A lot of last years friction with Red Bull was over Renault choosing its own combustion chamber development (which was no improvement according to RBR's drivers at the time) over Mario's design.  Nice to see they're getting him  to do it now.

 

 

It's not as if they are the first major manufacturer to get ILMOR to do the donkey work, then slap their nameplate on it.

 

Chevrolet, Mercedes, Oldsmobile and Honda, have all preceded Renault in this.

Edited 29 May, 201610 yr by camelspyyder

How about the race then?

 

A certain team are making a habit of duffing up their top driver's strategy, no?

 

And I haven't seen Doctor Marko look quite so stony faced since the last time his protegee smashed up a few million quids worth of Red Bull...yesterday I think it was  .

 

Would the rules allow another driver swap at RBR?  It only looks like there is one of the youngsters who might have the maturity to deal with Ricciardo and he hasn't had a go in the RB12 yet.

Edited 29 May, 201610 yr by camelspyyder

Race was pretty good. Hamilton deserved the win IMO but Ricciardo would have been a worthy winner too. Any other track he would have passed Hamilton while the ultra soft tyres weren't working. Both were in a league of their own. Title fight is on, I do wonder if Rosberg will regret following the team order at the end of the season

Hmmmm?

 

Remember '14 where Rosberg's performances dipped after being blamed for the Spa crash.

 

Did he get the blame (behind closed doors at Mercedes) for Barcelona too?

 

The way I saw it he clearly made a mistake (engine mode or otherwise) in turn 3 and ran Hamilton off the road to try and recover.

 

If he is the scapegoat at Mercedes (and trying hard to get a better new contract) maybe doing what the boss says at the moment is essential for him.

Yes could be. Either way with Lewis and Danny Ric in the form they are in, he is going to need to do a lot better if he wants to win the title this year

Feel sorry for Ricciardo. He could have won the last two races, with the Mercedes taking each other out he had a golden opportunity to win, I suspect he thinks the team put him on a three stop strategy to allow Verstappen to win. This race the team call him in and haven't got the tyres ready, that cost him the race. Rosberg was way off of the pace and got mugged on the line for seventh.

A really enjoyable race For me, it cements the facts that not only is Hamilton faster than Rosberg, but that Vettle is not a truly great driver, he was just a really fast one, in the right place at the right time.

If RBR hadn't been preoccupied with trying to leapfrog their second driver up the order, maybe they wouldn't have lost the race win. It seemed like a lot more effort was going into Max' tyre strategy than Dan's. Shame the kid crashes more than Maldonado at the moment.

The race showed that Rosberg is a journeyman in a very good car; it would be a travesty if he ever got to call himself 'World Champion'. 

 

I really enjoyed the race; it had a little bit of everything and even, at the end, something for the conspiracy theorists amongst us to have a chuckle over!

Come on!  He's just won 7 on the trot!  Has Lewis been absent since Austin last year - No, in fact he's been getting his ass handed to him on a plate by the Number 6 Mercedes - but you don't say Hamilton is slow.

 

Nico has one poor race and he's a crap driver?

 

That second longest winning streak in F1 history says otherwise.

I put Vettle and Rosberg in the same group and Alonso and Hamilton in another. Jenson Button gets his own 'cute' group

Not sure about your "grouping" of JB, but Nico is as quick and deserving as many who've won titles already -

 

Farina, Hawthorn, all 3 Hills, Brabham, Hulme, Surtees, Hunt, Scheckter, Andretti, Keke and yes JB - none of them were the fastest out there but were clearly in the right car at the right time.

 

I think he'd be a worthy champ, as would have DC or Webber with a bit more luck.

Edited 1 June, 201610 yr by camelspyyder

But he isn't cute in the same way as JB. It's main consideration. James hunt was a bit of all right too (it doesn't matter if he wasn't the fastest, he had racer's hair and sidies )

@ladyelanore - Probably the most rational reason why any driver deserves to be F1 champ over any other....hairstyle, cajones and cuteness factor. My wife always thought Jean Alesi deserved it for that reason

Interesting point about fast drivers and others....when you look at the grid and timings across practices etc. almost anyone in a 'top car' could be champ. Danny has supreme skill and is at the top of his game. Hamilton too. Verstappen just lacks a bit of wisdom BUT it will come...a couple of seasons will see him rule supreme I think. I think Jolyon Palmer in a good car could be one to watch too. Romberg is on the cusp for me...some outstanding performances when mentally 'in the groove' but is he mentally tough enough when the chips are down?

Put JB or Alonso in a Mercedes and I think it could be interesting. Put Vettle in any car and he would be the same....just swear more when it goes tits up. I like the fact that he has the ability to swear on camera in his second or third language (English) too. Sign of a true champion?

Dave

Hunt had cojones in every meaning of the word  :p

 

Instead of wisdom, call it experience. Who in the world can drive a car like that with 18?

Danny is plain quick, if the team stays allert, he can win.

Hamilton is mentally stronger than Nico, always was en will be.

That is, imho, the downside of Nico. He cannot cope with mental pressure. Can be quick, no doubt, but misses the final touch (you will have to be born an a$$hole, not try to be one).

You can develop and improve though. Hamilton wasnt always mentally coping. He had at least one shocker of a season during the "Nicole" years, when he threw it off the road regularly, crashed with Felipe at most races, and was outscored by JB, a very talented, but slower, champion.

 I like the fact that he has the ability to swear on camera in his second or third language (English) too. Sign of a true champion?

 

 

 

Good point

I think foreign drivers probably learn Saxon-style language from their mechanics.

Even the most charismatic modern sportsmen are unlikely to ever rival the Hunt/Sheene escapades though especially when they were out together.

Edited 1 June, 201610 yr by camelspyyder

Come on!  He's just won 7 on the trot!  Has Lewis been absent since Austin last year - No, in fact he's been getting his ass handed to him on a plate by the Number 6 Mercedes - but you don't say Hamilton is slow.

 

Nico has one poor race and he's a crap driver?

 

That second longest winning streak in F1 history says otherwise.

 

All fair and reasonable comments; doesn't change my mind that he would be anything other than an 'ordinary'  World Champion. But then I'm hard to please; Schumacher will never be a great Champion in my eyes because he never had to beat a competitive team mate, unlike the greats like Prost, Senna, Lauda, Piquet etc that all had competitive team mates. I'm not a huge fan of Button either; lucking in to a dominant car and even then he almost managed to throw it away. Maybe I still prefer the romantic era of F1, when there were some real characters (I am sure there still are but their public persona is too 'controlled'). Gilles Villeneuve for me will always be 'the best' and the one who "more than most, was operating without a safety net" (I can't remember who that quote was from, maybe Jody Scheckter after Gilles' death?).

 

Hamilton came off the boil after he secured last year's Championship, and the difference between winning and second can be such a small percentage. Nico did not have a bad race at Monaco, he had an absolute shocker. Can you imagine Hamilton, Alonso, Vettel or any number of other drivers getting mugged on the line like Rosberg did? As with many drivers, when every thing is working for him and conditions are perfect then he can put in a strong performance, that becomes a winning performance when you have a dominant car. At Monaco he was almost lapped by his team mate in a car that had no obvious mechanical issue, other than the nut holding the steering wheel! Sorry, not a fan. I do like Ricciardo though.

 

This season is beginning to bubble; it may yet start to boil. And whilst Mercedes may remain the dominant team it looks like Ferrari and Red Bull will challenge them when the conditions suit them. Whether this can be every race we will have to wait and see. There is the potential to take big points off one of the Mercedes drivers if they have a below par race, and that can see a 24 point lead disappear very quickly. Mildly optimistic for the next few races!

Hey neighbour, I agree with a lot of that - but ordinary drivers don't dominate like Nico has even when given the best car.

 

Patrese did sod all with the Brabham-BMW or Williams-Renault (championship winners both).

 

Johansson had drives at the 2 dominant teams of the time, Ferrari and Mclaren - but never won a race.

 

Barrichello drove dominant Ferrari and Brawn cars with limited success.

 

For what it's worth I think Hamilton is ultimately a few hundredths faster, but if Nico is the #2 driver, he must be one of the winningest #2's ever.

I checked. Nico is the driver with more GP wins than any other non-champion - his recent run of success seeing him eclipse Stirling Moss (and DC) in that measurement.

 

He has also won more races than 17 drivers champions (with 22 titles between them)

 

 

 

 

Your last response has got me a little misty eyed for the last golden age (in my view) though.

 

The titanic Prost v's Senna v's Piquet v's Mansell years.

1500bhp turbos with qually tyres.

And then the screaming V10 v's V12 battles that followed.

 

Must download some of those races to relive that.

Edited 1 June, 201610 yr by camelspyyder

My favourite quote of the Mansell, Prost and of course Senna, battle was "Prost was the cleverest, Mansell the bravest and Senna the fastest".  Halcyon days

Your last response has got me a little misty eyed for the last golden age (in my view) though.

 

The titanic Prost v's Senna v's Piquet v's Mansell years.

1500bhp turbos with qually tyres.

And then the screaming V10 v's V12 battles that followed.

 

Must download some of those races to relive that.

 

Glad to have helped your nostalgia! 

 

I loved the 1500bhp era. Think about it; 1500bhp from 1500cc is still, some 30 years later, almost mind bogglingly unbelievable! And the man who tamed the wild turbos the best? Some mad Finn named Rosberg! Who became World Champion by winning just one race in a season! They were very different years!

And the Brabham-BMWs were, if I recall correctly, run by a certain Mr B Ecclestone. The cars were fuelled by a wholly illegal toluene-based 'rocket fuel' that required the mechanics to handle the stuff in space suits. Just found this on Wiki:

 

Toluene can be used as an octane booster in gasoline fuels for internal combustion engines. Toluene at 86% by volume fueled all the turbo Formula One teams in the 1980s, first pioneered by the Honda team. The remaining 14% was a "filler" of n-heptane, to reduce the octane to meet Formula One fuel restrictions. Toluene at 100% can be used as a fuel for both two-stroke and four-stroke engines; however, due to the density of the fuel and other factors, the fuel does not vaporize easily unless preheated to 70 °C (158 °F). Honda solved this problem in their Formula One cars by routing the fuel lines through the exhaust system to heat the fuel.

 

It has to be said that the engineers of the era were incredibly creative in their thinking. Where is the next Quantum Leap coming from?

And the Brabham-BMWs were, if I recall correctly, run by a certain Mr B Ecclestone. The cars were fuelled by a wholly illegal toluene-based 'rocket fuel' that required the mechanics to handle the stuff in space suits. Just found this on Wiki:

Toluene can be used as an octane booster in gasoline fuels for internal combustion engines. Toluene at 86% by volume fueled all the turbo Formula One teams in the 1980s, first pioneered by the Honda team. The remaining 14% was a "filler" of n-heptane, to reduce the octane to meet Formula One fuel restrictions. Toluene at 100% can be used as a fuel for both two-stroke and four-stroke engines; however, due to the density of the fuel and other factors, the fuel does not vaporize easily unless preheated to 70 °C (158 °F). Honda solved this problem in their Formula One cars by routing the fuel lines through the exhaust system to heat the fuel.

It has to be said that the engineers of the era were incredibly creative in their thinking. Where is the next Quantum Leap coming from?

 

More electric and less internal combustion probably.   Currently 80% of full power is from the IC engine and 20% from electric.  I would expect that to change to 60/40 then 50/50, then 20/80 and eventually pure electric in a decade or so.   Not just better regen via brakes ie so no conventional disks and pads are needed so there is purely regen. Much better use of super-capacitors for storage of power for just a few seconds and the batteries for longer term storage ie starting the race, quick change battery packs in the pit stops?   Have a look at the Isle of Man electric bike in the next few days, quantum steps, getting to respectable lap times, maybe a 120 mph average speed lap down the B roads.    

Edited 3 June, 201610 yr by lol-lol