2015 Formula 1 Belgian Grand Prix

[04_dc5]

Some good news to start the weekend. My favorite driver lineup stays for another year!

http://www.formula1.com/content/fom-website/en/latest/headlines/2015/8/raikkonen-to-stay-with-ferrari-in-2016.html

[phreezee]

I have mixed feelings about Kimi. The guy has such horrible luck lately that every time you see him in the lead, it's almost a certainty that either strategy or car trouble is going to f*ck him over.
So aggravating to be a fan. A part of me also wants to see a young guy upstage Vettel at Ferrari also. I hope Kimi does well in the 2nd half of the season and gets some good results i.e. beats Vettel.

[diamondedge]

^^ I agree. Kimi has moments of greatness but I don't want him to be relegated to has-been status.

..finally. the break is over.


IT BEGINNNNSSS

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wzL7ZYUOQ8c/R7T3bnFYlqI/AAAAAAAAAI8/oy2UEVNfzoI/s320/begins.jpgm

[04_dc5]

I just like having Kimi's personality in F1, more so than his driving. There's no doubt his Sunday pace is still good but I don't think he can compete with Vettel with the same car (unless Vettels' car breaks down).

https://twitter.com/tgruener/status/634288610683035648

Honda using 3 tokens for an engine upgrade this weekend.

This will be my first time attending a GP so I'm super excited. Favorite track on the calendar.

[Canmorite]

I love how the transcripts reflect how the driver's speak. Kimi's quotes have almost no punctuation, busted a gut reading it :rofl:


Q: Kimi, we have to start with you. Obviously Spa has been very good to you over the years – four wins – but your drive for 2016 confirmed yesterday. What do you hope to achieve given the way the team is developing at the moment and your own performance level at this stage of your career?

Kimi Raikkonen: Well, obviously it the same as every year – we want to do as well as we can and hopefully challenge for championships for next year and I'm sure we can produce even a quite bit better car than this year next year. Obviously the team is all working well together and we all feel very good and obviously I'm happy to stay there but we have to try to do a good second part of the year and maximise what we have and then prepare for next year.



Q: OK, thank you for that. Lewis, coming to you: twice on pole here, you've got a win, of course, at this circuit as well. You said that your performance in Hungary was short of your own expectations, but you still managed to increase your championship lead. Does that kind of thing make you feel that this might be your year?

Lewis Hamilton: Definitely not, definitely not. I think the team effort that goes in; seeing how hard my team is working, seeing the progress we're making I think encourages me to believe that it's going to be our year. You know you just have to keep your head down and you can't win them all.

[Chandler_Racing]

McLaren Honda has a combined 55 place penalty. :rofl:

The inability to develop engines has made F1 boring.

All the advancement that the rules have stifled is insane.

[rage2]

Originally posted by Chandler_Racing
The inability to develop engines has made F1 boring.

All the advancement that the rules have stifled is insane.
Disagree. The inability for Renault (and a little bit Ferrari) to outpace Mercedes' rate of development has made the results boring. I say results because while the podium and winners are predictable, there has been some great racing this year.

Ferrari was close to Mercedes at the beginning of the year. Their engine evolution went backwards and reopened the gap.

Renault nor Mercedes haven't used a single token in season. That doesn't mean they weren't developing, every manufacturer has been upgrading under the guise of reliability and costs savings, which is really a nearly infinite loophole to develop in season, like every single year.

[Chandler_Racing]

Renault and Ferrari have been outpaced on development by Mercedes no questions on that my point is with the current formula I don't see that changing anytime soon nor McLaren entering the mix.

I would like to see a return to testing, unlimited development (within a confined set of rules) and the removal of fuel / rev limits.

[rage2]

Originally posted by Chandler_Racing
I would like to see a return to testing, unlimited development (within a confined set of rules) and the removal of fuel / rev limits.
Engine testing is already unlimited. Most engine manufacturers (except Renault and Honda) have full on test beds where they can simulate a full race sim on an in-car dyno. Development is almost unlimited (exception is that component counts are limited) so they can't update every race without being penalized.

Speaking of which, McLaren Honda are using the new rule loophole. They changed everything prior to FP1/2, and are expected to change everything again for another 30+ grid penalties per car. They're starting at the back anyways, no in race penalties, so new penalties are meaningless. That way, all the components are penalized, and they have 2 fresh set of engine components to use without penalty for the remaining races. Clever.

[04_dc5]

Speaking of McLaren..they seemed like such a handful to control. I watched Alonso nearly lose it every at the exit of the corne after Rivage (not sure what the name is) during FP2.

[rage2]

105 combined grid spot penalties for Mclaren. :rofl:

[phreezee]

Vettel loses his shit on Pirelli. Didn't weigh-in after the race and could face further discipline.

wFKipyDSBL0

[rage2]

He weighed in after.

[g-m]

Heh he seems unhappy

[phreezee]

What does Beyond think? Bad strategy or bad tires?

[rage2]

Bad tires. Pirelli blaming wear is stupid. We've seen drop offs in both the prime and option tires this race when they wear down. Vettel had next to no drop off.

Rosberg had a similar failure in FP2. Pirelli blamed debris, but in the camera that pointed right at the tire you can see a part of the tire overheat, generate smoke, then blow up. Tire surface looked fine, but I'm not an expert.

[killramos]

So when can Michelin start making F1 tires again :D

[danno]

it will be a bidding war next season between pirelli and michelin.

the tires didn't look warn or drop off but he had 20+ laps on them.

[rage2]

Originally posted by danno
the tires didn't look warn or drop off but he had 20+ laps on them.
So? Rosberg ran the entire Russian Grand Prix (minus lap 1) last year on a set of primes haha.

The # of laps has nothing to do with wear. If you're able to maintain your wear rate by taking it easier, you can run a full race if you wanted to. When a tire wears down, it drops off in performance, not explode. Maybe if you run it even longer down to the cords, maybe, but even Hamilton in China 07 (the most severe tire usage I've seen in recent memory) it didn't explode.

http://i.imgur.com/runFhwL.jpg

That is tire wear haha. And yes, he dropped off like 4s a lap on his last laps.

[Mibz]

Yup. Years ago it felt like tires had a cliff and if you hit it, you either pitted or you gambled on being 2-3 seconds a lap slower than the people around you. You never worried about a tire exploding because it didn't happen unless you nicked a wing or ran over bad debris. If you stayed out, the tire would become so fucking slow that you'd have no choice but to pit.

Vettel's strategy would have worked a few years ago. He could've limped that car to the end finished, at worst, 4th. Instead, it blew up and we've got yet another scenario in F1 where having balls and racing your car at the limit can't be done.

[rage2]

Tires still have a cliff. Many of the other cars shows performance dropping significantly before pitting. Pirelli blaming wear is retarded.

[davidI]

I didn't see the race but from what I heard drivers were all cutting corner 4. I'm sure that would have been hard on the tires too, though it shouldn't be enough to cause a blow-out.

[Mibz]

Cutting the corner is easier on the tires than not, and since everybody had been doing it all weekend there wasn't any debris.