Formula One 2016

[Lineker]

Quote

Formula 1 chiefs have agreed to implement new regulations for 2017 that will result in cars being three seconds per lap faster, Autosport can reveal.

The decision comes after a meeting of the F1 Commission in Geneva, comprising FIA president Jean Todt, F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone, representatives from all 11 teams, plus those from various sponsors and promoters.

Autosport understands following a meeting of the Strategy Group earlier in the day two proposals regarding the '17 rules were put forward for the Commission to deliberate over.

One was Red Bull's stance regarding the pursuit of making the cars five to six seconds per lap quicker, as originally outlined in plans aired last May.

The other was a compromise solution from McLaren whereby the cars are only three seconds per lap faster.

The latter was partly proposed to allow tyre supplier Pirelli to feel comfortable developing a range of rubber able to cope with the increased loads required for laps up to three seconds quicker, rather than problems likely to be posed in going five seconds faster.

When it came to voting, with a 66 per cent majority required, of the 26 able to vote, 20 were in favour of the McLaren concept, three against, with three abstentions.

Although the current regulations state the rules have to be signed off by the end of this month, in order to aid the finalisation of the plan, the teams have been given an extension of April 30 as a cut-off date.

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner will be particularly unhappy his team's idea was rejected as he felt going three seconds per lap quicker was effectively a halfway-house solution.

It now falls on all concerned to come up with a definitive testing plan over the course of this season to ensure the targets stipulated can be met, and the tyres are safe going into 2017.

The same April 30 date also applies to the final engine regulations going forward.

Last month the four engine manufacturers - Mercedes, Ferrari, Renault and Honda - agreed to a reduction in cost to supply the 1.6-litre V6 turbo-charged hybrid systems to €12million per season to a customer team from 2018.

It is understood prior to then there will be a cost reduction of one million euros per annum.

It also appears likely from 2019 manufacturers will be asked to supply one less power unit per driver per season.

At present each driver is allowed four power units per season if there are 20 races or less, increasing to five if there are 21 or more, as is the case this year.

There were also discussions regarding an increase in race-fuel consumption, but this was rejected as it was deemed to be sending out the wrong message.

 

[MJB]

Qualifying is fine. It's probably actually one of the only things that DOESN'T need to change. Leave qualy alone!

[Adam]

The new proposed qualifying format sounds silly to me, yet another change for the sake of change. It's fine as it is, unlike many other facets of the sport.

[The Lusophone]

Just bring back the old version of qualifying. This version is boring. :/

[Chris2K]

You know what I do with the current version of qualifying? I start watching half an hour later than the start and fast forward through until there's three minutes remaining in the session because that's the only time that anything interesting is likely to happen.

At least with this proposed system there will be something interesting literally every 90 seconds.

[Rich]

On 23/02/2016 at 23:04, MJB said:

Qualifying is fine. It's probably actually one of the only things that DOESN'T need to change. Leave qualy alone!

Disagree, you have 3 quali sessions where only the last 2 minutes really matter, it's all just a bit silly.

14 hours ago, Mad Jack said:

Just bring back the old version of qualifying. This version is boring. :/

One hour session on a Friday where nothing happens for 40 minutes of it and then another hour session on Saturday where nothing happens for 40 minutes of it?

[Adam]

I much preferred the old one lap shoot-out, where they'd go out and do a run in reverse order of the previous race result (I think) and the fastest time won.

[JasonM]

1 minute ago, Adam said:

I much preferred the old one lap shoot-out, where they'd go out and do a run in reverse order of the previous race result (I think) and the fastest time won.

I liked that style, but it was severely hampered by the weather conditions. If the session started (or finished) in wet conditions, anyone caught on wets was pretty much boned for quali. Sure, it added the unpredictability that a Schumi could end up low on the grid because of the weather acting up, but generally it pissed people off more than it excited. Because people in the wet had no chance to make up for it the moment the track started to dry up.

Right now I feel the change is alright I guess, but it does not fix the problems that the sport is having. That is, 50% downforce loss by being stuck behind the next guy ahead of you, meaning overtaking is mostly reserved for DRS-straights and straight up faster cars (and the occassional Verstappen Banzai act.) And this quali system won't fix those problems at all.

The biggest problem right now is that teams should not have a say in what rules are made. They should be there to add their suggestions, and be able to shape the system to the wants/needs of their outfit, but they should not be having a final say in the matter, that should be reserved to the FIA and an impartial committee that aims for the betterment of the sport, not the betterment of teams.

The only way the sport can really grow is if they take the power to legislate away from the teams, but that won't happen, because there are three teams that will make sure it doesn't happen. (Ferrari, Merc, McLaren) - Didn't add Red Bull because they'd thrive in a less strict system.

[Chris2K]

Ted Kravitz on his Notebook was giving Eric Bouillier a hard time last night, essentially because they've been fiddling around with qualifying and not the aerodynamics that are preventing the cars from racing each other properly at a close distance.

I agree with him to a point, but his main argument was "what do the racing purists want?" which is completely meaningless in this situation. The racing purists are going to watch regardless of what the qualifying regulations are, what the FIA and Team Bosses are trying to do is get the people who are on the fence or even those that don't like the sport to start watching. any changes that need to be made (particularly ones that don't involve the cars themselves) have to be aimed at growing a new audience, not satisfying the people already watching.

[JasonM]

41 minutes ago, Chris2K said:

Ted Kravitz on his Notebook was giving Eric Bouillier a hard time last night, essentially because they've been fiddling around with qualifying and not the aerodynamics that are preventing the cars from racing each other properly at a close distance.

I agree with him to a point, but his main argument was "what do the racing purists want?" which is completely meaningless in this situation. The racing purists are going to watch regardless of what the qualifying regulations are, what the FIA and Team Bosses are trying to do is get the people who are on the fence or even those that don't like the sport to start watching. any changes that need to be made (particularly ones that don't involve the cars themselves) have to be aimed at growing a new audience, not satisfying the people already watching.

Team Bosses are doing whatever they can do to keep their teams ahead of the rest, and ensure they and their sponsors get as much success as possible.
If F1 was more interested in getting fence-fans and new-fans into the sport, they can do a whole lot more than just give Qualification a new hat and go 'We changed it gais!'.

F1 is arguably the least fan/social-media focused racing class (sport) in the world right now. Competitions like WRC, WEC, and even smaller ones like FE are right on top of being involved in social media and also bringing the racing to the fans as much as possible... F1 (FOM is the main culprit) keeps all the interesting bits away from anyone who might be mildly interested in the sport, and forces people that want to watch to jump through hoops to be able to watch the sport (pay-walls everywhere). The website is a joke, and if you want to watch old stuff you're pretty much fucked in the A.

Look at how they treated BBC and pretty much forced them into jumping out of the game because they were being gouged with the price, even to a point where they could only show half of the races during the season. Now C4 is in that same problem. Over here in The Netherlands F1 was behind apay-wall for years, and only in the past six months this has changed to the race weekends being on a free channel on cable TV. And this is the same for a lot of the nations that have some form of interest in F1.

FOM wants F1 to be exclusive, F1 needs to be a 'premium sport' behind pay-walls so they can make billions on TV Rights alone. At the same time they complain that there are fewer sponsors than ever dealing with F1 teams, because whilst FOM and F1 has seen profits balloon, the general exposure and fewer-figures have been going down more and more.

If they truly wanted to make the sport interesting for new fans, they wouldn't have started a new aero-era for 2017, they wouldn't have pushed through a half-assed qualifying system either.

Team bosses are going to act in the best interests of their teams, always, and there's nobody can claim otherwise. Whether you're with Force India, Mercedes F1, or Ferrari.

As simple as it is, these new quali rules are going to piss off purists, and confuse the hell out of casuals on top of that. Teams are still going to sit in their garages until the last moment, and teams like Mercedes will still put on one or two lap times because they're fast enough to survive until Q3. Cars aren't suddenly going to get slower or faster with these new quali rules, the only thing that's potentially happening is teams getting a lucky or unlucky break when they get caught out. And the first 4 or so cars are going to be the same ones because like I said, cars won't suddenly be slower/faster just because there are new quali rules.

They need to stop trying to distract people with a shiny new thing, and actually create meaningful and lasting changes that helps the sport thrive.

[/rant]

Edited February 25, 2016 by Jasonmufc

[Lineker]

Quote

Kimi Raikkonen topped the timesheets for Ferrari on the final day of the first Formula 1 pre-season test at Barcelona, while Mercedes clocked up an impressive 185 laps.

Raikkonen bolted on a set of the ultra-soft tyres and set a 1m23.477s just before lunch to lead the way.

It was the third day out of four that a Ferrari topped the times, with the Finn finishing 0.816s clear of Red Bull's Daniil Kvyat who set his time on the same compound.

Mercedes, running its new nose, split running between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, who logged 99 and 86 laps respectively.

Both drivers did all of their running on the medium tyre with Rosberg seventh, just over one tenth ahead of Hamilton in eighth.

It was not such a successful day for McLaren-Honda, which suffered a coolant leak early in the morning.

The team was unable to get car back out, leaving Fernando Alonso to end the day with only three laps under his belt and not having set a time.

A late run on the super-softs catapulted Force India development driver Alfonso Celis to third, 1.363s off the pace, on his second day in the car this week.

Kevin Magnussen made up for a lack of running for his team-mate Jolyon Palmer earlier in the week with the day's highest individual tally of 153 laps and the third quickest time.

The Dane brought out the red flag when he stopped out on track in the final quarter of an hour.

Max Verstappen ended another solid day for Toro Rosso fifth, adding 106 laps to the 161 his team-mate Carlos Sainz Jr managed on Wednesday.

Sauber was busy, too, with Felipe Nasr doing over 100 laps in the 2015-spec car and achieving the sixth fastest time with a soft-tyre run.

Haas completed a race simulation with Esteban Gutierrez as it continued its maiden F1 test. The Mexican finished 10th quickest.

Rookie Rio Haryanto was responsible for a red flag when he crashed at Turn 5 during the afternoon and did not return to the track.

The Indonesian, who logged 51 laps, propped up the timesheets with a 1m28.266s on the softs.

DAY FOUR TIMES

Pos	Driver	Car	Time	Gap	Laps
1	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	1m23.477s	-	80
2	Daniil Kvyat	Red Bull/TAG Heuer	1m24.293s	0.816s	96
3	Alfonso Celis	Force India/Mercedes	1m24.840s	1.363s	75
4	Kevin Magnussen	Renault	1m25.263s	1.786s	153
5	Max Verstappen	Toro Rosso/Ferrari	1m25.393s	1.916s	110
6	Felipe Nasr	Sauber/Ferrari	1m26.053s	2.576s	121
7	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1m26.187s	2.710s	86
8	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1m26.295s	2.818s	99
9	Felipe Massa	Williams/Mercedes	1m26.483s	3.006s	54
10	Esteban Gutierrez	Haas/Ferrari	1m27.802s	4.325s	89
11	Rio Haryanto	Manor/Mercedes	1m28.266s	4.789s	51
-	Fernando Alonso	McLaren/Honda	-	-	3

 

 

Ted's Notebook after the final day of the test - Development Corner. I'd really recommend watching this @Meacon, it really explains all the aero stuff very well.

Sky Sports website link just in case the YouTube video disappears.

[JasonM]

A PSA about testing towards anyone who might be interested in F1 or have a casual interest in the sport... The times and laps posted by all drivers have no meaning unless you're part of the team of which those drivers race for... Every single team and driver has a different strategy and different testing points all during the day, and nobody is actively competing against each other, not team to team or driver to driver. Rosberg can be testing part-longevity whilst Hamilton can just as easily be testing fuel efficiency, and whatever else.

So whilst it's fun to follow testing and development, don't take too much stock in the times set by the drivers, since none are actually driving in race/quali-trim.

That is all, continue enjoying F1!

[Lineker]

1 minute ago, Jasonmufc said:

A PSA about testing towards anyone who might be interested in F1 or have a casual interest in the sport... The times and laps posted by all drivers have no meaning unless you're part of the team of which those drivers race for... Every single team and driver has a different strategy and different testing points all during the day, and nobody is actively competing against each other, not team to team or driver to driver. Rosberg can be testing part-longevity whilst Hamilton can just as easily be testing fuel efficiency, and whatever else.

So whilst it's fun to follow testing and development, don't take too much stock in the times set by the drivers, since none are actually driving in race/quali-trim.

That is all, continue enjoying F1!

Absolutely this. True pace and the real pecking order will not be known until Melbourne!

[The Lusophone]

I was just about to come in and ask about how much testing times would correspond to actual performance come the start of the season. Thanks guys!

Probably not a great idea to get my hopes up for a revival of fortunes for McLaren though.

[hugobomb]

At least this year they seem to have the problems that crop up for everyone at least once in testing rather than last years "The car's finally working!! Turns out not only is it unreliable it also horrendously fucking slow! "

[Lineker]

Quote

Sebastian Vettel turned to Pirelli's new ultra-soft tyre to set the quickest time in the first pre-season Formula 1 test of 2016 at Barcelona.

Only Ferrari and Red Bull ran the rule over the rubber Pirelli feels is 0.5-0.8 seconds per lap faster than the next softest tyre in its range, the super-soft.

The ultra-soft runners occupied four of the top-six places in the combined times for the week, with Ferrari duo Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen top and third respectively, split by Force India's Nico Hulkenberg.

On the super-soft tyre, Hulkenberg finished just 0.3s adrift of Vettel, and a third of a second up on Raikkonen.

From fourth to sixth it was a similar story as for the top three, with super-soft runner Sergio Perez in his Force India fifth quickest, sandwiched by Red Bull duo Daniel Ricciardo and Daniil Kvyat's ultra-soft times.

Overall, Ferrari led the way on three of the four days, with Hulkenberg denying the Scuderia a clean sweep on Wednesday.

Raikkonen was forced to settle for third on that occasion as newcomer Haas and Romain Grosjean sprang a surprise by nudging into second, although do not read too much into that.

As for Mercedes, it opted not to set any kind of eye-catching time. Instead Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg ground out the laps (675) and miles (1952) in search of reliability.

No other driver or team came close, with Renault's debutant Kevin Magnussen next up behind the Mercedes pair with 264 laps.

On the constructors' front, Toro Rosso - with a 2015 Ferrari power unit in the STR11 - fared well as it managed 447 laps, but still 227 shy of the German manufacturer.

Ferrari managed just half the distance of Mercedes - 1952 miles compared to 1020 - and barely conducted any set-up work, according to Raikkonen.

McLaren, following its woes last season, started off on a firm footing, until a hydraulics leak in the MP4-31 for Jenson Button on Wednesday, and coolant leak for Fernando Alonso on Thursday, severely curtailed the car's running.

Newcomer Haas will be pleased with the amount of mileage it covered, amounting to just over 800 in total, finishing ahead of McLaren and Manor.

With rookie pairing Pascal Wehrlein and Rio Haryanto on board, Manor managed 254 laps, which could have been more but for spins for Haryanto on each of his two days, costing him and the team valuable track time.

Bringing up the rear was Jolyon Palmer in the Renault, his week in stark contrast to team-mate Magnussen as a software issue on his first outing on Monday and turbo problem on Tuesday restricted him to just 79 laps in total.

 

COMBINED TEST STATS:

Combined best laptimes of the week:

Pos  Driver             Car            Time       Gap      Tyre
 1.  Sebastian Vettel   Ferrari        1m22.810s           US
 2.  Nico Hulkenberg    Force India    1m23.110s  +0.300s  SS
 3.  Kimi Raikkonen     Ferrari        1m23.477s  +0.667s  US
 4.  Daniel Ricciardo   Red Bull       1m23.525s  +0.715s  US
 5.  Sergio Perez       Force India    1m23.650s  +0.840s  SS
 6.  Daniil Kvyat       Red Bull       1m24.293s  +1.483s  US
 7.  Alfonso Celis Jr   Force India    1m24.840s  +2.030s  SS
 8.  Nico Rosberg       Mercedes       1m24.867s  +2.057s  M
 9.  Marcus Ericsson    Sauber (2015)  1m25.237s  +2.427s  S
10.  Kevin Magnussen    Renault        1m25.263s  +2.453s  S
11.  Max Verstappen     Toro Rosso     1m25.393s  +2.583s  M
12.  Lewis Hamilton     Mercedes       1m25.409s  +2.599s  M
13.  Esteban Gutierrez  Haas           1m25.524s  +2.714s  S
14.  Valtteri Bottas    Williams       1m25.648s  +2.838s  S
15.  Romain Grosjean    Haas           1m25.874s  +3.064s  S
16.  Pascal Wehrlein    Manor          1m25.925s  +3.115s  S
17.  Felipe Nasr        Sauber (2015)  1m26.053s  +3.243s  S
18.  Fernando Alonso    McLaren        1m26.082s  +3.272s  S
19.  Jolyon Palmer      Renault        1m26.189s  +3.379s  S
20.  Carlos Sainz Jr    Toro Rosso     1m26.239s  +3.429s  M
21.  Felipe Massa       Williams       1m26.483s  +3.673s  S
22.  Jenson Button      McLaren        1m26.735s  +3.925s  S
23.  Rio Haryanto       Manor          1m28.249s  +5.439s  M

Total mileage per driver:

Pos  Driver             Miles
 1.  Lewis Hamilton     992
 2.  Nico Rosberg       960
 3.  Kevin Magnussen    764
 4.  Felipe Nasr        683
 5.  Max Verstappen     668
 6.  Carlos Sainz Jr    624
 7.  Valtteri Bottas    619
 8.  Daniel Ricciardo   575
 9.  Marcus Ericsson    567
10.  Sebastian Vettel   564
11.  Daniil Kvyat       492
12.  Esteban Gutierrez  486
13.  Felipe Massa       472
14.  Kimi Raikkonen     457
15.  Jenson Button      390
16.  Alfonso Celis Jr   385
17.  Rio Haryanto       373
18.  Pascal Wehrlein    362
19.  Fernando Alonso    353
20.  Romain Grosjean    327
21.  Sergio Perez       292
22.  Nico Hulkenberg    286
23.  Jolyon Palmer      229

Total mileage per team:

Pos  Team               Miles
 1.  Mercedes           1952
 2.  Toro Rosso         1293
 3.  Sauber (2015 car)  1250
 4.  Williams           1091
 5.  Red Bull           1068
 6.  Ferrari            1021
 7.  Renault            992
 8.  Force India        963
 9.  Haas               813
10.  McLaren            743
11.  Manor              734

Total mileage per engine:

Pos  Engine        Miles
 1.  Mercedes      4741
 2.  Ferrari 2015  3245
 3.  Renault/TAG   2111
 4.  Ferrari 2016  1021
 5.  Honda         743

[JasonM]

Really insane that Merc has driven nearly double the amount of miles compared to the next team. Even though the info matters little, it shows that the Merc engine is something special.

[Lineker]

2 hours ago, Jasonmufc said:

Really insane that Merc has driven nearly double the amount of miles compared to the next team. Even though the info matters little, it shows that the Merc engine is something special.

The maddest stat I heard this week is that the Manor did a lap time 5.5 second fastest than their quali lap in last year's Barcelona GP! I mean I know they were running an adapted 2014 car and all, but that's still stupidly impressive.

[Chris2K]

I'm not sold on Haryanto (only two spins over four days and they were both him) but I think Wehrlein could be surprising some people this season, the Manors really seem to have got things together and it'll be nice not to have a definitive "last placed team". Except maybe Renault.

I had no idea that Hulkenberg set his time on the Super Soft, I just assumed it was the Ultra Soft. It could just be a very low fuel level of course but it does make me wonder if Force India could be around the Williams/Red Bulls this year.

And as for wacky stats I had no idea that Hulkenberg has never finished on the podium in his 94 races. The guy really deserves a car to match his talent this year.

[JasonM]

He's been on track to get podium's last year, but he's had some really bad luck coupled with generally the car being behind Merc/Ferrari/Williams... But Checo has shown that there are chances to get there.