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I think the Haas issue is the most I have ever felt bad for a team watching a race. They were running so well and for it to happen not once but twice while they had both cars in the tops 5 was just gutting I bet.
Definitely not impressed with the coverage, the abrupt commercial breaks were definitely odd. I get that the Sky commentators have no idea when ESPN goes to commercial, but you'd think someone at ESPN would do a better job of the cuts.
If this is the way they are going to do it I would rather they just slightly tape delay the races and just take a commercial break and then pick right back up where they stopped and not miss anything. At least it will make more sense.
The pay for F1 live streaming with no commercials can't get here fast enough. I don't mind the Sky commentary though and I think the production elements are better than NBCs were.
The commentary wasn't bad, IMO. Though my wife did ask why he was getting so excited a few times.
I'd be ok with delay start recording & getting better cuts or the full race with commercial breaks.
ESPN handled the commercial intervals horribly. When Grosjean fell out of the race during the commercial break, I thought it was a replay of Magnussen. So I was really confused when they exited commercial break right when Vettel went into the pits under the VSC.
HOWEVER, overall, this was a win for ESPN because I no longer have to listen to Hobbs. We get superior practice and qualifying coverage, better commentary, and eventually a better pre-race coverage.
There's no perfect solution for the commercial break issue though. At a minimum, I think they should have captions during the commercial break to follow what they Sky commentators are saying, so we can at least follow what was going on.
I'm still super confused about what happens during VSC. I think we discussed this before here. We know that drivers are supposed to slow down during VSC, but how exactly are they doing that to make sure they are within the rules? If one person drives around the circuit at 35.5mph, and the guy behind him is driving at 35.8mph, then how will the FIA know? How precise do they get to neutralise the field? I think the FIA does a really poor job of explaining their rules, and this is probably the most confusing rule.
Haas F1 chief Guenther Steiner continued to bat off accusations that his team’s 2018 car – the VF18 – is a carbon copy of last year’s Ferrari SF70H, claiming that the complaints are a result of sour grapes from an underperforming team with a much bigger budget at their disposal.
With both Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean running strongly throughout the season-opening Australian Grand Prix weekend, but particularly on race day when they were they strongly and looking good for fourth and fifth before five minutes of pitstop madness changed all that.
Nevertheless, Haas had revealed their hand with McLaren’s Fernando Alonso quick to dub their car a “Ferrari replica” which has since ignited heated debate from within the paddock and among fans.
But when interviewed by BBC Sports Steiner remained adamant, “They see ghosts.”
“[They say: The car looks very similar to a Ferrari from last year. So should we have copied their car, which is behind us, or should we go with a car that goes pretty quick? Give me an answer to that.”
“We have got the same wheelbase as Ferrari. We have to because we have the same suspension – why would we do it different? It’s logic. So it cannot be last year’s Ferrari because [our car] has the same wheelbase as this year’s Ferrari.”
“My point is, if they have got a problem with that, I show them the way to the FIA. They can file a protest,” insisted Steiner
Steiner blames teams behind them for stirring the pot, with Alonso and McLaren the ‘stirrers in chief’ who were quick to question to what extent Ferrari was ‘helping’ the American team.
But the Austrian had a dig at their accusers when he said, “If you have to justify your incompetence, attack is the best defence. If somebody has double the amount of money and is behind us, whoever owns the team should be asking: what are we doing here?”
Force India, McLaren want Haas ‘magic’ investigated
Date published: March 28 2018 Force India and McLaren have called on FIA to “closely” look at Haas’ relationship with Ferrari after the American team’s fast start to this season.
Despite only being in their third season in Formula 1, Haas showed incredible pace in Melbourne last weekend.
Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean locked out the third row of the grid and were running fourth and fifth before pit stop issues resulted in a double DNF.
“I don’t know how they do it, it’s magic,” Force India chief operating officer Otmar Szafnauer told Autosport. “It’s never been done before in Formula 1.
“I just don’t know how it can be right that someone who’s been in the sport for a couple of years with no resource could produce a car… does it happen by magic?
“If it does, I want the wand.”
Force India and McLaren have both questioned Haas’ relationship with Ferrari.
The Scuderia not only supply Haas with engines, suspension and other listed parts but also allow Haas’ chassis partner, Dallara, to use their windtunnel.
The two F1 teams, though, are not allowed to share information on parts that they are expected to build themselves.
McLaren’s Zak Brown wonders if they are keeping to the rules.
“We all know they have a very close alliance with Ferrari and I think we just need to make sure it’s not too close.
“There could be some influence, there’s certainly some parts of the car that look very similar to last year’s car.
“But that’s for the engineers and the FIA to look at more closely.”
Szafnauer added: “All the aerodynamic surfaces have to be your own. If they’re not, I don’t know how you can tell unless you start investigating.
“Scrutineering only tells you that it fits within the boxes of the regulations.
“Is it yours or somebody else’s [idea]? That’s the real question. And I don’t know the answer to that.
Although last year's RB13 ended the year strongly, the team readily admitted that its start to the campaign had not been as strong as it had hoped for.
Its plight had not been helped by windtunnel correlation problems, but it also had not adopted the right development approach, so lost ground against Mercedes and Ferrari
Not a exciting race, but does sum up how competitive the team/cars are.
McLaren has good pace and Alonso looked competitive
Originally Posted by Legend2TL
I had forgotten about Toro Rosso/Honda, and they qual'ed 16 and 20, race one DNF and 15th (+1 lap) last place.
Originally Posted by 00TL-P3.2
I bet Zak Brown is a happy camper seeing those results.
I don't know man....I realize luck plays a big role in races sometimes but wow McLaren and Ferrari had some real good luck in this race. On any other day, Hamilton would have won easily. For McLaren, they gotta thank Bottas for that Q3 crash, Ricciardo for his grid penalty, the stomach flu issue with Sainz, the whole Haas team, and that VSC, for that 5th place finish. Kudos to the team for not having reliability issue during the race, but man, I don't know if McLaren was competitive. They got good track positions thanks to the above factors and with Alonso, they got that finish. Melbourne is also known for being very difficult to pass. Just look at Hamilton in his attempt to pass Vettel, or Bottas in his attempt to do damage limitation. Both arguably failed.
Toro Rosso had a tough day at the office. Gasly ran into a PU issue which hopefully they can get to the bottom of it. The replay shows that he bottomed out twice when he went too wide onto the curbing and rumors suggest that those impacts snapped some shafts or something. This was overlooked by Honda and it didn't help when Barcelona was so smooth and couldn't replicate this issue. Hartley got himself to blame for flat spotting one tire before the first corner in the first lap, so he had to pit in right away, Wasting a lot of time. Then he had to pit again because of a tire puncture middle of the race, just before the SC was coming in, so he couldn't catch up with the rest of the pack and was 40 seconds behind when the race restarted. He did close the gap though before the end of the race but it was too little too late.
It's gonna be tough for Toro Rosso. New PU, only 2 cars that can collect data, both drivers new to F1, not a big team with big budget.
Interesting idea, but after further thought and reflection, I think "No. Please don't implement this. Please, no." (There will inevitably be crashes and thus more DNFs.)
Formula 1 chiefs are weighing up the prospect of changing qualifying to a sprint race in order to attract a wider audience.
According to Auto Motor und Sport, Liberty have proposed a 100km sprint race on Saturday with no fuel or tyre limitations to determine the grid for the main event on Sunday, giving drivers the ability to race full throttle.
Initially, there was a suggestion of creating a reverse grid but that has since been abandoned because of fears that the racing drama would be too artificially created.
The qualification process was last toyed with during Bernie Ecclestone's reign in 2016, where the controversial elimination system was promptly scrapped after just one race.
The current system sees five drivers eliminated in Q1 and Q2 respectively, before a top-10 shoot-out follows in Q3.
But, ahead of the release of the new 2021 blueprint on Friday, Liberty have surveyed each team to get their thoughts on how qualifying should be determined.
There are also potential plans to change FP1 and FP2 to two one-hour sessions on Friday and create time for fans to get a closer look at the cars, making the entry fee a little more value for money.
I don't know man....I realize luck plays a big role in races sometimes but wow McLaren and Ferrari had some real good luck in this race. On any other day, Hamilton would have won easily. For McLaren, they gotta thank Bottas for that Q3 crash, Ricciardo for his grid penalty, the stomach flu issue with Sainz, the whole Haas team, and that VSC, for that 5th place finish. Kudos to the team for not having reliability issue during the race, but man, I don't know if McLaren was competitive. They got good track positions thanks to the above factors and with Alonso, they got that finish. Melbourne is also known for being very difficult to pass. Just look at Hamilton in his attempt to pass Vettel, or Bottas in his attempt to do damage limitation. Both arguably failed.
Toro Rosso had a tough day at the office. Gasly ran into a PU issue which hopefully they can get to the bottom of it. The replay shows that he bottomed out twice when he went too wide onto the curbing and rumors suggest that those impacts snapped some shafts or something. This was overlooked by Honda and it didn't help when Barcelona was so smooth and couldn't replicate this issue. Hartley got himself to blame for flat spotting one tire before the first corner in the first lap, so he had to pit in right away, Wasting a lot of time. Then he had to pit again because of a tire puncture middle of the race, just before the SC was coming in, so he couldn't catch up with the rest of the pack and was 40 seconds behind when the race restarted. He did close the gap though before the end of the race but it was too little too late.
It's gonna be tough for Toro Rosso. New PU, only 2 cars that can collect data, both drivers new to F1, not a big team with big budget.
Besides pitlane and opening lap, there were only 5 on track passes in Australia so yeah passing is something Liberty and FIA need to work on alot to add to the show.
There was some good luck with Haas dropping out both cars with the same issue, I read that Haas made a statement that no one on the team would be fired over the double event and the airguns, nuts, and spindles are the same as last year.
But I thought Alonso holding off Max in the race showed the McLaren was at least good enough to hold off the Red Bull and watching how good Riccardo was at passing both Haas's it showed how good the Red Bull can be.
In Max's defence, there was suggestion his car's undertray/floor was damaged when he spun and went over the curbing.
The sad thing in the race was hearing Hamilton's radio transmissions which made it clear he was concerned about watching the temperature of his PU while behind Vettel. The concern being that motor has to last 7 races and he was initially not going to challenge the Ferrari, he did for a few laps, then the temp's came up (not in the red zone, but more like the yellow zone), then he backed off again to preserve the PU. Bad enough to have fuel savings racing, now it's engine saving racing as well.
Honda.....hmmmmmm..........
I've read almost nothing in the off-season talking about the PU other than it's all new. The former Ferrari engine designer 2017 unit was scrapped, but little has been released from what I've seen.
I think Torro Rosso is using Honda as a gamble, in case it proves great in the long run then RedBull may switch with them on powerplant (not sure what their engine contract says).
Australia was not a great race, and some bad luck held them back so hard to see where they are at the moment.
The engine rules are for only up to 2020, so wondering how much Honda will commit to the current PU rule motor considering many want the engine designs to be frozen for 2019-2020.
The upside here for Honda is slim, they've taken a bashing in the press, spent alot of money, and for literally nothing.
Gotta wonder if at times it's throwing good money after bad with the rules and chances of success.
Still like to see them succeed.
Yea, I think we will need a few more races to see where everyone stands. It's just one race it's hard to draw too much conclusion out of it. As mentioned, Alonso held off Max, but Hulkenberg also held up Bottas when the Mercedes is supposed to be much, much faster.
The way I see it is that McLaren doesn't have the "best chassis" as claimed by them last season. It's got the same engine as Redbull now. If it's got the best chassis, Max wouldn't be all over Alonso. Moreover, look at how far Ricciardo got ahead in front of Alonso after the safety car restart. over 20 seconds ahead. That tells me McLaren has quite a bit of catching up to do. Granted, it's a new PU for McLaren, so things have to be integrated, tested, and fine tuned before they can run optimally. The same should apply to Toro Rosso-Honda though. Looking at it this way, perhaps McLaren and TR will have the most potential to make improvements by mid-season.
It seems like fuel economy is still a big concern for Honda PU. They probably turn the engine down to save fuel and prolong engine life. With the new rule of only allowing 3 PU's, that's gonna be even more difficult for Honda to test and validate things - if they intend on avoiding grid penalties. Having said that, another way they can approach this season is to just turn the pwoer up and see what breaks, take the penalties, learn from this season, then hopefully next season they will be better...lol.
Whoa I can't believe LeClerc and Gasly make so little.....I guess that's just the salary right? Not including any add-on bonuses, or money from other revenue channels (representing different brands for instance)?
Whoa I can't believe LeClerc and Gasly make so little.....I guess that's just the salary right? Not including any add-on bonuses, or money from other revenue channels (representing different brands for instance)?
I presume that's just salary as well.
Depending on the team and contract, then the driver can wear other personal sponsors on their driving suit and helmet depending on the terms
When Schumacher went to Ferrari in 1996, his manager Willi Weber negotiated most of his suit was personal sponsorship.
He used to wear Dekra insurance cap even years after he was out of F1.
Same for Lauda and his Parmalat cap, he was sponsored by them even after F1.
Kinda like Nike and Michael Jordan.
McLaren racing director Eric Boullier believes Formula 1's post-2020 technical regulations will need to include "enough restriction" to ensure a level playing field.
The 1.732s that separated the quickest and the slowest team in the first qualifying segment for last weekend's Australian Grand Prix was by far the lowest spread seen in Q1 in Melbourne since the beginning of the hybrid era in 2014, but over a second split Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo in fifth and Haas driver Kevin Magnussen in sixth in the final segment.
The leading group was itself spread out too, with Mercedes scoring pole by seven-tenths of a second.
Reflecting on how Lewis Hamilton's pole lap dampened expectations of a closely-fought season, Boullier said: "This is what it is. The regulation has been drafted a few years ago and this is where we are.
"As long as we can't all reach a sort of plateau on the performance, it's going to be the same.
"Mercedes has designed a very competitive engine and car since the beginning [of the hybrid era] and it looks like it's very difficult to catch them up.
"I think we need now to have from Liberty and the FIA the new regulation package from 2021 and hopefully there will be enough restriction in this to close up the gap or to have a level playing field."
Liberty Media, which took over F1 last year, is set to present teams and engine manufacturers with its latest blueprint for Formula 1's next regulation cycle – which will kick off in 2021 – at the upcoming Bahrain Grand Prix.
Reducing gaps between teams is among the new owner's aims for F1's future, with spending caps and parts standardisation touted as potential measures to that effect.
Boullier continued: "We all want to have a great show, we all want to see cars fighting on track and banging wheels. This is what the fans want to see.
"For that we need to have a competitive level which is much closer between the first one and the last one."
His hopes for F1's future direction were echoed by Haas team boss Gunther Steiner, who lamented the fact the midfield teams were currently left to fight "for the crumbs".
"The regulations and the future should go that it is a level playing field or as close as you can get," Steiner said.
"There is a big gap at the moment and therefore you have this - the top three teams that are fighting for the championship and we fight for the crumbs.
"They do a good job to get money, spend and invest it – we cannot. It is part of the competition - but is it good for the sport? I don't think so."
The McLaren Formula 1 team is offering a clear path to Formula 1 for its junior drivers in 2018.
According to McLaren junior driver Nyck de Vries, McLaren executive Zak Brown has promised that if the 23-year-old de Vries or 18-year-old Lando Norris win the Formula 2 title this year, the prize will be an F1 seat.
"If I become the Formula 2 champion in 2018, then I will get a seat in Formula 1. It's spelled out in my contract in black and white and that's what Zak told me," de Vries told the Dutch publication Hp De Tijd.
De Vries added: "The same conditions apply to Norris. Lando has some advantage, as his father has a good relationship with Zak and he pays for his career, but if I meet expectations in 2018, then I will be in Formula 1 next season.
"Everything is in my hands," de Vries added.
De Vries finished seventh in the Formula 2 series last year. This will be Norris' first full season in the series. Norris started two F2 races last year, finishing 16th and 19th in the season-ending rounds in Abu Dhabi.
Formula 2 kicks off this weekend in Bahrain.
Fernando Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne are slated for full-season rides with McLaren F1 in 2018.
The Red Bull F1 team is leading the calls for engine “party modes” to be banned by the FIA after Lewis Hamilton’s lightning fast qualifying pace in the season-opening Australian Grand Prix.
While Red Bull is not the only team to have voiced its displeasure at Mercedes' special qualifying engine mode, it is the team leading the calls for a ban on such engine modes.
During qualifying in Australia, the top six speeds -- shared at the time by Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull -- had been close, but after Valtteri Bottas crashed out of the session, Hamilton’s pace skyrocketed, somewhat suspiciously.
“They got nervous because Bottas crashed, and all of a sudden they put full power on,” Red Bull head of driver development Helmut Marko told Motorsport.com. “As we call it, ‘party mode.’
“They normally don’t need it, so they used all of it, and it’s obvious that they are playing with all of us.
“In the beginning it was just us who were complaining, and it was, ‘Red Bull is always complaining.’ Fortunately, after qualifying the others woke up, and now there’s a lot of discussions."
“There are so many relatively easy things to solve it and make it more equal. You could say that you should race with the mode that you do qualifying with. That would be a solution.
“They could do it for the next race, and then it won’t happen for the next race.”
Although Hamilton himself denied the "party mode" engine setting, team boss Toto Wolff later confirmed that it did exist and had been used. Wolff added that it wasn’t a knee-jerk reaction to use the mode and that Hamilton had used it on his first run. The extra second of pace found on his final run was, according to Wolff, all from Hamilton.
It is well known that Renault does not have the best power unit on the grid and Red Bull has frequently made threats to split with its engine partner over the past few years. Red Bull boss Christian Horner said that the FIA could limit teams to one engine mode for the whole weekend and, “It was a hell of a party -- we would like to go to those kinds of parties!”
“You can see it. Q1, Q2 last year, they don’t take any risks, and then they wind it up in Q3. Obviously, the margin from Q2 to Q3 was significant -- the track didn’t rubber in that much.
“Admittedly Max [Verstappen] made a little mistake, we should have potentially been within half a second, probably about what the delta is in modes.
“It is something that should be considered, that you effectively have a parc fermé, the moment you drive out for qualifying, that is your engine mode for quali and the race. It’s up to the FIA, it’s down to them to work out what they want to do.”
I guess I don't understand where the complaint is coming from. Isn't is common practice for the teams to turn the cars up to 105% for quali & back down for the race? Maybe this is just the fact that 'Strat 16' or whatever is a driver selectable mode that the other teams have issue with?
When Liberty Media announced it would be replacing grid girls with grid kids the owners of Formula 1 were applauded for tackling a dated and sexist tradition.
But not everyone was pleased with Liberty’s decision. Many F1 fans believe the grid girls are a big part of the sport - and the organisers of one of F1’s biggest races seem to agree with this viewpoint.
It’s reported today by F1i.com that grid girls will be making a one-off return to F1 at this year’s Monaco Grand Prix in May.
According to the report the Automobile Club de Monaco (ACM) has reached an agreement with Liberty Media for the grid girls to be at the “glitzy and glamorous” race.
In an interview with newspaper Monaco-Matin, ACM president Michel Boeri said: “The relationship is good with Liberty Media, because they understand that Monaco is not Spa or Monza.
“We’ve had no problems with Liberty Media, except for the grid girl issue. They’ll be there, on the grid, but won’t be holding any name-boards. They’re pretty and the cameras will be on them once again.”
At the Australian Grand Prix last weekend the new “grid kids” initiative was launched by F1’s bosses.
But Monaco’s decision to go against the grid girl ban has had a mixed reaction on Twitter:
But Russian deputy prime minister Dmitry Kozak, who heads the Russian GP organising committee, said he thinks it is "wrong" to bring children onto the track because they would be "scared".
"In all forms of motor sport there are girls advertising cars harmoniously and pleasantly.
"If we manage to reach agreement we plan to reinstate this tradition. After all, our girls are the most beautiful."
The Russian Grand Prix takes place in Sochi from 28-30 September.
F1's decision to stop using 'grid girls' came shortly after the Professional Darts Corporation said walk-on girls would no longer be used at its events.
Explaining the decision at the time, Sean Bratches, F1's managing director of commercial operations, said the change would be made "so as to be more in tune with our vision for this great sport".
The Women's Sport Trust commended the decision and said it "strongly encouraged sports such as cycling, boxing and UFC" to follow suit.
While one part-time 'grid girl', Charlotte Gash, told BBC Radio 5 live she was "disgusted" with F1's "politically correct" decision.
In December, BBC Sport carried out a vote on whether 'grid girls' should be part of Formula 1, with 60% saying that they should be.
03-26-2018, 08:05 AM
I bet Zak Brown is a happy camper seeing those results.
Force India and McLaren have called on FIA to “closely” look at Haas’ relationship with Ferrari after the American team’s fast start to this season.
comes up on the display on Lewis's steering wheel? 
