F1 2014 Season
- Thread starter UnobservantBastard_sl
- Start date
Early predictions that will most likely be wrong:
* Ricciardo will show great pace and be on par with Vetell early in the season then suddenly start having unexplained mechanical problems
* Williams will benefit hugely from Massa and see a jump of a few spots in the constructors championship by the end of the year
* Maclaren will be a shitheap for the first few races while Dennis restructures things after the fuckups left over from Whitmarsh
* Alonso will spit the dummy by mid-season due to Kimi not treating him like god and letting him pass every time he wants to
* Ricciardo will show great pace and be on par with Vetell early in the season then suddenly start having unexplained mechanical problems
* Williams will benefit hugely from Massa and see a jump of a few spots in the constructors championship by the end of the year
* Maclaren will be a shitheap for the first few races while Dennis restructures things after the fuckups left over from Whitmarsh
* Alonso will spit the dummy by mid-season due to Kimi not treating him like god and letting him pass every time he wants to
Goatface
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my predictions
1st 4 races will see a lot of break downs and 4 different winners
ham will be the 1st repeat winner
alonso and vettle will be top 2, but in the end, championship will be over again before texas
Kimi won't get a podium
Lotus won't pay anyone again and end up moving in farther down the ladder
Massa will get a podium
nbc's coverage will be shittier than last year
1st 4 races will see a lot of break downs and 4 different winners
ham will be the 1st repeat winner
alonso and vettle will be top 2, but in the end, championship will be over again before texas
Kimi won't get a podium
Lotus won't pay anyone again and end up moving in farther down the ladder
Massa will get a podium
nbc's coverage will be shittier than last year
The Williams might be decent this year. Claire has done an epic amount of work trying to dig her team out of the shithole that Toto Wolff put it into.
The only prediction I'm going to make is that Mercedes will start shitting themselves right around midseason once the Brawn Effect will wear off and everyone will see how big of a twat Wolff is. Lowe could turn out to be the man, but he has giant shoes to fill. I'm not holding my breath.
What's the over/under on number of cars that finish the first race?
My guess is 10. With the season component limits I'm guessing any trouble with any single piece will push teams to retire as opposed to running the full duration at reduced power and risking damaging other components. ERS failures this year are going to lose seconds per lap, not 10ths like last years KERS...
My guess is 10. With the season component limits I'm guessing any trouble with any single piece will push teams to retire as opposed to running the full duration at reduced power and risking damaging other components. ERS failures this year are going to lose seconds per lap, not 10ths like last years KERS...
Bahrain testing underway, and halfway through day one Red Bull still haven't got their car on track. Newey isn't happy with the cooling requirements of the new Renault engine, but if they don't find a solution soon he'll have to compromise on the aerodynamics at the back of his car.
McLaren are looking very strong, as are Mercedes. Ferrari seem to be doing OK although they had one come to a halt early on.
McLaren are looking very strong, as are Mercedes. Ferrari seem to be doing OK although they had one come to a halt early on.
Just how much trouble are Red Bull in, exactly?
"Red Bull drivers Sebastian Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo completed 116 laps between them - a vast improvement over their experience in Jerez - but that was still about a third of the mileage achieved by rivals Mercedes and Ferrari. Reliability problems - with both the car and the Renault power-unit - continued to plague Red Bull, and when the RB10 was running it was not very fast. The team's best time of the week, set by Ricciardo, was a massive 6.554 seconds slower than the pace-setting lap of Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg.
And there are now just four days of pre-season testing remaining..."
BBC Sport - Red Bull title a tougher challenge as Mercedes set pace in testing
Will be interesting that we may see a female driver in at least one round this year for the first time in 2 decades with Susan Wolff getting tapped by Williams to drive friday practice at Silverstone and Hockenheim. Giver her knowledge of Hockenhiem I'd say she has a good shot at getting given the weekend seat there and Silverstone should be a decent track for her as well, I'm going to think that if she does well at Silverstone she'll get Hockenheim as well and if she does well at both I'd be starting to worry if I'm Bottas.
It's interesting that she's kept her ride with Williams given her husband leaving to Mercedes this year (and didn't realise until checking that she is Toto's wife) so I'd say her racing ability is good enough to stand on her own and we could be seeing a push by Claire Williams to really shake things up...hopefully it's not just a political stunt as a good, consistent female driver could do nothing but bring more fans into the sport in the same way Danika Patrick has for Indy (and yes I know what her results are like)
It's interesting that she's kept her ride with Williams given her husband leaving to Mercedes this year (and didn't realise until checking that she is Toto's wife) so I'd say her racing ability is good enough to stand on her own and we could be seeing a push by Claire Williams to really shake things up...hopefully it's not just a political stunt as a good, consistent female driver could do nothing but bring more fans into the sport in the same way Danika Patrick has for Indy (and yes I know what her results are like)
"It's fair to say Renault's request for an extension to the engine homologation deadline [after which engines cannot be modified] has stirred up a bit of a hornet's nest. It's a very controversial thing to request, for two reasons:
1) these engine rules are effectively only in F1 because Renault wanted them and threatened to quit if they were not introduced
2) the manufacturers have already had an extra year to develop the engines, after the initial date for the introduction of hybrid turbos was pushed back from 2013.
Renault want an extra two months of development before specs are frozen
Andrew Benson (andrewbensonf1) on Twitter
1) these engine rules are effectively only in F1 because Renault wanted them and threatened to quit if they were not introduced
2) the manufacturers have already had an extra year to develop the engines, after the initial date for the introduction of hybrid turbos was pushed back from 2013.
Renault want an extra two months of development before specs are frozen
Andrew Benson (andrewbensonf1) on Twitter
Kalaar kururuc
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Toto is still a shareholder in Williams though...
I'm of the opinion that she may do more harm than good to trying to gain a full time woman driver. She has very little success in racing, yeah her DTM car wasn't exactly the best but there is such a backlog of exceptional drivers wanting into F1 and with major cash behind them who DO have previous success in the single seat feeder series. She is also 32 this year and has yet to race in F1, some driver are older and have even won at an older age but the difference is they were years in to F1 before they hit that age. Newer drivers are getting younger and younger, <21 is becoming common and they also have a background of winning in single seaters. 32 is ancient to be just starting (and she would be 33 next year if she did get a drive). They should be better getting a younger woman in, and there is that Italian, Simona Silvestri, who has been signed by Sauber potentially to drive next year who is 25 and has experience of single seaters, coming from Indy...so we at least know she can turn left
Sorry Kalaar, missed this post and you make some very valid points. Guess the big upside is that if she makes it to the main race a few times and does reasonably well it will open the door for some younger female drivers that might have better records a shot without needing the connections.
Now first race of the season is this weekend and looking at the weather out my window and the forecasts for Melbourne race weekend it could be even more of a clusterfuck race than it was shaping up to be with the changes and limited testing. Friday and Saturday are both being forecast as sunny and 29-30 degrees while sunday is overcast, possible rain and 16 degrees....any info they get in regards to settings during practise and qualifying will mean fuck all come race day if that's accurate and if it rains then all bets are off on any finishers imo (and I'm still predicting a max of 10 finishers in perfect conditions)
Now first race of the season is this weekend and looking at the weather out my window and the forecasts for Melbourne race weekend it could be even more of a clusterfuck race than it was shaping up to be with the changes and limited testing. Friday and Saturday are both being forecast as sunny and 29-30 degrees while sunday is overcast, possible rain and 16 degrees....any info they get in regards to settings during practise and qualifying will mean fuck all come race day if that's accurate and if it rains then all bets are off on any finishers imo (and I'm still predicting a max of 10 finishers in perfect conditions)
Well qualifying yesterday was interesting as hell and that last minute grab by Hamilton was awesome considering how difficult he made it for himself. Fucking great session by Ricciardo and the fact he was constantly able to pull out new fastest laps when he lost the #1 spot each time inspires a lot of confidence in his performances going forward since it shows his second position start time wasn't just a single fluke lap due to the conditions.
Really nice to see Williams performing so well and great to see I was wrong about Maclaren, could be something very special in Magnusson with that being his first F1 qualifying in those conditions.
Fuck Kimi, arrogant ass that he is. Probably didn't show on the Sky feed but on the Aus feed that had shots of Seb out with the fans signing things, Kimi walked past as people moved to him to get an autograph too and he just kept walking without even acknowledging any of the fans.
Really nice to see Williams performing so well and great to see I was wrong about Maclaren, could be something very special in Magnusson with that being his first F1 qualifying in those conditions.
Fuck Kimi, arrogant ass that he is. Probably didn't show on the Sky feed but on the Aus feed that had shots of Seb out with the fans signing things, Kimi walked past as people moved to him to get an autograph too and he just kept walking without even acknowledging any of the fans.
Zero...zero...ZERO action at the front since the start of the race. Outside of the first lap, really shit boring race.
Can't see Kobyashi keeping his ride at this rate. He has too much of a history of shit like that, only reason he gets rides is due to bringing his sponsors with him but that can only last so long.
Not sure what you found boring Silence.....yeah Rossberg had it in the bag from about lap 5 but the battels between Bottas and Kimi, the Hulkenburg vs Alonso stuff and Ricciardo vs Magnnusen for the last 10 laps was damn good (at least from an Aussie perspective, shame that Kev had to go on fuel conservation for those couple of laps during it). Once the reliability is sorted out and we can add Lewis and Seb to that front-end battle I think it will be a lot more challenging for the win.
Not sure what you found boring Silence.....yeah Rossberg had it in the bag from about lap 5 but the battels between Bottas and Kimi, the Hulkenburg vs Alonso stuff and Ricciardo vs Magnnusen for the last 10 laps was damn good (at least from an Aussie perspective, shame that Kev had to go on fuel conservation for those couple of laps during it). Once the reliability is sorted out and we can add Lewis and Seb to that front-end battle I think it will be a lot more challenging for the win.
faille
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