F1 2020 SEASON: NEWS - RUMOURS

Perez has tested negative for Covid, can race this weekend.

 

Good news for Perez. Not so fab for Hulk.

Glad he got through it without complication.

 

Looks like the FIA are finally bored with Mercedes winning. Brought out a selection of hamper Mercedes rules to come in mid-season, with a second wind next season to really finish them off.

Unfortunately for the FIA they seem to have designed the rules themselves and so they are about as flawed as flawed can be.

 

what’s the one for next season ?

 

Sounds like they have banned quali modes. Can't quite work out how they are going to police that.
Surely they are not going to say you have to use all modes in the race? If not then how is that going to work?

Seems madness but it may make quali a bit more interesting?

 

Thought I read it that there will only be 1 mode at all ?

 

Thinking about this a little more. Merc quali mode aka Party Mode reduces the life of the engine when it is used. So if they don't take the life out of the engine in quali they can use a high non quali 'normal' power mode for longer within the total life of the PU.
So while Merc might not be as far ahead in quali they will have more of their 'full power race mode' use!!!

I can't see it's possible to police and even so it will give Merc more higher power use during the race....

 

I'm not sure that's possible. Don't they have adjustments that allows more regen, more use of the stored electricity, and surely they can alter the mixture so to speak?

If it is just 1 mode that that would be easy to police to a degree but there are lots of sensors that could be used to 'adjust things', like when fuel is low (quali) and speed above X then use full IC map otherwise use 98% of map. Think VW dieselgate.....

 

Only going by what the BBC said . Hopefully we will find out more in the next few days .

Then again the synic in me says it’s perhaps an attempt to get MB to agree to the Concorde agreement , the deadline of which has been pushed out by 6 days.........

 

Good point about the concorde. It does seem like this no quali mode has come out of the blue. Lat year Max was saying Honda didn't have it but this year he has not mentioned it, so I assume he has one?

 

Someone somewhere has had a great idea and made it a rule starting from Monday. They're now got a week to work out how this rule is actually going to work, which it can't, because this isn't how hybrid racecars work.

 

Seems like a weird idea if everyone can only use one engine mode. Won't everyone be basically stuck In their qualifying positions once the race kicks off? Maybe I'm misunderstanding this.

I mean, even if you could magically limit everyone to exactly the same horsepower, the best chassis will still dominate. I'm confused.

 

so, next season's quali gap 2 seconds?

 

We're going to see a biblical amount of lift and coasting in gps.... yay

 

The FIA are suspecting something fishy going on after teams didnt seem overly bothered by the engine mode ban?

https://www.planetf1.com/news/ers-storm-brewing/

 

I wonder if this was what Ferrari were doing and not fuel flow measurement manipulation? Sounds like FIA have a suspicion or maybe this is just the wait they wanted so as to not look like that is what Ferrari did?
The article also mentions potential 'party mode' ban and even from 2021! I thought it was going to be banned from now. So Spa being first ban?
I am sure they will have 1 mode that covers quali and race but not sure how fuel management works with that?

 

Interesting.

Shouldn't they be performing these kinds of checks on a regular basis anyway?

You'd think Ferrari would be the first to kick up a stink if they suspected others of a similar exploit.

 

It appears that McLaren, Williams and Ferrari have all signed the new concorde agreement!
I wonder how much change can be made now some teams have signed?

 

All the teams have now signed up .

 

I wonder if that clears up any Merc uncertainty? Will there be an announcement that Toto and Lewis have signed new contracts for undisclosed sums