hrd-hr30

There's a new Toyo R888-R semi slick out now. I saw them in the flesh at Phillip Island last weekend. They're supposed to be the same GG compound but they felt alot softer to me. Assymetric tread pattern instead of the old directional pattern.

Well, they haven't got an agreement with Renault to supply unbranded engines yet... I imagine Renault would only go ahead with it if they are extremely confident their works PU will be clearly better. Renault engaged Illien at the end of 2014 to help develop their engine. I've read that Renault decided to pursue their own development path rather than use Illien's input... Have RBR pilfered an ERS guru from another team or something? Otherwise they're probably on a hiding to nothing here.

bah, that was just a gentle flop over after bouncing off the tyres. With modern barriers that wouldn't be an issue. Or you could move the wall back. But they'd obviously have more tarmac instead of the gravel trap these days too.

Track might be alright if you don't remember the old Mexico... The ultimate irony is renaming the modified last corner after Mansell, in honour of his balls to the wall move around the outside of Berger at the end of the 1990 GP. That kind of stuff of legend can never happen again with the ruined corner replaced with a mickey mouse go kart section, designed seemingly primarily for the podium and grandstands - coz that's more important than race tracks having great corners.

Yeah, they should have let homo make his own pit call again. Worked so well for him last time.

They ruined that track. All the fast corners gone, replaced with friggen go-kart sections. Worked in Red Bull's favour, as does altitude - everyone running max downforce setups so they're all as draggy as each other. And despite the long straights and DRS, it didn't seem to be a track where you can overtake anything other than a McLaren.

oh and do we still think RBR has possibly the best chassis on the grid? Mercedes were faster in the wet until their tyres went off, but as soon as the track started drying and actual car performance could show through, everyone was faster than RBR, including Torro Rosso, Force India. I suspect Red Bull may have gambled on a wet setup hoping for a full wet race as their only chance of being in the mix - but that just highlights how far back they are from Mercedes chassis - if they can't even quite keep up in the wet with a dedicated wet setup, that Merc chassis is clearly superior.

I don't think it was a driver error. No other car ever got loose there - it struck me as really strange at the time. He wasn't wide or off-line or on a damp patch or anything. Nico said nothing like that has ever happened "Not in testing or racing, never. Nothing like that. I can't explain it" It's a real shame because other than that bizzare incident, he totally outclassed Hamilton this weekend. Even after Hamilton again ran him off the road (apparently they made contact too) forcing him back to 4th, he was faster all race, caught him passed him, built a lead which was taken away by safety cars, built the lead again... Hamilton is a complete douche of a driver - obviously not confident enough to fight fair with his team mate, he has to resort to dirty driving. You saw all through the field good clean respectful moves between drivers from different teams, leaving enough room for the other car. Not Hamilton. Lost even more respect for him - and I didn't think it was possible.

my 235/40R18 are more like 240mm, and the sidewalls sit totally straight on an 8.5" rim. I've got them on 9.5s on the back with a slight stretch.

I love them! Heaps of grip and the Z221 C70 compound is wearing well. After Lakeside and a hillclimb they still had the Hankook written on the outer tread block surface. That's gone now after the two day supersprint at Morgan Park, but the wear isn't bad at all. This is on a 1530kg Soarer (without driver) and temps in the low 30s. The tyres don't even feel like going off after the 3 laps we were running. Let's face it, they must be pretty good to get an auto Soarer to 0.9sec off the class winner (also on Z221 C70 'Soft') and 6th in class from 35 cars, including 11 EVOs and STIs. I just wish I bought wider ones lol When the car can easily take 265s on the front and 295s rear, you're giving away a decent chunk of time by running 235s all round... Maybe next time... Here's a couple of laps - sorry about the wind noise, it was too hot to have the windows up.

Kimi is also taking a 5th engine this weekend. It's just not newsworthy for him because he's on half the points of his team mate and not in contention for anything. Vettel is really only racing Rosberg anyway. Hamiltion's 66 point lead is basically insurmountable with 100 points left on the table in the 4 remaining races. He could DNF two of them with Vettel winning both, and still afford to finish 2nd to Vettel in the other two... That's an awkward way of saying Vettel would have to win all the remaining races and hope Lewis DNFs at least two of them to even have a sniff! It's never going to happen. Alonso will be running the new Honda PU all weekend too for the first time - only used in a prac session before. So it will be interesting to see if that goes any better than Jenson's old PU. Apparently this new spec engine introduces their direction for next year.

Yeah I don't like DRS, fuel saving nonsense and fake tyre deg (admittedly not as bad since they toughened them up to suit the turbo engines). WEC has turned into 24hr sprint races, and F1 has become like Gran Turismo 5's 20min endurance races with accelerated tyre wear and fuel use... Too fake for my liking. But hoping for MotoGP like racing is simply never going to happen in F1. This weekend - status quo I reckon. Merc, Ferrari, Williams, RBR - with STR not far off them.

passing is easy when there's literally no downforce involved in the vehicle's performance and the track is wide enough for a dozen vehicles

Singapore in particular is an anomaly of a track. It's not a good test of the chassis' aero - you can have the draggiest dog of an aero package there and it won't matter. Just max downforce is all that counts. Whereas a good chassis that works best on proper racetracks will be the best mix of downforce to drag ratio. Red Bull have never been very good at that though. Even when they ran blown diffusers to get their aero advantage, they were still very draggy and slow in a straight line. They were just lucky they were the only ones who really got the blown diffuser singing... The only other aspect of chassis performance Singapore measures is traction out of slow corners. And that's easier when you have less power. And that could just as likely be contributed to Renault doing an excellent job of PU driveability, as much as Red Bull's chassis. You can pretty much ignore everything that happened at Singapore as far as chassis evaluation is concerned. Unless you think they've cunningly designed a chassis optimised for one (maybe two) circuit out of the whole calendar... Hungary everyone else tripped over themselves, flattering red bull with some sort of result. But there again, STR were right on their heels. And no-one's saying that's one of the best chassis in the field...

wow... James Allen's not claiming to have any influence on the decision. He just reported that Ferrari stated they don't have the capacity to make that many 2016 spec engines in the timeframe available. Do Ferrari have any influence on the decision to supply Ferrari engines? Do they have any say on whether it's even feasible?

lol at RBR being easily one of the 3 best chassis at the moment, and arguably the best. I'm reckon the gains they've made since the start of the year are as much to do with the Renault engine as their chassis. But only thing their chassis seems to be better at than others, is low speed mechanical grip - drive off slow, non aero corners. Everywhere else they're still pretty damn average - high speed handling STR still have their measure! That will mean no Ferrari engines for RBR. They don't have the capacity to make extra 2016 spec engines according to James Allen. RBR will need to eat a big helping of humble pie to get their Renaults back. lol!

The advantage of being an actual constructor rather than a glorified garagist. When Red Bull were blitzing the field for 3 years straight, did they have to supply their chassis to any team at a nominal cost? Besides, RBR dug this hole for themselves.

I can imagine what would have been said if it was Maldonardo instead of Kimi... Hack move is a hack move. And that was really shit. Especially from a former champion. He was pretty dodgy with his teammate earlier too. If you're 100pts behind your teammate this late in the season, and he's fighting for 2nd in the WDC to upset your main rival's applecart, do you defend as hard as possible risking a collision with him when he's fully alongside approaching a corner? You've already lost out the duel anyway... Other than that - such excitement in the F1 threads these days, here and on other forums. Pay TV is dealing F1 a slow death in Aus.

timing error or typo right there! There's something seriously wrong if you think a run 8 sec slower over a 25sec course was better - or even remotely similar. You're not normally faster than all the sport sedans and Evos and other classes, are you?

RE11S are not on the CAMS tyre list, so they'll be no good to you.

Honda and "The power of dreams" - 20km/h slower in the speed trap than Ferrari...

for tarmac rallies - it would be worth your while buying them off Alan Stean of Z Car Workshop in QLD I reckon. He's the QLD distributor and very experienced in tarmac rallies. The bit extra you might pay in freight will be worth it for advice he can give IMO.

Those kind of pressure gains are perfectly normal for a hard working tyre in my experience. I normally aim for about 32psi hot as well on heavy cars. I had the Soarer on the track yesterday. Set the cold pressures to 24psi LF - the hardest working tyre, 25psi LR, and 26psi from both R side tyres before starting. Had to bleed about 1psi out of a couple of them after the first session - including the LF, so it gained about 9psi. It's normal for a treaded semi slick to tear more of the rubber off immediately beside a tread groove too. The A050 and Z221 both have tread groove right near the centre of the tyre and cause that centre wear. Not much you can do about that, except drive slower! But I agree that 35psi is a bit too high, and may have contributed as well. I was very impressed with these Z221's yesterday. 1.5sec faster than the Nitto NT01s I had before! I did fit a FMIC as well since last time, but can't imagine that being worth much time. It gained 1.5psi with the intercooler, and does go a little better by seat of the pants. But the tyres are damn good!

don't they need to finish a race or two before claiming they're better than Renault?

agree on the compounds, but I do both sprints and hill climbs, so it's a compromise. Being a cheap-arse means I want them to last a while as well... C70 is the compound I wanted.