TSR's Official F1 2018 Thread!

With Car launches and testing coming up, now seems a good time to start a thread based on the 2018 formula 1 world championship.

Car Launch Dates (and hopefully photos)

February 14th: Haas
Attachment 726366
February 15th: Williams

February 19th: Red Bull

February 20th: Renault, Sauber

February 22nd: Mercedes, Ferrari
February 23rd: McLaren
February 26th: Toro Rosso

Force India: who knows?




Testing Dates
February 26th- 1st March (Catalunya)
March 6th- 9th (Catalunya)
May 15th-16th (Catalunya)
July 31st-1st August (Hungaroring)


This post will be updated with race dates and car launch photos in the near future.

This post is reserved for the full testing lineup once announced.

The season starts this weekend in Australia.

announcements include a 3rd DRS zone being placed after 11-12 (the fast chicane)

So what do you think will happen in Australia this weekend? Mercedes dominance? Can Ferrari or Red Bull spring a suprise? Have any mid-field teams impressed you in testing.





Ps I know I’ve done a shite job at maintaining the thread.

Mercedes is gonna win most likely...

Posted from TSR Mobile

Agreed. They seem to have the best car. Although Ferrari was faster in testing, it has been for the last 3 seasons.

With the Red Bull update coming to Melbourne, I reckon that it will be close, I hope that Ferrari or Red Bull can spring a surprise, I think it is possible.

The midfield team that impressed me the most was Haas. Maybe not best of rest but a really good showing by them I think.

Welcome everyone to a brand new season of F1.

After 1 whole season, F1 is back to a 21 race calendar with quite a few changes to the regulations and cars.


1Australian Grand Prix Melbourne Grand Prix Circuit, Melbourne25 March
2Bahrain Grand Prix Bahrain International Circuit, Sakhir8 April
3Chinese Grand Prix Shanghai International Circuit, Shanghai15 April
4Azerbaijan Grand Prix Baku City Circuit, Baku29 April
5Spanish Grand Prix Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Barcelona13 May
6Monaco Grand Prix Circuit de Monaco, Monte Carlo27 May
7Canadian Grand Prix Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, Montreal10 June
8French Grand Prix Circuit Paul Ricard, Le Castellet24 June
9Austrian Grand Prix Red Bull Ring, Spielberg1 July
10British Grand Prix Silverstone Circuit, Silverstone8 July
11German Grand Prix Hockenheimring, Hockenheim22 July
12Hungarian Grand Prix Hungaroring, Budapest29 July
13Belgian Grand Prix Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, Stavelot26 August
14Italian Grand Prix Autodromo Nazionale Monza, Monza2 September
15Singapore Grand Prix Marina Bay Street Circuit, Singapore
16 September
16Russian Grand Prix Sochi Autodrom, Sochi30 September
17Japanese Grand Prix Suzuka International Racing Course, Suzuka7 October
18United States Grand Prix Circuit of the Americas, Austin, Texas^{[N 2]}21 October
19Mexican Grand Prix Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, Mexico City28 October
20Brazilian Grand Prix Autódromo José Carlos Pace, São Paulo11 November
21Abu Dhabi Grand Prix Yas Marina Circuit, Abu Dhabi25 November


In terms of changes, race times will start 10 miutes- 2 hours 10 minutes later than usual for a lot of races due to Liberty Media wanting more Americans watching it (+ 10 minutes adverts before races...lowsy american sports practices)

Biggest changes include:

• cars being 5KG heavier due to the new cockpit safety device (which is much maligned):
• the halo (which looks more like a wishbone or a sandal on top of the cockpit),
• all customers receiving the exact same power unit components AND software as the manufacturer (after complaints against Mercedes)
• less oil burning
• ban on shark fins
• Instead of each team being allowed to use 4 Power Unit Components like in 2017, 2018 will see drivers restricted to 3 Engines, Turbochargers and MGU-H's (HERS), whilst MGU-Ks (KERS), batteries and ECUs will be restricted to 2 per season.
• 360 degree cameras mounted just infront of the halo

Pirelli will be allowing teams to choose their own tyres for different events (although they are restricted to Pirelli's choice for the first few events). These new tyres are a step softer than last year's tyres and there is a greater variety of tyres:

• Super Hard (2017 hard)
• Hard (2017 Medium)
• Medium (2017 Soft
• Soft (2017 Super Soft)
• Super Soft (2017 Ultra Soft)
• Ultra Soft (purple; new compound for 2018)
• Hyper Soft (new tyre for 2018)

In terms of Driver changes, All is the same as the end of 2017, except reigning F2 Champion (and arguably the most anticipated Junior Driver since Hamilton or Verstappen) Charles Leclerc will be replacing Pascal Wehrlein at Sauber. and Sergei Sirotkin will replace Felipe Massa at Williams

Teams/ Drivers:

Mercedes AMG Petronas
44- Lewis Hamilton (C); 77 Valterri Bottas

Scuderia Ferrari
5- Sebastian Vettel; 7 Kimi Raikkonen

Aston Martin Red Bull Racing
3- Daniel Ricciardo; 33 Max Verstappen

Force India*
11 Sergio Perez; 31 Esteban Ocon

Williams Martini Racing
18 Lance Stroll; 35 Sergei Sirotkin (R)

Renault
27 Nico Hulkenberg; 55 Carlos Sainz Jr.

Scuderia Torro Rosso Honda
10 Pierre Gasly (SR); 28 Brendon Hartley (SR)

Haas F1 Team
8 Romain Grosjean; 20 Kevin Magnussen

Mclaren
2 Stoffel Vandoorne; 14 Fernando Alonso

Alfa Romeo Sauber F1 Team
9 Marcus Ericsson; 16 Charles Leclerc (R)

Key: R- Rookie; SR- officially a rookie however they completed multiple races in 2017; C- reigning champion; *- Force India is expected to change names in the future

2018 Australian Grand Prix Preview

After many months of waiting, F1 is finally back in action.

After 2 weeks of pre-season testing (with the first test adversely affected by the Beast from the East) , Mercedes seems to ominously have the fastest car (again). Despite not setting any times on the Hypersoft tyre, it is expected that Mercedes will have a massive advantage over Ferrari and Red Bull in qualifying and the race. To top it off, the Mercedes Power unit is expected to exceed 1000hp (excluding MGUK as that is a temporary boost) in race conditions. Due to Lewis Hamilton (un)officially being the Number 1 in the team, it is expected he will again retain the Driver's Championship, however all hope is not lost as Mercedes' W09 is reported to be unkind on its tyres (all long runs were completed on Medium tyres with the short runs avoiding Hypersoft due to the car not being able to make them last for 1 timed lap in 1st test / avoided in 2nd).

Ferrari finished runner up last year depite having the fastest all-around car in race conditions (lost out heavily to mercedes in qualifying due to Mercedes' qualifying modes) and already they are expected to have troubles with fuel consumption. Despite this however, they refined their car from last year (which most of the teams have copied for this year) and Ferraris set the fastest times on the 3 softest types of tyres, despite their fastest hypersoft times being set during 7 lap stints (which is apparently impossible for mercedes).

Red Bull have the strongest driver lineup on the grid. Whether their drivers will fight for the champonship depends on the RB14 but all signs so far show that it is similar speed to the ferrari in winter testing (despite multiple reliability issues and only sticking to the medium tyre during race sims). That being said however, Red Bull are expected to leapfrog ferrari and possibly mercedes with a revamped aero package which wasnt tested in testing.

At this point, I would do previews on teams based on their finishing positions from last year as you would expect teams to maintain position, however testing has thrown quite a few curveballs to those plans. So now, here are the teams based on how they appear and where people think they are ranked:

Renault, despite re-entering F1 in 2016, appear to be getting back on track to their glory days. Whilst they do not have a car in the same league as the top 3, they appeared to be consistent, quick and reliable during testing. With Carlos Sainz and Nico Hulkenberg, they have 2 drivers who are fast, dependable and consistent and should be battling regularly for points and potentially podiums.

Haas are in their 3rd season of F1 yet their 2018 car (which a lot of people seem to think is a modified 2017 Ferrari) surprised a lot fo people in pre-season testing with speed and reliability. Their speed on the penultimate day was such that it was reported ferrari were nervous that Haas had similar speed to them (although Magnussen had much less fuel than Vettel based on stint lengths in short runs and speed vs Vettel on long runs). It also appears that unlike the 2017 car, which had numerous handling and brake issues, the 2018 haas is more similar in nature to the drivable 2017 Ferrari SF70H.

When Mclaren and Honda divorced each other at the end of last year, A lot of people expected Mclaren to immediately be on the pace of the top 3 and be leading the Midfield. What a lot of people didn't expect however was Honda to be extremely reliable and Torro Rosso to be consistently quicker and more reliable than half the teams on the grid...especially Mclaren. Whilst Hartley and Gasley are officially rookies, both raced for Torro Rosso last year and are familar with the team. Despite being Honda's "factory" team this year, it is expected they will lose this privelage to Red Bull next year and be a supporting team.

Mclaren set a lot of quick times over testing, yet were consistently plagued by reliability issues (burning engine covers, breakdowns, broken wheels) and even pitstop practice seemed farcical. This is a shame as Alonso (whilst controversial) is possibly the best driver of his generation (I classify Hamilton and Vettel as generation below) and Vandoorne is a talent who did well in junior categories (which admittedly played into his strengths of tyre management) but struggled due to having to push the tyres rather than save them.

Force India did not look at all comfortable during testing. Their car ,whilst reliable, was inconsistent and slow. Both drivers are fast, however both had quite a few crashes with each other last year (notably Baku and Spa, with them potentially losing 1 or 2 podium places in Canada due to Perez being stubborn). Additionally, Vijay Malya is likely to be sent back to India on criminal charges and the team is supposed to be sold to some british energy drink company. Despite all this however ,the team has been the best small team in f1 for a while and is liklely to be better after their big aero package is bolted on in Melbourne.

Williams were fortunate at the start of the hybrid era to be quite heavily supported by Mercedes (Toto Wolff had shares in the team + Bottas was managed by Him + Suzie Wolff (Toto's wife) was a demo driver /ambassador for them) and finished 3rd in 2014 and 2015. despite having Paddy Lowe (he who had major input in all of Hamilton's title winning cars) designing it, appears to be quite bad vs the opposition. Furthermore, they have the youngest driver line-up on the grid (average age is under 20 years old currently) with Lance Stroll being the team leader, depiste being younger and not really being that fast or consistent (save for 2 good drives in Canada and Baku (both of which he admittedly lucked into) and a stellar wet weather qualifying in Monza). Sirotkin is a rookie who is loathed by fans due to the feeling that he took Robert Kubica's seat, yet Sirotkin, despite being backed by Russia's largest bank and having a dad who is a Russian Politician is talented. In his rookie GP2 (now F2) season, he finished 3rd despite having a torrid first half to the year. During the second part of the year, he consistently performed well and was arguably better than the 2015 champion Vandoorne during the second half. It is due to these performances that he was expected to be fighting for the championship with Pierre Gasly in 2016, yet despite him qualifying well, he was inconsistent in races and was unable to be as consistent as the Prema duo of Gasly and Antonio Giovinazzi and again finished 3rd in the championship. Hopefully williams can come back towards the year and personally reckon that whoever is slower between stroll and sirotkin (money on stroll) will be replaced by kubica towards the end of the year.


Finally we come to Sauber, who has taken Alfa Romeo as a title sponsor. Whilst their new car is radically different from their previous cars of the hybrid era (under Monisha Kaltenborne, the cars for 2014-2016 were essentially the same with some minor aero tweaks; 2017 started as a bare basics car as well) and designed by Jorg Zander (who designed the Brawn GP BGP001 and the Audi R18 LMP1 cars), it was the slowest and most inconsistent car, with both drivers spinning the cars regularlly and it being beached in gravel traps. Whilst Ericsson is obviously a pay driver who has some talent, his team mate is quite possibly the most anticipated talent in F1 since Hamilton (no-one was anticipating Verstappen till he proved them once in f1)...Charles Leclerc. Leclerc won the 2016 GP3 championship in his rookie season ,despite struggling to manage tyres (opposite of vandoorne), yet he not only overcame this, he applied it in such a manner that he dominated the F2 championship in his rookie season last year.
To put into perspective why this was an amazing feat is simple: only 4 drivers in the history of GP2/F2 have done this: Rosberg (2005), Hamilton (2006), Hulkenberg (2009) and Leclerc (2017). What makes Leclercs the most impressive is that he did this at the age of 19 (as did rosberg) with the notorious GP2/11 chassis which is renowned for being very unfriendly to rookies. With the exception of Vandoorne and Grosjean (2 seasons each), the average champion in GP2 who drove a GP2/11 spent 3-5 seasons in GP2 before winning the championship. Leclerc was against opposition who consistently scored and outraced champions in GP2 and arguably had more challenging drivers than everyone post Grosjean yet despite this, he got 10 pole positions and 8 podiums...7 of which were wins. This accomplishment is all the more impressive if you consider that he got disqualified from a race win in Spa, disqualified from qualifying in 2 races, penalised from a double win a baku due to a rule which virtually all drivers broke (yet only the championship challengers were penalised) and punted off from the lead in monza on the last lap by his current F2 replacement. Whilst he has the talent, there is no guarantee it will translate but here is hoping it will.

DRIVERS CHAMPIONSHIP AFTER ROUND 13: BELGIUM
1. Lewis Hamilton 231 points
2. Sebastian Vettel 214 points
3. Kimi Raikkonen 146 points
4. Valterri Bottas 144 points
5. Max Verstappen 120 points
6. Daniel Ricciardo 118 points
7. Nico Hulkenberg 52 points
8. Kevin Magnussen 49 points
9. Fernando Alonso 44 points
10. Sergio Perez 40 points
11. Esteban Ocon 37 points
12. Carlos Sainz Jr. 30 points
13. Pierre Gasly 28 points
14. Romain Grosjean 27 points
15. Charles Leclerc13 points
16 Stoffel Vandoorne 8 poins
17 Marcus Ericsson 6 points
18. Lance Stroll 4 points
19. brendon Hartley 2 points
20. Sergei Sirotkin 0 points

CONSTRUCTORS CHAMPIONSHIP AFTER ROUND 13: BELGIUM
1) Mercedes 375 points
2) Ferrari 360 points
3) Red Bull 238 points
4) Renault 82 points
5) Haas 76 points
6) Mclaren 52 points
7) Torro Rosso 30 points
8) Sauber 19 points
9) Force India 18 points*
10) Williams 4 points

*Due to Lawrence Stroll's Racing Point consortium taking over Force India, Force India has forfeited all points scored during the 1st 12 rounds of the championship (59 points)

By all means.

On the tyres, you forgot Superhard.

Ta

superhard is the 1st one... (2017 hard)

Ah, I’m an idiot...

On Haas, remember they performed very well at the start on their debut season and Grosjean qualified 6th down under last year. They are good at the start of the season.

I mean looking forward to see how Leclerc does as well. He is talented.

1st 2 races for haas were a dream for them, sadly afterwards it unfolded for them. Also it didnt help guitierrez couldnt score points either.Their main issue seems to stem from handling characteristics to most circuits dependent on brakes. If they have solved their brake issues, I reckon they could be top 6, maybe top 5

Leclerc is the guy Ireally want to see do well. I have been following his career since his Macau GP appearance and have been impressed by him. His style reminds me of Schumachers (consistently go for speed and consistency vs managing tyres) which made his GP3 season a lot harder than it should have been. Yet the lessons he learnt from that were applied to F2 and applied extremely well.

I calculated if he didnt get so many penalties in F2 / unreliability issues in monaco, he would have won the F2 championship in Spa sprint race or maybe even the Feature race. The last time I was this hyped for a driver was when a certain L. Antony Carl Hamilton whose career I followed since he was an ASM driver, was announced as an F1 driver (although driving for the team I didnt want him to drive for)

Has anyone heard the new f1 theme song???
Sounds like something off the pirates of the Caribbean..... 😂😂

Yeah, he also had the penalty in Baku and issues in Hungary. Plus he was smashed into a wall by De Vries at Monza.