It is a very stupid idea and so unfair to any driver leading the championships. Lewis could be 40 points ahead and still lose if he didn't finish the last race. All that hard work done for nothing.

nah the C-BOOBIES channel

Double points for every race

Last thing F1 needs is a plastic champion. Hopefully it doesn't come to that.

3 car teams would be a tragedy too.

Content with the result. Hamiltons mistake probably cost him the win but all is well. Great job by Nico.

Im already feeling sick about the last race. Gonna be a total wreck that weekend.

Best podium ever!

Be funny if, after all the speculation about the possibility of the championship being decided by a reliability issue, either Hamilton or Rosberg manages to stick it in the hedge, or into the back of another car, in Abu Dhabi.

Course, given the nature of the Marina Bay circuit, it's almost impossible to screw up badly enough that you'll actually hit something solid.

Anybody remember how many times a WDC has been determined by a mechanical failure?
The one that immediately springs to mind is Mansell's famous puncture in Oz in '86.
I wouldn't count '94 as a "mechanical failure", when Schuey rammed Hill, but did Villeneuve win it in '97 after Schuey's car let go?

I suppose, when it comes down to it, if either Hamilton or Rosberg's car breaks down and the other one wins the WDC as a result it wouldn't be a particularly good thing but it wouldn't actually be the fault of the double-points, at least.

Nope, Schuey reverted to his karting days and gave him bash after a cheeky late braking move.

His car did let go after he did it though, right?

I vaguely recall thinking "Ha! Didn't work this time, did it?" afterwards.
I just wasn't sure if that's what led to his retirement, though, or whether they were unrelated.

Just looking at the F1.com website and I see that, as a result of it, Schuey was demoted to last in the championship.
Would have been kinda bizarre if he'd gone on to win the race and then been penalised.

Incidentally, kinda puts things in perspective to see Schuey disqualified from the entire season after, IIRC, a move that was fairly similar to the one we saw JEV pull on Grosjean last weekend.
I guess that level of punishment was applied because it was a dirty attempt at winning the WDC rather than for the actual collision, itself.

This 3 car nonsense from RB & Ferrari seems to be purely a negotiation tactic from the top Renault team & Ferrari to put pressure on Merc to relent over the engine development freeze. There's no contractual obligation for any team to provide a 3rd car unless the grid falls below 16 cars IIRC, and that isn't going to happen.

In any case why do Ferrari & Renault think that they will be able to develop their engines more than Mercedes would? I suspect what they're really worried about is Honda coming in with an extra year to develop their engine using back-channel Mclaren knowledge and being the second best PU off the bat.

A pretty boring race to be honest, with not much going on apart from the last 10 laps or so.

Thought the podium interviews by Piquet were hilarious. Ask Lewis about his girlfriend and then blank him. I have to say, that was poor form from Piquet. No doubt somebody had a word in his ear, and he then went back to Lewis (once they had called him back out) to talk to him about racing.

Looks like Lewis didnt 'add much value' this race. He had around 10 laps where he was in DRS range yet wasnt able to overtake Nico. Well done to Nico...kept his chances alive of the WDC. Also Kimi keeping keeping Alonso behind him for 3 odd laps, whilst on tyres that were alot older than Alonsos. Looks like what I was say about Kimi being a good driver, were proven right. Just a pity he hasnt really had the desire since the start of the season.

If it wasnt for the mistake Nico made at Austin, he could have won that race, and then the final race would have been more interesting. It would have been a simple case of whoever wins in Abu Dhabi, wins the WDC. As it stands a 2nd for Hamilton is enough.

I assume you mean a final race mechanical. Started following F1 in the late 70s so my memory might not be that reliable but, just mentally skimming through what I recall, 1998. Schumacher started on pole but couldn't get away on the formation lap (mechanical or stalled due to driver error?). Started from the back and later punctured.

Also I seem to remember Prost having a problem with his car in the 83 finale at SA but he finished the race. Reutemann also reported problems after the 1981 Las Vegas finale with his car (still finished) but Williams engineers couldn't find anything wrong with it (PS - anyone else remember watching the whole race live primetime on the Beeb on a Saturday night, in the days when their F1 coverage was dire?).

Got to kind of agree with you, the talk of 3 cars is all about the engine freeze. Does the three car rule get triggered if there are only 16 cars, or does it get triggered if it falls below 16? If it gets triggered if there are only 16 cars, RBR could withdraw Torro Rosso, thus giving us 16 cars. Thus if they are serious about 3 cars, RBR could make it happen.

It looks like Sauber have announced two pay drivers for next year. This leaves Sutil and Guttierez without a seat for next year. Although Sutil claims his contract expires at the end of next season. As smaller teams struggle, you can see more and more paid drives coming in. Not ideal for the long term future of F1. As drivers that do have talent but no sponsors wont get a chance (or limited chance) in F1. I suppose they would have to come through the driver development programs that the big teams run.

I wonder if you would describes Sennas WDC win in 90 in the same way.

Well yeah, actually I would, to some extent at least.

Course, it was somewhat mitigated by the fact that Jean Marie Balestre really was a complete tosser who really did seem to have it in for either McLaren or Senna and, by his actions, provoked Senna into a hotheaded decision after at least 2 years of vindictive decisions detrimental to Senna and McLaren.

And then, of course, you have to ask whether it was just a coincidence that a French FIA president seemed willing to make decisions which always favoured a French driver, whether Balestre was acting in that way of his own volition or whether Prost was complicit in his actions.

We should bear in mind that, in 1989, Prost won a WDC in much the same manner (with additional assistance from Balestre, of course) so Senna's win in 1990 was simply considered "payback" by most fans.

I'm pretty sure the 3 car clause kicks in if there are less than 8 teams so RB cannot trigger it be pulling TR out, which i don't think they would anyway.

Why are RB the only ones with a B Team anyway? It seems to work well for them and gives them that little bit more influence as they are in effect running 4 cars. Surely Ferrari & Mercedes could see the advantage of having a B team on the grid. I know the new Haas team will be pretty much a Ferrari B team and I would have thought Sauber would be a good fit for Mercedes...


This Sauber situation is just the epitome of all that's wrong in F1 now. They have secured about £100m funding through the driver changes, the sponsorship they bring and the £30m historic team payment Sauber get and that's just enough to see them through to next year. They say it secures them for 2015 (because they are also banking on £30m appearance money for at least 10 races in 2015, £3m per race) but the truth is they are having to pay off their existing drivers (3 of them that have contracts) and debt from this season so they actually only have just enough to get through the winter. The worst thing for Sauber is they cannot negotiate for fairer distribution of money as they get this £30m historic team payment which is part of the problem. It's an utter mess and Sauber only need 1 thing to go wrong in their cash flow and they go under.

Must admit, I'm wondering if this is the basis of a lot of the rumours surrounding Alonso at the moment.
Maybe all the stuff about him starting his own team, or going to Haas, along with his own comments that his car for next year "won't have a Merc' engine" stem from some plan for Alonso to remain linked to Ferrari, running in an "independent" 3rd car, sponsored by Haas?
Course, the simpler, more likely, theory is that he's on his way to McLaren.

Personally, I'm a bit cynical about the way RBR is linked with STR.
Seems like RBR just use STR as a sort of "fairground attraction", whereby anybody with enough money can rock up and buy themselves an F1 experience and, of course, the way it's all run means that RBR can cherry-pick any exceptionally good drivers for themselves and earn money by continuing to manage and/or sell off other drivers as well.

I guess, on that same basis, it could also work for Merc' or Ferrari but, then again, more conventional thinking might suggest that, rather than going to all the additional effort and expense, it's more straightforward to just focus on developing your "premiership" team and that there'll always be a Hamilton, Alonso or Vettel around to throw money at in order to get them to drive for you.

If you're going to take into account what might have happened with Rosberg then using the same hypothesis with Hamilton would probably have meant the last race would be irrelevant.

However there is some instances that Senna wanted things changing to suit him. For instance, he wanted the pole position to be switched to the other side of the track. His request was refused. However people forget to point out that the pole position was in the same position since they raced in Japan. Yes Jean Marie was biased, but thay doesnt excuse Senna for what he did. So lets not make excuses for Senna. If it was a dirty way to win the WDC for Schumacher, then it was a dirty way for Senna.

I wasnt going into the bad luck both drivers have had. I was simply pointing out, that if he had won, the final race would be more exciting. Nothing more.

I can't believe Christian Horner is engaged to Gerri Halliwell. It seems an unlikely partnership.

Track and tire conditions added to that. Lewis has taken the best out of tires catching up, and lacked the grip to make the most of DRS as he went into the twisty bits of the track in Nico's aero wake.

Worn tires + reduced downforce in a series of corners = a hard time. I'm willing to bet that Nico would have fared worse if the positions has been reversed. In fact, I KNOW he would fare worse given his moaning at Hungray and inability to get within DRS range let alone make a pass on fresher tires.



If, but, maybe. The mistake that Nico made in Austin was by being slower and not adjusting to the changing requirements of the track and tire compound. Lewis had already made the pass by braking later while his tires were fresh enough and denying Nico the ideal line to maintain traction. This whole "I pressed the wrong button" is just a rather lame excuse - Lewis had executed the pass well before it was time to open the throttle.

I like how you castigate Lewis for being failing to make the pass while ignoring basic track and car/tire dynamics while trying to explain away his pass on Nico as "only happening because of Nico's error" and not because Lewis was actually the better driver on track that day.

And if anything, if it wasn't for that spin, I'd say that Lewis was the better driver at Interlagos as well.

So it seems that at least Ferrari are coming clean on the engine row


It seems that they would prefer that Mercedes not be allowed to modify their engine, while everybody else does, which is why I imagine Mercedes' compromise for next year was rejected. I was never under any doubt that this was ever about costs - it's always been about not having the guts to stick to a set of rules that they agreed to because they messed up big-time.

I don't see why Merc should loose their PU advantage just because the other manufacturers screwed up. They knew the rules. They agreed to them. Live by the sword, die by the sword.

If they wanted they could do a deal and buy Merc engines for next season! Fact is if Renault don't improve Red Bull probably will switch engine supplier although I can't see them going to Mercedes. Honda is a possibility although again I'm not sure they'll want to be subordinate to Mclaren. What would be good would be some other engine suppliers coming in, driving down the cost of engines for the smaller teams. Cosworth have a PU floating around and if the rumours of Audi coming into the sport are true, they would presumably use their own engine.

I suspect we will see a compromise where by there will be a limited amount of development over the winter, perhaps limited to certain aspects of the PU such as the combustion engine and control electronics, followed by a strict development freeze for a number of years which was always the intention. In hind-sight it was a tad unfair to not allow a season of development before a freeze but everyone signed up to the same rules...

This is what is already in the rules though. There is a limited amount of development allowed over the winter, with a freeze after testing.

The issues is that the other PU manufacturers are trying to develop towards Merc's current performance levels, without knowing how far past that they need to go to get close to Merc's 2015 PU. What they want is in-season development to allow them to get closer to Merc's level. But this only works if they unfairly, prevent Merc from in-season development as well - which is what Ferrari are essentially asking for.

Merc had put forward a compromise that they would be in favour of a token system, which meant that ALL manufacturers would be allowed to "spend" on in season development. But the other manufactures rejected this, partly because they want Merc to not be allowed in-season development and partly because I think they suspect Merc have already identified areas where they would like to develop in 2015 and have based the tokens proposal on that plan.

Even that's not the full story.

In 1989 Senna got pole, ended up on the wrong side of the track, complained about it, was ignored and then ended up being behind Prost in the race, leading to the collision which won Prost the championship.

In 1990 Senna asked for pole position to be on the opposite side of the track and the circuit officials agreed.
Then, after Senna got pole position, Balestre overruled the circuit officials and insisted that pole position remain on the dirty side of the track, which is probably what upset Senna so much that he decided he just flat-out wasn't going to let anybody get through turn 1 ahead of him.

The whole thing was certainly a bit of a shambles for F1 but I think most fans probably feel that the combination of the way he lost the WDC in '89 and the way he was stitched up in '90 meant they had some sympathy for his actions, and there was certainly more justification for them than there were for Schuey's actions in '94 and '97.


Well, that's the thing, isn't it?

It's all very well whining that Merc' are trying to protect their advantage but does anybody really think that if Ferrari or Renault were currently ahead they wouldn't be doing exactly the same thing?

To be fair, Merc' raise a fair point.
Kinda like how Lotus went to the effort of building a car that was easy on the tyres a couple of years ago, doing well and then seeing their advantage evaporate after the rules were changed, merc' have gone to the effort of designing an engine that produces the maximum amount of power under the current rules.
If they'd known that the rules were going to be changed at the end of this season, I'm sure they'd say that they would have designed the engine differently so that it could be developed further.

So, Ferrari and Renault have built a half-arsed engine. They're going to have to chuck it in the bin and start again (no doubt incorporating a split-turbo design) if they want to compete with Merc'.
Why should Merc' have to bin their own design of engine and start again, or risk being left behind, as well?

*EDIT*

Bit rich the way Mattiacci is whining that the current regulations are at odds with Ferrari's corporate ideology of innovating and competing.

What, exactly, stopped Ferrari from innovating and competing a bit harder this time last year in order to produce a better engine for 2014?

I think what he really means is that the current regulations are stopping them from ripping-off Merc's split-turbo design and one would hope that stealing ideas from other companies isn't Ferrari's corporate philosophy at all.