Motors The Official bit-tech F1 2012 Thread - Post season

No, because Ferrari already owns the sport.

Whatever Red Bull do, they are paying F1 to do it, they will own nothing because the moment they don't cough up they become disposable.

Honda ponied up a lot of money in the eighties and mid noughties, they had two teams on the grid (briefly) and they own Suzuka. F1 rumbled on just fine without them, better in Button'n'Brawn's case.


#PS, the second is of no concern, none of them will ever get that far.

 

Fair point FTS

Also LOL @ Christian Horner corner

 

Slightly OT: I spotted a DVD of "Tooned" in Asda last night for £8

 

Seems HRT have really left the suppliers in a right old mess

They have offered them some pittiful amount on the money they owed.

Only 1 good thing has come from there failure no more Narain Karthikeyan as he truly is one awful driver.

Personally would like to see the end of paid drivers in formula 1 also but I dont think it will happen any time soon.

 

Nevermind that, they seem to have been committing fraud if Formtech's claims are true.

Negotiating payment deals (on the basis of the team operating and being sold) whilst already in liquidation, that's going to be an interesting one in court.

 

On that point I have a question about the "Brawn Miracle". I remember reading at the time that Honda had stopped development on the previous years car very early in the season (Jenson moaned a lot about that iirc) to focus on the next seasons car. Between season shenanigans happen and Brawn takes over the team and wins the WC. The fairy tale of the underdog team winning is born when the reality is it was the most expensive and highly developed car in F1 history at the time.

Is this true?

 

The informed consensus is that the BGP001 was one of the most expensive cars in history, with one of the lowest budgets through a season.

They basically had Honda's planned 2009 car, with a lot of Super Aguri (Honda's B-team like STR is to RBR) and Dome (a Japanese design and development firm) work thrown in. The reason I am inclined to believe this, is because Brawn started with a bang and then were slowly caught by the rest of the field. This lends credence to the idea that they basically lucked into a great car and had no idea what to do with for the rest of the year. IT also explains MGP's crappy form following the Brawn takeover.

 

Kind of.

Brawn had persuaded Honda F1's Japanese end that the 2008 car was a dead loss and that they should focus their efforts on having a properly developed car for the 2009 rule changes.
Brawn also got rid of Shuhei Nakamoto, who designed the RA107/8 and didn't have a clue what he was doing, the 107 was Nakamoto's first racing car, ever. Brawn replaced him with a guy named Jorg Zander, who was one of Nakamoto's deputies and has been in BMW Sauber, Williams and others over years. Nakamoto stayed in Honda F1 until the end of 2008 went back to motos.

They used this particular carrot to keep Button and Barrichello on board as 2008 turned out how it did.

Unfortunately the Honda brass lost their nerve, they'd spent nearly $300 million(!) in 2008 for one podium. What happened next is a mystery to me, but Brawn came out of it with the team and 40million euros from Honda (presumably so Honda didn't get sued into the stone age for various contract breaches).

Brawn were also done a whole lot of favours, Merc gave them cheap engines, the FIA waived the entry fee for the year and none of the other teams posted opposition to the entry.

They basically went from one of the best funded teams in 2008 to the worst by Australia 09, but with a $300million car (of which there were only ever three, it would have been two, but Rubens crashed one). They spent the rest of the season either shedding staff or getting any sponsorship they could race to race. The lack of funding really hurt them in development, particularly once Red Bull got up to speed. Even Zander ended up getting the chop, but he's back now that Merc are involved.

Really Brawn were one hell of an oddity, a lucky one at that.

 

I know about the development budget Honda had in place, but I thought Brawn GP's flying start to the season was because they nailed the blown diffuser; and that they had zero budget for further development during the season, which is why everyone caught them up mid season.

Also, was 2008 the year they got a temp ban for some fuelling irregularity? Something about using the reserve kilo during the race and topping up on the last pit stop? My memory isn't what it used to be.

 

That was 2005 and it's much better than that.

The car had a separate, hidden reserve tank inside the main fuel tank.

Quite what purpose this served is lost in time, but the best theory is that it allowed them to run the car underweight during the race, by pumping fuel from the main tank into it they could get the car back up to weight for scrutineering during the last stint of the grand prix.

This worked fine for five races or so, then the stewards found the tank, drained it and found the car's dry weight was underweight.

Oops...

 

Ah yes, that was it - I remember now.

 

Boys, I ran here as fast as I could, wait for it, Suzi Perry is to front the BBC F1 shows for 2013.

I'm not commenting on how much better or worse she will be than Jake, I'm commenting on how much nicer she will be to look at.

From that article it also looks like the beeb have lost Monaco from their schedule.

 

FTFY

 

Encyclopaedic knowledge there, top bearding. I remember hearing an interview in the post-season with one of the engineers who said they were a combo of luck and great pre-season development. Apparently when they got their first Merc engine for fitting and offered it up, all they had to do was chop a bit of the floor and machine some small spacers and that's it!

Back to current issues, Suzi is a great choice for the F1 - I think she did a decent job with the MotoGP, despite the otherwise crap coverage, and just like Humphrey this could be a great opportunity for them.

Monaco is missing from that calendar - presumably Sky/F1M were not impressed with the Beeb's viewing figures and decided to switch it?

 

I was rather hoping they'd give the job to Lee Mckenzie.

 

They have lost monoco enough that's not a huge shock.

3 of the first 4 races are sky exclusive.

Kinda be a difficult season to follow for none sky subscribers.

 

Great to see Suzi back on bbc coverage. Her finish to the Moto GP was pretty abrupt, what with her almost dieing and all, it'll be nice to see her again.

I can't help it! My family treats motorsport the way the average scouser treats Liverpool/Everton.

 

I thought she had her eptopic in 2009, then left the Moto in 2010? Either way it'll be nice to see her back.

 

I didn't know about Suzie she's Wolverhampton born and bred. Google Fu...to the rescue.

 

Personally I prefer her front