2017 F1 Season

[SB164]

TSN is really hyping up Canadian rookie Lance Stroll.

 

[Preds Partisan]

Wehrlein replaced by Giovinazzi at Sauber for Australia due to his January crash and "fitness" concerns. I think he's doing the right thing if he's not fully healthy.

 

[clefty]

Stroll looked out of his depth. But at least he's not the worst out there, that would be Jolyon Palmer, who might be the worst driver I've seen in 15 years.

 

[SoupyFIN]

Stroll looked out of his depth.

Not exactly fair to judge him on such a small sample size, but I agree. Verstappen was an exceptional talent in the same way Crosby/McDavid are in hockey. Not everyone can make the jump from F3 straight to F1.

But at least he's not the worst out there, that would be Jolyon Palmer, who might be the worst driver I've seen in 15 years.

Palmer had a slow start last year too and I can't imagine the crash he had in FP2 helped matters.

 

[Preds Partisan]

Remember, no clutch mapping settings anymore for the start of the races this year. Expect some chaos.

Good luck to your favorite drivers and teams fellow HFBoarders. Lets hope for an entertaining season

 

[SoupyFIN]

Good news, not your usual predictable Mercedes 1-2.

Bad news, what a boring race. Stroll passed a few cars after he pitted early and Alonso/Ocon/Hulkenberg had a good battle towards the end, that was about it. 5-10 second gaps between cars throughout the field and even when someone had a tyre advantage on the car in front, there was no way of getting past. This season is going to be really bad if this race was a precursor of things to come, hopefully not because Melbourne is more of a street track.

 

[Kane One]

Well that was a pretty fantastic start to the season. Verstappen, u da real MVP.

 

[Zorf]

Gotta feel bad for Ricciardo. Brutal weekend for his home GP.

I'm not at all a fan of Ferrari or Vettel. I never have been. But it was good to see someone other than Mercedes win. if anything, it should make for some excitement to see who will win races rather than Merc just running away with the title for a 4th year.

Williams has been my team since the 90s, and I really wish they went with a better 2nd driver than Stroll. 1 race is obviously early to properly judge him, but man, he looked slow and from what I saw his cornering was lacking smoothness. I think he's a guy who will burn through tires much faster than other drivers with how he attacks corners.

McLaren showed surprise speed with Alonso and expected speed with the other guy (I forget his name). Honda wasn't the reason for Alonso's exit from the race, so I guess that's promising. Alonso did say after the race that he was surprised to be mid-field for the race and he expects McLaren to be at the back of the grid at "normal" races. I'm not sure what makes Australia not normal. The weather was perfectly normal. maybe that it's a street circuit? Or that there were so many retirements? Or that it was the 1st race so there were 1st race mistakes by other teams?

 

[Preds Partisan]

Pirelli warned about one stop races due to lower degradation. Somehow Kvyat ran 34 laps on the ultra softs and softs were fastest. Mediums are the hardest compound for China and Bahrain, but will anybody run them? No. Also, this year no team choices until Monaco because of the new car designs so they'll be running the same allotment until then.

 

[Siamese Dream]

Pirelli warned about one stop races due to lower degradation. Somehow Kvyat ran 34 laps on the ultra softs and softs were fastest. Mediums are the hardest compound for China and Bahrain, but will anybody run them? No. Also, this year no team choices until Monaco because of the new car designs so they'll be running the same allotment until then.

They probably will in China, the Supersofts didn't last very long there last year. Anyone who qualified in the top 10 on them had to pit after a few laps. The new ones will last a bit longer than that but not enough to do a 1 stop on Supersofts and Softs.

 

[Tryamkin]

Stroll looked out of his depth. But at least he's not the worst out there, that would be Jolyon Palmer, who might be the worst driver I've seen in 15 years.

Not to mention the British commentators pumping up Palmer like he's a world champ in the making.

I have a jar at home that I call "pennies for palmer" that we put a penny in every time a commentator says his name in a race (excluding practices and qualy)

We're at 9, and he retired half-way through the only race...

As far as Stroll goes, some adjustment time is needed before we can start judging, but yes, TSN and Canadian media is titling him as the next Canadian racing hero already, it's absurd and unsettling. Direct comparison to over-hyping and ruining a prospect in hockey.

 

[Siamese Dream]

Not to mention the British commentators pumping up Palmer like he's a world champ in the making.

I have a jar at home that I call "pennies for palmer" that we put a penny in every time a commentator says his name in a race (excluding practices and qualy)

We're at 9, and he retired half-way through the only race...

As far as Stroll goes, some adjustment time is needed before we can start judging, but yes, TSN and Canadian media is titling him as the next Canadian racing hero already, it's absurd and unsettling. Direct comparison to over-hyping and ruining a prospect in hockey.

They don't really pump him up, they just talk about him more and give him more attention and air time because he's British, I don't really interpret it as them saying how great he is.

It was the same with Max Chilton, he would retire after trundling around in 20th and they would interview him and be like WHAT WENT WRONG THEN MAX? And you would be like I don't care, he's ****, and he drives a ****** Marussia.

 

[Zorf]

Renault has sorted out the problems that plagued Palmer's car in Australia.

They have also said that they are pushing for more reliability from the car and power unit. I see how that is a good idea, but I think they are also down on power compared to Mercedes and Ferrari, so they still have a lot of work to do.



Also, all teams and suppliers have agreed to go back to simpler engines for the 2021/22 season when the current concorde agreement (I think) expires. No word yet what they mean by that, but the goal is better sounding and louder engines.

Jean Todt has said that F1 would never go back to V10 or V12 engines because he said the fans would not accept that. I get that the environmentalists would not, but pure F1 fans? That might be a different story. I would love to hear the sound of a Ferrari V10 again.

 

[SoupyFIN]

Jean Todt has said that F1 would never go back to V10 or V12 engines because he said the fans would not accept that. I get that the environmentalists would not, but pure F1 fans? That might be a different story. I would love to hear the sound of a Ferrari V10 again.

Idk how the argument that the V6 turbo is cheaper and more environmentally friendly is still relevant, when teams have dumped a crazy amount of money into research & building the V6 turbos and I doubt the +/- is much by using less fuel on the track. This is F1, you're not racing in the series to save the planet.

V10/V12 would pretty much mean they'd have to bring back refueling, which isn't going to happen. So it would probably be a return to V8.

 

[Preds Partisan]

Idk how the argument that the V6 turbo is cheaper and more environmentally friendly is still relevant, when teams have dumped a crazy amount of money into research & building the V6 turbos and I doubt the +/- is much by using less fuel on the track. This is F1, you're not racing in the series to save the planet.

V10/V12 would pretty much mean they'd have to bring back refueling, which isn't going to happen. So it would probably be a return to V8.

Wait, what? You mean you don't have Merc F1 hybrid tech in your personal vehicle? Yeah, that was a bunch of environmental, marketing, make the corporate boards feel good about themselves crap from the start. The current hybrid was one step too much and now it makes it that much more difficult to go back and admit they were wrong.

Indy Car runs a 2.2 V6 twin turbo, so they're not just going to increase the bore because that would be too similar I would think. The V8 would be great, but the fuel flow rate or aero restrictions would have to be pretty severe to limit their speed given how much HP they squeeze out of the internal combustion itself already. A V8 could work, but I think that would result in a pretty significant overall aero redesign to accommodate the increased speed potential, then you have a new power unit and a totally new car design at the same time.

Seems like a bit much to chew on at once to address cost, new engines and the lack of competitive overtaking. I'm sure they'll screw this up.

 

[SoupyFIN]

Saturday is meant to be the only day with good weather, I wonder if they get to race at all..

 

[Preds Partisan]

I'm reading the neurologist docs have been moved to a closer facility and/or Chinese police will escort ambulances if needed to make sure race goes off as scheduled without fear that the death moth can't fly. Would have thought that would have been the contingency plan for FP1 and FP2, but whatever.

Looks like everybody outside Merc and Ferrari are hoping for rain. Me too.

 

[SoupyFIN]

The start looked promising with the conditions, but it was a pretty meh race. These current cars are just terrible for racing due to the dirty air, which is now even worse than the first three years of the 1.6L turbo era.

Hamilton should win the title easily, as long as the car doesn't break down and Mercedes doesn't botch his strategy. I fear Bottas is going to be a one year fill-in, with the amount of quality drivers available for next year. Raikkonen's final season too, I think.

 

[Sanderson]

I wouldn't expect Hamilton to win the title easily. I think he will win, because in the past Mercedes was better at developing the car over the season than Ferrari, but so far there doesn't seem to be any gap between the two.

Today, Hamilton was fortunate enough that the safety car came out, because that pretty much removed Vettel as a big threat. With that kind of gap between the two, Hamilton could afford to control the race instead of having to race for it. He probably would have won any way, but having Vettel lose that much ground and be stuck behind slower cars (pretty much a switch from last race) made it far easier for him.

I agree with the cars though. They went in the wrong direction with this approach. Making the cars faster is nice and all, but it is rather useless if overtaking is much harder than before. Many races will probably be decided not by who is faster but by who happens not to be slowed down by others.

 

[CHRDANHUTCH]

any interest in sticky thread?

 

[Zorf]

Is the dirty air cancelling out the gains from having the DRS open?

I'm noticing this year that cars pop open the DRS and then more often than not, nothing happens. When DRS first came out cars were flying by each other on the straights.

In the last race, with the ultra long staights, cars are struggling to pass Alonso and he's a good 10-15Km/h slower than everyone else in straight line speed. Add in the DRS and it should be an even greater advantage, but cars couldn't catch up and pass him. It was bananas.

 

[Preds Partisan]

FIA is supposed to evaluate the DRS after the China GP to see if they should lengthen the zones on courses that can accommodate them. With a race this weekend, I guess we should hear something soon.

Obviously the new cars have more drag overall, but how much impact the DRS has now seems up in the air. Charlie W. said he didn't see any significant issues from testing and Australia. Some drivers have complained DRS has less benefit this year, but a few teams thought it would have more impact, so who knows? My engineer friend and I think the teams utilizing the t wings get more DRS advantage due to the way they're managing the airflow, but that's just our opinion.

 

[Make]

The rear wing max height is now 15 cm lower than last season. Could that be a factor for DRS efficiency? Another thing is that it's more difficult to follow the car in front in the corner so you struggle to get good exits too. I noticed that Kimi had real issues with this in his battle with Ricciardo.

 

[Preds Partisan]

The rear wing max height is now 15 cm lower than last season. Could that be a factor for DRS efficiency? Another thing is that it's more difficult to follow the car in front in the corner so you struggle to get good exits too. I noticed that Kimi had real issues with this in his battle with Ricciardo.

DRS from last year to this year was supposed to be relatively equal. What is it, something like 10-15 km/h advantage or something​? Computer runs are great, but you never know until you run real world races. Haas, for one, thought their computer sims showed greater advantage this year over last in various traffic aero situations.

Hopefully when FIA releases their analysis they give some hard numbers to show what's going on.

 

[CHRDANHUTCH]

Malaysia out, Turkey to regain GP Date