New regulations new season....
Can redbull keep up the pace
Was never explained properly.
Anything from an Alonso blackout to electric shock was suggested at the time but never cleared up as far as I remember.
So we're into February now. First two car launches (so far) will take place next week on the 10th (Aston Martin) and on the 11th (McLaren).
Any truth in the rumours that Aston Martin are struggling to get the car to Barcelona?
Seems all not well in the camp with alot of the workforce not happy.
Thats interesting. Where are you seeing that?
Any Lego fans? Looks like the Mercedes W12 is included in the Lego Speed Champions range this year - https://www.thebrickfan.com/lego-speed-champions-mercedes-amg-march-2022-set-revealed/
Lego is cool.
Aston Martin, Merc, and Red Bull have all had some kinds of issues in the off season. Red Bull failed a crash test, Merc denied they did but who knows.
Surely you want to be pushing the limit when it comes to your designs? Then make the adjustments needed to then pass the test. That's how I'd imagine it is, if you pass the test first time maybe certain parts of your design is too safe and slow
Or, it sets them back. Saying that, Adrian Newey was apparently "unconcerned".
In these cost cap days you would rather get it right first time. If you are Haas then you'd be delighted.
The time frames are too tight to be failing crash tests this close to testing. Red Bull probably put more time into last season than they anticipated and could be behind schedule on this years car.
If we're lucky then both Red Bull and Mercedes will have diverted an unplanned amount of resources attempting to win the '21 championship, giving the rest a chance to catch up this year. 🤞
Ferrari are the ones to look out for. 3rd in the 2021 championship without a race win, ahead of McLaren and Alpine who had a race win each.
If they do drop the ball, catching up will be tough due to the limit they both have on aero time under the new regs as well.
You could say the same about Ferrari every year. They're the biggest name in the sport, have one of the biggest budgets every single year, they have more influence than any single teams should have (they can unilaterally veto changes) and still fail to produce winning cars. They're without doubt the worst value for money team on the grid. They have excellent drivers this year though. Stronger than they've been in recent years. Sainz was a bit of a surprise last year (but so was Norris and they'd been battling hard for the last couple of seasons).
Every now and again Ferrari get it right but they are a very mediocre team with a huge budget that drags them up to above average.
I see Ferrari are going to name there car for this year the F1-75 in honour of there first production car.
Thanks again to whoever linked racingnews365.com on this thread for a more international perspective on F1 news. It's been a real breath of fresh air.
Their top story right now are an interview with Mika Hakkinen where he states the absolute obvious which the British media have ignored, that the main factor in Hamilton's retirement decision is most likely whether or not he'll have a dominant car again. I've often wondered why certain celebrated world champions like Hakkinen and Prost just never get asked their opinions in the media while other ex drivers seem to never be out of it, and this has made me wonder if it's just the British media only speaking to people who will confirm their biases or refusing to publish stuff that doesn't match the narrative they're trying to portray.
Next stories on the site after that are a solid run down of the 2022 rules and regulation changes and the news that Verstappen and the Mercedes team have been nominated for Laureus awards, along with reports from a few different teams and drivers on 2022 performance expectations.
By contrast the big UK sites like motorsport.com are leading with "Red Bull drivers have a lot of penalty points" which isn't news and reads like another one of their usual attempts at a hatchet job. That's followed up with a puff piece about plucky underdogs Mercedes and all the challenges they had to overcome to build the W12, and of course the usual rumours about Masi being fired are present and correct because they seem to see it as their duty to keep stirring that pot. The laureus awards do get mentioned in fairness, with the headline "2022 Laureus nominees announced" carefully excluding the name of who from the motorsport world is nominated unless you dig into the article.
Never knew how bad things were for McLaren
Have to listen to it myself but Chris Harris from the current form of Top Gear is interviewing Jost Capito, the boss of Williams.
Racing365 is a great site to not get the UK bombardment of bias.
Things were bad but really they sold the technical centre and mortgaged most of their car collection to get funds to continue. Not a strong position and they have nothing now to fall back on plus they have to pay rent on the premises now and service all the debt.
I fear they will be bought out. Lots of reports re Audi etc and much as I wouldn't like to see them being swallowed up by a big German manufacturer, it's probably the only way out.
Yeah there's a bit of you that would imagine you'd sad to see them go. But Williams left last year and absolutely nothing changed for anyone. The teams themselves aren't really that important, to me at least.
Red Bulls RB18 to be unveiled on the 9th, the earliest so far and less than a week away!
Can’t see them being taken over by the likes of VAG. They’ve only just unloaded Bugatti and are still trying to shore their position after diesel gate.
There’s a 400 euro Lego McLaren F1 car on the way this summer.
Rumored to be approx 1,400 pieces so can't see it being €400, even with licencing etc. Similar sets (Porsche 911 RSR & Ferrari 488 GTE) are between €160 & €180. Then again, the rumored set number is actually a heavy excavator (42121)
Yes there’s definitely some confusion out there. Perhaps there’s two sets with a McLaren road car (where the price makes sense) and a cheaper F1 car as well or given Lego insatiable desire for expensive sets the price is right. It’d want to absolutely massive to justify the cost in layout of an F1 car, particularly the this years cars with the reduced aero.
I see they're getting rid of the Q2 requirement to start the race on the tyre rhey set the fastest time on in Q2. Not sure there was a big push to change this. It added a strategy element in the race but I'm probably fine with the change.
A good move. Fast teams could qualify on mediums so it only ended up penalising the slower teams.
Haas are to reveal their colours tomorrow!
