Rosberg “surprised” by Ferrari pace in Hungary

F1 Fanatic Round-up

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In the round-up: Nico Rosberg says he was disappointed to discover he couldn’t keep up with the Ferraris in the opening phase of the Hungarian Grand Prix.

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Rosberg surprised by Ferrari pace in Hungary (F1i)

"“Pace-wise I was really surprised not to be able to follow the Ferraris. They were just quick, so that was disappointing."

Renault closing on Lotus buyout decision (ESPN)

"We are much clearer on why we want to be in F1 and also we are much clearer on the value of the sport and the sort of cost and budget we think we should allow."

Force India expect to fix Hungarian GP issues after two big crashes (Sky)

"Reliability is one of this team’s strengths so I feel confident that we’ll find the root cause and fix it and that will be the end of it."

Frustrated? Bored? Fed up? What's eating Fernando Alonso? (Motorsport)

Ron Dennis: "(Cost-cutting) is more about hampering the performance of the larger teams than it is about really saving money: it doesn't save anybody money but the smaller teams."

Full Formula 1 fan survey results revealed (Autosport)

Almost three-quarters of fans (73.9%) say they are against 'using artificial methods to tighten up F1 races'

Valtteri Bottas explains how an F1 car starts (BBC)

"Bottas reveals it is the engineers who suggest the perfect clutch setting to pull away from the start, with the drivers adjusting accordingly."

Jenson Button tipped for Top Gear job (Daily Mail)

"I hear the 35-year-old driver is in talks with the BBC about co-presenting Top Gear with Chris Evans, who’s also known for a hard-partying past."

BarcelonaRX track (BarcelonaRX via YouTube)

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Comment of the day

Several of you remarked on the less-than-congratulatory response Daniil Kvyat’s first podium received on the Red Bull pit wall:

Surely saying something like that is counterproductive? They should be praising him, not undermining his confidence.

Drivers need to know that the team has faith in their abilities – look at Bonnington’s response to Lewis for an example: he didn’t say “You should be sorry, you messed up the first lap and crashed into another driver”, but he reassured Lewis, telling him not to worry about it.

Even Maldonado’s engineer resisted the temptation to laugh at him when he got his 900th penalty of the day.
@Jules-Winfield

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On this day in F1

Michael Schumacher won his home race for the first time on this day in 1995. Title rival Damon Hill led at the end of lap one but then spun into a wall at turn one.

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Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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90 comments on “Rosberg “surprised” by Ferrari pace in Hungary”

  1. Ron Dennis: “(Cost-cutting) is more about hampering the performance of the larger teams than it is about really saving money: it doesn’t save anybody money but the smaller teams.”

    Is that not exactly the intention? Hamper the performance of the large teams so the smaller teams can save money.

    1. Actually I see it as exactly the opposite to Ron…
      Say TeamX has a £35M budget, and TeamY has a £200M budget. Surely there’s a £50M budget cap, TeamX will still spend £35M but the bigger team just saved £150M.

      The smaller team saves no money but is likely to be closer in performance terms.

      1. @johnnik that’s true of a budget cap, but we don’t have that currently. the cost saving measures (like limited engines, gearboxes, testing, etc.) hamper the big teams in terms of performance – because unlimited engines/testing would be conducive to development – but not money saving because they just spend the money elsewhere. the small teams benefit from the cost saving measures (and can’t spend the money elsewhere), but clearly the playing field is still skewed.

        the cost cap was a good idea, but the political pressure against it was enormous. they could conceivably have brought it in piece by piece, such as a salary cap (look at the english premiership in rugby union) was certain personnel; the one off £40m bottom line budget cap was laughably naive due to the sneaky (legal) ways around out.

    2. 1. Top teams will never agree to a cost cut – they have the money and have their own reasons for competing in F1. Most are doing it for marketing and r&d purposes so they don’t mind spending the money to win. For this reason, they don’t care about the small teams.
      2. Even if they agreed they would still win, and here is why;
      a) they have time, they can focus on next year’s car especially if they have an advantage in the current year. Merc has a big advantage so they can focus on bringing parts that will benefit them for the next years car, this will ensure that they are spending this year’s budget on next years car by improving this years car. Top teams like Ferrari will do the same.
      Some teams will give up on this year’s car and make next years car entirely on the current year’s budget, meaning that they will struggle this year meaning they won’t have a chance at earning money this year. This is a problem only for smaller teams given that the big teams will always have the money from their marketing and r&d budgets. (we can already see this from Mclaren and Honda)

      b) They have support from sponsors that smaller teams don’t have and will never get. This is things like oil and fuel, free engines, brakes, equipment (helmets that crew use, computers, tools etc), some of the top teams have deals with a lot of companies to supply them with free equipment as a form of marketing from these companies. These companies are not governed by F1 so it would be difficult to put a value on these items. So this is already a head-start for them. One more thing they don’t need to spend, leaving a bulk of their budget to improving their car. And even if you say the budget is only on producing the car and everything else such as infrastructure isn’t included the small teams who are struggling because they don’t have the money will still have to spend a lot of money on the infrastructure, or live without some of its benefits. Teams without wind tunnels or simulators will still have to either hire or build their own at a significant cost that will only delay their efforts on producing a competitive car. And by the time they get their act together, top teams will be about 3 years ahead on development.

      c) Another way to reduce the budget is to reduce the number of engineers given that their salaries would have to be limited in order to meet the cost cap. In an ideal world everyone will be able to afford at least one good engineer and every team would benefit from this and make a decent car. The problem is that we’re not in an ideal world. Top teams have other ways of keeping the best engineers. for example, given that they have other projects (gt3, road cars) its a lot easier for them to keep a lot of high-level employees, pay them very little to work in F1 but supplement their salaries and passing it off as “they were working on our GT program” I think Ferarri and McLaren have done this in the past.

      d) Regardless of all cost cap measures, the small teams will continue to struggle. If you look at them now, they spend very little and still struggle to keep their investors in the sport. If you bring everyone else to the lowest budget spent it won’t mean the team will not struggle. It would probably be more of the same given the top teams can afford a few off years while waiting for success, while the small teams can’t survive that long.

      e) With all that said, I still think that the budget isn’t the problem, teams like Lotus who can’t even pay for tyres and Sauber who struggle financially have really good cars on their very limited budget, they can even compete with midfield and as with Lotus a few years ago challenge for victory. This says that either the small teams are not managing their resources well, or are going for gold way too soon and hurting their long-term survival.

  2. I really hope Ferrari maintains this pace, it’s exactly what we need to see the difference between Hamilton and Rosberg.

    1. Great point right there mate.

    2. I don’t think Ferrari were on the same pace as Mercedes in Hungary. I doubt that the competitive order has really changed much. Ferrari seem fast enough to win if they can jump Mercedes at the start (which is very possible given Mercedes’ recent bad starts and the start rule changes in Belgium), but it seems they are still missing a few tenths per lap in ultimate pace. They were fast enough to pull away from Rosberg, but Rosberg was very slow this weekend compared to Hamilton, struggling with understeer in his balance throughout the weekend. Analysing Ferrari and Hamilton’s pace during the race isn’t straightforward since Hamilton spent so much of his race in traffic, but we can still compare their pace during the periods when both were in clean air:

      * Between lap 13 to lap 18, Hamilton and Vettel were both on the soft tyre and in clean air. Hamilton closed in on Vettel by 0.970s over this period (average of 0.194s per lap), despite having worn out his tyres fighting through the field beforehand.

      * Another comparison between Hamilton and Vettel can be seen when they were both on soft tyres in the middle stint. Hamilton was in clean air after getting past Ricciardo on lap 29, and before encountering a large group of backmarkers on lap 38. In this period he closed the gap to Vettel from 34.32s to 30.66s over 9 laps (an average advantage of 0.407s per lap to Hamilton). As Pete Bonnington pointed out, Hamilton’s advantage was 9 tenths at its peak – from lap 30 to lap 33, Hamilton’s laps were 8-9 tenths faster than Vettel’s, which was due to quick laps from Hamilton rather than anomalous slow laps from Vettel. Hamilton was surely pushing harder than Vettel during those four laps, but his tyres weren’t any newer (they were actually 2 laps older than Vettel’s at the time). Hamilton had a lot of pace in the Mercedes, and was surely the fastest driver/car package in the race.

      Both Ferraris were faster than Rosberg, but clearly slower than Hamilton. Rosberg was over half a second off Hamilton in qualifying, and based on their respective lap times it seems that he carried a similarly large deficit to Hamilton into the race. As previously mentioned, Rosberg was struggling with understeer in his balance throughout the weekend, which goes some way to explaining why he was so far behind Hamilton on pace and why the Ferraris pulled away from him. If we assume that Hamilton indeed had a pace advantage of around 0.2 – 0.4s per lap over the Ferraris (as their lap times suggest), then if Hamilton had held the lead into the first corner his pace would have probably translated into a lead of around 14-28 seconds over the course of the 69 laps (assuming no safety cars).

      Under normal conditions I think Mercedes still had a considerable performance advantage in Hungary.

      1. @polo Great analysis, kudos. Though it should be taken into account than at those points Vettel was already comfortably leading, managing the gap, while Hamilton was pushing hard to recover.

        Though it’s undeniable that Hamilton/Mercedes have a very solid advantage.

      2. I’m sure Mercedes was faster, I’m pretty sure Red Bull was at least as fast too. But after Hamilton did a couple of a second faster laps, he then started going as slow as Rosberg, probably used up his tyres, which is also what happened in Malaysia while he was going after Vettel.
        Even so, everyone was lucky not to get lapped by Vettel. I saw someone point it out and couldn’t believe it, but Vettel was about to lap Kvyat before the SC!

        1. I don’t think Mercedes were faster, HAM was just pushing a lot more than the Ferraris at the front. If you compare their first flying laps out of the pits, you can see that there wasn’t much of a gap (VET 1:26.8, RAI 1:26.9, HAM 1:27.0).
          RB were definately slower than Ferrari in Hungary. When Ricciardo passed Bottas on lap 13 and was running in clean air he lost 4.5 sec to VET till his pit stop. They never had the pace to challenge Ferrari in the race, even if RIC would’ve had a good start.

          1. Considering the amount of time and rubber Ricciardo and Hamilton spent in traffic and the fact that Hamilton also didn’t close the gap to Vettel at all, it is a bit debatable. Not to mention the fact that Ricciardo was also as fast as (if not faster than) Rosberg.

        2. Even after Hamilton slowed down following his four quick laps, he was still lapping around a second a lap faster than Rosberg. The point where he started “going as slow as Rosberg” was lap 38 – this was the lap that he caught up to a large group of backmarkers (around 5-6 cars IIRC). He didn’t manage to clear all of them before the safety car was deployed, so we didn’t get to see what pace he still had on those tyres after the 4 quick laps.

    3. Crowded Mind
      30th July 2015, 2:00

      Ferrari is only able to maintain that pace because they are developing non stop in the name of HAAS, and testing non stop in the name of HAAS, when in reality Ferrari are developing and testing this year’s car. Since there is not much formula change between this year and next, they can claim to be developing HAAS’ next year car until Dec 31st.

      And this is exactly Ron and Fernando’s point, look at the improvement Ferrari is making in season due to continuous testing and development. Granted the Engine tokens are not being spent, but they can tune the engine, test it and get more power out of it without having to spend tokens. Next year Ferrari won’t have this window, they are making maximum use of it.

      1. That’s interesting…
        Renault should buy Lotus right now and begin develop new engine in the name of new team.

  3. Tom (@11mcgratht)
    30th July 2015, 0:23

    As much as I would like Chris Evans and the BBC to fail in their attempts to replicate Top Gear without Jeremy, Richard and James and make the show all PC and less edgy, I must admit that Jenson is actually a fantastic idea.

    1. I remember all the fanfare Jenson has as a commentator back in 2005.

      He’s certainly more accomplished than Brundle on the track, I believe if he wants to he can be as successful as a commentator/presenter. Though I have a feeling he’s the kind of bloke who’d rather be doing triathlons all around the world post-career!

    2. Rowan Atkinson ;)

    3. Neil (@neilosjames)
      30th July 2015, 1:48

      I’d love to see him do it as a part-time gig, maybe alternating with someone else while he continued his racing career.

    4. @11mcgratht why would you like to see the BBC fail at its relaunch of Top Gear? Do you think that Clarkson should have gotten away with assaulting a producer?

      1. @tdog, the greatest irony is that most of those hardcore fans who are now calling for Clarkson to be reappointed were, not that long ago, routinely complaining on the Top Gear website that the show had become rather tired and stale, with a not inconsiderable number complaining that Clarkson, Hammond and May were holding back the show given how predictable they had become.

        1. Tom (@11mcgratht)
          30th July 2015, 9:25

          Having grown up with these three I am, of course, hugely biased in their favour. It was obviously a stupid thing for Clarkson to do (though some would argue it was excusable what with health scare, divorce etc.) I suppose what I would want ideally is for the show to end now and be remembered as it was: unbelievably good entertainment. As it is, I can see it turning into a cash cow for the bbc, never quite reaching its previous heights and instead falling into a long, painful decline. Chris Evans? Please

          1. Good news then. The boys will be back on Amazon!

      2. @tdog Why do you assume that if for me, for example, Top Gear is really Clarkson, Hammond and May and I don’t care about new Top Gear whatever they come up with, then I’m automatically condoning the attack on the producer?

        I don’t like Fifth gear type car shows, nor did I like the pre-2002 Top Gear. And it’s a matter of taste but I also have a huge dislike for Chris Evans. So?

        There’s a reason Clarkson’s Top Gear became the most watched factual TV show in the world while the rest of the car shows can’t attain even a fraction of its ratings

        Clarkson “paid” the price, but really the ones who paid the price were the BBC in the form of the many many millions they’ve lost. I’ll be watching whatever the trio come up with, and so will the vast majority of their 350 mil audience. The new Top Gear will be left fighting for scraps. Like it or not, they’ve failed already even before they began. The audience made itself very clear. I’ll give it a pass personally. Don’t like PC

        I also should mention that I don’t like the fact the BBC hadn’t killed the show instead of re-launching it. So yeah that’s a reason I’d like it to fail too. In short, there are many reasons I don’t like the re-launching of Top Gear. They’re all my personal opinions. You can agree or disagree. But of course it’s much easier to assume I’m in favor of hitting producers

        1. Tom (@11mcgratht)
          30th July 2015, 20:33

          @montreal95 Couldn’t agree more

      3. @tdog Top Gear was never a car show. It was always about how the three hosts interacted with each other, they just coincidental drove a lot of cars.

    5. @11mcgratht Clarkson getting sacked by the BBC was always going to be good news for petrolheads because it was always going to mean two well-backed car shows fronted by some genuine talent.

      If Button does join Evans at Top Gear – I don’t care what the Clarkson hardcore say – people WILL watch it. A great strength of Top Gear has always been the BBC’s flair for cinematography, and even with the Clarkson exodus, that will remain. I have no doubt that it’ll be a great show, albeit different to its previous heights. But once you’ve watched the weekly edition of Clarkson’s Netflix show, why wouldn’t you also watch the somewhat reheated efforts of the BBC and the 2009 F1 champ?

  4. It seems that I missed the exciting Hungarian GP because I was sitting in the super gold grandstand..
    I felt so great and honoured to watch Ferrari and Vettel winning the race and the fans were wonderful but upon watching the TV coverage after the race I realized that I missed a lot of events especially about the penalties :)
    It was not so nice that the font on the screens being unreadable.
    Overall, it seems that following an F1 race on TV is better than attending it live :D
    By the way I predicted Ferrari win in Hungary in my the first comment here:
    https://www.racefans.net/2015/07/13/f1-fanatic-round-up-1307-2/#comments

    1. Nice prediction, love reading all the comments after that were SO sure you were DEFINATELY wrong. Never say never people!

      1. Yeah I really like reading those type of comments after they turned out to be wrong or massively wrong. Very fun.

        1. I remember Keith even wrote once at the start of 2009, something along these lines: “Let’s hope the Brawn GP team can survive the whole year, for it might prove a challenge”.

          1. In hindsight, some of the funniest things I’ve read was about Vettel-Webber and 2010 championship. There was some skeptics who doubted whether Vettel would ever take A championship. Never mind 4.

    2. it seems that following an F1 race on TV is better than attending it live

      That true of sports events in general, at least in some respects. You get the chance to hang out with other fans and enjoy the atmosphere, but you don’t get the instant slow motion replays and analysis of what’s going on. Unless you attend the event and also have it streaming on your tablet …

      1. I think the situation is worse in F1 than other sports because you only watch a tiny fraction of the circuit. I wonder how the situation in Spa (the longest circuit) would be ?!

        1. @malik having attended to the Spa GP last year in bronze and about to buy bronze entries again for this year, I really enjoyed it. We were at the Pouhon corner, and the quieter engines allowed us to hear track commentary.

          The giant screen, despite failing from time to time, provided average quality. The free version of the F1 timing app provides handy track positions. The atmosphere is really enjoyable.

          Thing is, we all came to see the race, but nothing is more enjoyable than a full weekend watching the GP2 and the other races and eating junk food.

          Can’t talk about Spa without thinking about the rain, which can be pretty hardcore. Better be fully equipped, but once you are, that’s fantastic.

          1. Also, it is so much hilly that you can see other parts of the circuit in many places.

          2. @spoutnik: Thanks for the nice information :)

    3. I went into super gold when they opened up the stands on Friday… was awful. Whole bunch better choices out there as long as you’re willing to give up the view of the pits. Gold 4 got most of the overtakes, Red Bull covered a ton of angles, Silver 5 has a view on multiple corners.

      1. Exactly but the thing is that supergold is the only covered grandstand at Hungaroring!

    4. @malik interesting, when I was at Silverstone, I found it a lot better being there live because I didn’t hear things like Team radio which I still don’t understand why people like, to me its a turn off it breaks the flow of commentary and also normally its a call about saving something so when I was at Silverstone I was under the impression Bottas was really attacking Massa because I didn’t know he was told to stay behind and I am so glad I didn’t know he was told to stay behind Massa

      1. Then again the screens were easily visible and readable where I was so I knew if anyone got a penalty or something

      2. @bezza695 Team radio which I still don’t understand why people

        I like it because it gives more information & I’ve always felt its something that add’s to the coverage in part because of that.

        Been able to hear drivers talk about car balance, setup & any problems they may be having among other things is all stuff I really enjoy having access to, Especially during practice when you sometimes get drivers talking in detail about exactly what the car is doing in each corner & suggesting some changes to make.

        You also get situations like Montreal last year & also with Kimi Raikkonen at Hungary this past weekend where it was only thanks to team radio that we found out they had technical problems. Without the radio we’d have been completely in the dark wondering why they were slow & if it was problems or just a bit of pace management.

        And then there’s also those funny gem’s like Raikkonen saying he knows what he’s doing & similar stuff.

        I’d rather we had access to more of it to be honest.

        1. +1 I wish we heard more from Ferrari drivers.

  5. Interesting survey results. The three that were almost unanimous were no double points races, ensure the European races remain, and keep watching if Red Bull quit.

    Doesn’t surprise me, and I hope the relevant people are reading that.

  6. What Rosberg should be even more concerned is that his teammate when not fighting for position with other drivers was faster than the Ferraris.
    On the other hand, the difference between Hamilton’s and Vettel’s pace during the race was not big which could indicate a good season up ahead, although i expect Mercedes to pull away on certain tracks.

  7. I’d rather see Button as a commentator for the BBC (or, if it must be, Sky). I think his knowledge and expertise (specially about current F1) would be unnecessarily wasted on something like the butchered version of Top Gear.

    1. Pat Ruadh (@fullcoursecaution)
      30th July 2015, 12:40

      Hes possibly the best driver I’ve seen at calling tyre strategy in mixed conditions. i think he belongs on a pit wall after retirement

  8. Rosberg doesn’t want a challenge by the sounds of it.

    1. @ivz Wow, what a way to twist somebody’s words. Amazing.

  9. Reading that article it seems that Nico is a spoilt little brat whining all the time about things not going right.

    His plan was to overtake in the pits? Mercedes need to put Richiardo in that car already!

    1. +1. He is not worth this car. No fighting spirit in him other than how to puncture others rears.

      1. Would agree. It’s a real waste of that 2nd Merc seat. Mercedes might be happy with him, cause they secretly want a #2 driver, but let’s face it, if there was a Ricciardo or Hulkenberg in that 2nd car, this season would be far more entertaining.

        Rosberg has no fight in him. He might have the skills on a given day, but just doesn’t have the will of a champ.

        1. I tell you, Hulkenberg is as fast a qualifier as Hamilton.

    2. ColdFly F1 (@)
      30th July 2015, 8:23

      @yoshif8tures?? Did you even read the article??
      There is nothing whining about it, and overtaking during a pit stop is exactly the same strategy Mercedes (Hamilton) used in Silverstone.

      I get it that you don’t like the guy. But I’d prefer you remain a bit more fact based in your comments.

      1. @coldfly +1. Sadly I find overtaking in the pits to be a dull and unimaginative solution, but it is certainly nothing unusual.

  10. I read the results of the survey and some things really surprised me. For example, 73% said no to artificial gimmicks to spice up races but 50% said that DRS should be kept to aid overtaking. Also the results of customer cars and F1 being a single spec series are also kind of shady.

    1. @f1freek Personally I wouldn’t bother reading into the small majorities. These margins, in my view, aren’t enough to give the overall picture of what direction fans want the sport to go.

      Personally I think that only a bigger difference, such as 80:20 or 90:10 holds meaning.

  11. To me the most interesting thing from the Autosport survey was that a (narrow) majority dislike the current hybrid engines. Nice to know I’m not alone, you wouldn’t think so given the support shown by most of the professional commentariat.

    1. ColdFly F1 (@)
      30th July 2015, 7:41

      It does not say which part of the 1.6ltr hybrid they dislike. @tdog
      And I’m not sure how to rhyme this with:

      Do you think it’s important that Formula 1 is at the cutting edge of technology?
      Yes 90.1%

    2. to me it rather shows how we all get ourselves brain washed by repeated comments and let ourselves be used to achieve an agenda (from BE who got Sky and to an extent the BBC to tout his message until they realized that they were doing themselves a huge disfavor) @tdog.

      I think the engines are great. They are almost as powerfull, have a more interesting torque profile, offer more potential for further development and its achieved using more than a 3rd less fuel.

      1. I thought the new PUs are more powerful than the V8s.

        1. @bascb @praxis

          I thought the new PUs are more powerful than the V8s.

          They are.

          The V8’s were producing around 750bhp, The V6’s are already well above that. Renault say there’s is producing 850Bhp & Mercedes are said to be at 900bhp.

          1. ColdFly F1 (@)
            30th July 2015, 13:38

            Yes & No. @gt-racer, @bascb, @praxis
            NO the V6 do NOT produce more HP than the V8’s, but they are darn close. The pure power of the V6 turbo’s probably lies somewhere between 650-700 this year. The additional 160 comes form the ERS, but that is not additional power of the engine!
            ERS power is either ‘old power’ harvested when braking and used again, or ‘excess power’ (ERS-heat) not needed when at less than full throttle. In both cases it was part of the original 650-700hp and released via a battery when most needed.
            Thus total output can be close to 900. (that’s the YES part).

          2. Yes, when they add everything together and use all of it these engines certainly do come closer to the better of the V10s and V12s in peak power, but that is hardly used this way during the races, instead the ERS is often used to be able to still go as fast as the V8 allowed but using far less fuel because it re-uses the energy that would otherwise be wasted as well as energy stowed away by running at optimized power bands to have that bit extra accelleration etc (and hardly any turbo lag) when its needed.

            Overall these engines are IMO about the same level of what they can give the drivers, but given that its early in their development, they certainly show a great potential as manufacturers manage to use more of that potential for greater part of the weekend.

          3. @bascb, I was talking about the PU, not the ICE.

          4. what gives you the impression that I would only consider a bit over half of the PU there (the ICE) @praxis?

            Let me repeat, the complete package probably has more peak power available than most V8. But the characteristics of the engine rules mean that its not used like that so that on average these engines are currently most likely not far behind the V8s in power delivery but with a hugely improved power to fuel used ratio.

            In other words they are clearly the better engine because they get more or less the same amount of power for less use of energy and can peak very decently during qualifying and in case of need for a fast couple of laps.

          5. @bascb, sorry. I mistook actually, I wanted to reply to @coldfly.

  12. the thing with Nico Rosberg is that he doesnt quite know how to lie/hide his emotions. It maybe deemed as whining by some people but that is how he is. when he’s beaten to pole / during the race he just looks deflated during the press conference. When he wins he’s completely elated.
    when he starts talking, he talks as he saw it. Remember Spa last year, he could have said it differently but ultimately said what he felt.
    Anyway, who wasnt surprised by Ferraris pace?

    1. good point about the pace of the Ferrari’s. I am not too sure even Ferrari expected it @mim5

    2. I see your point, but we shouldn’t forget that he is by no means unique in that sense.

  13. I must say I have to agree with this statement from Ron.
    “That isn’t what F1 is about. F1 is about competition. It is not about handicapping. And perversely the biggest handicap in F1 is no testing.”
    I know the reasons why, I understand the plan but we are all aware it doesn’t work and the result is one team dominates for long periods while the others play catch up.

    1. @funkyf1 I think the elephant in the room when it comes to the testing ban, is that the big teams are spending just as much as they ever did in the days of unlimited testing. All it seems to do is make it harder for smaller teams to innovate.

      1. Totally @Mazdachris Ron even says that in the article indirectly. The development isn’t going to stop and the cost are probably larger than an organized test day or 3.

        Let’s just say we go back to testing, the big teams test and the smaller cannot afford to test. What difference does that have to the current model of F1? None, the only difference is that currently the FIA pretend they are actually doing something about.

        1. @funkyf1 Yep, the only difference is that when all of the development is happening behind the factory doors, it’s not visible how much of a difference there is between what the bigger and smaller teams are able to do. But I’m not convinced that testing is really that much of an expense in the scheme of things. When most of the teams are based within spitting distance of an F1 track, how much can it truly cost to bring a car to a track for a few days, versus windtunnel and CFD time. Especially these days when they’re running spec tyres and they’re able to use rapid prototyping to create lots of development parts. I think one of the reasons that smaller teams are finding it so hard now to make any kind of leaps in performance is that one of the big skills the likes of Jordan F1 had, was being able to get a lot of really good value out of track testing. With that no longer possible, it’s a much bigger technical challenge to come up with solutions which actually work.

          1. @funkyf1 @mazdachris

            The thing with testing is that not only is it a massive expense but it will also guarantee the gap between the big teams & the mid-field will increase because the teams with money will go testing as often as they can while the mid-field teams will struggle to afford to go testing so will just fall further behind.

            I think one of the reasons that smaller teams are finding it so hard now to make any kind of leaps in performance is that one of the big skills the likes of Jordan F1 had, was being able to get a lot of really good value out of track testing

            One of the key reasons Jordan fell so far behind the top teams from 2001-2002 was because they were forced to cut back there testing because they couldn’t afford it. They did a decent amount of testing prior to that but when budgets started getting tighter they had to cut back & as soon as they cut back performance suffered & as performance suffered they found themselfs in deeper trouble financially which caused them to further cut back on testing.

            But I’m not convinced that testing is really that much of an expense in the scheme of things.

            Testing can be massively expensive, Top teams were spending more on testing per-year than what a team like Manor have as a budget for a season of racing.

            The cost’s come from teams having to pay to rent a track, Bringing in the medical crews & paid people in the race control tower.
            There’s the extra supply of engines, gearboxes, tyres etc…
            There’s then the transportation cost’s which the teams would have to pay for.
            There was the cost of needing more staff because they ran separate test teams to reduce the workload of the race team.
            There was the increased cost’s from the extra development work been done.
            And there was the wasted money from spending on all that only to find that the new front wing flap you had gone to test didn’t work.

            Then consider the advantage Ferrari had by owning there own private test track with the factory next door which meant they were not having to spend as much as other teams who were having to rent tracks, travel to it etc…

            I’d also point out that testing bans/restrictions is now something most other categories are doing & they wouldn’t all be doing it if the cost saving was insignificant.

  14. I’ll ask this one again: What’s the longest streak for a national anthem?

  15. GOOD NEWS: Junior category fans are being treated to an extra weekend of GP2 and GP3 at Bahrain later this year as a substitute. Rather a shame that the Qatar deal fell through, and it would have been nice to have supported the WEC at the Nurburgring instead.

    1. @countrygent Its good from the standpoint that GP2 usually puts on good races at Bahrain, Don’t believe GP3 has ever raced there?

      Regarding Qatar, GP2 has already raced there as part of the GP2 Asia series & I don’t remember the racing been that good. The GP Masters series also raced there with similar results from a racing pov.

  16. Pat Ruadh (@fullcoursecaution)
    30th July 2015, 12:59

    For me the most surprising stat to come out of the survey was ‘should F1 continue to use DRS to aid overtaking?’

    50.4% said yes.

    Come on guys….

    1. @fullcoursecaution That was also odd given how in another question 73.9% said F1 should not use artificial means to improve the racing.

      It also goes against the results of the GPDA survey which suggested 60% of fans were against DRS & the more recent poll’s done on this site has suggested more are against it than for it.

      1. Maybe they understand DRS is necessary because of aero?

  17. I don’t know what Rosberg is supposed to do or say. He’s in with a faster teammate, what options does he have? He’s obviously maximising the skill he has, working at it and thinking. If he hadn’t let himself down with the cheating I couldn’t fault him. Really he should get out of Lewis’ shadow and move teams, anyway, it’s killing him there.

  18. I see Hamilton is the most popular driver after all, having slipped off the summary results somehow. Did they ever issue a correction?

    1. @lockup Different surveys.

      The survey been discussed in the article above was done by Autosport, Motorsport news & F1 racing magazines. The other survey (That had Kimi as most popular driver) was done by the GPDA.

      The GPDA survey was done by far more people & results were taken from all over the world. This survey had far less people take part & from what I can tell was mainly aimed at English speaking markets.

      1. Ah @gt-racer I missed that completely!

  19. Does anyone know Carmen Jorda was surprised with Mouton’s criticisms..?

  20. Gosh, a comment of the day. I am in shock. I never, ever would have thought I’d ever get one of those.

    1. Well said. Congrats on COTD.

  21. I didn’t participate in the F1 fan survey, I wasn’t even aware that it existed until after the first results were released recently.
    Seeing the full results now goes to show that what an independent audience (or part of an independent audience) thinks is nearly 50% the opposite of what I think has made the racing closer and more exciting in recent times.

    Whilst I agree that F1 should be a balls out, fast, on the limit motorsport, more durable tyres limit strategy options and refuelling doesn’t provide as much value in on track strategy playing out as the current tyres do.

    Whilst most people were against “artificial methods” to make racing closer, the majority didn’t vote against DRS, so that’s a part contradiction.

    For me the dominance of Red Bull and Mercedes in recent times hasn’t largely detracted from all round better racing than we had when Schumacher was dominating in his Ferrari.

    All I feel we can learn from this survey is that F1 has a diverse viewership, so it’s not only difficult to please drivers, teams and circuits, you wouldn’t be able to please the fans as a whole on their own.

    Everyone does seem to agree Bernie is running F1 as a business first and foremost.

  22. I seem to remember back in the press conference for the Australian GP (or was it the one after?) Rosberg saying he wanted Ferrari to get quicker, or words to that effect.

    1. Australia. Vettel asked to participate in Mercedes briefing. Next race in Malaysia he won. There are press conference videos of Rosberg vs Vettel on Youtube. Very funny.

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