Drivers
Championship Points
Lewis Hamilton 252 Nico Rosberg 211 Sebastian Vettel 203 Kimi Raikkonen 107 Valtteri Bottas 101 Felipe Massa 97 Daniel Ricciardo 73 Daniil Kvyat 66 Sergio Perez 39 Romain Grosjean 38 Max Verstappen 30 Nico Hulkenberg 30 Felipe Nasr 17 Pastor Maldonaldo 12 Fernando Alonso 11 Carlos Sainz 11 Marcus Ericsson 9 Jenson Buton 6
Constructors
Championship Points
Mercedes 463 Ferrari 310 Williams 198 RBR 139 Force India 69 Lotus 50 Toro Rosso 41 Sauber 26 Mclaren 17 Manor 0
I love the back-to-back GP weekends. Really hoping for another Williams podium at Suzuka.
Current: '94 MX-6 V6/5 • '72 240Z • '10 Mazda5
Past: '02 330i/5 • '85 RX-7 GSL-SE • '95 540i/6 • '95 525i/5 • '86 635CSi/5 • '88 JZA70 • '86 4K quattro • '85 RX-7 S
Wish list: Type 44 • Manta • Pre-'85 CGT • 405 Mi16 • SVX • W123 Coupe
I have a feeling the rest of this year will be back to business as usual with the Mercs up front since Singapore is so different from other tracks, but Ferrari look like they have genuine pace to keep up with Mercedes. They're at least as good now as Mercedes was prior to the Monza upgrade.
Ferrari still have engine tokens to use too...
Last edited by gary88; 09-23-2015 at 11:55 AM.
Lotus haven't paid their hospitality suite bill and are therefore locked outside unable to enter and get setup.
autosport.com Source
Renault's getting Lotus cheaper and cheaper by the day.
- - - Updated - - -
Side Notes:
Jenson refuses/sidesteps answers about what he's doing next year.
Force India have signed Perez for 2016.
Hulk has apologized to Massa saying he was at fault for the crash at Singapore.
Madonado has been signed with Lotus for 2016 (they badly badly need the money as evidenced).
Grosjean going to Haas for 2016.
RBR will not be getting Mercedes engines next year
Rumor:
Perez almost signed with Renault. It means that Renault is looking for "another" driver which means that buying Lotus is more than likely a foregone conclusion.
Guiterrez has been telling people he's driving for Haas next year.
RBR may be getting Ferrari engines but RBR says they don't want Ferrari engines if the engines are not full specification engines. Ferrari is not sure anymore about supplying RBR with power units because they fear RBR could beat Ferrari if they used the same spec PUs. So RBR's demands could still leave them without an engine for 2016 which would make them leave the sport.
Don't think that's going to happen now.
Yeah I don't think VAG's focus is necessarily motorsport at the moment. Maybe after the dust has settled.
Going to be verrrry interesting if RBR has Ferrari PUs next season.
Does anyone know if the Merc PUs supplied to Williams, Lotus and FI are full-spec or downrated? I assume full-spec, right, since they have to be homologated?
Current: '94 MX-6 V6/5 • '72 240Z • '10 Mazda5
Past: '02 330i/5 • '85 RX-7 GSL-SE • '95 540i/6 • '95 525i/5 • '86 635CSi/5 • '88 JZA70 • '86 4K quattro • '85 RX-7 S
Wish list: Type 44 • Manta • Pre-'85 CGT • 405 Mi16 • SVX • W123 Coupe
Let's discuss this tire pressure issue. Merc suddenly can't get a handle on the tires immediately after Pirelli changes the required pressures (and another rule comes out). Evidently, Merc liked the pressures lower and then can't get the surface temps and carcass temps to play nicely. I believe the announcers on NBC said that the carcass temp gets good and the surface is too hot, so they had to back down. In addition to that, they may have the car sprung too stiffly with higher tire pressures. I'm not sure the specifics of the rules, but it seems a bit unfair to change the regulation based on the tire supplier's recommendation 2/3s of the way through the season. I say that, and I am a Vettel fan, so it isn't just some LH love.
Gotta love Suzuka though. That first sector is fantastic to watch with high downforce cars.
The tire pressure was a non-issue. It was the bumpy track/curbs and Merc not being able to find a fast setup. They found setups where the car felt balanced to the drivers but it didn't result in a fast time. So they reverted to testing setups again and ran out of time - resulting in a driveable but not fast setup. I think the suspension limitations of the chassis (you can only allow so much travel before hitting the bump stops and then you've got to tune the dampers etc) given that they run the softest setups in Singapore was the limiting factor. They just couldn't get it right and keep heat in the tires. But I don't really know, just guessing.
FP1 was rain - rain a little less - rain again.
Rosberg was out at the same time as Seb/Kimi and he set a 1 second fast lap on full wets just during the little less rain part.
Other teams were out at various times using Full wets and/or inters and the track was drying/getting more wet. I honestly think that the times set in the middle of the session were more indicative of overall pace. Massa/Bottas didn't show because they were the first on inters when the track still had rivers flowing across it at 3 corners.
I haven't watched FP2 but, to me, it looks like Merc is back on form. Shame really. but due to the rain I perhaps shouldn't be reading too much into the times.
I'm having withdrawals: I cannot find FP2 in HD anywhere!
Oh well, it'll soon be time for FP3 and Quali.
Jenson Button dead last. I just......yup....nothing to adc.
e34 540i/6 :: e30 M62/6 :: e30 318is :: c5 Z06
Glad Kyvat is okay. From what I heard his shunt was a humdinger.
Quali:
1 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m32.584s
2 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes +0.076s
3 Valtteri Bottas Williams +0.440s
4 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari +0.661s
5 Felipe Massa Williams +0.753s
6 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari +0.763s
7 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull +0.913s
8 Romain Grosjean Lotus +1.383s
9 Sergio Perez Force India No Q3 time
10 Daniil Kvyat Red Bull No Q3 time
11 Nico Hulkenberg Force India +1.806s *has grid penalty
12 Carlos Sainz Toro Rosso +1.869s
13 Pastor Maldonado Lotus +1.913s
14 Fernando Alonso McLaren +2.201s
15 Max Verstappen Toro Rosso No Q2 time
16 Jenson Button McLaren +3.080s
17 Marcus Ericsson Sauber +3.089s
18 Felipe Nasr Sauber +3.176s
19 Will Stevens Marussia +6.199s
20 Alexander Rossi Marussia +14.530s
Current: '94 MX-6 V6/5 • '72 240Z • '10 Mazda5
Past: '02 330i/5 • '85 RX-7 GSL-SE • '95 540i/6 • '95 525i/5 • '86 635CSi/5 • '88 JZA70 • '86 4K quattro • '85 RX-7 S
Wish list: Type 44 • Manta • Pre-'85 CGT • 405 Mi16 • SVX • W123 Coupe
Yeah, it was a huge shunt. Luckily he lost a lot of energy prior and into the tire wall before the rebound and flip on the gravel.
With only a hour's worth of setup prior to the quali session the results are as expected. Nothing out of the ordinary except to say that Ferrari may be a little bit closer to Merc but not huge.
Is it too early to say that next year Ferrari will be close or almost on par in terms of performance to Mercedes? We could probably have an even more exciting 2016 season.
Well, it's possible Ferrari will be closer due to the fact that they have engine tokens to spend. However, I still think they are a second off the Merc's pace (and Merc has zero tokens left) so it will get closer. The issue being RBR next year - if/when they get the Ferrari PU. Obviously they don't get the engine maps but still. RBR has a lot of resources to play the game on equal footing with Ferrari.
Merc obviously has the most resources to pull from. With the new Regulations next year I can see them making the best of the chances.
With VAG likely needing to pay the billions in fines (not to mention recall costs) I doubt we'll see them anywhere near F1 in the next 5 years, if not longer. Hence RBR will have to spend a lot resources working with the Ferrari PU instead of going with VW/Audi engines in 2017/18.
That's what I'm thinking. I haven't kept up with the new Ferrari wind tunnel but after witnessing recent Ferrari's pace to the Mercs, despite of Merc's new spec B engines, and with leftover engine tokens still to use, I have a feeling that Ferrari are going to be much closer next year. However, let us not get ahead too much ourselves, as we can't underestimate Merc's performance yet, even for next year. And who knows what new, mighty tricks and secrets may lie ahead that we may have yet to see and witnessing another dominant year for them. Let's just not underestimate zhe Germans! Reminds me of the 1930s Silver Arrow days.
Good lord the McHondas are pitifully slow.
Edit: "This is like a GP2 engine." Ouch.
Last edited by Stuttgart951; 09-27-2015 at 01:51 AM.
I watched the GP live last night and couldn't get up the effort to post a response till now.
Rosberg threw away the race at turn 2. He just allowed Lewis to push him off the track. He's not a fighter and doesn't deserve the WDC. He's the only chance we've got at someone making a show of the WDC and he cannot even do that.
Otherwise Merc have just proven their dominance yet again. Hamilton just walked away from Vettel the first few laps. Much like Seb did in Singapore. Except that the Merc's didn't have tire issues like Ferrari had.
I was really hoping for a race up front. But Nico denied us that.
Yeah, I don't blame him. 2016 will be another struggling year for them.
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