Nissan penalized for being too slow
Ferrari prepared to help save Monza
Nissan penalized for being too slow
It was expected that the Nissan GTR-LM protoypes, the radical front engined cars of the Japanese Manufacturer, would not be challenging for the win in their maiden appearance on the Circuit de la Sarthe, as their engine is so far only at around 700 bhp with the opposition churning out over 1.000 horses. Since all three cars failed to make the 110% cut in qualifying, the cars were relegated to the back of the LMP2 field, starting 30th to 32nd.
Ferrari prepared to help save Monza
Due to Bernard Ecclestone’s increasing financial demands and the Italian Government’s unwillingness to help the Autodromo Nazionale di Monza in the form of tax breaks, the Italian GP is so far not yet secured beyond 2016. The track owners are represented by Ivan Capelli, the most unsuccessful Ferrari driver ever. But Capelli’s relative uselessness in the 1992 Ferrari does not mean his former employer would not come to his aid when needed.
“It won’t be for lack of trying on our behalf,” Sergio Marchionne says in regard to a possible demise of the Italian GP at Monza. “If they [Monza] have problems, we need to talk to Bernie. If you look at Monza’s potential, you know it won’t disappear from the calendar.”
Rivals Mercedes had tried to save their home Grand Prix, and were even prepared to shoulder some of the costs, but the haggling over money had dragged on too long until the promoter realized there wouldn’t be enough time to properly promote the race anymore. Ferrari does not outright offer to open their treasury, but they won’t refuse to either should it become necessary to save the race.
“If it becomes necessary to guarantee it [the survival of the race], then we will have to intervene and make sure it happens,” says Marchionne.
RE: Nissan
That’s embarrassing. No one expected a world beater, but the qualifying relegation is embarrassing. I suppose a function of not qualifying within the 110% cut-off is that the front runners this year are so damn quick!
Another aspect to the Nissan challenger I found strange – other than the front engine layout – was that the Nissan is a front-wheel drive car. So the “rotation” tyres and the “driven” tyres are the same… That has implications on not only tyre management, but on driving style. I wonder if that didn’t have as much of an impact as the engine HP?
But it’s good to see a manufacturer trying a vastly different solution; so I hope they have a decent race and continue to evolve this concept.
Any fan of the Nissan quest is quick to point out they’re not running hybrid. WTF?
They could not get their hybrid unit to work. But as they entered as an hybrid the system is, non functioning, in their car. As a dead weight…
@bruznic
Well, since Nissan is in alliance with Renault, maybe they can give Viry-Chatillon a call to see if they can help them sort out the hybrid… 🙂
They need to call Mr Fox, since they are clearly racing the old batmobile.
They run in the 2MJ class with the Williams developed flywheel system connected to the front wheels. Originally the plan was to have the ERS system also connected to the rear wheels and run in the 8 MJ class but they couldn’t get the system to work reliable (that system should have brought the car in the rumored 1200-1600 bhp range).
It was always a case of the first year being a learning year for Nissan and all the problems they’ve had until now make it that this is a test year for Nissan. At least that was the explanation from Nissan’s Darren Cox. I bet the original plan was to competitive as soon as fast as possible but Nissan knows that the problems they’ve had during testing were just too big for that to be realistic, next year though they could be the dark horse of the field.
Nissan said we are coming back in 2015 and we will win it.
Surely the title of ‘Most unsuccessful Ferrari driver ever’ has to go to Luca Badoer?
I feel there’s a Kiwi contender too…..
How many titles did he win as the test driver ;). In 2009, it should have been Schumi back in the car.. or even Bianchi IMO.
Thank you, sir. Somebody needed to say that 🙂
“Due to Bernard Ecclestone’s increasing financial demands and the Italian Government’s unwillingness to help the Autodromo Nazionale di Monza in the form of tax breaks, the Italian GP is so far not yet secured beyond 2016. The track owners are represented by Ivan Capelli, the most unsuccessful Ferrari driver ever. But Capelli’s relative uselessness in the 1992 Ferrari does not mean his former employer would not come to his aid when needed.
“It won’t be for lack of trying on our behalf,” Sergio Marchionne says in regard to a possible demise of the Italian GP at Monza. “If they [Monza] have problems, we need to talk to Bernie. If you look at Monza’s potential, you know it won’t disappear from the calendar.””
Gov’ts shouldn’t be expected to subsidize F1 races, particularly in light of the fact that as the article notes, the problem is due to Bernie’s increasing financial demands.
Bernie’s a fool if he doesn’t realize that there are a core set of tracks, the loss of which, is leading to the demise of the audience. If people want to know why the viewing audience is dropping, it’s because the core audience has been alienated, as traditional tracks have been dropped, threatened, ransomed, etc. You drop a track, even for a year, and people will find something else to do, and then it’ll be hard to get them back. Bernie’s money-grubbing ways are killing the sport.