Not up to Mercedes to solve F1’s problems – Lauda

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In the round-up: Mercedes executive director Niki Lauda brushes off claims a poor race for F1 in Canada reflected badly on Mercedes.

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It's not Mercedes' job to make F1 entertaining - Niki Lauda (ESPN)

"We do take a lead for the sport, we win the races for you. Look at the Canadians - 12% more people here for this so-called boring sport, you are trying to tell me, with no noise."

Small teams to push Bernie Ecclestone for fairer share of power in Formula One (The Independent)

"They believe that, rather than being a means to boost dwindling grids, the proposal is a Trojan horse to enable the big teams to swallow up the smaller ones in order to gain access to their revenues by making them satellite operations."

Ecclestone in fresh talks over New Jersey F1 race (Motorsport)

"Although a return for next year would be highly unlikely due to the time constraints, Ecclestone has suggested there could be a slot for it in the longer term future."

One-stop races bad for F1 - Horner (Autosport)

"One-stop races aren't good for Formula One. You need to have two to three stops, and that's important."

Pirelli may rethink tyre nominations (F1i)

"Supersoft and medium, something like that so there’s a big gap. But even then, if you look at what we were getting (in Canada), 30 laps out of the supersoft, that probably needed to be 15 rather than 30."

Lewis Hamilton is F1's best-ever champion, says Bernie Ecclestone (Sky)

"He’s the best world champion we’ve had, he’s fantastic. He reaches to all types of people throughout the world."

Maurizio Arrivabene Q&A: Ferrari not looking at other driver options right now (F1)

"I know that what (Alonso) said is not polite, but I don’t care."

Meet McLaren’s third-ever employee: Howden Ganley (McLaren)

"I had seen some fairly basic racing workshops since arriving in England, but this had to be about the most basic of them all."

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Snapshot

The number 18 Porsche 919 Hybrid of Neel Jani, Marc Lieb and Romain Dumas holds provisional pole position for the Le Mans 24 Hours after yesterday’s qualifying session. Lani took almost five seconds off last year’s pole position time with an early lap of 3’16.887. The other two Porsches, featuring Nico Hulkenberg and Mark Webber among their line-ups, were second and third.

Comment of the day

Does raw track mileage explain most of Honda’s deficit to Mercedes?

They may have had two years to develop the engine. But they have no data whatsoever from track testing it. Think of it in these terms. Mercedes supplied four teams last year and supplies four this year, eight cars. Not including pre-season testing or in-season testing that constitutes 208 grands prix (excluding mechanical failures), over 62,000km worth of data, problems, solutions and competitive track testing. If you assumed that each of the four teams managed at least three race simulations in pre-season testing in each year that’s another 48 Grand Prix race distances. In total almost 77,000km of track testing.

Honda has competed in seven rounds with two cars, one of which has failed to start the race on two occasions so it has 12 races’ worth of track experience, 3,600km. They also have 6 DNFs so half of those grands prix were not full race distances.McLaren was nowhere near doing race simulations in pre-season testing.

It’s not heard to see why Honda is taking so long to catch up. They just can’t keep up with the track running that Mercedes manage.
Nick

From the forum

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Bazza and John Harvey!

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On this day in F1

Jean Alesi took his first and only Formula One victory in the Canadian Grand Prix held on this day 20 years ago. Jordan duo Rubens Barrichello and Eddie Irvine finished second and third.

Here’s the post-race interview with Alesi:

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111 comments on “Not up to Mercedes to solve F1’s problems – Lauda”

  1. So, uh, Horner is complaining yet again? Looks like he’s job is just this right now. Maybe this explains why his team is so bad this year.

    And that all black Haas car is just so damn gorgeous.

    1. Whining about losing every race is bad for F1. I threaten to quit F1 [watching] if horner keeps whining every now and then. This makes F1 boring. We need variety of whining strategies; back when RebBull had a lot of downforce, Horner abused whining to the limits and whined even when he was winning. This shows the current bad state of F1 as 1 whine per race is not exciting at all, and unless Mercedes change their mentality and start whining and allow in season development of whininh next year, I will have to study my options in switching to other racing categories.

      Horner, you have said it all right, you have whined a lot and then said what everyone wants to hear: “if you are a fan sitting at home watching that, you don’t want to hear that”. I truly do not want to hear that type of whining every time I watch F1.

      1. @hzh00 he’s not whining, he’s calling it as it is. Ever since that race in Silverstone, and the secret test that was done afterwards the tyres have got harder and harder. The supersoft tyre was just made harder over the winter. To do 30 laps on supersports is utter nonsense. We always here of how Michael and Ferrari had an advantage with the Bridgestone tyres, well Mercedes have an advantage with these Pirelli tyres. Even with all the power they have in the car they have some of the best tyre management on the grid. Where are the tyres that used to hit the cliff?

        1. Still in Malaysia.

        2. @mim5 It sounds to me more like Horner do whine year in year out about the tires.

          Back in 2013 Christian Horner was sayng that the tires were degrading too fast and now they’re degrading too slowly? He’ll just whine anyway. Yesterday it was Renault threatening to quit, today it’s this. It really looks like this is all he does right now.

          I’m really curious about what Horner will be whining about tomorrow.

    2. Funny how F1 keeps getting these things wrong. One stop races (or even no stops) are perfectly fine. Provided its not ALL races with just one stop we get. But the opposite is also boring. We need races where you one stop, two stop and some where you can win by three stopping (or even 4 stopping in extreme cases) so that not every race is the same.

      1. Yep, @bascb, variety is the spice of life.

      2. @bascb In my opinion it is not that one stop, or two stops, or no stops at all make a race boring, but the fact that virtually all teams will follow more or less the same strategy because they are all forced to use the same tyres. I would like to see the teams allowed to pick which compounds they bring to a race weekend (I understand the Strategy Group has looked at this, but in my view their proposals don’t go far enough – teams should be allowed to choose any combination of tyre compounds to bring, rather than being limited to just two). That way we might see more variation in tyre strategy and more interesting strategic races.

        1. Same tyres, same amount of endless simulations to show them they will do more or less exactly the same strategy. Yes, good point about variation in tyres making it possible for a team to try something different @red-andy.

    3. ColdFly F1 (@)
      11th June 2015, 8:17

      Horner keeps on complaining (some rightly call it whining) about issues outside of his control.
      He should have a good look at what happened at Ferrari this year; Arrivabene told us the main difference to last year is that the team stopped blaming each other and started to work together.

      Red Bull is hardly any faster than Toro Rosso, even though RBR is the main Renault customer. Mercedes (team) on the other hand is a second faster than any other car (and there are 6) with the same engine. It is clear that the issues at RBR are not (just) the engine, the tyres, or how many stops are needed. RBR as a team has simply dropped the ball and should first focus internally, do the best they can and show that they are better than Toro Rosso.

      1. The Blade Runner (@)
        11th June 2015, 9:24

        Red Bull seems to favour its new flavour these days: Sour Grapes

      2. that will never happen RBR are a drink company not a Car Manufacturer,
        if they go down they want to blame F1 for it, not themselves.

    4. If you actually take the time to listen to him what he says makes a lot of sense especially interesting was his comments about Mercedes coaching there drivers, telling them to lift and coast and even from which marker boards…. must say it did sound like driver coaching to me too…

      For people that don’t like whining…. sure whine about it a lot!

  2. Regarding COTD, pretty sure the teams don’t run two cars at Winter testing unless my memory is totally wrecked. Of course if anything that’s worse for McLaren having only one car ‘running’ on each day. Same goes for in-season tests. The whole ‘supply one team’ thing was a bad idea!

    1. Good spot. My error there. Proportionally the data will still be pretty accurate just the figures will be halved.

      1. Just to correct my own error it would be 152 Grand Prix race distances for Mercedes. 45,600km. Still probably 12-15 times the mileage Honda have Managed.

    2. Please ignore my other replies which will pop up later (having a bit of a mare today – don’t ask). You are correct about pre-season testing that is my mistake. To correct my own error Mercedes have managed around 232 race distances by my estimates. this would amount to roughly 70,000km.

  3. More total rubbish from Horner, not worth reading the article, pit stops are not racing, they are not technical advances in automotive design and they are not part of the drivers skill, they are a choreographed exercise involving the removal and replacement of 4 wheels, very clever but not racing. Of course RBR want their cars in clear air to maximize their aerodynamic ability (once a big advantage) and multiple pit stops give them more opportunity to avoid actual racing, pity because Dan Ric. is a pretty good racer.

    1. DR had a decent year in his ’14 Newey car. This year isn’t fully Newey, and DR isn’t fully decent without it. ‘Twas only the car.

    2. ColdFly F1 (@)
      11th June 2015, 8:23

      @hohum – you clearly missed the memo; Bernie wants to award points and a trophy for the fastest pit stop ;)

      1. SpeedTV in the US tried a TV gameshow for pitcrews, with a championship and all, it only lasted 1 season.

  4. As Mercedes have a voice in the rule making process, it technically is their job to make F1 entertaining.

    1. I have said it a number of times. The main problem with F1 today, is neither engine noise, extreme tyre management or fuel saving.

      What F1 needs is multiple teams fighting for P1 more often than not. Unfortunately, unless F1 becomes a spec-formula, there’s no guarantee that new regulations will achieve that.

      If in 2017, under new rules, we end up with a car half a second faster than the rest, the bore fest will continue even with refueling and harder tyres. The Malaysian GP a few months ago was a blast because Mercedes was chasing Ferrari and there was a genuine battle for the win involving two different teams and three good drivers, we can have a grid full of world champions but it will mean nothing if only one of them has the equipment to win races.

      Mercedes has done a better job and it would be hard to ask them to accept any kind of “equalization measures” but dumb as it, seems to me, it’s the only way to change the show.

      If Alonso, Hamilton, Vettel, Ricciardo, Rosberg, Raikkonen and others spend a full race fighting closely at the front, nobody will notice engine quietness, fuel saving or laps 5 seconds slower than those of 2004…

      1. 100% Correct

        The problem lies with the inability of the competitors to challenge Mercedes and even within that to kill off any chance of a classic season Rosberg is unable to challenge Hamilton. Besides Ferrari it is hard to see any team capable of challenging this dominance, unless the rules change.

        Slightly off topic but considering Mercs fantastic reliability on all there motors, surely they cant be using the “reliability” clause to bring upgrades to there power unit (as was implied by some for Canada?) And why would Honda use Tokens to fix reliability problems… it all seems very strange…. and what has happened to Renault – is there any news on when they expect to take a significant step forward? Use some tokens? They seem to have done no major upgrade since last year… Surely with all these failures they can exploit the “reliability” clause and be bringing updates to every race? It is really a disappointing showing…

      2. The solution is probably to remove the testing ban. In 1998 and 1999 McLaren came out with a car that was significantly faster than the others, but with in-season testing, Ferrari closed the gap and at least made Mika fight for the championship. With the testing ban, if one team gets it right in the off season the others can’t close the gap. We’ve seen that play out pretty much since the ban was implemented.

        1. @velocityboy – I think that the testing ban should be relaxed to allow for more. But completely removing it would probably just benefit largest teams as they can test 24/7, like Ferrari used to do. They could even allow testing time in reverse order of championship standing, (i.e. Manor would be allowed most (though they probably couldn’t afford to utilize all of it, but that is beside the point) and Merc least) though some may find that too gimmicky.

      3. JCost well said,
        when new rules have been drawn up for the following year, always one team seams to be able to read/interpret them differently and manages to get a jump on everyone else,
        we are in that second year right now and Ferrari seam to be making up ground on Merc slowly but surely, although Totto is a very shrewd operator the other teams have made some ground up,
        it all takes money lots of it.
        keep an eye on Ferrari…

  5. Modern F1 has lost touch with the fanbase, and are making pathetic attempts to achieve this.
    Mercedes are running away with at the championship again but it’s more Lewis this year than Nico, and that’s a huge disappointment. Renault have gone backwards and redbull are constantly threatening to quit. Don’t get me started on McLaren and their two world champions. Marussia should quit or another team should make them a full on customer car, frankly they look pathetic. The tracks are awful and Canada was ruined by DRS, which is yet another problem with F1. Then there’s the rubbish tires.

    How about tracks like Singapore, Abu Dhabi and Monaco which produce awful races? Or all the runoff?
    Then there’s the lack of driver personality, and no, Lewis posting photos of himself in his underwear isn’t personality, that’s celebrity.

    The most interesting thing this year are the torro Rosso boys and they’re hampered by a bad engine. Then there’s the poor red bull boys.

    Lift and Coast is just one problem among many.

    I love F1, but it’s making itself very unlovable when every other race is a sham with Lewis running away and Nico offering his usual PR platitudes.

    Is this really what we want to watch now?
    I think I’d rather watch IndyCar. At least they can race without managing fuel and lifting and coasting. They also have personality. Just listen to the drivers who aren’t constantly handled by PR managers.
    That kind of thing would he impossible in F1 today.

    Canada was the first race I haven’t watched in a while. I was going to watch a replay, but hearing that it was rated so lowly I decided to give it a miss.

    I’ve been a fan even throughout the Ferrari domination which was bad, but this is worse.

    The FIA tie the teams hands behind their backs and they aren’t able to reach their potential.

    If this was 2002 they would be testing and improving all the time. Instead we are left with watching McLaren being a back marker unable to improve.

    For me, the negatives now outweigh the positives. It’s become to much. I tried to stick with it. But I think it’s time for a break up.

    Will it be okay again? Maybe. But I think it’s too broken now and can’t be mended.

    I would watch lemans but the races are just too long. I think I’d much rather watch football instead.

    Goodbye F1, it was good while it lasted.

    1. @yoshif8tures

      I think I’d rather watch IndyCar. At least they can race without managing fuel and lifting and coasting.

      Indycar actually features a lot of Lift & coast, Its standard strategy on the road/street circuits.
      Lift & Coast to save a few laps of fuel & then run longer than those your racing against to gain time on them while your running light & there on full tanks & cold tyres after there stop.

      Lift & coast on the levels we see now actually came from Indycar. It was done before but Toyota spent a fortune doing testing with Ganassi & Scott Dixon (Which is why Scott is so good at fuel saving) doing nothing but learning the best ways to save fuel. Scott spent days just driving around saving fuel & what he picked up from doing that has led him to many wins & a couple championships since then.

      The only difference in Indycar is that you don’t hear about it because Indycar don’t broadcast those bits of radio communication.

      1. Going back about 13 years it was something Champcar tried to eliminate by introducing mandatory pit stop windows & placing those windows well before the cars would actually need to stop for fuel. It was hoped this would eliminate the need for fuel saving & it did, The only problem was it had a negative impact on the racing & was unpopular amongst teams, drivers & fans so they dropped the mandatory stops after only 2 seasons.

        Later on they tried shortening the races by making them timed races of 1hr:45m, This put the race length at a point where fuel wouldn’t be an issue… It didn’t work as they still used lift & coast to go longer in the stints.

        Indycar also tried eliminating the engine maps as they used to have different fuel maps including maps to save fuel… They just started lifting & coasting even more.

        1. While definitely fuel saving is and lifting and coasting was all part of the Canada GP – anyone else think Mercedes may play it up a bit to slow there drivers down and prevent them actually racing.

          What I mean is that I think they definitely want to be seen as a team that allows there drivers to go all out and fight among themselves but at the same the “secretly” would prefer everyone to hold station preserve the 1-2 and save the engines – “so its lets wait a few laps to great brakes under control” & “Lift and coast please” etc.

          There only four engines per year, with a easy one-two in the bag why push harder than necessary – better PR to say brakes getting hot, fuel etc. than, takes it easy boys, hold position, life and coast to save this engine.

          Anyone thought of bringing back the only count X best results – sometimes I think this need for consistency has gone way to far – A team could really push in certain races, take some risks, sacrifice some races while excelling in others etc creating a greater ebb and flow (variety) for the fans. Plus something must be wrong with how the points work if Hamilton can retire from the next race and Nico is leading the championship after been so convincingly beaten….

          1. Plus something must be wrong with how the points work

            The real reason, I think, is the complete lack of competition from the behind. Half a tenth, five tenths, it doesn’t matter how much he underperforms, when there’s virtually no team to exploit it. Only once in Bahrain he got punished and by one place. I doubt any point system can cover this problem. Also let’s not forget he has two wins compared four for his teammate this season.

    2. @yoshif8tures
      I think I’d rather watch IndyCar. At least they can race without managing fuel and lifting and coasting.”

      Watch the replay of the last Indycar race and count how many times they mention fuel strategy and tyre management…you will be (un)pleasantly surprised.

    3. I’m having a lot of fun with NBA Finals right now… however, I’m still going to Budapest this summer :)

  6. In other news Arrivabene has confirmed Kimi’s spin was caused by technical problem:

    “Everything indicates that a technical problem was the cause, as we saw from the data that the throttle behaved in a brutal way. Kimi’s race pace was good.”

    Source

    So can you all please stop unjustified bashing of Kimi now?

    1. @huhhii I’m glad this has been released, but in fairness to people bashing (just to play devil’s advocate), the very best drivers surely have the ability to avoid this by reacting to in immediately. Would a driver like Alonso have been able to avoid a spin?

      In many ways it’s a bit like the argument of Massa crashing. He may not have cause the crashes, but he doesn’t avoid them either.

      1. It doesn’t matter how good a drivers reactions are if the PU gets a different command.

      2. Lol no Alonso is not Superman. If you completely unexpectedly get a huge burst of power you are pretty much helpless. By the time you have had time to react you have already spun.

      3. Hamilton spun in the same way in Friday FP1. @strontium

      4. But that is part of what Friday FP1 is for, surely?

    2. We never let facts get in the way of a good rant.

    3. Actually Arrivabene himself was bashing Kimi before he got all the facts on that matter.

      Taken from JAonF1

      Arrivabene was not in conciliatory mood, with his boss breathing down his neck for the first time trackside, “I expected him not only to hold his position on the podium but also to move forward. This is not good. There are no excuses; a podium has been thrown away,” said the former marketing man, turned team boss.

      I like that Arrivabene has been singing all the positive tunes since his entry into Ferrari. But this year’s revival cannot be attributed to him but to the sacked people at Ferrari and Allison.

      If he expected Kimi to hunt down the Mercedes, maybe he needs a calculator and a good one at that.

      1. I agree with you. I’m disappointed that he made Raikkonen scape goat while admitting openly he didn’t know what the problem was…

  7. Nice one Haas, we always needed more black & white cars in F1.

    1. It’s just a show car. The race cars will carry a yellow livery:-

      http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/haas-plans-yellow-livery-for-2016-team-report/

      1. @tdog Well that is fantastic to hear, I really am very happy, yellow is one colour we have missed for a long time, and some of the best liveries have been yellow.

    2. @david-a Sigh, I am genuinely very disappointed to see yet another one..

      There are no words.

    3. The best part of that show car is that it is a repainted Marussia … (didn’t he say they picked up only the factory? Guess not then) @david-a, @tdog, @strontium. And yes, I share your feeling for another monochrome livery :-(

      1. Really, so we did finally get to see the 2015 Marussia chassis then @bascb; I too, am disapointed by yet another monochrome car; I like the black with white to an extent, but I would prefer more colour on the grid.

        1. nope @bosyber, I think its the MR02.

  8. Bernie is keen for that New Jersey race, no doubt he needs another track in EU/US to use as a threat to EU tracks that don’t want to go broke hosting F1 races. No wonder they (in NJ) are having difficulty raising finance, who would want to rely on Bernie and F1 for the sole income stream to pay off a massive debt.

    1. @hohum Its not just Bernie, Having a race in or close to New York has been something the teams have wanted for at least 20 years now.

      They felt having a race close to New York would help attract sponsors given how much business is done there.

      1. @gt-racer, I understand there are good reasons to have a NY city GP, however when Bernie brings it up out of the blue I look for the ulterior motive, come to think of it I always look for the ulterior motive whenever Bernie speaks.

    2. If any of you have actually been to the location where they want to hold that GP, and the track layout they want to use- I’ll bet anyone who actually cares about F1 would want to see a GP there. The track is like a combination of Spa and Montreal- with that Manhattan backdrop included. That is hard to beat nowadays, in my opinion. And yes, the NYC market is a massive market for sponsors, just like Los Angeles/Long Beach. Hopefully with this race, the teams can attract enough business to stay afloat, and then CVC will finally sell once F1 stabilizes…

      And funny enough- the track is actually not in New York City-owned land; it’s in the New Jersey part of the NYC metro area but the only thing seperating the location where the track is and NYC is the Hudson River running between where New York City and Weehawken/West New York. It’s practically 1000 feet away from NYC.

      1. Don’t assume CVC selling out will lead to an improvement, any single investor taking over will likely be even more of an asset stripper than CVC looking to make a short term profit at the expense of all the stake holders with absolutely no concern for the future of F1, for all their faults CVCs strategy has always been to have something left to sell.

        1. I just hope it isn’t another asset stripper who ends up buying if CVC want to sell. The last thing F1 or any other form of motor racing needs is an investor who takes and doesn’t put back in- it would be good for them, because if they put money back into the sport, then they would probably make even more money.

      2. I saw Vettel at the time visiting the location. It really looked good.

    3. But yeah, I also agree with you- as much as I want to see that race happen, it may not be a good idea with the ridiculously high costs nowadays of running a GP.

  9. I agree, it’s not Mercedes’ job to do things differently – what can we expect from a competitor when it got the power of writing the rules!?

    It’s up to Bernie and Jean Todt to take back control – I’m fully supportive of disbanding the Strategy Group or at least remove their right for rule-making.

    1. The last thing this sport needs is Bernie in full control or even 50/50.

      On a side note, is there anybody who would actually be good to be in sole control? The teams? Nope, imagine the chaos! Bernie? God no, the sooner that intelligent fool goes the better FIA? We may as well get a bottle of TCP and rub it all over F1 to become truly sanitised.

      1. I’d refer back to Ted Kravitz Canadian GP race show interview with Bernie. On the topic of sport governance in general, both agreed that what got FIFA into trouble was the dictatorial leadership of one organization (and one man). Then they also agreed that it’s good that, in F1, the sporting/regulatory and the commercial sides are in different hands.

        And I agree with that view as well – that Bernie (commercial) is good to have a 50/50. The problem is that the sporting side is currently in the hands of the teams themselves and that’s just unique, uniquely wrong, inexplicacble and uncalled for. It would be good with a strong FIA – who used to do this – but Jean Todt is, sadly, just a puppet of Bernie, so if the teams were made to relinquish their power, Bernie would resume 100% control, practically – and that one is not. Good. At all.

        Actually, the 50/50 of Mosley (regulatory) and Bernie (commercial) used to work well under pressure earlier on – they quickly reacted to the end-2008 crisis and and Mosley pushed his electric motor & green ideas through, which I think armed F1 up well as far as the environmentalist attacks could go (the problems we have today are different in nature).

    2. Strategy Group can’t/won’t get anything done. The only thing they seem to do is come up with rehashed ideas that they have no intention of carrying through.
      The 1 formula is:
      T<E
      E MC=FI=W=S=MR
      M+F+R=0, 0<C
      C=$
      Todt abrogates to FOM.
      Bernie abrogates to CVC.
      Neither can do anything the big three don't agree to and Merc have the clear advantage and will see Renault and maybe Honda out the door before giving away any of that.
      I've not bothered to watch the last two races, not as a protest just lack of interest.

  10. So the solution is to stop broadcasting lift and coast messages, and pretend it’s not happening, rather than fix the underlying problem that F1 has become too focussed on energy management and fuel economy?

    1. @tdog, like we wouldn’t notice anyway, the broadcasts just confirm what we already believe. I do think though that there is some misunderstanding of the purpose of coasting, as well as saving a little fuel it is also re-charging the batteries which I believe to be its main purpose.

    2. @tdog When fuel saving, tyre management or whatever was happening in the past you didn’t hear about & nobody really complained about it.

      As Martin Brundle wrote in an article yesterday its the sort of stuff thats happened in F1 for decades, Its the sort of stuff he had to do himself while he was racing in F1 but it wasn’t broadcast so nobody really noticed & thus nobody complained.

      Montreal in particular has always been brutal on fuel consumption & brake wear & its always been a circuit thats required a lot of management, Yet in the past you didn’t know because we didn’t hear it.

      1. +1! They should just leave an option (like “press this button”) for people like me that don’t mind the technical side :P

        But yeah, F1 and a lot of other motorsports have it since the beginning, so I can’t understand some of the critics. If they told me “oh the car were faster! The drivers nowadays don’t seem tired from doing 71 laps, DRS, dirty air is ruining close battles” among other stuff, I would agree that these kind of things need to be changed. But lift and coasting will always be there (even in cars 5s faster like StratGroup wants for 2017)! Teams would rather a certain win in the slowest way possible than risk it just to go faster all race…

    3. This isn’t a new F1 problem, they have always had to manage fuel or tyres or engine or the whole car itself, never has there been an era in F1 that the drivers could push 100% every lap of the race. Much of F1 problems have been around for decades, it’s just that with the media now it’s alot easier to constantly talk about them and highlight them at every race. Brundle says that F1 shouldn’t publicly criticise itself yet he has done a fair amount of that himself over the years, even more so recently. So while I like Martin, I’m not sure where is going with that one.

      The big wigs at Sky must have been chocking on their teeth the other day when even the Sky F1 team started saying they went to sleep during the race? Really? These are the people that front the product you charge customers many of hundreds of £’s to watch each year? How do you sell a product that even your employee’s are publicly bashing. Very strange behavior. Bernie is bashing his own sport for a reason, his own self entitled reason perhaps but at least he has a reason. I’d love to know what’s Sky’s reason is.

      The problem F1 has it that everybody has their own view of what the problem is and you simply cant fix that. F1 really is unfixable because it doesn’t matter what rule tweak you come up with there will be somebody else who doesn’t like that rule and the cycle goes on and on.

      1. The true is that it is faster to do a race with lift and coast then it is to do it with a full tank of petrol. The drivers are not pushing but they take less time completing the race. The time you loss in the start of the race do to the amount of fuel in the car is more then the time the driver losses by lift and coast. Think about it if it was faster to go around the track with a full fuel tank of petrol, way would teams under fuel a driver for a race and then make him lift and coast. A good example was his weeks race. Even thou all the stats showed that Hamilton was using roughly the same amount of fuel as Rosberg he was saving fuel to complete the race. He was Fueled sort for the race where as Rosberg was fuel to complete the race.

  11. I’d say that one stopping races are not as good, and two / three stops are more favourable, as long as during those three / four stints, drivers are really pushing the tyres to the absolute limit.

    Is there no way of making the tyres such that they will not perform if being conserved? No, because surely then if a driver was nursing a problem, or a naturally slower car, would then have a disadvantage as their tyres won’t perform as well. This is not a simple problem.

    1. Every time you hear a driver complaining he cant get the tyres up to temperature that is exactly what is happening.

      1. In 2009 tyres were hard enough to not get up to temperature even while fully pushed. You saw drivers weaving on the straights during the race on several tracks. And frankly, it looked silly.

        1. But not half as silly as a driver going from podium position to out of the points in less than 1 lap because the tyres hit the cliff.

          1. @hohum the tires fell off the cliff because Lotus ran it to its end. Others went for one more pitstop but Lotus was confident that the tires would last.

            Not really Pirelli’s fault. Lotus took a risk but it didn’t pay off.

            Getting temperature into tires is what they were discussing.

          2. @crammond,@evered7, and in 2009 the hotter you got your tyres the better they worked, I know which I prefer.

          3. @hohum then maybe someone needs to inform Pirelli. They are of the thought that people wanted tires that degrade quickly.

            Honestly this is all a reaction to the 2010 Bridgestone tires that we so durable. F1 seems to have jumped on the bandwagon without a thorough research into it.

            Vettel doing the whole race on one set of tires didn’t help as well.

          4. @evered7, its just another idea of Bernies, he is the one that needs to be told, it’s a pity that it’s been so long since we had races without pit stops that most F1Fanatics weren’t born then so think of pit stops as a normal part of F1 when really they are just an attempt by Bernie to appeal to the US audience who were used to seeing pit stops in the indy 500. Without pit stops there is only one way to get ahead and that is by passing the car/s ahead of you, that is racing and even if no pass is made the close quarters fighting for position provides the tension and excitement we need to be entertained.

            You talking about that Monaco race where a red flag gifted SV a free pit stop?

          5. @hohum Maybe a mishmash of the current rules and 2005 will help. Tires that need to last through the race and refueling banned. I wonder how that would be.

            Without pit stops there is only one way to get ahead and that is by passing the car/s ahead of you, that is racing and even if no pass is made the close quarters fighting for position provides the tension and excitement we need to be entertained.

            I agree with your sentiments about having a race with no pitstops although I have never experienced that in the time I have watched F1.

            I am not sure if the rule would bring close racing now though since F1 is like a multi tiered competition with most teams separated by big gaps. Once Renault/Honda close in, it would make for a better viewing.

            I was talking about Monza where Vettel made a stop on the last lap I suppose to run on the other compound as well.

    2. @strontium I don’t really think 1 stop races are any better or worse than 2-3 stop races or going back further when we used to have no pit stops at all.

      If anything the less pit stops there are the more incentive there is for drivers to race & overtake on the track rather than reverting to strategy to do the undercut.
      Why risk pushing to stay close to/overtake the car infront on track if you can hang back, save your tyres & look to pass him in the pits.

      1. Amen to that, of course you have be fairly old now to remember those non-stop races.

    3. As @gt-racer mentions, there is nothing inherently better or worse about a 1 stop race vs. a 2-3 stop race, or a race with no stops.

      Personally I would like to have a calendar with tracks that give us all during the season, but the advantage of not making stops (or making less), is that you leave the drivers to do the work on track more.

      1. Think about this. If you give the Merc today tires that do not fall of and the driver can push as much as he wants what will stop them. We get upset because the driver at the back of the other car says he can’t push else his tires will fall of but we for get that the driver in front has the same problem. We had tires that could do a hole race before and guess what it did not help
        racing it made it wores.

        1. @koosoos, either your facts or your logic are incorrect because your conclusions are false.

          1. @hohum

            Where is my facts wrong.Last year in Russia and this year in Canada we had tires that just needed to changed one and we had no over takes no wheel to wheel driving. If Merc do not need to look after there tires they will even dominate more.

          2. @koosoos, the real problem is that the driver in front does not have the same problem as the driver behind, because the driver behind suffers loss of downforce due to turbulent airflow over the front wing, which causes sideslip, which generates excessive heat and wear in these tyres.

    4. Look at Vettel’s race an Hamilton’s race. One was pushing all the time while the other was cruising. Vettel had a 2-stop strategy and more fuel thanks to DRS&tow probably.

  12. Watching Alesi on the top-step of the podium still makes my eyes a bit watery… didn´t expect that, as hardly any of the drivers that came after him ever cause enough emotional reaction for a visible facial expression. It´s probably different when you chose your childhood hero early in his career, and then you suffered with him through years when it seemed he was the king of bad luck. May just watch the whole race now.

    1. It brought a smile to my face to see this again. Alesi was a childhood hero of mine as well.

  13. A quote from the New Jersey race article:

    Asked about the past financial arrangements with Hindery, Bernie added: “He doesn’t owe us anything.”

    So is that what basically makes the difference with Bernie? Whether he thinks he is owed something?

  14. Michael Brown
    11th June 2015, 1:04

    Hamikton the best champion we’ve ever had? Now I know Bernie is stupid

  15. Can we say that Jean Alesi’s win is the most popular victory in F1 history?

    1. Probably not, but he sure deserved a win, or many, and always entertained.

    2. It’s one of the greatest single Gp wins by a driver.

      It’s definitely up there for me.. along with Kubica’s Canadian GP victory

  16. F1 needs to drop the ban on refueling and the 100kg fuel limit, otherwise the same motor is gonna keep winning.

    what puzzles me are people who think refueling shouldn’t be part of racing, but F1 has already embraced exploding tires and aero solutions which make it almost impossible to pass.

    what is racing really? If you want real competition you will toss out at least half the rule book. If you want a spectacle, you will consider a ballast system.

    1. oh yeah, the testing ban needs to go to, at least to a large degree, Renault and Honda have suffered greatly because of inadequate testing and inability to properly gauge/integrate their parts.

      1. I think there should be a testing schedule of some kind throughout the year; like one test every month at a specific location for a certain amount of time.

      2. You can learn a lot from a test on a the dynamometer, you can even simulate any race if you spend enough money and have enough data, but the dyno wont tell you that the exhaust pipe is going to break the fifty first time the car bounces over the kerbs or whether the cooling system will be adequate. So yes, I think there should be more opportunity for car testing, especially in the early years of new major mechanical parts being introduced.

    2. What they really need to do is to free up engine development entirely for two or three years, to allow Honda and Renault to catch up. The tokens system, whilst a good idea in theory, is awful in practice as if a manufacturer messes up, it takes them forever to get to the same level as the others.

    3. @pcxmerc

      what puzzles me are people who think refueling shouldn’t be part of racing,

      Refueling should be a part of F1 because the last time we had it it made the racing worse.

      I want to watch cars racing on track & not cars racing in the pits & using strategy rather than racing to pass cars.

      If you love watching cars stationary for a long time been filled up then go sit at the side of the road outside a local fuel station.

      F1 was both better before refueling & its been better after it because cars were/are now racing on track & not in the pits.

      Refueling was crap, The races were crap because there was no racing & go back & read comments from that time & you will see that everyone was complaining about how there was no racing on the track & how all the passing was been done in the pits.

      Its clear looking at the polling that most fans fortunately remember how bad refueling was & say they do not want it to come back!

  17. Regarding the COTD, wasn’t there a deal that Honda would supply ‘only’ McLaren for the first year and may look at others after that? If that was the case why this whinging about how they don’t have any more cars to test?

    They made their bed and they have to lie in it now.

  18. @hzh00 he’s not whining, he’s calling it as it is. Ever since that race in Silverstone, and the secret test that was done afterwards the tyres have got harder and harder. The supersoft tyre was just made harder over the winter. To do 30 laps on supersports is utter nonsense. We always here of how Michael and Ferrari had an advantage with the Bridgestone tyres, well Mercedes have an advantage with these Pirelli tyres. Even with all the power they have in the car they have some of the best tyre management on the grid. Where are the tyres that used to hit the cliff?

    1. Where are they? they’re still at Sepang but will return at the next really hot track.

      1. @hohum haha probably Malaysia 2016

    2. I wouldn’t say Mercedes have a tyre useage advantage at all. We all saw Ferrari is better at that when it gets hotter, because then Mercedes tends to get too much heat in them @mim5.

      1. @bascb In Malaysia it was extremely hot 60+. During normal and cool conditions they dont have any problems. Before the tyre change they were also quick over one lap but with the softer tyres back then they got into trouble during the race. All I’m saying is if Pirelli have been mandated to produce tyres that degrade, why arent they doing that?

        1. Maybe because its hard for Pirelli to estimate how fast teams will go, how much heat they will get into the tyres etc about 4 months up front. And the weather is also hard to guess in some cases @mim5. That is exactly what the article is about: Pirelli now states that they have to rethink what tyres to bring because teams are easier on them then expected.

          Remember, while their brief is to bring degrading tyres, they also have to make sure that it doesn’t become a disaster of neither tyre lasting for more than 10-15 laps, like we have already seen in the past.

      2. Ferrari is not better at tyres. They are extremely light on them which is actually a problem most of the time. They cannot warm them up as easily as others and at the right time. This disadvantage was turned into advantage in Malaysia, because track was 60 C!!!

  19. Niki, did you really have to respond to that?

  20. Project 4’s website talking about McLaren…….

  21. I still can’t speak…I mean, 3’16.8? By contrast, Nissan’s new LMP2 car didn’t look a match for the KCMG…

  22. I don’t think COTD is anywhere near about Honda’s problems. Merc turned up at the first test and ran laps. All the other stats are about turning up at the track with an engine that works in the car. Honda still can barely do that.

    Honda have a massive leadership problem, it looks like to me. They started out committing to a concept they didn’t test first and couldn’t in fact develop, and apparently did it without much reference to the chassis it was going to be fitted into, or working out how they were going to cool the components they were shoehorning in on CAD.

    Everybody (I thought) knew that a key secret of Merc’s success was the dyno that incorporated the bodywork. Maybe it’s really a distance issue, that Honda weren’t sufficiently engaged with the total car, but now McLaren offering to help is a terrible message about competence.

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