2017 F1 Thread

I made the mistake of looking at a photo gallery from the Barcelona testing.  Now I'm pretty excited to see the new season get started.

Personal opinions (pre-season) - I think all three Renault teams are going to be stronger than most expect (Toro Rosso has an amazing chassis, and will finally have a real power unit, the Enstone Renault team will actually have a vehicle designed around the correct power unit as well, and RBR are clearly making an effort to stay under the radar until Melbourne).  I genuinely hope Honda can at least deliver a reliable engine that hits the fuel consumption figures, even if they're down slightly on power [it's going to be another development year for them], and the Ferrari power teams are probably staying in the same place (not a bad thing really).

Beneficiaries of this will obviously be Carlos Sainz Jr. and Nico Hulkenberg, as they'll probably be the best of the mid-field drivers (along with Checo Perez)

Too early to tell, but looks like there's a chance McLaren may cut Honda loose at the end of the year. Things are not looking good on that team. (Edit; Alonso may not stay if the car is not competitive.)

Cars look awesome with the big tires, more mechanical grip is good. Sucks that the aero changes did nothing to enable following close/overtaking (as LH says below).

"My engineers say it's going to be a lot harder to overtake," Hamilton said. "If we see overtaking is worse, it's going to be worse for the fans, the spectacle will be worse so I'm hoping that's not the case.
"For example, I heard tyres might not be as grippy as we'd hoped but the aero downforce is going to be huge because it's a bigger, wider car so there's going to be more downforce, so the car behind will be affected even more than it ever was before."

I'm similarly gutted that the braking zones are going to be shortened to the point where overtaking is going to be pretty artificial, and require a big pace delta to achieve.  I knew they'd be really slip-angle sensitive (basically all the downforce disappears once sideways), and the two otherwise mystifying spins make sense as soon as the added aero is put into consideration.  

The good news in the mid-pack is that the drivers are making such a huge difference.  The four drivers I consider most underrated (Hulkenberg, Perez, Grosjean, and Sainz Jr.) were able to show how much better they were in the car, while their teammates were in a different struggle.
I'm also super excited to see how Giovinazzi does in the race -- from going to a call-up out of the blue that sounded more like a prank call to nearly making it out of Q1 (just a small lockup in T15 - he was on pace to outrun Ericsson the rest of that lap), if he can avoid getting collected and get clear of Palmer/Stroll/Vandoorne, then he'll have placed himself on a trajectory to replacing Kimi when he retires from the Scuderia.

I agree with what Brundle said about Wehrlein & Giovinazzi. "If that was me, I'd never come out of the car, no matter how sick I was." Last thing you want to do is give anyone a chance at talking your seat. Perez is a very good driver. Always takes care of his tires. So stoked on Vettel's win. Good to see Ferrari back.

Kimi plays hockey

Good to see what looks like a fight for the title this year. Rumors of Alonso to Renault in 2018. Although Kimi outpaced Seb at the end of last season, this has to be his last year. Get a younger guy in that seat.

I'm happy when Vettel wins.

F1 cars should incorporate collision detection so drivers like Stroll don't get screwed.  Almost every new consumer car has it.

Waiting for McLaren Honda to tell Alonso to shut his trap. Same comments about how he is so good & the power unit is crap. Dude is functioning as his own PR firm. I still think he's the best driver in F1 (top 3 anyways), but c'mon bud, you don't have to tell anyone & everyone who will listen repeatedly.

Should be interesting to see how team orders shape up with the way standings are & the results of Russian qualifying.

That Russian race was terrible to watch.

Posted by: Stuminator

Waiting for McLaren Honda to tell Alonso to shut his trap. Same comments about how he is so good & the power unit is crap. Dude is functioning as his own PR firm. I still think he's the best driver in F1 (top 3 anyways), but c'mon bud, you don't have to tell anyone & everyone who will listen repeatedly.

Should be interesting to see how team orders shape up with the way standings are & the results of Russian qualifying.

He's mechanically one of the top drivers, and has been for quite a long time.  When the car underperforms as badly as it does, he can constantly claim he's driving the best he has in his life, and nobody notices or cares.  The reason he isn't in a championship winning ride is primarily the stuff you've mentioned, so yes I agree completely.  If he was just bummed out, then the smart move would be to constantly explain that he feels super bad for Vandoorne, who basically has finished only half the races and participated in at best half of the practice sessions during race weekends.

To be honest, I'm a bit surprised McLaren didn't cut him loose sooner - Fernando could go and race WEC in Ferraris and stack trophies every year, McLaren could run Stoffel and somebody like Felipe Nasr (or keep Jenson in the car if they insist on paying out tons of money for driving talent when the car isn't up to scratch).  Clearly they're thinking much bigger picture with the entire endeavor, and I guess when the road car side of the business is going great there's no immediate impetus to stop being inefficient, but it does strike me as a bit odd.
Similar deal with why the Honda-Sauber deal is only coming through for 2018.  That should have been an immediate thing, so that there would be 4 cars worth of data made available (and now that Sahara Force India has outgrown McLaren as a parent team and no longer needed to run customer transmissions and get technical aid, Sauber or MRT was an obvious choice)

Damn, tuned in too late to see the Vet/Ham fireworks.

Bloody great race so far.  Can Stroll hold on to second...

Wow.