The 2017 Formula 1 Thread

That side by side of Hamilton and Raikonnen makes me wonder how much faster the 2017 Mercedes is than last year's car...

Not sure I want to know.

Either Ferrari have a legitimate Constructors Championship contender, or the Mercs are going to be outrageous. I'm betting on the later.
 
Since testing times are generally much slower than the times that happen on the grand prix, I expect the cars will be about 2 seconds faster than they are now by the time they come back in May. I think some track records will fall this year, and that hasn't happened since 2004.
 
OGG said:
That side by side of Hamilton and Raikonnen makes me wonder how much faster the 2017 Mercedes is than last year's car...

Not sure I want to know.

Either Ferrari have a legitimate Constructors Championship contender, or the Mercs are going to be outrageous. I'm betting on the later.
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Of course, everyone is likely sandbagging a little bit in these tests. New cars are faster for sure, but how much faster isn't going to be clear until the light go out in Australia.
 
Tiltsta said:
Of course, everyone is likely sandbagging a little bit in these tests. New cars are faster for sure, but how much faster isn't going to be clear until the light go out in Australia.
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Actually we will know exactly how fast they are come the end of Q3 assuming it's a dry session.
 
I just hope this season finally delivers us from the status quo of the last 7 seasons wherein one constructor completely outclasses the rest of the field and makes the race itself nothing more than a battle for the last podium spot.

It got old with Red Bull/Vettel, it's even worse with Mercedes.

Last season was the first season where not only did I NOT get up in the middle of the night to watch the races live, but there were several I didn't watch at all. All of my love and excitement for the sport couldn't pull me in.

It has to change. There must be some semblance of parody between at least a few teams. We can't expect low budget teams to be fighting for podiums, but when elite teams like Mclaren and Lotus can't even sniff a podium, there's a problem.
 
OGG said:
I just hope this season finally delivers us from the status quo of the last 7 seasons wherein one constructor completely outclasses the rest of the field and makes the race itself nothing more than a battle for the last podium spot.

It got old with Red Bull/Vettel, it's even worse with Mercedes.

Last season was the first season where not only did I NOT get up in the middle of the night to watch the races live, but there were several I didn't watch at all. All of my love and excitement for the sport couldn't pull me in.

It has to change. There must be some semblance of parody between at least a few teams. We can't expect low budget teams to be fighting for podiums, but when elite teams like Mclaren and Lotus can't even sniff a podium, there's a problem.
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These last couple of years have been difficult for me. I think 2012 was the last season that was genuinely exciting because no one team dominated. (yes Red Bull won it, but they weren't the fastest cars every week, and Ferrari and McLaren were close in pace, but threw it all away on pit and strategy mistakes).

I hope this year we see much more battles at the front between the teams. I don't need the races to have tons of overtaking to be interesting, but the chess match over the course of the season needs to be there to keep me engaged.
 
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Totally agree OGG. I watched more INDY car races (on road courses) last year than F1 because at least there was some doubt before the race started who was likely to win. In F1 no so much
 
Liberty Media boss Greg Maffei is dropping hints about changes to the engines. I hope he's serious and means big changes.
 
TomcatMF said:
McLaren might ditch Honda and go back to Mercedes.
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/mclaren-sounds-out-mercedes-about-f1-engine-supply-883240/
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I think McLaren has already been far too patient with Honda. They should have spent the offseason sourcing a new powerplant. It's impossible to think Honda has any chance of fielding a race-worthy engine. Not this year, maybe not ever under the current design and layout. Perhaps going back to normally aspirated V8s would give them a chance but they are hopelessly lost with the hybrid turbo V6.

They need to hammer out a deal yesterday.
 
It's a bit late for McLaren to fit another engine at this point. It's not like they just drop in; the whole car is designed around the engine. That's one of the reasons that Renault sucked last year. They didn't have time to redesign the car around their engine.

In other news, holy shit is the new Force India livery ugly! They've taken the title of ugliest livery from McLaren.
 
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Flatspotter said:
It's a bit late for McLaren to fit another engine at this point. It's not like they just drop in; the whole car is designed around the engine. That's one of the reasons that Renault sucked last year. They didn't have time to redesign the car around their engine.

In other news, holy shit is the new Force India livery ugly! They've taken the title of ugliest livery from McLaren.
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As ugly as that is, at least it's something other than silver or black. It's also good to see they have attracted sponsorship. More money for the team to develop the car and push further up the grid.
 
Flatspotter said:
It's a bit late for McLaren to fit another engine at this point. It's not like they just drop in; the whole car is designed around the engine. That's one of the reasons that Renault sucked last year. They didn't have time to redesign the car around their engine.

In other news, holy shit is the new Force India livery ugly! They've taken the title of ugliest livery from McLaren.
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Which is why they should have cut ties as soon as the last car finished the last race of 2016.

What did they expect after two seasons of abject futility? It seems that the Honda engineering team digs the hole a little deeper each year. They've made backwards progress in many ways. Poor Fernando Alonso was still a WDC cailbre driver and they ruined any chance he had to even compete. Jensen deserved better too. They sprung for a pair of WDC winning drivers and saddled them with a rolling turd.
 
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