Yes, they will. Not sure how I missed that previously!
https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/a...IY6mEcwsM.html
Yes, they will. Not sure how I missed that previously!
https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/a...IY6mEcwsM.html
Kvyat in a Honda powered Toro Rosso fastest???
Ok, it is mainly tactics and sandbagging but who saw thát coming?!
Verstappen's reaction on his 'conviction' last year: "I had a great time!"
Last year MV was sentenced to 'community service' due to an incident after the race. He had to do some time inside the Stewards' box during a Formule E race and he had to attend an all-stewards FIA Congress. Which he did. According to his words (yesterday) he took the opportunity for meeting new people and shaking hands with people from his kart racing days. In short: a real life LinkedIn situation.
As I said before: any appearance in public like for the 'Make A Wish' Foundation would have turned into a media circus. (Which is rather sad. I heard through the grapevines here in Holland that he and his management have considered MAW seriously - but that is was rejected for the 'circus' reason).
M
Ted Kravitz has gone..........apparently
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/thesp...o-reports/amp/
I would have thought there were several others in the queue in front of him.
I heard the same yesterday. I usually watch C4's race coverage though I've always enjoyed Ted's Notebook if watching Sky, I was able to watch some of this last week's test sessions and did wonder where he was. Karun will make a great replacement if that's what Sky's intentions are, though he's no Ted.
With Karun's return to Sky as well as Jenson's signing for this season it appears as if the journo's and presenters are being pushed out in favour of ex-drivers. Having said that it was a pleasure to see Natalie Pinkham during the test days and it appears that Anthony Davidson has also been given the boot. I'd rather have Ant than Paul di Resta, I find the Scott lacking in charisma.
I would argue that Davidson is as successful a driver than Buttin,
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/s...ation/4343741/
Both Ted and Ant have jobs after all.
I don't mind good old Theodore Slotover, but Ant has always got on my nerves for some reason. Still, I don't have Sky F1, so it's not a problem.
Does anyone have details of what the C4 highlights will be like?
I'm also interested in hearing what C4 coverage will be like this year
Channel 4 strikes deal with Sky...says highlights plus the British GP live.
Thanks Pickle
Testing resumes today and will conclude on Friday, this week may give us a few more clues as to who's hot and who's not for Melbourne.
Pirelli have gone on record stating that, in their opinion and with caveats, Ferrari are currently showing the most pace according to laptimes achieved on the compounds used. Mercedes have also recently been talking about front wing design stating that it would take months to change from one concept to another on the basis that the front end sets the tone for the rest of the car. If any one team steals a march on the others it may take a while before they're caught, barge-boards are another area set for huge development as the season progresses.
I'm hoping that they'll keep things the same as last season. Well edited highlights still showing a good portion of the race, brief pre-race chat and grid walk plus some post race analysis and interviews. I thought they did a decent job, fingers crossed nothing changes.
It's her voice that does it for me, I think she'd make great company on a night out.
Is this usual...Pre-Season Test Timing Screen?
I think they had the timing screen running via YT last week though I didn't check on it. No idea if they've used it in previous years.
Rich Energy coming to a store near you. Maybe.
https://www.shdlogistics.com/news/wa...ke-other-energ
Hmmm. McKenzie or Pinkham...? That wouldn't be a bad problem to have.
Does anyone know if RTL are showing the races this year ?
Any use...List of Formula One broadcasters or Broadcast Information?
Fifteen minutes to go until the end of pre-season testing, and what have we learned?
Everyone, including Mercedes, is saying that the Ferrari is fastest, and appears to be kinder to its tyres. Right now, there's 0.003 of a second between Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton on the same tyres, with the rest of the food chain looking like:
Renault/Toro Rosso/Red Bull/Alfa Romeo/Haas/Racing Point
Williams
Qualifying at Melbourne will be very interesting indeed. I might even get up early and watch it.
In other news, the new head of Sky Sports apparently dispensed with the services of Ted Kravitz, and was then made to have second thoughts about it, and the genial Ted will be reporting from the pit lane and paddock again this season.
Sky's F1 team seems to be very well staffed this season, with the addition of Karun Chandhok and Jenson Button, as well as appearances from Nico Rosberg, probably just to annoy Lewis Hamilton.
It all kicks off in a fortnight.
Although no trees were harmed during the creation of this post, a large number of electrons were greatly inconvenienced.
How could I forget McLaren? On the strength of the pre-season tests, they should be around the upper end of a very crowded midfield, the primary reservation being a lack of experience of the drivers (Sainz is good, but not yet a consistent front-runner, and nobody's expecting much from Lando Norris in his first year).
They have yet to sort out the management, and James Key won't be in situ for another few weeks, by which time the first three flyaway races will be over. Nobody with any sense of F1 history wants to see McLaren continue to struggle, and the same applies to Williams as well.
If you had told anybody during the late 1980's that McLaren and Williams would be at the bottom of the Constructors' Championship in 2018 they wouldn't have believed you. Bernie Ecclestone welcomed Eddie Jordan into Formula 1 with the words "Welcome to the piranha club". It's an uncompromising sport, but these days sport is business, and the weakest go to the wall.
I wish, for the sake of the sport, that McLaren and Williams can improve this year, and that Ferrari and Red Bull can provide a sustained challenge to Mercedes. On the evidence from Barcelona in the last two weeks, these wishes might just come true.
Although no trees were harmed during the creation of this post, a large number of electrons were greatly inconvenienced.
That there was a hair´s width between Ferrari and Mercedes.
That Ferrari are not reliable when pushed.
That Red Bull are properly sandbagging as logic dictates that they are a leap in front of Toro Rosso.
That the next gen drivers are fást and could throw some sticks in spokes over the course of the year.
That all teams are better on the ball than ever before.
Fingers crossed that Honda engines have bridged the gap and that the Ferraris are more reliable than they appeared in the tests. Oh and that the cars are indeed easier to follow/overtake.
I really hope McLaren have genuinely made improvements and can mix it with the mid field this year. lando Norris doing some good stints too by the looks of it.
If anybody is interested, Sky Sports F1 have come up with a series of lists of names and numbers following the tests:
https://www.skysports.com/f1/news/12...e-fastest-laps
Enjoy.
Although no trees were harmed during the creation of this post, a large number of electrons were greatly inconvenienced.
Thank you.
I know its only testing but the top 3 are extremely close and McLaren really have shown better promise at this stage.
It looks like the top two are close; Mercedes faster, Ferrari easier on wubbahs.
Imo RedBull is a DarkHorse at the moment. Not all that quick, not all that many laps. The Honda engine is still not quíte there yet. RB should however be well ahead of Toro Rosso so ???? but I expect them not to be hot at the heels of the top two in Melbourne.
Interesting, though not too surprising, to watch both sides keeping the door firmly ajar - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/47387060
I think that while Red Bull may not be far adrift of Ferrari and Mercedes at the moment, unless they've made some significant improvements in reliability, they're going to start suffering grid penalties before mid-season.
Which will be a shame, because we all want to see more potential race winners.
Quite why Honda have managed to produce such woeful power units having had the chance to get up close to the Mercedes units in the McLaren during 2014, then have four years to develop their own and still fall way short on both power and reliability beggars belief. For the first couple of seasons (at least - I can't remember when they accepted defeat and changed the layout) they had the MGU-H, which is effectively a generator which is spun by the turbocharger and generates electricity, directly attached to the exhaust side of the turbo. The "hot" side of the turbo, which can become much hotter than "red hot" when the engine is under full throttle. Most of Honda's failures have been related to the MGU-H which, from the outset, Mercedes sited in the "v" of the engine, with the turbo split in two, the "hot" half at the rear of the engine, the "cold" intake half at the front.
The Mercedes solution is more difficult to engineer, but prevents the MGU-H becoming red hot as a result of heat soak, the primary problem with turbocharged engines. It also gives advantages in packaging the engine ancillaries such as the intercoolers, which can have shorter pipe runs, and can be smaller because they don't need to disperse as much heat.
And still, Honda persisted with their design. That, and the well-documented cultural, procedural and general dogmatism which gets in the way of creating a truly integrated relationship, was always going to interfere with the smooth running of the McLaren/Honda union.
Whether Red Bull can manage the relationship better than McLaren appears to have done remains to be seen. To be fair, McLaren have had other issues to sort out over the last few years, and maybe Dr Helmut Marko is even more inscrutable than the management team at Honda.
As always, only time will tell.
Although no trees were harmed during the creation of this post, a large number of electrons were greatly inconvenienced.
Read a striking piece of info:
´8.9 million people in the UK tuned in to watch Hamilton claim his first world championship title at the 2008 Brazilian Grand Prix, while under two million viewed live coverage of his fifth title win in Mexico last season.´
Whatever it was on was not; RB were the fastest with that engine thus undeniably doing the best job of the bunch with it.
Very good to see that the Renault team seems to have a better package this year.
As to Honda BP, I do not get it either. Honda have a long history of abandoning not quite right designs and start anew.