Berkshire Bitters! Brakspear (pronounced "Brakes Peer" in the Berkshire accent) Special. All the best, Andrew.
Totally agree. The Matra engines had that top end scream that the Ferrari Flat 12 did not.... or as much. but the Ferrari V12's of 1990 - 1995 were some of the best sounding --- LOUD I've ever heard. F-1 today is all about eating your own. that is what it's coming down to. Bernie needed the teams - so they signed up on the Concorde to 2020... so if they leave now - they have to pay an exit penalty... big $$$ so Mercedes is not going anywhere fast. Nor are any of the other teams. Bernie is being consumed by his own creation... ( selling to CVC and cutting out the FIA) FOM is left holding the money bag - literally ... so now you have all these Money hungry team's, Manufacturers, Bernie, CVC trying to divide up the Money... and they are all completely 100% Greedy and dont care about the others. when teams could go out and buy a Cosworth, and Hewland Gearbox - they had 50% of the car figured out. the rest they made on their own OR - bought from March, Lola, sometimes Mclaren or Lotus... so from the 50's to the 90's to be a manufacturer in F-1 meant that you generally made a chassis and brought in an engine from somewhere else... why is that bad? you could from time to time buy "customer Cars" from Lotus and McLaren... or March, Ensign, Shadow, Arrows, - usually the lower ranked teams... sold off last years car or made a duplicate a couple of iterations behind what the "works" team was using... That is how Frank Williams got to F-1.... selling used race cars & parts. I dont get why its so bad to be able to buy a chassis or complete customer car? - If you could do that =then you can have your engineers focused on running it = improving it with your own technology - i think that should be the point. ... but I also think F-1 needs to encourage independant constructors to enter to keep the differentiation alive - a Spec F-1 is not somethign that attracts me at all. Even if they were all Ferrari F-1 cars... However - NOTHING will change, turbos are here as well as PU's... cant put the genie back in the bottle... My prediction is that CVC will be the ultimate loosers here. they will probabbly have to sell off at a loss at some point close to 2020 when the concorde agreement comes back up ... and or Bernie dies. ( or both) I suspect the FIA will re enter as the true governing body and that may be sooner than later given all the speculation of the European Commission looking in to F-1 ala FIFA...
I remember the year that McLaren was using the Peugeot engines - at one race, I believe it was Silverstone, Martin Brundle's car was already smoking as he took his position on the grid. When the lights went out and he nailed the throttle, the engine blew, quite comprehensively!
And this is when the rules and regulations can be changed with less than a totality of FOM votes. I suspect that the 2020 concorde agreement will be different.......for the reasons being discussed herein
Well, these smart alecks forced this hybrid nonsense engine to woo the manufacturers in. To deem the relevance of F1 and road, which, IMHO was, is and will never be relevant. We have Le Mans for that. Now, it's so expensive, the engines sounds like crap, and Renault and Honda are a laughing stock in F1. Soon, i think it's only gonna be Ferrari and Mercedes left. Well done FIA.
Very good MC. Summer is here in Germany and its nice. Alot of racing events going on and lots of daylight DC speaks about many issues related to this thread. He is stating the obvious but his experience is one worth listening to - BBC Sport - David Coulthard: Short-changed drivers not enjoying F1
Losing long time or current fans is one thing, but if the best F1 hopes for is "keeping" what they have, they have totally missed the boat on building new fans, bringing in younger fans, increasing the number of fans/sponsors, etc. This is in response to how many times the long term fans bemoan the sound of the current engine...OK, that's fine, but to the NEXT generation of fans, that complaint may not mean anything....so....what is F1 doing to bring in the new fans?
IMO the Lamborghini V12 was the best sounding of the 3.5 liter era; Matra was the best of the early 3 liter formula, you could hear its scream over the rest of the pack. At Watkins Glen whenever the Ligier would pass fans just shook their heads in blissful disbelief. Sound was a huge part of the F1 experience and it has been lost. Pity.
I remember the Matra V-12 from when Chris Amon was driving with them and then again in 75 with Shadow and 76 with Ligier at Watkins Glen... and in Canada in 81 - 82 pity they never could really get it together in F-1. ( other than Matra Tyrrell )
No way this isn't going unnoticed. F1 must know this is a symptom of a huge issue. Years ago could you imagine Mclaren not having a major sponsor?
That's not the proposal on the table, though... They are talking about supplying "franchise cars" that will be delivered to the racetrack by the constructor. The franchise teams will just take'em out of the box, run'em for the weekend, then put'em back in the box. No development...no personal touches...no chance to be innovative.
I must not have got that memo... customer cars - to me meant you can buy an off the shelf Mercedes, Ferrari etc... and run it... do what you want with it- you would be getting a 2nd generation car. probabbly with limits on the PU tech,...
Current F1 cars are so much a fully integrated system that I doubt that any customer could make substantive improvements. Perhaps some aero tweaking but even that would be limited by the car's architecture.
Funny you should mention that.... Nothing is ever "easy" in F1 - Latest interview with the perennial whipping boy; Cheers, Ian Pirelli: Slower than expected 2015 F1 pace helping cause one-stops - F1 news - AUTOSPORT.com
