The best part was Magnussen's Honda engine detonating...it spat out bits of metal and fluids everywhere...quite a sight! Not good for Alonso but still the best engine explosion I've seen in F1 for a while.
I'm inclined to agree with everyone saying it was dull. I'm just a bit taken back that such a description adequately describes the opening race of a new season! F1 is in a terrible state for it to be so. There should be much more surprises happening, yet instead, all the talking points are off-track. I agree with Beau; maybe I (we) should start watching WEC.
I fear we’re in for a long boring season, cant see anyone turning it around and getting close to the Mercs. Our only hope is that there is some good racing for the last podium spot. It was good to see Sauber do well, after the weekend they had. Just hope they don’t have a court case every time there is a race.
OR maybe we could find that bloke who thought it'd be a good idea to run down the Hangar straight and let him loose at random periods during races... In all seriousness though, what do you think of the idea of a 'Competition Caution' like in NASCAR?
It would make it fake and stale in my personal opinion, im not sure what the solution is too F1 right now, but it has a history you have to respect and i think bogus rules should stay out of it. *Cough* Double Points *Cough*
I think they need to change the rules that says every team must agree to a change in the regulations. Of course Mercedes are going to say no to making changes to the engine or other parts they are excelling in, why would they want other teams getting close to them and challenging for race wins. I feel if there is a 75% majority wanting to make changes to the regulations in order to make the racing closer, it should be allowed.
you guys probably understand it better than me, but why don't the other teams improve their cars to get closer to the performance of mercedes? are there rules that prevent further development? if so, why?
F1 is as much about building the best car as be the best driver. Other teams and engine manufacturer just need to improve there own stuff instead of bringing down a team who does well. There are always periods of dominance.
Each team has a number of 'tokens' they can use to develop the engine. Changing certain parts uses up a certain number of 'tokens'. All engine manufacturers still have tokens left, but they need to balance spending tokens with finding problems and if they can fix those problems with things like engine mapping, gearing etc. The biggest issue is that the engines and ERS are just too damn complicated. An engine change used to be able to be done within about an hour, maybe less. Now it takes over 5 hours or something stupid like that (a long time in F1 terms) and everything just snowballs. Mercedes are helped by the fact that they have 4 teams using their engines (Mercedes, Williams, Force India and Lotus) whilst Ferrari only have 2 (Ferrari, Sauber) and Renault have 2 (Red Bull, Scuderia Toro Rosso). This means Mercedes have twice as much data to use, and the works team will always have the better 'version' of the engine. So whilst there are rules preventing huge amounts of development, there are no rules which stipulate how much 'help' a team can get by being an engine provider. There apparently is a rule about equalising things that the FIA have up their sleeve, but yet to be seen if they will use it. I seriously hope they sort it though. You can go back only 5 years and the show F1 was putting on was so much better than it is now. There are 3 things that make F1 special...the glamour, the speed and the sound. 2 of those have been taken away and the glamour is fading fast...
They don't look fast or sound fast...and tractors make 1000's of horsepower but are slow as haha I do like the spark show, but that's about it...
The V8s were nothing special though, the V10s are the proper beasts. I would take the turbos over the generic sounding V8s all day, and they sound a bit better then last year.
Definitely prefer the V10s, especially 2004-2005 when they were pumping out close enough to 1000 horsepower at 18-19000rpm.
