A Happy New Year to one and all. Thought I would give us somewhere to discuss the upcoming season. According to the published calendar the 2016 F1 season will offer us 21 races, starting in Australia in the middle of March and ending in Abu Dhabi at the end of November. We see the return of the Grand Prix of Europe, this time at the Baku City Circuit in Azerbaijan. Malaysia has finally been moved out of the rainy season and now sits between Singapore and Japan as race 16. Otherwise all the usual suspects are there including a German GP at Hockenheim after its sabbatical in 2015. The full race list is:
Red Bull, after much speculation, have opted to create their own power unit for this season. It is reported to be called a Tag Heuer, after Red Bull snaffled one of McLaren's long term sponsors away and will be a Renault ICE combined with input from Ilmor on all the other bits which an F1 hybrid engine needs. Sister team Toro Rosso will have Ferrari power to replace the Renault units used in 2015. It will be very interesting to see if Toro Rosso will be allowed to regularly finish ahead of their senior team as you have to worry about the reliability of the mish mash power unit Red Bull are pulling together.
The full team and driver line up is:
Mercedes - Hamilton & Rosberg
Ferrari - Vettel & Raikkonen
Williams - Massa & Bottas
Red Bull - Ricciardo & Kyvat
Force India - Hulkenberg & Perez
Renault - Maldonado & Palmer (TBC)
Hass - Grosjean and Gutierrez
Toro Rosso - Verstappen & Sainz
McLaren - Alonso & Button
Sauber - Nasr & Ericsson
Manor - both TBC
So what are the big changes for 2016? We've covered the new tyre rules elsewhere but in short teams will have the choice of three compounds at each race but have to choose two of them two weeks in advance of the GP and both compounds still have to be used in the race, unless it rains. Teams can choose to run their drivers on different compounds. There will also be a new "Ultra Soft" compound available at some races.
The engines should be louder as the exhaust gases coming out of the waste gate will be redirected through a "screamer pipe" and the teams will have 32 engines tokens to use through the season rather than the 15 which the FIA had originally planned.
There will be three pre-season tests but the first on Jan 25th and 26th will be for wet weather running only . The second and third tests will be at Barcelona on 22nd to 25th February and 1st to 4th March.
Come the races the stewards are supposed to be clamping on drivers exceeding track limits and various technologies are being mooted to monitor the cars around the track. The Virtual Safety Car will be used in practice sessions although I'm struggling to work out why any driver would choose go out and waste rubber when the track speed is limited to 100kph. In the races, as soon as a virtual safety car period ends DRS will be re-enabled rather than the drivers having to wait a couple of laps. Other than drivers causing a started to be aborted having to start from the pit lane there isn't much else new to confuse us.
I'm intrigued to see how the efforts to stop drivers exceeding the track limits will go. If you watch any WEC racing the senior steward is usually very tough on the various competitors and the teams accept these decision with good grace, but then they usually have a few hours to claw back any lost time from a stop-go penalty. Given the tendency of F1 drivers and teams to react to stewarding decisions in a similar way to Premier League footballers do to referees I suspect we will see almost as much action in the pit lane as we do on the track as the team principals run backwards and forwards to the stewards office to plead their case.
So who will win what? Mercedes, if all the between season gossip is to be believed, are struggling to keep their drivers on speaking terms. Many are trying to draw comparisons with Prost and Senna as Nico and Lewis throw items of head wear at one another across the hospitality room. I'm sorry but this doesn't even come close. It's not even Mansell and Piquet, in fact I'm struggling to find a comparison where one driver is so much better than the other but refuses to admit to the fact. Perhaps Vettel and Webber or Schumacher and Barrichello are reasonable comparisons.
I sincerely hope Ferrari continue to move closer to the Mercs and I suspect they will but still not enough to challenge the Mercedes for either title. Other than these two teams I can't see anyone else challenging for race wins which is a great shame. I hope Haas are successful, I hope Williams actually improve during the season and aren't so beholden to their engine supplier, I hope Red Bull enjoy trying to build their own engines and I hope McLaren actually make it in to Q3 a bit more regularly.
What else? Might we see Force India re-badged as Aston Martin? I doubt it as if the team has already registered with the FIA they can't change their name and if if they haven't they will forfeit their payout from FOM as a new team. Or they could become Force India Aston Martin Mercedes!
Here's hoping for a great season but this is probably hope over experience. We can expect a handful of great races so I will enjoy those and try not to be too grumpy at the races where the teams simply go through the whole event formation flying.
- 20th March - Australia
- 3rd April - Bahrain
- 17th April - China
- 1st May - Russia
- 15th May - Spain
- 29th May - Monaco
- 12th June - Canada
- 19th June - GP of Europe (Baku)
- 3rd July - Austria
- 10th July - Britain
- 24th July - Hungary
- 31st July - Germany
- 28th August - Belgium
- 4th September - Italy
- 18th September - Singapore
- 2nd October - Malaysia
- 9th October - Japan
- 23rd October - USA
- 30th October - Mexico
- 13th November - Brazil
- 27th November - Abu Dhabi
Red Bull, after much speculation, have opted to create their own power unit for this season. It is reported to be called a Tag Heuer, after Red Bull snaffled one of McLaren's long term sponsors away and will be a Renault ICE combined with input from Ilmor on all the other bits which an F1 hybrid engine needs. Sister team Toro Rosso will have Ferrari power to replace the Renault units used in 2015. It will be very interesting to see if Toro Rosso will be allowed to regularly finish ahead of their senior team as you have to worry about the reliability of the mish mash power unit Red Bull are pulling together.
The full team and driver line up is:
Mercedes - Hamilton & Rosberg
Ferrari - Vettel & Raikkonen
Williams - Massa & Bottas
Red Bull - Ricciardo & Kyvat
Force India - Hulkenberg & Perez
Renault - Maldonado & Palmer (TBC)
Hass - Grosjean and Gutierrez
Toro Rosso - Verstappen & Sainz
McLaren - Alonso & Button
Sauber - Nasr & Ericsson
Manor - both TBC
So what are the big changes for 2016? We've covered the new tyre rules elsewhere but in short teams will have the choice of three compounds at each race but have to choose two of them two weeks in advance of the GP and both compounds still have to be used in the race, unless it rains. Teams can choose to run their drivers on different compounds. There will also be a new "Ultra Soft" compound available at some races.
The engines should be louder as the exhaust gases coming out of the waste gate will be redirected through a "screamer pipe" and the teams will have 32 engines tokens to use through the season rather than the 15 which the FIA had originally planned.
There will be three pre-season tests but the first on Jan 25th and 26th will be for wet weather running only . The second and third tests will be at Barcelona on 22nd to 25th February and 1st to 4th March.
Come the races the stewards are supposed to be clamping on drivers exceeding track limits and various technologies are being mooted to monitor the cars around the track. The Virtual Safety Car will be used in practice sessions although I'm struggling to work out why any driver would choose go out and waste rubber when the track speed is limited to 100kph. In the races, as soon as a virtual safety car period ends DRS will be re-enabled rather than the drivers having to wait a couple of laps. Other than drivers causing a started to be aborted having to start from the pit lane there isn't much else new to confuse us.
I'm intrigued to see how the efforts to stop drivers exceeding the track limits will go. If you watch any WEC racing the senior steward is usually very tough on the various competitors and the teams accept these decision with good grace, but then they usually have a few hours to claw back any lost time from a stop-go penalty. Given the tendency of F1 drivers and teams to react to stewarding decisions in a similar way to Premier League footballers do to referees I suspect we will see almost as much action in the pit lane as we do on the track as the team principals run backwards and forwards to the stewards office to plead their case.
So who will win what? Mercedes, if all the between season gossip is to be believed, are struggling to keep their drivers on speaking terms. Many are trying to draw comparisons with Prost and Senna as Nico and Lewis throw items of head wear at one another across the hospitality room. I'm sorry but this doesn't even come close. It's not even Mansell and Piquet, in fact I'm struggling to find a comparison where one driver is so much better than the other but refuses to admit to the fact. Perhaps Vettel and Webber or Schumacher and Barrichello are reasonable comparisons.
I sincerely hope Ferrari continue to move closer to the Mercs and I suspect they will but still not enough to challenge the Mercedes for either title. Other than these two teams I can't see anyone else challenging for race wins which is a great shame. I hope Haas are successful, I hope Williams actually improve during the season and aren't so beholden to their engine supplier, I hope Red Bull enjoy trying to build their own engines and I hope McLaren actually make it in to Q3 a bit more regularly.
What else? Might we see Force India re-badged as Aston Martin? I doubt it as if the team has already registered with the FIA they can't change their name and if if they haven't they will forfeit their payout from FOM as a new team. Or they could become Force India Aston Martin Mercedes!
Here's hoping for a great season but this is probably hope over experience. We can expect a handful of great races so I will enjoy those and try not to be too grumpy at the races where the teams simply go through the whole event formation flying.
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