2011 Formula 1 Season - Official Discussion Thread

[F1Fan88]

Renault decided to change its name as Infiniti so Red Bull-Renault have just become Red Bull-Infiniti, which will mean Red Bull won't have to pay 8 million dollars for engines. They'll use Infiniti engines for free.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/motorsp ... 409120.stm

Good point, I wonder if Tony Ferandes has been on the phone yet, offering to take some Infiniti engines off Renault's hands?

[Ali]

Oops BBC really screwed this Renault-Infiniti story up. Autosport loses no time to bash them lol.

NobleF1: Although countless people reported Red Bull Racing's engines will be rebadged Infiniti, they definitely are not. Team sticks with Renault
NobleF1: It was amazing yesterday just how many stories/outlets reported as fact the Infiniti engine rebadging when it was not true.

I remember in 2007 when Autosport reported that McLaren were stripped from the championship, when it had not been true! Not a classy thing for Autosport to act like a child today. That said, it was not a good publicity for BBC to have.

Here is the real deal:

Infiniti becomes major Red Bull Racing backer
Infiniti: No interest in engine badging
RBR: Infiniti offers technical boost

[phil1993]

Mr E has finally lost it

Q: Are there any ideas that you’re considering to boost excitement?
BE: I stick to it - let’s have medals instead of points. Drivers want to win and they are not racing for second, third or fourth place. So let’s have a system where wins count. Last season it would have worked pretty well. Vettel and Alonso would have been even after the last race with five gold medals each, and the same number of silver and bronze medals. Vettel would have won the world championship because he had more fourth places… I call that a thriller!

Q: Any more ideas?
BE: Yes. Look at the races we have now. Overtaking is almost impossible because in the dry there is only one line good for maximum speed because of the rubber on the track. You have a completely different picture when it is wet. We always had the most exciting races in the wet so let’s think of making rain…

Q: Making rain?
BE: Yes. There are race tracks that you can make artificially wet and it would be easy to have such systems at a number of tracks. Why not let it ‘rain’ in the middle of a race? For 20 minutes or the last ten laps? Maybe with a two-minute warning ahead of it. Suspense would be guaranteed and it would be the same for all.

[iceman1]

Oops BBC really screwed this Renault-Infiniti story up. Autosport loses no time to bash them lol.

NobleF1: Although countless people reported Red Bull Racing's engines will be rebadged Infiniti, they definitely are not. Team sticks with Renault
NobleF1: It was amazing yesterday just how many stories/outlets reported as fact the Infiniti engine rebadging when it was not true.

I remember in 2007 when Autosport reported that McLaren were stripped from the championship, when it had not been true! Not a classy thing for Autosport to act like a child today. That said, it was not a good publicity for BBC to have.

Here is the real deal:

Infiniti becomes major Red Bull Racing backer
Infiniti: No interest in engine badging
RBR: Infiniti offers technical boost

But Joe Saward is claiming credit for breaking the story "As exclusively predicted on this blog.." he said the engines were going to be ‘rebadged’

Mr E has finally lost it

August Bahrain GP ? Drivers will be boiled like eggs

[phil1993]

d'Ambrosio will drive all 4 days for Virgin next week as Glock is having his appendix removed

[sdutt]

Mr E has finally lost it

Q: Are there any ideas that you’re considering to boost excitement?
BE: I stick to it - let’s have medals instead of points. Drivers want to win and they are not racing for second, third or fourth place. So let’s have a system where wins count. Last season it would have worked pretty well. Vettel and Alonso would have been even after the last race with five gold medals each, and the same number of silver and bronze medals. Vettel would have won the world championship because he had more fourth places… I call that a thriller!

Q: Any more ideas?
BE: Yes. Look at the races we have now. Overtaking is almost impossible because in the dry there is only one line good for maximum speed because of the rubber on the track. You have a completely different picture when it is wet. We always had the most exciting races in the wet so let’s think of making rain…

Q: Making rain?
BE: Yes. There are race tracks that you can make artificially wet and it would be easy to have such systems at a number of tracks. Why not let it ‘rain’ in the middle of a race? For 20 minutes or the last ten laps? Maybe with a two-minute warning ahead of it. Suspense would be guaranteed and it would be the same for all.

yeah! i agree. and from a funny side of it, the interviewer was not bothered about his first idea, then came the more ridiculous second idea. Talk about water shortage around the world

[SilverStar]

Great news for MercedesGP. It won't change anything hopefully as far as the team goes, and it gives an indication of long-term ambitions in F1 for Daimler and the Abu Dhabi company to now buy up 100% of the MercedesGP team, so I am more than happy with this, I guess if you are going to be owned by anybody, it might as well be by some zillion ££ oil producing middle east government. There doesn't seem to be any down side to this that I can see, probably makes Ross Brawn a hell of a lot richer than he was a couple of days ago.

[iceman1]

d'Ambrosio will drive all 4 days for Virgin next week as Glock is having his appendix removed

I guess he's happy to start the Season in Australia and not in Bahrain.

[Ali]

McLaren duo admit to car concerns

Lewis Hamilton says his McLaren car's main issue is a lack of downforce, although the Briton is hopeful the team will be able to sort some of its problems before the start of the season.

McLaren's new challenger has not been among the strongest during winter testing so far, with the team also hindered by problems that have not allowed its drivers to run as much as hoped.

Hamilton said the MP4-26 was not as bad as the team's 2009 machine, with which he struggled at the start of the season, but admitted it is currently lacking performance.

"The '09 was terrible because the car was hopping, three-wheeling through corners, it was locking up, and it had no downforce," Hamilton told Reuters.

"This doesn't lock up, it doesn't three-wheel and it handles really nice, better than last year's car, but it just doesn't have as much downforce...so that's where it feels weak.

"Hopefully we've got some more downforce coming onto the car before the first race."

Team-mate Jenson Button also conceded he was not blown away when he first drove the car, but he too is confident there is more performance to extract from it.

"When I first jumped in it (the car) the first reaction was not 'Wow, we're going to blow everyone away'. No," Button told Reuters.

"I don't think anyone would have felt that because it's got a lot less downforce, the tyres are working very differently to the previous tyre.

"But there's nothing that really scares me about the car in a negative way, so there's a lot we can improve with this car through general set-up work."

Button is also hopeful that the four-day test at Barcelona next week will help McLaren solve its problems.

"This year, at the moment, we've had some issues in testing in terms of getting parts to the circuit and a couple of reliability issues, so we've not done as much running as we would have liked, which has hurt our set-up work," said Button.

"But we do have four days and hopefully everything's going to run sweet at the next test, and we get a lot of laps in and we can improve the base that we have.

"There's a lot still to extract from this car that we haven't because we just haven't had time to do it, we haven't got everything together yet, so we don't really know where we are compared to the competition."

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/89694

[mikhailv]

McLaren duo admit to car concerns

"There's a lot still to extract from this car that we haven't because we just haven't had time to do it, we haven't got everything together yet, so we don't really know where we are compared to the competition."

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/89694

Late launch will produce best results

[McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh is confident his team will not lose out by launching its car after the first round of testing in Valencia.

The 2011 McLaren will be launched on February 4 in Berlin, the day after the first pre-season test ends in Spain. The team will bring an interim car to Valencia to ensure it does not miss out on crucial mileage on the new Pirelli tyres, but the new car will not hit the track until February 10 in Jerez.

"The MP4-26 is on schedule and will be launched on February 4, after which it will go through the normal testing processes," Whitmarsh told Formula1.com. "We feel that timetable is optimal with regard to providing Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton with the best possible package for the first race in Bahrain. And that will be just the beginning of a progressive and rigorous development programme that will continue right up until the Brazilian Grand Prix on November 27."

This year KERS and moveable rear wings have been added to the technical regulations, giving teams several new challenges. However, Whitmarsh hinted at some unique developments on the McLaren that will make the MP4-26 stand out from its rivals.

"There are new regulations for 2011 - and the MP4-26 will not only adhere to them but it will also sport a few fresh design features in response to the opportunities presented by those new regulations," said Whitmarsh. "So, yes, there will be some new elements, but as you can imagine I'm not prepared to add more detail at the moment!"

He added that his team is very confident it will be a championship challenger in 2011.

"Vodafone McLaren Mercedes' mission is a unilateral one: to win," Whitmarsh said. "We won five grands prix last year, including three one-two finishes, and we came second in the constructors' championship, significantly ahead of our traditional rivals, Ferrari. But although many teams would be more than satisfied with that performance, we weren't and aren't.

"As I say, our mission is to win, and winning five Grands Prix and coming second in the constructors' championship doesn't constitute enough of a win for us. It goes without saying that this year we aim to do better. As ever, it's impossible to make firm predictions, but we think we're on course to be competitive. Having said that, we never underestimate our opposition and we're sure they're working every bit as hard as we are."
quote]http://en.espnf1.com/mclaren/motorsport ... 38027.html

Another whitmarsh fail?

[Ferrariman60]

I guess we'll see just how far off the Mclaren is. I've heard that Williams, Renault, Force India, and maybe even Sauber could be faster than McLaren. Fingers crossed...

[mikhailv]

I guess we'll see just how far off the Mclaren is. I've heard that Williams, Renault, Force India, and maybe even Sauber could be faster than McLaren. Fingers crossed...

Id like to see a true bad year in the terms of cars for Lewis to see his true mettle. I know alot of people criticise him for never proving himself in a bad car, and this year he could shut alot of people up if so. That, and in 2009 he didnt really handle having a bad car very well (turkey 2009 when he was slating the team over the radio regarding stuck behind a 'boat' that was piquet).

[iceman1]

Mclaren's problem is that they do not have an inspired designer. If you ask me, I think Mclaren had already began to suffer in 2008, but for Hamilton’s effort, it would have been an average car.

[phil1993]

Mclaren's problem is that they do not have an inspired designer. If you ask me, I think Mclaren had already began to suffer in 2008, but for Hamilton’s effort, it would have been an average car.

I'd agree with this. The only time since 1998 that McLaren has had the best package has been 2007.

[phil1993]

Drivers message of support to Kubica