The 2014 Formula One Thread
03-19-14, 11:19 AM
#46
Lexus Champion
Seriously:
This is Formula 1...............NOT FORMULA E!!!
I sure hope there's some good racing in 2014 to help me get over it.
03-19-14, 06:26 PM
#50
The pursuit of F
2014: Buzzing bees
03-26-14, 10:38 AM
#54
Dietrich Mateschitz, an Austrian billionaire and the man behind the all-encompassing Red Bull brand, had some stern words for Formula One during an interview with an Austrian newspaper. Vienna's Kurier asked what it would take for Red Bull to pull out of F1. Mateschitz's answer was tinged with frustration following the disqualification of Daniel Riccardo, who finished second in last weekend's Australian Grand Prix, but saw his results stripped after the FIA stewards claimed that the rate of fuel flow in his car exceeded regulations.
"The question is not so much whether it makes economic sense but the reasons would be to do with sportsmanship, political influence, and so on," Mateschitz said. "In these issues there is a clear limit to what we can accept."
Red Bull appealed the decision and a date has been set in April for a hearing. Mateschitz is still rather salty, though.
"The team has lodged a protest. The fuel-flow sensor, which was given to the teams by [the FIA], gave divergent readings and it is inaccurate. We can prove the exact amount of fuel flow and this was always within the limits," the billionaire said when asked if he'd reached his self-imposed limit. According to BBC Sport, Red Bull ignored a warning by the FIA in Australia that it must use the official fuel-flow sensor, rather than its own readings. It didn't comply.
Mateschitz is also displeased by the direction the 2014 regulations have taken the sport, saying, "F1 is not there to set new records in fuel consumption, nor to make it possible to have a whispered conversation during a race."
"It is absurd to race a lap seconds slower than last year. GP2 partially provides more racing and fighting and almost equal lap times as F1 with a small fraction of the budget," Mateschitz told the paper.
"The question is not so much whether it makes economic sense but the reasons would be to do with sportsmanship, political influence, and so on," Mateschitz said. "In these issues there is a clear limit to what we can accept."
Red Bull appealed the decision and a date has been set in April for a hearing. Mateschitz is still rather salty, though.
"The team has lodged a protest. The fuel-flow sensor, which was given to the teams by [the FIA], gave divergent readings and it is inaccurate. We can prove the exact amount of fuel flow and this was always within the limits," the billionaire said when asked if he'd reached his self-imposed limit. According to BBC Sport, Red Bull ignored a warning by the FIA in Australia that it must use the official fuel-flow sensor, rather than its own readings. It didn't comply.
Mateschitz is also displeased by the direction the 2014 regulations have taken the sport, saying, "F1 is not there to set new records in fuel consumption, nor to make it possible to have a whispered conversation during a race."
"It is absurd to race a lap seconds slower than last year. GP2 partially provides more racing and fighting and almost equal lap times as F1 with a small fraction of the budget," Mateschitz told the paper.
03-26-14, 11:25 AM
#55
Him complaining about the sound of the engine is the most ridiculous thing. Red Bull is a drink company. What do they know about engines? Besides, the engines actually aren't that much quieter than the previous year's v-8. They just sound different and it's because of the turbo. Again, this shouldn't be a surprise as they had access to pre-test even way before the first "official" testing began.
He's threatening to leave? Go ahead and leave I say. Everybody expected you to do that. Stay while the wins were rolling in and leave while you were getting crushed.
Frankly, I wouldn't mind if Red Bull left and Prodrive came in. I'd also like to see Toyota back in the sport but only as an engine supplier and I'd also like to see VW/Porsche in the sport too.
Lastly, regarding his comment on F1 not supposed to be setting new records on fuel consumption. Again, what does a drink company know about fuel consumption. F1 came under huge scrutiny a few years back especially when fuel prices spiked during the global recession. Many asked how can F1 go about itself racing and wasting fuel when the economy is in a recession and fuel prices are heading higher and higher. To negate some of this negativity and to make the sport more relevant, our current rules were introduced with the hope that what is learned during racing will be trickled down to road cars. I think it has done that to a certain extent with Ferrari and McLaren's top sport cars using a hybrid powertrain.
Last edited by bam; 03-26-14 at 11:30 AM.
03-30-14, 02:32 PM
#56
Race Recap: 2014 Malaysian F1 Grand Prix [spoilers]
Gallery:
https://www.autoblog.com/photos/race...photo-2510993/
The Malaysian Grand Prix is always one of the jokers on the Formula One calendar: you know it's going to rain during the weekend, but you don't know when. This year it began during qualifying, the dammed up clouds over the Sepang track dumping their reservoirs just before Q1 and causing a 50-minute delay.
The conditions helped Infiniti Red Bull Racing close the gap on Mercedes AMG Petronas and split the Silver Arrows cars, Sebastian Vettel lining up in second on the grid behind pole-sitter Lewis Hamilton, ahead of Nico Rosberg. Fernando Alonso recovered from a suspension-damaging incident with Toro Rosso driver Daniil Kyvat to take fourth, followed by the second Red Bull of Daniel Ricciardo in fifth, then the off-form Kimi Räikkönen in sixth in the second Ferrari, Nico Hülkenberg in the Force India, star rookie Kevin Magnussen in the first McLaren ahead of Jean-Eric Vergne in the Toro Rosso, and Jenson Button in the second McLaren finishing up the top ten.
After that, though, the clouds decided they were done with F1. Save a few drop at the final corners during the race, the track stayed completely dry. And except for the beginning and the end, for the most part, so was the race.
Hamilton, who hasn't been on the podium in nine races, did his impersonation of the late-2013 Vettel, owning the race from lights to flag. Getting a great start when the lights went out, he took chunks of time out of his teammate every lap, Rosberg having managed to grab second place in the first series of corners, and kept anywhere from nine to 14 seconds of overcast daylight between himself and the cars behind. The only time Hamilton didn't lead the event was when he pitted and Hülkenberg stayed out for a few extra laps. When he crossed the line to finish the 57th and final lap, he earned his 33rd win and his 100th points-paying finish in F1.
Rosberg followed him home, fellow German Vettel putting him under pressure at a few points during the race but never enough to cause genuine trouble. Any time you hear a race engineer say, calmly, "Nico, you lead Vettel by 3.7 seconds, we'd like to get that up to five seconds," you know the situation is copacetic. The finish marked the first Mercedes one-two result since 1955.
Save for a flurry of passing and contact at the start and the usual tire-worn drama at the end, the grand prix was a procession. Jules Bianchi in the Marussia said he was hit by Vergne not far off the line and had his car damaged, causing him to plow into Pastor Maldonado in the Lotus at Turn 4. Maldonado was out of the race right there, Bianchi carried on but had to retire a few laps later.
Magnussen and Räikkönen also came together on Lap 4, the Finn in the Ferrari closing the door on the Dane into a corner and clobbering the McLaren's front wing. Räikkönen punctured his left rear tire and limped back to the pit lane, and the incident took all the air out of his race: after starting sixth on the grid, he finished in 12th, having labored near the back of the grid for a disconcerting amount of time. The stewards put the blame on Magnussen with a a five-second stop-go penalty and two points assessed on his superlicense. He finished in ninth.
Vettel took third place, a surprise podium for a Red Bull team that was described as being six weeks behind the program after pre-season testing due to Renault engine troubles. He had to get around his teammate to earn the place, though, passed by Ricciardo off the line and behind the young Australian for four laps before he made his move, also on Lap 4.
If Ricciardo thought things wouldn't go as badly in Southeast Asia as they had in Australia, he was wrong. Arguably, they went worse. His FIA-supplied fuel-flow sensor failed completely, but this time Red Bull worked with the FIA to use pre-agreed fuel consumption monitoring points. After a strong drive got him into fourth and he looked unbothered for the position, during his second pit stop on Lap 42 the pit crew released him before his left front tire was on properly. He pulled away, realized the tire wasn't fastened while still in the pits and had his car rolled back to his box and the tire put on properly but that ended his chances of a top-five finish. Back on track and fresh out of his stop, he hit the kerbing at Turn 14 and it broke his front wing, so he headed right back to the pits. The race stewards gave him a 10-second stop-go penalty during the race for unsafe release for the tire incident, and after that, more problems with the car saw him retire on Lap 49. After the race, the stewards hit him with a 10-position grid penalty for the next race in Bahrain.
Fernando Alonso nabbed fourth place, a late overtake on Nico Hülkenberg keeping him from turning in another one of his qualify-fifth-and-finish-fifth performances. It's looking the same as ever at Ferrari, Alonso saying after the race that the car felt slow the entire time and he doesn't know why it doesn't have pace. Alonso was seen taking a good look at Vettel's car in Parc Ferme after the race, perhaps looking for visible signs of Red Bull's phenomenal turnaround that he could take back to the Scuderia.
Hülkenberg, the driver who keeps putting midfield cars near the top of the order, made it another solid haul of points for Force India with his fifth-place finish. His teammate, Sergio Perez, didn't even get to start the race, his gearbox having problems downshifting. Hülkenberg was followed by Jenson Button, driving his usual studious race to sixth place and managing to keep the two Williams drivers behind him in the latter stages. That was helped by Felipe Massa, who disobeyed team orders and didn't let teammate Valtteri Bottas through to challenge Button even though he was instructed to do so several times in several ways. At this point we wouldn't be surprised to hear the funeral director overseeing Massa's final services declare, "Bury Massa second – the other corpse is faster." Still, the seventh and eighth places scored by Massa and Bottas prove that Williams, so far, is playing for real this year.
Magnussen, who had to recover from his penalties and a nose change, rocked up ninth in the second McLaren, followed by the quietly consistent Kyvat in the Toro Rosso.
After the second race, Rosberg holds onto first place in the driver's standings with 43 points, Hamilton leaps into second with 25, followed by Alonso with 24, Button with 23 and Magnussen with 20. Mercedes AMG Petronas pulls away from the field in the Constructor's Championship with 68 points, followed by McLaren with 43 and Ferrari with 30.
The next race is next weekend in Bahrain.
https://www.autoblog.com/2014/03/30/...prix-f1-recap/
Last edited by Hoovey689; 03-30-14 at 04:21 PM.
04-05-14, 03:47 PM
#57
Williams apologizes to drivers, fans, for botched 'team orders'
For the second year in a row, the Malaysian Grand Prix ended in a controversy over team orders - the commands from teams ordering teammates to let each other pass for positions. Whereas last year's fiasco surrounded Red Bull Racing, Williams is now under the microscope following last weekend's race.
In the closing laps, Felipe Massa (above, left) was leading teammate Valtteri Bottas (above, right) when the team ordered him to let the Finn pass. Massa supporters will recall the Brazilian being placed in a similar situation by his old team, Ferrari, in 2010. According to The New York Times, Massa ranked the moment where "Felipe, Fernando is faster than you," came over the radio, as one of the worst of his career. In this case, though, Massa held off his younger partner, allowing the team to enjoy a seventh/eighth-place finish.
For its part, Williams, which made a splash with its new Martini livery this year, was quick to clear the air. "Our fans expect us as a team to let our drivers race, and that's the overriding disappointment," said Claire Williams, deputy team principal and daughter of team namesake Sir Frank Williams. "We didn't handle the situation for either of our drivers particularly well, so of course we've apologized to our drivers. We're only human, at the end of the day. But as long as we correct them and hold our hands up, that's the most important thing."
Massa, for his part, is responding better than he did to the Ferrari sleight. "I believe that what's happened on the last race won't happen again," the Brazilian veteran said. "Team orders is part of our sport but it needs to be part of our sport when it's necessary. Everybody here is intelligent enough to understand when it's necessary and when it's not. When I do something that is my mistake, I will be the first one to say sorry. And the team was the first one to say sorry as well."
In the closing laps, Felipe Massa (above, left) was leading teammate Valtteri Bottas (above, right) when the team ordered him to let the Finn pass. Massa supporters will recall the Brazilian being placed in a similar situation by his old team, Ferrari, in 2010. According to The New York Times, Massa ranked the moment where "Felipe, Fernando is faster than you," came over the radio, as one of the worst of his career. In this case, though, Massa held off his younger partner, allowing the team to enjoy a seventh/eighth-place finish.
For its part, Williams, which made a splash with its new Martini livery this year, was quick to clear the air. "Our fans expect us as a team to let our drivers race, and that's the overriding disappointment," said Claire Williams, deputy team principal and daughter of team namesake Sir Frank Williams. "We didn't handle the situation for either of our drivers particularly well, so of course we've apologized to our drivers. We're only human, at the end of the day. But as long as we correct them and hold our hands up, that's the most important thing."
Massa, for his part, is responding better than he did to the Ferrari sleight. "I believe that what's happened on the last race won't happen again," the Brazilian veteran said. "Team orders is part of our sport but it needs to be part of our sport when it's necessary. Everybody here is intelligent enough to understand when it's necessary and when it's not. When I do something that is my mistake, I will be the first one to say sorry. And the team was the first one to say sorry as well."
04-06-14, 09:23 PM
#58
Race Recap: 2014 Bahrain Grand Prix is racing like you dream about
Race Recap: 2014 Bahrain Grand Prix is racing like you dream about
Gallery:
http://www.autoblog.com/photos/race-...photo-2521253/
Well. What a race.
The first line of last year's Bahrain Grand Prix recap was, "The sand, the wind, the penalties, the contact and the one crash – all of them collided to make the Bahrain Formula One Grand Prix a surprise affair from day to day and lap to lap." This year the sand stayed mostly off the track and the wind limited its gusts to the back side around Turn 11, but everything else carried over into this 2014 F1 season.
There were penalties issued, penalties given, contact from the first lap and an astonishing crash that made the race even more exciting than it already was. Or rather, two races, because the Mercedes AMG Petronas cars are so good – and both their drivers are so good – that every pilot is still racing for third unless one of The Silver Arrows trips up. But even the race for third was riveting. As well as that for fourth, fifth, sixth, and every position back to about eleventh, all through the race. At times it seemed like the producers were so unused to having to follow actual on-track passing that they weren't sure which camera to switch to; there was so much action for all 57 laps, sometimes two or three passing moves on the same lap to go along with the close racing throughout, that we saw more passes in replays than live.
And it all began when Lewis Hamilton whipped out his magic third gear...
Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg pipped teammate Hamilton for pole near the very end of Q3, when Hamilton erred at Turn 1 on his last possible attempt. That was a surprise but well earned pole for the German, because Hamilton had owned every free practice session all weekend. They lined up next to one another on the grid, with both on the medium tire and both pointed at the center of the track, aiming to chop the other off.
When the lights went out it looked like both got perfect starts, but Hamilton's was a touch more perfect, pulling alongside and then past Rosberg as he got up into the gears. Come Turn 1 he had his nose in front and got the inside line, Rosberg still shadowing him on the outside. Through the next complex of corners, though, Hamilton made better way and finally got his rear diffuser placed firmly in front of his teammate by the time they got out of Turn 4.
Rosberg never let him get away and always looked to make a move down the main straight as the two fought for the first few laps. When Rosberg's race engineer radioed to tell him to care for his tires and think about a possible alternate strategy, Rosberg lay off a little but stayed in Hamilton's mirrors until the first round of pitstops, when the German attacked again. He ducked inside of Hamilton and passed at the end of the front straight, but Hamilton took the inside line on the exit and pushed Rosberg well onto the kerbing, the two going at it again for a few corners until Hamilton, again, got himself solidly in front of Rosberg and was then able to pit first, being the first Mercedes on track.
Hamilton took on a set of soft tires, good for about half a second per lap over the medium tires, when Rosberg pitted a lap later he took on a set of mediums. During the second stint Hamilton built up a lead of about ten seconds on Rosberg, which he'd have to defend in the third stint when the tire strategies were reversed.
Enter Pastor Maldonado. As Sauber driver Esteban Gutiérrez rocketed toward Turn 1 around Lap 40, Maldonado exited the pits. For some reason, the Lotus driver shot out of the pit lane and straight for the apex at Turn 1, where Gutiérrez was turning in on the racing line, and Maldonado's Lotus speared into the rear right corner of the Sauber, the tire-on-tire contact flipping Gutiérrez' car across the track and into the tarmac runoff area. The Lotus was, incredibly, unhurt and continued.
The Safety Car emerged while the Sauber was removed, erasing Hamilton's advantage over Rosberg. Just as the Safety Car was about to return to the pits on Lap 47 with ten laps remaining, Mercedes AMG Petronas technical director Paddy Lowe came on the radio to urge both boys to "Bring the cars home." Probably everyone watching (including us) wondered if those were veiled team orders, but it didn't take one corner to find out they weren't: Mercedes said it would let its drivers race, Rosberg immediately jumped all over the back of Hamilton and for the next ten laps they stayed within a second of one another. Neither one of them made a mistake or put a wheel wrong, but as has been said many a time, it's one thing to catch, it's another thing to pass; even with the faster tire, Rosberg couldn't past Hamilton and his perfect driving and defending. The Brit crossed the finished line first, his teammate a second behind. Hamilton later said it was the hardest race he's ever won, Rosberg said it was the best battle of his career. For us, it was outstanding watching. We also learned just how good Mercedes is; finally forced to race with everything they had, The Silver Arrows showed themselves to be two seconds per lap ahead of the field.
An elated and relieved Sergio Perez grabbed third place by the neck, after dicing with his teammate Nico Hülkenberg in the first stint and pulling off a pass that had Hulkenberg complaining to his engineer. During the last ten-lap sprint, Daniel Ricciardo in the Infiniti Red Bull Racing in fourth closed in on Perez at half a second a lap from about six seconds back, Perez's race engineer telling him "He won't catch us at this pace." If the race had gone one more corner, that would have been a lie – the Red Bull was sniffing all over the back of Perez come the last few corners, and it was only the checkered flag that saved Perez from having to settle for fourth. In just his third race with the team and after having been soundly beat by his teammate in the first two races, and after the last miserable year with McLaren, Perez was thrilled to get on the podium. It's Force India's first visit to the rostrum since Giancarlo Fisichella did it at the Italian Grand Prix in 2009. Hülkenberg came in fifth, proving that Force India has built a strong car around that really strong Mercedes power unit.
Fourth went to Ricciardo, who proves race-by-race that he isn't the second driver at Red Bull. The Aussie qualified in third, but after his ten-place grid penalty started in 13th. He said he didn't have any thoughts of a podium, and the first two stints seemed to back up his prediction. Come the third stint, the Red Bull jumped to life and Ricciardo charged on through the top ten, passing his four-time World Champion teammate Sebastian Vettel seven laps from the end, then hunting down Perez and coming up just short for third place. Sixth went to Vettel, who said he couldn't get what Ricciardo could get out of the car and, "obviously we were not good enough today."
The Williams duo of Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas took seventh and eighth, punished for doing three-stop races instead of two. The Williams' showed plenty of speed in the opening stint, doing healthy battle with the Force Indias early in the race; if not for that extra stop there's no reason to believe they wouldn't have owned third and fourth position.
In ninth and tenth came Ferrari drivers Fernando Alonso and Kimi Räikkönen. Alonso made no excuses for the finishing positions, saying "we were just ninth and tenth and that was what we could do today." Räikkönen said the car is lacking just about everywhere, but not so much to explain why he felt like he was racing in a different class to the Mercedes-powered cars. Both drivers said the Ferrari T14 is improved over the first races and they expect things to get better, especially when the European rounds begin. It is, for us, a head-shaker to see Ferrari seemingly in the same position this year as the last five years, putting in a good pre-season and then fighting for mid-top-ten finishes for the first half of the season.
As for that Maldonado incident, he got a ten-second stop-go penalty, a five-place grid penalty for the Chinese Grand Prix and three points added to his license. It's a little surprising that Ricciardo got a ten-place penalty for unsafe release when his team recognized the error while still in the pits, but Maldonado gets five places for sending another car somersaulting across a hot track because of an incomprehensible move. But ah well – better news for Lotus is that it got both cars to the finish for the first time, in Romain Grosjean in 12th, Maldonado in 14th. That's the opposite fate of McLaren, which retired both its cars late in the race with what looked like engine trouble.
Hamilton's victory still leaves him second in the Driver's Championship with 50 points behind his teammate who has 61, and Hülkenberg's 28 points leapfrogs him over Alonso with 26. Mercedes AMG Petronas is already in the triple digits in the Constructor's Championship, their 111 towering over Force India in second (!) at 44 and McLaren in third with 43.
The Chinese Grand Prix comes in just two weeks, but we're certain that we'll still be thinking about this one. See you then.
http://www.autoblog.com/2014/04/06/r...prix-f1-recap/
