Williams can be second-fastest team – Massa

F1 Fanatic Round-up

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In the round-up: Felipe Massa believes Williams can be the second-fastest team.

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Massa: We can be best of rest (Sky)

“Everything is possible now and looking how we are compared to the others, I would say Mercedes is for the moment too quick compared to us. But I think maybe after Mercedes, everything is open and maybe we can be there.”

Williams yet to peak – Bottas (ESPN)

Valtteri Bottas: “In the braking and entry of corners we were quite strong. You can lean on it and trust it. On power we still have some weak points with the car, and traction is something we need to work on – especially in the wet.”

Porsche critical of F1 fuel flow meter (Racecar Engineering)

“In the LMP1 category gasoline fuelled cars must run with two sensors identical to the units at the heart of Red Bull’s disqualification from the Australian Grand Prix. Cars running on diesel fuel must run three, but Porsche says that there is ‘no robust solution’ to the measuring process and doubts that there will be this season.”

Malaysia grand prix pushes grieving families of jet passengers from hotel (Reuters)

“Chinese relatives of the passengers on the missing Malaysian jet have changed hotels to make way for crews arriving for the Malaysian grand prix after two weeks of searches that have yielded little more than fresh questions.”

Force India: pace behind expectations (Autosport)

Deputy team principal Bob Fernley: “Truth be told, we were expecting the aero war to start in Europe, but now I think it’s going to come forward.”

Electric cars loud enough for fans: Formula E boss (The Times of India)

Alejandro Agag: “Next week we will put video online of the car with the sound and I think this will be quite a shock, the sound that these Formula E cars are making… it’s actually quite loud.”

Ayrton Senna’s 54th birthday: Remembering a towering talent that would have delivered so much more (The Independent)

“Senna was not only a brilliant racing driver, he transcended the world of Formula One so that his death stopped clocks across the world. The shock of his loss had a similar impact in the sporting milieu as the death of Princess Diana on the global community three years later in a Parisian underpass.”

Uncovered: The F1 W05 steering wheel (Mercedes)

“There are a total of nine rotary switches on the wheel. Three are rotary dials, while the remaining six are configured as thumb wheels. The latter allow the driver to make changes to the settings without taking their hand off the wheel.”

The silence of the new era is deafening (UBS)

David Coulthard: “Don’t take my word for it, though. Listen to the reaction from the fans. That is one thing that is coming through extremely loud and clear. And as Toto Wolff, Mercedes’ motorsport boss, pointed out this week, we cannot afford to ignore our fans.”

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Comment of the day

Chris says the new Formula One is back at the cutting edge.

I think now, more than (almost) ever, Formula One is as intriguing and “wow” as ever. The cars are technological masterpieces. The V8s, V10s and V12s pale in comparison to how high-tech this new breed of cars are.

Formula One always prides itself on being the “highest class of motorsport”, with the most technologically advanced, and high performance cars in the world. However, the fact of the matter is that other series like the World Endurance Championship were actually far more advanced than the dinosaurs of the later stages of the V8 era.

Finally, Formula One is back on top. And if the amount of noise is the only thing that’s being used as an argument that F1 has “lost its wow factor”, then I encourage you to listen to the palette and range of different noises that these new cars make. Every team’s car sounds different. Last year, if you were to hear a car go past, unless you’re an extreme anorak, you’re not going to have a clue which car went past, however with these new ones, it’s a little easier, because they have subtle differences. Not to mention the gloriously space-age sound of the turbo whining just sounds terrific.

One final point: The drivers are having to earn their money now (except Kobayashi) with these new levels of torque. The cars are far more difficult to drive, and the cream will rise to the top. The last five years the cars looked too easy to drive (I’m sure they weren’t, but relatively speaking, they were easy), so now, the drivers can make more of an impact on the performance of the car. With all this new technology, they’ve inadvertently made the driver, arguably, the most important part of the car. It’s become more of a drivers formula. And that’s a good thing in my opinion.
Chris (@Tophercheese21)

From the forum

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Hamilton Wc 09, Juan Pablo Heidfeld, Tom Lim and Shaneb457!

If you want a birthday shout-out tell us when yours is by emailling me, using Twitter or adding to the list here.

On this day in F1

It’s 40 years since Peter Revson lost his life in a crash during testing at Kyalami.

The heir to the Revlon cosmetics fortune had won the British and Canadian Grands Prix the year before for McLaren, then opted to move to Shadow rather than become a third-string entry at the team alongside the incoming Emerson Fittipaldi.

His car left the track during practice at the South African circuit, seemingly due to suspension failure, and struck a barrier at high speed.

Image © Williams/LAT

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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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72 comments on “Williams can be second-fastest team – Massa”

  1. I still can’t believe that with all this technology, they can’t locate an aircraft with all those gadgets that pretty much every passenger must have had. I’m not a crazy conspiracy theorist, but I’m finding it really suspicious.

  2. I think it’s a three way tie for 2nd best with McLaren, Red Bull and Williams. And given Ferrari isn’t too far behind, I don’t see Williams fighting at the front after the Spanish GP.

    1. It would be really interesting if it wasn’t for Mercedes ;)

  3. OmarR-Pepper (@)
    22nd March 2014, 1:36

    Nice photo at Milton Keynes. Is that Webber?
    About another and serious topic, it’s such a shame to enter a GP weekend with so sad news. It reminds me of Monza 2001, with the Ferrari cars carrying the black patches and some messages of support in the other cars as well. This time I just hope the teams show the same respect, maybe without a podium celebration, just the anthems and leaving then.

    1. It’s both Webber and Vettel playing around in Milton Keynes on the Saturday just before Christmas. If my memory is correct they had something like 30000 people watching.

  4. These commentators obviously are ignoring the F1f poll on the new sound of F1, the results of that poll clearly show that less than 1 out of 3 fans dislikes the new sound whereas 24 out of 25 fans dislike the double-points last race yet there is no suggestion of listening to the fans on that one.

    1. Chris (@tophercheese21)
      22nd March 2014, 3:21

      @hohum
      Exactly my thoughts!

      1. Congrats on cotd.

        1. Chris (@tophercheese21)
          22nd March 2014, 3:53

          Thankyou :)

          And thank you @KeithCollantine

      2. Nice COTD there .

    2. Further to that, Bernie said the sound was awful even though he was in London not Melbourne and DC said the sound was no good even though he was in a soundproof commentary box, I’m beginning to see a pattern here.

    3. Yes but F1 fanatic isnt entirely representative of the formula 1 fan base.F1 fanatic is home to the move “avid” fans thus a poll here cannot reflect the views of the large part of F1 viewers that are content with just watching the race or qualy when its on.

      1. @wally02avg in my experience those casual fans are often heavily influenced by what they hear on the TV from people like Coulthard and just parrot it.

        If the TV or press coverage says the sound is terrible then they will copy that and pass it off as their own opinion when they might not have even noticed otherwise so Coulthard, Bernie etc are creating a lot of the bad sentiment by emphasizing it rather than just reporting facts.

        1. Are you implying that hardcore fans are all happy with the mute engines?
          For the casual fans there will be a few who get swayed by what they hear on TV, even at that a lot of them do form their opinion and reaffirm those, when they hear similar views on air.
          There are those fans who were attracted to F1 because of the melody, and the engine notes was all they had left when the racing became very boring.
          There will be those who feel the whole thing is strange and lacking in something, but can’t place a finger on it.
          Even before we heard the sound of the new engines, a lot of folks were worried it will be lost and they formed their opinions independently of Coulthard or Bernie.
          People are different so also are their needs. What works for you doesn’t work for the next person.

          1. I think hes implying that if the hardcore fans hald only one veto of a sporting or techinical rule in F1, the unianimous vote would be to repeal the idiotic double points rule.

          2. OOliver, first register so we can tag you for responses. Second, he did not say that

            all hardcore fans are happy with the mute engines

            .
            He stated a simple fact that many casual fans are influenced by what they hear the broadcasters saying. That’s all they know for many of them. If DC had been gushing over the wildly futuristic sound of the new engines and the nuances of all the different notes you could hear now…then many of those same fans would be excited about the new noise rather than complaining.

    4. What annoys me the most is when it’s about something trivial like noise, it’s all “let’s listen to our fans!” but for truly ridiculous things like double points, they just shove it down our throats regardless. Nothing but a bunch of lippy politicians, the whole lot.

      1. Audio is not a trivial issue by any means. Unless you are someone who just listens to whatever tripe is popular on the radio and have never heard a full symphony. Each to their own, but saying the sound doesn’t matter is the same as saying who cares where the cars race or what they look like. It is all part of the package that makes F1 in the flesh a visceral sensation.

    5. @hohum Yes they probably are ignoring the F1F poll. and quite rightly so. We voters represent less than 0.005% of the F1 fan populace. It’s naïve to think they would listen to us haha.. We have to be real here. As I always say, complaining online won’t change anything because the people with the power and money don’t care unless they’re being nagged or losing money. If people care so much about the double-points… write in to the FIA. A vote on a social F1 site won’t do anything. Same with the engine noise, you think DC cares about that?

    6. I am really curious where this commentators going against the sound comes from @hohum.

      Its clear that they are not talking about the people in the grandstands (some of them love not having to wear earplugs, some are disappointed), because F1 hasn’t really been bothered about those for a decade at least. And surely they themselves would have to be the first to do something to improve the sound for the TV viewers (a bit of sound tuning should be manageable to have prepared during FP1-FP2 IMO).

      Its also funny when we read about Bernie feeling bad about the sound, when he wasn’t even there in Australia to hear that sound. Its another PR gaffe that instead of promoting the sport by pointing to the good bits (the tyres not being as limiting anymore, seeing the drivers struggle to get the power on the tarmac, a bit of an upset of the power balance between teams, and the new development potential they will have this year), a lot of pundits seem to hark on about the sound 99% watching of people don’t get to hear anyway.

      1. @bascb, It’s pretty obviously an orchestrated campaign, while I dont want to belittle the opinion of 30% of fans who feel strongly that the old sound (which I suspect is the only F1 sound they have heard) was a very important part of the F1 experience, 70% of fans have no complaints or prefer the new sound despite Bernie telling them it was going to be awful before anyone including Bernie had heard one run outside of a Dyno booth. If I was a conspiracy fan I might think that Bernie wants F1 to fail once he heads to jail or asylum in Brazil just so he can say that F1 can’t work unless he is running it.

        1. @hohum Again, using a percentages makes it look meaningful, but the poll was of 700 fans. A grain of sand on a beach. It would be best to stop using them to blanket the millions of other F1 fans ..

          1. @timi, yes it was a poll in which 700 F1 fans paticipated, not football fans, not Eastenders fans, F1 fans, this site is called F1 Fanatics, not F1 Malcontents. Do you really believe that when a poll reveals President X has a 42% approval rating that the pollsters have actually spoken to all 300 million citizens. Perhaps you have seen a poll with different results, feel free to provide details or a link, if not I suggest you consider the opinion of 700 fans valid.

          2. @timi There is nothing wrong with using polls to extrapolate to a population. Now, it’s valid to question the sampling because we’re more serious F1 fans than the average person. But you should then find a more broadly sampled poll because I would seriously like to see those results as well. However, I think that at this point, anyone who saw the race has been exposed to the negative commenting from many of the pundits and Bernie, and what the average person hears “experts” say influences their opinion.

            Be serious folks, if you’re going to talk about a broad sample, 99.9 % of fans hear each race on TV. They could make that sound louder with the FOM feed and they are not even trying. So 99.9% of the fans only know what FOM chooses to feed them. It is not an exaggeration to say that FOM could put microphones on the cars and feed a track of “The Ride of the Valkyries” to the TV audience with the volume going up or down with the engines. Talk about drama! LOL But seriously, this illustrates how much FOM could do to fix this if they wanted to….and Bernie does NOT want to.

            Those of us who get to go to a race each year are a different and a completely separate statistical group. They need to conduct a poll at the next few grand prix races of people AT THE RACE. Some will hate the lack of V8/V10 sound, others will be glad they can watch the race without ear phones and enjoy the nuances they can hear now.

            Right now, all it comes down to are a few of us arguing on here and whether or not Bernie gets his way.

    7. I think coulthard is correct. when testing first started, I had hope for the turbo sound when I watched a ferarri with a deap throaty sound off the accelerator. but now I have copared the sound to the previous v8s and v10s, aswell as to v8s supercars, nascar, and indycars. the f1 cars are much quieter then all those. it is a shame they are quieter then touring car series cars, and even the fia’s own lower tier gp2 series. maybe if they were allowed to run to 15,000 rpm, but the retarded fuel flow limit sees them only just get past 10,000rpm. indycars are turbo too again now, but rev to about 12,000rpm and have 600cc bigger capacity and as such are a much noisier series. in Australia it is easy to see why fans were disappointed in the sound…. they have v8 supercars and Porsche cup races during the weeking, and then the f1s turn up and are quieter… also they do a demonstration run with last years v8 f1 vs a sportscar and a road car, which put the whole volume thing into perspective. even without the volume, they are not that ”racy” sounding, on there own maybe, but compared to all the above I mentioned, they are a serious disappointment. in Melbourne you used to be able to hear the cars from nearly 20km away, now a friend of mine in Melbourne said he thought the sound from a few kilometres was just loud a loud gust of wind. I see people here argueing that the sound is “good”. I am sure it is to an extent, but is it ood enough for the top tier series to have inferior sound to lower tier series. lets wait for the races where gp2 is on the grid. I have a feeling most people in the crowd will getter a nicer feeling watching from the stands watching the gp2 cars.

  5. An impressive video from Gill simulating the readings of an lmp2 car doing a lap of Daytona, but as impressive as it was there was no way of knowing how accurate the indicated flow was or could be, and also it is quite clear from their explanation of how it works that they are measuring volume, not mass, with that in mind the teams might find it advantageous to run the fuel through a chill-coil before it passes through the sensor.

    1. A MAP sensor is providing the ECU with data on the airflow to the engine, and often they are a combination of 3 sensors providing data on flow, temperature and pressure, from which the ECU can calculate the Air Mass flow into the engine. Compared with the Fuel Flow sensor it should be possible to calculate the fuel flow in kg/hour from data on volume flow and temperature.

  6. I’m glad I don’t have to read the numbers on those knurled knobs on the Merc steering wheel with rain and spray hitting my visor at 150-200 mph.

    1. According to Hamilton, some of those dials and buttons had fallen off his steering before the race had even started.(via race transcript)

      1. Yeah that could have caused the problem …………..could have .

  7. I’m not exactly sure that Williams have better pace than RBR or McLaren… Its hard to say after 1 race as every car has their strong and weak tracks. Ultimately, I think people like Massa need to remember that an F1 season is made up of many races over many months. I still think Mercedes are petrified that RBR are going to win the championship by winning the development race throughout the year. I myself don’t see RBR and more importantly Renault bridging that gap to Merc, however, I do believe that RBR will finish ahead of Williams at the end of the Championship season.

    1. I doubt that Mercerdes are petrified of anything right now. They are sitting in the best spot so far with what looks to be the greatest potential. Sure RBR might win a development race but that will only be because they are coming from further back. They’re still on a steeper part of the learning curve, and Merc also knows they themselves have a lot more room to improve too. Of course the all do. This is only chapter one of nineteen in a book from a new and unknown author.

  8. Yes, the best way for Massa to lead Williams forward, I think, is to get lots of consistent, strong performances in. The points system rewards that, it plays to their early strength of reliability, and Massa has something to prove – his last decent season-long effort was six years ago against a weaker field. Not to do it the Maldonado way, having the occasional outstanding performance but otherwise squandering a good car by smashing it up or making mistakes.
    I agree about Red Bull – they were surprisingly competitive in Melbourne, and (apart from 2013) have years of experience of being slow in the speed traps but quickest around a lap.

  9. Porsche lobbying for brothers RedBull, I don’t care if you’re right but it’s a crime to coerce.

    1. Not in the FIA kangaroo court.
      Surprised you didn’t link Red Bull with Ferrari because they used to sponsor Raikkonen in rallies.

    2. Hardly likely, Porsche are just stating the obvious, the FIA are making a mockery of their own brands. How much (successful) testing have these components been through prior to the FIA enforcing them on the cars? LMP1 shouldn’t have to suffer the same fate of F1 if they act now.

      In response to COTD
      ‘Last year, if you were to hear a car go past, unless you’re an extreme anorak, you’re not going to have a clue which car went past, however with these new ones, it’s a little easier, because they have subtle differences.”
      I don’t understand this statement? Every brand engine sounds different and each team runs different exhausts, they all had distinct sounds and they still do. If you didn’t know which car went past, you weren’t watching! The problem is now, your can’t hear them coming, if you place yourself at a corner you do get the pleasure of a whining turbo only to be backed by a lazy sounding engine. I’m all for the technology side and love to see drivers using their skillsets, but is this a reality with unnecessary fuel flow regulations and performance monitoring?

      1. @funkyf1 : two years testing the sensor WITH the teams involvement. I am quite convinced that the location if the sensor and it’s immediate environment is crucial for repetitive accuracy and as you can imagine, that placement is down to the individual teams/ engine partners. Do you see a pattern emerging yet?

        1. *oops* “of the sensor”

        2. Thanks for that insight @baron, I do see a pattern emerging, the sensor doesn’t’ work!
          Numerous teams had problems over the weekend, it’s just that one went against the grain.

    3. Don’t think so – guys from the WEC were critical about it since last year. There were several interviews with guys from Audi Toyota and others who raised the meter as an issue. And it seems that the FIA repeated their mistake from last year when the cockpit lights for track signals didn’t work.
      Seems they select their suppliers not based on specs or capability, but who plays golf with whom ;)

      1. What a shock LOL

        The whole world is ruled by rich people and who they play golf with. Why would we expect F1 to be any different? Sigh.

        1. Ha, so true.

      2. That’s a very unfair comment against Gill Instruments. They are situated just down the road from me and I know many of the people that work there. They supply very high tech sensing equipment all over the world from flow monitoring to wind gauges. All work on differential frequency analysis, and these gauges are situated in quite critical areas such as all our suspension bridges etc. If there is a problem (and we’re never going to know the whole truth of it) I am convinced it’s the actual vehicle situation they are placed in by the designers. I cannot imagine a more hostile environment. I would ask one further question: if this has been known as a serious problem “by all the teams” even before winter testing – the answer would have been simply solved long before now. “We won’t use them – come up with something that works or we don’t race.” Why is it, the first we’ve heard about it, is because one team, one team mind you, decided they weren’t going to go for it. Mercedes and Ferrari you notice, are backing the FIA and the sensors. It’s not a one way street and simply blaming the FIA for poor crop production in Eastern Lithuania and the jetstream being too far south in the UK is a cop out.

        1. Baron, you should register so we can tag you for comments.
          But you’re right, it’s probably not fair to Gill to criticize them without more facts. For me, I don’t think anyone can come out with a sensor that’s going to be accurate enough and proven enough to not make them suspicious as users: “I think Williams is better than we are because their sensors are allowing x% more fuel flow”.
          Who wants to deal with that issue.
          I want them to stop using the sensors altogether. Give them EXACTLY 105kg of fuel (enough extra for the race plus formation lap, and any post race cool down, etc) then let them race.
          I don’t care if they get extra hp for qualifying or racing wheel to wheel during passes. It’s up to them to manage the fuel load for the race so give them a known quantity starting from empty and let them race.
          Personally, I think 115kg would be a perfectly good starting point for this year. They’ve already come down from 150kg+ last year so why do we act like 100 is a magic number? We humans are so silly about even multiples of our fingers and toes.

          Why not 116kg? Why is 100kg considered “green”? How about 116kg this year and 112kg in 2015, 108kg in 2016 to give them time to work on the fuel savings even more. Let them harvest 5MJ next year on the ERS instead of 4MJ.

          I like the engineering challenge…but I want to see them RACE as well be smarter. They’ve already done a great job in getting more power out of less fuel so let’s go with a happy medium.

  10. And as Toto Wolff, Mercedes’ motorsport boss, pointed out this week, we cannot afford to ignore our fans.

    I thought that was an F1 speciality?

    1. But Toto only listens after the fact. He has contributed to some of the recent silly decisions, then later comes on air to say F1 should listen to the fans.

    2. @andae23 I agree with Toto , He needs those fans . The humidity is pretty high in Malaysia.

    3. Toto is in a good mood, because Mercedes are currently the fastest car.

    4. @andae23 As Simon and Garfunkel sing, “a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest”.

      Fans were almost unanimous in their wish to remove the double points rule, yet no one really wanted to listen to them. Opinions on the sound of the new engine are much more divided (besides, only a small number of fans have actually heard the new engines on-site), yet there are suddenly many, who want to “let the fans have their say”.

      There are certainly people, who genuinely don’t like the new sound of F1 but I believe that there are also many, who use this discussion as an excuse to try to change the competitive order, which might happen if the current engines are modified.

      1. As for Toto Wolff, he said exactly the same thing about double points but didn’t seem to do anything to get rid of the rule.

  11. I fully agree with @Tophercheese21, there’s always something for people to complain about. Especially with how ‘powerful’ social media is these days, there’s a lot of jumping on the bandwagon (even more than there would be without it). People are entitled to their own opinions and all but look back to the multi21 incident, if it had happened with a legend of the past going back a couple of decades, he’d be praised for it.

    Personally, I’d be curious about what setup the broadcasting crew at the tracks are using; namely the microphones and how they’re fully utilised (not just volume levels but also the EQ in order to get the best ‘sound’ out of the new engines). I know there are volume standards for TV and all, but the equalisation factors into this one quite a bit. I can see why people would be put off by this in person, but I think hearing wheels locking up, and even instability on the straights is something new and exciting in a way.

    1. you are right, if Senna had done the multi21, he would have not been booed like Vettel. infact, besides the pole positions Vettel achieves, the multi21 was the most Senna-like thing Vettel did in his career so far. Senna was as dirty as the best of them at times. If Vettel didn’t look like Justin Bieber and smiled so much, and had a Senna physique and facial expressions, he would be more liked, as his driving matches Sennas.

      1. Many around here praised SV for ignoring that team order. Personally I get that take-no-prisoners attitude but I thought it was a cheap shot given that MW had been told to crank his car down.

        SV cannot even stand in Senna’s shadow as far as I am concerned, and wouldn’t have stood there after that race looking like a kid caught with his hand in a cookie jar. Senna’s team would likely have not even bothered trying to give him an order to begin with as they would have known it would have been futile.

  12. What an unfortunate situation for the grieving Malaysian Airlines families to have been removed from their hotel because Ferrari already had a booking there.

    1. Did you see Buxton tweeting how much this place is a luxury resort and quite far from the airport? I think the headline is pretty much ignoring that these people had moved to a different place already, because the resort informed them about being occupied for this week well in advance.

      1. Never let facts ruin a good story!

        1. At the pinnacle of journalism;-)

  13. And as Toto Wolff, Mercedes’ motorsport boss, pointed out this week, we cannot afford to ignore our fans.

    F1 have mostly ignored their fans for the past decade or longer, why stop now?

  14. my first post :)
    I am a follower of F1 since 2007, but never attended a GP. Having said that, from TV audience perspective, I think “Sound” is not a big deal as long as there is drama/meat in the race/championship.

    Bernie should speak for himself, not for entire F1 community. I hope he stops attending every race to help F1 in general.

    Looking forward for next race :)

  15. in a few races, the cars will not be difficult to driver for any f1 driver. the torque curve…, well the software for the engine mapping will make the cars as driveable as past years… engine mapping is nearly traction control unfortunantly. you could already see it Melbourne in how much easier the Mercedes drivers seemed to be on the throttle then other cars.

    1. I disagree. I think these new cars will continue to be a handful and a bit of a puzzle for a while yet, but if you are right then F1 has truly failed. And I think the only reason Mercedes looks more on top of it is because, as we saw in testing, they have been the best out of the box…doesn’t mean they don’t have a ton to learn and don’t forget one car was lame right off the grid and retired shortly after. What good is pace, or being a little easier to drive than the competition if you can’t get one stint in?

  16. Such a shame Lewis about your DNF. But like your own words ‘things happen for a reason’. Your luck will probably change. Rosberg showed at the moment Mercedes have a good car. I can see Lewis getting 10 pole positions and 7 wins.

  17. Perception is everything in life. When a formula 1 car is mentioned the common perception is power, speed, technology. The new engines do not resemble anything that is currently the perception for the above. It matters not what anyone’s reasons is, at the end of the day the casual fan, which are most fans as well have no understanding what the new engines means for the future of vehicles. Furthermore in new markets formula 1 will not have that mind blowing and almost intimidating sound that one expects from the top tier of car racing. Remember most people don’t even remember the regulations once the cars are going around, so to expect anyone to apply logic and common sense to a topic that had always been known for power and loudness is well illogical.

  18. @Tophercheese21 I honestly couldn’t agree more with the COTD. The 2014 cars are spectacularly advanced, incredibly complicated, infinitely interesting and aurally arousing. All this talk about the noise has to die down now, this is the new formula for Formula 1 and we must embrace it. If a few casual fans (and/or causal fans masquerading as enthusiasts) stop watching just because their ears don’t bleed when the cars fly past anymore, they really aren’t worth holding on to and they couldn’t have actually be that interested in the sport to begin with. When I started watching this sport many moons ago there where a whole host of things that got me interested in it, I honestly don’t recall the noise being near the top of the list. The number of column inches which have been and are being dedicated to the noise by F1 journalists is frankly ridiculous and I hope that it stops after Malaysia.

    1. We would also rather watch racing than advanced hoovers driving about. Was there any racing in Australia? I regreted waking up at 5.30am.

  19. Chris (comment of the day). I don’t care about technology they use. I think F1 engines at the moment are way too complicated. With all those ERS, turbo chargers, flow checks and other crap. Why don’t they introduce more stupid ideas like vertical overtaking, 3 different kinds of fuel to be used every race (one of this must be vegetable oil) and use of one engine a year.
    Turbo charger is not new technology.
    Hybrid engines is not new technology.
    FIA keep trying to ‘kill’ RB success. It looks like this is their only aim. So we can be prepared for Marussia winning race or Magnussen winning season.

    1. PS. I’m off F1. Well. I still gonna watch BBC races but no more waiting for 6am start. No thrill in vacuum cleaners racing.

      1. Spoken like a casual fan who is not willing to give this whole new chapter a chance and have ordained what the new F1 is after only one race.

  20. Who cares if the car is fast, Massa can’t take it to the limit and be at the top! Let’s pray for Bottas and Nasr, who I hope will get behind the wheel soon. I like Felipe, but Brazil is losing interest in F1 because of him. This is sad.

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