Formula 1 2015

[djr81]

It's just a bullshit measure to showcase the sport's "green" credentials.

It ignores the fact that the most environmentally sensitive thing to do is not to hold a race at all. You can instantly knock off 100% of the fuel burn, plus all the fuel used by spectators turning up to watch it. But Bernie wouldn't get richer, so he won't do it. At least that guarantees we'll be able to watch *something* I guess.

Personally, I'd rather have a race. Bring back refuelling and let them go for it. I hate seeing drivers drive to a time. I want to see them flat stick battling it out.

Its all bullshit anyway. The CO2 emissions just from running the wind tunnels all day every day far outweigh that from the cars. Then there is all the air freight. Then there is all the miles the spectator travel. And so on and so on. They should be running on ethanol or biofuel anyway. Cant understand why they don't.

[ZED X]

Its all bullshit anyway. The CO2 emissions just from running the wind tunnels all day every day far outweigh that from the cars. Then there is all the air freight. Then there is all the miles the spectator travel. And so on and so on. They should be running on ethanol or biofuel anyway. Cant understand why they don't.

Besides the fact that they completely missed the boat when it came to marketing the change to the V6 power unit anyway. Instead the guy running the show hands our bad PR due to low engine noise then the proceeding 3 months are focused on that single topic. No mention of the benifits that drove the change in the first place.

It really didnt make any sense to me. I mean if your aim is to go green and as you pointed out the benifits would be minimal in the real world. Whats the true purpose?

If your aim is to change the image of the sport, then dont you need to publicise the positives? Sure the V6 power unit is a tad quiet but it sounds mental (imo) specially with some onboard footage and when you get the turbos whining during harvesting

Lets not forget there were some really great races last year, brought about from the change. Even though homo dominated most of the year, it was still a great year to be watching F1.

Other then those who watch F1 religiously no one ive spoken with even had a clue what was happening.

[Roy]

Getting fuel economy from E85 would be interesting Say what you want about manufacturers chasing fuel economy on their own but motorsport always pushes development faster.

I wouldnt midn the fuel economy thing if they stiull made a sporting contest out of it. Bring back refuelling. Limit tank size. And make it so that pit stops for refuelling are timely ie also safe without cars being launched down the pits with only 3 tyres etc.

But, it cost too much money apparantly to move fuel rigs around from GP to GP! Oh but they can bring in small cities for corporate entertainment

[djr81]

Besides the fact that they completely missed the boat when it came to marketing the change to the V6 power unit anyway. Instead the guy running the show hands our bad PR due to low engine noise then the proceeding 3 months are focused on that single topic. No mention of the benifits that drove the change in the first place.

It really didnt make any sense to me. I mean if your aim is to go green and as you pointed out the benifits would be minimal in the real world. Whats the true purpose?

If your aim is to change the image of the sport, then dont you need to publicise the positives? Sure the V6 power unit is a tad quiet but it sounds mental (imo) specially with some onboard footage and when you get the turbos whining during harvesting

Lets not forget there were some really great races last year, brought about from the change. Even though homo dominated most of the year, it was still a great year to be watching F1.

Other then those who watch F1 religiously no one ive spoken with even had a clue what was happening.

They missed the boat in terms of how could you possibly explain to someone who is casually interested in F1 or who wasn't into cars in the first place - how do you explain to them how the engines work and if you get to that point what, for example, makes the MB better than the Renault? Fuel economy is good appears to be as much as they can manage - and yeah it is but so is a V8 revving to 20,000rpm and ripping your head off every time it goes past.

I don't reckon the races last year were good because of the engines.

[djr81]

Getting fuel economy from E85 would be interesting Say what you want about manufacturers chasing fuel economy on their own but motorsport always pushes development faster.

I wouldnt midn the fuel economy thing if they stiull made a sporting contest out of it. Bring back refuelling. Limit tank size. And make it so that pit stops for refuelling are timely ie also safe without cars being launched down the pits with only 3 tyres etc.

But, it cost too much money apparantly to move fuel rigs around from GP to GP! Oh but they can bring in small cities for corporate entertainment

Well if you say you need x% more (don't know how many, I cant remember) then you just give them x% more fuel and let the engineers work it out. The change in weights across the race helps change car behaviour and potentially make it more interesting - or just more one sided.

The money it costs for the motors is crippling the small teams. Look how far Marussia were from being viable. Tens of millions per year and they weren't spending anything on development.

[warps]

How can anyone say that the F1 technology doesn't benefit road cars? There's no argument that performance technology filters its way down to road cars (how many performance turbo cars were around before 1980? How long did it take F1 to make them reliable?)

The fuel economy push will develop real world technology which will make it into road cars. With the budget and drive to win in F1, a lot of innovative ideas come about which might not be economically feasible.

As an example, a friend of mine has worked with OEM engine development for about 25 years now. He started in F1 (Cosworth) in the late 80's, then after a couple of years in F1, he moved to OEM development (as a Calibration engineer - i.e he specialises in the ECU side of car development, to put it very simply). I remember several years ago he was telling me about some exciting new developments, where they were looking at hybrid drivetrains, utilising 48V electrics and electric motors integrated into flywheels (along with electric turbos and a host of other related stuff). Then about 4 years ago, he picked up a job with MB-High performance engines, and he was on the team developing the dominant Mercedes power plant in F1 (He has been heavily involved in the KERS development these last few years).

We have fairly basic hybrid power systems on road cars now (hell, I remember UQ researching hybrid cars when I was at Uni in the mid 80's) but the F1 development seems to be light years ahead of the OEM stuff. Give these guys another 10 years of development and I guarantee we'll start seeing effective hybrid technology in road cars. With the cost of fuel, and the whole climate change issue (proven to be fact) why wouldn't want today's levels of performance with halving of fuel consumption?

[djr81]

Because they don't but its a boring argument so lets not have it.

Basically it runs along the lines of:

The technology was invented/used elsewhere first.

The application in F1 is too specialised, complicated and sophisticated to ever trickle down to the neighbours Hyundai.

The amount of R&D done in F1 teams as a % of that done by the suppliers and the car industry in general is stuff all.

That whenever good technology appears it gets banned anyway.

That all it ever does is make shit fashionable, not possible. So your shiney new Mazda 3 has flappy paddle gear shifts (Sadly not a dual clutch manual but on an auto), fake carbon fibre trim everywhere and still sells off the back of its pharken facebook connectivity.

Then someone says what about aero my car has aero, F1 has aero therefore they are the same and one follows the other. Add in a couple of facepalm jpegs and that's about it, really.

So anyway back on topic. How rubbish is Homo?

[Missileman]

What I can't understand is how crap is kimi, is his back playing up or has he lost his nerve, if he gets his arse kicked by vettel, it will be his last year in F1.

I don't know maybe he lucked into the 2007 title, and has always been an average driver?

[djr81]

The Ferrari is a rubbish car. Alonso makes it looks good but it Kimi cant compensate for it in the same manner. See here:

http://www.motorsportmagazine.com/f1/kimis-struggle/

[89CAL]

The Ferrari would have been slightly more suited to Alonso because he had been with Ferrari for a few years as thier number one. Kimi arrived at Ferrari late 2013/early 2014, so would have had very little to do with development in the car. And the fact that its very different to last years car wouldnt help

Not saying its all the cars fault, but I hardly think Kimi has become a crap driver over the summer.

How can anyone say that the F1 technology doesn't benefit road cars? There's no argument that performance technology filters its way down to road cars (how many performance turbo cars were around before 1980? How long did it take F1 to make them reliable?)

The fuel economy push will develop real world technology which will make it into road cars. With the budget and drive to win in F1, a lot of innovative ideas come about which might not be economically feasible.

As an example, a friend of mine has worked with OEM engine development for about 25 years now. He started in F1 (Cosworth) in the late 80's, then after a couple of years in F1, he moved to OEM development (as a Calibration engineer - i.e he specialises in the ECU side of car development, to put it very simply). I remember several years ago he was telling me about some exciting new developments, where they were looking at hybrid drivetrains, utilising 48V electrics and electric motors integrated into flywheels (along with electric turbos and a host of other related stuff). Then about 4 years ago, he picked up a job with MB-High performance engines, and he was on the team developing the dominant Mercedes power plant in F1 (He has been heavily involved in the KERS development these last few years).

We have fairly basic hybrid power systems on road cars now (hell, I remember UQ researching hybrid cars when I was at Uni in the mid 80's) but the F1 development seems to be light years ahead of the OEM stuff. Give these guys another 10 years of development and I guarantee we'll start seeing effective hybrid technology in road cars. With the cost of fuel, and the whole climate change issue (proven to be fact) why wouldn't want today's levels of performance with halving of fuel consumption?

I'm not saying there is nothing to be learnt from F1, but as for Internal combustion engines, I don't believe there is too much more to learn about fuel economy from the F1 engines. Most of the extra fuel economy is coming from the hybrid technology etc at the moment. This is worthwhile in terms of R&D

Some of the road cars today have great fuel technology, and some have some pretty crazy L/100km figures.

[White GTS-T]

^And that is mostly due to direct injection.

[89CAL]

Yeah was going to mention direct injection. Good stuff that

[Aggroman]

not sure if its been linked or not but Alonso interview on mclaren drive

[Roy]

The off season is getting to me.

I just bought a new Tamiya car...SICK

I was looking for the P34 Tyrell but oh well. I will get the next P34 that pops up

NOw to just find the Jordan, Lotus, Arrows, Footwork...What have I started

[ianjb]

ha! the p34 was the ugliest most amazing looking car ever.

[crashdown]

I've been reading that McLaren and Mercedes are going to be changing livery for 2015.

Mercedes are going to adopt the chrome paint look, while McLaren are looking to change back to the Red and White colours

link is here from the page I read

http://www.grandprixtimes.com/news/display/09708

http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/mercedes-mclaren-to-change-colours-in-2015-report/

[ianjb]

The red and white livery of the 80's is what made me a fan.

MP4/4, was hawt.

Never did like the chrome.

[ianjb]

BTW: check this out - http://www.mclaren.com/formula1/heritage/cars/

[Roy]

Meh to Macs being painted in Marlboro colours. The sponsor and the team had that period of success..get some new friggen sponsors onboard and build up a new look around that! Isn't Teflonso bring some Spanish peso with him?

The looked great...but that was 25 years ago! And it isnt even to the core of McLaren. Silver would be to the core of Mercedes F1.

[ianjb]

of course, gotta move with the times. Does he really only have 1 sponsor?? http://www.fernandoalonso.com/en/patrocinadores/

Fittipaldi's JPS lotus 72(??) were the hottest looking F1 ever IMO... shape & livery. The latest attempt to revamp it was mehhh...