Formula One 2015

[JasonM]

Also, GP2 race was very eventful...

The race was red flagged for around 30-45 minutes as they had to rebuild the barrier. Really scary stuff and luckily de Jong walked away from it only shaken.

[Meacon Keaton]

I like NASCAR and I think I'd love F1, so what's the best way you'd suggest a newbie to get introduced to the sport?

[Rich]

Watch the race tomorrow.  It's at one of the oldest and most beloved circuits (Spa Francorchamp, in Belgium) and just see if you like it.  It's not the same as Nascar, there are much less in the way of overtakes, the pleasure (for me) is from the technical ability of the drivers and how they manage a 2 hour race.  

[Lineker]

That was probably the worse GP2 crash I've ever seen.

 

@Meacon: F1 Explained - Videos for the new F1 Fans in the Crowd. This post from r/formula1 is a few years old but is a great place to start.

[JasonM]

I like NASCAR and I think I'd love F1, so what's the best way you'd suggest a newbie to get introduced to the sport?

Tomorrow is the feature race of the Belgian Grand Prix, and it's the first race after the 3-week summer break. With tomorrows race there are 9 races left in the 19 race season.
25 october is the annual race in the USA at Circuit of the Americas, Austin, Texas. Which is a pretty fun race too.

Like Rich said, tomorrow is the race at Spa Francorchamps, the track is the longest one on the calender (7km/3.4mi) and also one of the oldest and most prestigious. The track itself is amazing all on it's own with crazy straights, awesome corners, and probably the most exciting section on the entire calendar.

Eau Rouge/Radillion is a chicane that has a run-up that has the car and driver drive downhill at full speed, before taking the kink without lifting and sweeping it back up the hill. It's an insane corner and it would never fly on a modern track, but due to the prestige of the track you simply can't mess with it.

As you can see, it's a spectacular section that you will find nowhere else apart from maybe the corkscrew of Laguna Seca.

In the USA NBC Sports is the official broadcaster of F1 races, in the UK you have Sky Sports (and occassionaly BBC). Naturally, for the people that don't have those channels there are also lower quality streams that aren't exactly legal.

A great place to start and get information is also the ''official'' reddit page of Formula One (www.reddit.com/r/Formula1, which closely follows the coverage. They're also very welcoming to new users and you can get a lot of information from their FAQ's.
The Wikipedia page also has a bunch of information about the current season (which I will also describe further) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Formula_One_season

Of course, there are plenty of people on EWB that also know a fair deal about F1, so feel free to ask any of us for more info.

As you can see, Formula One is split up in two championships. One is the World Driver Championship, which is awarded to the best driver over 19 races. And the other one is the World Constructor Championship, awarded to the team with the most points over 19 races.

Points are awarded to the top 10 finishers of every race, NO extra points for fastest laps or pole positions. The scoring is as following... 25-18-15-12-10-8-6-4-2-1 (The #10 driver gets 1 points, everyone from 11 onwards gets nothing).

As you can see, Mercedes is currently top dog in the standings, and they've been dominating since the start of the ''Second Turbo Era" of F1 which started last season in the 2014 season. Between 2009 and 2013 Red Bull was dominant with 4 championships in a row for Vettel (who now has moved to Ferrari as of this season.)

One thing that's interesting about F1 is also that there are factory teams (like Ferrari and Mercedes) who fund their own team out of their own factory. Aside from that there are "Customer teams'', these are teams that aren't tied to a car brand and drive independently, they buy a B-Spec engine from a manufacturer and compete in Formula One. B-Spec engines aren't as good as the ones the factory teams like Ferrari and Mercedes use themselves, often they're an older model, cheaper for the teams to buy, and it means Mercedes and Ferrari aren't shooting themselves in the foot. But it has happened many times where factory teams have been beaten by teams that have bought their own older engines, it's very much a sport about driver prowess and engineering skill at creating the best chassis and such.

Thirdly there are also "Feeder Teams", currently there is only one in Formula One and that is Toro Rosso, which is a sister-team to Red Bull. Red Bull is officially the main outfit, and Toro Rosso is home to young up-and-coming drivers, this year it's two second generation drivers in Carlos Sainz, Jr - And Max Verstappen.

This season also marked the return of Honda as an engine supplier, working together with McLaren with whom they've worked together in the past. Sadly for the team and Honda, they've been mired with technical issues left right and center, and the all-star duo of Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso (both former WDC's!) haven't been able to will their dissapointing car to many point finishes.

Some news about next season.
There will be an 11th team on the grid next season, and the first official American team since the 1980's, as Haas F1 will make it's entry into the sport. Led by owner Gene Haas, the same owner of the NASCAR outfit Kurt Busch is driving for. It's speculated that they will be a feeder team to Ferrari in the same vein as Toro Rosso to Red Bull, but it's also reported that they might be hiring young American talent Alex Rossi (currently driving in GP2, the main feeder series to F1) and other drivers to start their 2016 season, they will be driving with Ferrari engines.

Also, Renault might be returning as a constructor themselves, they have had multiple falling out's this past season with Red Bull (and Toro Rosso by proxy) over poor technical performances and a lot of broken down cars. The cash-strapped Lotus F1 team has been reported to be the target of a buyout by Renault, which would no doubt see the team rechristened as Renault F1. Whether this means Red Bull and Toro Rosso will stop using Renault engines, switch over to Mercedes/Ferrari power, or perhaps take a B-Spec Renault engine for 2016, that isn't certain yet.

 

Anyways, big wall of text. And I know you've got some catching up to do. F1 is awesome when you get into it, despite the recent domination of Mercedes. Races like Hungary 2015 (the previous one) have shown that anything can happen in F1.

Edited August 22, 2015 by Jasonmufc

[Bobfoc]

Also, if you like NASCAR-style crashes, take a look at the 1998 Belgian Grand Prix. Ignore the mention of "mass casualty" in the title because nobody was seriously hurt.

 

[Lineker]

r/formula1's general view on NBC's coverage is that it's poor and that if you're able to watch the UK broadcasters coverage then you'd be remiss not to.

 

If you want to watch a mad, mad race, go for the 2011 Canadian GP.

[Meacon Keaton]

Awesome. Thanks guys. I'm glad I asked today. If I asked three weeks ago, I don't know if I would have waited around.

I have NBC, so I'll be watching it on there. Maybe if I like it and begin to understand it more, I'll move on to the UK's coverage. 

[JasonM]

Awesome. Thanks guys. I'm glad I asked today. If I asked three weeks ago, I don't know if I would have waited around.

I have NBC, so I'll be watching it on there. Maybe if I like it and begin to understand it more, I'll move on to the UK's coverage. 

Pretty sure it's NBC's paid sports channel which airs it live.
I also added a whole slab of text to my previous post, with a lot of information concerning the competition, this year's championship, and a few things about next year.

Also like Rich said. Every race is around 1:45 to 2 hours long without accounting for stoppages due to safety cars and potential red flags. Every race will be 300Km (190mi), the last lap will be the one that crosses that 300km margin. So even if the lap starts at 299km, there will be a final lap added to that to break that 300km margin. There is one exception, that is the legendary Monaco Grand Prix, which is the shortest (and slowest) track on the calendar and it would simply take too long to complete 300KM on such a small and slow track.
 

Edited August 22, 2015 by Jasonmufc

[Lineker]

Yeah, it's the 'NBC Sports' channel. I've messaged you on Facebook though, @Meacon

[Meacon Keaton]

So F1 is essentially the Lewis Hamilton show and the other nineteen guys are supporting characters, I've learned.  

So is a team's practice driver just that? He takes the wheel for the practice sessions, so the main driver doesn't need to be bothered? Am I right in assuming they replace one of the team's drivers if they're unable to go on race day? Do they get promoted when a driver leaves, or are they pretty much practice driver for life?

And how does fandom go? Do you support one driver or the team? Or is it a bit of both? They have teams in NASCAR, but it's still a very much an individual driver type sport, so you're more likely to find a Dale Earnhardt Jr. fan, than a Team Hendrick fan.

[Lineker]

Lewis is a very talented driver but quite a bit of a dick. Since the regulations were drastically changed for the 2014 season, the Mercedes has easily been the best car, predominantly because their power unit (engine) is the best.

The practice sessions are for the race drivers to play around with various settings on their cars to decide what setups they want to use in qualifying and the race. It's actually a very importantly part of the weekend. However some teams have third drivers who they will give run-outs to in FP1 sesisons throoughout the year - e.g. Palmer at Lotus.

It is a little bit of both - most people tend to have a favourite driver (usually Kimi, he's hilariously blunt and unenthused about everything). Personally I have a couple of drivers I have a soft spot for and also a team (Williams), but generally I just enjoy the race without overly cheering anyone on. Britons aside

If you go to Sky Sports F1's page after every Quali and Race, Ted Kravitz does a wonderful roundup called Ted's Notebook in which he break down the session for every team and driver, I can't recommend them enough. He break it down into simple terms too, which will help.

[Meacon Keaton]

You have more than one favorite driver? I wouldn't have guessed that.

[Lineker]

A soft spot isn't a favourite at all :/

[Cymbols]

Lewis is a bellend. Ever since Mark Webber left I've got no favourites so I just watch cause it's exciting. I'll cheer for anyone that isn't Hamilton.

[Lineker]

Everyone loves Jenson!

[Meacon Keaton]

@Jasonmufc The link to your diary in your sig is broken. I was going to give it a read, and I'm assuming you didn't know it doesn't work anymore.

[JasonM]

@Jasonmufc The link to your diary in your sig is broken. I was going to give it a read, and I'm assuming you didn't know it doesn't work anymore.

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So F1 is essentially the Lewis Hamilton show and the other nineteen guys are supporting characters, I've learned. [<_<]  

So is a team's practice driver just that? He takes the wheel for the practice sessions, so the main driver doesn't need to be bothered? Am I right in assuming they replace one of the team's drivers if they're unable to go on race day? Do they get promoted when a driver leaves, or are they pretty much practice driver for life?

And how does fandom go? Do you support one driver or the team? Or is it a bit of both? They have teams in NASCAR, but it's still a very much an individual driver type sport, so you're more likely to find a Dale Earnhardt Jr. fan, than a Team Hendrick fan.

I didn't even know I used a sig anymore, lol. That one is quite a few years old, right now I just have sigs turned off across the board.

I had been planning on playing some sort of racing game in the diary, but I don't think i'll have the time for it and it'll probably end up being like 2-3 posts long and then ends up being nothing at all...

Also, F1 fandom is a little bit of both. Some people are die-hard fans of particular racers, like Raikkonen, Vettel, Hamilton etc. And some people are simply die-hard fans for a team. Big example are the 'Tifosi', who live and breathe everything Ferrari.

Some teams have test drivers, like Lotus and Williams. They go out in the first practice on Friday and they'll drive the car around. This is often done for multiple reasons, including sponsor money (Sponsors pay the team to let the driver do practice), experience (younger drivers with little/no F1 experience can pick up real world experience with a car), and of course testing the car itself and trying to improve it.

In the case a main driver is unable to drive himself, they're either replaced by one of those test drivers, unless the team has a designated ''reserve driver'', the latter is often an F1 experienced driver who can take over in a pinch. Example for this season is Esteban Gutierrez at Ferrari, who drove for Sauber in 2013 and 2014.

An example of a driver being replaced by a reserve driver was when at last pre-season testing Fernando Alonso had a horrendous crash and spent multiple weeks on the mend with a heavy concussion. For that race Kevin Magnussen (who drove for McLaren in 2014) took over, but he never started the race due to technical issues with his car. After the race Alonso came back and Magnussen returned to his role of being a reserve driver.

Whether they get promoted or not depends on the need of the team, and the talent of the driver. A lot of test drivers became full-time drivers after a year or so of testing. Biggest names to have done so are Sebastian Vettel and Valtteri Bottas, the former is a 4 time driver champion (2009-2013), and the latter is touted as one of the biggest talents on the grid currently.

Also currently Max Verstappen has set the record at being the youngest ever driver on an F1 grid. Last season he set the record for youngest test-driver at the age of 16! And this season he has made his debut in the F1 at age 17 (2.5 years younger than the previous record-holder). Lots of people didn't approve of letting a driver with only 1 year of minor-league experience (He's a dominant Karts champion, but Karts don't count as a 'feeder class'). Nobody will ever break the record, because after his signing by Red Bull and placing at Toro Rosso, the FIA (the governing body of racing) created a new rule that states new drivers must be older than 18 and they need significant success in feeder leagues. Under the new system Max would've had needed to have at least one more year in any feeder (with success) to be able to qualify for such a license.
Needless to say, he's the first and last of a new breed of drivers and highly touted. His season has been up and down due to some lack of experience and general car issues, but when both the car and him have been on he's truly been a spectacular driver to watch. Naturally he has set the record for youngest ever point-scorer in the second race of his career. He almost also became the youngest ever podium driver 3 weeks ago in Hungary, when he came in 4th in a crazy exciting race.

Today on the other hand he's starting at the back of the grid due to a so-so qualification that had him sit out the second qualifying session due to already having gotten a grid penalty due to a gearbox replacement before hitting even more issues in the latter part of the first qualifying.

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Qualifying:
As I might've said, qualifying is split up in three parts which all ends up taking place in one whole hour. First there is Q1 where all cars on the grid drive to get into the top 15, the bottom five qualify in their respective positions and are knocked out. In Q2 the 15 cars drive to determine the best 10 drivers on the grid and so-forth, if a car doesn't set a time in Q2 (or Q3) they'll qualify on the lowest spot in that session. So if a driver can't set a time in Q2, they'll start 15th instead of 20th... Finally there is the shoot-out, which is a 10 minute session with the ten best drivers, they'll determine who gets on pole and who starts where.

After qualification is over the penalties are applied, so for example even though McLaren beat out Manor in Q3, they will start on the last two grid-places due to the two drivers/cars having gotten a combined 105 spots penalty (50 and 55). You might say that's ridiculous, and you're right it is. I'll explain further.

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Tokens and car parts.

In an attempt to curtail teams from spending billions of dollars, F1 has started using a ''token system'' in the sport. Which means that across a 19/20 race season teams may use a maximum of 4 engines throughout the entirety of the seaosn. Aside from the whole engine, there are also multiple parts they may replace a set amount of times during the season. It can range from gearboxes to the kinetic motors (MGU-H and MGU-K) which give the cars an extra boost.

This has been done to prevent teams from swapping out engines every single race (or even every single session, back in the day!) and using their vast financial sums to simply pay to success (it's not as easy as that). But it's been shown in the past that Ferrari simply took 6 engines to a single race weekend and split them between the two cars to give them a new engine every single session.

Because Honda is a new engine supplier, they've given McLaren one extra token all-across the board and one extra engine to use. But it hasn't helped since they've been mired in technical issues every single racing week. So they've gone over the token limit in a truly spectacular way and are now racking up grid-penalties left right and center like it's going out of style. But it's not like they can sit out the rest of the season now that they've run out of tokens, they need to eat the penalties and somehow manage to perform come race-day and fight back from last place.

Other teams are also in trouble, but in general cars with Renault and Honda engines have been the most prone to those issues. Toro Rosso and Red Bull are also at the limit of their tokens, and as a result drivers will pick up technical grid-penalties purely because Renault isn't able to make their cars sturdy enough.

Really... Renault has really fucking fucked up hard.

This is Ricciardo on the final 500 meters of the Bahrain Grand Prix (seriously, home stretch!) (And no, it's not the jet-turboboost)

 

 

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So yeah, I can talk about F1 until the cows come home. So if you need to know more, just ask and i'll conjure up a wall of text.

Edited August 23, 2015 by Jasonmufc

[Meacon Keaton]

I got up at eight on a Sunday to watch. Really enjoying this so far. I'm already not liking Lewis Hamilton. Let someone else lead, ya prick ass prick.

[JasonM]

Merc dominated, but cripes what was the race a spectacular affair throughout!

Drama at the start with Hulkenberg's car dying at the end of the first warm-up lap, and then Sainz having to pit and returning after being lapped twice (before retiring anyways).

Maldonado's car died, which was par for the course. And Ricciardio had a moment of heartbreak as he was doing pretty damn great up until that, and it hurts to see such a nice guy suffer like that.

Vettel's tyre exploded with 2 laps to go, ultimate drama and the gamble of trying to stretch the Medium's past their limits proved to blow up in their faces (pun intended). Glad to see a different driver finish third with Grosjean getting some sort of penance after the drama start he had at Spa in 2012.

Hamilton drove his own race, Rosberg had a shaky start and recovered impressively and got close a few times before Hamilton simply blazed off again.

Verstappen was also on an absolute stormer all race, going from 18 all the way to 8 to grab 4 points despite every random thing conspiring against him this weekend. Dude was bossing around the track like he was a 10 year veteran, and that overtake through blanchimont on Nasr had me holding my heart in suspense (after de Jong crashed there yesterday).

Good race, obvious winners but anything from #3 and beyond was great action.