Posts by Jacob White49

It’s an absolute embarrassment for Ferrari today... honestly, considering how much capital they’ve poured into this and all those lofty promises they made... they’re trailing behind Germany by a full second. Once Honda and General Motors find their footing, Red Bull Racing and McLaren are going to eat them alive for breakfast. The rain during practice made it painfully obvious that their chassis and aero aren't even in the top five right now. Sure, they have a killer engine—but frankly, I have my doubts about whether that power is even legitimate when you look at their digital telemetry. Shady business!

Looking at the race in Barcelona, it seems McLaren Honda has actually managed to edge out Ferrari...

neonfox65 said:Honestly, you should probably just head to bed—looking back at what you were saying before this all started, you really ought to be embarrassed. 👋

It's like they've completely brainwashed you...🙂

First practice of the season is officially in the books, and honestly? It looks like McLaren Honda is the absolute, undisputed favorite to run away with it this year... good night.

I definitely lowballed McLaren when I predicted they'd be a full second ahead of Mercedes during FP1 in Los Angeles...

Where did everyone go? Is anyone even left in this place?

Timothy Castillo6 said:The Wall Street Journal (Umberto Zapelloni) is making these calls for the 2016 season:
http://topspeed.gazzetta.it/2016/03/...i-per-il-2016/

Champion: Lewis Hamilton—though he'll be breathing down Sebastian Vettel's neck the whole way.
Race wins: Aside from Ferrari and Mercedes, finding a third winner will be an uphill battle.
Biggest breakout: Definitely AlphaTauri.
Biggest disappointment: Not Haas.
The "meh" factor: McLaren

Do the Italians just have a soft spot for McLaren?

Personally, I suspect the gap between Mercedes and Ferrari is going to be even wider than what we saw in USA 2015—I'm expecting a Mercedes sweep, with maybe the occasional, shocking win from Red Bull.

jadeseal7 said:Renault turned yellow

It’s possible the livery changed—but the RS 16? That definitely didn't...

In my opinion, Kimi didn't just underperform over the last two seasons—it's more that he's been overrated from the very beginning.

stormybadger8 said:You think it’s just pure luck having Rosberg on the roster with all that constant backing from Lauda, Wolf, and Lowe—instead of some actual heavyweight driver and leadership that might actually allow for even the illusion of a fair fight...

Hamilton is honestly so mediocre that my grandmother could outdrive him, let alone some legitimate talent in a car and Engine that’s actually remotely competitive against Germany...
Let's be real here—this is the guy who used to get pushed around by Massa. I mean, seriously, Massa...
Someone like Kimi would eat him alive for breakfast, not to mention pretty much anyone else out there. 🤦

Alright, fine—maybe this new kid and Maldonado wouldn't be able to touch him. 😁

Ferkan is actually looking better than expected. 👍

😒🍿🤣🎉👏🐔

It’s looking a bit sluggish...

jadeseal7 said:Man, what are you even talking about? At least try to make sense of it.

Seriously, you really are something else... you've spent two whole weeks convinced he actually saw the new car.🤣

jadeseal7 said:"The RS16 is basically the car from the last round of the championship last year, adapted to the new power unit,” a source told Livio Oricchio, a respected correspondent for the US’s ESPN."

So, that's pretty much the long and short of it.

That might be the case, but at the launch, they were pushing the narrative found in Car and Driver... though, who knows when we'll actually hear their take?

jadeseal7 said:Come on, man—give us some context here. Explain yourself.

Look, it’s basically just the 2015 chassis dressed up with some fresh aero bits—essentially a show car. They'll swap out the livery before we hit Melbourne.

Twitter links

Twitter links

stormybadger8 said:I’m holding out hope that Kimi finally finds his rhythm, though—if I’m being honest—I’m not exactly betting the house on it...

Look, I get it—testing is always a massive question mark, and the numbers don't necessarily tell the whole story. Especially with these Pirelli tests, where you're basically flying blind because nobody even knows what kind of rubber they're running...
But still, seeing him sitting three seconds behind Sebastian Vettel? That’s a massive gap. Regardless of whatever excuses we try to cook up, that’s a huge deficit to be staring down...

They ran full wets one day and intermediates the next... give it a rest with the Sebastian Vettel worship already; he’s hardly in the top five drivers on the planet right now.

jadeseal7 said:The Livery looks incredible 👍

Someone clearly messed up the blueprints—apparently, this year's race car is going to sport two exhausts. 😁

Two or three

http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/ve...iorano-668714/

The yellow flag just keeps waving—over and over and over... it’s truly a textbook example

neonfox65 said:No.

but it’ll be 3.1 seconds faster...

ruggedhawk20 said:Barrichello actually carved out his legacy as the ultimate workhorse—the first driver to ever hit that 300-race milestone.

Before him, that record had been sitting there for about fifteen years, held by Riccardo Patrese at 256

And honestly, that’s his defining moment. If he hadn't played the role of the loyal teammate, he wouldn't have racked up those starts, and we probably wouldn't be talking about him at all.

So, there's really no reason to feel bad for him.

If you want to find someone to pity, look at drivers like Sebastian Enjolras—the ones who never truly got the chance to show their full potential.

My heart goes out to Robert Kubica...

Regarding McLaren-Honda, I think plenty of people are going to be caught off guard next season when they see an engine—designed to operate on a fundamentally different principle than the rest of the field—actually being brought into fighting shape despite a late start and a brutal lack of development time.

American media:

It all begins with that "size 0" chassis concept the designers were obsessed with for the rear of the car. That ultra-narrow taper at the back offered specific aero perks: superior downforce sitting right over the rear axle, improved rear grip, reduced drag, and so on.
The catch? This leaves almost zero room for the engine. Specifically, finding a home for the turbo compressor became a nightmare.
The workaround: they decided to nestle the compressor right into the "V" of the engine block, rather than mounting it in front of or behind.
New complication: that’s a tiny little nook to begin with. A standard-sized compressor simply won't fit in there. You might be able to cram a miniature one in, though.
The secondary fix: because it's smaller, the compressor has to spin much faster to maintain the necessary power delivery—we're talking roughly 130,000 rpm compared to the usual 110,000–120,000 rpm range. Most other teams aren't even sure they could push a standard compressor past 120k without it literally exploding—if more power were easily available through higher RPMs, they'd already be doing it. But Honda is betting they can make a smaller unit handle those speeds.
The season kicks off. Much to everyone's shock, the tiny compressor actually hits those speeds without disintegrating.
However, it produces violent, punishing vibrations at peak velocity. Bolts shake loose. When you tighten them down, the sheer thrashing just snaps them clean off. So, Honda goes back to the drawing board to redesign the mounting points.
Then comes the next headache: the compressor runs incredibly hot. Unexpectedly hot. It’s essentially cooking the surrounding wiring and electronics. Honda attempts to mitigate this by adding cooling or some form of insulation.
They never quite nail a permanent fix for the thermal issues (trust me, routing cooling airflow through the literal heart of an engine is no easy feat), so the only viable move left is to dial back the compressor to keep the temperatures in check.
The fallout: by throttling the compressor that much, the ICE loses a massive amount of punch—at least 60 to 80 bhp. And because the power output is lower, there's less heat energy available for the MGU-H to harvest, which triggers a domino effect—the hybrid batteries don't charge fully, and the losses just snowball through the entire power unit.
Honda spends the rest of the season making incremental efficiency improvements to the ICE (trying to squeeze every drop of utility out of that throttled compressor) while dancing on the razor's edge of how high they can crank the RPMs before everything breaks again. They manage to claw back some decent horsepower, but it’s nowhere near enough to bridge the gap.
In most sessions, they burn through an engine, but they occasionally manage to nurse a few through a full race distance—though they're always stuck at the tail end of the midfield due to that crippled power level.s.

Mercedes' Andy Cowell:

Honda's engine architecture is incredibly gutsy; if they ever actually master it, they're going to be a serious threat..