2014 Formula 1 Season Thread

^Sutil has been overdue F1 retirement for SO.MANY.YEARS.
Mediocre and bland.

If he's the next victim of musical chairs I think the only people that'll even notice are fans of his girlfriend.
 
I've been hearing about Sutil being replaced for ages, but it does seem inevitable now.

Some new drivers in the Caterham and Marussia could be interesting, especially Lotterer who at first seems like a bizarre choice but does bring some good publicity to the team. Rossi has been a good driver in the GP2 races I've seen, his performance versus Bianchi will be one to watch.
 
Well Chilton was evidently able to make the rent after all, so Rossi was only in the car for FP1 and Max will drive the rest of the weekend (and presumably the remainder of the season).

More bad news for Vettel - his engine exhaust had a crack in it so he's had to revert to an older engine and will likely be forced to use a sixth new engine for Monza which will incur a grid penalty.
 
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Formula One should be clear on its reasons for introducing larger wheel sizes if it decided to do so, according to the teams? technical chiefs.Pirelli tested wider 18-inch wheels at Silverstone earlier this yearand has expressed an interest in increasing wheel sizes even further from the current 13-inch format. However some car designers raised concerns over making a change solely for stylistic or commercial reasons.
?Maybe I?m ignorant in this sense or ignorant of what?s been going on but as far as I understand the only reason for proposing this is to suit, to make it look more like the road tyres that particular tyre manufacturer makes,? said Red Bull?s chief technical director Adrian Newey during today?s press conference at Spa-Francorchamps.
?So it?s not being done for technical reasons, it?s not being done for performance reasons, it?s being done purely for styling and commercial reasons. That to me does not seem the right reason to make a technical change.?
Williams? head of vehicle performance Rob Smedley endorsed Newey?s view: ?We have to really question the reasons for doing that and what does it actually bring to the sport.?


I'm sorry are these guys new to the sport?
Surely there aren't many times where a change is put forth for stylistic reasons, but not long ago we had vanity plates on top of those ugly noses to disguise them a little bit, right?
I understand changing the wheels has more performance implications, but if the FIA says change them, the teams would just redesign and adapt. What's with the needless whining?
 
Still no word from Marussia on why Chilton was back in the car so fast.
Anyway, Lotterer seems to do a good job at Caterham. Although it can't be fun to drive that car, even after a major update it seems to be too slow. Ericsson had some problems in FP1 but it was partly because the team set up the brakes wrong and a faulty fuel-sensor.
Anyone surprised Maldonado crashed again?

Bad news for Red Bull and Vettel if he already have to use his sixth engine in Monza. There are a lot of races left.
 
final practise results: williams, RB, MB, MB

that predicts a great qualifying!!
 
Vettel drives at Sochi (with video)

Kinda surprised at the lack of runoff, even if the track is a bit boring and standard Tilke...

Oh God, it's just Valencia. Except it's a Valencia where gay folk get locked up.

It's telling that when I got to the driver quotes in that article I literally skimmed down quickly to find the end of the quotes so I could start reading again. Goes to show how much a viewer of contemporary F1 expects utter PR shite to come out their mouths instead of any truths, like, "It's a bit shit, Tilke doesn't have a clue does he?"
 
Oh God, it's just Valencia. Except it's a Valencia where gay folk get locked up.

It's telling that when I got to the driver quotes in that article I literally skimmed down quickly to find the end of the quotes so I could start reading again. Goes to show how much a viewer of contemporary F1 expects utter PR shite to come out their mouths instead of any truths, like, "It's a bit shit, Tilke doesn't have a clue does he?"

Funny you say that.. My exact description of that track was 'Valencia gets Russian Prison makeover'. :mrgreen:

No grass, no elevation change, no color. UGH!

Any guess as to how long this one will be on the calendar? I give it two years max.. if they even race there this year.
 
Yeah, and they were talking about yet more city street circuits. New York, Argentina...
 
That's one way of buying an F1drive for your son.
 
Marchionne is pissed.

[video]http://video.gazzetta.it/marchionne-duro-montezemolo-non-posso-vedere-ferrari-cosi/a2713c40-3699-11e4-9c8f-ba889fa75bea[/video]
 
He said something like "selling cars is secondary, what really matters to us is having a winning Ferrari in Formula 1, that's not negotiable". Kinda illustrates what I was trying to say in the Belgian GP thread about how Ferrari and Red Bull are two completely different teams.

But I digress.
 
number one of the old farts to go!
i hope bernie is the next one!
 
Interesting table they have at the bottom there - it basically says "Ferrari have never been a successful team - Ross Brawn and Michael Schumacher have been a successful team".

When Schumi retired he was still around the Scuderia as adviser, and while he was around the team was still competitive (although I put that partly down to the relative stability of F1 prior to 2009, Ferrari has always been better at being evolutionary than revolutionary), so the theory could be partly true.

But there have to be other qualified and eager people out there to take the place.
 
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