So it’s Italy and as close to Scuderia Marlboro as you get. The speculation that Monza is done as a venue is a trifle premature as there is every indication that the local goverment is caving to Ecclstone’s every whim.
He’s muzzled the complaints about Pirelli who build the tires he wants anyway (ones that pop if you drive them too hard). Mercedes is testing their 2016 engine with Hamilton on pole, Rosberg is 4th on the 2015 because his blew up. The Scuderia is 2nd and 3rd to put the butts in the seats.
“The words that I would use to describe it is that it is too perfect,” said Gil de Ferran, who worked at the Honda team a decade ago and who won the Indianapolis 500 as a driver. “People got too good at it. They are very, very good. So you don’t see anymore the imperfections, the human factor as clearly. The cars don’t break down, they don’t blow up. Nothing happens.”
…
Mercedes had only been guilty of achieving what every team and driver had always aimed to do.
“As a driver, think about this for a second, what is the perfect race?” de Ferran asked. “The perfect race is when I put the car on the pole, and I get the perfect start and each lap I pull away by a few tenths. Which is also possibly the most boring race you could think of.”
In a totally wrongheaded move Formula one is moving to further communications restrictions. There is a new start rule that restricts communications between the car and pit about clutch settings. Mark Webber for one worries this could lead to a rash of stalls and subsequent collisions.
Lotus in financial trouble. Charles Pic is suing over their commitment to him as a driver (for which he paid, mind you) and he’s secured a court order impounding the cars after the race. Gosjean qualified 4th but was dropped 5 grids for a gearbox replacement. Alsonso and Button on the other hand will have to start from the back due to changes in their Honda power plant.
Renault evaluating F1 commitment. Because of the poor performance of its engine and the dissatisfaction of Red Bull, their primary team, they are deciding whether to quit all together or buy a team.
The Guardian has a financial state of play article about the acquisition of Formula One by the Quatari Sovereign Wealth Fund and RSE Investments (owners of the Miami Dolphins). The Russian GP could become a night race.
Driver gossip- Raikkonen has a new contract with Ferrari. Jenson Button’s house was broken in to, and there is some speculation he and his wife may have been gassed. Hamilton was caught playing with fully automatic weapons (perfectly legal if the people you’re renting time from have the right paperwork and you can afford it). Kvyat was fined for not paying attention and unsafe release from pit lane.
There were several shaky incidents in practice. There were 4 penalties in Qualifying penalties, all due to engine woes. Grosjean got 5 Grids for his gearbox (as previously mentioned ); Alonso, Button, and Verstappen got 30, 25, and 18 Grids for exceding Engine Allowance. Grosjean will start 9th, Verstappen 18th, and Button and Alonso will start 19th and 20th.
On offer are Mediums and Softs. Rosberg had a huge blowout in Practice. Rain is expected, but it always is at Spa.
You may ask me, ‘ek, why do you cover sports?’ There are two reasons. The Meta one is that as a general interest topic it drives readership and the live blogging commentary creates activity. Since the action unfolds in a semi-predictable fashion it’s not that that difficult to, with practice, establish a rhythm that does not strain my execrable typing skills (yes, despite years of training by the best teachers I can barely manage three fingers on a good day). The volume of the commentary demonstrates that despite a lack of peeder type automatic Ajax updating, long, timely, and complicated discussions can be held using pacified’s Java recreation of Scoop (Soapblox).
The second is class warfare, this is why I’m drawn to those that are notoriously obscure and corrupt, like Formula One.
Monaco is the tightest, slowest track on the schedule, kept alive by tradition and the crass display of wealth and privilege. It is no accident that Monaco is the site of the mid-season meeting of the Formula One executive committee. You may have money, but do you have Monaco money?
We may look back on this year as the begining of the end.
First of all the positive outcome- they are bringing back refueling. Why is refueling important? It’s not just the amount of time a car spends in the pits, fuel is weight and lighter cars are faster and easier on tires. You have to add this factor into your over all race strategy and complicated is good. It creates opportunities for overtaking that don’t involve bumping tires in a corner (very dangerous) and instead take place while cars are stopped (somewhat more dangerous for the pit crew, but they do it in IndyCar and Turn Left so how difficult can it be?).
The bad news.
Formula One is hemmoraging interest and audience. Sure Bernie can screw hundreds of Millions from despotic dictatorships for the right to have the Circus visit, but in Europe viewership and attendance is crashing. No German Grand Prix this year and soon enough no Billion dollar TV contract from Sky and BBC.
Bernie’s solution? ‘Customer Cars’. What this means is that there will only be 4 teams on the track- Mercedes, Ferrari, Red Bull, and McLaren. If you’re a field filler (not one of the 10 works cars) you’ll pay through the nose for second rate cast offs to fund the development program of the favored four.
Hey, if I wanted to watch Turn Left racing I could. You know why I don’t? It’s BORING!
You want to know what would make a difference? Subsidized on track testing, looser engine rules, more equitable bonus payouts (teams that use ‘Customer Cars’ are not eligible for any Constructor’s bonuses at all). Bernie thinks that somehow this all adds up to a new personality-centric, driver oriented system that eliminates paying for seats (hey, how about this radical idea- just ban it) and creates fan interest.
Just. Like. Turn Left.
I don’t root for Hamilton (this week Hamilton got the superstar contract, $50 Million a year for 3 years) except to the extent that I think he’s talented and exciting and it irks me to see a robotic asshole like Vettel (or Schumacher) fly off in clean air never to be seen again and have all the commentators proclaim what a great driver he is though his only talents are Qualifying and staying out of trouble in superior machinery. I have much more respect for Alonso who can make a brick seem racy.
Bernie has picked the the wrong metaphor here. Scuderia fans are Scuderia fans regardless of results just as in U.S. team sports it hardly matters who’s on the Mets or Green Bay or the Lady Huskies (Men’s Basketball is crap. Pro Basketball is crap squared). Drivers are mercenaries, they come and go. Teams are the soul of the sport and we’re witnessing that soul being ripped out.
And not without consequence, Bernie’s business model can not work. As interest drains from the sport so will the money until even the tyrants he gets along with so well have no use for this senile old dinosaur.
Oh, racing. Tight and slow. No place to pass. Softs and Super Softs with just the one stop to get legal unless you care to get exotic to relieve the tedium.
The good news is no Chuck Todd. Coverage on NBC starting at 7:30 am then Premier League Soccer (Another team driven sport, the richest in the world. Are you listening Bernie? Of course not.).
Wait, that was last week. Today we are back in Europe at Circuit de Catalunya on Hards and Hediums of which Sebastian Vettel says we cannot expect the same miracle of failure that led to a surprise second for Kimi Räikkönen at the last race in Sakhir even though he and Mercedes have saved a fresh set of Mediums.
Rosberg has gotten the pole which acually means very little unless you were betting on it. McLaren shows signs of improvement, making it into Q2, which is good news for Honda, Jensen Button, and Fernando Alonso.
The movement to race what we got is raising some steam which goes to what I’ve been saying for years now which is that rule changes backed by testing limitations is a false economy that saves pennies now to cost pounds later. Sure test time is expensive, but without it you can hardly expect to win or even to contend.
In more signs of failure and desperation Formula One is talking about “condensing it’s season” which pushes it comfortably out of March Madness for me but truly reflects the greed of Bernie Ecclestone and his determination to wring every last dime out of the teams and tracks for the priviledge of participating in his private circus.
Sigh. I should stress less about sporting events that are the mere play things and status symbols of Billionaire Plutocrats.
There was no one moment when Jon Stewart knew it was time for him to leave what he describes as “the most perfect job in the world”; no epiphany, no flashpoint. “Life,” he says, in the lightly self-mocking tone he uses when talking about himself, “doesn’t really work that way, with a finger pointing at you out of the sky, saying, ‘Leave now!’ That only happens when you’re fired, and trust me, I know about that.”
Instead, he describes his decision to quit The Daily Show, the American satirical news programme he has hosted for 16 years, as something closer to the end of a long-term relationship. “It’s not like I thought the show wasn’t working any more, or that I didn’t know how to do it. It was more, ‘Yup, it’s working. But I’m not getting the same satisfaction.'” He slaps his hands on his desk, conclusively.
“These things are cyclical. You have moments of dissatisfaction, and then you come out of it and it’s OK. But the cycles become longer and maybe more entrenched, and that’s when you realise, ‘OK, I’m on the back side of it now.'”
…
If anything, it was the prospect of the upcoming US election that pushed him to leave the show. “I’d covered an election four times, and it didn’t appear that there was going to be anything wildly different about this one,” he says.
“Anyone could, because that story is absolutely everything that it’s supposed to be about,” he says, with a groan; as a revelation, it managed to be at once depressing and completely unsurprising.
As Philip J. Fry says, “It’s just a matter of knowing the secret of all television: at the end of the episode, everything is back to normal.”
By 2012, Formula One had long been selling its Grands Prix to governments throughout the world as a way to showcase the host country or city and receive an economic windfall from visiting spectators. It had been done in Abu Dhabi, China, South Korea and Turkey, but one of the first of this new wave of host countries had been Bahrain, in 2004.
The Bahrain Grand Prix had been a successful race from the start. It helped shed new light on the Gulf state, an island kingdom that was home to the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet and known for its oil and financial industries.
Through the years, those who regularly attended the race knew that there were also social disturbances in Manama, the capital city, which is about a 30-minute drive from the Formula One circuit. Traffic was sometimes jammed by anti-government demonstrations. But only rarely were those events mentioned in coverage of the race. Until 2011.
In Manama that year, amid the wave of Arab Spring uprisings throughout the region, the mostly Shiite opposition protests grew and the Sunni government clamped down on them with force, leading to bloodshed.
Bahrain had been run by the same ruling al-Khalifa family, of Sunni origin, since the 18th century. But in recent decades, the kingdom had invited foreigners to live and work there, and soon the Shiites grew to be a majority of the 1.2 million population. They wanted equal social treatment with the Sunnis.
The demonstrations in Manama had begun just a month before the 2011 Bahrain Grand Prix was scheduled to run. The race organizers eventually decided to cancel the race.
In 2012, however, the Bahrain government planned to go ahead with the race. So the opposition groups decided that if for nearly a decade the government had hosted the race to promote its image of the country, they, too, could use the race to publicize their own cause.
In the preceding year, there had been a reported 70 deaths and many people imprisoned. With the expanded media coverage of the Grand Prix, the demonstrations picked up before and during the race weekend. Although the government was generally not allowing reporters into the country, visas had been granted to sports journalists who came to cover the race. But most of them had little or no experience covering geopolitical stories.
In the days before the race, while in central Manama there were no demonstrations, members of the opposition took journalists to areas where there were protests. Reports and images of dissent quickly went global.
A demonstrator was killed by security forces during the protests, but there was no violence at the race track or in central Manama, where most of the sports journalists were staying. Several members of the Force India team were caught in a hail of Molotov cocktails while driving back to the city from the track, but no one was injured.
Despite public calls from British politicians, human rights groups and other organizations around the world to cancel the race, Formula One remained adamant that the show would go on.
“I can’t call this race off,” said Bernie Ecclestone, the series’s promoter. “Nothing to do with us. We’ve an agreement to be here, and we’re here.”
The Formula One drivers either made no comment or, like Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel, the reigning world champion, said that they could not understand what all the fuss was about.
“I haven’t seen anyone throwing bombs,” he said. “I don’t think it is that bad. There is a lot of hype, which is why I think it is good that we start our job here, which is the sport and nothing else.”
Nice guy that Sebastian. Always a pleasure to see him get his ass kicked.
After less than 24 hours in the country, the Guardian was told by a number of sources this week that the anti-government protests, far from having gone away, continue on an almost daily basis and have increased in numbers and volume with the arrival of Formula One. They also attest that the Bahraini state’s response has been arrests and a crackdown on dissent.
In the paddock the racing weekend continues as normal, business as usual for F1, part and parcel of Bahrain’s attempt to convince the world that it is business as normal for the state as well. Yet away from the track such relatively simple tasks as meeting with fellow journalists are conducted with requests for discretion. “They monitor phones, they use it extensively to work out details of how and who we contact to prevent us from working with other journalists and human rights groups,” says Mazen Mahdi, a Bahraini journalist for the German Press Agency. “If you tried to cover a protest live and see what the police are doing, if they saw you they would stop us and take us. It’s dangerous. Technically, just talking to me is breaking your visa status.”
Dangerous it seems for others, too, with repeated attempts by the Guardian to talk to family members of those who have been recently arrested meeting with failure through fear that being seen to speak out to the media would result in harsher sentences for those already detained. None in the end were willing to put their heads above the parapet. Claims of the use of tear gas and birdshot at protests is mentioned repeatedly and, amid the fear, there is a sense of outrage that F1 arrives to make money and entertain but remains at the same time devoid of the responsibilities that its very presence demands. Some people may be afraid but they also really want Formula One to be a force for change.
Formula One has long-insisted this is none of its business. “We’re not here, or we don’t go anywhere, to judge how a country is run,” Bernie Ecclestone pointed out two years ago. The damning Amnesty report, however, was preceded by another announcement with considerably less fanfare. In it the group Americans for Democracy on Human Rights in Bahrain said that it had concluded an agreement with F1 that the sport would begin a policy of analysing the human rights impact it might have on host nations. “Formula One Group has committed to taking a number of further steps to strengthen its processes in relation to human rights,” it read. So now it seems, to some extent, it is Formula One’s business.
John Donne, Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, Meditation 17
No man is an island, entire of itself. Each is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less; as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thine own or of thine friend’s were.
Each man’s death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind; therefore send not to know for whom the bell tolls.
Britain’s Guardian newspaper saw the statement as a victory for campaigners and compared it to the words of 84-year-old Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone two years ago.
“We don’t go anywhere to judge how a country is run. I keep asking people, ‘What human rights?’. I don’t know what they are,” he said then.
1. The Formula One Group is committed to respecting internationally recognised human rights in its operations globally.
2. Whilst respecting human rights in all of our activities, we focus our efforts in relation to those areas which are within our own direct influence. We do so by taking proportionate steps to:
(a) understand and monitor through our due diligence processes the potential human rights impacts of our activities;
(b) identify and assess, by conducting due diligence where appropriate, any actual or potential adverse human rights impacts with which we may be involved either through our own activities or as a result of our business relationships, including but not limited to our suppliers and promoters;
(c) consider practical responses to any issues raised as a result of our due diligence, within the relevant context;
(d) engage in meaningful consultation with relevant stakeholders in relation to any issues raised as a result of our due diligence, where appropriate; and
(e) respect the human rights of our employees, in particular the prohibitions against forced and child labour, the freedom to associate and organise, the right to engage in collective bargaining, and the elimination of discrimination in employment and occupation.
3. Where domestic laws and regulations conflict with internationally recognised human rights, the Formula One Group will seek ways to honour them to the fullest extent which does not place them in violation of domestic law.
You have to scroll way down past all that copyright stuff to find it. Larry, get me some weak tea.
Mediums and Softs. Hamilton thinks Rosberg is not trying hard enough to beat him. Rosberg thinks Hamilton is an asshole (probably true that). Mercedes is still making race management mistakes.
A proposal to increase Formula One’s power unit allowance from four to five per driver this season will be discussed at a meeting next month, leaving some in danger of being penalised before change is agreed.
“The proposal is with the (governing) FIA and I guess it’s going to be discussed the next time around in a strategy meeting,” Mercedes motorsport head Toto Wolff said at the Bahrain Grand Prix.
…
After three races, Red Bull’s Australian Daniel Ricciardo has used three Renault internal combustion engines, one of six elements making up the V6 turbo hybrid power unit, while seven others are on two.
Drivers were allowed five units last season but that was tightened for 2015. Grid penalties will be applied if allowances are exceeded.
Have I mentioned yet that Bernie Ecclestone is a senile jerk?
The new 1.6-liter, hybrid turbo engines use a third less fuel than their V-8, 2.4-liter, normally aspirated predecessors and produce at least double the hybrid energy – as well as far less noise. But whether a team, engine provider or other interested party considers the project a success or a failure depends on the results on the track.
For the Mercedes car manufacturer and its team, which won the titles last year and is leading the series heading into the fourth race of the current season, the Bahrain Grand Prix this weekend, the program is not only an astounding success, but an essential factor in the German company wanting to continue in Formula One.
“For us, the current technology is an important part of our involvement,” said Toto Wolff, the head of the Mercedes racing program. “Our marketing strategy focuses on the hybrid technology of Formula One.”
But for Bernie Ecclestone, the promoter of the series, who has complained that the loss of the old engine roar has reduced the excitement for track-side spectators, the program is a sign that the series is in its death throes.
“The fans want the volume, the teams want the low cost – and even the racing was better,” Ecclestone recently told Sport Bild, a weekly German sports magazine. “Toto can have a lovely inscription on his gravestone that says ‘I helped to kill Formula One.”‘
Ecclestone was referring specifically to the refusal by Mercedes to agree to a vote to change the rules in the immediate future to revert to the louder, gas-guzzling engines.
Ferrari, the most vocal complainer about the engines last year, made huge progress with its engine technology over the winter. It won the second race this season and has finished with a driver on the podium in each of the first three races. Ferrari has for now ceased to complain about the new engine formula.
The Renault engine manufacturer and the Red Bull team, by contrast, have picked up where Ferrari left off last year. Having taken a step backward in engine power, both the team and the manufacturer have threatened to withdraw from the series if something is not done.
Yet it was Renault that several years ago asked Formula One to create a new, environmentally friendly engine, seeking to make the series more relevant to its effort to sell hybrid road cars.
Bernie, buy yourself a Walkman and crank the volume to eleven you deaf old bastard.
Jensen Button may or may not race due to electric problems on his McLaren Honda. He could barely practice and was unable to complete a lap in Qualifying.
So it’s race number 3 and it’s time to see if Mercedes has stopped being McLaren stupid (c’mon guys, leaving Hamilton out there on Hards was a bonehead play). Mediums and Softs, pit lane delta 23 seconds, 1 or 2 seconds a lap on the Softs. Not a lot of other headline news.
As far as the teams go Ferrari has eclipsed Red Bull but that’s really only gratifying to Sebastian Vettel’s ego. Alonso is not fast which I charitably attribute to the sack of crap that is Honda power because I would hate to think that his practice accident has taken someone who used to be able to make a brick look racy and ruined them. Williams is the best of the rest which excites the Brits who commentate except that they are also Ferrari whores.
It’s not so bad, it could be raining. Oh wait, it is.
Bernie Ecclestone’s Formula One empire is hanging by a thread and really the best thing he could do for the sport right now is pack up his office (under the scrutiny of a Security Officer of course) and head for the parking lot.
Don’t let the door hit you.
First of all Germany is off. Nürburgring is having financial trouble and can’t meet Bernie’s fees. Hockenheimring is unwilling to do so because Formula One is unprofitable for them and only drew 52,000 spectators last year (of a potential 120,000). Bernie is tearing up the contract for the German Grand Prix (or wants to, we’ll see) and ominously threatens that Monza is next.
There goes his vaunted 20 race season, just like his 20 car field, but don’t worry- Bernie is sure it will all pass over. I’m sure he’ll find another Petro-Emirate with more bucks than brains to fill in.
What it does mean is that Formula One’s reservoir of goodwill in Europe, its traditional heartland and the base of all of its teams, is thin indeed and Bernie’s senile delusions of challenging Football (the kind you play with your feet) are just that. And, since it would be irresponsible not to speculate, what will it mean for the Fiat (Ferrari) commitment to Formula One going forward to lose its home track or for that matter Mercedes (which has lost it) without whom most cars would be nothing but sculptures?
The Red Bull/Renault dispute continues. Red Bull’s Team Manager has had some very unflattering things to say and thoughts being bandied about include Red Bull buying out Renault (at least the Formula One Engine part), Renault buying out Red Bull in whole or in part (Toro Rosso), or Red Bull and/or Renault leaving Formula One entirely.
I give the money edge to Renault, They are after all a multi-Billion dollar automotive firm and Red Bull? Well, it’s a soft drink company.
Why is this important to Bernie? Because Red Bull puts 4 cars on the track- 20% of the entire field. Without them you start the math at 16 when counting down to Bernie’s minimum contractual obligation of 14. Oh, and don’t think Australia isn’t pissed he could only track 18 and finish 11 at Albert Part.
And what about Sauber? Giedo van der Garde has settled out of court after winning in it, but he got a pot of money for doing so-
There has been a lot of speculation in the media over the past week, so I want to set out clearly that my sponsors paid the sponsorship fee related to the 2015 season in its entirety to Sauber in the first half of 2014.
This was simply in good faith and to help the team deal with its cash problems at the time. Effectively, it was my sponsor’s advanced payments that helped the team survive in 2014.
Sauber’s financial decision-making in this case is bizarre and makes no sense to me. I am not at liberty to discuss details, but Sauber paid significant compensation to avoid honouring the contract they had with me. Only in that respect can I be satisfied that my rights have finally been recognised and that at least some justice has been done.
Monisha Kaltenborn is making the same kind of ‘move along, nothing to see here’ noises Bernie does, but Sauber was a team on the edge financially last year and “there is continued speculation that Colin Kolles, the former principal of Caterham and HRT, wants to take over the team.”
Supposedly ChemChina’s takeover of Pirelli leaves their Formula One commitment “unchanged”, but in this case “unchanged” means that they have a contract through 2016 that they intend to honor and no longer term deal has been reached yet.
Oh BTW, Hards and Mediums. Three stop strategy unless it rains. Did I mention rain? Caused a half hour delay in Qualifying.
Speaking of contracts, Hamilton is looking to ink a long term one with Mercedes.
Speaking of Drivers, Alonso is back but he didn’t get to Q3 by a long shot and doesn’t look the same. Also he’s in a big dispute with McLaren over whether a ‘gust of wind’ caused his accident or his steering failed.
Speaking of mechanical failure, Hamilton missed two practice sessions because his engine telemetry failed (there may be more to it than that).
All in all it’s shaping up to be another fine season in Formula One because everything is always fine in Formula One.
“Formula One has a major problem but the sport is putting its head in the sand,” he said. “Two thirds of the grid are struggling, and barely able to make it to the race. Right now F1 needs to have a good look at itself and decide what it is trying to achieve. The product is in need of a massive kickstart.
“What’s going on? Bernie Ecclestone has done a phenomenal job for [owners] CVC but somebody needs to step in because of the dire state the middle and bottom of the grid is in. You can’t have a race with just four big teams. I’m unhappy with the governance from the FIA.”
…
“And then, in the race, there were so many cars and drivers missing. Australia values what the race brings to Melbourne and Victoria. They love their sport there but they will make their views known about that event, and it was not a good grand prix.”
Watson says F1’s efforts to cut costs have created problems of their own. “The regulations do not allow you to produce an entirely new engine this year, so the teams have to make the most of their development token. But that means that Mercedes, who have got everything spot on, are now enjoying complete domination. Another problem has been the reduction in testing time, again to cut costs. And this season teams have only four engines instead of five. So no one wants to do mileage because of the meagre engine allowance. Yet these hybrid engines are so complicated that everybody needs track time. Half the problem is bloody procedures. It’s nuts, total nuts.”
Watson, like many people in Formula One, wants CVC to readdress the amount of money it is taking out of a sport with an annual turnover of £1.5bn, while the majority of the teams struggle for survival. “That’s an area that must be revisited to keep the sport worthy of the money people are paying to watch it, either at the track or on TV.”
Watson also took a sideswipe at Red Bull’s team principal, Christian Horner, who in Australia was outspokenly critical of the Renault engine. “What Christian said about Renault was outrageous,” Watson said. “Has the bloke lost the plot? There were some unnecessarily blunt comments about the Renault power unit. You should keep those remarks for meetings behind closed doors.
“Renault are spending a fortune supporting the technology and the hardware to enable Red Bull to continue the success they have enjoyed. If I was Renault I would feel pissed off that Christian has bit off the hand that’s feeding him. The relationship seems to be disintegrating very rapidly. The public sniping is inappropriate and counterproductive.”
Watson, 68, was also critical of McLaren when he said: “They’ve had two bad years with the Mercedes engine. It’s hard to understand why they didn’t do better when you see how well Williams, Force India and of course Mercedes themselves did.”
And finally, because Bernie is always sooo ready to pamper his pets-
Formula One’s commercial supremo Bernie Ecclestone has backed Red Bull’s call for action to rein in Mercedes’s engine advantage and make races more competitive after a one-sided start to the season.
…
“They are absolutely 100% right,” Ecclestone said when asked about the Red Bull principal Christian Horner’s statement that the FIA should apply an “equalisation mechanism” to narrow the gap.
…
Ecclestone said it was not a case of doing everything possible to stop Mercedes but simply to allow other manufacturers more flexibility.
“What we should have done was frozen the Mercedes engine and leave everybody else to do what they want so they could have caught up,” he said. “We should support the FIA to make changes.”
So I have chewed through 156 stories about Formula One all published in the last 6 weeks covering the two winter testing periods and this week of practice before the first race. You can see them below if you want to poke around. There are also 2 videos from The Guardian about the personnel and rule changes. I’ve also watched 5 hours of Practice and Qualifying so I could get the Vs. TV crew take on things.
THAT… is a lot.
We’ll get more into things as the season forges ahead, but to sum up-
We won’t be seeing Fernando Alonso until Malaysia. His McLaren caught a cross wind in Barcelona during the second Winter testing session and he ended up in the wall and suffered an extremely bad concussion. How bad? Well, they’re denying it of course but there are reliable reports that he thought he was a 17 year old Karter who wanted to be in Formula One someday instead of a 34 year old Champion who is arguably the best person in the world at driving bricks.
Speaking of bricks, the Honda engine (if you can call it that) is a terrible piece of crap they can barely keep on the track. Check out these lap figures from the Winter tests-
Testing Laps
Team
Laps
Delta
Engine
Mercedes
1340
+23%
Mercedes
Sauber
1245
+43%
Ferrari
Toro Rosso
1206
+125%
Renault
Ferrari
1182
+21%
Ferrari
Williams
1069
0
Mercedes
Red Bull
943
+154%
Renault
Lotus
918
+228%
Mercedes
Force India
669
+78%
Mercedes
McLaren
380
-58%
Honda
We also know that Ferrari has finally put together an engine that’s better than the Renault. Of course that’s not saying much. Red Bull and Toro Rossa are the Renault ‘Works’ teams and the only ones running their slightly less than the most terrible piece of crap and relations between Renault and Red Bull have gotten so bad that Red Bull is offering to buy Renault out and take over engine development themselves (there must be a pot of money in energy drinks, they sure spend enough). During Practice 3 they had to push one of them back to the pit after replacing the power plant that morning.
Everyone else except for Sauber is running Mercedes and no wonder.
Ah, Sauber. Seems that they have sold their two seats three times. Van der Garde has taken them to court on that and won on every level. As of P2 they were under Court Order to race him or the Victoria Supreme Court would impound their assets and send the team owner to jail for contempt. Van der Garde relented on Qualifying Day and will sit this one out, but it’s not over by a long shot.
Which would have left us with 16 cars (remember, Bernie has to put 14 on the grid or the Tracks start taking money out of his wallet and he hates that.
“But ek,” you say “aren’t there 10 teams with 2 cars each?”
Let me tell you the sad strange tale of Manor Marussia. As you’ll note below Marussia was questionable at best for this season, what is not made clear by the contemporary articles that Wikipedia explains is that Manor Motorsports is the original founder of the team and has elected to rescue it. Since this deal was sealed about 2 weeks ago and Marussia was liquidated to the garage walls (they sold the laptops man!) they don’t have a car yet, but they do have a 3 race pass to get one up and running. Expect that to be extended if necessary because Ecclestone is hanging on by his teeth. Anyway they are Sir Not Appearing in this Film.
“How bad is it?”
Well, you’ll hear people say that 20 races are scheduled this year including the restoration of the Mexican Grand Prix. What they won’t tell you (until it gets actually saved or officially dropped) is that the German Grand Prix (at the Nürburgring) is only a 50% proposition according to Niki Lauda.
Rule Changes
You are only allowed 4 engines for the entire season. This is incredibly stupid and doesn’t even save any money for the backmarker teams which is what it’s ‘designed’ to do because it’s an anti-competitive barrier to development. Expect many teams (especially McLaren) to blow through their allotment in a flash. Formula One, to mitigate this has divided the “power plant” into 5 sections and instituted a complicated system of “development” tokens you can use to fix your broken bits by “improving” them.
If your Qualifying position is insufficient to sustain your grid penalty you can be subjected to multiple ‘stop & go’ penalties to supplement and a new, sterner 10 second ‘stop & go’ has been introduced.
Formula One is cracking down on the uniform rules in terms of helmet painting but the fines are so paltry that most drives have already given them the bird.
Because of the Bianchi crash the cockpit walls are higher and there is a ‘virtual’ safety car to regulate dangerous sections of track before a real safety car can gather up the field.
Speaking of Bianchi, he’s still in a coma which he has been since October 5th 2014.
Driver Changes
Blah, blah, blah Vettel. He’s a total asshole who’s only talent is getting out in front and staying there. Last year he showed his ability on inferior hardware with Red Bull and while Ferrari is surprisingly competitive I expect Räikkönen to thump his ass unless team orders forbid it. Daniil Kvyat is joining the surprisingly good Ricciardo (how come he had wins last year Vettel and you didn’t? Well?). His replacement on Torro Rosso, Verstappen, seems to be the real deal despite being so young that Formula One has just instituted a new rule that would not only have banned him, but Alonso, Vettel, and Hamilton too (way to go guys). Massa and Button still have rides which is good because they deserve them.
Predictions
No one can touch Mercedes which suits me just fine. Ferrari seems to have finally stopped putting any kind of brick they felt like on track and decided to race. Williams shows spunk on a limited budget and could contend (not for the top spots mind you, that’s all Mercedes, but they could eek a second), Red Bull is in a downward spiral because of Renault and they resent it bitterly (did I mention getting pushed back to the garage?).
In the middle Force India is the historic class but they are hobbled by strife and mis-management, Lotus is looking good with their new Mercedes power, Toro Rosso is a collective 34 years old but show talent and could surprise.
At the bottom Sauber is a soap opera, McLaren a mess, and Manor Marussia a cruel joke of an unfeeling universe.
We’ll be using Mediums and Softs today. Coverage starts at midnight on Vs. (or NBC Sports if you prefer) with race time at 1 am since Australia, Malaysia, China, Japan, and Russia have been moved forward an hour so the 4 hour race time window will surely take place before sunset.
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