The F1 thread

fretmeister

markr76 said:

fretmeister said:

https://www.planetf1.com/news/daimler-mercedes-staying-in-f1/

Daimler statement 

The new budget regulations are very attractive To the manufacturers. The biggest worry the likes of us and Redbull have is that Ferrari have some special agreement with liberty. Like the special agreement they had before. The rest of the grid want a level playing field.

I think most of the fans want that too.

F1 would survive without Ferrari now. They used to be an unachievable aspirational brand - now they are popular with the 2nd string footballers.

markr76

At the end of the day though. With the new regs coming out. Even with the constant tinkering from the fia, trying to close the grid up. The cream of the crop will always float to the top. Regardless of how much money they have. Although the money helps to a point. I’m talking at the top end of the sport. If you don’t have money you’ll end up as Williams are. Or as my old team Jordan did. You do slip back. But at the sharp end. Mercedes, Ferrari and Redbull all have a similar budget and man power. It comes down to a particular group of people at that particular time that makes the difference. Regardless of rule changes. 

prowla

markr76 said:

At the end of the day though. With the new regs coming out. Even with the constant tinkering from the fia, trying to close the grid up. The cream of the crop will always float to the top. Regardless of how much money they have. Although the money helps to a point. I’m talking at the top end of the sport. If you don’t have money you’ll end up as Williams are. Or as my old team Jordan did. You do slip back. But at the sharp end. Mercedes, Ferrari and Redbull all have a similar budget and man power. It comes down to a particular group of people at that particular time that makes the difference. Regardless of rule changes. 

Didn't Jordan evolve into RB?

stickyfiddle

prowla said:

markr76 said:

At the end of the day though. With the new regs coming out. Even with the constant tinkering from the fia, trying to close the grid up. The cream of the crop will always float to the top. Regardless of how much money they have. Although the money helps to a point. I’m talking at the top end of the sport. If you don’t have money you’ll end up as Williams are. Or as my old team Jordan did. You do slip back. But at the sharp end. Mercedes, Ferrari and Redbull all have a similar budget and man power. It comes down to a particular group of people at that particular time that makes the difference. Regardless of rule changes. 

Didn't Jordan evolve into RB?

No, they became Midland/Spyker then FI/RP/AM. Red Bull was Stewart/Jaguar

Majorscale

prowla said:

Didn't Jordan evolve into RB?

Nope, Jordan eventually became Force India / Racing Point / Aston Martin

markr76

My point is though. Jordan would have folded if he hadn’t sold. We were in big trouble! The place was midland F1 when I left and It was terrible there. The chap who came in to run the place, Colin Kolles was a complete wanker. Jordan’s was a fantastic place to work. And Eddie Jordan although was a character. Always looked after his staff. Through all the crap there at the end, we were never paid late. Which is more than can be said for when it was force India.
I’m please for my old colleagues there now though. Things are looking better for them. 

Fretwired

markr76 said:

At the end of the day though. With the new regs coming out. Even with the constant tinkering from the fia, trying to close the grid up. The cream of the crop will always float to the top. Regardless of how much money they have. Although the money helps to a point. I’m talking at the top end of the sport. If you don’t have money you’ll end up as Williams are. Or as my old team Jordan did. You do slip back. But at the sharp end. Mercedes, Ferrari and Redbull all have a similar budget and man power. It comes down to a particular group of people at that particular time that makes the difference. Regardless of rule changes. 

The big issue is the 'off team balance sheet' spending. Mercedes, Renault and Ferrari have people in the car companies working on 'future designs' some of which end up on the F1 cars. A neat way of getting round the budget cap. Mercedes and Ferrari get help from Petronas and Shell - special oils and fuels. Again, not included in the F1 budget cap.

markr76

Fretwired said:

markr76 said:

At the end of the day though. With the new regs coming out. Even with the constant tinkering from the fia, trying to close the grid up. The cream of the crop will always float to the top. Regardless of how much money they have. Although the money helps to a point. I’m talking at the top end of the sport. If you don’t have money you’ll end up as Williams are. Or as my old team Jordan did. You do slip back. But at the sharp end. Mercedes, Ferrari and Redbull all have a similar budget and man power. It comes down to a particular group of people at that particular time that makes the difference. Regardless of rule changes. 

The big issue is the 'off team balance sheet' spending. Mercedes, Renault and Ferrari have people in the car companies working on 'future designs' some of which end up on the F1 cars. A neat way of getting round the budget cap. Mercedes and Ferrari get help from Petronas and Shell - special oils and fuels. Again, not included in the F1 budget cap.

Nearly all the teams get individual help from the different oil companies. Williams have a partnership with Castrol, where they get their own oils developed. I can’t speak for Renault and Ferrari. But us at Mercedes don’t get help from our parent company on future designs. That’s all done in house at our place. The only thing we have different, to the smaller teams is we build our own engines. There are advantages to that as our customer teams have to have the engine they are given. They don’t get the design integration between the chassis and engine. If that makes sense. 

Unfortunately you can close up the advantages across the grid. But there will always be the haves and have nots. In any sport. I personally think that’s what makes f1 so interesting. I agree the void between the front and back needs to be minimised. But once every so often a small team sticks it up us bigger teams. But the problem we all have is agreeing to cut budgets and staff numbers only to find one of our competitors hasn’t. This happened to Mercedes when they started out. We agreed to keep our staffing numbers lower and budget lower as did all the teams. As agreed by an agreement called the RRA agreement. Only for Redbull and Ferrari to cheat the agreement. Then decided they wouldn’t stick by it at all. We got left behind as did a few other teams. 

stickyfiddle

markr76 said:

Fretwired said:

markr76 said:

At the end of the day though. With the new regs coming out. Even with the constant tinkering from the fia, trying to close the grid up. The cream of the crop will always float to the top. Regardless of how much money they have. Although the money helps to a point. I’m talking at the top end of the sport. If you don’t have money you’ll end up as Williams are. Or as my old team Jordan did. You do slip back. But at the sharp end. Mercedes, Ferrari and Redbull all have a similar budget and man power. It comes down to a particular group of people at that particular time that makes the difference. Regardless of rule changes. 

The big issue is the 'off team balance sheet' spending. Mercedes, Renault and Ferrari have people in the car companies working on 'future designs' some of which end up on the F1 cars. A neat way of getting round the budget cap. Mercedes and Ferrari get help from Petronas and Shell - special oils and fuels. Again, not included in the F1 budget cap.

Nearly all the teams get individual help from the different oil companies. Williams have a partnership with Castrol, where they get their own oils developed. I can’t speak for Renault and Ferrari. But us at Mercedes don’t get help from our parent company on future designs. That’s all done in house at our place. The only thing we have different, to the smaller teams is we build our own engines. There are advantages to that as our customer teams have to have the engine they are given. They don’t get the design integration between the chassis and engine. If that makes sense. 

Unfortunately you can close up the advantages across the grid. But there will always be the haves and have nots. In any sport. I personally think that’s what makes f1 so interesting. I agree the void between the front and back needs to be minimised. But once every so often a small team sticks it up us bigger teams. But the problem we all have is agreeing to cut budgets and staff numbers only to find one of our competitors hasn’t. This happened to Mercedes when they started out. We agreed to keep our staffing numbers lower and budget lower as did all the teams. As agreed by an agreement called the RRA agreement. Only for Redbull and Ferrari to cheat the agreement. Then decided they wouldn’t stick by it at all. We got left behind as did a few other teams. 

Yep, and that lack of reasonableness in spending basically killed 3 or 4 new teams as well. 

Fretwired

markr76 said:

  But us at Mercedes don’t get help from our parent company on future designs. That’s all done in house at our place.

Is it now?

Recently, Andy Cowell, director of High Performance Powertrains praised the Formula E programme. He believes that the F1 team can learn a lot from its electric counterpart, especially in the engine department. He confessed that he found Formula E quite fascinating and spoke about the efficiencies of the car. Cowell opened up on systems and devices like the inverter and the various control systems and the torque accuracy delivery.

So the F1 team is benefiting from tech and experience of the Daimler funded Formula E team? I'd say that could give Mercedes F1 an edge compared to teams without a Formula E sister team. One area in which Daimler are helping the F1 team with tech and designs. Presumably it works both ways.

And one advantage being financed by Daimler and having the Mercedes badge is access to Daimler's partners and their technology and tech. I recall Mercedes design tech (CAD and modelling) is very advanced.

https://www.essentiallysports.com/f1-news-mercedes-reveal-how-formula-e-is-helping-them-in-f1/

markr76

True. But some of these teams coming in should do their homework before entering the sport.

A lot of teams enter thinking it won’t cost as much as people say. We’ll just get sponsors on board and everything will be ok. Then they realise that the good sponsors only go to the teams that are winning. 

 The spending to the minute isn’t as high as it used to be. Mercedes don’t spend as much as Honda f1 did. 

Also when manor f1 is need up in trouble financially. Mercedes tried to help them out. Holding the payments for the engines. To help.
When Honda f1 pulled out of f1, both Ferrari and mclaren/Mercedes were the first teams to phone up offering their help. Both offering us engines. Sometimes a lot goes on behind the scenes with the bigger teams doing more to help the smaller teams that just doesn’t get reported.

markr76

Fretwired said:

markr76 said:

  But us at Mercedes don’t get help from our parent company on future designs. That’s all done in house at our place.

Is it now?

Recently, Andy Cowell, director of High Performance Powertrains praised the Formula E programme. He believes that the F1 team can learn a lot from its electric counterpart, especially in the engine department. He confessed that he found Formula E quite fascinating and spoke about the efficiencies of the car. Cowell opened up on systems and devices like the inverter and the various control systems and the torque accuracy delivery.

So the F1 team is benefiting from tech and experience of the Daimler funded Formula E team? I'd say that could give Mercedes F1 an edge compared to teams without a Formula E sister team. One area in which Daimler are helping the F1 team with tech and designs. Presumably it works both ways.

And one advantage being financed by Daimler and having the Mercedes badge is access to Daimler's partners and their technology and tech. I recall Mercedes design tech (CAD and modelling) is very advanced.

https://www.essentiallysports.com/f1-news-mercedes-reveal-how-formula-e-is-helping-them-in-f1/

Well I guess there could be help in that way. I never really thought of that. I work at the f1 hq not the engine plant at Brixworth. That’s where Andy Cowell works do we don’t really see his comments. 

You’re right when it come to sponsors though. Mercedes is a blue chip company and carries a lot of prestige. As McLaren found when they upset Mercedes and they parted ways. Most of McLaren’s sponsors left them for us. So I guess I stand corrected in those aspects. 

I do think also that F1 will eventually replace formula e one day. Once the cars can perform in the same way as modern f1 cars. At the minute they are a long way off in regards to the distance an electric car can last at full tilt. I’m under no illusion that if unleashed we could make a faster car if it was electric. They just don’t last. 

Cols

The infamous Rich Energy have indicated an interest in Williams.  God help us all.

https://mobile.twitter.com/rich_energy/status/1267044623748382721

stickyfiddle

Christ. We'll know they're finished if they accept money off those idiot-bastards.

Cols

Actually getting money out of them would be an impressive trick indeed.

Fretwired

Toto Wolff has invested in Williams .. again!

https://www.essentiallysports.com/f1-news-toto-wolff-purchases-stake-in-struggling-williams-f1-team/

Fretwired

Michael Latifi touted for Williams takeover

https://www.essentiallysports.com/f1-news-williams-f1-may-have-found-its-next-lawrence-stroll/

Heartfeltdawn

fretmeister said:

I think most of the fans want that too.

F1 would survive without Ferrari now. They used to be an unachievable aspirational brand - now they are popular with the 2nd string footballers.

You look around at other forms of motorsport and Ferrari is a fading brand. The 488 turned out to be harder for the Amateur GT3 drivers to handle the 458 and has never been as popular as its predecessor. Audi and Mercedes still keep on selling, even Lamborghini seem more popular which was close to unthinkable in GT3 world ten years ago. The McLaren 720S looks to be onto a winner, Lexus and Honda are coming up, the big boy Bentleys and Nissans keep on trucking, and Porsche is definitely on an upward streak. 

So if Ferrari aren't winning F1 titles and they're not winning that much at GT3 level worldwide, then the 2nd string footballer tag seems quite apt. 

markr76

Heartfeltdawn said:

fretmeister said:

I think most of the fans want that too.

F1 would survive without Ferrari now. They used to be an unachievable aspirational brand - now they are popular with the 2nd string footballers.

You look around at other forms of motorsport and Ferrari is a fading brand. The 488 turned out to be harder for the Amateur GT3 drivers to handle the 458 and has never been as popular as its predecessor. Audi and Mercedes still keep on selling, even Lamborghini seem more popular which was close to unthinkable in GT3 world ten years ago. The McLaren 720S looks to be onto a winner, Lexus and Honda are coming up, the big boy Bentleys and Nissans keep on trucking, and Porsche is definitely on an upward streak. 

So if Ferrari aren't winning F1 titles and they're not winning that much at GT3 level worldwide, then the 2nd string footballer tag seems quite apt. 

Ferrari have failed to get with modern ways to. They haven’t embraced social media in the same way us and Redbull have. They remain very secretive and cold Towards the press and their own fans. 

We’ve found being as open as possible to the press and on social platforms really makes a difference for popularity and fan base. Obviously, the saying loose lips sinks ships still has to apply in certain areas. 

As for Mercedes as a car company. I think they’ve done a good job of modernising the brand. They where always known as the old mans car. But they have shaken that off recently. 

Cols

On the plus side, there’s talk of more European tracks being drafted in this year to fill the calendar; Imola, Mugello and the Portuguese track at Portimao have all been mentioned.

Now if they could just put Hockenheim back how it used to be...