• Welcome to the Cricket Web forums, one of the biggest forums in the world dedicated to cricket.

    You are currently viewing our boards as a guest which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community you will have access to post topics, respond to polls, upload content and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join the Cricket Web community today!

    If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us.

Formula 1

GoodAreasShane

Cricketer Of The Year
Agreed, at least one more major engine manufacturer would be an excellent thing for the sport. Gone are the days when a team could make a chassis and bolt a Cosworth DFV in the back, and they would be pretty much ready to race.
 

jimmy101

Cricketer Of The Year
Agreed, at least one more major engine manufacturer would be an excellent thing for the sport. Gone are the days when a team could make a chassis and bolt a Cosworth DFV in the back, and they would be pretty much ready to race.
I'd go as far as saying the current state of the sport is similar to the 50's, wherein only the major factory-backed teams had a realistic shot at winning races and the privateers were just backmarkers, way out of their league.
 

Flem274*

123/5
yep, that williams is an absolute hunk of junk and it's driven by a pair of daddys boys. a sorry sight for a competition that calls itself the pinnacle. minardi were backmarkers but never disgraced F1 like williams have this year.
 

cpr

International Coach
I'd love for you to be proven wrong on that one too. But I think you're right. There's actually talk of Williams become a Merc B-team (ala Haas/Sauber/Toro Rosso). Personally this would be sad, as it seems like the sport is gravitating closer & closer to being an unofficial two-tier competition as time goes on.

We desperately need more engine manufacturers. Ford & BMW would be great to have again.
Think Williams are doing everything they can to stop being seen as Mercedes B. They've basically veto'd Ocon driving for them next year as they don't want a Mercedes driver (there's still an element of annoyance at how Merc levered Bottas out of there). Sir Frank really is the last of the old racing guard on the grid now, and with Claire being a chip off that block, theres no way they are going to allow overall control to be wrestled out of the families hands if they can help it. The relationship they have with Mercedes is a bit strained, but held together by a decent amount of mutual trust between the principals, and also the fact that for Williams they aren't going to get a better engine (Ferrari sure as **** won't ever provide them with one) - not sure how long the Williams/Merc contract is, but it was signed quite a while back.
If BMW came back, or Audi finally made the plunge, I reckon Williams would seriously consider that route dependant on the current Merc contract.

yep, that williams is an absolute hunk of junk and it's driven by a pair of daddys boys. a sorry sight for a competition that calls itself the pinnacle. minardi were backmarkers but never disgraced F1 like williams have this year.
Minardi were the epitome of 'were here to have fun, not to compete'. As much as they never had the budget to do well, they did pretty much prop the field up for 20 years. They had 5 points finishes in their last 10 years, 2 of which were at the shambolic USA 05 race. Theres been far worse stinkers in F1 history (step forward Simtek and Forti off the top off my head) than this Williams
Truth is, Williams are really hit and miss with their chassis sometimes, will have awful seasons then become serious competitors the next year. It'll be interesting to see what they produce for 2019, as this will be the first year that Paddy Lowe can truly dictate the car set up (2018 was probably already mapped out and under way before he joined)
 

Flem274*

123/5
Minardi were awesome

Williams desperately need to court a new manufacturer but that won't solve the money and chassis issue. All the hallmarks of a dying team, they really are bad atm. Two pay drivers, no chassis, no aero, customer engine, no sponsors. It's 2019 or out for them. There's rumours of Porsche interest in F1.

McLaren at least can drag their car into the points with a very good steerer and while they have chassis issues they're doing better than williams despite having the ho hum renault engine.
 

cpr

International Coach
One season doesn't ruin an F1 team. You're forgetting that until very recently Williams were running as clear 4th team on the grid with the Merc engine. They've always run a relatively modest budget compared to Ferrari/RB/Merc and McLaren, and have a history of using pay drivers which sometimes pay off (Maldonado for all his crashes did win a GP). If Lowe can sort the chassis for next year (and he's not bad at it TBF) then that Merc engine will give them a huge boost above above McLaren/Toro Rosso and possibly Renault, mebbie even Sauber and Haas too - don't forget one of the drivers you're disparaging above is going to take a Force India seat...
The loss of Martini is going to hurt, as they won't get anywhere near as much money given the season they've had, but just because they've not announced a sponsor, doesn't mean the car is going to be blank next year. Williams are a stronger marketing prospect than others on the grid such as Sauber/Force India, thanks to their history and British fanbase (and that British TV will give them a bigger percentage of air time than you might expect - this season we've seen far more of Stroll and Sirotkin than Ericsson/Hartley on TV despite running behind them. Its only the fact that Gasly and Leclerc are having stormers that we hear about Sauber and TR)


Minardi may have been 'awesome' as a plucky underdog in the 2000's, but the 90s they were part of a pack of absolute stinkers on the grid. The type of team that had to beg race directors to compete because they couldn't get within 107% of the qualy time, then retire anyway because the car was dogturd. Them, Simtek, Footwork, Forti, Larusse, Pacific et al might aswell have called their cars F2 and run it as a separate championship racing the same races.

As for Porsche interest, its unlikely they'd run the mark in F1 unless they can bag a high class team to take over, getting shafted by Ferrari every week will be a huge embarrassment for them. Much more likely to race the Audi badge instead, but then they've been threatening to move into F1 for years with no action. Came close a few years back as the head of VW was into it, but I think he was cleaned out when the emissions scandal hit.
 

GoodAreasShane

Cricketer Of The Year
There shall be no Minardi hate here k thx

Bring back massive entry lists, bring back prequalifying
 
Last edited:

Flem274*

123/5
stroll and sirotkin are terrible, have no business being near a formula 1 grid and are purely there because they can pay williams' massive bills. now that they don't have stroll's dad financing the team they have a lot of money to find.

they have a history of pay drivers but they're a really, really bad team right now. this is easily the worst they've ever been. even when the bmw in the back during the schumacher/montoya days was blowing up every other race at least the car was fast.

these things tend to compound. they're not going to attract any serious drivers because the car sucks and even if they could they couldn't afford not to use pay drivers because they have no sponsor confirmed for next year because the car sucks and the drivers are worse. the 2019 car is the most important car in their history imo. it needs to be respectable.

minardi in the 90s had a trundler but they still had serious drivers like trulli who quickly learned how to keep a field of cars stuck behind him. sirotkin resorted to driving blokes off the road in the end last weekend. granted perez earlier was completely out of line. droppable driving.
 

Flem274*

123/5
the porsche rumour doing the rounds was involving buying torro rosso iirc and paving the way for a red bull scale back. hartley was there as advance guard.

but yeah porsche got cold feet. they'll get brave one day. the lure of stuffing ferarri and mercedes at their own game will be too great. if mclaren pulled head out of arse and built a proper chassis and aero package i think they'd have a go.
 

cpr

International Coach
Hmm, Stroll is pretty poor, but I think theres more to Sirotkin than this awful car is showing, and I think he'll surprise people a little bit with a season under his belt and a chassis that works. he's also been the only driver feeding back into future development, he's really proactive in learning about the car (he's got a degree in race engineering), whereas Stroll is known for just ****ing off into his own bubble and being no help. Strolls dad isn't actually financing the team any further than paying for the seat, which someone else invariably will come along and do (theres plenty of rich kids with multi millionaire fathers or corporate sponsers out there). You're also being a bit harsh about Sirotkins performance last weekend, yeah he caused an accident and deserved his penalty, but he was running on ruined tyres whilst driving a car that Perez had taken a huge chunk out of with his petulance (TBH I think Williams were wrong to leave him out on those tyres so long, the blame should be there IMO).

Their performance this year arguably isn't even their worst this decade, both 2011 and 2013 were worse performance wise - 11 was with a dog**** Cossie in the back (they ended up winning a race in 12 with a Renault) and 13 was just awful - 2 point finishes all year, even though the car was reliable - Bottas barely troubled the timekeepers until they got to the USA. They finished 3rd in the championship the next year. You say these things compound, and they can, but Williams have a really good track record of turning a bad season around with a great follow up (though getting themselves in a mess in the first place... not so good). They are really prudent with their limited budget, so if a car is turd they quickly drop development to focus on improving next years design, they don't have the resources to do both.

I'll give credit to Minardi for giving lots of young drivers a chance to have a race, and mebbie 99-01 they could compete with the other back markers, but most of their time they've failed to finish more often than not. Don't get the Trulli comment, he raced 7 times for them, pretty much at the back all the time (finished 4 races, 2 dead last, one last but one...). Fisichella faired no better the year before, though both evidently did enough to show they could drive despite the car they had.

As for Porsche rumours, they crop up every few years. VWG have been coyly teasing the idea of commiting to F1 for over a decade now, but have never taken any steps towards actually making an engine - the company line is they have little to no benefits to their street cars, so not worth the money. They'd rather concentrate on touring cars under the Audi/SEAT brands.
 

jimmy101

Cricketer Of The Year
Leclerc seemed to have a solid race last night. Good on him for dragging his Sauber around the track like that.
 

jimmy101

Cricketer Of The Year


Think I might print off this picture & hang it on my loungeroom wall. Something to get excited about.
 

cpr

International Coach
Think Renault are going to be my team next year. Jumping off the Force India bus after a few years (mainly because I've grown to really dislike Perez), Hulk was one of the reasons I liked FI in the first place. Hopefully Renault can finally give him a car that gets him a long overdue podium.

Of course if Williams wanna come back into the mix that'd be lovely. Until then I reckon I can get away with supporting them and an actual ​F1 team.
 

Flem274*

123/5
have always rated hulkenberg since A1GP. wish renault would go back to the camp blue and yellow colour scheme but with ricciardo on board i'm definitely a fan
 

Furball

Evil Scotsman
stroll and sirotkin are terrible, have no business being near a formula 1 grid and are purely there because they can pay williams' massive bills. now that they don't have stroll's dad financing the team they have a lot of money to find.

they have a history of pay drivers but they're a really, really bad team right now. this is easily the worst they've ever been. even when the bmw in the back during the schumacher/montoya days was blowing up every other race at least the car was fast.

these things tend to compound. they're not going to attract any serious drivers because the car sucks and even if they could they couldn't afford not to use pay drivers because they have no sponsor confirmed for next year because the car sucks and the drivers are worse. the 2019 car is the most important car in their history imo. it needs to be respectable.

minardi in the 90s had a trundler but they still had serious drivers like trulli who quickly learned how to keep a field of cars stuck behind him. sirotkin resorted to driving blokes off the road in the end last weekend. granted perez earlier was completely out of line. droppable driving.
It's not even the worst Williams have been this decade. Their 2013 car was a pile of ****e.
 

Furball

Evil Scotsman
I'd go as far as saying the current state of the sport is similar to the 50's, wherein only the major factory-backed teams had a realistic shot at winning races and the privateers were just backmarkers, way out of their league.
Formula One has pretty much always been that way tbf. People act like the 1960s - where you could stick a Cosworth in the back of the car and go racing - has been the historic norm.

Brabham had BMW, McLaren had Porsche, Williams and then McLaren had Honda, Williams and then Bennetton had Renault, McLaren had Mercedes, Red Bull had Renault...Brawn in 2009 are the exception (and even they had factory support from Honda before they pulled the plug).
 

Furball

Evil Scotsman
They probably will, because unlike McLaren, they are run professionally. Didn't watch the Amazon documentary myself (my total bias against McLaren meant I was probably not the best person to do a review of that one, I ended up writing on the Williams doc instead) but what I heard off those who did watch it was that they were a complete shambles behind the scenes as a team.
The impression I had of the McLaren documentary is that they're a team run by a shower of absolute incompetents. Full of corporate middle management types who don't have a clue what's going on and can easily be placated by junior managers just making stuff up.

Honda didn't come out of it any better. There was a hilarious moment when they realised that the Honda engine didn't fit the gearbox and the Honda mechanics were very reluctant to give McLaren any drawings so they could manufacture a gearbox that could be attached.
 

jimmy101

Cricketer Of The Year
have always rated hulkenberg since A1GP. wish renault would go back to the camp blue and yellow colour scheme but with ricciardo on board i'm definitely a fan
I rate the Hulk too, but a few mates of mine have threatened to jump off the Hulk bandwagon after being matched (if not slightly outpaced) by Perez. I'm hoping these two lads get along like a house on fire & we get something similar to the Mika/DC partnership, where both drivers respected each other immensely & helped each other at any given opportunity. Would be nice.
 

Top