Might as well leave the 2012 thread now, and look ahead to the new season...
F1 2013 Championship
- Thread starter Lonemagpie
- Start date
Bring on 2014, honestly. Hopefully the exhaust regs will probably put Adrian Newey machines completely out of contention (unless he remembers how to design cars that don't rely on abusing exhaust gases in any way), and all the Vettel fanboys will be able to see him for the petulant little shit he really is, once he's come to the realisation that he's not going to be winning anything and ramps up his whining.
2012 got quite boring by the end anyway, once the top teams had perfected their EBD-ban-bypassing solutions and everyone had got the hang of the comedy tyres. Next year will just be more of the same old crap, only Hamilton will almost certainly be out of contention, so there'll be one less driver to stop the Golden Brat from running away with it.
I dunno that it will- Ferrari have sorted out their early-2012 difficulties, we've now got Perez instead of Hamilton in the McLaren, and we don't actually know for sure what the July 21 race will be!
Even if he does, you'd be wise to watch again in 2014 when a shedload of rule changes come into effect that will have the most effect on Red Bull.
Of course, he'll probably choose to jump to Ferrari at that point...
But that's a whole year away.
The new rules will make EBDs effectively impossible, but considering that they were originally supposed to mark the return of ground effects, they're quite disappointing, really.
I bet that Red Bull had something to do with ground effects being taken off of the new regs (being the dirty brown nosers that they are); they'd probably invested too much money (including that of their various 'unrelated' *cough* companies) in the current aero regs to risk having all of their data rendered useless.
Ok, the first part of my message was pure BS speculation, but there's truth in the second part.
Red Bull Technology anyone? Red Bull Racing might not be able to get away with sharing designs (and thus, have an extra source of relevant data) with Toro Rosso these days, but at the very least, Toro Rosso still benefits them greatly by filling the grid with two cars that are willing to get out of the way when the Golden Brat comes up behind them (which might not be an issue 99% of the time, but it certainly made a difference for said brat in 2012, with those critical races from the back), and push the blue flags to the limit to get in the way when being lapped by RBR rivals.
Other teams might push the rules, but in terms of winning races/podiums/big points with cars that are either explicitly illegal or insulting enough to the spirit of the rules that they are later made illegal, Red Bull are by far the biggest offenders in recent years, by a huge margin. I guess Adrian Newey has a pretty extensive history of designing rulebreaking cars. I've always found it hilarious how eager they are to jump on the bandwagon when other teams are accused of cheating, yet they go emo-mode and whine about being 'victimised' when they're actually CAUGHT cheating themselves.
Don't forget that Red Bull aren't in FOTA for a reason. They simply don't give a single shit about the Resource Restriction Agreement, they were accused of dishonouring it, most likely never intended to honour it (more speculation, sorry), and so left to avoid the embarrassment of being caught dishonouring it in the future. While there are several valid arguments against the RRA in favour of other forms of cost cutting, some of the ridiculous stunts Red Bull have pulled in the past make it clear that they simply do not care one bit about any form of cost cutting, and Christian Horner desperately trying to insist otherwise won't fool anyone (what's he's really thinking in his head when he brings up the subject is probably something like 'LOL WE CAN SPEND MORE MONEY THAN YOU GUYS LOL ENJOY YOUR FOTA SUCKERS LOL WE DONT CARE ABOUT THE FUTURE OF F1 AS LONG AS WE WIN AND THEN WHEN THE OTHER TEAMS RUN OUT OF MONEY WE CAN JUST BUY THEM ALL AND TURN THE SERIES INTO FORMULA FIZZYDRINKS LOL').
Yes, I have it in for them.
If history is anything to go by a team only has a finite time at the top, In the early 1990's it was Williams, then McLaren, then Ferrari and so on, so sooner or later Red Bull will be knocked off the top step of the podium, who knows next time it might be Lotus or Mercedes.
not long until the new cars are unveiled - McLaren launch theirs on January 31st, Force India on February 1st, and Sauber on Feb 2nd. Pre-season testing starts Feb 5th.
http://www.formula1.com/news/
http://www.formula1.com/news/
It's pretty amazing how ugly race cars have become today. You think back to the FW14B or the MP4/7A, or 1990's era Penske or Reynard Indycars, etc. Then compare them to the stepped nose F1 monstrosities of today, or the COT in NASCAR. Maybe motorsport needs some kind of aesthetics rule? I understand the military going for function over form, but this is sport.
IM looking forward to see what hamiltion does in the mercedes and if perez stuggles in the mclaren and if he can beat button.
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