The F1 Thread 2015 Season

On Alonso; May be a precaution so he's ready for the start of the season. It isn't like he will miss much they struggle getting the car just to work at the moment!
 
pauldyson1uk said:
I agree it is very odd, not seen the crash, but was it really that bad? In hospital for 3 days and out for the last pre season test, sounds a lot more than what is being made out.
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Don't think there's any footage but from the pictures the looks fine.

B-gyiHrIcAA-x8X.jpg:large
 
He said he showed symptoms of concussion without any physical signs showing up on scans. Don't know what it's usually like, but to be honest with any head injury I'd rather they be over-cautious than the alternative.

In fact they might as well let him sit out the first few flyaways too, the car's so bad that it won't matter who's in it when it breaks down 10 laps in (being optimistic).
 
Lotus have signed Spaniard Carmen Jorda to the role of development driver for the 2015 season.

The 26-year-old is the second female after Williams tester Susie Wolff to secure a driving role at an F1 team for this year with Jorda having spent the last three seasons racing in GP3.

Lotus say Jorda will begin a “significant simulator programme” at the team’s Enstone base, attend grands prix, and drive their 2015 car, the E23, at an unspecified point during the year.

Speaking to Sky Sports News HQ in the Barcelona paddock after the announcement, Jorda said she had a big learning curve ahead of her.

“The first thing is going to be understanding the team, technically and engineering and to be comfortable in the car,” she said.

carmen-jorda-lotus_3269782.jpg

“So that’s going to be the main thing because I’m going to have to go to the races, be in the debriefs and strategy meetings and understand how Formula 1 [works] because it is very different from my GP3 team where you have six people and here you have 450 people working in the team.

“The other thing that’s going to be really important is the programme in simulator because it is going to be quite long and they’re going to make sure I’m ready to jump in the car. We’re going to go step by step to make it happen and at the right moment.”

The daughter of former racer Jose Miguel Jorda, Carmen raced in Spanish F3 and the American Indy Lights series prior to joining Ocean Racing Technology in GP3 in 2012. In 44 GP3 starts she claimed a best finish of 13th place in Valencia in 2012.
 
A 26 year old that has had 3 seasons in GP3 and never scored a point, how is that even possible?
 
Good lord!

Barca Day Two - Recap
Barcelona Day Two Timesheet

1) Nico Rosberg, Mercedes, 1:22.792, 106 laps;
2) Valtteri Bottas, Williams, 1:23.995, 90 laps;
3) Felipe Nasr, Sauber, 1:24.071, 141 laps;
4) Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari, 1:25.339, 143 laps;
5) Jenson Button, McLaren, 1:25.590, 101 laps;
6) Pastor Maldonado, Lotus, 1:26.705, 140 laps;
7) Max Verstappen, Toro Rosso, 1:26.766, 139 laps;
8) Daniil Kvyat, Red Bull, 1:26.965, 84 laps;
9) Nico Hulkenberg, Force India, 1:29.847, 73 laps.

Mercedes finally topped a testing timesheet for the first time in 2015 as the world champions displayed an ominous turn of speed to shatter the fastest time seen at Barcelona this winter.

While the pace of the sleek W06 had not been in doubt up until Day Two of the final test, the fact the team had exclusively run on the slower medium and hard compounds meant that neither Nico Rosberg nor Lewis Hamilton had truly lit up a timesheet in the opening nine days of pre-season action.

However, that all changed on Friday afternoon at the Circuit de Catalunya as for the first time Mercedes bolted the quicker soft tyres onto the W06 and Rosberg immediately clocked a blistering 1:22.792 time – a lap which was 0.7s quicker than the previous best set by Williams’ Felipe Massa on the same compound the day before.

With Rosberg also adding a similarly-impressive 1:22.8 soon after, and the car once more completing more than 100 laps during the test day, Mercedes have emphatically confirmed their status as the team to beat heading into the new season with two days of pre-season testing to run.
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http://www1.skysports.com/f1/news/1...-ominious-warning-as-mclaren-finally-run-long

And McLaren gets some laps in, eventually.
 
Oh we all know why she got the Lotus drive, but I was more baffled as to how she hasn't managed to score a single point in 3 GP3 seasons, you could ride around on your bike and score a point in it.
 
Mercedes’ faltering rivals have hailed the world champions’ new car as “unbelievably quick” with the Silver Arrows’ domination of F1 set to continue at the start of the 2015 season.

Nico Rosberg’s lap of 1:22.792 set on Friday at Barcelona when the W06 ran with soft tyres for the first time this winter was in excess of half a second clear of the field’s previous best effort, recorded by Felipe Massa’s Williams on the first day of the final pre-season test at the Circuit de Catalunya.
“They are unbelievably quick,” acknowledged McLaren’s Jenson Button. “It is all a guessing game and the only thing you can look at are the long runs and the Mercedes is miles in front it seems on the long runs.”

Despite improvements from Ferrari and Williams between seasons, paddock insiders suspect Mercedes may be one second clear of the chasing pack when the new campaign begins on March 15 in Melbourne.

“I’d rather be a bit quicker, but it’s difficult to evaluate how quick we are because some people tried more of a qualifying trim and others did less so. I never drove the 2014 Ferrari, but I think this one it’s a massive step forward,” Sebastian Vettel told Sky Italia on Friday.

“It’s clear that if you want to win, you have to beat Mercedes. It’s exciting to see what’s going on behind them, which I think it’s not clear judging from the lap times we’ve seen so far.

“They [Mercedes]'ve been running relatively conservatively throughout the testing, but have obviously just started to wind it up a bit and you can see the performance gap is pretty ominous," Red Bull boss Christian Horner told Sky Sports News HQ. "Everybody looks pretty tight behind them, but they seem to have quite a gap at the moment."

Lotus believe they may start the 2015 season as the fifth-fastest team – behind Mercedes, Williams, Ferrari and Red Bull - after switching to Mercedes power following McLaren’s defection.

The McLaren has impressed trackside observers whenever it has run over the winter but the MP4-30’s chronic unreliability both in Jerez and Barcelona makes it unlikely it will finish the Melbourne curtain-raiser. “We are not going to have a race-winning car at the first race, but we might have one at the last race,” Button told reporters last week.
Red Bull have already indicated that Renault will delay the bulk of their engine upgrade ‘tokens’ until later in the year, while Ferrari plan to introduce a series of improvements to their SF15-T car throughout the opening races.

But ominously for the chasing pack, Mercedes themselves still have more pace up their sleeves. Despite his jaw-dropping lap time on Friday, an unhappy Rosberg said he was still yet to find his new car’s sweet spot.
 
Yesterday's times

Driver Car Best time Laps Difference Tyres
1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes W06 1’23.022 76 Soft
2 Felipe Massa Williams-Mercedes FW37 1’23.262 102 0.240 Super-soft
3 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari SF15-T 1’23.276 136 0.254 Super-soft
4 Carlos Sainz Jnr Toro Rosso-Renault STR10 1’24.191 132 1.169 Super-soft
5 Romain Grosjean Lotus-Mercedes E23 1’24.200 116 1.178 Super-soft
6 Marcus Ericsson Sauber-Ferrari C34 1’24.477 123 1.455 Super-soft
7 Nico Hulkenberg Force India-Mercedes VJM08 1’24.939 158 1.917 Super-soft
8 Kevin Magnussen McLaren-Honda MP4-30 1’25.225 39 2.203 Soft
9 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull-Renault RB11 1’25.742 128 2.720 Medium

Lewis on softs, yesterday faster than everyone else on Super-softs.

test-fastest-small-f1-times_3270842.jpg
 
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Mercs are going to dominate the early season, its up to the rest to make sure they don't dominate the whole year again.
 
So Mercedes are beating everyone else on lesser grade tyres. Another season ahead of more Lewis vs Nico antics then. Hope Nico sticks it to him this time and puts him back in his place. Lewis is a superb driver, British and a winner but impossible to like for me.
 
Those sheets both omit the Red Bulls, which I'd be wary of. They rarely go for headline times and though they'll be limited by the engine, you know the chassis will be right up there. McLaren meanwhile are having another write-off year, although hopefully this one is at least laying some solid fundamentals to build from, unlike previous botch jobs.
 
I can see why people dont like Lewis, he can be a right winging arse and I am a big Lewis fan.
If Lewis's car behaves itself for the whole season, then I dont think Nico or anybody will even get close to him.
 
FC Ronaldo said:
So Mercedes are beating everyone else on lesser grade tyres. Another season ahead of more Lewis vs Nico antics then. Hope Nico sticks it to him this time and puts him back in his place. Lewis is a superb driver, British and a winner but impossible to like for me.
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Totally agree just not likeable the slightest.
 
As if we didn't already know that. I spent 4 seasons thinking the same about Vettel, eat it.
 
pauldyson1uk said:
OK I have set up a Fantasy League here, http://www.fantasy-f1-league.com/
The name is Redcafe 2015 Season password is f12015.

Not got my head round it yet , but looks pretty decent.

However I have notice this , so may not last or even start the season.

Warning I have become aware that a few other Fantasy F1 sites have been forced to close due to the FIA threatening legal action. It appears that they will not tolerate "fan sites" unless they pay a licensing fee to use their 'Intellectual Property' such as driver names, images etc. As this site is free to play and and no profit is made I am not in a position to pay the FIA its licensing fee and so in the event that I am threatened with any action I will be forced to close the site. If you want to play and be guaranteed the whole of the 2015 season then I recommend you find a site that you have to pay to play as I suspect they will be paying the FIA's fees. However, the site will run as it has done for several years until (and if) I get threatened.
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Dont forget the Fantasy League only 3 of us so far, the season starts in 10 days.
 
I've joined it but to be honest I'll be surprised if it doesn't get shut down by the FIA at some point given it uses not only the teams/drivers but also images.
 
Susie Wolff will drive for Williams during practice at the British and Spanish Grands Prix in 2015, the team have confirmed.

In addition, the 32-year-old will also drive the FW37 on one day of the in-season test at the Red Bull Ring following the Austrian Grand Prix.

Wolff has already driven the car this season - completing 86 laps on the opening day of the second pre-season test which was held at the Circuit de Catalunya. She finished the day nearly four seconds slower than Pastor Maldonado after crashing out following contact with Felipe Nasr.



“Our focus this year is to build on the success of 2014 - I've been training hard all winter and I am physically in the best shape I’ve ever been, so I am ready for the season ahead,” Wolff said.



“As official test driver I will have additional time in the FW37 and by correlating this with my work in the simulator, the team can ensure we are getting the best from the car and check how updates are performing. All of us drivers on the Williams roster have been working closely together on this and we are ready to give everything we can to the 2015 season.”



Wolff made her grand prix weekend debut last year during P1 at the British Grand Prix and followed it up with an outing in the same session at Hockenheim.



“Last season Susie impressed with her performances during FP1 at Silverstone and Hockenheim and we were keen to give her another chance to test in 2015,” said deputy team principal Claire Williams.



“She knew the FW36 well and with the FW37 being a gradual evolution, we were keen to utilise this knowledge and get her in the car to help assess and validate the approaches we have taken.”

Wolff became the first female since Giovanna Amati in 1992 to take part in a race weekend at Silverstone last year, although her outing lasted just four laps due to an engine failure.
 
Blimey, hope he's alright. Bad to worse for McLaren in general. What happens now?
 
Fernando Alonso: A Medical Update
Posted on Tuesday, 03 Mar 2015 12:05 (GMT)
Having performed an exhaustive series of tests and scans – some of them as recently as yesterday evening – McLaren-Honda driver Fernando Alonso’s doctors have informed him that they find him asymptomatic of any medical issue; that they see no evidence whatsoever of any injury; and that they therefore describe him as entirely healthy from neurological and cardiac perspectives alike.

However, Fernando’s doctors have recommended to him that, following the concussion he sustained in a testing accident at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya on February 22nd, for the time being he should seek to limit as far as is possible any environmental risk factors that could potentially result in his sustaining another concussion so soon after his previous one, so as to minimise the chances of second impact syndrome, as is normal medical procedure when treating athletes after concussions.

In order to limit those environmental risk factors, specifically, his doctors have advised that he should not compete in the imminent Australian Grand Prix meeting, which will take place on March 13th, 14th and 15th.

Fernando has understood and accepted that advice, and the two McLaren-Honda cars will therefore be driven in Australia by Fernando’s team-mate Jenson Button and the team’s test and reserve driver Kevin Magnussen.

Fernando’s doctors acknowledge that he feels fit and well, and that he regards himself as ready to race, and, that being the case, they are comfortable with the fact that he has already recommenced physical training, with a view to preparing for a return to the cockpit of his McLaren-Honda car for the Malaysian Grand Prix meeting on March 27th, 28th and 29th. Indeed, his doctors are supportive of that ambition, satisfied as they are that he sustained no damage whatsoever during his testing accident on February 22nd.

All at McLaren-Honda fully support Fernando’s decision in respect of his doctors’ advice.
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From McLaren.
 
McLaren’s Fernando Alonso will miss the Australian Grand Prix following his crash during the second pre-season test in Barcelona.

Kevin Magnussen, who Alonso has replaced for the 2015 season, will partner Jenson Button in Melbourne.

Alonso has been ruled out on medical advice but McLaren remain confident that the two-time world champion will return for the Malaysia GP at the end of March.

In a statement, the team confirmed doctors had advised Alonso not to drive in the season-opening race ‘to minimise the chances of second impact syndrome, as is normal medical procedure when treating athletes after concussions’.

However, according to McLaren, Alonso's doctors have detected 'no evidence whatsoever of any injury' and permitted the 33-year-old to resume training.

Alonso was rendered unconscious during his accident at the Circuit de Catalunya on February 22 when he lost control of his MP4-30 car and struck the track wall at high speed.

McLaren later attributed the accident to an unpredictable 'gust of wind'
This is from Sky Sports.

A GUST OF WIND FFS is that the best they can come up with , clearly bollocks.
 
I thought 10 days was the standard time frame to avoid SIS?

The race will be, what, three weeks after the crash?
 
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