Motors The Bit-Tech F1 2015 Thread - Season Complete

China gp in a nutshell zzzzz.

 

I missed everything, even FP this weekend. I've been on the road since Friday morning and just arrived home. Lots of catching up to do!

 

TL: DR

Merc fastest, Ferrari a little bit slower, Williams a little bit slower, repeat ad nauseum.

 

You forgot the bit where Nico complains about some external factor for why he couldn't beat Hamilton.

 

I used to like Nico, but there's always an excuse and some reason he didn't come first out of I wasn't the better driver. If Hamilton was driving that much slower and backing him up then bloody overtake him.

 

Nico dropped down in my estimates massively after the bbc interview, all I could hear him saying was wah wah wah.

 

Nico this year will be lucky to finish 2nd in drivers championship, He seems to be a totally different driver since the Spa incident. Hes lost a edge he carried last season when he took the title fight to the wire.

Mentally for Nico he already looks in trouble back to back races hes complained about something and twice this weekend to first his team now about somebody else. What he was complaining about today was just funny. If hes too slow pass him on the track.

Hamilton did what Vettel did for so long with Redbull build a 2 second gap maintain it blast out 2 quick laps when needed repeat for victory. Only in the final stint did that Mercedes show anything like its true pace. Vettel lost 1 sec a lap at that point suggesting ferrari still have some distance to make up.

 

OK in terms of up front a pretty dull race but further down the pack some great action. Verstappens overtakes, Ericssons defending and the Button & Maldonado's race until they got a little too amourous.
Something must have been wrong with maldonados car they were fastest in all the traps but he looked slow struggling for traction out of turns an top end.

Waiting on Dr Marko to moan again about the Renualt engines.

 

Sounds like missing this was the right move then. I've resolved to record all the races and then only watch them if I feel the vibe from the forum/news reports about it. Save myself a good few wasted hours over the course of the season I suspect

 

i'm usually at work for the races so highlights for me was fine

 

The midfield was quite fun to watch.
Verstappen specifically had some good fights going on, and didn't just roll over and play dead whenever someone tried to come past.

Button's crash was his own fault. Not sure if a penalty is warranted, but for once, Maldonado was not to blame there.

Nico Rosberg crying... well - the cynic in me would be quick to point out that he's shown he can't win without something happening to Lewis (or resorting to Monaco tactics), but that'd just be me being difficult.
It really is do or die time for him. His words will become meaningless if he can't beat Lewis on track, and something tells me Vettel will have him in the title race should that happen.

 

Lewis had the race covered after the first 10 meters, after that no one else was going to win.
Vettel drove a decent race, as did Kimi, and Nico needs to seriously up his game - I'm not even confident of him finishing in the top 3 this year.

 

I think Crastor's had three DNFs that havnt been his fault, Australia he got nerfed first turn KL something broke on the car and same in China. He is good like the battle with button some good clean wheel to wheel. just he gets a bit of red mist and does something a bit stupid.

 

Looking at comments made by Alonso to some news outlets about how "McLaren's time will come" - i am more and more convinced that they're pulling a Brawn. Next year's Macca has a chance to be unbeatable.

 

Oh please. He's about one bad day away from slashing his wrists open and ending it all. He's made a huge mistake, Macca's f***ed and he's putting a brave face on the whole affair, the same way he did at Ferrari ever. single. year.

I have been an Alonso fan for well over a decade now, and have always had a soft spot for McL (although my team loyalties are scarlet) but I just cannot be optimistic. RBR set the bar for dismal pre-season last year and McL-H have significantly lowered it, without the in-season recovery that we saw from RBR in 2014. Honda had a whole year to match the broadly-known performance of the 2014-spec Merc and failed magnificently.

With that said, the chassis seems solid — Alonso did a monster soft-tyre last stint, about as long as Bottas on mediums, and freakishly close to the Mercs and Ferraris, also on mediums. So there's that (even if fully fueled the car didn't look too promising even on mediums). But knowing McL, they may show up next year with a fantastic engine with a completely ruined chassis. They cannot seem to stop fiddling with (and breaking) perfectly decent designs.

 

It's too early to write-off McLaren, it's only race 3 and we haven't even got to the European races. They also have a history of being able to develop a car throughout the season better than most teams.

Alonso may be regretting his decision to move, but after years of Ferrari failing to win anything I suspect he's not bothered by it as much as most people think. He's got plenty of years left in him and he's there for the long game.

 

I don't think any amount of development can bring them to the pointy end this season, but like I said, I'm an Alonso fan with a soft corner for McL, so I'll be happy to be wrong.

Next season is anyone's guess, but I think the frontrunners will be hitting diminishing returns while Renault and Honda have a bigger gap to close, so they might make deeper inroads over the winter. Winning ways will have to wait until 2017 at the earliest, IMO.

Now there we agree. Better to fail at a fresh start than to spend another year missing out in a Ferrari.

He said it himself at a recent race weekend (I forget which) - if Ferrari win a WDC/WCC this year, he'd have made a bad move by switching. If they don't, however, he'll be happy with his decision, because at the end of the day, not-winning is not-winning, and you might as well feel happier slogging it out and building something new.

Especially if you're picking up a monster paycheck anyway, as opposed to many of those cash-for-points contracts in the midfield...

 

Mercedes playing games again. Or just screwing Bernies show one of the two.

 

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