Australian - Good, nice start to season Malaysian - Crap track China - Crap track Bahrain - Crap track Spanish - Ok - good Monaco - Procession but great track Canadian - Great track **** race this year Austrian - Great track glad it's back again British - Great track Hungarian - Great track Belgian - Great track Italian - Great track Singapore - Great track and nice that it's a night race Japan - Great track Russian - ??? Doesn't look that promising USA - Boring Mexican - ??? Hopefully will be exciting Brazilian - Great track, shame it's not the last race any more Abu Dhabi - Boring Tilke is mostly a miss when it comes to track design, very bland and misjudged racing arenas. Istanbul is the best track he produced and they ditched it. It's the middle of the season where the most exciting racing happens, those are the premium tracks, it's a shame they couldn't replicate this in Asia
only two i'd disagree on is spain and hungary. Never like hungary.. hot, no passing, dust bowl. just my opinion. I forgot susuka. japan was always great. i agree on the tracks. its almost always a long sweeping corner into a straight and its just **** for overtake. right now the olnly solution is to change the cars to suit the tracks which means ground effect
The current F1 offering is ****ing bland, boring completely lacking in true racing There's too much technology on the cars, which takes the edge off the drivers input. They're safer but far more predictable and easier to drive as a result. And fuel economy? Seriously who the **** cares? Fuel economy has no place in any form of Motorsport let alone F1 Strip the things back to the bare bones. Have a safe chassis but chuck all of the technology in the skip, go back to engines that sound like F1 should and make it a drivers event by possibly going to a single engine, single tyre series.
Problem is how the sport's manufacturer and brand focused, Ferrari, Merc, McLaren, Red Bull etc (the most powerful teams) all have business interests outside F1 and so want their own cars to promote their image outside the sport to sell sports/road cars/energy drinks. If they introduced single engines or a single chassis these guys wouldn't be happy. And traditionally F1 has been about independent manufacturers designing their own chargers and engines. Ok today engines not so much anymore since they all buy from Merc, Ferrari or Renault but I agree on the general point that cars need to be brought closer together... that would be through more equal shares of the money but that will never happen will it. The big teams have too much leverage and are much too comfortable at the top. They tried to make it look like all the driver aids had come off the cars by getting rid of traction control and that, and then said the new poet units and ERS were to improve racing and make it more exciting when really they're just covert/camouflaged driver aids. Again, all this tech is related to the big manufacturers wanting to sell road cars by saying they've got all the latest F1 gadgets They need the noisy engines back again. Apparently they're making changes to the new V6 turbos to make them louder and sound higher pitched next year. But this alone won't solve the fundamental problem with the racing. More regulation changes are coming for next year but this isn't the big shake up the sport needs either.
you are prob right in most of that. it is single tyre series already but single engine is prob too far... jsut let them get on with it IMO. right now development is actually blocked and mercedes are in effect de facto world champs as engine is best and others cannot catchup simply as the rules prevent it.
TBH the noise stuff is a smoke screen. thats for tv viewers. If the cars were nose to tail and swaping slots all the time nobody would be talking about noise. its a symptom of the issue not the root cause. its some sort of school teacher approach in the rules that are making it impossible to race... tobes said fuel economy should have no place. That is right. it should be get on the limit.. run on the limit al the time.. make a mistake you beach ti, engines do blow.. get on with it.. etc etc.
Good point. That's how it should be from a purist pov I know and just would be better all round. But do Merc et al really want their engines popping every other week all over the world's TV screens when they've got BMW and VW to compete with. I think not. No good for the brand. So they have these current regulations where drivers are able to micro-manage everything on the car.
There's currently only 2 major manufacturers in the sport, I.e. Mercedes and Ferrari. The others aren't running their own engines anyway. If the sport was full of teams from a whole host of major car manufacturers I'd agree with you, but it isn't currently. Red Bull want to market their brand, winning is a nice to have, but competing is what they're in it for primarily, brand placing. Maybe single engine is too far, but a move to a 2 engine series isn't too far from reality, as it's only a 4 engine series now!
Mercedes - Factory engine - we all know who they are Ferrari - Factory engine - again, we know the company Williams - Merc engine - as well as racing they are a tech-engineering services business and supply parts to many F1 teams and other racing series and road car makers Red Bull - Renault engine - yup, energy drinks McLaren - Honda engine - sports car manufacturer outside F1 Force India - Merc engine - F1 sole interest Toro Rosso - Renault engine - Red Bull's hired advertising hoarding Lotus - Merc engine - Sports car manufacturer Manor - Ferrari engine - F1 sole interest Sauber - Ferrari engine - Mostly F1 interests, sometimes sports car manufacture So looking at that you've got more than 2 major manufacturers involved I would say. Red Bull are in it to promote their liquid filth yeah, that's all they manufacture apart from F1 cars. But the other teams and engine suppliers - barring perhaps Force India and Manor who just race F1 - have significant interests in and outside the sport.
Well that is fair. It is a small engine pool I think it is a bit harsh on red bull just to call it branding. they have sunk way too much in to just be branding. The same as all the other things they do globally in all sorts of odd things. I think its more to do wit the guy at the top being so inclined as really the benfits are not really covering the costs in F1. I would agree that if ferrari did not insist on being engine makers there would be a two engine gird right now. Reanult i don't get they are in and out all the time. i don't see where they really get the benefit. even if they were top again.
I obviously know that Renault and Honda currently still supply engines to the sport, but both neither have their own teams, so it's debatable what they're getting from that from a marketing perspective I know that VW are considering entering the fray maybe as soon as next season, as they feel that their WRC success has not delivered the level of marketing prominence that they hoped for.
Four engine suppliers currently. Albeit Honda for only 1 team. Red Bull is a funny one. They have committed significantly to the sport but a lot of their interest is to do with having a high octane profile for their major interest - liquid sugar/caffeine filth. Renault had a works team which convolutedly, sort of became the current Lotus team. They are considering pulling out of supplying engines so I've heard. VW, under the Audi brand, have been encouraged by Red Bull to come in if Renault drop out. The financial crisis did for Renault as a works team though, that and their issues with the costs of being involved with the sport. When you think of Renault you think more of the examples in the 'first cars thread' on this board than of exciting sports and road cars don't you!? VW had a Chairman who was F1 averse but he died/was forced out/resigned (can't remember) so they could come in now he's out of the picture.
bascially there are three teams who don't need to break even there. mercedes, ferrari and red bull.. they can take a big loss. the others all have to balance the books. Lotus for example. some would say they are mad to be in this. does it sell cars? not like the old days i would say. manor... **** knows why they bother Sauber... bizarre they are still going. Tore rosso we all know why they are there. Force india... we know the history, they have a big country as a maskert place for sponsorship but they are drifting. Williams have fought long and hard to be competitive in any way... its amazing really they have kept going.. Mclaren.. now the new williams team it seems. not sure they can get back to the top but i suppose they did before. really the story of F1 is and has always been 1/2 teams at top and the rest surviving.
Renault are just there as a leftover from their works team really. They don't have a great deal of interest in continuing to be there if the noises coming out of France (along with RHC and his european grannies near the border) are to be believed, especially now ****s hit the fan at Red Bull
honda I think want to get something from it, they just started and aim for the top... renault i think have not resourced after last year, they got a shock on the new engines and i don't think want to be in it. I sincerely doubt VW/ audi will come in. I thik unless there is change they won't and they will want to have a clear sight of rules to build for said entry. Haas are coming in and in effect the will be ferrari B? that should be fun... figure that one out on the starting grids.
yup. can see red bull having to have eccleston do them a big deal to keep them in it when renault go. mercedes don't mind giving william an engine as they know they can beat them all day but red bull won't get one of the two good enginers so its honda at best... and mccalren are doing the suffering then for red bull benefit.
VW have been strongly rumoured to be working on their own 1.6 offering since the turn of the year. If they do come in they could well buy a current team and rebrand it. Them being strongly rumoured to be of the verge of dropping Audi from endurance and Le Mans leaving it for their sister brand Porsche adds fuel to the fire
