TBK-Light.com

"We have Kimi, they will come naturally..."

That seems to be the case to be honest. They lost Honeywell at the start of the year as their title sponsor but for a top team, they should have done better in that department.

Anyway, this is wake up call #3 for F1 in the space of one year. Will there be a response? Probably not.

_________________
Dan Wheldon | 1978 - 2011

why not having zero pitstops and leave it all to the drivers?

_________________
Motorsports trend for 2024: everything is a bad taste joke now

Mandatory Pit Stops = NO!

I don't think they should even be forced to run both tyre compounds, Give the teams/drivers the tyres & let there race how they want.

I'd even go as far as letting them mix compounds, For example hard's on the rear & soft's on the front & the same left/right.

Tbh, I was expecting that to happen since Kimi was announced at Ferrari. Well, at least Maldonado have raw speed, so that should be interesting if Lotus produces a good car, something which I'm not expecting tbh, as Phil.

A line up of Hulk/Perez would be very good for FI. Sauber is the team that seems to be left with only mediocre drivers. And that if they will still be on the grid given their financial situation and the lack of PDVSA and Russian/Sirotkin's money. I can't see Slim keep funding Gutierrez either. Sauber is just fucked

Maldonado does have raw speed (although Bottas trumped him this year) but there's no evidence that he'll actually be able to harness it properly. I really, really hope he can because that would be a good team. But we've had nearly a decade of Maldonado running into things, so there's little hope that he'll stop. Maybe he can seek inspiration from Grosjean, but I think it's a different mentality. Grosjean knew what he was doing wrong and was in tears after Suzuka 2012. Maldonado still rides off the back of Spain 2012 as justification for his approach and never takes blame for anything, so doesn't think that he needs to change. And, if PDVSA/Venezuela keep paying for his seats, he won't think he needs to. He believes that Lotus chose him on merit.

I was reflecting on something he told us at Spa: “I had a phone call from my friend of many years and he was calling me on the beach saying ‘Oh I read you are going to Ferrari, you are going to Lotus, you are going to many teams’. I am fully focused on this season and there is no point saying I am going somewhere else. I am in a good place; for sure the results are not there but we work together and I hope to stay and be here next year. To win the championship with Williams before going to another team is my mission.”

How time changes!

_________________
Dan Wheldon | 1978 - 2011

I just stumbled across this great quote provided by Frank Williams (about Maldonado) following Spain 2012...



http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/99626

Clearly in 2013 Williams started to realise he is a wanker.

_________________
BTCC Pick Em's Champion 2010
Formula Fun Cup Champion 2013
http://www.the-fastlane.co.uk

Pastor is goofy and I think the only way he can keep his head, more or less, straight is if the car is good enough for podiums. Besides his brilliant Barcelona win, his performance at Singapore in 2012 was superb as well. He missed the podium because the car broke down.

It's curious, if he likes the car's handling and it allows him to put it up there, then Maldonado seems to have a "cooler mind" and not mess up.

But Lotus have lots of debts to Kimi, lost a lot of important people on the engineering side and there is the issue with Renault engine not being that good next year.

Maybe Hulk will have a faster car in FI than he would have in 2014 Lotus

Lotus and Maldonado deserve each other. Shame Grosjean's going to be caught up in the middle of it all.

Judging by Benetton/Renault/Lotus' record with "number 2" drivers, it could be that Grosjean is now the focus for the team and Maldonado will get less of the focus. It would certainly make sense if they did that, anyway

Maldonado was on for somewhere between 4th and 6th at Singapore, never a podium. He was however on for a podium at Valencia, until...

_________________
BTCC Pick Em's Champion 2010
Formula Fun Cup Champion 2013
http://www.the-fastlane.co.uk

This is off topic, but wasn't he ahead of Alonso untill his car broke down or Williams made some pit mistake or something?

I pretty much remember him strongly heading for a 3rd untill Williams screwed him either with strategy or car failure :confused:

BTW, more than half of PDVSA's money are going solely to Kimi A Finnish getting his share out of the Venezuelan oil commodity

I don't hate the two pit stop thing. Yes what you all suggest is better. But it should mean more flat out racing shouldn't it? No more eeking out tyres? But I have no experience of it.
To be clear, I'm not saying it's the answer, but I'll give it a chance.

Combination of bad strategy and car failure. He was third behind Vettel and Button and ahead of Alonso. Pitted on lap 29 but team put supersofts while Alonso got softs with which he run to the end. Safety car came out due to Karthikeyan's crash and Maldonado pitted again, was now 10th before retiring.

It's another restriction. Keep this up and f1 will be yet another spec series.

And no more tyre warmers. Let the drivers warm the tyres up!!!

Tyre warmers were due to be banned for 2009 (As a cost cutting measure) but the drivers complained it would be too dangerous so the idea was scrapped.

Article from 2008:
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/66683

And 2012 when the idea was discussed again (Again to cut costs):
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/100671


Champcar had over 900bhp up until around 2003, Less downforce & less efficient brakes compared to F1 & they managed fine without tyre warmers so im not entirely sure banning them in F1 would really be that much more dangerous.

Apparently, I was wrong about PDVSA money going to pay Kimi:

http://adamcooperf1.com/2013/11/29/lotu ... nado-deal/

Current F1 rear tyre have 370mm of width and that has been the case since 1993. It's a R13, although I'm not sure about the aspect ratio but given how high the profile is, maybe it's even more than 45%. Well, not that this have anything relevant to the point you're making, sorry for being pedantic.

I have read several books regarding tyres in general and racing tyres, as well, and I'm not sure it is necessary to increase tyre's durability to stretch it's operational temperature window.

Current Pirellis window is 25ºC. It is just that the softest window is at a lower range than the hardest, eg, 2013 Supersofts' optimal operational temperature is from 85 to 110ºC while the hards's are 110-135ºC.

Plus, tyre warmers are a relative new thing into racing. The manufactures have a know know of contruction before it became the norm.

But imo, as Phil said earlier about the fixed number proposal, this is very far from a F1 priority. There are much more things I would like to be changed first, eg, regarding tyres themselves, I would love lower aspect ratios but teams are heavily against the idea when Pirelli proposed it last year and when Michelin showed interested in introducing their LMP1-like low profile tyres

Not only low profiles have a much better look, imo, but they also give more tractional force. I think teams are against it because the tyres are the main "springs" in a F1 car which have a very stiff ride. The current big sidewalls allows for lot's of impact absorption while with low profile tyres the teams would need to do a fresh start with designs of suspension,springs and etc and that's something nobody is willing to put money on

au contraire... if everyone is on the same strategy, teams will use that to overtake. So we will see

start - nothing happens - pit stop - nothing happens - pit stops - nothing happens - finish

I really feel it should all up to the drivers/teams on the strategy, hence if they are able to last a full race distance on the same tyres, let them go for it!