That's true enough and, if correct, is a thoroughly underhanded way of going about it.


Bernie's biggest interest is Bernie and Bernie's bank account.

If F1 teams embrace Horner's suggestions it simply provides Bernie with a justification for not increasing the team budgets.

In the real world, we've already seen how half-assed the results can be if teams rely on CFD rather than wind-tunnels and F1 fans are a fickle bunch.
They don't want their sport to die, they don't want it to move forward, they complain when the cars are barely any faster than GP2 cars and then they f**king-well complain when some of the teams do make their cars faster when others don't.

And, let's not forget that Bernie is the guy who insisted that teams which can't afford to race in F1 have no right to be there and, as a result of that philosophy, we're missing at least 4 cars from the grid this year.

If the money from the Sporting Fund was divided up differently it'd certainly create much whining from Ferrari, McLaren and, possibly, Mercedes but it it was divided up more fairly it could quite easily provide 14 teams with a bigger budget than Williams currently enjoys so it's reasonable to assume that we'd have 28 reasonable cars on the circuit providing good racing.
Trouble is, none of them might be red or silver.

I don't disagree with you but how do you ensure there's 'excitement'? F1 is not a single-make series and should never be that. It's the pinnacle of motor sport and the most technology-driven sport in the world. What people seem to talk about (and it's not a new idea) is to artificially limit the advantage any team has in order to preserve competition, but that would be 100% against the basic philosophy of the sport. The teams are constantly arguing for the freedom to innovate and develop but then there are complaints if any one team take full advantage of opportunity and gains a competitive edge. If you punish a team for it's success then where's the incentive for any of the teams to try and be the best?

Right now what's hurting the sport is the constraint on engine development. It's borne out of the good intention to limit costs but what its actually done is prevented Renault & Ferrari from really attacking Mercedes. I'd do away with this token system and I'd also allow much more in-season testing. I'd also implement a demand on the engine manufacturers to supply the lower teams with engines at a big cost reduction unless the top teams agree to a much fairer split of the money. Of course there's no guarantee that Mercedes won't just get even better, but that's F1 for you.

What has engine equalisation got to do with income distribution?

So other than the engine regulations being changed you think that Mclaren and Red Bull forgot how to use CFD which they were previous master of. I suppose that Ferrari some how figured it out and thats why they are now ahead of williams or should we beleive Massa that the Mercedes customer engine is clearly inferior to the works package.

Ron said at the end of last year that you can no longer get the most out of your car unless the engine and how it delivers power is designed around your car. Thats why they are going through all this pain with Honda. In the long term a bespoke engine is going to be worth it. Renault some how made their engine undriveable mercedes don't give their customer teams much power so the only team with a decent bespoke engine Ferrari lept up to the 2nd team on the grid.

Mercedes make the best engine but one of their customer teams will never win a GP.

Not really sure how any of that relates to Horner suggesting that the use of wind-tunnels should be banned to keep costs down.

They were booing the local politicians, its a tradition down under.

Why are you going off on a tangent horner has said the FIA should invoke engine equalisation.

No German Grand Prix?


http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/31930827

F1 won't want to be away from one of its most popular tracks for too long I feel given its tradition and support.

Bernie wanting more money expect Spa and Monza to follow soon always went to Silverstone but nearly £200 just to get in has put it out of my budget

If every team had a technical free for all you would end up with one team dominating from the start and everyone else taking a year to catch up. That is not sport - that is shooting fish in a barrel and would be about as riveting as watching paint dry

Wouldnt be surprised if Red Bull buy a stake in F1 in order to influence the regs in their favour.

If the latest rumours are to be believed, Renault will buy Torro Rosso, Audi will take over RBR and Dietrich Mateschitz will buy CVC's controlling stake in F1 and turn it into one big Red Bull banner.

Would explain why Bernies been sucking up to Mateschitz lately.

Presumably in that scenario Horner would take over from Bernie.

My gut reaction to this 'rumour' was OMG, what could be worse... then after thinking about it I'm not sure it wouldn't be a terrible thing. Red Bull are very good at running global 'Event' sports and are more than happy to try new things.

It'll never happen, though. Bernie would find a way to stay in control.

Was just reading some stuff about McLaren's current woes and something occurred to me....

Given the current state of the Honda engine, and where McLaren is currently qualifying, I'd suggest that it's in their best interests to just toss any broken or obsolete engines straight into the skip and replace them with a new engine that incorporates any improvements Honda make.

After all, what's the point of qualifying last and then nursing a dog of an engine through race after race, learning nothing new in the process, when you could, instead, bin it immediately, replace it with the latest revision of the engine, take a grid-penalty and then be in a position to immediately evaluate the new engine?

Wonder if we're going to see McLaren set some kind of record for engines-used and grid-penalties this year?

Now been confirmed that there won't be a German Grand Prix this year

http://m.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/31994404

Wonder if it will get reinstated

The two aren't mutually exclusive. Hence the sucking up.

Keeping an eye on Nasr this race, some people have been singing his praises for while, but never really paid much attention.

FP1 at Sepang and the surprises keep coming...

Alonso's got his race-suit on.
The Marussias aren't running.
Hamilton's Merc' has carked-it on track.

*EDIT*

ZOMG! Will Stevens completes a lap in the Marussia!

10.5s off the pace, mind you.

Think they ended up 6 or 7 seconds off the pace

Looked, to me, like Merc' were determined to put the "smack-down" on Ferrari in FP2.

Rosberg had problems on his quali' sim' and, as a result, Kimi ended up in P1.
The telemetry wasn't working on Hamilton's car and it was, apparently, suffering gearbox gremlins on the down-changes (after being rebuilt after FP1) but they still sent him out to do a rather scrappy lap which stole P1.

Not really sure what Merc' hoped to achieve with that.
Seems like, possibly, Hamilton insisted on doing a quali' sim' regardless of the state of the car or perhaps Merc' didn't like the idea of allowing Ferrari to finish a session in P1?

Don't mean to be petty but I'm chuffed to see Kimi out in Q2.

Hamilton had already slowed right down, behind Kimi, to create some space and then Kimi and Ericsson's shenanigans still managed to screw up Lewis' lap.

I bet Kimi will be wondering how both Hamilton and Ericsson got through but he didn't though.

*EDIT*

Also, I'm not sure if the quali' is happening now for TV reasons or if it's to deliberately make use of the almost inevitable afternoon rain in KL but, in either case, it's a bit of a daft idea IMO.

That's the one thing I love about Malaysia. The way the cloud seems to just build up and boom when it rains............IT RAINS! It's the unpredictability of it all

Bit early in the season for dirty tricks, isn't it?

If Rosberg and Hamilton weren't driving for the same team, I think Hamilton's team would have been lodging a protest at the way Rosberg forced Hamilton off-line in order to pass, through the most complex part of the circuit.

just when mclaren thought it couldn't get any worse,both cars again not getting out of q1 they might aswell go home and save themselves and the fans of the most embasring season ever

Early days but it was interesting to finally see how Alonso stacks up against Button.

So, we've had Hamilton and Alonso in the same team with Hamilton coming out just ahead.
Alonso and Raikonnen in the same team with Alonso coming out way ahead.
Vettel and Raikonnen with Vettel just ahead.
Hamilton and Button with Hamilton just ahead.
Alonso and Button with Button just ahead (so far, anyway).

So what does that tell us?

Seems to suggest that Vettel is on a par with Kimi, who was trounced by Alonso and who was, in turn, barely beaten by Hamilton.
And the fact that Button and Alonso are fairly close would also seem to tie-in with the results we saw when Button and Hamilton were team-mates.

So, seems like Hamilton, Alonso and Button are the cream of the crop, ahead of Kimi and Vettel.

Course, to reiterate, it is still early days so it'll be interesting to see how the various battles turn out as drivers settle into new teams.

It wasn't as bad as Australia but the Honda engine is no world beater out of the blocks. Reports indicate the car itself isn't the problem but the engine which it is not developing full power due to problems with the energy recovery system. Hopefully they can sort that out as otherwise they are in for a very poor season.