Motors The Official bit-tech F1 2013 Thread

Quick note:
Mercedes is contracted by Ecclestone's company, and committed as an engine supplier until 2020. This info is from James Allen, who I deem a reliable source.

F1 can do without Merc as a constructor. Pirelli is harder to handle the loss of.
Pirelli is standing in defense of the test conditions, which is a big plus for Brawn &co.

Little known is that before Barcelona Ferrari tested with Pirelli as well, albeit with a 2011 car and a test driver.

It's foolish to think that Pirelli didn't approach RBR as well. To me it seems like RBR missed a trick and is bitter.
Ferrari on the other hand took the chance, but stuck to old testing rules which were, as far as the "spectator" (i.e. the uninvolved) is informed already discussed with the FIA beforehand. Ferrari didn't ask. Merc Asked. That's what it seems like to me, but I suppose the FIA has the last say here...

Pirelli leaving now would be bad for F1... especially since there's 8 months to go until the 2014 testing starts and that's with new engines as well... a bit of experience from the tyre manufacturer's side would do F1 good there...

 

Renault has said a while back that they can't properly supply more teams and would prefer FEWER teams.

As for the Tyre supplier - Pirelli has that strong hand right now, to be fair.

 

If that were the case, why are they going to supply Toro Rosso from next year?

 

RBR,
Lotus,
TR,
Caterham.

Do believe I've read a few times now that Williams are jumping ship away from Renault, so they remain only supplying 4 teams.

 

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/107462/

Best race in awhile for me that.

 

I missed the Williams story, somehow. I didn't know they were jumping ship.

 

Kobayashi in Ferrari overalls, driving a Ferrari F1 car... Didn't think i'd ever see that.

 

That's not a huge surprise as Ferrari tapped him for one of their sports car teams this year. He's too good a driver to be left sitting around while Perez and Crashdonado get race seats.

 

There were a few instances of kamuikaze too iirc, but nowhere near as often as Maldonado or Grosjean

 

The proablem with Monaco is the cars are now too fast for the circuit, the amount of laps under the safety car and the red flag proves this.

Though money will keep the race in Monaco, really they should swap out for cars suited to the circuit to make it a better race.

 

The cars are not as fast as they use to be and they certainly were not driving as fast as they could have been. The tyres prevented them from doing so.

The safety car and red flag were caused by accidents due to the nature of the track. The cars make no difference to that.

Watch the previous GP2 race for example.

 

He is racing in WEC in the LMGTE Pro class, which has been a pretty good spectacle so far this season. Bruno Senna is also racing in LMGTE Pro for Aston Martin Racing.

 

Kobi is in the ferrari GT team and still has his F1 licence makes him a logical test choice.

 

ye me too? i havent seen anything about that? they havent been running renault engines that long.

 

Apparently Massa's crash has been put down to suspension failure. If this was the cause of Saturday's crash in practice, which seems likely since it happened in the same place and in the same manner, it seems odd that Ferarri didn't diagnose and then fix it before the race.

 

It would be good to see Kobi back in a drivers seat he always made things interesting to watch.

Re the Williams dropping Renault, id expect them to pick up the Honda package rather than the merc one. As the autosport article suggests its either them or Lotus.
Might just be me going all misty eyed over the FW11 days but it seems to sight better that way.

 

What will they do for 2014 then?

 

The tyre situation is extremely poor for F1, going back a few years their never used to be this problem but you had the choice of 2 tyre providers.
F1 seems to have a new controversy each week in the news, it does get quite silly the issues that come up but the sport does have complex rules.

Monaco has little areas to overtake without commiting to a move that will usually result in a crash or a driver leaving the tack to avoid it.

The GP2 drivers as described by the Sky F1 team are a crazy bunch that will try anything to get into formula 1, apparently the F1 drivers watch their race for tips.

 

the problem is with Pirelli tyres, they are designed to wear and create pit stops. They are not the best tyres that Pirelli can make. But they are under contract to make tyres to excite racing.
I am a fan of single tyre rules, but the tyre companys need to compete to get the contract.
Pirelli has just done whatever has been asked of them, but what was asked is not the way forward.
A single tyre rule with independent management is needed for formula one. At the minute we have one manufacturer who are just making tyres that last x number of laps.