Pre-season testing done and I saw a trailer on the BBC last night, so time for the F1 thread.
A fairly quiet winter really, all the drivers were confirmed by mid-December, so the big story has been as to whether Caterham or Marussia could get the funding together to carry on. The former failed and their assets are now up for sale. The latter had more success and came out of administration in mid-February. They've renamed as Manor, and are trying to build a car in time. They wanted to run their 2014 car but Force India vetoed that (which is a bit rich from FI given that they only just got their own 2015 car three days before the end of testing) and they''re now are rushing to modify their 2014 car for the end of the week so it can be flown to Australia.
McLaren have gone back to the 80s by having Honda [strike]engines[/strike] power units. They've had predictable teething troubles through testing, barely being able to get the car round the track for long periods of time. They do sound like they have potential though, 3 seconds off the pace on a heavily detuned engine suggests there is a lot more to come. There was a mysterious incident with Alonso in the second test where he crashed and spent three nights in hospital despite McLaren going "move along, nothing to see here." He's out of the Melbourne race as a consequence. (thank you McLaren for announcing this while I was typing)
Mercedes have been both fast and relatively reliable in testing, and clearly have a significant advantage over the field. Given the respective performances of the drivers in the second half of last season I can see Hamilton taking his third title in November, and it's not totally impossible Mercedes will go through the card and win every race.
A fairly quiet winter really, all the drivers were confirmed by mid-December, so the big story has been as to whether Caterham or Marussia could get the funding together to carry on. The former failed and their assets are now up for sale. The latter had more success and came out of administration in mid-February. They've renamed as Manor, and are trying to build a car in time. They wanted to run their 2014 car but Force India vetoed that (which is a bit rich from FI given that they only just got their own 2015 car three days before the end of testing) and they''re now are rushing to modify their 2014 car for the end of the week so it can be flown to Australia.
McLaren have gone back to the 80s by having Honda [strike]engines[/strike] power units. They've had predictable teething troubles through testing, barely being able to get the car round the track for long periods of time. They do sound like they have potential though, 3 seconds off the pace on a heavily detuned engine suggests there is a lot more to come. There was a mysterious incident with Alonso in the second test where he crashed and spent three nights in hospital despite McLaren going "move along, nothing to see here." He's out of the Melbourne race as a consequence. (thank you McLaren for announcing this while I was typing)
Mercedes have been both fast and relatively reliable in testing, and clearly have a significant advantage over the field. Given the respective performances of the drivers in the second half of last season I can see Hamilton taking his third title in November, and it's not totally impossible Mercedes will go through the card and win every race.
Comment