I can only hope that after a few years of a*s-whippings my RedTeam can figure out what Mercedes has been doing & what Ferrari has not! Another 'hope' is that Vettel gets back to his former 'winning-ways'.....

Regards

 

here you go:

"Let's take Sergio Perez; known for his qualities of looking after tyres, with the car slip-sliding around and he's great at keeping them alive during a long slippery stint. That might be eradicated next year, you might be able to lean on your tyres as much as you want through the whole race and you don't have to consider the tyre wear or the car moving around at all. You're going to be power limited rather than grip limited. The whole thing could be turned on its head.

"You might see someone like Sebastian Vettel who thrived in 2011, putting his foot down even before he's got to the apex of the corner. You're going to now have wider tyres at the back and loads more downforce and giving you that extra grip. A driver like him might find even more time than what he currently can."

 

The best news is the troll is gone. Bernie was way past his prime.

 

I agree but not sure I'm comfortable with Chase Carey. Bernie has needed to go for a long, LONG time but now we have an arrogant TV exec who knows absolutely zero about the sport but thinks he knows it all. Let's have a Vegas race! Let's have an LA race! Let's have a Dallas race! All this has been tried before and failed. What needs to happen is to keep Austin, perhaps add a second at a good course (I've always thought Laguna Seca would be ideal - great track near a huge metropolitan area full of F1 fans. Turn 6 safety is always a question but could be solved with proper funding) and take the sport away from "whomever has the money to pay" and back to it's European base. Certainly the idea that F1 could take over America supplanting NASCAR and Indy Car is pure fantasy and can't possibly succeed.

 

first pre-season test

Montemelo, 27 February, 2017

Weather Conditions
Clear, dry, mild

Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport kicked off the first pre-season test of the 2017 season today at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, with Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton taking turns at the wheel of the Mercedes-AMG F1 W08 EQ Power+

· Valtteri emerged for his first run as the track opened at 09:00, completing 79 laps before the hour-long lunch break at 13:00

· Lewis took over in the ****pit for the afternoon session, completing 73 laps before the pit lane closed at 18:00

Lewis Hamilton:
It’s been a good day, a really positive day for the team. The car looks fantastic and it feels great. We did lots of laps and collected loads of information today, so we can try to improve the car as we move forward. We’ve not done any work to get the balance perfect yet, as today was all about ticking off the list of checkpoints and racking up mileage.

I definitely put my body to the test today. These test days are like training. It was good to feel the wider, beefier car. It’s faster, more physical… it’s a beast! You’ve got to drive it a bit differently. It’s so much better than last year’s cars. The G-Forces are definitely higher. We’re pulling two more G than we’d usually pull around here. There’s so much more downforce, which is something you always want as a driver. You always want to go faster through the corners.

The tyres are so hard that they don’t drop off. Most likely we’ll be doing more one-stoppers. Normally you get a lot of degradation with these tyres – but these ones don’t degrade. They’re very consistent, and there’s not a big difference between the feeling on the first lap and the last lap.

Over the next few days we’ll start to look to improve the car. I still think we’re the team to beat – but we have a lot of work ahead of us to do, the same as every single team on the grid. Right now we’re just focusing on our own job to do the very best that we can.

 

2017 Ferrari

 

Looks like Mercedes still has the jump on everyone.

Of course, pre-season testing is not always a good indicator of race performance.

 

Looks like Mercedes still has the jump on everyone.

Here's what BBC said today:

Ferrari set the fastest lap for the second time in four days as the first pre-season test came to an end. Kimi Raikkonen was 0.897 seconds quicker than Red Bull's Max Verstappen at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

Lewis Hamilton did not run after Mercedes discovered an electrical problem with the car, while team-mate Valtteri Bottas was eighth-fastest.

I wouldn't be too pessimistic about Ferrari's prospects for 2017!

see: http://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/39139492

 

I'm hoping that Ferrari has the stuff to challenge them from the get go. Even Red Bull...although I'd certainly prefer Ferrari to be the lead chaser.

 

Thanks, Sketchl, for attaching that interview with Ross Brawn. One piece of that interview was about fan access - and press access. That really took me back to Monaco in 1968, when you could wander the streets in the evening and stumble on McLaren F1 cars on jack stands in an apartment building parking garage or BRM in a dealership garage. The entire time F1 was at Watkins Glen, $1 got you into the building where all the teams worked on the cars. It's the kind of access that ALMS/IMSA, Indycar, SCCA, and others have gotten right. If the fans can get close - safely - I believe they are more enthusiastic.

I first covered F1 with credentials in 1980. The difference between then and when I stopped covering F1 three years later was noticeable, and now very few can get close even during times between sessions. I was very pleased to hear Brawn say that the issue of access is one of the things they (Liberty Media) are interested in improving.

The other thing I liked a lot was Brawn's pun about DRS - he said he'd "like to see the back of it."" LOL! Me too - too damned artificial.

I can hardly wait for the season to begin for real - I hope more teams are truly competitive.

Mike

 

...
I first covered F1 with credentials in 1980. The difference between then and when I stopped covering F1 three years later was noticeable, and now very few can get close even during times between sessions. ...

F1 really did start clamping down around the time you started. I shot the USGP for AP at the Glen from 1974 through 1980, and it stayed pretty open until the end. I recall in '79 or '80 they started to limit us to only one photographer in the pits during the race. That hardly mattered. With no scheduled pit stops, we didn't usually have more than one there anyway. But that was a different world -- cameras didn't focus themselves...

 

When Bernie gave ex Brasilian waiter 'Pasquale' control of F1 pit box/lane accreditation in the late 80's, he declared the area as his own sovereign country..........Interesting times thanks to Prince Pasquale!

 

2017 DRIVER LINE-UPS

MERCEDES
Race drivers: Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas
Engines: Mercedes

RED BULL
Race drivers: Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen
Reserve driver: Pierre Gasly
Engines: TAG Heuer-badged Renault

FERRARI
Race drivers: Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen
Third driver: Antonio Giovinazzi
Engines: Ferrari

FORCE INDIA
Race drivers: Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon
Test driver: Alfonso Celis
Engines: Mercedes

WILLIAMS
Race drivers: Felipe Massa and Lance Stroll
Engines: Mercedes

MCLAREN
Race drivers: Fernando Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne
Third driver: Jenson Button
Test and development drivers: Oliver Turvey and Nobuharu Matsu****a
Engines: Honda

TORO ROSSO
Race drivers: Carlos Sainz and Daniil Kvyat
Reserve driver: Pierre Gasly
Engines: Renault

HAAS
Race drivers: Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen
Engines: Ferrari

RENAULT
Race drivers: Nico Hulkenberg and Jolyon Palmer
Reserve driver: Sergey Sirotkin
Engines: Renault

SAUBER
Race drivers: Marcus Ericsson and Pascal Wehrlein
Engines: Ferrari (2016 spec)

 

2017 F1 RACE CALENDAR - EVERY RACE LIVE ON SKY F1

March 26: Melbourne, Australia

April 9: Shanghai, China

April 16: Bahrain, Bahrain

April 30: Sochi, Russia

May 14: Barcelona, Spain

May 28: Monte Carlo, Monaco

June 11: Montreal, Canada

June 25: Baku, Azerbaijan

July 9: Spielberg, Austria

July 16: Silverstone, United Kingdom

July 30: Budapest, Hungary

August 27: Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium

September 3: Monza, Italy

September 17: Singapore, Singapore

October 1: Sepang, Malaysia

October 8: Suzuka, Japan

October 22: Austin, USA

October 29: Mexico City, Mexico

November 12: Sao Paolo, Brazil

November 26: Abu Dhabi, UAE

 

Hamilton P1 for Melbourne GP...Vettel P2! Bottas P3 for MBenz & Kimi P4...surprisingly Haas-Ferrari(Grojean)=P6!
At least my RedTeam is showing improvement, so far.

Regards

 

Ferrari meglio nel 2017 , Have gone one better

 

Oh LOOK:surprise:....a red car is P1

 

YEP...my RedTeam WON one, at last!

Regards

ps-and they figured out 'a tire strategy' too.....

 

Does anyone know if/when the Aussie GP will re-air? I fell asleep
after/during lap 2.....

Regards:crying2:

 

Sadly I've come to the conclusion that the only parts of a GP worth watching these days are qualifying and the first 1-2 laps. They change the cars completely this year and we get the same boring race. Formula Ford is more fun to watch.

 

No wonder Slam felt asleep. Most boring procession of the last (?) 5 years.

 

I guess I saw a different race?
It was a absolute edge-of-the-seat-nail-biter wondering how the tyre strategies would play out. And there was some good dicing down the field. Too many little subtleties to list that makes F1 racing what it is. That's why I'm an F1 fan.

If it's constant passing you like, tune in to NASCAR or something.

 

Jim, I do agree that there are endless technical and strategy aspects alive throughout the races. Which to my mind is why the best place to watch a modern GP live is directly across the track from the pits because then you see what is happening in the garages as well as on the whole track on the big screens.

Personally I don't really mind if there's not a lot of actual passing, what would make it a spectacle though would be seeing the drivers manhandling the cars, see them sliding around, working hard to make up some time or at least try to gain track position while actually on the track. That's what we used to have back in the eighties and what we saw in qualifying this last weekend. Some of the in car video was amazing, just like the old days.

But when the lights went out, all stop. What was the time difference between qualifying and race? 4 seconds or something like that? It showed.

DRS is now working in reverse as well. Instead of decreasing downforce on the overtaking car they should decrease it on the car being overtaken. But into the corners, not on the straights. Then let's see what they do!

 

I didn't fall asleep due to boredom: I'm old, was watching from bed & the 1AM starting-time combination caused the 'rack-monster' to get hold of me & knock me out!
Hence, I'm trying to find out if/when the re-broadcast will be aired & where.....

Regards


ps: @hunttheshunt, I thought you'd be pleased that Vettel won...I know I am.

 

Of course I am very happy for Seb, but I didn't see any fights, any overtaking, just a procession. That definitely was not F1 racing. Not even had anybody tyre problems at the end - so who has seen any thrill or any fight ? I did not.

For me it was boring. Absolutely boring. Not worth getting up early. I want to see the best drivers fighting, overtaking, and getting them out of the cars at the end tired. Drama ? None.

 

Agree. I watched some of the race, fast forwarding through most of it, as I'd rather see passing on the track, which most of them can't do with these over-aero'd cars, than in the pits. Boring. I think the racing these days is probably the worst since I first started watching F1 in the early 60's.

This racing was much better in the old days when aero effects didn't have the overwhelming influence in what the drivers can or cannot do. Those were great days for actually racing with cars which could be driven with talent which was to be able to pass, slide, drift, you name it. Real interaction, real racing, no parades.

I really like the chassis safety of these cars, of course, but hate all the aero stuff. Just give me the cars of the 60's, with the safety of today. All those stupid looking wings, spoilers, fins, etc, ought to be eliminated, with testing to ensure that there be no net downforce, just changes/improvement in vehicle drag. That's all.

 

A welcome win. Congratulations.

I hope it doesn't come down to qualifying and pit strategy.

 

Like: The general improvement in the look of the cars, and the HAAS livery in particular. Improvement in mechanical grip.

Dislike: Aero downforce/grip. They've got to do something to improve the ability to pass. Commentator, not sure which one, said when you get within 1.2 second of the car in front, the front end of your car washes out. Another commented on the number of elements on the front wing and front of the car - 40+ was it? Absurd.

IMHO, the best looking F1 car of all time is the AAR Eagle.

Mike

 

Agreed about the Eagle F1 car. Saw it actually in a F1 race at Monza. Now I look at these crazy looking cars, with junk hanging off of them all over, and I just shake my head.

Also agree, the first lap or two, then the parade starts for the leaders, and no passing possibility until a pit stop. Yes, there can be some passing and duels back in the pack, but they are back in the pack, usually with significantly slower cars and slower drivers being passed by inherently faster cars. Can be a little entertaining, but that is inconsequential, as the winning is up front. I will admit that if you do not care who wins, then watching these lower standard drivers and or lousy cars dice around could be interesting. Up front, however, they are sooo close to the max edge, they are powerless to do almost anything once they get close to each other.

I say bah on the whole circus we see these days. Nothing tense at all in this race, as if it is a one stop race, nothing happens to the leaders other than that pit stop, the only possibility to pass. Only change after that would be if a part of the car fails.

I don't know why the powers that be don't understand that they have pushed the F1 scene into a dead end. All these tweaks, technical gadgets, they invent don't do a thing.

 

Did anyone see the April Fools joke in the F1 websites this morning? It had me for a while and was a little excited about the prospect. It even seemed plausible, then I realized the date.