Motors The Official bit-tech F1 2013 Thread

source

 

Hulkenberg has comfortably beat Sutil and is only 1 point behind PDR, with one race to go I would bet on Hulkenberg beating PDR and finishing the season with more points than either FI. With FI's poor reliability I'd still say Sauber is a better bet for next year.

 

Taki Inoue's Twitter: he's not been wrong recently.

 

You have conveniently forgotten that Gutierrez trails Sutil by 23 points. What are the chances of Sauber collectively making up 24 points in the last race of the season?

 

Indeed...

 

Ah Taki, obviously the news was too quick for the traditional venues. Sad news indeed that Crashtor will get a proper seat.

 

It's Gutierrez's (paid for) rookie season, you can't expect him to achieve the same points haul as the other three. I guess that makes it a difficult comparison. I could be terribly wrong, we don't know how the Ferrari and Mercedes engines are going to compare next year, but in my opinion Sauber's car is getting faster and Force India's car is getting slower.

 

I would agree somewhat. Force India had a better first half of the season, and Sauber were relatively poor. That has reversed in the second half, and I'm willing to bet the mid-season change of tyres was as much a benefit to Sauber as it was a hindrance to Force India.

F1 is a team sport, so you have consider the team as a package when comparing. Regardless of current form, on balance, Force India have been the better team across the season.

I don't deny Hulk's current form is astounding, I just think he would be sitting with more points had he started the season in a Force India.

 

Also, it's likely that FI gave up on developing their 2013 car sooner than Sauber did.

Midweek Motorsport suggested that Ferrari's in pretty bad shape with next year's engine (at least in comparison to Renault/Mercedes), and don't have it up and running reliably yet whereas both Renault/Merc do. It's also rumoured that Honda's engine is already up and running on the dyno too. This could hurt quite a few teams if not quickly resolved, but it looks like McLaren might be in a good place by the time the Honda engine comes into service in 2015.

The problem here is that with forced injection, the power differences between manufacturers could be fairly significant if there are reliability/cooling issues.

Also, for what it's worth, there are no rules preventing Honda from testing their engine with a 2014 car, throughout 2014. They would need to build/design it themselves, but (from here is speculation) I could see Brawn at Honda working on the Honda engine project, building a up to date car to test the new Honda engine in - without the testing limits imposed on other engine manufacturers/teams. Brawn could then move to McLaren for the 2015 season and replace Whitmarsh, having spent a year sharpening his pencil on the new regs. </speculation>

 

I've read/heard the Ferrari engine rumours as well, but quite how much is chinese whispers about it not running properly yet etc I'm not sure. I struggle to believe that Ferrari, with all their engine-building experience, can't get a relatively simple engine like this going. It always strikes me as a translated exaggeration (i.e. an Italian engineer not quite getting the point across to another nationality of journo, Polish perhaps?)

Whether it's up to the estimated power of the Mercedes/Renault units yet, chances are it's not (or there'd be no gossip about it being crap), but as far as actually running, I'm betting it's good for now.

 

And frankly, if Ferrari can't make an engine that matches the rest of the field right off the bat, they should just bin the idea of competing in F1 at all. They're the ones that spent the better part of a decade whinging about F1 becoming too aero-focused and pushing for a switch back to engineering+mechanics, so if they can't get the job done in a year where 90% of the season hinges around the engine, they need to go f**k themselves.

 

Have my douts that the ferrari engine is not running. It will at least be running by now might just be short on power. AMG are making the merc engine id imagine. ( they have made several race engines for them in the past / present)

From 2006 to 2009 merc had the strongest engine on the grid and other teams were eventually allowed to alter theres to match its power

 

Currently the Mercedes F1 (and other motorsport engines) are made by Mercedes AMG HPP, once known as Ilmor.

 

Gary Anderson article for the BBC seemed to suggest that Williams gave up on blown exhaust effect since they didnt understand it resulting in rear instability which lead to lack of driver confidence. Sauber could simply have had one of those moments where they gave up developing something that failed all season or finally an upgrade working that gave them the boost. I xant see Sauber deceloping longer than FI given their financial situation

Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk 2

 

Am I right in thinking there'll be no Cosworth-powered cars in 2014?

IIRC it's

Renault - RBR, Torro Rosso, Caterham, Lotus
Mercedes - Mercedes, McLaren, FIndia, Williams
Ferrari - Ferrari, Sauber, Marussia

Yeah their engines weren't great, but think it's a bit of a shame that we're down to only 3 engine makers [if only for a season until honda reappear]...

 

Yep, they decided that the dev costs to make a competitive engine were far too much for a relatively small company.

Cosworth/Mahle is in great health nowadays, but even so, $100m on a potentially unwanted engine is a big ask.

 

Historically Sauber have had some of the best Aero guys in F1, thanks to BMW they have some of the best facilities too (if not the money to necessarily exploit them). Sauber quite often have a competitive car by the end of the season, even if they can only afford one or two big updates they tend to be very good ones versus the somewhat flailing approach of FI/Williams/Toro Rosso.

 

If Ferrari can't develop a good engine anymore, Enzo will be rolling in his grave

"Aerodynamics are for people who can't build engines."

And given that RBR are ahead in terms of aero compared to Ferrari, could leave them in a pretty bad place.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/25020099

Di Resta says his F1 future is out of his hands. In other words, he hasn't got a drive for next year yet.

 

Too many teams on the survival line looking for drivers that bring in the big bucks. Even lotus need the money thats been offered from drivers sponsors.

Paul does not have major sponsors behind him.