The F1 thread

sweepy

Great race and wtf was Grosjean thinking of ?

Fretwired

Garthy said:

Fretwired said:

sinbaadi said:

Fretwired said:

stickyfiddle said:

Fretwired said:

stickyfiddle said:

As for McLaren, I actually wonder if Alonso's skill is actually hurting the development, since he can drive so well around problems that maybe he can't give clear enough feedback about what's wrong. It's also killing Stoffel's career, cos he looks shit next to Fred, but probably wouldn't be if the car was better sorted. 

Aaand for my final point... any bets on who Max "get driven into by" (i.e. crash into) this race??  

I think McLaren have made a major step forward with the new nose. Alonso seemed happy that the new developments were working and the engineers seem confident that they know what the problem is .. their only problem medium term will be the Renault engine. Still nowhere near the Mercedes or Ferrari in terms of power.

Except that's all bollocks, isn't it?

Because Red Bull are snapping at the heels of Merc & Ferrari and McLaren are maybe 0.2 ahead of where they've been all season, except only when Alonso is driving, because Stoff is still 11th behind two Haas-es and one Renault, and only not-2-Renaults because Hulk's gearbox died.  

And even Alonso's best time was almost a second slower than the slower Red Bull. 

I'm quite sure the new nose has helped, but they're not slow because of Renault. And I'm not convinced the last 3 seasons because of Honda. At least, not entirely.

It's not bollocks .. :-)

Red Bull have a genius designing their car .. Woolf admitted he wouldn't give Red Bull Merc engines as he expected them to beat Mercedes every race. Adrian Newey is probably worth a 0.56 second or more - the Red Bull is clearly the best designed car. McLaren will hit a development wall as they clearly don't have the expertise to match Red Bull in the car design stakes and will want more horsepower from Renault. If Honda get their act together Red Bull could be back as number one on the grid.

I think it's a massive contradiction to say that RBR are competitive with the Renault engine because they designed a great car, but McLaren are not competitive with the Renault engine because they have the Renault engine.

There is no contradiction. The Renault engine is under powered compared to the Ferrari and Mercedes engines. Red Bull have the best car so they have managed to overcome some of the power disadvantage. But Red Bull won't be staying with Renault.

Red Bull lining up 5 and 6 on the grid in Spain  while McLaren is in 8th with Alonso - the time difference is massive. It could also be argued that Alonso wrings the neck out of any car he drives. Look at where his team is .. the difference is the car. Both the Renault and McLaren will need Renault to up their game and get more power as they don't have an Adrian Newey to tweak their car.

Everything you've written today is utterly wrong.

Is it? That's not what Horner, Marko, Woolf, Alonso and others say.

Are you seriously telling me the Renault engine is as good or as powerful as the Mercedes or Ferrari engine? It isn't. That's why Red Bull want out.

Fastest lap and a new Spanish GP lap record went to a driver in a Red Bull car - Renault and McLaren were no where near in terms of pace. Alonso is a top driver and is fast. Both Red Bull drivers are fast. They have the same engine so it must be ... the cars. The Red Bull is the better car. Horner and Marco thinks so ..

McLaren admitted they were disappointed with their car when they failed to make the top 10 in qualifying in early races. They are playing catchup. Everyone thought their car was good last year and was let down by the  Honda engine. This doesn't stack up. Newey and co that the car had too much drag .. read more here .. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/43778011

Red Bull believes its RB14 chassis is "absolutely ahead" of its Formula 1 rivals this year, but it does not expect that to be enough to sustain a season-long challenge.

Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko told Autosport: "We know that our chassis is absolutely ahead on the GPS data and so on.

"There's a problem with the engine. It is difficult to even begin to achieve the excellent Mercedes performance that has been delivered."

So Marko thinks Red Bull are being let down by Renault's engine .. a lack of power?

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/134963/red-bull-chassis-absolutely-ahead-of-rivals


But apparently what I've just written is utterly wrong, so please enlighten me.

Heartfeltdawn

stickyfiddle said:

Exactly. And moreover, if we ignore RB for a second, McLaren have also gone from "the best chassis on the grid with a shit engine" last year, to "maybe slower than Enstone-Renault who have the same engine". Which strongly suggests that the McLaren chassis is no better than the Renault chassis. 

I just think the excuses have run out and it's time to accept that McLaren is a midfield team now, and has been for a long while now. They're basically following William's post-BMW trajectory, except they didn't even get results with their works partnership before it all went to shit

The realisation is there within McLaren: that's why they got rid of Tim Goss last month.

Fretwired

Heartfeltdawn said:

stickyfiddle said:

Exactly. And moreover, if we ignore RB for a second, McLaren have also gone from "the best chassis on the grid with a shit engine" last year, to "maybe slower than Enstone-Renault who have the same engine". Which strongly suggests that the McLaren chassis is no better than the Renault chassis. 

I just think the excuses have run out and it's time to accept that McLaren is a midfield team now, and has been for a long while now. They're basically following William's post-BMW trajectory, except they didn't even get results with their works partnership before it all went to shit

The realisation is there within McLaren: that's why they got rid of Tim Goss last month.

Yep. But they thought they were on the right track last year. It's taken them all this time to realise they have a brick for a car. Williams are in the same position. Crap car design.

TimmyO

HAL9000 said:

Cols said:

Paddy Lowe: “A point is Formula One code for a hundredth of a fraction of ‘cl’, where ‘cl’ is the downforce coefficient. Physically a Formula One car has a downforce coefficient of let’s say 3 to 3.5. So 30 points would be 30 hundredths..."

Am i missing something or is this just a long and wordy way of saying 'percent'?

no. Percent relates to a fixed whole unit of thing, whereas cl is a dimensionless coefficient - you can have more and more and more and... 

Heartfeltdawn

Fretwired said:

Yep. But they thought they were on the right track last year. It's taken them all this time to realise they have a brick for a car. Williams are in the same position. Crap car design.

When Zak Brown came in as executive director in 2016, he was pretty green. I have a feeling certain team members weren't entirely truthful to those at the top and decided to blame the engine supplier instead of taking responsibility. 

You then have to consider Tim Goss's words last February:

https://www.motorsportweek.com/news/id/17022

“We had to redesign the back of the chassis, the gearbox bell-housing area, the rear suspension, and the cooling layout. That was two weeks of intense effort to get right.

“But it was something we were somewhat prepared for, because we knew it might happen, and it’s amazing what people can do in such a short space of time when the chips are down and you’ve got a really clear mission. 

“So now we’ve got a really tidy packaging solution; the gearbox and rear suspension designers did an unbelievable job to redesign everything.”

That suggests that it's not a chassis designed around that engine but still designed around the Honda concept. Perhaps a more powerful Honda engine in that format would have worked this year. Either way, you've still got a Renault engine in a chassis that hasn't been designed around that engine from the outset, thus perhaps explaining why it's a bit shit.

Fretwired

Heartfeltdawn said:

Fretwired said:

Yep. But they thought they were on the right track last year. It's taken them all this time to realise they have a brick for a car. Williams are in the same position. Crap car design.

When Zak Brown came in as executive director in 2016, he was pretty green. I have a feeling certain team members weren't entirely truthful to those at the top and decided to blame the engine supplier instead of taking responsibility. 

You then have to consider Tim Goss's words last February:

https://www.motorsportweek.com/news/id/17022

“We had to redesign the back of the chassis, the gearbox bell-housing area, the rear suspension, and the cooling layout. That was two weeks of intense effort to get right.

“But it was something we were somewhat prepared for, because we knew it might happen, and it’s amazing what people can do in such a short space of time when the chips are down and you’ve got a really clear mission. 

“So now we’ve got a really tidy packaging solution; the gearbox and rear suspension designers did an unbelievable job to redesign everything.”

That suggests that it's not a chassis designed around that engine but still designed around the Honda concept. Perhaps a more powerful Honda engine in that format would have worked this year. Either way, you've still got a Renault engine in a chassis that hasn't been designed around that engine from the outset, thus perhaps explaining why it's a bit shit.

True, but McLaren were upbeat that they'd do well and it didn't happen so who were they trying to fool? Boullier admitted in April 2018 that the fact that McLaren is currently struggling in qualifying and way behind Renault and Red Bull shows that there’s still a lot of work to do.

 “We have the same engine as Renault and Red Bull and we are behind, so there is no hiding, nothing else than fact. We need to understand why we are slow in qualifying, why we are better in the race, and why we are behind the other Renault teams. Full stop.

 “There were obviously some questions asked in Bahrain, there is still an ongoing process because we have to address it, and we will address it, and we are about to address it.”

McLaren claim they did work to match the car to the Renault engine. If it was going to be an issue surely they'd have said they needed time to adapt from Honda to Renault. I get a sense that they are not on the ball and the recent changes in personnel would tend to confirm that. The upgrades in Spain seemed to work as Alonso had pace - he just started the race on the wrong tyre.

Heartfeltdawn

Fretwired said:

True, but McLaren were upbeat that they'd do well and it didn't happen so who were they trying to fool? Boullier admitted in April 2018 that the fact that McLaren is currently struggling in qualifying and way behind Renault and Red Bull shows that there’s still a lot of work to do.

 “We have the same engine as Renault and Red Bull and we are behind, so there is no hiding, nothing else than fact. We need to understand why we are slow in qualifying, why we are better in the race, and why we are behind the other Renault teams. Full stop.

 “There were obviously some questions asked in Bahrain, there is still an ongoing process because we have to address it, and we will address it, and we are about to address it.”

McLaren claim they did work to match the car to the Renault engine. If it was going to be an issue surely they'd have said they needed time to adapt from Honda to Renault. I get a sense that they are not on the ball and the recent changes in personnel would tend to confirm that. The upgrades in Spain seemed to work as Alonso had pace - he just started the race on the wrong tyre.

Very much so. Someone's dropped the ball, the net, and the corner flags in this game, and they've been getting by with jumpers for goalposts. My brain is a bit foggy now but wasn't it the case that Alonso couldn't get a quicker qualifying time out of the supersofts than the softs? 

The longer Alonso goes on pulling it out of the bag, you have to ask if McLaren can afford to let him go. Vandoorne is not a bad driver but he's now behind the like of Magnusson, Leclerc, and Gasly in the standings. Going into 2019 with Vandoorne and Norris would be cheaper but would carry immense risk to my mind. Getting Alonso in for one year with Norris, keep Stoffel as reserve driver and accept that Alonso will miss races in order to do Le Mans or the Indy 500, would be the way to go for me. 

chillidoggy

Well that was boring. I got up to make the dinner before the end, and it's rare for me to do that. Apart from Grosjean injecting a bit of excitement at the start (beginning to wonder whether he's paid by Liberty Media for such stunts), Spain proved once again it's crap track.

Modellista

Mainly points of strategy provided the interest.  Mercedes made an error bringing in Bottas only one lap after Vettel.  He was setting purples after being released from behind Vettel so why bring him in straight away?  Very difficult to make up enough time to come out in front in one lap.  He could have taken three laps and still been faster than Vettel each lap - even though on new tyres as he was being held up.  And no room for error on the pitstop, which as it happens was a slow one.  Hamilton proved the tyres were still working well at that point in the race.  Another overly conservative pitstop strategy from Mercedes, only saved by the even worse one from Ferrari.

A terrible race from Ferrari - only 50% reliability, and the very early stop from Vettel screwed his race.  Before Vettel's stop, Bottas couldn't overtake, and the early stop just released Vettel into traffic and forced him into two-stopping.

These strategy decisions don't seem very difficult to get right from the comfort of one's armchair.  Perhaps I'm missing something, but Hamilton in the first stint and indeed Bottas with his second seemed to prove that the tyres were fine for a one-stopper.

Boromedic

Not sure if it's a smoke screen or not but Vettel said in the after race interviews that he was going through his tyres more quickly than the others, hence his early stop. Although Raikkonen was doing okay, if not exactly setting the world alight, Seb was probably pushing more with Bottas behind him. Same with his second stop, he had no option but to change tyres, he couldn't even close up to Verstappen with a damaged wing due to the tyre wear. Apparently Pirelli altered the formula to a thinner rubber which seems to have benefitted Mercedes and disadvantaged Ferrari, to his credit he didn't offer any conspiracy nonsense as I think it was an FIA decision.

Still I was surprised Mercedes pitted Bottas when he was smashing the times in and they'd seen Vettel get stuck behind Le Clerc, he would have come out in front like if it wasn't for the error on the stop but I still think it was a mistake to pit him then. 

Fretwired

Boromedic said:

Not sure if it's a smoke screen or not but Vettel said in the after race interviews that he was going through his tyres more quickly than the others, hence his early stop. Although Raikkonen was doing okay, if not exactly setting the world alight, Seb was probably pushing more with Bottas behind him. Same with his second stop, he had no option but to change tyres, he couldn't even close up to Verstappen with a damaged wing due to the tyre wear. Apparently Pirelli altered the formula to a thinner rubber which seems to have benefitted Mercedes and disadvantaged Ferrari, to his credit he didn't offer any conspiracy nonsense as I think it was an FIA decision.

Still I was surprised Mercedes pitted Bottas when he was smashing the times in and they'd seen Vettel get stuck behind Le Clerc, he would have come out in front like if it wasn't for the error on the stop but I still think it was a mistake to pit him then. 

Vettel had been critical before the event:

F1 press:

Sebastian Vettel claims Pirelli’s change to its tyres for this weekend (Spain GP) is a response to problems two of Ferrari’s rivals experienced during testing at the Circuit de Catalunya.

F1’s official tyre supplier has reduced the tread depth of its compounds for this weekend’s race, as well as the upcoming rounds at Paul Ricard and Silverstone. Pirelli said this was done to allow teams to manage their tyre temperatures better.

However Vettel believes the change was made in response to problems two teams encountered in pre-season testing.

“Obviously we have different tyres because Pirelli reacted to the issues Mercedes had and Red Bull had in testing, so we’ll see how that goes,” he said.

Vettel has previously indicated his suspicions about the change. Before it was announced the Ferrari driver said rival teams had been “[trying] to get the tyre supplier in the direction that suits their car best.”


Ferrari's problems had more to do with the temperature which was colder than usual and which favoured the Mercedes cars. Hamilton will have his work cut out in Monaco with some commentators forecasting the Mercs may not make Q3. Woolf admits he is worried.

Boromedic

Cheers Fret, I hadn't seen that pre race information, looks like he had decided to avoid it post race then. Strange though he says it was a pre season testing problem as Mercedes were the quickest overall. Definitely a temperature issue as like last year Mercedes went better at the cooler circuits.

Yep Monaco will be a struggle for them, not sure on not making Q3 like, think they'll be fine for that. However Lewis commented on how good the aero package is on the Red Bull and that they are the main threat in terms of victory. I reckon Lewis might just squeeze a podium though.

Fretwired

Boromedic said:

Cheers Fret, I hadn't seen that pre race information, looks like he had decided to avoid it post race then. Strange though he says it was a pre season testing problem as Mercedes were the quickest overall. Definitely a temperature issue as like last year Mercedes went better at the cooler circuits.

Yep Monaco will be a struggle for them, not sure on not making Q3 like, think they'll be fine for that. However Lewis commented on how good the aero package is on the Red Bull and that they are the main threat in terms of victory. I reckon Lewis might just squeeze a podium though.

Not sure about a podium - I think it will be a Red Bull/Ferrari lockout. Woolf is concerned that the Mercs lost serious amounts of time to Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren (Alonso) in the final twisty section of the Barcelona track. That doesn't bode well for Monaco - having the most powerful engine in F1 is of no benefit if you're car can't go round a corner as fast as the competition. Merc could even struggle against Haas.

Boromedic

Yeah they were talking about that last section of the lap in the post race interviews, Monaco does throw up some unique challenges. Exactly like you said, engine power is not a determining factor of success there, we'll see how it pans out.

They have a test session lined up in Barcelona today and tomorrow, I wonder if they'll spend time on setup for the twisty bits in preparation for Monaco. If they have the same tyres Lewis can wring it around there pretty well, if he qualifies behind the likes of Haas though, it's gonna be a long tedious race for him. Focus on damage limitation perhaps once they've seen the practice times pan out. Then smash them all again at Montreal where he excels.

P.s. Forgot to say, there is the potential for reliability issues and silly driving which might help. Ferrari must be concerned with what happened to Raikkonen and the Renault is hardly bullet proof either. Been enjoying this season thus far.

Modellista

Boromedic said:

Not sure if it's a smoke screen or not but Vettel said in the after race interviews that he was going through his tyres more quickly than the others, hence his early stop. Although Raikkonen was doing okay, if not exactly setting the world alight, Seb was probably pushing more with Bottas behind him. Same with his second stop, he had no option but to change tyres, he couldn't even close up to Verstappen with a damaged wing due to the tyre wear. Apparently Pirelli altered the formula to a thinner rubber which seems to have benefitted Mercedes and disadvantaged Ferrari, to his credit he didn't offer any conspiracy nonsense as I think it was an FIA decision.

Still I was surprised Mercedes pitted Bottas when he was smashing the times in and they'd seen Vettel get stuck behind Le Clerc, he would have come out in front like if it wasn't for the error on the stop but I still think it was a mistake to pit him then. 

I heard what Vettel said about the tyres, but there wasn't a hint of his lap times dropping off when he pitted, in fact in the couple of laps previous he had pulled a gap to Bottas.  No chance of Bottas overtaking, so unless there was imminent puncture risk, and in view of the low deg at Baku, where the overcut rather than the undercut worked, surely the best option would have been to keep running and see whether a one-stop could be eked out.  They've not been averse to going long in the second stint before.

Boromedic

Yeah it did all seem a little odd tbh, I think Mercedes possibly tricked them slightly as they were in and out of the pitlane.... 

Fretwired

Boromedic said:

Yeah they were talking about that last section of the lap in the post race interviews, Monaco does throw up some unique challenges. Exactly like you said, engine power is not a determining factor of success there, we'll see how it pans out.

They have a test session lined up in Barcelona today and tomorrow, I wonder if they'll spend time on setup for the twisty bits in preparation for Monaco. If they have the same tyres Lewis can wring it around there pretty well, if he qualifies behind the likes of Haas though, it's gonna be a long tedious race for him. Focus on damage limitation perhaps once they've seen the practice times pan out. Then smash them all again at Montreal where he excels.

P.s. Forgot to say, there is the potential for reliability issues and silly driving which might help. Ferrari must be concerned with what happened to Raikkonen and the Renault is hardly bullet proof either. Been enjoying this season thus far.

Chances of a safety car are high, especially with Mad Max on track and it could rain to spice things up ... who knows Max could take Vettel and Ricciardo out at the start .. :-)

chillidoggy

I can see either of the Red Bulls taking the win at Monaco. Assuming no major shunts between them.

Fretwired

chillidoggy said:

I can see either of the Red Bulls taking the win at Monaco. Assuming no major shunts between them.

I agree. Two Red Bulls and a Ferrari taking the podium spots. Mercs maybe 5 and 6.