The F1 thread

stickyfiddle

Fantastic race from Vettel. Glad to see Stroll get his first points at his home race. He's so obviously not ready for F1 yet but he's definitely getting better. 

I'd retain Kvyat purely for his radio messages.

And I'd bin Palmer tomorrow. He finished, but was so completely anonymous on a day his teammate was clearly pushing hard. 

Ocon had a fantastic race though. It's a real shame Perez wouldn't get out of his way...

Boromedic

Fretwired said:

Boromedic said:

Vettel has more luck than Mr Lucky, from Luckytown, Luckyville County, Lucky State in the United States of Lucky.............

Good race though, love Canada.

Vettel drove well .. that overtake on the dirty side of the track flat out took some balls.

Oh I'm not disputing he did well but not all drivers get such good fortune at times. Others may have tried the same trick and gone off, he also benefitted from Ocon being decent there too some other hot heads would have been more aggressive and caused an accident.

FX_Munkee

Can someone please sponsor Alonso's radio messages?
I need to hear more of them.
I predict that by the time we get to Silverstone, each one will just be a long series of expletives, a la Roger Mellie.

fretmeister

Sky have just reported that McLaren's decision to drop Honda has been made.

Full details later today apparently.

stickyfiddle

Wouldn't surprise me. If they want to be competitive with someone else's engine next year they'll want to start designing the car for it now. If Canada is anything to go by they'd be more or less level with RB if they had Merc engines, which is a hell of a good start.

Maybe they can agree to take Honda back for the next lot of engines once everyone has had a good crack at developing from scratch, but honestly why would you bet against Merc for anything involving hybrid turbos

Fretwired

fretmeister said:

Sky have just reported that McLaren's decision to drop Honda has been made.

Full details later today apparently.

It's been denied. Just the opinion of Mike Gascoyne.

Honda claim they have a major upgrade coming (heard that before).

chillidoggy

Fretwired said:

fretmeister said:

Sky have just reported that McLaren's decision to drop Honda has been made.

Full details later today apparently.

It's been denied. Just the opinion of Mike Gascoyne.

Honda claim they have a major upgrade coming (heard that before).

I wouldn't get too excited, it'll probably be about as effective as a new coat of paint.

chillidoggy

I see Kubica has been testing a Renault F1 car. And given Palmer's lacklustre performance this year I wonder if we could see a change there?

Hoof

Ex-F1 driver Kobayashi smashed the Le Mans lap record in qualifying:

http://www.crash.net/le-mans/news/252431/1/kobayashi-sets-le-mans-lap-record-in-between-red-flags.html

That's even quicker than the 1985 record set when the track had no chicanes on the Mulsanne, no Dunlop chicane and a few other corners were notably quicker too.

Always liked Kobayashi, he just seemed a bit meek and mild (typical Japanese manners/modesty?) off track to make it in the F1 snakepit.

I'll be dipping in and out of the race during the 24H, watching the whole thing is bording on psychotic.

Fretwired

How about this ... McLaren to team up with Alfa Romeo ... could be a good move. The company is owned by Fiat so it could use the proven Ferrari engine and Fiat would provide assistance to raise the Alfa brand.

chillidoggy

From what I remember about Alfas, they're even more unreliable than the Honda engine. You need to tow a trailer to put all the bits that drop off in.

Fretwired

chillidoggy said:

From what I remember about Alfas, they're even more unreliable than the Honda engine. You need to tow a trailer to put all the bits that drop off in.

But Alpha wouldn't be making the engines - re-badged Ferrari engine made by people who know how to win Grand Prix.

Hoof

Still growing speculation around the Porsche brand. They do have a successful history with Mclaren but I think if they did come into F1 again it would be a full-on works project possibly put together by Joest Racing. Joest are a huge organisation and were behind the Audi LeMans project and (it seems) have no formal public projects going on this year.

If the Alfa engine was a rebadged Ferarri, I can't see them being happy supplying McLaren. There's just too much rivalry between the two. Ferrari are fine with supplying backmarkers who effectively double their testing mileage but jump out of the way on the track but I can't imagine the late Enzo being happy with his engines in the back of "Garagistas" that could beat his own cars.

Fretwired

Apparently 10 teams have shown interest in joining F1 according to Brawn. The current deal with the existing teams is an issue.

rlw

Porsche + Joest into F1.  What is that man on?

Alfa does have an F1 history - longer than any other I think - but it won't happen.  Cost. Cost. Cost.Cost Cost.

Mclaren and Ferrari have enough history for any tie up to be sheer fantasy.

Expect to see an MB engine in the back of the Mclaren

Hoof

rlw said:

Porsche + Joest into F1.  What is that man on?

Alfa does have an F1 history - longer than any other I think - but it won't happen.  Cost. Cost. Cost.Cost Cost.

Mclaren and Ferrari have enough history for any tie up to be sheer fantasy.

Expect to see an MB engine in the back of the Mclaren

It's speculation but not that far fetched. Who would have thought, 3 years ago that a Nascar team would enter F1 with works Ferrari engines? Laughable!

Alfa indeed has a long history, Enzo Ferrari learned his trade there.

I think McLaren might be trying to explore all non-customer engine option before they settle on a Merc (great engine that it is and Merc have a supply freed up since Manor didn't show up in Melbourne) but they need the financial backing of either a huge title sponsor (that they've not had for years) or a works outfit deal. But settle on a Merc I believe they will. Eventually.

Heartfeltdawn

Hoof said:

Still growing speculation around the Porsche brand. They do have a successful history with Mclaren but I think if they did come into F1 again it would be a full-on works project possibly put together by Joest Racing. Joest are a huge organisation and were behind the Audi LeMans project and (it seems) have no formal public projects going on this year.

Not this year but there is a strong chance of the Audi R18 having the hybrid drive pulled out of it and the car being reconfigured to race in the 2018 IMSA championship. There's also the possibility of an Audi GTLM programme over there. GT racing is on the rise and GT4 racing especially so as it offers a lot of racing for the money. Audi launched the R8 GT4 back in April and most of their competitors have or will have cars in that class.

http://sportscar365.com/imsa/ctscc/audi-unveils-r8-lms-gt4/

F1 for Mercedes worked. VW/Audi going into F1 would be on the back of a bloody great Dieselgate fine that Mercedes didn't have. 

stickyfiddle

So Monisha's gone from Sauber. Not sure if because she's a bit rubbish, or because she refused to favour Ericsson as some have suggested. Can't say it's a big loss either way. 

There's rumblings of a chinese team that's looking to enter F1, and mutterings on F1technical that it might be Ron at the helm...

And Baku this weekend. Meh.

Fretwired

stickyfiddle said:

So Monisha's gone from Sauber. Not sure if because she's a bit rubbish, or because she refused to favour Ericsson as some have suggested. Can't say it's a big loss either way. 

There's rumblings of a chinese team that's looking to enter F1, and mutterings on F1technical that it might be Ron at the helm...

And Baku this weekend. Meh.

Apparently a Chinese company has bought a lot of the old Manor kit and is looking to lease their old buildings. Horner said some Red Bull techs were approached to join the team.

chillidoggy

I had high hopes for Baku, the circuit looked to be great at first look. But the race itself was a snooze-fest.

Alonso and Transit Van Door will never finish the race.