Car & Bike Formula 1 2015 Discussion thread

[onlyravi]

You should watch it at least the highlights. To start with it did not Rain. Then only 12 cars could finish the race. Tyres made many teams nervous and no body's strategy worked as they might have hoped of. for Vettel fans this is a MUST watch. JB somehow performs well in Austin and Brazil and specially if its raining.
Max Verstappen was delight to watch again.
The major highlight was the last few laps where Rosberg under steered and lost the first position to Hamilton... Man was he pissed off in the green room before the trophy presentation
He literally threw back the cap at hamilton and Rosberg was visibly pissed off
Watch the last 15 laps if not anything.
It was worth staying up that late

 

[prabs]

Apologies for disappearing for a while and not posting anything at all.

This season I haven't missed any of the races barring the remainder of the race post Kimi's brain fart.

Can't comment on the race as I didn't watch it in it's entirety but the track looked amazing and was the stands inspired by Singapore or Singapore inspired by Mexico whichever way it is the people who sat at in the J shaped tracks probably got the best seats in F1 though felt a bit odd as the same stands had their backs towards the start/finish straight. Nonetheless great track.

Alonso's car had issues even before start and yet in 3 corners he went upto 16. Bravo to him.

I always thought Kimi was the better of the 2 since 2005 even 2014 did little to change that image but 2015 I can definitely say Kimi was either never at the level of Alonso or has become a has been. The dive bomb at Russia and chopping Bottas and now saying stuff like hope Bottas is happy now. Makes me wonder if he has just lost some of his skills or also becoming senile.

I was not happy when Kimi left at the end of 2009. Was really happy during his Lotus days but now would like to see him have a decent 2016 season and retire. He doesn't have the spark anymore atleast Mika was honest.

 

[onlyravi]

With age and other younger faster drivers on the scene its obvious that Kimi is no longer in the top contenders but he is still a fabulous driver even today. I wish the same that he has a good 2016 and call it a day.
I thought the Mexico track was the worst. Cars were skidding on the shiny track.
Lost the interest in the race at lap 52 when Vettel crashed which meant both Ferrari cars were out of the race. Watched till the end to just see if there are any sparks at the front between Lewis and Nico. With two races remaining I still feel confident that Vettel might give Nico a nightmare and he would be needing some extra help from his team and rival in partner Lewis to gain good points in the next two races.
I was just wondering had Lewis not gone in for the last pit stop and continued the next 12 laps on the old tyre He would have still won the race The lead was almost 16-18 secs. And it was not easy for Nico to cover that time in just 12 laps. No way.
Only if Lewis had stayed out but he might have thought that no point in pissing off the team and taking their curse in next two races.

 

[derp]

Apologies for disappearing for a while and not posting anything at all.

This season I haven't missed any of the races barring the remainder of the race post Kimi's brain fart.

Can't comment on the race as I didn't watch it in it's entirety but the track looked amazing and was the stands inspired by Singapore or Singapore inspired by Mexico whichever way it is the people who sat at in the J shaped tracks probably got the best seats in F1 though felt a bit odd as the same stands had their backs towards the start/finish straight. Nonetheless great track.

Alonso's car had issues even before start and yet in 3 corners he went upto 16. Bravo to him.

I always thought Kimi was the better of the 2 since 2005 even 2014 did little to change that image but 2015 I can definitely say Kimi was either never at the level of Alonso or has become a has been. The dive bomb at Russia and chopping Bottas and now saying stuff like hope Bottas is happy now. Makes me wonder if he has just lost some of his skills or also becoming senile.

I was not happy when Kimi left at the end of 2009. Was really happy during his Lotus days but now would like to see him have a decent 2016 season and retire. He doesn't have the spark anymore atleast Mika was honest.

 

[prabs]

@derp - I don't hate Kimi. I have been a fan since 2003 but all drivers peak and then loose the edge. Kimi is at the stage where we see glimpses of his old self but mostly we see a driver who is only a shadow of his former self.

----------------

Tag Heuer a major sponsor of McLaren have pulled out and have decided to sponsor Red Bull instead. This is a major blow for McLaren as they have been running without a title sponsor ever since Vodafone left them. They were Mercedes Works team till Mercedes bought Brawn and their contract with Mercedes expired. It is said Honda not only provides the engines free as they are now a Works team with Honda as their engine partner but Honda pays nearly half their staff so Honda is an integral part of McLaren at this stage. So no matter how bad the engine is McLaren have got to stick to Honda.

Also it was recently said that Red Bull were scouting for engines and Honda showed interest but McLaren vetoed it. I guess like other front-runners they don't want to compete with a team like Red Bull who has a formidable background. No other team has used the Honda engine this year apart from McLaren hence if next year Red Bull performs better than McLaren then many may conclude that this year wasn't just Honda's fault.

All in all things looking a bit grim for a team that was once a Top 3 team every year. Hope like William they can turn things around soon.

The next race - With an exception to the battle between Kimi and Bottas for the 4th position there's not much to look forward thanks to the god awful track. Let's just hope that both McLaren's finish if not in points and the season end on a high for McLaren because they can really use some positive news at this point.

 

[onlyravi]

All in all things looking a bit grim for a team that was once a Top 3 team every year. Hope like William they can turn things around soon.

Worst case scenario... Cant Redbull fallback and stay with Renault engines for another one year? Its not that bad either. Yes Redbull expects race winning engines which Renault is not yet able to provide with the new engines but I feel something will work out. Personally I dont want to watch a season without Redbull and Daniel R.

The next race - With an exception to the battle between Kimi and Bottas for the 4th position there's not much to look forward thanks to the god awful track.

I am excited about this race since Vettel has proved that he can start from the pits and end on the podium on this track. Sadly even if Rosberg is DNF and Vettel is P1 he still would be 6 points behind
So this season is ended already as far as the race for top three goes. But still the Abu Dhabi Grad Prix is always a good race to watch.
The day night transition. The lovely lightings and the glossy shiny cars under the flood lights. The looongggg Pit lane

I read somewhere that they are planning to change the engine again in 2017. Bringing in some dual turbo charger ....
For this season Max Verstappen has provided some of the best overtakes. It will be fun to watch the season review.
On the ROC front Vettel won it again.

 

[prabs]

@onlyravi - Looks like you sort of get your wish with Vettel

With the final qualifications over the race is set and hopefully for once Kimi won't drive like a drunk bimbo and lady luck will stay with him throughout.

Odd Kimi manages to be in a position for podium where champagne is not available. I think if he does make it to the podium he will be greeted with Rose Water or whatever else is offered here. LOL

 

[prabs]

The season is over. Kimi wins the battle of the Finns securing 4th place.

Thanks to the ads I don't know what Alonso said.

The season was not really exciting I guess neither was last year but Lewis didn't have a bulletproof car that year so atleast there was some tension but this year it was pretty vanilla and unlike Webber or Barichello Nico didn't drop too many points leaving just 1 position on the podium to fight for. Vettel being very consistent and quick that place was also reserved most of the times.

A few victories for Seb and Ferrari else it was always either of the Merc drivers.

Others really have to step up their game else next year will be no different.

Those who think Ferrari will catchup and be on par or better should not forget that it is a moving target and Mercedes will be developing as well.

The worse of the bunch is Honda who might as well flush their current engine down the toilet and build a new better one.

I am curious about Renault though - They used some tokens and the engine they gave Daniel is said to be no better but what if they have another engine underwraps that used more tokens and with tokens for 2016 build a really good engine take over Lotus and put that engine in the back of the new team.

I do not know what engine RBR plans to use next year but suppose they move on alongwith Toro Rosso to another manufacturer and Renault really surprises with their engine then what happens?

Let's see what happens during the winter testing.

 

[derp]

The season is over. Kimi wins the battle of the Finns securing 4th place.

Thanks to the ads I don't know what Alonso said.

The season was not really exciting I guess neither was last year but Lewis didn't have a bulletproof car that year so atleast there was some tension but this year it was pretty vanilla and unlike Webber or Barichello Nico didn't drop too many points leaving just 1 position on the podium to fight for. Vettel being very consistent and quick that place was also reserved most of the times.

A few victories for Seb and Ferrari else it was always either of the Merc drivers.

Others really have to step up their game else next year will be no different.

Those who think Ferrari will catchup and be on par or better should not forget that it is a moving target and Mercedes will be developing as well.

The worse of the bunch is Honda who might as well flush their current engine down the toilet and build a new better one.

I am curious about Renault though - They used some tokens and the engine they gave Daniel is said to be no better but what if they have another engine underwraps that used more tokens and with tokens for 2016 build a really good engine take over Lotus and put that engine in the back of the new team.

I do not know what engine RBR plans to use next year but suppose they move on alongwith Toro Rosso to another manufacturer and Renault really surprises with their engine then what happens?

Let's see what happens during the winter testing.

 

[hotshot05]

Race was quite boring overall. It was going to heat up when hamilton said that he wanted to go till the end of the race on his used tires. He could have taken on his used option tires also. But in the end he could not decide and hence we had a boring end to the race.

Verstappen is the person to watch out for in the next few seasons. That guy can overtake pretty well.

Force India ended on a high after starting the season with almost no funds. Let's see if they change their name to Aston Martin racing from next yr and can catch up with Williams.

 

[prabs]

@hotshot05 - I am not really sure what happened because the commentary made it look like Mercedes kept him out too long and then asked him to choose the tyre and he chose the soft compound and not the super soft like Vettel but he lost around 0.5-1.5 seconds to Nico while on it hence wanted to finish on those tyres because he knew that Nico had graining issues before and it is a difficult track to pass on so if he could just hang in there he would have an outside chance to win the race. It could ofcourse had gone entirely south and he would have ended up behind Kimi post a pitstop but luckily didn't. In short it appeared to me that Mercedes wanted to keep both drivers away from each other and they succeeded on doing that.

Force India did do well and hope they continue to do well.

 

[hotshot05]

@hotshot05 - I am not really sure what happened because the commentary made it look like Mercedes kept him out too long and then asked him to choose the tyre and he chose the soft compound and not the super soft like Vettel but he lost around 0.5-1.5 seconds to Nico while on it hence wanted to finish on those tyres because he knew that Nico had graining issues before and it is a difficult track to pass on so if he could just hang in there he would have an outside chance to win the race. It could ofcourse had gone entirely south and he would have ended up behind Kimi post a pitstop but luckily didn't. In short it appeared to me that Mercedes wanted to keep both drivers away from each other and they succeeded on doing that.

Force India did do well and hope they continue to do well.

I watched it on BBC2. I don't know if the Star Sports commentators mentioned it or not. But Hamilton only had a used pair of super softs. He had already done 3 laps on it. Expected life for the super soft was around 20 laps. At the time that he was being asked to choose, it was around lap 38(out of 55). So to absolutely guarantee that he can safely use the super softs till the chequered flag, they had to wait for another 3-4 laps.

 

[onlyravi]

Apart from watching Vettel this was the most boring Abu Dhabi GP.
Kimi somehow again performs well in Abu Dhabi. ( like @prabs said he seems to do well on tracks that dont serve champagne on the podium )
I am pretty much positive that next year Ferrari would be able to perform much better and might end up getting more podiums and breaking between the two mercs drivers.
Dont know about Redbull.
Do they have an option to stick with Renault if no one else agrees to provide them an engine?
BTW this winter will be busy for F1 as there is a lot happening through out. Team transitions, new team. new engine, probably new F1 owner too.
We will be getting some news or the other every week till Jan end.
Where is Ross Brawn? What is he doing currently? I know he had said that he wont return to F1 and I think the last we heard of him was when Christan Horner mentioned him in Austria.
Also any new news on Micheal Schumacher?