Round 1: 2015 Australian Grand Prix (Grand Prix Weekend Thread)

[steve nielsen]

that crappy Renault engine cost Max points in his first GP!

[GTRMagic]

Originally Posted by steve nielsen

that crappy Renault engine cost Max points in his first GP!

Wasnt too kind to Mr Kyvat either... while Mr Ricciardo could have contended for the win if the Renault wasnt top-speed-challenged

[GTRMagic]

Originally Posted by Sodemo

Interesting that Hugo Boss sponsorship has been poached by Mercedes.

Qualcomm was a Marussia sponsor wasnt it?

[wolfhound]

Ron Dennis has said in the past that that he feels physical pain when McLaren don't win. It looks like he will need a large supply of morphine, paracetemol etc for this season.

[Another Bob]

wolfhound, love it, great line, got a good chuckle out of that.

Definitely needed it.

As on the other hand, I just don't get it.

just... don't...get...it.

Internal combustion engines were invented over 100 years ago.
Electric engines and electric generators about the same time.
Turbo chargers were invented 80 odd years ago.
Electronics in engines about 30 plus years ago.
CAD CAM and the likes about the same time.
Material technology has gone leaps and bounds.
Computer technology had been exponential.
Robotics has gotten to the point of scary.

What is so wrong with F1 that someone like Honda comes to a race after at least a year of engine development and looks like a bunch of kindergartens!

We are talking Honda.

Yes that's Honda.

A multi billion dollar company that eats and sleeps this technology and sells it to us in there road cars. Well we wish.

We are not talking about some University team developing a revolutionary engine concept on a shoe string budget.

Now, in WEC someone like Porsche can use this same type of technology and in there first year of competition be in the hunt to win the 24 hours of Le Man, (poetic licence please for the sake of the point) a twenty four hour race, not just some 2 hour sprint like F1. Let alone the the power unit lasting the distance of the warm up lap. (5 kilometres)

The Renault "power units" really are no better, except they have a further year of competition running up their sleeve!

If I was management in either of these two organisations I would be hiding under my desk. Probably with a paper bag over my head. Chanting "Don't panic, don't panic" over and over again, and talking myself into to believing in fairy tales.

What the hell is going on!!!!

What is soooo, I mean really, sooooo wrong with F! to create this?

[Adam43]

How many finishers? We need to go back to about twenty years ago. Bring back the good old days. Then F1 could perhaps get back to the levels of finishers we had in the 1995 Australian GP. Although perhaps a fairer comparison would be the first Melbourne race the year after.

[Another Bob]

I didn't mind the bad old days.

When it would be,,,,"oouugh, looks at that!!!"

Big bang, great plumes of smoke, only half the field finishing.

At least you knew the engines were built and tuned to the max.

Qualifying engines, grenades built to explode after about 5 laps.

Today they are meant to be built to last 5 race meetings.

Whats really tragic is, one can, most can't, and to achieve it, they de-tune them.

[GTRMagic]

So... Red Bull buys Lotus for its Benz engine contract

Sells the remnants to Renault..

Its a move done successfully in the Benetton/Ligier era..

All are happy.

[djinvicta]

True! Good post. At least then they "retired" with a bang!

[steve nielsen]

Originally Posted by Another Bob

I didn't mind the bad old days.

When it would be,,,,"oouugh, looks at that!!!"

Big bang, great plumes of smoke, only half the field finishing.

At least you knew the engines were built and tuned to the max.

Qualifying engines, grenades built to explode after about 5 laps.

Today they are meant to be built to last 5 race meetings.

Whats really tragic is, one can, most can't, and to achieve it, they de-tune them.

and it's also not like running only 4 engines a year has made engine contracts cheaper.

[Casper]

Originally Posted by Another Bob

wolfhound, love it, great line, got a good chuckle out of that.

Definitely needed it.

As on the other hand, I just don't get it.

just... don't...get...it.

Internal combustion engines were invented over 100 years ago.
Electric engines and electric generators about the same time.
Turbo chargers were invented 80 odd years ago.
Electronics in engines about 30 plus years ago.
CAD CAM and the likes about the same time.
Material technology has gone leaps and bounds.
Computer technology had been exponential.
Robotics has gotten to the point of scary.

What is so wrong with F1 that someone like Honda comes to a race after at least a year of engine development and looks like a bunch of kindergartens!

We are talking Honda.

Yes that's Honda.

A multi billion dollar company that eats and sleeps this technology and sells it to us in there road cars. Well we wish.

We are not talking about some University team developing a revolutionary engine concept on a shoe string budget.

Now, in WEC someone like Porsche can use this same type of technology and in there first year of competition be in the hunt to win the 24 hours of Le Man, (poetic licence please for the sake of the point) a twenty four hour race, not just some 2 hour sprint like F1. Let alone the the power unit lasting the distance of the warm up lap. (5 kilometres)

The Renault "power units" really are no better, except they have a further year of competition running up their sleeve!

If I was management in either of these two organisations I would be hiding under my desk. Probably with a paper bag over my head. Chanting "Don't panic, don't panic" over and over again, and talking myself into to believing in fairy tales.

What the hell is going on!!!!

What is soooo, I mean really, sooooo wrong with F! to create this?

x10 ^^^^^^^^^

How can company(s) with the engineering and development capabilities get it so wrong. Do they not run these cars on chassis dynos and do stress tests to see what blows up first? It would have been in a chassis and test run a thousand laps before the first race if I had of been in charge and if BE had spat the dummy he had a choice, we test or we don't enter. I don't go to a track to durability test and fault find we go there to race even at our level. I never understood the idea of going racing to make it work, you test to do that. Now the idea of no testing is starting to make the series look very foolish and it has not been proven to do anything else besides that.

[djinvicta]

I was amazed to learn from Adrian Newey that Renault dont even talk/discuss stuff with Red Bull.
We really do need to go back to some proper testing, forget the fuel saving crap, just foot to the floor stuff in races.

[Jordan 199]

What a weird mess. Manor don't make it to the grid, but then neither do Magnusson or Kvyat. Verstappen's engine goes, and Honda isn't much kop. I remember races of high attrition fondly, but I feel that this situation needs a bit more looking at. Especially with the dull racing today as well.

[S griffin]

I'd say interesting race rather than exciting. True status quo up front, but at least they pushed each other. Nice to see new names up in the points at the end, Nasr, Sainz, Ericsson. Also good to see the Iceman driving like he should and shame that didn't happen to translate to points. Also good to see Jenson getting it to the end.

True not the best race to start the season, but F1 is back anyhow and I can't wait til Malaysia

[djinvicta]

Take shares out in Mobil Oil for Malaysia with those McClaren Hondas. Consumption may max out what reserves Mobil have..

[bjohnsonsmith]

Missed the race, sounds like it was a bit of a damp squib, with a further reduced field. Anyway I'll need to watch the highlights or even better extended highlights from the BBC. Congrats to Lewis.

[wolfhound]

Did anybody notice how the teams who are suffering from financial difficulties seamed to perform pretty well on track (Sauber, Force India & Lotus). While the teams that are part of Bernie's elite monied teams (Red Bull & McLaren) had lots of technical problems.
The teams in between Mercedes, Williams & Toro Rosso are performing very well.
Ferrari being the only team that brakes those rules.

I know that Manor are suffering from both at the moment but I suspect they will have a reliable but slow car when they get running.

[djinvicta]

Sauber yes. Dont think Lotus "performed" well at all today, albeit for once Pastor didnt launch it into the barrier himself.

[Mike Harte]

Horner and Marko are really appearing to show the world that they (Red Bull) that they are sore losers. I do not recall them demanding that action be taken by the FIA to reduce the dominance that they had for 4 odd years.

Yet now they are calling on the FIA to peg back both Mercedes and Ferrari power-units because the Renault PSU is, and they don't actually say so using this word but that is their intent, cr*p! Horner is moaning because the Sauber is using the same wings as last year which is quite within the 2015 rules/regulations (my words in bold italics) whilst the Red Bull chassis is, he claims, half a second quicker than last year's, and yet the Red Bull can't keep up with the Sauber.

The two of them are complaining that they have no input into the Renault powere-unit and are not consulted. Well, I don't know who that message was intended for, but it is absolute nonsense as any fule nose! In fact, as anyone who has any knowledge of F1 will know, Red Bull contracted Mario Ilien, an engine wizz who was largely responsible for producing some of Mercedes' past power plants, to work with Renault to improve their PSUs.

Regardless of what one may have thought about the effectiveness or not of Martin Whitmarsh and Stefano Domenicali, at least when their cars were comprehensively beaten they were always graceful in defeat in public interviews.

[Jordan 199]

Lotus did okay in qualifying but we don't know what may have happened if they lasted longer.

I was happy to see Sauber do well again. I'm beginning to believe that they only have one good season in them every couple of years.

[wolfhound]

Originally Posted by djinvicta

Sauber yes. Dont think Lotus "performed" well at all today, albeit for once Pastor didnt launch it into the barrier himself.

Lotus were happy to get both cars into Q3 for the first time in over a year and the 2 retirements don't appear to be their fault.

[djinvicta]

Re Lotus, point taken. Shame for both of them.

[steve_r]

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

Horner and Marko are really appearing to show the world that they (Red Bull) that they are sore losers. I do not recall them demanding that action be taken by the FIA to reduce the dominance that they had for 4 odd years.

I agree with everything you say. It is up to Renault and Ferrari to up their game, not for a successful team to be handicapped. By the same logic should Renault, Ferrari and Mercedes all be pegged back to the dire level of performance that the Honda is currently demonstrating?

[steve nielsen]

Max his DNF was caused by one of the cheapest parts of the car: a broken spark plug.

[GT6]

Whatever the reason for the failure is unimportant the failure still happened