GPWizard F1 Forum
F1 News & Discussions => General F1 Discussion => Topic started by: J.Clark on May 25, 2017, 04:01:25 PM
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No one has posted a preview - I don't have the time.
Here are the Friday Free Practice times, or should say Thursday since it is Monaco:
1. Sebastian Vettel GER Ferrari - Ferrari 1m 12.720s
2. Daniel Ricciardo AUS Red Bull - TAG 1m 13.207s
3. Kimi Raikkonen FIN Ferrari - Ferrari 1m 13.283s
4. Daniil Kvyat RUS Toro Rosso-Renault 1m 13.331s
5. Carlos Sainz ESP Toro Rosso-Renault 1m 13.400s
6. Max Verstappen NED Red Bull - TAG 1m 13.486s
7. Sergio Perez MEX Force India-Mercedes 1m 13.799s
8. Lewis Hamilton GBR Mercedes - Mercedes 1m 13.873s
9. Kevin Magnussen DEN Haas-Ferrari 1m 13.890s
10. Valtteri Bottas FIN Mercedes - Mercedes 1m 13.902s
11. Stoffel Vandoorne BEL McLaren-Honda 1m 13.946s
12. Jenson Button GBR McLaren-Honda 1m 13.981s
13. Felipe Massa BRA Williams - Mercedes 1m 14.003s
14. Romain Grosjean FRA Haas-Ferrari 1m 14.022s
15. Esteban Ocon FRA Force India-Mercedes 1m 14.093s
16. Lance Stroll CAN Williams - Mercedes 1m 14.474s
17. Nico Hulkenberg GER Renault - Renault 1m 14.870s
18. Jolyon Palmer GBR Renault - Renault 1m 15.616s
19. Marcus Ericsson SWE Sauber - Ferrari 1m 15.691s
20. Pascal Wehrlein GER Sauber - Ferrari 1m 15.695s
Some interesting results here, none-the-least-of-which is that the Mercs are so far down the sheet.
Both STRs in the top five :o
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Any bets on 'Sebastian is faster than you.' ::)
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I don't know. Kimi put in quite a lap. If he gets away clean . . .
Frankly speaking, I would love to see Ricciardo win it since his team basically screwed him out of a certain victory last year. Of course, that will take a couple of miracles.
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I would give turn one to Kimi, but I suspect there have been some certain instructions in the background, especially considering Vettel is leading the championship that Ferrari haven't had in a decade.
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Well, Ferrari are most definitely back on form.
Ricciardo did well - a deserved podium, and I so glad he managed to finish ahead of Max.
Hamilton didn't surprise me getting into the points, but getting up to where he finished was a bit of surprise.
Massa did well too, climbing up into a points finish.
The real story for me however, was Haas - both cars finishing in the points! Amazing result for the young team it was.
What the heck was going through the mind of Perez? He took himself out of a points paying finish - bit of a bull in a china shop - stupid move at one of the worst places on the circuit.
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Any bets that Ferrari's pit strategy was in lieu of "Kimi, Seb is faster than you"?
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Seb was faster but Ferrari could have let Kimi win.
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Heroes
Raikkonen - for taking Fisico's dubious record for "longest gap between poles" from him on Saturday, then perfectly converting in the race. (Well, it would have been perfect but for the pit stop strategy, which I'm guessing wasn't his idea).
Mercedes - for excellent strategy, that was the main reason Hamilton's suggestion he might as well give up sounded ridiculous.
Alonso - for having the prescience to find a race where the car is reliable for longer, there is more excitement than at Monaco and where he is finally happy again. Also for that nice message to Button before the race started. I hope he does this again next year (whether it's a one-off or if he switches codes on a more substantial basis).
Zeroes
Ericcson - you were nearly pipped to the post on this one, but I have to give "credit" for timing. It's one thing to crash at Ste. Devote - in fact, it's quite common. It's another to do it under the Safety Car. But to do it when being invited to overtake by dawdling drivers? Now that's (presumably temperature-based) ineptitude I've never seen before.
Perez - fastest lap is cool and all, plus I should probably be thankful that you managed to wake my dad and brother up... ...but could you not have done it by way of that dive-bomb into Rascasse? There was only ever going to be one winner of that move and it was never going to be you, especially when apparently starting the move from the previous postcode!
The drain cover people - every time F1 substantially increases its downforce, a manhole cover becomes dislodged at Monte Carlo. How this surprises the people responsible for sticking the covers down never ceases to amaze me. Today was no exception.
Dishonourable mention - most of the field (Ferraris exempt since it's hard to overtake when in a 1-2 situation, as are the Saubers since they appeared to have a valid speed excuse for their lack of overtakes). Yes, it's difficult to overtake at Monaco, but could one of you have managed to overtake someone without a retirement being involved? I nearly put Perez in the "hero" list despite his never-going-to-work-in-a-million-years move because he managed to take advantage of Vandoorne's race-ending error for an overtake, I was that desperate for action. And for 20 laps or so, every single other member of my family was asleep...
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If Alonso switches to a competitive team[now Wofe says
he's interested in Ferd] you won't see him at Indy again
That is until is F1 career is over. Lazier raced this year
he's 49
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If Alonso switches to a competitive team[now Wofe says
he's interested in Ferd] you won't see him at Indy again
That is until is F1 career is over. Lazier raced this year
he's 49
Todt's said he wants calendar harmonisation, and Liberty has said it would prefer drivers not to have to skip F1 races when doing other series as it reduces the media focus on F1. Don't be surprised if Monaco is asked to move to accommodate Indy next year, unless Fernando is in a team that absolutely bars Indy participation (as Mercedes likely would)...
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I'm not too sure about that. The States are a big market for Mercedes. Merc has a history with Indy (and Penske). IndyCar is actively looking for a third engine manufacturer.
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I'm not too sure about that. The States are a big market for Mercedes. Merc has a history with Indy (and Penske). IndyCar is actively looking for a third engine manufacturer.
All of these things are true. However, Mercedes is also a top-flight team in F1, and at the moment it doesn't appear to have any plans for an Indycar engine.
If Mercedes joined Indycar, they'd hire different people for the Indycar drivers to the F1 program, because they'd expect their F1 drivers to be too busy securing the F1 title to have time for anything else. So for example, Bottas might be delegated to the Indycar program (to make way for Alonso in F1), but neither Hamilton nor Alonso would be present at Indianapolis in any year they also were in a Mercedes F1.
Further, if Mercedes started now on the Indy engine, it wouldn't be much good for 2018, and that's not their style. More likely, they'd start the project now for 2019.
Also: while Mercedes is interested in Fernando, there's no guarantee of a vacancy, especially if there is any notion that Hamilton-Alonso would be more explosive than Hamilton-Rosberg eventually became. An indicator that Alonso would prefer to be in Indy than Monaco might not be a deal-breaker but it's not going to help either, especially if Mercedes regains its supremacy in the next few months.
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I'm not too sure about that. The States are a big market for Mercedes. Merc has a history with Indy (and Penske). IndyCar is actively looking for a third engine manufacturer.
Indy should take a serious look at partnering with F1. Scrap the Formula-Dallara and use F1 spec cars/engines. It would give more customers to F1 suppliers to keep down F1 costs. The IndyCar season could be run as a sort of American feeder series to F1, but the 500 would remain open to all.
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That would be a heckuva compromise. No F1 car could competitively race Indy without a major re-design, and the F1 car manufacturing costs alone are easily 10x that of Indy cars, so I can't imagine anyone in Indycar would be very interested in that kind of invoice.
A Jr series would be a great idea, but Indy would be better off basing their design and manufacturing costs on GP2 type cars.
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A Jr series would be a great idea, but Indy would be better off basing their design and manufacturing costs on GP2 type cars.
I think you'll find that's F2 type cars now Scott.
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I seriously doubt that IndyCar would be interested in becoming a "junior" series to anyone. It would be suicide to any hope of expanding their American fan base.
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I thought Indy had a jr series,wasn't it called Indy Lights? Don't know if it's still around
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I'm not too sure about that. The States are a big market for Mercedes. Merc has a history with Indy (and Penske). IndyCar is actively looking for a third engine manufacturer.
Indy should take a serious look at partnering with F1. Scrap the Formula-Dallara and use F1 spec cars/engines. It would give more customers to F1 suppliers to keep down F1 costs. The IndyCar season could be run as a sort of American feeder series to F1, but the 500 would remain open to all.
One reason Indycars partners with Dallara is because they are cheap. Granted, Dallara doesn't do F1 cars very well (and not for lack of trying), but Indycars don't need to be as super-advanced as F1. They just need to excel in the conditions they are given, which are quite different to F1.
Frankly, there'd be (slightly) more mileage in adapted Indycars being made available to F1 teams that don't care much about performance and simply wish to survive on the grid than there is in the other way round.
I thought Indy had a jr series,wasn't it called Indy Lights? Don't know if it's still around
Yes, it does and that is what it is called. It's around, but not as noisily as in previous years from a European perspective as no famous Europeans have joined it this year.
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I'm not too sure about that. The States are a big market for Mercedes. Merc has a history with Indy (and Penske). IndyCar is actively looking for a third engine manufacturer.
Indy should take a serious look at partnering with F1. Scrap the Formula-Dallara and use F1 spec cars/engines. It would give more customers to F1 suppliers to keep down F1 costs. The IndyCar season could be run as a sort of American feeder series to F1, but the 500 would remain open to all.
One reason Indycars partners with Dallara is because they are cheap. Granted, Dallara doesn't do F1 cars very well (and not for lack of trying), but Indycars don't need to be as super-advanced as F1. They just need to excel in the conditions they are given, which are quite different to F1.
Frankly, there'd be (slightly) more mileage in adapted Indycars being made available to F1 teams that don't care much about performance and simply wish to survive on the grid than there is in the other way round.
I thought Indy had a jr series,wasn't it called Indy Lights? Don't know if it's still around
Yes, it does and that is what it is called. It's around, but not as noisily as in previous years from a European perspective as no famous Europeans have joined it this year.
Ali are Indy cars all the same chassis?
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Ali are Indy cars all the same chassis?
That's an easy one Andy, yes they all use the same Dallara chassis, although there are two versions of the chassis.
Currently with differing aero kits for each engine supplier they need two chassis; one for road tracks and a different one for ovals. The chassis are at the same fixed cost for every team who wishes to enter cars.
From next year there will be only one universal aero kit so one chassis, again by Dallara, will be needed for all races. It's a further cost cutting measure, apparently, to make Indycar accessible for all teams.
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A lot of curious ideas are being discussed. Some may be good for Indy Car, some may be good for Formula 1, and most not particularly good for both.
I like the idea of an American feeder series in concept; however, with all of the major organs of Formula 1 in Europe, any driver hoping to get into F1, would have to relocate to Europe eventually, and that is a stumbling block.
As for the Indy Car series and Formula 1 sort of sharing/melding technologies, NO - please. One of the things Indy Car does that is incredibly intelligent in my opinion is the simplicity and consistency of the rules regulating chassis, aeros, and engines. My fear would be that it would eventually ruin Indy Car, which in its own rite is an excellent series.
I would like to see Monaco be a weekend before or after the 500. Many young fans do not realize it, but the Indy 500 has always been a Memorial Day (US) thing, and Monaco was not always that weekend. In fact, another thing many of the young generations may not know is that several drivers from F1 have raced in the Indy 500 and collected WDC points for it. I would therefore like to see that return - points for competing in the Classic - a couple if they qualify and use the same points system as F1 for finishing in the top ten.
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Indy Lights are now the top level of the "Mazda Road to Indy" feeder system. The middle level is Pro Mazda. The entry level is USF2000. Starting next season, USF2000 & Pro Mazda will use the same basic tub. That will make it easier & more economical to advance from one series to the other.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyFLYXttJEM
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Here is a vid talking through the main differences, and similarities, between Indycar and F1.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cea4AO49d1s
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I seriously doubt that IndyCar would be interested in becoming a "junior" series to anyone. It would be suicide to any hope of expanding their American fan base.
IndyCar is mostly an excuse to run the Indy500 with professional drivers, and for teams to have something to do between Memorial Days. For a very long time Indy was 100% independent of USAC and CART, running a unique formula that allowed 'IndyCars' to run there.
There's no reason why Indy can't become a single event again, running F1 spec cars.
IndyCar would fall apart without Indy, of course, hence my suggestion for it to be a 'feeder' series. Perhaps 'feeder' series is the wrong word. Maybe look at it like baseball. The American League and National League are equal, yet different. Let IndyCar and F1 operate independently, but with the same formula to share costs. Drivers and teams could move between series easily. The 500 could be a crown jewel for both series.
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One thing happened because of Alonso going to Indy. The Indy 500 pulled better TV ratings than the Grand Prix of Monaco. Spanish TV ratings, that is.
According to FormulaTV, live coverage of the Indianapolis 500 in Spain averaged 443,000 viewers (3.6%) via the #0 Movistar subscription TV service. That beat the live coverage of Monaco on Movistar's dedicated Formula 1 channel, which averaged 212,000 (2.0%). FormulaTV reports last year's Monaco race averaged 302k (2.8%) in Spain, meaning F1 lost nearly a third of those viewers with local hero Alonso literally out of the picture.
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One thing happened because of Alonso going to Indy. The Indy 500 pulled better TV ratings than the Grand Prix of Monaco. Spanish TV ratings, that is.
According to FormulaTV, live coverage of the Indianapolis 500 in Spain averaged 443,000 viewers (3.6%) via the #0 Movistar subscription TV service. That beat the live coverage of Monaco on Movistar's dedicated Formula 1 channel, which averaged 212,000 (2.0%). FormulaTV reports last year's Monaco race averaged 302k (2.8%) in Spain, meaning F1 lost nearly a third of those viewers with local hero Alonso literally out of the picture.
The Canadian and Brazillian Grand Prix are amongst the highest rated TV events in Europe, due to them being on during prime time. Certainly following Alonso would make a difference in Spain, though a better viewing schedule would have helped.
Liberty should schedule more American F1 races just for the TV ratings.