*** The official Formula One 2015-16 off season thread ***

[Vaud]

suffolk009 said:

There's a Judge13 "article" retelling a story that Gerhard Berger "the ex-Austrian F1 driver" (is he no longer Austrian?) rates Rosberg higher than Vettel or Alonso.

Gerhard might be off his meds again.

Full story here if you want to: http://thejudge13.com/2016/01/29/nico-rosberg-bett...

One of the crappest blogs ever to have graced the Internet.

[Vaud]

I'd love to see Adrian Newey have one last hurrah - at Williams.

Though at a wild guess there could be clauses in the Merc supply agreement that prevent it.

[Vaud]

Scuffers said:

I doubt it?

Merc would rather him at Williams than RB or Ferrari.

Probably. I'm a romantic at heart. I'd love to see Williams with Newey, and sign Max for 4 years....

[Vaud]

Palmer and Magnussen.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/122654

Probably want to take Magnussen and a known €7M rather than a Maldonado and maybe some € possibly maybe with a higher collision bill. I bet the sponsors prefer KM as well.

[Vaud]

Scuffers said:

well, the upside to this is no drive for the moronic Maldonado (who IMHO should not have a licence)

Possibly. But we have mechanism for suspending/etc via the points.

Interestingly, it isn't MAL at the top in 2015 (content from Sky):

Max Verstappen - 8 (Monaco: 2; Hungary 3; Abu Dhabi: 3)
Pastor Maldonado - 6 (Malaysia: 3; Hungary 2; Brazil: 1)
Nico Hulkenberg - 4 (Malaysia: 2; Singapore: 2)
Romain Grosjean - 4 (Canada: 2; Hungary: 2)
Marcus Ericsson - 4 (Austria: 2; Italy 2)
Sebastian Vettel - 3 (Canada)
Kimi Raikkonen - 3 (Russia)
Two points - Sergio Perez, Felipe Nasr, Fernando Alonso, Jenson Button, Daniil Kvyat, Lewis Hamilton, Roberto Merhi, Valtteri Bottas
Zero points - Daniel Ricciardo, Nico Rosberg, Felipe Massa, Will Stevens, Carlos Sainz, Alexander Rossi

[Vaud]

Scuffers, you might want to edit that last comment, it's potentially libellous.

[Vaud]

noell35 said:

Alonso has gone a bit Eric Cantona.

Or Bing translate is a bit rubbish!

Latter.

[Vaud]

WOOOO HOOOOO finally... first launch - Renault

http://event.media.renault.com/Renault/030216/publ...

[Vaud]

FW18 said:

Can we have something like this for the final paint job please Renault?

Except without the PDVSA

[Vaud]

Speed Badger said:

I always thought the livery on the R30 looked good, something similar would be good, with no red this time.

Especially at night races - it looked stunning.

[Vaud]

rdjohn said:

You need to broaden what you read about F1
https://joesaward.wordpress.com/2016/02/10/manor-l...

Reporter A might sit in his bedroom searching the net and hypothesising; reporter B goes to every GP and speaks to the movers and shakers and has an address book and so can call people in the know from time to time.

It is how journalism used to work before the Internet.

And Joe is an excellent journalist. His article about Eddie J is pretty funny.

[Vaud]

leglessAlex said:

I didn't know about that blog, thank you very much John!

I've had a read of a few articles already, it seems really good, no nonsense kind of style.

Look up his occasional podcast as well "an aside with Joe". Very dry sense of humour.

[Vaud]

Speed Badger said:

Mercedes want a German driver to win with them and they know they are not going to be top dog for much longer, probably. They know Rosberg is not good enough to beat Hamilton, so that leaves two choices; get rid of Hamilton, or get rid of Rosberg and replace with a German who can beat him.

Who says that they do?

[Vaud]

BigBen said:

Why do people always trot out the "Mercedes want a German driver to win with them" line. I am fairly sure the majority of its sales come from countries other than Germany so from a marketing PoV it is not important that the driver is German. It is much more important that they can win and Hamilton's profile as a celeb' outside of F1 can't do his case any harm again from a marketing PoV.

That's my view. They just want to win.

Look at the most loved Ferrari drivers - Schumacher and Mansell? Italians didn't care. They wanted a fantastic driver winning in a beautiful Ferrari. Both are spoken of very fondly in Italy.

[Vaud]

patmahe said:

The problem is, Hamilton is unlikely to end up in a bad team if you let him go, maybe Ferrari or similar, Ferrari were only very slightly behind Mercedes at the end of last season so its not inconceivable that you would end up losing the championship to the driver you let go so you look like a complete mug.

Mercedes are not daft better to win with a British driver in their car than risk losing to a British driver in an Italian car.

Quite.

Personally I think Lewis will quit at the end of his current contract and either go and be "Lewis the brand" - a bit like Beckham, or go for Indy & Le Mans to get a triple - which I would have a lot of respect for.

[Vaud]

RichB said:

Am I allowed to respectfully say I disagree with you or will you tell me I'm wrong? I can well remember Vettel pulling out a second a lap for the first 10 laps and then pitching his mark and staying there. I can remember Hamilton, who in fairness had a pretty good view of the back of Vettel's Red Bull, saying there was absolutely nothing he could do about it and watching that Red Bull simply drag away from the corners because it had so much more grip than anything else... IMO Red Bull and Vettel were dominant for 4 years probably totally dominant for at least 2 of those.

2010 went down to the last race with 4 drivers able to secure the title - so not dominant.
2012 was also close - I'd forgotten how close ALO was at the end.

[Vaud]

bullies180 said:

or 2010 reliability might have been a problem, but they did score 15 poles that season between the red bull drivers, which could be why people think of the 2010 red bull as a pretty dominant car in terms of performance even though the seasons results could suggest otherwise.

Fair point - interesting. My overriding memory was the final race, I had forgotten their pole success.

[Vaud]

CraigyMc said:

In F1 terms, it's probably not all that tiny. I was wondering about this too. Any specialists on here care to weigh in?

Boundary layer stuff is beyond me but I know it's important.

Some discussion here:

http://www.f1technical.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4...

[Vaud]

DanielSan said:

Very few sponsors on that car this year.

Personally I have always seen a lot of sponsors as a bad thing.

[Vaud]

deadslow said:

prey tell why?

I think it show weak, rather than strong overall brand control. If you are a top brand you can afford to be selective with how you both present and manage the end to end brand identity. Ferrari is the peak example of that with Philip Morris. Just because sponsor has cash does not mean that they will be allowed to place an identity on a car.

Clearly the stronger your own identity, the more control you have, and the fussier you can be.

Some cars ending up looking like they have driven through a US shopping mall and picked up every brand ID going and it looks awful. Better to have a car with 2-3 well placed brands and then build an ecosystem around them, controlling carefully who they contribute to your desired market message.

Clearly the further down the grid you go, the less fussy you can be as a team, but in RBs case, given their backing, I am pretty sure that it is choice rather than a lack of sponsor options.