Lotus might have Mercedes power, but so do Force India - the engine is far from everything. Hopefully it can at least make them a more competitive midfield team, but I don't think they'll be challenging for podiums any time soon.
What happened there? I must have missed that. Anyway, the Mercedes engine deal is good news. It won't solve all their problems but it should solve one big one; I'm reminded of Grosjean's team radio strop from Singapore - I think that's where it was - and his engineer telling him it was the engine and there was nothing he could do.
I still maintain fundamentally, the Lotus is a good car, it just fell well behind in development and the removal of fric hit them harder than any other team.
Adam Cooper ‏@adamcooperF1 4m4 minutes ago Christian Horner says F1 Strategy Group has agreed to an engine unfreeze for 2015, despite opposition from Mercedes Adam Cooper ‏@adamcooperF1 3m3 minutes ago That means in-season upgrades will be allowed after all. Now has to be voted through by F1 Commission Seems a little odd to suddenly allow this, opens to door to a whole lot more in my opinion.
Ugh, that is *not* good news, the whole point of the engine freeze was to stop F1 becoming an engine formula, plus it'll drive up costs for the customer teams. Oh well, Ferrari and Renault won't have any left at this rate!
Marco was discussing Jules with Sky and was asked a question about him being a future Ferrari driver. He insinuated that they hade been in discussions with him over the past couple of weeks which I thought was interesting. Maybe it was prior to Vettel leaving Red Bull, I don't know?
Vettel and Alonso to McLaren? http://en.espnf1.com/blogs/motorsport/story/178623.html I go away for a couple of days and the world goes mad! Anyway... Didn't the complete git that is Horner already ruin Ferrari's future announcement?
I have a sneaking suspicion the Ferrari engine is fundamentally worse than the Renault one. The Renault engine is well down on power to the Merc but not the Ferrari, they seem relatively similar in outright performance, probably both are 60-80bhp down on Mercedes but only 5-10bhp apart themselves. The Renault engines electronics seem less reliable etc but when everything is working it seems more driveable than the Ferrari unit and delivers torque much better, The Ferrari engines power delivery seems all over the place and the fuel consumption seems to be a good bit higher than Renault too. There's a reason they sacked their engine chief
@pitlanetalk: Fernando Alonso just told Will Buxton his 2015 car will not be powered by a Mercedes. #F1 #Formula1
Alonzo said its obvious where he is going and fans when they finally find out would be surprised they didn't guess that or something close to that..... But he said it is not a mercedes powered car. Did Red Bull say he wasn't going there for sure? They said Ricciardo and the Kvyat will be in their lineup. But did they rule out Alonzo totally? So two guesses... Mclaren or Red Bull... Only two teams I could see him going to that are not mercedes powered. And it is unlikely he will be at Ferrari... And no new beams are coming in for 2015.... Maybe he wil join the American team in 2016..who knows?
My wife reckons he's either staying at Ferrari or buggering off from the sport to commit himself to getting his cycling team off the ground. If it is Ferrari, that'd be hillarious.
In the back of my mind I keep asking myself if Ferrari and Alonzo isn't playing with us a bit. I don't know but he seems to be having fun over it so maybe that's it. Lol your wife might just be onto something right there. Women just seem to know a bit more. Lol
He's going to go full circle and finish his career where he started it. He signed a contract after quali last night on the back of their excellent performance, convinced they were better than Red Bull.
Maybe he will go to Caterham for 2015 then joint Haas in 2016. Who knows. Lol I would have liked to see what he could do in the Williams.. I think he would be very competitive in that car.
He's clearly going to McLaren, he must have struck a deal with Ron that if he joins, the beard gets to stay.
The European F3 champion Esteban Ocon is being linked with a role at Lotus, according to Autosport. I can't read any more (too many articles) but I'm guessing that's as a reserve driver.
