2015/2016 F1 Offseason Thread

[BoldUlysses]

- Will Alonso take a sabbatical?
- Will Haas be competitive their first year in F1?
- Discuss technical regs, 2017, all that stuff.
- Etc etc.

[auaq]

Hmm .... got to check on driver status for next year.

[Charlie]

- Yes. Van Doorne is quick and certainly costs less than Alonso. He's done at McLaren, and probably in F1.
- "Competitive" in that they'll be quicker than Marussia, likely McLaren Honda and probably Sauber, given their current financial situation. If Lotus isn't bought up by Renault, they'll probably be neck & neck.
- The 2017 Aero regs look good, and if the alleged "1000 hp" target actually comes to fruition, we could see some fun. I don't see any real changes at the front of the field, but at least the cars will be wilder.

[badmonkey]

Read that Toto is tiring of the rift between Hamilton and Rosberg. Would be sweet to see Alonso show up at Merc with Hamilton.

[m3fuz]

Alonso/Hamilton as teammates Part II just isn't going to happen. Everyone remembers the "practice pit" incident during qualifying at wherever they were. I'm still surprised that Dennis accepted Alonso back at McLaren this season over keeping Magnussen in the seat.

I hope Alonso doesn't go on sabbatical (effectively retire). He over-drove the tar out of the Ferrari the previous 2 years and is a fantastic driver.

[auaq]

Didn't that happened at Hungary or one of the European GP circuit? Can't remember.

[BoldUlysses]

Didn't that happened at Hungary or one of the European GP circuit? Can't remember.

Hungary 2014. Alonso threw the turd of a car that was the F14T around the Hungaroring and very nearly ended up winning the race.

Prost took a sabbatical in '92 and came back to win the championship when it was clear the Williams cars were the class of the field.

[hakentt]

Austin 2016 in trouble, it will depends if Epstein can come up with the money for 2016. In my opinion Austin is and was a flop from the beginning. It cost $300M to build the track and needs $20M from the government for each year but it only sold 107K tickets this year and even before the rain pre-sales were poor. Austin is bad location, not enough Euro thrash. For F1 to make it in the USA, race has to be held near NY or LA, plenty of euro thrash(F1 fan base) there

[auaq]

Is Bernie still trying to bring F1 to NJ/NY?

[m3fuz]

Hungary 2014. Alonso threw the turd of a car that was the F14T around the Hungaroring and very nearly ended up winning the race.

Prost took a sabbatical in '92 and came back to win the championship when it was clear the Williams cars were the class of the field.

2007.

I just think taking a sabbatical would be in poor form. Almost a "take my ball and go home" move, especially when the new aero regs come into play in 2017. Yes, McLaren is good technically and everyone will be dealing with new aero packages, but there's no guarantee Honda's engine will be competitive by then either.

[BoldUlysses]

I just think taking a sabbatical would be in poor form. Almost a "take my ball and go home" move

Not necessarily. I would put it in that category if the McLaren's lack of results this year were somehow his fault, but clearly it wasn't.

- - - Updated - - -

Renault to rebadge their PUs for RBR as TAG Heuer units. Kinda cool to have that name back in F1 but it reminds me a bit of when they did the same to Williams in 1998 and rebadged their engines as Mecachrome. Didn't turn out too well for the team.

[Charlie]

I just think taking a sabbatical would be in poor form. Almost a "take my ball and go home" move, especially when the new aero regs come into play in 2017. Yes, McLaren is good technically and everyone will be dealing with new aero packages, but there's no guarantee Honda's engine will be competitive by then either.

I get the feeling it isn't entirely his decision. Alonso is getting about 40/million a year or so, of which there's probably a clause or out that whomever is picking up the tab can exercise. Van Doorne is on the sidelines, and certainly won't be expensive. If the car looks to be at a similar performance level next year, I can see the "sabbatical" option being used.

Renault to rebadge their PUs for RBR as TAG Heuer units. Kinda cool to have that name back in F1 but it reminds me a bit of when they did the same to Williams in 1998 and rebadged their engines as Mecachrome. Didn't turn out too well for the team.

mclaren.jpg

Eh, I was thinking a little more positive.

[BoldUlysses]

Well it does raise the interesting question of works teams. With Renault buying out Lotus and re-entering F1 as a constructor, is RBR going to become like Williams, i.e. destined to play second fiddle to the factory team whose PUs they use? IIRC, Dietrich Mateschitz (RBR owner) has publicly said that would be unsupportable. Is the rebranding of the RBR PUs an effort to let the team have their cake and eat it too?

[auaq]

https://joesaward.wordpress.com/2015...is-engagement/

[dbarton62]

So Ham was second best after sealing the Drivers Champuonship.
How will that affect his psychi for not year knowing Ros beat him for polls as well as running away from him during the Grand Prix's?

[Charlie]

So Ham was second best after sealing the Drivers Champuonship.
How will that affect his psychi for not year knowing Ros beat him for polls as well as running away from him during the Grand Prix's?

It won't. 2/3 of those races were won via stupid pit call/team orders.

[MagneZium]

It won't. 2/3 of those races were won via stupid pit call/team orders.

Lol, really? How exactly? Pit call? Team orders? With the exact same strategy and even free choice given to Lewis?

Hilarious, as Lewis was 9 seconds ahead after Rosberg had already pitted, was over a second slower per lap already at that point (due to his older tires vs. Rosberg's fresh ones), and the IDIOT starts blabbering to the team to 'let me stay out'!! For twenty laps or something! When he's about to be passed by Rosberg in ten laps no matter what and then destroy his entire race after that when the tires give up completely! Oooh, what a friggin' GENIUS tactician!! Yet he STILL cried about it after he had time to look at data to easily see what an absolutely idiotic idea that would've been in the first place! You can hear the pained voices at the pitwall when he started idiotically asking to 'stay out', they were like "oh man, here we go again...How to explain this simple thing to a child with lower-than-average IQ and a super-narisissistic personality, constantly telling everyone he is the greatest driver in history and better than Senna?".

[m3fuz]

Where has Hammy said he's better than Senna?

[Stuttgart951]

Doesn't matter.

Everyone knows The Nicolator is Senna reborn. He's just been sandbagging this whole time.

Just wait until 201x. You'll see.

[auaq]

201x ...

[gary88]

I finally finished going through all my pics from Monza this year, enjoy. Everything from Thursday morning - Sunday afternoon.

http://imgur.com/a/DJXHK

http://imgur.com/a/7OWLF

[auaq]

Very nice!

[m3fuz]

Wow - thanks for sharing, Gary.

[BoldUlysses]

I finally finished going through all my pics from Monza this year, enjoy. Everything from Thursday morning - Sunday afternoon.

http://imgur.com/a/DJXHK

http://imgur.com/a/7OWLF

Now THAT'S an offseason post! Talk about providing an F1 fix during the annual downtime... Thanks for posting those!

[badmonkey]

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minut...s-first-songs/