F1 2017
- Thread starter spitfire
- Start date
Limejuice
Well-Known Member
spitfire
Walty McWaltface
A three-day lesson?
Well, you probably need all the practice you can get.
Hahaha.
I'm not mad enough to get on one but she'll be there on the Sunday for the race so I shall miss all the witty repartee on here.If you could all just record it and I'll let you know when we get back and can all watch it together. TIA.
1%er
Well-Known Member
Could Alfa Romeo be on the grid in 2018
There are reports in the Italian Press that Sauber could have its Ferrari engine branded as Alfa Romeo for next season. Sergio Marchionne has for some time been saying he wants the brand to reenter F1. This would clearly mean pumping millions into the brand, Alfa Romeo have upped their spending on advertising in North America over the last year and are now the biggest sponsors of studio programming for MLB and college basketball on both Turner and ESPN channels.
It would be great to see the clover emblem back in F1, they never really had much success in the modern era of F1 and Bernie Ecclestone used to say that they were the least fuel efficient engines in F1 when he ran them in his Brabham BT46.
Prize money drops in F1 for the first time in recent memory
Liberty Media announced earlier this month, as part of its regular quarterly update that the prize money pool for teams was going down, it will be reduced by $43 million. The pool of money for the teams will drop by 13%, falling from $316 million in 2016 to $273 million this season.
Leeks from the last Strategy Group meeting are claiming that Liberty Media said total income could fall over the next couple of years by 4% to 5% as races like the Malaysian GP drop off the calendar, this race had one of the highest race fees. Also higher cost to the rights holder Liberty Media, such as their new plush London offices and their plans to open a new office in the USA and increased staffing costs (not least because they have replaced 1 Bernie with 4 people) and employed many more staff around the world.
According to Mercedes non-executive chairman Niki Lauda in an interview with Gazzetta dello Sport, it isn't the new engine plans that have upset Ferrari but the cut in revenue to the teams from FOM and that was the reason behind their threat to walkaway from F1. Comments from other teams also show they are not happy, McLaren team racing director Eric Boullier said “If they drop we will not be happy, but our revenue model in F1 is based on the one FOM is giving us based on their own EBITDA [earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation],” he said. “So if their EBITDA is down, what we are going to get is down. This is how it works”.
Ross Brawn who has operated on both sides of the fence, as a team owner and now F1's managing director of motorsport said “We need to convince the teams not to throw the baby out with the bath water. There is a bigger discussion on the whole commercial side that needs to take place. We [recently] had our first discussion about a fair and sustainable cost control system for the future, so that is part of it as well. We need to make sure that we are all grown up about it, and we have a commercial discussion. That is going to be a fierce and tough discussions but we have the technical side of the sport to try to push forward. We’ve got the cost control side of the sport to push forward. We've got the sporting side of the sport to push forward. If we spoil all of that because we are having this debate about the commercial side, we are foolish because this makes the business better, it makes it more sustainable”.
It looks like Liberty Media have a lot of work to do to get all the teams behind the new Concorde agreement.
A new name in the race for the Williams seat
It seems that the drives in the post-Abu Dhabi test will be taken by Robert Kubica and a new name linked to Williams Sergey Sirotkin, who is currently the Third and Reserve Driver with Renault F1, having moved up from the role of Test Driver in 2016. Sirotkin is backed with big money from Russia, he is sponsored by SMP owned by by Boris and Arkady Rotenberg a pair of oligarchs (who currently pay for his GP2 racing and also pay Renault for his work there). It isn't really clear if he is trying out for the Williams drive in 2018 or just paying for mileage with a test drive. The list of available drivers is long and it is clear that Williams want a pay driver as they are very short of funds compared to the top teams. Robert Kubica appears to have found some financial support from Polish companies. Many people in F1 want to see Paul Di Resta get the drive but I'm not sure he has the sponsorship money that the team needs.
There are reports in the Italian Press that Sauber could have its Ferrari engine branded as Alfa Romeo for next season. Sergio Marchionne has for some time been saying he wants the brand to reenter F1. This would clearly mean pumping millions into the brand, Alfa Romeo have upped their spending on advertising in North America over the last year and are now the biggest sponsors of studio programming for MLB and college basketball on both Turner and ESPN channels.
It would be great to see the clover emblem back in F1, they never really had much success in the modern era of F1 and Bernie Ecclestone used to say that they were the least fuel efficient engines in F1 when he ran them in his Brabham BT46.
Prize money drops in F1 for the first time in recent memory
Liberty Media announced earlier this month, as part of its regular quarterly update that the prize money pool for teams was going down, it will be reduced by $43 million. The pool of money for the teams will drop by 13%, falling from $316 million in 2016 to $273 million this season.
Leeks from the last Strategy Group meeting are claiming that Liberty Media said total income could fall over the next couple of years by 4% to 5% as races like the Malaysian GP drop off the calendar, this race had one of the highest race fees. Also higher cost to the rights holder Liberty Media, such as their new plush London offices and their plans to open a new office in the USA and increased staffing costs (not least because they have replaced 1 Bernie with 4 people) and employed many more staff around the world.
According to Mercedes non-executive chairman Niki Lauda in an interview with Gazzetta dello Sport, it isn't the new engine plans that have upset Ferrari but the cut in revenue to the teams from FOM and that was the reason behind their threat to walkaway from F1. Comments from other teams also show they are not happy, McLaren team racing director Eric Boullier said “If they drop we will not be happy, but our revenue model in F1 is based on the one FOM is giving us based on their own EBITDA [earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation],” he said. “So if their EBITDA is down, what we are going to get is down. This is how it works”.
Ross Brawn who has operated on both sides of the fence, as a team owner and now F1's managing director of motorsport said “We need to convince the teams not to throw the baby out with the bath water. There is a bigger discussion on the whole commercial side that needs to take place. We [recently] had our first discussion about a fair and sustainable cost control system for the future, so that is part of it as well. We need to make sure that we are all grown up about it, and we have a commercial discussion. That is going to be a fierce and tough discussions but we have the technical side of the sport to try to push forward. We’ve got the cost control side of the sport to push forward. We've got the sporting side of the sport to push forward. If we spoil all of that because we are having this debate about the commercial side, we are foolish because this makes the business better, it makes it more sustainable”.
It looks like Liberty Media have a lot of work to do to get all the teams behind the new Concorde agreement.
A new name in the race for the Williams seat
It seems that the drives in the post-Abu Dhabi test will be taken by Robert Kubica and a new name linked to Williams Sergey Sirotkin, who is currently the Third and Reserve Driver with Renault F1, having moved up from the role of Test Driver in 2016. Sirotkin is backed with big money from Russia, he is sponsored by SMP owned by by Boris and Arkady Rotenberg a pair of oligarchs (who currently pay for his GP2 racing and also pay Renault for his work there). It isn't really clear if he is trying out for the Williams drive in 2018 or just paying for mileage with a test drive. The list of available drivers is long and it is clear that Williams want a pay driver as they are very short of funds compared to the top teams. Robert Kubica appears to have found some financial support from Polish companies. Many people in F1 want to see Paul Di Resta get the drive but I'm not sure he has the sponsorship money that the team needs.
1%er
Well-Known Member
There is a link posted on watchseries-online.pl a couple of hours after the race, if I remember I'll post the link here on Sunday evening (an option under that link that doesn't have porn pop-ups is at the top "Vidzi.tv).Hahaha.
If you could all just record it and I'll let you know when we get back and can all watch it together. TIA.
Limejuice
Well-Known Member
See if they'll postpone it.I have a family wedding this weekend. No chance of qualifying and a very slim chance of seeing any of the race live
spitfire
Walty McWaltface
Thanks mate but I can record it on Channel 4 as they are showing this one live. Cheers for the offer though, also good to know for the Sky ones that C4 don't get.
1%er
Well-Known Member
Pirelli expanded 2018 F1 tyre range for 2018
Brand new for 2018 is a tyre that sits below the ultrasoft an even softer compound called hypersoft, which is coloured pink and is the softest F1 tyre Pirelli has ever made. This new compound will be suitable for circuits where maximum mechanical grip is required, such as Monaco. Also new for 2018 is a change colour for the hard compound tyre, it will become Ice blue. This frees up orange to be used on the new superhard compound, denoting it as the very hardest choice available in Pirelli’s range.
Compounds and constructions have been redesigned for each type of tyre, in keeping with Pirelli’s philosophy of renewing the range every year since the Italian firm returned to Formula 1 in 2011. There are new working ranges across the entire family as well, which together with the increased number of compounds, will allow tyre nominations that are more specifically suited to each race next year. For the teams, this also means that there can be more flexibility and variation in the tyre choices, leading to extra opportunities when it comes to formulating creative race strategies.
Drivers and teams will get their first chance to test the new compounds next week at the post-race test in Abu Dhabi.
Jean Todt to stand for 3rd term as president of the FIA
Personally I can't stand him*, I think he has done nothing to further the aims of F1 since being at the FIA and appears to spend all his time on road safety, which isn't a bad thing as he is the united Nations Envoy for Road Safety, but I feel that should be his full-time job and leave the FIA roll to someone else. Road safety is right up there when you look at world health and death stats around the globe, both deaths from AIDS related illnesses (1.2 million deaths 2016) and Malaria (438,000 deaths 2015) are lower. From the stats I found around 1.3 million people die in road accidents every year and depending on what stats you read between 20 & 50 million are injured or disabled. Preventing such numbers of road deaths should not be left to the FIA, as one of their responsibilities is the NCAP test for motor manufactures and I believe that is a conflict of interest. His roll with the FIA and motor manufactures conflicts with his UN roll. I translated some stuff recently about the lack of vehicle safety standards in cars sold in Latin America compared to those sold in Europe, while checking the facts in the document I found that millions of cars sold in Latin America receive zero stars in the NCAP test and that around 1/3 of the 60 million new cars produced globally each year still fail to meet basic UN standards for occupant crash protection or provide safety equipment (rant rant rant, sorry I am drifting well of topic here, as you were
).
As no one is standing against him, so he will be elected for another 4 years which will see him in-charge at the FIA during the negotiations for the next Concorde agreement in 2020 and the new engine rules expected to come in for 2021.
* I must declare my prejudice here, I don't like him because he is well connected to Ferrari and I have hated Ferrari since they tried to get James Hunt disqualified from the 1976 Italian GP on very doggie grounds, getting the stewards to say Hunt's fuel was illegal when in fact it wasn't, this resulted in Hunt starting from the back of the grid when he was racing Lauda in a Ferrari for the world championship, they also did other things at other races but I don't want to go into them in case my head explodes btw Hunt won the championship despite Ferrari's cheating 
.
Brand new for 2018 is a tyre that sits below the ultrasoft an even softer compound called hypersoft, which is coloured pink and is the softest F1 tyre Pirelli has ever made. This new compound will be suitable for circuits where maximum mechanical grip is required, such as Monaco. Also new for 2018 is a change colour for the hard compound tyre, it will become Ice blue. This frees up orange to be used on the new superhard compound, denoting it as the very hardest choice available in Pirelli’s range.
Compounds and constructions have been redesigned for each type of tyre, in keeping with Pirelli’s philosophy of renewing the range every year since the Italian firm returned to Formula 1 in 2011. There are new working ranges across the entire family as well, which together with the increased number of compounds, will allow tyre nominations that are more specifically suited to each race next year. For the teams, this also means that there can be more flexibility and variation in the tyre choices, leading to extra opportunities when it comes to formulating creative race strategies.
Drivers and teams will get their first chance to test the new compounds next week at the post-race test in Abu Dhabi.
Jean Todt to stand for 3rd term as president of the FIA
Personally I can't stand him*, I think he has done nothing to further the aims of F1 since being at the FIA and appears to spend all his time on road safety, which isn't a bad thing as he is the united Nations Envoy for Road Safety, but I feel that should be his full-time job and leave the FIA roll to someone else. Road safety is right up there when you look at world health and death stats around the globe, both deaths from AIDS related illnesses (1.2 million deaths 2016) and Malaria (438,000 deaths 2015) are lower. From the stats I found around 1.3 million people die in road accidents every year and depending on what stats you read between 20 & 50 million are injured or disabled. Preventing such numbers of road deaths should not be left to the FIA, as one of their responsibilities is the NCAP test for motor manufactures and I believe that is a conflict of interest. His roll with the FIA and motor manufactures conflicts with his UN roll. I translated some stuff recently about the lack of vehicle safety standards in cars sold in Latin America compared to those sold in Europe, while checking the facts in the document I found that millions of cars sold in Latin America receive zero stars in the NCAP test and that around 1/3 of the 60 million new cars produced globally each year still fail to meet basic UN standards for occupant crash protection or provide safety equipment (rant rant rant, sorry I am drifting well of topic here, as you were
). As no one is standing against him, so he will be elected for another 4 years which will see him in-charge at the FIA during the negotiations for the next Concorde agreement in 2020 and the new engine rules expected to come in for 2021.
* I must declare my prejudice here, I don't like him because he is well connected to Ferrari and I have hated Ferrari since they tried to get James Hunt disqualified from the 1976 Italian GP on very doggie grounds, getting the stewards to say Hunt's fuel was illegal when in fact it wasn't, this resulted in Hunt starting from the back of the grid when he was racing Lauda in a Ferrari for the world championship, they also did other things at other races but I don't want to go into them in case my head explodes
btw Hunt won the championship despite Ferrari's cheating .
The race?See if they'll postpone it.
Limejuice
Well-Known Member
Get his people to call my people
Limejuice
Well-Known Member
1%er
Well-Known Member
F1 new logo
As mentioned above FOM are going to change the F1 logo and it seems that they are going to unveil it this Sunday after the race. When asked about it by journalists Chase Carey said "I know it’s Sunday, I’m not sure where in the process, our marketing people are the experts on where we’re going to launch the logo".
My guess would be, the podium. The F1 logo is always in the background of the podium so that would seem to be the obvious place, it will be interesting to see during the coverage over the weekend if they show the podium in the background of any filming, if it is covered (which it usually isn't) that could be a give away.
It seems that Williams have selected their new driver
According to Felipe Massa in a radio interview on Globo radio Brazil, he knows who will be his replacement at Williams. Lance Stroll keeps telling everyone that he doesn't know who his team mate will be in 2018, which I find a little strange unless Massa is bullshitting, which is unlikely I believe.
We know the names on the short list and for sure it will be one of them, Robert Kubica, Paul di Resta, Daniil Kvyat, Pascal Wehrlein and Sergey Sirotkin are the names and I have put them in the order I think is most likely (it must be remembered that Martini the title sponsor for Williams have it written into the contract that one driver must be over 25 and I'd be surprised if any of the younger drivers could bring enough money to the team to trump the millions from Martini). I think they are likely to get only a one year contract with an option for a second. The reasons I put Kubica above di Resta are two fold, while I don't know for sure who has the biggest sponsorship package to take to the team, I suspects out of the two it is Kubica, I also feel he will bring far more column inches for the team in the press. I'm sure it will not be long before Williams make the announcement.
As mentioned above FOM are going to change the F1 logo and it seems that they are going to unveil it this Sunday after the race. When asked about it by journalists Chase Carey said "I know it’s Sunday, I’m not sure where in the process, our marketing people are the experts on where we’re going to launch the logo".
My guess would be, the podium. The F1 logo is always in the background of the podium so that would seem to be the obvious place, it will be interesting to see during the coverage over the weekend if they show the podium in the background of any filming, if it is covered (which it usually isn't) that could be a give away.
It seems that Williams have selected their new driver
According to Felipe Massa in a radio interview on Globo radio Brazil, he knows who will be his replacement at Williams. Lance Stroll keeps telling everyone that he doesn't know who his team mate will be in 2018, which I find a little strange unless Massa is bullshitting, which is unlikely I believe.
We know the names on the short list and for sure it will be one of them, Robert Kubica, Paul di Resta, Daniil Kvyat, Pascal Wehrlein and Sergey Sirotkin are the names and I have put them in the order I think is most likely (it must be remembered that Martini the title sponsor for Williams have it written into the contract that one driver must be over 25 and I'd be surprised if any of the younger drivers could bring enough money to the team to trump the millions from Martini). I think they are likely to get only a one year contract with an option for a second. The reasons I put Kubica above di Resta are two fold, while I don't know for sure who has the biggest sponsorship package to take to the team, I suspects out of the two it is Kubica, I also feel he will bring far more column inches for the team in the press. I'm sure it will not be long before Williams make the announcement.
beesonthewhatnow
going deaf for a living
Kubica returning to F1 is the stuff of a Holywood film. I really hope he does.
1%er
Well-Known Member
Good morning
So the last race weekend of the season and the cars will look very different next year. There will be no shark fins and other doodads on the cars and they will all have the Halo.
One thing I'm really looking forward to next season is how the different teams will exploit the Halo. The rules around the Halo are currently very limited so teams will try to exploit that, I'm sure some teams will try to incorporate small screens and other devices to aid the driver in the Halo, it is a new area of exploitation for development.
So the last race weekend of the season and the cars will look very different next year. There will be no shark fins and other doodads on the cars and they will all have the Halo.
One thing I'm really looking forward to next season is how the different teams will exploit the Halo. The rules around the Halo are currently very limited so teams will try to exploit that, I'm sure some teams will try to incorporate small screens and other devices to aid the driver in the Halo, it is a new area of exploitation for development.
1%er
Well-Known Member
Mark Hughes is almost never mentioned during Sky F1 coverage other than his points to lookout for, but he is there in the commentary box passing many of the statistics to Martin and Crofty and ensuring they don't miss any on track action. I used to always read his F1 coverage in Autosport back in the day.
Limejuice
Well-Known Member
If you consider who he was rubbing shoulders with in Q3 there, you realise he's not easily fazed.
Old head on young shoulders, I'd say.
1%er
Well-Known Member
If Bottas doesn't do the business next season I can see Ocon taking that seat in 2019, but Bottas is looking better and better, I hope these two polls at the end of the season give him confidence for next year, I like to see him push Lewis
