Motors Bit-Tech F1 2017 thread - Season Complete

Considering Force India have gone full bland with their 2017 livery, I'm quite happy to see some orange, personally.

I'm just hoping 'Nando can put it on the podium a few times... The guy is just too talented to not be up at the sharp end (to this day me and my best mate still talk about how he managed to drive around Bahrain with his DRS stuck open, all the while defending his position and keeping it on the tarmac).

Still looking forward to seeing the Red Bull machine though, got a sneaking suspicion it's gonna be a bit special...

 

Well, that's not the kind of special I was expecting. I hope that nose is a dummy to throw the rest of the teams off the scent.

Just the Torro Rosso to go now, then we can start guessing at the pecking order.

 

Has Haas released yet?

 

The Haas looks pretty standard tbh.

 

well for once the Torro Rosso isn't a lazy carbon copy of the the Red Bull

 

It's just a lazy carbon copy of a can of Red Bull... But even then still an improvement over the previous however many years of the same livery - when you start low, you can only go up, I guess!

My completely uneducated, stab in the dark guess for the constructors table come December:

Merc
RBR
Ferrari
McLaren
Renault
Torro Rosso
Force India
Williams
Haas
Sauber

 

Hmm, I think the Mclaren will explode too much for fourth, Renault fourth, FI fifth, Williams sixth, Mclaren seventh.

Sauber I think will fail to last the season, Haas and STR will fight it out for the wooden spoon.

 

Old liveries on the new specifications of car

 

I can see Bottas getting off to a good start but Hamilton picking up and never looking back. Bottas will pick up a win or two but Hamilton will dominate.

Red Bull will be second and fairly close to Merc performance wise but reliability and driver squabbling costing them points early on meaning they don't quite catch Merc or Hamilton.

Next is Ferrari, Renault, McLaren, Torro Rosso. Ferrari have a disastrous start to the season and internal politics affects both drivers. They pick up as the season goes on to recover to third by the end of the season. McLaren and Renault steal an early march but fade by mid season. Alonso close to the Ferraris in points but Vandoorne is clearly number 2. Torro Rosso are hurt with switching engines yet again and take time for Sainz to build momentum. Kyvatt does alright to start but Sainz clearly outshines him. All the mid teams have good races and luck/penalties decide who is better on the day.

Williams have a bad season overall. Massa gets results but is inconsistent and Stroll makes massive mistakes early on but recovers to about Massas level but is still out performed. Car Development is slow to non exsistant.

FI next. In a no mans land and completely forgotten about. Pick up points here and there from teams retiring early in the season. Reliable and some development keep them picking up points here and there

Haas and Sauber have a dreadful car but Grosjean and Wherlin look outstanding.

 

Unless Sauber can do what STR did last year and get lucky with some good results early on whilst their 16-spec PU is still vaguely competitive, they're pretty much a certainty to finish DFL imo.

Think Renault and McHonda will continue to struggle.

 

I reckon that STR could be proper quick (provided the initial Ranault engine issue they had - which delayed the launch- was just a fluke).
It's said that STR was underpowered for a while now and focussed their dev on creating low drag cars. This COULD be a bit of a dark horse, if you ask me. That said - that Livery does nothing for me.

The Haas doesn't look bad. Deep undercuts going on there, and I like the livery on the sharkfin bits.

The RBR is inevitably going to be quick. There's suggestions that the pics we saw were just a '16 car with a new nose and wider wheels... I think they may need a digger to get all the sand outta that.
I also think that Nose may get some protest if they go ahead with it. The opening seems a bit big for me, and that would imply dual-purpose - which everyone is doing to SOME extent, but the rules are quite clear on that.

Merc looks VERY quick - the question is mainly how much sandbagging is going on there, and whether or not they're getting a sharkfin.
Rumours I read imply that customer teams were surprised by the power numbers they were given for their simulators.

The Ferrari - as i said before - I think they're trying to throw other teams off with the amount of wings they have.

Force India - hideous car... I am witholding judgement.

The Williams and the Sauber seem quite uneventful...

 

http://www.planetf1.com/news/mclaren-hit-by-early-honda-setback/

Raise your hand if you're at all surprised.

I'm making some predictions.
Fernando will not be driving for Mclaren by the end of the season.
In 2018 it will be Mclaren Mercedes again, Honda will give up.

 

I think the token system was making Honda's situation worse than it otherwise should have been - They have proven in Indycar they know how to make a reliable V6 turbo engine, why that hasn't carried over to the F1 units I don't know (lets face it, it's not as if all of McLaren's DNF's have been ERS related...), but I suspect they will get on top of reliability well before summer break.

But maybe that's just me hoping to see a proper Hamilton/Vettel/Ricciardo/Verstappen/Alonso fight for every podium.

 

I reckon with Liberty's takeover you could see a new supplier in a couple of seasons time.

 

The Indy Engine is a tractor motor compared to F1 though. 2.2 litres, twin turbos, limited to 12'000 rpm and 550bhp in race trim (700 for Qualifying). More displacement for less power and revs with technology that's about twenty years old.

They're allowed to rebuild them whenever they want too, something that Honda has really struggled with in F1.

 

Also factor in the Ron effect dictating they must package in x y z space. Now hes gone and Honda have been gone with a better engine layout plus the pre injection system it could be more interesting.
At least now they will have continuous development so they can fix issues more quickly and implement improvements.

 

As suspected the 2017 rules have probably made the overtaking problem worse.