2017 Italian Grand Prix Chat and Predictions

Always a danger when looking back to the past. You tend to only remember the best bits and the worst. Not the mundane, even if that's what it mostly was. I know f1 isn't exactly golden right now but don't be fooled into imagining it has always been awesome. Rose tinted and all that.

There's a fine line to getting a competitive f1, it's never as easy as we hope. We can only hope it gets closer to this line in years to come.

 

But that added to the excitement. Your guy could be a country mile out in the lead and you're just praying that the engine doesn't go in to meltdown. Every bit of oil burning had had you in palpitations.

 

Fair comment . Remember the season when McLaren won all but 1 of the races ? If that was merc , I would be the first to moan . At least that was Senna and Prost .

 

Have to agree with you all.

It's easy for me to look back at the 90s when I was a kid and thinking F1 was great, ultimately Benetton and Williams dominated 94-95, Williams Renault were the only team who were winning in 96, we had a good Villanueva v Schumacher in 97 and then McLaren absolutely dominant in 98.

I personally think F1 has to think about how it closes the pack from front to back. There has to be more reliance on the driver. Imagine if we had 10 people capable of a race win? Quali would be electric and on the edge of your seats, and races would be tense and close, one mistake costing a win or a podium.

To do that however means equalising the budgets. That's where the issue lies and always has.

What an absolute pity that we have Danny Ricc, Max Verstappen, Fernando Alonso, Carlos Sainz, Nico Hulkenberg all 1min+ behind the leaders.

That's not because of driving ability.

 

Read an interesting idea on PU/Gearbox penalties.
Instead of punishing the drivers by using grid penalties for component changes remove constructors points!!! It would hurt the teams as prize money is based on points but it would not cause cars to be out of position. It might have been a better race at Monza if Red Bull had not started at the back!

 

wasnt it weird that Red Bull were better than Ferrari on a power track?

 

I'm undecided on this. Merc for instance are now in a position to throw away WCC points. What if they now changed all their power units for the next race to give their drivers an advantage through to the end of the season?

The idea of the penalties is to stop drivers/teams refreshing components for performance advantages. If a driver starts on pole with a brand new engine then they have an advantage over a competitor who remains within the regs.

 

Not really, you could see how much the engine de rated at Spa. Probably explains why no teams are trying do get the donkey in the back of their car.

 

You'll never get real close racing because of the aero effect of the cars.

Touring cars is great as aero is much less of a factor, so mechanical grip is more premium so they can run closer, go side by side more etc.

Remember though the days of Super-Touring when they added wings, diffusers etc to the cars? the racing really suffered. DTM is the same, its actually really dull because its all aero, despite the cars being built roughly around the same spec.

 

Good point.

 

It's becoming apparent that the regs are too strict and the expectations of reliability in the power units and components are too optimistic. I'm not sure that even with the old V8's and V10's they could run a season on just 4 engines. The stresses on a racing engine are just too great unless you really detuned them, which essentially means putting a horsepower cap on the engines. Great for evening out the field, but what's in it for the manufacturers?

Would it make much difference if they went back to 6 units each per year, would certainly be a lot less penalties and drivers being unfairly penalised and the costs will hardly rise that much.


Not much you can do about Honda. 20 units wouldn't be enough for them to escape a penalty.............they'd be better off running VTEC units from an old Civic at the moment.

The speeds they go around the local trading estate car parks would make you think they'll give the McHon-d'oh a good run for its money.

 

Yes .

It's got silly , and I think I saw Horner saying next year it's down to 3 engines . Madness .

Would not surprise me if this years WDC was decided on penalties accrued .

 

I think that's the compromise, go back to a reasonable number of components for the season that is reasonable from both a cost and a performance perspective.

The Merc team generally have less reliability than the customers, purely because they are running at an increased performance. Maybe Williams could run all season on 3 engines, but the works team needs 5+ because of the performance they are chasing. This then goes back to SGT's point - saving an engine at the end of a race is technically no different to saving an engine at the end of a season - with regards to not knowing who will peak when and win.

 

Ooh that's something I miss, the "blue smoke". Small clouds at the end of straights, possibly terminal, possibly not. That definitely added drama!

 

And the early day's of the Turbo's BOOM !

 

i meant in the long term when RB used to suit twisty tracks and the Ferrari was the power car

 

less front wing, more ground effect, free tyre choice, breakable engine contracts, proper 'push to pass' DRS that gives everyone the same amount of DRS usage per race, no in race telemetry.

that might help F1 a bit, especially the last bit

 

Is the rule to not give drivers advice still a thing?

because im sure somebody was given advice over the radio mid race on where to improve where his team mate was going faster. I think it was Verstappen

 

Vettel said before ths race thst Ferrari would be good at every track snd under any conditions...two things came up here..they were aweful in the wet and they underperformed in the dry. Even the Red Bulls were faster. Also Ferrari tyres seemed to be falling faster thrn Mercedes and the Bulls. I wonder if Ferrari will be thst strong in Singapore... i belive Mercedes will do.better than a lot of people expect, but i suspect the Red Bulls will take the race if they qualify well. But if Mercedes get on the front row they will win there too. Ferrari has to lock out the front row or else.theymight be in trouble.

 

yeah, it was Verstappen, I can't say whether the driver's advice rule is still in play or not as the FIA have given Max a different set of rules to everyone else