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I remember a while back that Sarah Fisher's team (IRL) had some underwear company sponsorship, so they did the Pit Stop team challenge wearing shorts on top of their uniform.

Mika Häkkinen returns to McLaren.

So...Alonso out?

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"Indy doesn't give you a second chance. You have to earn it."

Well knowing Alonso's luck we can expect Honda to find and fix the problem in the next few days and suddenly having the engine to beat.

"So...come crawling back, eh?"

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.ph ... on-engines

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Dan Wheldon ¦ 1978-2011
Marco Simoncelli ¦ 1987-2011
Jules Bianchi ¦ 1989-2015
Justin Wilson ¦ 1978-2015

Yeah, I know he's mad and I don't care. I do not care. I did not care then. I do not care now. I'm here to race him.

These guys are literally naive. Thinking of a nice story and seeing the succes for their eyes doesn't make it a reality. I hope Merc has the balls to say 'no'.

Maybe they can get a Hart engine and let Cosworth tune the crap out of that one.

I hope Mercedes say yes. They can charge $50 million a year and still prevent the McLarens from ever finishing ahead of them in the same way that Williams currently is.

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Dan Wheldon ¦ 1978-2011
Marco Simoncelli ¦ 1987-2011
Jules Bianchi ¦ 1989-2015
Justin Wilson ¦ 1978-2015

Yeah, I know he's mad and I don't care. I do not care. I did not care then. I do not care now. I'm here to race him.

Can't blame them for looking at alternatives. But I don't think it's McLaren wanting to end the deal but Honda pulling the plug come season end if they cant turn it around.

Probably. I just hope we don't end up with half the field with Merc engines. The variety on designs is practically gone, if we loose variety on the engine front, meh.

I hope they can create a situation like when they first introduced KERS. (2008/2009?) Some cars had it, some didn't. That was wonderfull, KERS cars may had a weight disadvantage, but it could be used to speed up and defend. I thought that was great. If some teams want to go back to a 'dumb' V8 for cost purposes (it might have saved Manor) but having to either run with more weight or at least one rookie, etc. etc. That would be the dream. They'd still be F1 cars, but a lot more variety. What's the point in going to different circuits if all the cars will be in the same pecking order all the time?

I remember online racing (GPL) very well (duh). The characteristics of the cars were such that every track meant a different pecking order, no matter how closely matched you were. That was super exciting over a season.

"Hey Mercedes, look who we have in our team now! Our own double world champion Mika Häkkinen! Let's put band back together, what'll you say, huh? Remember the good old days when our car was silver arrow, huh?"

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"Indy doesn't give you a second chance. You have to earn it."

I guess that without Dennis, Mercedes could be more lenient on McLaren for engine supply

or convince Honda to fund a second team

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Motorsports trend for 2024: climate change ruining races everywhere

Its simple really. If F1 wants to keep running with these engines then they need to let Ferrari, Renault and Honda develop their engines to parity to the Mercedes....you know, like they let Mercedes do back in the V8 era when they had the weaker engine.

Or seeing as they have created a massive engine formula let them do as siggy said and have a different engine config and cap them all to parity to the other engines. They let Torro Rosso do this with running a detuned v10 a number of years ago....but that would be admitting that the FIA got it wrong and going back to those hideous and vile engines of the past.

And we all know the FIA is incapable of admitting when they're wrong.

But wasn't because of this that they eliminated the Token rule? The engine development race is one of the things that I'm looking forward the most this year, just imagining they coming with a big engine revamp for the race.

As Soul Reaver points out, they now can develop their engines to the fullest extent at all times of the year.

There's not much more the FIA can do beyond that - the manufacturers are notoriously secretive about their engine programs and they have enough trouble trying to poach staff from each other in order to learn everyone else's secrets.

_________________
Dan Wheldon ¦ 1978-2011
Marco Simoncelli ¦ 1987-2011
Jules Bianchi ¦ 1989-2015
Justin Wilson ¦ 1978-2015

Yeah, I know he's mad and I don't care. I do not care. I did not care then. I do not care now. I'm here to race him.

Yes I know they can keep on developing the engines...but the goal posts are always moving. If someone is soo far behind already how much further back will they be when the leaders are also developing their far superior engines at the same rate? It will be a never ending cycle of catch up.

My preference is that the FIA say, here is the maximum fuel flow limit, rev limit, materials used, weight etc....knock yourself out and design what ever engine your company has envisioned for your future. THEN the engines become road relevant and if they are going to be spending X amount of dollars on these engines, surely that money would be better spent on technologies that they have planned for their own companies.

Admittingly if Honda weren't so inept and up themselves then this wouldn't be such a huge issue as it is now.

Indeed. Regarless of what you think of this engine formula. The problem with the Honda engine lies completely on Honda's shoulders.
They had the opportunity to test 24/7 before entering but didn't do it. They had multiple occasions to turn things around but failed.

In 2015 the Renault engine was almost on par with Honda when it came to sucking but they where able to turn it around within a season and within the token system and Red Bull was able to win races.
Today they might not be equal with Mercedes but a lot closer and most likely able to win races after the Spain upgrade.

Honda, 3 years later, still haven't fixed any of their problems.

What could be funny in 2018 is that if Honda would pull the plug it might be cheaper for them to keep paying McLaren rather than buying out the contract. So they could be paying for McLaren's new engine just like they pretty much paid Brawn GP's titles.

Fixed it for you

Can someone explain to me why everyone is complaining about the sound of the engines today, but the turbos in the mid 1980's sounded exactly the same, except for the gear change sounds.

I didn't like them back in '14 when they came in, but they've become decent enough over time.

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Bernie and the internet.

Bernie said it sounds bad and the engine formula sucks. The internet takes over these comments and repeats each other.

I willing to bet both my testicles that if Bernie said he loved it because it sounded almost the same as in the 80's the backlash over the sound would be much smaller.

I highly doubt that Bernie's opinion has so much influence on the public. We'd be calling him a crazy old man again, probably.