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The Official 2015 F1 thread

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I'm so glad LH and the Silver Star won the 2014 championships! Good show boys.

I'm thinking Alonso and McLaren will be the winners for 2015.

Any thoughts?
 
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I'm thinking Alonso and McLaren will be the winners for 2015.

Any thoughts?
Love to see the Honda McLaren partnership win in 2015, I expect the Honda powerunit to be very strong, as they had an entire year to develop that power unit on their Dyno, they still need some test mileage but they should have a good understanding of the system integration issues.

On your second point, I still can't see Alonso at McLaren in 2015 or ever, because of his past issues with them...I don't Believe Ron is a guy that forget when someone try to Blackmail him...remember Max Mosely nazi scandal!!!


Bram
 
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Bram, of course you're right about Ron's outlook on Fernando... but I don't think it's his call, but Honda's.
By the way, I put Alonso in the same (dark) category with Senna and Shumi (bad sportsmanship on a high plain)... but you can't deny their talent. I hope Jenson stays at McL.
 
Love to see the Honda McLaren partnership win in 2015, I expect the Honda powerunit to be very strong, as they had an entire year to develop that power unit on their Dyno, they still need some test mileage but they should have a good understanding of the system integration issues.

On your second point, I still can't see Alonso at McLaren in 2015 or ever, because of his past issues with them...I don't Believe Ron is a guy that forget when someone try to Blackmail him...remember Max Mosely nazi scandal!!!


Bram

Rumour has it that RD will not be the head of McLaren Racing come December 1 2014, but rather a certain individual with the initials RB will be taking his place - so Denis' past problems with Alonso are mute.

We shall see next week........
 
I would think Marenello would offer more for RB to bring back the mojo with Vettel .
 
Good 2015 thread

I see it as a repeat year for the battle of the Mercedes drivers once again. Brawn built that team with this potential outcome. I see Williams continuing to keep them on their toes. Unfortunately, I believe McLaren-Honda will be backmarkers with with Alonso or whomever. Eric Boullier is fairly new as well after being poached by Ron Dennis. So before the gets all settled in with the team, now he has to deal with the transition of a new engine supplier. It will take him probably 2 more years to put his stamp on the team. There are many new working relationships to setup, engineering situations to build up, start up.. etc. etc. F1 is a lot different nowadays. There is a lot less off-season testing with a lot less off season wind tunnel testing as well. The good thing for Honda is Ron Dennis and hopefully he can guide them away from the B.A.R. and Super Aguri days. Dennis knows he can't built a 1988 team again, but he knows how to build the foundation of which eventually will lead to bringing them up the grid. But me personally, am not 100% confident with Honda's return. Yes the sporting regulation fits their design of an engine quite well. But they didn't play nice last nice time around with David Richards claiming financial woes when he asked them for more development. I'm not entirely confident in their return for the long term as their track record proves it. The way Honda bailed on B.A.R., I didn’t like. So now in 2015 they have all this oodles of cash to throw back into F1 ? Bring on 2015 !
 
do you guys think Hass will be able to field cars for 2016?
 
do you guys think Hass will be able to field cars for 2016?

Doc
Been wondering about that too.
No question a strong US based team would do wonders for F1 but I think a new team has to wait several years before sharing in the prize money.
Hass would have to have perhaps $300-400 million to support a team until it started to earn back anything.
I guess if he has wealthy sponsors lined up for the long haul he could make it happen.
Perhaps he is negotiating to buy one of the three or four teams that are failing now which could save him a lot of money in the short term.
Hope he makes it and find success.
 
Doc
Been wondering about that too.
No question a strong US based team would do wonders for F1 but I think a new team has to wait several years before sharing in the prize money.
Hass would have to have perhaps $300-400 million to support a team until it started to earn back anything.
I guess if he has wealthy sponsors lined up for the long haul he could make it happen.
Perhaps he is negotiating to buy one of the three or four teams that are failing now which could save him a lot of money in the short term.
Hope he makes it and find success.


I hope Gene Haas would be in it for the long haul as well (20 year minimum) at least. I think it will take about 10 years of spending A LOT money appropriately to become a mid gridder. At the start, its going to be similar to Toyota’s venture into F1, hemorrhaging millions in the wrong way. But hopefully he can avoid going down that route. I hope he’s thinking about moulding the team similar to Force India. A native country team competing in Europe partnered with Ferrari ? But after 7 years, what have they done ? Still mid grid at best ? So hopefully Mr. Haas has that in mind. Any short term thinking, and they will be packing up heading back across the pond.
 
On your second point, I still can't see Alonso at McLaren in 2015 or ever, because of his past issues with them...I don't Believe Ron is a guy that forget when someone try to Blackmail him...remember Max Mosely nazi scandal!!!
Bram

It's not up to Ron Dennis though, it's up to the board of directors at McLaren, and I'm sure Honda has a big say in it too.



That's a nice thought, but it will be a tall order the first year. If we're going to dream, I'm saying Button!
+1, even though I do like both drivers, Jenny is my favorite and I would love to see him take a 2nd WDC.



Bram, of course you're right about Ron's outlook on Fernando... but I don't think it's his call, but Honda's.
By the way, I put Alonso in the same (dark) category with Senna and Shumi (bad sportsmanship on a high plain)... but you can't deny their talent. I hope Jenson stays at McL.
+1




Rumour has it that RD will not be the head of McLaren Racing come December 1 2014, but rather a certain individual with the initials RB will be taking his place - so Denis' past problems with Alonso are mute.

We shall see next week........

I don't think Ross Brawn is returning to F1 anytime soon if at all. I remember one of the commentators from Sky or BBC saying that RB had texted someone on the paddock that "I am not returning to fucking F1" or something to that effect.
 
.everyone has a price.
 
On your second point, I still can't see Alonso at McLaren in 2015 or ever, because of his past issues with them...I don't Believe Ron is a guy that forget when someone try to Blackmail him...remember Max Mosely nazi scandal!!!


Bram

Very true. I would love to see the board room Honda negotiations with Ron Dennis about this topic ;-)

"
Ron Dennis on Fernando Alonso in 2009:

"Would I be able to eliminate in my mind the negativity that he caused to everyone? No, of course not."
 
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As far as I understand Honda is McLaren engine partner, not a shareholder in McLaren international. So they may have some influence on some of the shareholders with other business arragements. Regardless of what takes place within the boardroom, we will get the results in Dec...I still dont see Alsonso being given a seat, he too difficult to get along with, see the comments below

I read the comments," the Spaniard said. "I don't think that they were very good.

"If he tried to mean that I was old and not motivated I think that he arrived too late to Ferrari. He has only a few months here and he has not seen all five years that I spent here and I fought every single race and for championships.

"Probably I was too old when he tried to renew me until the Monza race and he kept pushing and pushing and we had a lot of talks. Even in the last moments again we had a lot of phone calls and a lot of emails that I still have on my computer. Probably at that time I was not so old, but when I took my decision I guess that he has to find another driver."
 
McLaren currently has three shareholders I believe.

The Bahrain royal family investment arm Mumtalakat with 50 %, Ron Dennis with 25 %, and Mansour Ojjeh with 25%.
It also appears Ron Dennis is attempting to increase his shareholding to 62.5 % with Mansour Ojjeh holding 12.5% and Mumtalakat with 25%.
I've no idea if this has been done but if Ron Dennis has 62.5 % of the shares he'll be making all the big decisions.
 
the last I heard on either of these subjects, Honda was well behind the performance of Renault on their power unit, and Honda insists on Alonzo as he is considered the best current F1 driver available (of which I would have to agree).

I think Alonzo and Button would be a great line-up if the Honda engine is competitive. two former world champs with a wealth of experience...
 
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the last I heard on either of these subjects, Honda was well behind the performance of Renault on their power unit, and Honda insists on Alonzo as he is considered the best current F1 driver available (of which I would have to agree).

I think Alonzo and Button would be a great line-up if the Honda engine is competitive. two former world champs with a wealth of experience...


Button is the most experienced current driver, is Alonso 2nd behind him?
 
If button gets bounced he should look to massa's recent past and present for some inspiration.
 
Button is the most experienced current driver, is Alonso 2nd behind him?

i think Massa would probably be the 2nd most experienced driver in the field, but Fernando Alonzo will absolutely be the number one driver at McLaren if he and anyone else end up there. he's more accomplished in every way than Button or anyone else...


docjohn, I was really pulling for Massa in the final race (and a few others), I wanted him to take that victory. I hope the Williams stays on the pace and takes a few wins next year. I hope Ferrari steps up their game too. and of course I want to see Ricciardo stay up the pointy end as well, he had a great year spanking Vettel at every opportunity.

hopefully there'll be a good mix up the front, I'm not a fan of watching total domination in any motorsport, it gets boring pretty quickly for me...
 
the last I heard on either of these subjects, Honda was well behind the performance of Renault on their power unit,
.

Yes, its a dog. I don't understand the motivation for Honda to even return to F1 unless something has drastically improved their profits that can allow them to throw away money ? But furthermore, I can only hope they are going to have a different set up for their engineers as this was a huge problem with David Richards and B.A.R. The last time , engineers in the U.K. (i used to know one of them a long time ago) got fed up having to wait on a engine telemetry as it had to be sent to Japan, and then Japan made a decision and then relayed this information back. Then there was the english-japanese language barrier. Then there was the japanese engineers who were placed in Brackley UK, but only spoke to those in Japan. It was such a personnel mess for B.A.R. So hopefully, McLaren under Ron have learned from this and can set up the proper team to develop. But I"m not expecting anything for at least 3 years.
 
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