For me, Bottas. He's lucky but he deserves the opportunity. I'd love to have seen Fernando there though. I originally thought Wehrlein, but perhaps he didn't shine enough at manor
I really like Bottas, thought he should've gotten the Ferrari drive a few years ago. I'd love to see him in a proper car. I'm very excited for the 2017 season, 94 days.
Well now that Bottas has been confirmed let's get onto the cars. Anyone know when McLaren's will be revealed yet? Stoffel Vandoorne has commented and says it looks very aggressive.
Great that the cars are faster and more aggressive looking. Lets just hope that someone has done a brawn etc and found a good bit of development not widely thought of to shake it up a bit. I fear the racing otherwise will be a bit dull. But hope I am wrong
Here's another article for those that haven't read about a lot of the changes for next year. I'm intrigued with next season. I think MB will still be rather dominant but I expect RB to be closer, Ferrari you'd think(maybe lol), Mac we can really only hope but honestly Honda with only one season to really ramp up I'm still hopeful, Williams I think will take a step back. Seems like they are working to get their finances in order in the priority.
Not sure Massa coming back's a good thing... I'm a fan of the guy but he's made his decision, seems wrong somehow. Jenson on the other hand was saying at Abu Dhabi he might have jumped too soon, love to see him giving Lewis a run.
I agree it would have been cool to have Jenson in the MB car with HAM. Massa is cool, liked him, but it's time to go and all the tears and BS we had to watch last season is cheapened. I really hope he gets no "last season in F1" press this year or it'll make you want to vomit.
My understanding is the FIA constructors group gets to influence and vote on the new rules. Each team gets a vote on the issues that become rules for a season. So Mercedes and Ferrari are able to have a greater influence because they are engine suppliers to other teams--that tend to vote in support of the engine supplier. Well at least on engine issues. McLaren is disadvantaged because they are the only team using Honda power and therefore unable to have much influence on the rules.
It'll be interesting to see what happens with that suspension tech. It's been talked about and debated since mid last season though. I wonder what made the bitches, I mean Ferrari, only now file their complaint.
Well I think the letter timing is good for Ferrari--disrupts the competition just as they've finalized their 2017 cars. As Mikeyb's linked article suggests the purpose of the Ferrari letter is to force Mercedes and Red Bull to develop a plan B suspension. F1 competition is both on track and off track--politics plays a big part in the competition. And we get to watch the real life soap opera play out!
Yes the rumors are a repositioning of a larger compressor outside of the engine V, which will still house the turbine. And if not TJI (turbulent jet ignition), as used on Ferrari and Mercedes, a new ignition system. Hoping this new Honda PU and McLaren aero can get us a podium soon!
Renault is going with a very advanced concept for their engine later in the year. Ferrari also are bringing it for the engine. God knows what more Mercedes can find with unlimited tokens. Honda will be hard pressed to keep up because the bar is being raised significantly higher each season
Imo the blurb about aero rule changes to make the cars quicker is a red herring and totally misses the point about the problem with F1 or at least the cars nevermind the politics.... The cars I'd say absolutely do not need to get quicker in absolute terms. What they desperately need are tyres that are able to be able to do run far closer to maximum achievable pace and for the aero rules to allow for cars to run closer to each other ie less aero. Years ago when aero was less complex already, I remember Adrian Newey saying in an interview that they already pretty much could design a diffusor that would seriously impede any following car. Goodness knows what they can do now which is why completely artificial passing aids like drs are required most of the time without huge differences in speed between cars.
The 2016 cars are not slow - qualifying shows that with lap times close to outright lap records. It's just that their race laps are miles behind qualifying pace and the drivers are obviously not working the machinery to it's limits. Pirelli supposedly have got a better lasting tyre now but if the cars are truly another 5 seconds or whatever faster and the tyres can't cope again and cars end up loafing about on tyre conservation mode for most of the race then the whole thing would have been a complete waste of time.
I may be bitterly dissapointed as early as Melbourne but I must say that I am very excited for the coming season to start. This is simply down to the new formula, like it or not, there will be many unknowns and that at least calls for some excitement. At least from me. Interested to see what the new rumored Ferrari Livery will be as well as if Mclaren has anything better than Sensodyne to put on the car
The new cars are wider-have wide tires. And have a larger much lower rear wing. Some of the high speed "corners" will now be taken without throttle lift relying on the wider tires and increased aero downforce. Hopefully an interesting season!
Formula 1 , with the obvious blessing of the FIA has had major mind farts from time to time but they manage to get through them and we keep watching. I remember the economy-run races we had to endure during part of the era when Keke Rosberg and Alain Prost were teammates at McLaren. Rosberg would say screw it and actually try to race to the end and either ran out of gas or had to slow down so much he fell back through the field. The "Professor" on the other hand would drive with a close eye on the fuel computer and took several wins by being disciplined. Fortunately that nonsense went away. We also usually had more than one tire manufacturer to choose from, although most teams had contracts with a single brand. After practice tire engineers would collect the clag in corners to analyze it to improve their own product. As a person educated as an engineer, it leaves me scratching my head that Michelin engineers tires to FAIL; WTF! I think it was during his first championship year that Jim Clark used one set of Dunlop tires for most of his 7 wins that year. Of course they were hard as rocks to start with, but what do you think they were like after a few heat cycles in races? Formula 1 could be interesting again with a few changes. 1) have fewer races; if a country can come up with Bernie's ransom but the average citizen travels via bicycle or water buffalo, what's the point. 2) Fire Herman Tilke with his left-right, left-right no place to pass tracks and go back to proper tracks in France, Germany, Holland, England, and maybe South Africa. Lastly, allow teams in the lower half of the grid to test during the mid-season break to even the field. I guess I'm done, I'll keep watching F-1 and wonder what if.
I'd like to think so but doesn't this put them back on path Mercedes were a few years ago? Something tells me this year will be another steep learning curve.
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