[jfxavier]

Looks like Business as usual for all practical purposes.



This sight is becoming all too familiar . 8 times this year already.
Maybe they will better last year's 11 times 1-2 finishes.

Here's the results.





Alonso - one day calmly assuring the press he's happy at McLaren, the next day publically humiliating the engine supplier at their home race.
No wonder he has a reputation for being difficult.
Maybe he said those things when he is pushing as hard as he can and he is overtaken by couple of rookies purely due to lack of top speed.

Maybe he is hoping that either Honda will kick into action and make spectacular improvements next year or they'll kick him out...

He tweeted this after the race

"Tough race, we have to be realistic. The positive, finishing with the 2 cars and have solved the problems of Singapore. We keep working!! ����"

[mayankk]

As someone who's figuratively cried when the silver mclarens blew up while blitzing everybody in the last decade, I have to say that the current crop is a disgrace to the drivers(and I despise Alonso!), Mclaren name, supposed Honda technology, and the legacy of the association. Even an underdeveloped Mclaren should be capable of being half the field.
Just takes the sheen off of even a win by Lewis.

[asr245]

Mercs back to business & boring everyone. Lewis continues to win, Rosberg continues to struggle to 2nd. Vettel best of the rest. From now on I will be praying for a DNF for Lewis, just to spice up the race.

I hope for a big shuffle in 2016. May just have to give up watching F1 otherwise.

[sgiitk]

Unless something happens this may be the death knell of F1 for the watching public. Ferrari is barely competitive as for the rest, less said the better. So are we going back to the old Ford Cosworth days?

[Hatari]

About time Bernie puts his foot down to open up development to ensure Renault and McLaren can catch up.

Though, if he convinces Ferrari to supply Red Bull next year, it would mean a 3 way fight between Merc/Ferrari/RB bringing back competition.

[jfxavier]

What I learned from the Japanese GP:

The starts are also beginning to look familiar.
Both Mercedes starts almost evenly but under the 2nd phase of acceleration when the second clutch is released, Lewis manages to get a bit of a jump on Nico.

Williams are playing the strategy game themselves now a days, not just responding to the others. Bottas went for the undercut on lap 12 and Rosberg emerged behind Valtteri when he pitted on lap 16.

Bottas needs to be a bit more aggressive if he is to be in a top team and become a WDC. "Ruthless" is a word that can be easily used to describe most of the f1 WDCs. Nico caught him napping into the Casio triangle and ran right by him. Should have taken a few more laps/ corners for that move to happen.

Hopefully Button and Alonso were putting up a "show" for the senior Honda management in attendance at Suzuka. If not it doesn't look very good at McLaren. Now that "Big Ron" has confirmed JB's contract for next year, he might relax a bit.

"Undercut" seems to be the most popular strategy now a days. It clearly is the byproduct of BEs instructions to Pirelli to create a self destructing tyre for F1.
Alonso was able to defend the faster cars for a while when he was on the softer compound. Bottas undercut Rosberg, Rosberg undercut Vettel, Kimi undercut Bottas... the list goes on.
F1 has a nasty habit of reverting back to the old ways. It looks like the race positions are again being decided by the pit stop strategy. If refuelling is brought back, the pitlane poker might become more interesting.

Quick drivers ending up behind on the grid and driving through the grid is always fun to watch. Max recovering to P9 from P17 and Hulkenberg very quietly driving to P6 after his lacklustre quali and penalty.

Lotus finally had a decent race with Grosjean and Maldonado P7 and P8. Hopefully they will settle all their monetary issues soon.

[Jeeper1941]

Another boring race, with the best car winning; again.

And Alonso's words on Sky: "This is the only team that will challenge Mercedes in the near future". Is he delusional? Or is that sarcasm?

And RBR seem to be in a bit of a panic. No engine supplier for next season yet. I hope they get shunted out of F1, after the way they threw Renault under the bus after they (Renault) took them to 4 straight championships. Now, under the new rules, Renault are not quite up to mark with their engines and Red Bull are throwing a hissy fit. The whole team is behaving like a spoilt child throwing a tantrum.

And check this out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2gqdFJpl3Y

Gotta love Vettel

[jfxavier]

Some good news at last.
hope this will turn around the fortunes of both Renault and Lotus.

[Fullrevs]

Originally Posted by Jeeper1941

Gotta love Vettel

Really do! Quite the joker he is and is quite nice to see him get along with Hamilton well. Pouring champagne into each others backs when the podium interviews were on. I think these are two guys that nobody can have a problem with.

It was quite a dull race in my opinion too, things are back to normal with Lewis dominating the field. I don't think Ferrari could have covered Rosberg after the pitstops too. Seemed better to lose the position on strategy rather than a overtake on track. Max Verstappen has really made it all exciting. His skill is supreme and is definitely heading places. With all the mess that Red Bull and Toro Rosso are going through, I wonder if its too late for another team to poach him. Verstappen to Ferrari in 2017? His dad was refused the opportunity, maybe the son can make up for that.

I find it hard to blame Alonso for his radio rant. The guy should be winning titles and to see someone go comfortably around the outside to overtake is quite humiliating. We get to see and hear a few radio edits via the broadcast but I am sure these drivers say worse things to the pitwall.

Mclaren-Honda are definitely good enough to win the championship maybe in 2 years time. However, the question remains if Alonso will ever get the chance or will it be his replacement?! Quite similar to Michael Schumachers time at Mercedes.

[jraj]

In a otherwise boring race,the only entertainment came when the toys were thrown out of the MP4-30 by Alonso

[jfxavier]

Originally Posted by jraj

In a otherwise boring race,the only entertainment came when the toys were thrown out of the MP4-30 by Alonso

Originally Posted by Fullrevs

I find it hard to blame Alonso for his radio rant. The guy should be winning titles and to see someone go comfortably around the outside to overtake is quite humiliating. We get to see and hear a few radio edits via the broadcast but I am sure these drivers say worse things to the pitwall.

Mclaren-Honda are definitely good enough to win the championship maybe in 2 years time. However, the question remains if Alonso will ever get the chance or will it be his replacement?! Quite similar to Michael Schumachers time at Mercedes.

Originally Posted by Jeeper1941

And Alonso's words on Sky: "This is the only team that will challenge Mercedes in the near future". Is he delusional? Or is that sarcasm?

Originally Posted by mayankk

As someone who's figuratively cried when the silver mclarens blew up while blitzing everybody in the last decade, I have to say that the current crop is a disgrace to the drivers(and I despise Alonso!), Mclaren name, supposed Honda technology, and the legacy of the association. Even an underdeveloped Mclaren should be capable of being half the field.

Found this rare sane piece of journalism on Honda. Most of the articles are written by journalists probably believing that F1 is a "European" business and a Japanese company might not be having the wherewithals to succeed in this highly "sophisticated" sport.

Trent Price is an amateur race driver, former V8 race coach and FIA Accredited journalist from Melbourne, Australia.
A former Race Editor for GP Week and contributor for ESPN, Trent lends occasional correspondence to ABC Grandstand and is now the Editor of the WEC/Formula E magazine E-Racing; www.e-racingmag.com.

Link : http://www.theroar.com.au/2015/10/02...t-honda-slack/

I had the rare opportunity to speak with Honda boss Yasuhisa Arai on the Sunday morning of the Japanese Grand Prix. Away from the poison darts of reporters trying to get a rise out of Arai san, the man who taught Asimo to walk upstairs was relaxed and straightforward with his responses.

That's another way to look at Arai san - "The man who taught Asimo to walk upstairs". Not bad at all, me thinks.

“The Japanese culture is one where we don’t tend to say much,” explained Arai san. “You’re supposed to feel it or understand it with one another. This is the same with Honda.
“It’s a gut-feeling that you communicate without words. It’s a high-context culture. I feel the same way with Fernando. He’s the type of person that communicates like that. We will give him an idea and he might say: ‘No I can’t drive as fast like that.’”
The best engineer and driver combinations have always worked this way: Jim Clarke and Colin Chapman, Patrick Head and Alan Jones, Ross Brawn and Michael Schumacher are all perfect exponents of this theory. Progress moves much quicker this way rather than having to explain your rationale.
Fernando seems to appreciate this approach. For a man who once reportedly kicked a chair at former Ferrari team principal Marco Mattiacci with the parting words, “figlio su una cagna”, he appears to be showing some uncharacteristic restraint.
“I’ve learnt a lot,” said Alonso. “There are some people and projects (at Honda) that are very, very clever. They are fantastic people. The performance of the power unit at the start of the year was not at a level to compete so we had to make progress more rapidly than normal and that includes taking more risks than normal. All of this has been done by very clever engineers. In extracting the maximum from this power unit (as opposed to next year) it has happened very quickly. It’s a completely different approach to what I’m used to.”

At least Honda seems to have earned the respect of Alonso. Not an easy job.

Alonso’s online explanation for his radio outburst [likening his Honda power unit to that of a GP2 car] might have come across as PR back-peddling, but radio silence would have been more concerning. I’d rather fire in the belly than stoic acceptance from a driver knowing he was always getting another fat cheque in the mail.
While many in the media (hankering for a clickbait article) were quick to pounce on the gaffe, I doubt anyone stopped to consider that the outburst might have been borne out of frustration for his colleagues rather than directed at the team? But then such nuances get lost in the rush for a headline.

For highly driven people like Alonso, it must be like walking on a knife edge during every race weekend knowing the probable outcome of the race while trying to gain every advantage to change that status quo.

The common misconception labelled at Honda is that they have a regimented approach which is out of step with Formula One practices. It is true that their modus operandi is diametrically opposed to modern F1, but then that’s hardly a negative given the state the sport is in.
“We don’t have a very strict methodology. It may look that way but it’s not the reality,” said Arai san.
“In European companies, if you’re the engineer you don’t touch the car. If you’re a test engineer then you don’t get track activities. There’s a clear line about what you do and what you’re responsible for. At Honda, engineers will actually assemble or reassemble power units and actually test them as well. So they have a dual, triple role when they take on the job. The different part of Honda is that you think for yourself, you make it yourself and you test it yourself.
“We don’t have manuals that tell you what to change. Therefore the more experienced the engineers are, their gut feeling is usually right and can go straight to what their objective is.”
It’s an approach that some veteran engineers like ex-Sauber aerodynamicist Willem Toet believe is a dying art, given that most young race engineers entering Formula One are effectively consigned to piecing together kit cars.
“It’s unlikely for a young engineer to come up with the next great innovation if their every move is has been laid out six months in advance,” said Toet. “But ideas can come from anywhere. If you have a broad understanding of the challenges of racing a car, that understanding really helps you to believe when a driver says a car is too unstable.”
That process – much like it was through-out the 1970s, ’80s and even ’90s – enables engineers to come up with solutions a lot faster when problems surface. One only has to remember Adrian Newey’s 2007 RB3. It took the engineers close to a year to work out the intricacies of one man’s aero design, and it was in turn inconsistent in its speed delivery.
But is the Honda approach working at McLaren?
“Sometimes there is a difficulty in trying to get that [message] across,” said Arai san. “If you’re speaking with a European engineer, they have theories, but Honda engineers have tested it already, so know already whether it will work or not. McLaren is a very methodical and procedural company, but I think they now understand how Honda works. And we’ve learnt from the McLaren side that if you put in place procedures so that you don’t waste time.”
The ‘hands on’ work ethic is something that Bruce McLaren would be proud of, having performed many ‘on the fly’ modifications that became innovations that are still used to this day. Make no mistake, McLaren-Honda are behind the eight-ball and a further engine regulation change would unfairly render their project a failure. Arai san is however acutely aware of the need to make haste without sacrificing innovation or creating a Mercedes mimeograph.
“Realistically we need to close the gap,” admitted Arai san. “Come Melbourne [next year], we should be where [the top teams] are now. Obviously they will progress as well, so we’ll estimate where they’ll be and add this to the development of the 2016 engine. We’re on an escalator and the top teams are already at the top. So we have to find a way to run up the escalator, otherwise we’ll always be behind.”

This certainly makes the European operations sound a lot more traditional and conservative compared to Honda.

If Honda can build a robot that runs up escalators, then extending that metaphor to Formula One is surely just a matter of time.

That sounds like every McLaren fan's New Year's wish..