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F1 2016

Indeliblelink said:
New format for qualifying
F1 rules shake-up unveiled by FIA, featuring new qualifying format
"The new qualifying format, set to be introduced at the season opener in Australia on 20 March, will see the slowest drivers eliminated every 90 seconds after a timed period – rather than at the end of the three sessions – in hope of providing greater unpredictability.

The FIA also announced a “Driver of the Day” award which will be voted for by fans."
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Driver of the day is meaningless, so we can ignore it.

The new qualifying, hmmm. So everyone dives out, sets a lap, then the rest is as usual. The tyres aren't suddenly going to give extra laps. What's the point?
 
Didn't Bernie say on monday that qualifying should stay as it is? LOL

Not enough description in the text for me to work out what the change is tbh.
 
New qualifying format explained
As mentioned above by Indeliblelink but not fully explained in the link, new qualifying will be as follows;
Qualifying 1 will be 16 minutes long, after the first 7 minutes the slowest driver will be eliminated, thereafter a driver will be eliminated every 90 seconds until the session finishes. a total of 7 drivers will be eliminated and 15 will progress to Q2

Qualifying 2 will be 15 minutes long, after 6 minutes the slowest driver will be eliminated, thereafter a driver will again be eliminated every 90 seconds and again 7 drivers will be eliminated and 8 will progress to Q3

Qualifying 3 will be 14 minutes long, after 5 minutes the slowest driver will be eliminated, thereafter a driver will again be eliminated every 90 seconds until there are only 2 drivers left who will have a 90 second shot-out to decide the pole sitter.

Now there is a saying that goes, "if it isn't broken don't fix it" and I don't think that qualifying was broken. I'm not sure if this will make things better or worse, I think blocking by cars "called in" could be a big problem, I also think slower cars may have to stay out longer to avoid being called in and they could also have an effect on flying laps by faster cars. I think there will be unforeseen consequences (fast drivers being in the wrong place at the wrong time so "banker laps" will have to be put in early) but time will tell and it could be far more exciting for fans, also with the new ultra-soft tyres (very short life in qualifying) and drivers having the choice of 3 compounds it could lead to very different speeds and tyre choice for each session. The FIA stewards will be very busy I suspect, I am however looking forward to see how it works :) Slower tracks like Monaco will make for a very interesting qualifying session.

VW Group and Formula 1
Wolfgang Dürheimer the motorsport boss of VW has said “Formula 1 is not on our agenda right now. The situation is not predictable enough to make the kind of investment required. On the regulations front, there are a lot of rumors around the engine side and the supporting technology side. Before you commit the kind of money needed you must see five years of rules stability, there can’t be the possibility of rules changes, of more or less engine cylinders coming in, or the hybrid system changing away from technology you are developing on road cars. On the ownership side, there are also big questions the sport must answer. If you are a big business making a big investment you expect to have some influence on the set-up, with an assurance the present ownership will last. In F1, it seems the owners will not be there forever and that creates some instability”.

Interestingly enough, Stefano Domenicali (yes the old boss of Ferrari) has been confirmed as the new president and CEO of Automobili Lamborghini who are a VW brand, Domenicali was taken on by Audi (late in 2014) to look into new business initiatives and it is understood that he produced a report for the company about what it would cost to enter Formula 1 with an organisation that would be able to win the World Championship.
 
What are the changes the teams are talking about for 2017
While this has been written about above, now the FIA have finally announced a draft set of technical regulations for 2017. The headline points are wider tyres and wings, and a larger diffuser, as shown in the picture below.

1456323811.jpg

The original target of five to six seconds faster laps has been reduced to 3 seconds a lap due in part to Pirelli saying they could not produce tyres to take the extra strain of the down-force and corner speed, the increase in time is expected to come from better aero and mechanical grip, so mainly from increased corner speed rather than top speeds (although top speeds will increase as teams get better performance from their power-units). It remains to be seen what effect the new aerodynamics will have on overtaking. The new rules do not include a reduction in front-wing complexity (but they will be wider) and this is a key factor in how difficult it is to follow another car, so we could return to the times when cars couldn't pass each other due to the turbulence caused by the car in front.

The tyres will be 60mm wider at the front and 80mm wider at the rear so the car will have more grip so should be faster through the Corners. The downside is that wider tyres will create more drag, so cars could be slower down the straights. To create aerodynamic grip, the front wings will become 200mm wider, keeping the wing's alignment to the current front wheels the same. The floor between the front and rear wheels will be wider, also by 200mm, with the diffuser now longer, taller and slightly wider and the rear wing is widened by 150mm and lowered, making it visually similar to the pre-2009 wings.

Edit to add
Fuel;
Fuel was also discussed in an effort to stop the stupidity of "fuel saving" for part of the race, what I understand is that the flow rate will remain the same but the limit of 100kg of fuel for the race will be done away with. Sorry things are a little disjointed with my posts but news of what went on in yesterdays meetings is only dripping out.

Overtaking;
There has just been an interesting debate on the radio about how the new technical regulations will effect overtaking, some engineers say it will be easier while others say it will make it harder. The arguments seems to be around if the changes to the diffuser and floor will be greater than those to the wider wings. If its the former it should make it easier if its the latter it will make it harder, I guess we will have to wait and see who comes up with the best solution.
 
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Has Mallya finally lost control of Force India F1 team
As has been mentioned here many times, the ownership of the Force India F1 teams has been in dispute for a while. There now seem to be two differing views as to who holds the 42.5% of shares owned by Watson Ltd (Vijay Mallya's holding company). In the Indian press today it is claimed they are now owned by Diageo but in another news report Vijay Mallya claims he still owns the team. In the coming weeks I'm sure this will be sorted out, the devil will be in the details of the agreement and golden handshake deal that Vijay Mallya signed with Diageo last week when he agreed to stand-down as chairman of the United Spirits Ltd.

The remaining shares in the Force India team are owned by Roy Subrata Sahara, currently in jail in India, who says that he wants to sell his shares. The remaining 15 percent is owned by the Mol Family, which was involved with the team during its Spyker era. Diageo had a plan a few months ago to take control of the team, in league with Aston Martin, and rebuild the operation as Aston Martin Racing, but it is unclear if Aston Martin have the money to invest in such a costly project.

Could we see a return to racing in 2017
While it is still unclear what changes will be made for the 2017 season, things are looking brighter. For the last couple of season F1 fans have had to suffer through races where the cars have had to lift and coast in an effort to save fuel and also had to suffer periods during the race where drivers have had to go into tyre saving mode. Well it looks as though both these stupid situation may be over by the 2017 season. If reports coming out of last weeks strategy meeting are to be believed, race fuel restrictions will be lifted, so cars will no longer be limited to a maximum of 100KG of fuel per race and also the FIA have instructed Pirelli to design a tyre that will allow drivers to push hard for longer and do away with the designed-in thermal degradation that tyres currently suffer from.
 
From the BBC:

There has been another twist in the saga over the format of qualifying. You may remember that a new elimination-style format was approved by the F1 Commission last week, only for Bernie Ecclestone to say it had to be delayed until the Spanish Grand Prix because his people who handle the timing could not get the software and graphics ready in time.

Well, after a meeting between the teams’ sporting directors at the test in Barcelona, a revised version of the original format has now been agreed. This would have the proposed elimination format retained for the first and second sessions, leaving eight cars for the final shoot-out, which will then be run in the old style, with positions set only at the end, to ensure there are enough cars out on track through the session.

This new plan will go before the FIA World Council on Friday, but it is far from clear whether it will be accepted - not least because Ecclestone has already made it clear that he is not keen
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Everyone seems to hate the look of the new cockpit protection that Ferrari have been testing, but I think it looks kinda cool:

Ccn5pihVAAAXPnK.jpg
 
One more place to slap a sponsor's logo.

An F1 car is naked unless it's an exhibition of commercial art.

I'm hoping they'll do different coloured haloes for the drivers in a team. That'll make it easier to see which driver it is because the numbers get lost among all the advertising.

Oh wait...

:)
 
New qualifying format has been approved in original format
As beesonthewhatnow mentioned above there was talk of changing the new qualifying but the World Motor Sport Council has agreed it in the original format [the World Motor Sport Council is only able to approve or reject rules put in front of then, they can not change or amend them, so as it was the original format that they were presented with that is the one they had to approve or reject. It may well be changed at some future point]. So qualifying session 3 will remain as was [for the time being]; it will be 14 minutes long, after 5 minutes the slowest driver will be eliminated, thereafter a driver will again be eliminated every 90 seconds until there are only 2 drivers left who will have a 90 second shot-out to decide the pole sitter. They also say it will be introduced at Melbourne's Albert Park in two weeks.

It has been reported that at a meeting with FIA race director Charlie Whiting the drivers opposed the plan to introduce an elimination-style qualifying system. They believe the current system for qualifying is really good and don't understand the need to change it.

Was Alonso offered the chance to swap seats with Hamilton at Mercedes
Fernando Alonso has claimed he was offered the chance to swap seats with Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes two years ago. The double champion, then at Ferrari, claimed he was offered the chance to move to the Silver Arrows while Hamilton would move in the other direction to Ferrari. But the cheating Spaniard was vague about who exactly made the offer and said “I don’t know if Hamilton knew about it”. Those who follow F1 will remember that In 2014 the paddock was full of speculation that Alonso would join Mercedes. When asked this week at Barcelona testing whether the rumors were true, he said: “Yes, the offer was there. The circumstances meant it came up but Ferrari didn’t want it at that point”.

Is this really true or is Alonso trying to position himself for a Mercedes drive bearing in mind that Nico is in the last year of his contract and there has been no talk of Mercedes extending it :hmm:


Formula 1 is completely off Audi's agenda
Audi have reinforced the decision by its parent company mentioned above, that they have no intention of joining Formula 1 in the near future. Stefan Knirsch the director responsible for technical development has said "F1 for Audi is absolutely not a topic.We are focusing on the World Endurance Championship and DTM. "We want to win Le Mans in a championship where electric and hybrid technology plays a very major role, currently, we are in discussions with the DTM about when we can introduce this kind of technology".

I think like other manufacturers who have been linked with joining F1, Audi are going to wait and see how the negotiations move forward with power-unit stability, they will have to make a decision in a couple of years if they want to have any input into the new concorde agreement, the current agreement runs until the end of 2020.

Channel 4 to announce F1 line-up next week
News reports say Channel 4 will confirm it team for the coverage of F1 on Tuesday next week, Ben Edwards who was with the BBC will be the lead commentator and it is rumored that they will have revolving talking-heads, two names that are believed to be in the frame are Susie Wolff the former Williams test driver and former Red Bull driver Mark Webber. When asked about the rumors David Coulthard said “We’ll have a professional presenter. Then we’ll have a mix of diverse people, some of whom will be recognisable to the masses, and some will not. We will have a range of different views.The full team will be announced next week but as a fan of motor sport, I am excited by some of the people we have coming in”.

State Bank of India seeking the arrest of Vijay Mallya
The country’s largest lender, State Bank of India (SBI), has approached the Debt Recovery Tribunal (DRT) seeking the arrest of Vijay Mallya in a bid to recover loans to Kingfisher Airlines, which was promoted by the liquor baron. SBI also wants his passport impounded and a complete disclosure of his personal assets. The move comes after Mallya struck a $75-million deal with Diageo to exit United Spirits. He had also indicated that he was likely to relocate to the UK. SBI leads a consortium of 17 lenders to the grounded Kingfisher Airlines, which has defaulted on loans worth Rs 7,000 crore [around $1 billion]. According to sources, SBI has sought to secure the lenders’ first right on Diageo’s payout to Mallya.

I hope the UK government do not allow Mallya to relocate there. He and Roy Subrata who between them own 85% of the Force India team have stolen millions of dollars from thousands of working people in India and are also responsible the loss of tens of thousands of workers pensions. Roy Subrata is currently in Jail in India and I really hope Mallya soon joins him :mad::mad::mad:

Does this picture mean Ferrari could have problems
The picture below appears to show some burning or scorching on the sidepod of the new Ferrari, what is directly behind that area?

fiiwu5w.jpg
 
Seems there is some controversy amongst the drivers over the Halo device. Lewis wants a choice of whether to use it not. Since it's a piece of safety equipment I think that, should it be implemented, there should be the same "choice" as with every other piece of safety equipment: you use it or you don't race. When the HANS device was brought in, that was controversial as well. At the time there was a very outspoken critic of it, Dale Earnhardt, who was then killed by exactly the kind of injury that the HANS was designed to prevent. Now it is compulsory and is an accepted part of motor sport. The same will happen with this.
 
Bungle73 said:
Seems there is some controversy amongst the drivers over the Halo device. Lewis wants a choice of whether to use it not. Since it's a piece of safety equipment I think that, should it be implemented, there should be the same "choice" as with every other piece of safety equipment: you use it or you don't race. When the HANS device was brought in, that was controversial as well. At the time there was a very outspoken critic of it, Dale Earnhardt, who was then killed by exactly the kind of injury that the HANS was designed to prevent. Now it is compulsory and is an accepted part of motor sport. The same will happen with this.
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Yeah, it's clearly a good thing and needs to be there, I just hope they can improve the aesthetics a bit.
 
1%er said:
Could Plymouth become the UK's Monaco. A friend of mine who lives on the South-coast sent me a link to this story, it made me smile. Where would a Formula 1 circuit go in Plymouth?
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Perhaps file under: "dream on" ?

:D

When you think of all the glorious locations around the world that would make a fabulous backdrop for a Grand Prix, I'm afraid Plymouth is down in the rankings.

Personal opinion: your mileage may vary, etc.
 
Limejuice said:
Perhaps file under: "dream on" ?

:D

When you think of all the glorious locations around the world that would make a fabulous backdrop for a Grand Prix, I'm afraid Plymouth is down in the rankings.

Personal opinion: your mileage may vary, etc.
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I think the hosting fee could be interesting and who'd be the promoter, I'd want to be paid to go there and watch it ;)

I have nothing against Plymouth having never been there, I guess as it is beside the sea there is nothing against Plymouth other than sea ;)
 
1%er said:
:mad::mad::mad:

Does this picture mean Ferrari could have problems
The picture below appears to show some burning or scorching on the sidepod of the new Ferrari, what is directly behind that area?

fiiwu5w.jpg
Click to expand...
More worryingly the markings seem to indicate that the vehicle is being used as part of a parcel delivery service. I can see the advantages in terms of additional revenue stream, but it's gonna put a lot of wear and tear on the vehicle. It's just not what F1 cars are made for basically.
 
Halo halo halo what's going on here then
You know that feeling you get, when you see something and it reminds you of something else but you can't put your finger on it? Well the new Halo devise had been driving me mad for a few weeks now, I knew it reminded me of something but I couldn't think of what it was. Well this morning while taking the dog for a walk along the beach I noticed a pair of Havaianas and had a eureka moment :) How long before Havaianas notice this and take what could be a great marketing opportunity :thumbs:
havaianas-300x214.jpg


AH dies aged 68
Alan Henry the F1 journalist and author has died aged 68, as well as being the formula 1 correspondent for The Guardian he was also Grand Prix editor of Autocar and held many other posts during his more than 40 years writing about F1. Here are just some of the great books he wrote about drivers, the sport and teams.
dsc06407.jpg
 
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Formula 1 teams bring in almost $2 billion in revenue
There are 3 main revenue sources for Formula one teams, they are sponsorship, prize money and investment from very rich backers and investors. despite the teams increasing their income, between them they made a combined $336.6 million net loss. while $125 million of that is due to the collapses of both Marussia and Caterham most of the other teams ended the year with a loss. The chart below shows the teams incomes but excludes both Ferrari and Sauber (who between them would bring the revenue upto just under $2 billion).
Team-revenues-1200x785.jpg

Below are the profit and loss accounts, with such massive incomes you'd think it hard to make a loss ;)
Team-losses-new1.jpg


Force India boss has a bad Monday
This morning Vijay Mallya faces new changes of money laundering and foreign exchange violations brought by the Enforcement Directorate in India and this afternoon a Debt Recovery Tribunal ruled he must not be able to access the $75 million paid to him by Diageo to remove him from the Board of United Spirits. The bank of India has filed three other applications against him, one seeking Mallya's arrest, the second, asking that his passport is impounded as it is believed he is planing to flee to the UK, and the 3rd requesting that the Debt Recovery Tribunal start legal action against him for defaulting on loans.
 
Supine said:
Both red bull teams know how to run an efficient P&L
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Red Bull appear to be doing well, but I'm not sure what they will spend this year and the coming years as their slice of the prize money cake will be dropping, prize money is a 3 year table and they will receive much less this year and next year. I'm not sure they will account for 22% of the total revenue in the next few years, they do have a great benefactor in the Red Bull drinks company which poured in $94 million in 2014. Their revenue only grew by 3.6% between 2013 and 2014, I suspect the amount is that small because of the drop in prize money, although it did grow while many other teams reduced their budgets, it hasn't translated into on-track success.

In other news
It seem that Sauber have started the season with more financial troubles, news reports are claiming that the team has not paid the February salaries of its Formula 1 staff in full. The team is said to be in the advanced stages of securing a title sponsor but clearly if the reports are correct they will need to sign the deal soon. Sauber were one of the three teams to ask FOM for early payouts of prize money in November so things must be really tight, it is an expensive time of year for teams as they have to cover the costs involved in testing, but it doesn't bode-well for the team if it can't pay its staff so early in the season as costs will clearly rise having to fly the team around the world and sponsors money should be in the bank by now. How long can Peter Sauber keep funding the team?

New qualifying may not start in Australia, there are rumors that Ferrari may veto the plan or other teams may also request it is postponed as it doesn't reflect what the teams agreed. The teams are saying they agreed a system where Q1 & Q2 were a knockout format but Q3 was to remain as last season. They are also claiming that the teams only agreed "the principle" of a knockout format. As was mentioned above, the World Motor Sport Council is only able to approve or reject rules put in front of then, they can not change or amend them, teams are claiming that the wrong rule was put to the WMC so they want it changed.

Radio clamp-down, another change for 2016 is the extension of the ban on radio communications between drivers and their engineers. For this year, teams will no longer be able to provide continuous information about tyre wear, engine performance, strategy, engine-mode deployment and fuel levels to the drivers. Article 20.1 of the sporting regulations, says the driver must “drive the car alone and unaided”
 
I thought it wasn't going to implemented for a few races anyway, because the timing system isn't ready?
 
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