2017 F1 General Discussion Topic

[KenONeill]

@camelspyyder Ref Ericsson - Oh yes; crashing under safety car (well any time under waved yellows) is a complete no-no IMO!

[lol-lol]

 

Not great track record.

 

Edited 3 June, 2017 by lol-lol

[camelspyyder]

He hasn't got the speed either.  

 

This year he out-qualified rookie first timer Giovinazzi by only 0.2 then 0.07 at the next race.

 

Since the 3rd race relative newcomer Wehrlein has beat him in qually 4 times straight.

 

Pay drivers like Marcus are such a waste of time - unless you own a skint back of the grid team I guess.

 

I can't believe he thought he might get in at Renault or Force India this year.

 

 

Edited 3 June, 2017 by camelspyyder

[camelspyyder]

Verstappen joins the Red Bull "bitch about Renault" team.  He's complaining about their 2018 motor already:

 

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/130121/verstappen-has-2018-renault-concerns

 

Still, I suppose there are currently vacancies at both Ferrari and Mercedes next year... and either would take him over their current Finn.

 

Not to mention the growing possibility of Mclaren-Mercedes drives too -and just how fast will that be, if Alonso can already get it into the top 10 now with about 100 bhp less than the others?

 

Cant see Max staying at Red Bull if they look like dropping out of the top 3.

 

 

 

 

Edited 13 June, 2017 by camelspyyder

[XLBaconDoubleCheese]

It'd be good to see just how quick the Macca would be with a Merc engine in.

[camelspyyder]

Sepang open to F1 return if racing improves...

 

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/130170/sepang-open-to-f1-return-if-racing-improves

 

Cheeky sods, I hope Liberty tell them where to get off, especially since classic GP are coming back in France and Germany.

 

Can't remember Sepang complaining about the quality of racing when Ferrari or Red Bull dominated several years straight, but the new formula has seen a different team win there every year so its not exactly predictable... 

 

Oh well, we can file it away with those other crap third world ex-F1 tracks in Korea, India, Turkey etc (Baku too soon I expect)

[camelspyyder]

"F1 too technical" says Monisha Kaltenborn:

 

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/130222/sauber-f1-has-become-too-technical

 

What really?  When did she notice?

When BMW stopped installing free CRAY supercomputers at her Sauber team's base?

 

This is the same team boss who thinks Ericsson is a top-line driver...

[ben1990]

With Baku looming, do we think that Mercedes have sorted out their issues? 

[camelspyyder]

very much track dependent.

 

the ferrari works everywhere though.

[camelspyyder]

The new (ish) owners of Sauber have also noticed that Monisha doesn't really have her finger on the pulse (see earlier post) and have sacked her!

 

They are probably not going to do any better...apparently they fell out because she wouldn't make Ericsson team leader over (the much more talented) Wehrlein.  Clearly even she now could see that Marcus is a donkey.

 

Luckily for Monisha, when Longbow took over she sold them her shares. Can't think they'll be worth much in a year or too when Sauber follows Manor, Caterham and HRT to the auctioneers block.

 

 

 

 

Edited 21 June, 2017 by camelspyyder

[camelspyyder]

Sometime back it was asked here "How much money does Ericsson pay for his drive?"  The answer is more than any of us thought.

 

Revealed: The $30 Billion Formula One Backers From Sweden

/

It is no secret that Formula One teams have high-octane running costs. Average annual budgets have hit around $220 million making the racing series a playground for blue chip brands and auto manufacturers like Mercedes and Ferrari. Finding investors who are wealthy enough to stump up the necessary funds is a challenge for most teams but one seems to have cracked it.

For the past few years the future of Switzerland’s Sauber team TISI +% has been in question. It was founded in 1993 by Swiss racing driver Peter Sauber and has just one race victory to its name. It is largely famous for being independently owned without the backing of billionaires or blue chip brands.

A four-year partnership with luxury auto maker BMW came to a halt in 2009 and, since then, Sauber has owned 70% of his eponymous team with 30% in the hands of its chief executive Monisha Kaltenborn. They have faced a rocky road recently as F1 team costs accelerated due to the absence of a budget cap in the series.

Last year Sauber finished a lowly eighth in the championship giving it an estimated $55 million in prize money – around a third of the amount made by F1’s biggest-earner Ferrari. It piled the pressure on Sauber and earlier this year cracks began to appear as it came to light that the team was late paying staff several months on the run.

 

In March Kaltenborn admitted it and added “we will get on top of the current issues and we will get out of this awkward situation. We will fight and we will get out of it.” It has taken some time but that is exactly what the team has done.

On Wednesday Sauber announced that the entire share capital in the team had been sold to Swiss investment firm Longbow Finance. Kaltenborn is remaining as CEO and the team’s name is not changing though Sauber will step down from the board and will be succeeded as chairman by Longbow director Pascal Picci.

 

“We are very pleased that by reaching an agreement with Longbow Finance S.A., we can secure the future of Sauber at the pinnacle of motorsport,” said Kaltenborn. “We are convinced that Longbow Finance S.A. is the perfect partner to again make the team competitive and successful in Formula 1.” This kind of rhetoric is common when welcoming new partners but it couldn’t be much more accurate on this occasion.

Corporate disclosure regulations are tight in Switzerland so Longbow is not obliged to file publicly-available financial statements or reveal the identity of its shareholders. However, there is no doubt whatsoever that it is connected to some of the world’s wealthiest businessmen and Sauber’s Swedish driver Marcus Ericsson is in the middle of the action.

Ericsson is currently 21st in the F1 standings after a 20th place finish in today’s Hungarian Grand Prix. Since joining F1 in 2014 the 25 year-old driver has not got the podium or taken pole position for race. Having won in the prestigious proving grounds of Japanese Formula Three and Formula BMW UK there is no doubt that Ericsson has potential but he has yet to fulfil it in F1 as Sauber’s car has struggled to compete. Nevertheless he has succeeded in attracting support away from the races.

Marcus Ericsson driving the Sauber during practice for the Hungarian Grand Prix. (Photo by Charles Coates/Getty Images)

For years rumours have swirled around F1 about who backs Ericsson and we are finally closer to an answer thanks to a detailed investigation of company documents driven by the Longbow takeover.

Until 2010 Ericsson personally owned 60% of a UK company called M E Promotions limited which he was on the board of along with his father Thomas and fellow Swede Karl-Johan Persson, the CEO of clothing chain H&M . Persson is worth $2.3 billion according to Forbes so alone has more than enough resources to fund Ericsson’s career.

Company documents showing that Marcus Ericsson owned 60% of ME Promotions

 

Further evidence connecting Persson to Ericsson comes from the fact that the remaining 40% of M E Promotions was owned by another UK business called Sportpro which describes itself in company documents as having “activities in sports sponsorship”. In turn, Sportpro is partly owned by Swedish firm Ramsbury Invest which is the private real estate vehicle of Persson’s father Stefan who is worth an estimated $20.1 billion thanks to owning a 28% stake in H&M. Karl-Johan is also a shareholder in Ramsbury so the connection couldn’t be much clearer but it doesn’t stop there.

Company documents showing that Sportpro owns 40% of M E Promotions

 

M E Promotions was dissolved in 2010 but a company with the same name is based in the Netherlands and 40% of it is indirectly owned by Sportpro. That’s not all.

Sportpro’s biggest single shareholder is also Sauber’s new owner Longbow which has a 33% stake in it. In summary, the company which owns Sauber is also the biggest shareholder in Sportpro which in turn owns 40% of M E Promotions.

 

Company documents showing that Longbow owns 33% of Sportpro

 

The list of names connected to Sportpro reads like a roll call of Sweden’s most storied industrialists. Another shareholder alongside Longbow and Ramsbury is Olsbergs, a leading supplier of electro-hydraulic control systems. Sauber’s new chairman Pascal Picci sits on Sportpro’s board next to Karl-Johan Persson and Finn Rausing, another Swedish billionaire. He is worth an estimated $5.7 billion from co-owning the Tetra Laval packaging empire.

Tetra Laval made its fortune from a patent on the fold-able cardboard cartons which milk and orange juice commonly come in. The patent was filed in Germany on Jan 16 1963 by Tepar Ag and nine months later sister company Tepar SA was set up in Switzerland. It is now known as none other than Longbow Finance S.A and one of its board members is Larry Pillard who only stepped down as Tetra Laval chairman last month after 14 years in the job.

 

Together, Finn Rausing, Stefan and Karl-Johan Persson are worth $28.1 billion and, as if this list of heavyweights was not enough, Longbow’s chairman is Raymond Bär former chairman of Swiss private bank Julius Bär. He also knows his way around the auto industry as he is on the board of AMAG Automobil und Motoren a major Swiss car dealer and importer.

Just days into the deal, the new owners are already having an impact as Ericsson’s team-mate Felipe Nasr said on Thursday that the new funding has allowed Sauber to introduce updates that were previously on hold. The restricted disclosure of Swiss company documents means that we may never know how much of a boost the new investors will bring to the team’s bottom line but it is safe to say that Sauber’s money worries appear to be over.

 

 

 

 

article from Forbes.com 2016

[ben1990]

Well that was fun. Looks like Mercedes are now able to get a good set up on their cars. Baku was being hyped as a Ferrari track but 1+ seconds of pole? Yikes. 

[tweenster]

With the Mercs turning the engines down to race spec lets hope the Red Bulls and Ferraris can make a race of it. Otherwise the Mercs will be disappearing off into the distance.

[ben1990]

Will Vettels engine go the distance? Problem in fp3 meant that Ferrari put the engine from the first 4 races in. Got to give a mention to Lance Stroll too, considering he hadn't even driven the track in the simulator. 

[Ootohere]

Exciting. 

I remember why i used to love Banger racing.

 

Love it, Brake Testing with F1.

[ben1990]

I don't think it was brake checking nor do I think that Seb deliberately bumped into Hamilton after the initial contact, although I would be intrigued to see what Sebs right hand was doing as his left was remonstrating. On the trackside camera it looked like his car veered to the right as he put his hand up. Clumsy Imo. Quite convenient how his penalty was applied after Lewis was called in to fix the headrest. Who had money on Stroll finishing 3rd?

[Sad555]

I wonder if Charlie whi***g drives a Ferrari,f not he does now,one waiting when he gets home.?

[kevberlin]

Great race in many ways but it all seemed a little contrived.

 

Good effort by Stroll and points, at last, for Alonso.

[moley]

It appears the data from Hamilton's car shows that he neither braked or lifted when Vettel ran into the back of him. I think Vettei was anticipating Hamilton accelerating out of the corner and didn't want to be left behind like the previous restart. To drive alongside and bang wheels makes Vettel d1ck of the week and he gets 3 points on his licence.

Edited 25 June, 2017 by moley

[camelspyyder]

He got off lightly.

 

The FIA had checked the telemetry from Mercedes and knew it wasn't a brake test before they applied the 10 second penalty.

 

The last F1 Ferrari that deliberately crashed into a rival got chucked out of the '97 championship.

[Thomson]

Not a huge f1 fan nowadays was about 20years ago.  But vettels got off really lightly. Seems a good race and makes it more interesting with two teams head to head and others mixing it up.  Not like last few years. Starting to take an interest in it again. Still love the Btcc more for the close bumper to bumper racing. 

[ben1990]

I have always respected Vettel. I still think it was clumsy as I don't think that he would resort to that, however my opinion may change if I watched the footage again. Since my last comment I have seen the incident again and it looks as though he had his hand up for a second or two before the bump, then the car veered towards Hamiltons. I wonder if the fia will revisit the incident between now and Austria.

[camelspyyder]

It was blatant but they normally take the view that one punishment is enough so the 10 second penalty and 3 points will be the end of it.

 

The Merc must be tough though, It got rammed in the diffuser and hit on both left side wheels and was still a match for the Ferrari.

[camelspyyder]

Force India. 

 

2nd race on the trot.

 

Are they going to bang their drivers' heads together or what?

 

They were both ahead of (winner) Ricciardo when they crashed into each other.

[XLBaconDoubleCheese]

Decent race, Vettel would have done better to hold his hands up and apologise than play dumb and stand his ground. 

 

I've spent all season ripping Stroll but be held his nerve on a track that was pretty tricky, fair play to him. I'm still not sure he's all that but hat off to him. Force India really are punching above their weight, considering that their main sponsor has been grounded for the past few year and their owner/boss has been deported  Shame they keep dropping the ball.