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Here’s my rating :
1) Daniel Ricciardo : last year, his season was overshadowed by a bad- performing Red Bull, but in 2016 we could see the same Ricciardo than 2014. He had a very solid season. I don’t recall him making any mistakes (problems were usualy not due to his fault), and he even managed to fight above his category on a couple of occasions. Moreover, he wasn’t beaten by the next F1 superstar as his teammate.
2) Max Verstappen : the new F1 superstar has performed once again beyond our expectations. He had a surprise promotion to Red Bull and delivered good results immediately. Although he was beaten by Ricciardo who performed even, he still did amazing races, and somehow he often succeeds in doing things which seem near impossible.
3) Nico Rosberg : some say that Rosberg is a lucky champion. But I believe that Nico Rosberg has upped his game quite significantly this year. Compared to the two previous years, he seemed stronger in many aspects : better starts, more agression in overtakings, better mental strength, better race pace. He also won some races where he was usualy not brilliant in the past (like Monza, Spa, Suzuka). And his über-dominance in Singapore was quite phenomenal. It’s easy to remember misfortunes to his teammate, but one shouldn’t forget Rosberg’s strong performances this year.
4) Lewis Hamilton : Hamilton’s season wasn’t as easy as previous years, but he still did a very good one. When he didn’t have problems, he still performed very very well, and he had several dominant wins, where no one could challenge him. Most wins, most poles, but just not enough points to beat Rosberg. His only big weakness this year were his bad starts, which he had quite a few this year, and which cost him a lot of points (more than the engine failure in Sepang I believe).
5) Fernando Alonso : the McLaren might have improved a bit, but the car is still very uncompetitive. Many times, the car couldn’t compete for points. But somehow, in this piece of garbage, Alonso managed to score 54pt this season! Among which are two top 5 finishes. Once again, Fernando showed his maestra in racecraft, being able to perform much better than his car would permit. As usual, he completely dominated his teammate, who scored less than half of Fernando’s points…
6) Carlos Sainz : Sainz was always close to Verstapen. He is as talented as the new star, but somehow has never managed to do some unexpected stuff as Max did. Every time Sainz was on course to score a lot of points, something happened, and he finished the race on a lower position than he could. It’s a shame, but he nevertheless had an excellent season, having scored almost 3 times more points than Kvyat since the driver change in Toro Rosso.
7) Pascal Wehrlein : the Manor driver had a strong season, and some amazing races. He scored 1pt in a Manor which is an extraordinary achievement by itself. He seemed to be very strong in circuits he knew from DTM (like RB Ring and Hockenheim), but he didn’t look as good at other circuits (unlike many drivers who did GP2 and GP3, he had far less experience at most of the tracks in the calendar). The rookie showed he has a great potential for F1. Let’s hope he could get a better car next year.
8) Sergio Perez : somehow, Perez did it again. Everyone (myself included) tend to praise Hülkenberg’s talent, but it’s always Perez who manages to attract the spotlight on him. When the car is good on the circuit, he’s able to ouperform, and do amazing drives. He got 2 podiums and scored more than 100pt. And more often than not, he was in front of his very talented teammate.
9) Esteban Ocon : a half-season in F1 was enough for him to become competitive and be close to his teammate which was already showed his talent earlier in the season. And he also seemed competitive on circuits where both had no experience before. His good reputation is, I believe, justified, and he’ll probably become one of F1’s fron runners in the future.
10) Nico Hülkenberg : Perez might have got all the glory from his podium finishes, but Nico Hülkenberg didn’t have a bad season. He had a bad start, with several non-finishes, but further on in th season, he became more competitive, and more consistent in his results. Still, Perez seemed to perform a bit better on average.
11) Romain Grosjean : On a whole, Grosjean’s season wasn’t that good. Especially towards the end, he didn’t seem to perform so well, and threw away a couple of good opportunities (like his spin in Interlagos before the start). Sometimes, he seemed puzzled by his slow pace (like in Singapore). But he still succeded in scoring some strong points for the new team. Not only that, he scored all the points for Haas, which in itself is quite an achievement.
12) Kimi Raïkönnen : The Ferrari drivers didn’t perform very well this season. But Kimi did less mistakes than Vettel, and he did some good races, like in Shanghi, Bahrain and Austria. But ha lacked some consistency. He doesn’t seem to have had a bad season, but that’s because his teammate had a much worse one in my opinion.
13) Kevin Magnussen : his car was awful, towards the end his teammate drove as good as him, but he still scored almost all the team’s points. But it’s difficult to judge him in such an uncompetitive car.
14) Valtteri Bottas : the Williams drivers were quite invisible this season. Valtteri still managed to get on the podium once.
15) Marcus Ericsson : used to be known as a pay driver, but this season, he was more often than not stronger than his teammate.
16) Jolyon Palmer : didn’t have a good first half of the season, nowhere near his teammate. But eventualy he caught up, and began to perform as good as Kevin. He even scored a point in his dreadful Renault somehow.
17) Esteban Guttierez : He didn’t always have bad races, he wasn’t always beaten by Grosjean, but once again, Guttierez couldn’t find his way towards scoring points. I don’t belive anyone will miss him in F1.
18) Sebastian Vettel : after an exceptional season last year, it seems like Vettel’s talent has gone away. Sure, he wasn’t always lucky (he had two potential wins thrwon away by dubious strategies), but he seemed to do way too many mistakes, especially in starts. Instead of being rememberd for good drives in the end of the season, he’s mostly rememberd for swearing at the radio.
19) Jenson Button : this time, Jenson’s pace wasn’t anywhere near Alonso’s. He had a very good race in Austria, but apart from that, there’s very little to remember from his season.
20) Felipe Nasr : there were high hopes for Nasr after a good first season, but this year he had no brilliant races like in 2015. Moreover, he was dominated by a driver which was considered like a bad pay driver. Sure, he saved the team by scoring points in Brazil, but there’s not much else to tell from his season.
21) Daniil Kvyat : it saddens me to write this, but Kvyat had awful season. Last year, he had beaten Ricciardo in the championship, but this year, Daniil was a different man. His season didn’t start well in Red Bull : one excellent race in China, but three bad ones (with a horrible mistake in his home race). Back in Toro Rosso, he never could show anything strong. Not only Sainz was stronger, he seemed to be always in front of the Russian driver. And while Sainz still managed to score big points in a car with an underpowered engine, Kvyat hasn’t come close to emulate that kind of performance. Hopefully next year, we will see the Kvyat from 14-15.
22) Felipe Massa : Massa had a good start of the season, before the European races. But since then, the Williams became slower, and Felipe seemed to fade away behind his teammate. It’s probably for the best that he ends his F1 career now…
23) Ryo Haryanto : was never impressive in GP2, and was even less impressive in F1, against a strong teammate though. His replacement by Ocon made us forget about him, because there was nothing to remember from him.
not rated) Stoffel Vandoorne : one race, no preparation, one point. I can’t wait to see him performing amazingly in 2017!
I know the Hungaroring also does this kind of package, also with 3 prices depending on which seat you take on Sunday.
That’s a real shame, because the Berlin airfield track was one of the best from last season (if not the best). It allowed a lot of action because of the wide track and the long and fast corners. It was also quite different from the other circuits, and thus was having a unique character. But now they have replaces this little gem with a dumb and uninspired street circuit, which looks like all the other circuits. The only good point is that it will look good on TV, and I fear it’s the most important aspect when it comes to designing an ePrix circuit…
I’ve finally bought my ticket, and I did it on http://www.bookf1.com. They seem to have the cheapest prices. A K-Grandstand ticket cost me 132€ there, instead of 184€ on china-grand-prix.com (which is gootickets.com btw). Another website was selling this ticket for a bit more than 200.
Now let’s hope I will receive my ticket without any problems.Hello,
I am considering a visit to the Chinese Grand Prix this year. That would be my first GP ever. I’ve got a couple of questions for people who already have been there.
– How did you buy tickets? Do you know if https://www.china-grand-prix.com is a reliable website?
– I’m thinking about buying a ticket on the backstraight grandstand (next to the slow corner after the mega straight). Has someone here been there? Can you see a lot of action? Are the grandstands packed there on race day?
– Is it possible to wander around the track and the different grandstands on Friday and Saturday?
– How about food? Can I buy food on the circuit? Is it it good? Expensive?Also, if you have any tips regarding this GP, you’re more than welcome to share them!
Thank you!
I don’t know all F1 cars, but this is probably my top 5 :
1- The Eagle T1G : A true old-school beauty, my personal favourite. http://www.roadandtrack.com/cm/roadandtrack/images/BZ/1967-gurney-eagle-grand-prix-car-001.jpg
2- The chassis of the Brabham BT52 looks also magnificent. http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-sI5eS9-76I4/T1vw45kKMZI/AAAAAAAADwI/VkN7o9J4tmY/s1600/bmw_06.jpg
3- The Lotus 79 is my favourite Lotus. https://www.racefans.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/goodwood07_lotus_79.jpg
4- The McLaren MP4/14 is one of my favourite McLarens, but it’s more for a nostalgic reason, because 1999 was the year when I started watching F1. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a6/Mika_Hakkinen_1999_Canada.jpg
5- And finally, I really like the Jordan 191. It looked great! http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_rYYKE9xxuwA/TUAy8x5sG7I/AAAAAAAAA8I/7fzPmzbej3A/s1600/jordan-191-2.jpg1. What country are you in (and state, if applicable) : Belgium
2. Which channels broadcast F1 near you? La Deux (RTBF) and the BBC
3. Do they show all the races live or only a limited number (if so, how many?) La Deux show all the races and the qualifying live (and one of the free practice session in Spa).
6. If they are a subscription channel, what does a full year’s subscription cost (excluding limited time offers)? La Deux is a free channel (with the DTV) but you have to pay a subscription to have the BBC (among 30-40 other channels). I don’t know the exact price, but it’s around 30€/month (company – Voo).
7. Do they broadcast coverage online? All the coverage is available on the RTBF website for 7 days. The coverage isn’t live and it appears a couple of hours after the race is over.I forgot the worst thing of the season :
The harshness (and somewhat inconsistency) of the marshals. I hated the huge number of harsh decisions by the marshals. Soon, a driver will fart and he will receive a drive-through. The decisions went far beyond the goal of assuring safety and fair racing. They went for the principle of putting rules and enforcing them at every occasion possible. We haven’t had defensive moves which were made to avoid an accident being puished because they didn’t respect track limits. I think that’s going too far.
The list of silly decisions this year is very long : the Alonso-Perez incident in Monaco (Alonso had to give the position back), the Massa – Grosjean incident in Budapest (drive-through for going 3 inches off track), the Hulkenberg-Perez incident in Singapore (Hulk gave the position for free), the Bianchi penalty in the Korean GP qualifying (the Marussia is penalised because it’s car is too slow), the Massa drive-through in Interlagos… and many more!
I will try to put mine :
1) Sebastian Vettel : dominant and flawless, one of the best performance ever in F1!
2) Nico Hülkenberg : not only he made the most out his car, he made even better. He dominated his teammate, and on multiple occasions he has beaten cars he shouldn’t have beaten
3) Kimi Raïkkönen : Kimi had a brilliant season. Very consistent throughout the year, and he collected a lot of trophies from the podium. Just too bad he finished his season on such a low note.
4) Fernando Alonso : another very strong season! He has scored a lot of points, and finished second in the championship, in front of guys which had a better car than the ferrari. But the driver wasn’t that perfect in qualifying, and he made a costly mistake in Malaysia.
5) Lewis Hamilton : the best british driver (currently) showed everyone he could be strong in another team. He did 5 pole positions (even when it was considered impossible), and managed to score 1 win. But, some grand prix weren’t that great (especially towards he end), where he couldn’ setup his car properly (Korea, Abu Dhabi), or where he did some mistakes (Brazil).
6) Nico Rosberg : very close to his teammate. 2 wins, 3 pole positions, and 2 podiums at the end of the season. Less points than Lewis because of some retirements. Almost equal to his teammate, but not quite I would say.
7) Romain Grosjean : he wasn’t very good at the start of the season, I had even lost faith in him. But after Germany, he seemed to have awakened, and for the last third of the season, he was the best driver (after Vettel). Romain has a bright future ahead of him!
8) Jenson Button : his car was rubbish, he didn’t always qualify well, but McLaren could always count on him to bring the most points possible in races. He saved his team from total disaster I would say.
9) Jules Bianchi : the strongest rookie of the year. It shows that it is essential to search for talent before budget. Jules always did the most he could out of his car. He finished in front of the Caterhams more than once, and gave his team it’s first top 10 finish in the championship!
10) Mark Webber : a really disappointing year. His teammate has finished with twice as many points than him, and Mark couldn’t have a win. More than that : he has finished in front of his teammate only once, when Sebastian has retired from a GP. He still managed some pole positions, but he lost the consistency required from him.
11) Sergio Perez : after a brilliant season in 2012, Sergio has disappointed me this year. He wasn’t a bad driver though. He was as quick than Jenson, sometimes quicker, and he was capable of some great performances, and some awesome overtakings. But he also lacked the consistency. He finished behind Button in the standings, but he should have been closer than him. Still, I think McLaren should have kept him for one more year…
12) Valtteri Bottas : it’s difficult to rate this driver, because his car was rubbish, and we barely saw him on TV (before he installed his rotating camera). But, Bottas was a match for Maldonado (something Rubens and Bruno couldn’t do) and Valltteri did 2 great performance, something Pastor couldn’t do.
13) Daniel Ricciardo : Daniel showed good races (and even more good qualifyings), but he also did stupid mistakes. There is good potential, but Daniel is still prone to do mistakes…
14) Paul Di Resta : Paul started hi season really well. His Bahrain GP was probably his best ever in F1, but at the middle of the season, he started to become invisible. Of course, 5 retirements in a row didn’t help, and the Force Indias wasn’t as good as in the start of the season. Still, he scored some good points in India and Abu Dhabi, but we didn’t see the great Paul Di Resta from the start of the season.
15) Felipe Massa : After a strong end of the season in 2012, I expected a resurrected Felipe Massa this year. He started well : second on the grid in Malaysia, P3 in Spain, but after that, the Ferrari started to get slower. While Alonso could still score good points and podiums, we didn’t see a single good race from Felipe since Monaco. Too bad.
16) Adrian Sutil : Started the year well, with good races in Melbourne and Monaco, but then he became invisible. The Force India was getting slower, and Adrian seemed to fade away behind his teammate.
17) Jean-Eric Vergne : Vergne had a good potential at the start of the season. He did a brilliant race in Canada, and seems to nurse his tyres well. But the driver is really unlucky, as he had a lot of problems with his car. And eventually, Daniel seemed to gain the upper hand on him towards the end of the season.
18) Giedo Van Der Garde : another rubbish pay driver, I thought at the start of the season. But Giedo proved on multiple occasions that he could drive well and do strong qualifyings. He seemed to be stronger than his teammate at the end of the season.
19) Esteban Guttierez : a weak driver. Completely outclassed by his über-teammate, he managed to score only once, when the Sauber was good. But I could say that Sauber was good on more than one race, and Esteban should have scored on multiple occasions.
20) Pastor Maldonado : after some good performances (and huge mistakes) in 2012, Pastor seemed to have lost something this year. He couldn’t do great performances (although a bad pitstop robbed him of a good place in one race), and wasn’t as stellar in qualifying this year. Moreover, his end of the season was disastrous, while his teammate shined.
21) Charles Pic : had a relative good start of the season. But, he seemed to be weaker this year. VDG, his rookie teammate, seemed to do a better job than him.
22) Heikki Kovalainen : Expected to be the saviour of Lotus, Heikki couldn’t do any miracles. Without any experience in the car, it’s almost impossible to score points. Still he managed to do a good qualifying in Austin.
23) Max Chilton : He might have finished all the races this year, but you are not running in any traffic because you are miles behind everybody else, it’s not so hard. The perfect pay driver : a lot of money brought in, but not a lot of talent has come with it.The best moments of this season :
– Grosjean’s “redemption”. At the end of last year (and even this year after Monaco), everyone thought his career was over. But Romain has managed to supress his ability to make mistakes, and now he can show his potential. This driver has a bright future, after he’s had a difficult past.
– The Spa-Francorchamps qualifying. The most thrilling day of the season. The end of Q3 was tense and unpredictable, and even when everyone thought the deal was done with the Red Bull toping the time, Lewis surprised everyone when he snatched pole at the last second!
– Hülkenberg confirms his talent. The Sauber was garbage, yet Nico managed to deliver extraordinary results (while his teammate was miles behind). The Korean GP is the highlight of his season.
– Rosberg’s two wins. Nico Rosberg has been an underrated driver for quite some time. I always believed he was as talented than Vettel, Alonso and Hamilton. He proved this this year : Lewis didn’t anihilated him. Rosberg has managed to score more wins than Lewis, and could have been much closer on points ibut he had more bad luck with his car
– Raïkkönen’s win at Melbourne. This was unexpected, and it was nice to see Lotus win a race.The worst moments of the season (and there are quite a lot of them!) :
– Mercedes’ tyre managment. Mercedes was an interesting team this season. Their car was a big improvement this year, and I felt it could have been a challenger to Red Bull for the title. BUT, it didn’t happen, because of the awful managment of the fragile Pirellis. Instead of seeing great battles between Nico, Lewis, Sebastian and Mark, we saw awful races from the Mercedes’ falling back behind other cars in races (like Bahrain and Spain).
– McLaren’s season is for me the worst thing that happened this season (as you might have guessed). It was painful to see it’s favourite team going from having the fastest car to having an average car. McLaren could never fight for podiums, was beaten by Force Indias at the start of the season, and managed to finish races without scoring points (without retiring). I came to the point when I was happy if a McLaren finished in the top 5, which would have been unthinkable in 2012. I still hoped for a miracle like it happened in 2009, but this miracle never came…
– The Pirelli’s disaster in Silverstone … and it’s outcomes. The tyres blowouts in Silverstone was a pitiful sight to see. It transformed the race into a russian roulette, which wasn’t nice to see, and could have been dangerous for other drivers. And the outcome of this event was even worse : Pirelli reversed to the old tyres, which was like a gift card for Red Bull to win both championships.
– Raïkkonen’s attitude at the end of the season (and whoever is behind it…). Ok, it’s never nice to not being payed, but Kimi’s attitude was really bad. It showed that for him money is more important than racing, and that goes against the spirit of racing, something that we fans like to see. Ferrari’s actions behind the scenes (if they are true), is also a bad aspect of the sport. It shows that Ferrari cannot win fairly.
– Vettel’s actions and reactions in Sepang. The fact that Vettel disobeyed his team orders just because he wanted to win could be considered childish, but I didn’t mind it too much now, because we saw a nice battle on the track. The fact that he then said he shouldn’t have done that was a nice thing to say. But I really didn’t like his reaction later, when he said he was right to do so. It felt like he treated his teammate like s***.The funniest moment of the season
The truck nonsense at the Korean GP : that was pretty funny!The most awesome camera shot of the year :
The slow motion of the bird flying off in Monaco :)I agree, there are too much replays of the start. They should do it like in Moto GP : show the replay of the start when nothing is happening on the track, even if they have to show it during the second half of the race.
Splitscreen is also a great idea : it could also be used to increase the drama (for example if they are showing a pitstop on one screen, and another driver trying to get the undercut on the other). Besides, now a lot of people have a widescreen TV : that should help.
But I think we could be quite patient expecting changes from an organisation who introduced HD coverage quite late.
Well I don’t think it would work, because the main advantage of this series is it’s cost. It’s free for the spectators, and the drivers don’t need such a big budget than GP2. But to keep this low price, I don’t think it would be possible to go far away (like North America), or to go to a country where there isn’t a motorsport culture (like Turkey).
It’s really a shame that there won’t be a WSR event in the Nurburgring next year. The circuit isn’t far away from my home, and it’s a nice (and cheap) way to see single-seater races and F1 shows. Well, there’s still Spa, but the event will most likely clash with my exams, and there is less entertainment there than in the german venue.
In another forum where I’m active, we’re making fun by showing how we would change the layout on this circuit. We take this picture : http://blog.autoplus.fr/moncet/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/03-yas-marina-circuit-mas.jpg , we draw our layout with Paint on it, and we’re showing our creations.
Theses are my propositions :
http://sournoishack.com/uploads/13167906803_yas_marina_circuit_mas.jpg
(with this one, I tried to stay a bit realistic, despite going around the hotel).
http://sournoishack.com/uploads/123708469603_yas_marina_circuit_mas_1_.jpg
(this one is less realistic, and it would need to have a brdige built like in Valencia).
http://sournoishack.com/uploads/42446028603_yas_marina_circuit_mas.jpg
(this one is lazy, and totaly unrealistic :-) ).What do you think about these?
