited number of engines a year (so will only be able to bring in a new change when you use a new engine).

At last we might get back to a situation where uncompetitive engines aren't being held back by arbitrary development restrictions.
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Cough read above Cough :)

So Renault has got Bob Bell from Merc. They will miss him a lot.
 
So has Bell done a U-Turn on joining Manor? He never actually worked for them did he as he was still on gardening leave from Merc.?
 
kaiowas said:
Surprised there's no mention of engine tokens being scrapped from 2017 onwards. This is hugely significant. Next season will still be a Mercedes benefit but after that engine development will be largely unrestricted with the only limitation being that you'll still have a limited number of engines a year (so will only be able to bring in a new change when you use a new engine).

At last we might get back to a situation where uncompetitive engines aren't being held back by arbitrary development restrictions.
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Its **** being wrapped in shiny paper. It looks good, but when you dig into it you realize its actually a really bad idea.

Yes, manufacturers will get to upgrade uncompetitive engines throughout the season and between seasons. But no, they do not have to give those upgrades or even current engines to any of the customer teams. So the disadvantage the customer teams have will just get bigger. At best, a customer can expect this years non upgraded engine, at worst, they can expect the launch spec of the previous years.

Unless the FIA also return to mandating a single homoligated spec of engine per manufacturer, and expand that so that it includes the upgrades throughout the season, all this rule has done is create a very difinative 2 teir F1. Mercedes, Ferrari, Renault and Honda will all have their most up to date engines, and the rest of the grid may as well not bother to turn up.

this_is_gav said:
Why is the FIA important in that sentence? You can't learn from other series?
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Ask the FIA. They govern a lot of Single Seater series' yet only seem to think that F1 drivers heads are worth protecting.

Why aren't these discussions even hinting at any sort of consideration for any other series? Surely if its a major safety concern then it should be being applied across all single seaters?
 
Needing a works engine deal if you want to win has pretty much always been the case in F1. The customer teams will always be fighting for scraps and I have no issue with that, when was the last time anyone won the world championship by beating a factory team with the same engine?

What this change will do is allow the individual manufacturers to actually compete with each other whereas at the moment Mercedes have the best engine and regulations that prevent anyone else from being able to close the gap in a hurry. Restricting development was a good idea when the engines were all well developed and well matched. It was always madness to continue it when implementing a radically different set of technical regulations where whoever produced the best engine at the first attempt was guaranteed a few seasons of dominance.
 
Why not introduce an engine manufacturers championship then you'd see all of the teams with works engines and it could drive prices down due to manufacturers wanting to supply teams with their engines over their competitors.
 
kaiowas said:
Needing a works engine deal if you want to win has pretty much always been the case in F1. The customer teams will always be fighting for scraps and I have no issue with that, when was the last time anyone won the world championship by beating a factory team with the same engine?

What this change will do is allow the individual manufacturers to actually compete with each other whereas at the moment Mercedes have the best engine and regulations that prevent anyone else from being able to close the gap in a hurry. Restricting development was a good idea when the engines were all well developed and well matched. It was always madness to continue it when implementing a radically different set of technical regulations where whoever produced the best engine at the first attempt was guaranteed a few seasons of dominance.
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Red Bull - Renault, 2010.
Brawn - Mercedes, 2009.

My issue would be solved so simply by just returning to the single homoligated engine rule that the V6 engines were introduced under. The upgrades aside, the major issue is the shift towards customer teams getting year old engines, and that's a major issue.
 
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