2014 Formula 1 Season Thread

Felipe's first 3 seasons huh, well points were doled out differently back then but I've counted it and based on todays points Felipe scored about 1 less point in his first year then Pastor scored in all his years at Williams and that's in a Sauber.
Bottas has just had better luck this year also I seem to recall that it was Bottas and not Massa who wasn't able to make the tire strategy work at Singapore.
And although Felipe had a really good 2008 season his 2009 season leading up to the crash isn't much better than any of the following seasons 2011 being the exception so if anything it was losing the championship in brazil that really got to him and not the crash, you also have to remember then when he came back from the crash his team mate wasn't Kimi Raikkonen anymore it was Fernando is faster than you Alonso, that 2010 season couldn't have been good for Felipe's moral.
1 win, thats 1 is meaningless his best finish that year after that is a 5th, Massa had 2 podiums that year 2nd and 3rd.
 
Sauber back then was better than the Williams of late. If it wasn't for the "new teams", for example, Williams would have been dead last in 2011 and 2013.
Massa was getting consistent points with one of the worst Ferraris (but still a Ferrari and not a economically struck Williams) in 2009 including a podium before his accident. It wasn't losing the championship, it was the accident.

Face it, they are compareable mediocre drivers. There's no arguing it, sorry.
 
So a lot of (again) talk about Alonso to Mclaren, not to mention his bio is back on the heritage page on the Mclaren site.

Thoughts? I expect Mclaren to make a big push next year while I don't foresee Ferrari stepping it up any time soon. What effects will this have on his career and his desire to win a championship at Ferrari?
 
I don't see why he would. People are talking about the Honda engine, but they already have the best engine on the grid by a long way and they're still struggling to make it in to Q3 and score points.
To fight for just podiums, they'd need the Honda engine to be to the Mercedes engine what the Mercedes engine is to the Ferrari and Renault engines. I can imagine the Honda engine being as good or a bit better than the Mercedes engine, but not by as much as it'd need to be to overcome McLaren's car defecit.

Next year is James Allison's first Ferrari, and I'd expect the gaps between the engines to be reduced a bit.
I'd say his best bet is stay at Ferrari for next year then make a move in 2016 if he has to.
 
GraemeH said:
I can imagine the Honda engine being as good or a bit better than the Mercedes engine
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:lmao:
not in their first year...
and Merc is also exepected to have a few tweaks up the sleeve to increase the power for next year and maintain its margin
 
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bone said:
:lmao:
not in their first year...
and Merc is also exepected to have a few tweaks up the sleeve to increase the power for next year and maintain its margin
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It's not as ridiculous as you might think that the Honda engine will be good when they've had all this season to sit back and look at all the different approaches to the new F1 engine and how effective each of them have been especially when they are building an engine from scratch whilst the other engines are limited to refining what they already have and have limits on those refinements.
 
GraemeH said:
I don't see why he would. People are talking about the Honda engine, but they already have the best engine on the grid by a long way and they're still struggling to make it in to Q3 and score points.
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This. McLaren can't be just waiting for Honda to be a miracle for them. They are a team with serious racing pedigree and they currently have access to the best engine on the grid, and have done absolutely nothing with the opportunity. They should be fighting it out with Mercedes and instead they're struggling with Force India.

I've said it before, I'd be surprised to see Alonso leave for McLaren. It's a gamble, at this point of his career, to go on the hopes that somehow Honda has developed a much better engine and McLaren came up with a fantastic chassis to match it.

bone said:
:lmao:
not in their first year...
and Merc is also exepected to have a few tweaks up the sleeve to increase the power for next year and maintain its margin
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Why not? Honda has a huge advantage over Mercedes. They have seen a full year of practice sessions, qualifyings and races worth of material to study and work from, to know where the engines are suffering the most. Mercedes' engine was good "in their first year", why couldn't anyone else's be? I'm not saying it's a sure thing scenario, but certainly not a laughable one.
 
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what do they have to work from?
how fast the McLaren is going around the track, how much slower it is compared to MB and Williams?

MB takes the engine out of the McLaren before it leaves the track no MB engine has been at Woking this year
all honda has is some charts...

i'm not saying they will fail, but i don't think they have learnt a lot from the MB engine...
 
Honda don't need to drag Mercedes engine back to the factory to have an idea what sort of approach they've made with the designs, all the different solutions are out there for them to see such as the different engines approaches to the turbo whether it be Renaults more traditional approach or Mercedes split turbo etc. etc. and since there are several teams with the Mercedes engines and several teams with the Renault engine varying from really good performance to poor performance they can make educated guesses based on observation and then use that knowledge to try something which hasn't been done before.
to say that haven't learned anything from this year just because they haven't had physical access to an engine is a bit misguided to say the least, there is plenty of information out there for them to learn from which the other engine manufacturers didn't have leading into the 2014 season and that gives Honda and advantage, it's just a matter of whether or not they can take advantage of it.
 
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What he said.
A good engineer doesn't need a ton of time digging around something to see the general concept of it, for example, Mercedes had a much better approach as to where to put the turbo and the intercooler and the way the two interact, and now Honda has seen it, and may even improve the design more, while Mercedes is now pretty much frozen.
They have also seen which parts of the cars seem to fail more often, the letting Honda focus on making those parts reliable, etc.
 
Vettel to leave Red Bull; Kvyat to be promoted

Sebastian Vettel will leave Red Bull at the end of the 2014 season, the team has confirmed.

Vettel joined the Milton Keynes-based squad ahead of the 2009 season and the combination has been the dominant force in Formula One ever since, with Vettel claiming four consecutive world championship crowns, 38 Grand Prix victories, and 44 poles over the past six seasons.

Red Bull also confirmed that Daniil Kvyat, who has impressed for sister team Toro Rosso during his rookie season this year, will be promoted to the main team in Vettel's stead.

"Sebastian Vettel has advised us that he will be leaving Infiniti Red Bull Racing at the end of the 2014 season," a statement from Red Bull read.

?We want to warmly thank Sebastian for the incredible role he has played at Infiniti Red Bull Racing for the last six years.

"As we wish Sebastian well in the next stage of his career, we also look to the future with excitement, as the vacancy makes way for the next generation of Red Bull racers.

"The Red Bull Junior Programme has developed some proven talents in recent times, including Sebastian Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo, who has excelled in the RB10 and become a three-time Formula One race winner in his first season with the team.
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Well, this will throw some fire into the whole "Alonso leaving Ferrari" thing... now people will star rumors about Vettel signing with Ferrari, Alonso with McLaren, Button with Toro Rosso (since Kvyat is going to RBR)...
 
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So did Alonso about Ferrari... And I'm just speculating on Button if Alonso will really move to Macca.

Fernando Alonso to be replaced by Sebastian Vettel at Ferrari

Alonso still had two more years to run on his contract but he and Ferrari have agreed to separate. He is expected to join McLaren-Honda for 2015.
Red Bull announced on Saturday morning that Vettel had "advised them" he would be leaving them.
Team principal Christian Horner said Ferrari had made Vettel "a very attractive offer."

http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/formula1/29487911
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Well that's it, gg Ferrari well done, at a moment where they cant produce a car worth a fuck, they toss out the pilot who can extract 110% from a shitty car and plan to replace him with one who hasn't really proven he can perform in a less dominant machine.
 
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Not if you're a Ferrari fan...

I just keep not understanding the logic behind all of this.
First of all, Vettel leaving Red Bull for money? A team with which, 4 out of 6 years out, you won a championship with.
Second, Ferrari going after Vettel? Why? What has he shown? He is a winner when the car is the best, and now that the car is only the 2nd best, he's being kicked around by an almost-rookie. While Alonso took the fight to Vettel during 2 of the past seasons with a car that was arguably the 3rd or 4th fastest on the grid.

Oh and Jenson's out on his ass probably.
 
With (almost assuredly) Alonso going to McLaren, that has to mean Button is out as I can't see them keeping him and not Magnussen.

I do agree that it is interesting that Seb is going to Ferrari - I can only assume that Newey will have little to do with RBR chassis design and development as he focuses on ?new Red Bull Technology projects? and therefore Seb feels they will no longer be the dominant constructor without him. Ferrari, on the other hand, seems to be moving towards re-building a solid technical department between their recent hires and the house-cleaning being undertaken by Mattiacci.
 
Kiskaloo said:
Ferrari, on the other hand, seems to be moving towards re-building a solid technical department between their recent hires and the house-cleaning being undertaken by Mattiacci.
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If anyone has first hand info about this is Alonso, so if this is true, that would have compelled him to stay...

A move to McLaren right now is betting that Honda gets it really well with their engine, and that McLaren (who are currently running the best engine on the grid but performing worse than Force India) also gets it right.
 
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mpicco said:
Not if you're a Ferrari fan...

I just keep not understanding the logic behind all of this.
First of all, Vettel leaving Red Bull for money? A team with which, 4 out of 6 years out, you won a championship with.
Second, Ferrari going after Vettel? Why? What has he shown? He is a winner when the car is the best, and now that the car is only the 2nd best, he's being kicked around by an almost-rookie. While Alonso took the fight to Vettel during 2 of the past seasons with a car that was arguably the 3rd or 4th fastest on the grid.

Oh and Jenson's out on his ass probably.
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Well, a lot of Ferrari's decisions lately have been... hasty. They don't seem to mind throwing talented people away in a fit of frustration.

I like Alonso, so I really hope McLaren returns to form and the new power unit is up to snuff. It would be great to see what Alonso could do in a competitive car. Dominate, most likely.

As for Vettel, I found his move to be very odd. I would have pegged him a RBR man for a good long time. If the Red Bulls were running Mercedes power units... I don't think Roseberg and Hamilton would be very comfortable right now. If Renault can get their shit together, Ricciardo could be a serious championship contender next year.

It will just be interesting to see where McLaren and Ferrari end up next year. It's so hard to tell, with how wildly luck can change from year to year in this sport.
 
Vettel and Raikkonen do get along so it could be an interesting team dynamic next year, not that Raikkonen and Alonso aren't getting along.
 
mpicco said:
If anyone has first hand info about this is Alonso, so if this is true, that would have compelled him to stay...
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TC said:
As for Vettel, I found his move to be very odd. I would have pegged him a RBR man for a good long time.
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We heard plenty of rumors last year that Vettel had signed for Ferrari for 2015. We also know that Ferrari put on a full-court press to get Adrian Newey.

I wonder if Newey, in principle, had agreed to go to Ferrari in 2015 and therefore Vettel signed his deal? Then Horner was able to get Newey to stay with RBR, but Vettel was already committed to the Scuderia?

When Bobby Rahal became Team Principle at Jaguar, Newey agreed to leave McLaren and join Jaguar. Ron Dennis was able to make Adrian a sufficient deal that he decided to stay with McLaren.


TC said:
If Renault can get their shit together, Ricciardo could be a serious championship contender next year.
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Now that RBR is the "factory" team for Renault, I expect the engine will improve as they will now design it solely for the RBR (and Toro Rosso). I honestly would not be surprised if Caterham is not on the grid in 2015, but if they are, they'll be smart to work with Red Bull Technology to adapt their car to benefit.
 
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