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Ecclestone criticises (09:38)
Juncadella gets his chance (10:22)
2014 F1 nose comparison (10:42)
When it rains, it pours for Renault (10:50)
Red Bull quick fix (11:15)
Renault put on a brave face (11:45)
Ecclestone criticises
It will come as little surprise to hear Formula One supremo, Bernie Ecclestone, has not changed his view on the new regulations which are causing such extreme changes to the 2014 cars. The man from Suffolk has reportedly called them “total farce.”
Speaking to the Daily Mail he said, “Look at the last few days. I said it was going to be like this. They (the FIA and the teams) insisted on these new engines. If they wanted to race like this, they should go to Le Mans.”
The inconsistency of the regulations have been questioned by others previously, as the environmental impact of the sport is far greater from the Formula One circus circumnavigating the world than that of the cars racing.
“Mercedes are taking 23 trucks with them everywhere. If they really wanted to save fuel they should stop that.” Once again, the important aspect of resource restriction can and will be called into question.
Today is only another example of different noises coming out of the world of Formula One, as it seems those at the top are still singing from a different hymn sheet.
Juncadella gets his chance
The news that Dani Juncadella would drive for Force India was tweeted last night as the young Spaniard said, “Looking forward to tomorrow driving the #F1… Hopefully we can make as much mileage as possible. Useful to keep learning! @clubforce”
The 2012 F3 Euroseries Champion is currently competing in DTM for Mercedes-Benz. Many will be watching the highly rated youngster with anticipation. Force India will struggle to hide their smiles as the Mercedes engine looks to have the jump on the others. For the man from Barcelona, this will at least provide some breathing space as he settles into a Formula One car.
2014 F1 nose comparison
Credit to @smbryar
So now that all have shown their hand, what are the final opinions?
When it rains, it pours for Renault
Reports are surfacing this morning of more bad news for Renault F1, as their Head of Track Operations Rémi Taffin, was rushed to hospital last night with severe stomach pains. As a matter of coincidence, it has nothing to do with the extremely poor performance of the new Renault powertrain.
Reports state it was a simple attack of appendicitis, with no further complications expected. He was operated on last night and remains under observation today. Just at the time that the leaders will need to stand together for the French manufacturer, health problems knock one of them back.
It really seems the age old adage is true here for Renault, When it rains, it pours!
Red Bull quick fix
It appears you can spend millions of £, $ or € on developing a car but when it comes down to a problem where a quick fix is needed, there is nothing quite like duct tape to save the day. A true measure of the problems Red Bull Racing are facing.
Renault put on a brave face
As was alluded to yesterday by TJ13 in the daily report from Jerez, it will take the best part of 20 weeks to fix the problems that Renault are experiencing. However, the French manufacturer have today tried to put a positive spin on their current predicament.
The modest 14 laps completed by Red Bull is the only stat required to demonstrate just how desperate the situation is. Head of engine at Renault, Rob White said, “We are very confident that we can cope with the problems.”
With the test in Bahrain just a week and a half away, it’s surprising that Renault feel there is such an easy fix to the problems they are experiencing. Given the fact they have had 2 years to develop the engines, what makes Mr White so confident that an extra fortnight will make all the difference?
White remained tight lipped when speaking to Autosport, only offering, “We do not have a single small problem or a blunder, which provides for the trouble.” The Renault mystery continues!
Interesting that he has a go at Merc of all people. They’re the only ones, who have this new engine working immediately. The reliability of the Merc is sort of frightening. We might change one domination for another.
RB’s reaction could prove interesting. People, who are used to winning a lot are usually not so good in dealing with pressure on the other hand a properly po’ed Adrian Newey might pull all stops and come up with a surprize. I’d hazard a guess that we’ll see substantially bigger sidepods on all Renault cars come Bahrain.
The reason for running the fuel limiters are so engine manufacturers can find ways to reduce fuel consumption on a world wide scale.Running a few less trucks wont do diddly squat in the grand scheme of things.Also i love the sound and power of the new cars.
Bernie likes to appeal to the uneducated.
“Bernie likes to appeal to the uneducated”
….and the RBR fans!
Bernie is a Red Bull man!
I also like the new sound – but for a real kick look up V16 BRM or Auto Union on youtube!!
I regularly laugh at the utter hypocracy of the Suffolk Toad…. its HIM who carts the teams off around the world on its entirely illogically conceived journey to far and distant lands, and its HIM who gives the teams the budgetry assistance to transport all their gear in cavernous container vessels and airplanes, yet it is HIM who has the most vocal dig at the new rules, designed to modernise the sport from a technology and cultural persepctive somewhat
LOL, RB seem to have “fixed” their car with duct tape. 😀 Good ol’ well proven method.
It looks like a very piss-poor attempt at getting the exhaust blowing concept back past the FIA if you ask me 🙂
Mind you, looking at the state of the CF around the outlet it looks like that chimney is throwing flames or something.
Oh how the mighty have fallen. Webber & Williams are pissing themselves laughing right about now.
Well, RB is indeed neck-deep in it right now, but never count out a wounded warrior. I wouldn’t put it past them to be back in the second half of the season, sort of.
Read McLaren ’09 here 😉
That’s not exhaust. The exhaust exits via a single central pipe in the middle of the rear of the car. That’s an attempt to let hot air out of the side pod.
final opinion on the ‘nose catalogue’: Not even Ann Summers would sell those.
Apparently FIA are unhappy with these appendages and will try to change the rules for next year so that we go back to decent-looking noses.
These noses will then be retired in a vault deep, deep, really deep in the ocean floor. Another option is to ship them into space!
It’s not FIA, who are unhappy with them. They actually declared al of them legal. The top teams, Merc and RB in particular, think that these things could act like a battering ram.
It’s not the “battering ram” aspect that concerns me; it’s that a lower-slung nose will “undercut” the car it hits. Being sent flying into the air is Not Good but your chances of survival would be pretty good, as we’ve seen. Having an F1 car in the face would be another matter.
According to Autosport “FIA seeks assurance on safety of new F1 nose designs”:
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/112376
Really? And whom approved them for testing then? Doesn’t the rules say that cars can’t test if they haven’t been cleared as safe by FIA? They are idiots, designers have been telling them for months to change the rules to avoid these stupid noses and they did nothing about it. Anybody with two or three brain cells knew this was coming.
The only total farce in F1 is the continuing influence of Ecclestone.
Plenty of semi-farces, though.
Speaking of which, the rogues gallery of nasal appendages reminds me a little of this:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Zw73xiKAM2o/Twek9-pxTJI/AAAAAAAANTk/Tpu9Hdhqwo4/s1600/commedia-dell-arte.jpg
You know, I like that Merc a lot, but I also like the Williams, and I’m starting the like the Ferrari too. I don’t even mind the Red Bull, but I don’t like the black paint, carry that yellow to the very point, and it will look pretty sharp I reckon, literally!
Only the Merc nose looks OK to me
The thing is, it ain’t that bad if something goes wrong during testing. It’s bad if it happens during the season. (For the team, not for us) and preseason testing doesnt mean much…
It depends if something bag happens, or something catastrophic. Something bad would have meant ONE Renault team would have lost ONE testing day because of a wonky component. But they all lost almost all testing time, because it was obvious that the engine is an epic fail with little time to fix it.
Makes you wonder what the heck they’ve been doing the last two years. It’s not like it only transpired last week that they’ll switch to turbo engines with lots of electrical shit nailed them.
The thing that is making me curious is that for all the reliability that the Ferrari and particularly the Merc seem to have with their powerplant, we don’t know how thirsty they are. With such tight margins in getting the car to sip fuel like its a very hot coffee, we may be reading this all wrong and come Melbourne, Renault could saunter in with an engine that is the most efficient and therefore able to run at full chat for all the race! We just don’t know! I’m hoping what we see is correct, and a shift in power is happening, but really, who knows what is going to happen?
None of the cars will run at full chat ever except for qualifying. Rosberg said that they’ve never run a race flat-out since 2006. In fact he described in an interview today that this season will be akin to medium-speed chess with the team actually calculating when and how to overtake or not to make the fuel last. He said that you’re basically effed if the team radio fails, because the drivers won’t be able to make it without the team constantly telling them how slow they have to go and when.
Yes, but my point is that Renault could still be the faster race engine due to being more efficient. Saying they are going to be the worst of the 3 engines is a little premature I think, that’s all.
Its the one thing that is total bollocks, and the FIA clearly had a monumental brain fart over: the maximum fuel per race crap. Given the teams can’t refuel during a race, they want to carry as little as bloody possible anyway, for weight reasons, so there is no need to start limiting them more.
The thing the FIA seems to have utterly missed is that, had they introduced this Power unit, with all its entailing features, and then let them go, it would be in the teams interest to make the ERS devices work as efficiently as possible to reduce fuel load anway, indeed if they limited them less, they’d probably be trying to make the Electrical systems recover even more and use even less fuel, or really ramp the power up.
With an artificial limit now, what we will have is cars running at reduced pace not because it is the fastest agregate pace to the end of the race, which whilst we may moan they are running on lower revs or short shifitng, is technically the fastest way to run a grand prix start to finish, than running max revs with the extra fuel… otherwise they would do that instead. Now, they will be running on reduced revs, or whatever, because they have to meet a number some bunghole in a suit invented.
Same as the noses, you can make F1 cars as ugly or as electrical as you like for me, I’m not a petrol or aesthetic purist about this, but make them ugly and electrical because its faster in someway, not because some suit said so, or wants to look good.
I like the new engines, and the ideas behind the new technology, just not some of the shit thats sprinkled in with it.
Interesting comments from Nico, DS. Thanks for sharing them.
RE noses – redbull is prettiest. second mclaren. then sauber.
Mercedes; Williams/Sauber; McLaren; RB
if nascar can get 2km per kg of fuel then f1 should be able to get 3km per kg of fuel.
i hope its not detrimental to the racing but they must strive for better efficiency.
“Mercedes are taking 23 trucks with them everywhere …”
I can’t confirm, but I’m taking a damn good guess that Merc need those trucks for all their stuff – they aren’t exactly bringing them all for the hell of it, as if they plucked a no. of trucks out of thin air like the lofty fellow is suggesting.
Maybe the lofty one is targeting Merc since they appeared to be pleased when Bernie stepped down from the board recently ….
Also, Mercedes are more then a team like McLaren or Redbull, they make the engines for almost half the field! How many trucks do other teams and say, Ferrari take ?
Always best to start beyond the limit and work back then never actually find out where the limit is..