2014 United States Grand Prix - Austin

[SiLo]

Do they want to? It costs more money to run one, quite a lot more, and that could be spend on R&D to make the car go faster.

But you get the benefit of more miles and more setup changes to try, so you can make the car faster in that way.

[mkable1370]

I was told that in the concord agreement it was the top three teams that would be obliged to run third cars.
Which at the time meant Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren !!

So... Just a random thought here, and I know it might be going contrary to many of the popular Alonso rumors, but if the top three teams were obliged to run a third car next year (and if Ferrari happens to finish the season in the top 3), then might it make sense that Ferrari may want Vettel in order to cover their bases in terms of ensure two quality drivers if Alonso leaves, but also in that it gives them a strong 3-driver line-up if in-fact they keep Alonso and and do need to field three cars next year? As engine supplier to Marussia and Sauber, they must have some inside knowledge as to the state of finances there and thus the likelihood that the three-car thing might actually go forward for next year?

[Jonnycraig]

Confirmed that Caterham & Marussia are both skipping Austin.

[SiLo]

Confirmed that Caterham & Marussia are both skipping Austin.

Sauce?

[piast9]

Autosport.com for example

[jericho]

http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/formula1/29770496 , so just 18 cars.. Sauber and Lotus will have the honour to be the last cars on the grid..

[Jonnycraig]

With Vettel & potentially Alonso changing to 6th engines and thus not qualifing, they might as well skip Q1.

[SiLo]

With Vettel & potentially Alonso changing to 6th engines and thus not qualifing, they might as well skip Q1.

I still think to qualify you should have to set a time within 107% of the fastest time. If you don't qualify, you don't race. It should be that simple.

[Jonnycraig]

With Vettel & potentially Alonso changing to 6th engines and thus not qualifing, they might as well skip Q1.

I still think to qualify you should have to set a time within 107% of the fastest time. If you don't qualify, you don't race. It should be that simple.

You do have to. You can't just ignore practice times though as anyone who smashed a car up in FP3 would miss the race.

[Manoah2u]

so here's a thought.

Mercedes showed utter dominance not just the entire year by running @ the front from start to finish, but also from
falling to the back and finishing 2nd (nico) if the car is still intact and the tires will work accordingly. Thus, their power
benefit must be huge.

Now, you are allowed a engine lineup of 5 fresh engines for an entire season without penalties. After that, you get penalised.
So in general all the teams are intending to have their engines as 'reliable' as possible and using them as tactical as possible so they won't risk penalties later (even though they seem inevitable).

Let's go another route; perhaps this deserves it's own thread, but it's got me thinking due to the austin engine penalties and pitstarts.

As an engineer, you thus create an engine that is aimed more at reliability to cope with this problem, presumably at the cost of power / getting most out of the engine.

Now how about we ditch the 'keep it reliable' idea overboard, and just accept that you are going to have to deal with grid penalties for the last 3 to 5 races. perhaps even 6 if you're feeling crazy.

Is it then possible, to make the engine so powerfull, that you get such an advantage in power that you can overtake the rest of the field without the problem of grid penalties later in the year?
In other words; you benefit for like 15 races from huge power supply, having vast qualy power and race power, and are left 'just' with the 'handicap' of having to take penalties for the final 5 races since you've used all possible resources of those 5 engines you have totally used for these 15 races?
In essence, you are going to run the same-spec powerfull engines for the final 5 races, but are going to have to deal with grid penalties.

You've had 15 races of immense power to benefit from with the goal of gaining as many championship points as possible,
and are going to deal with 5 final races where you are going to have to deal more with overtaking......but, you still have the power benefit, essentially making it easier to overtake other cars compared to running a weaker engine but with the idea you can run them 20 races without penalty.

can you bring enough power/potential into the engine to benefit from this, or is that not possible?

in other words; is it worth taking the penalties for the benefit of power, or is it not humanely possible to gain enough power benefit compared to reliability?

[Moose]

So this means we'll lose 4 in Q1 and 2? Or do we lose 5 and have a top 8 shootout?

[Moose]

Mercedes showed utter dominance not just the entire year by running @ the front from start to finish, but also from falling to the back and finishing 2nd (nico) if the car is still intact and the tires will work accordingly. Thus, their power benefit must be huge.

That's a pretty huge leap of logic... It could just be that they have a very good chassis. Williams for example have shown no such ability.

in other words; is it worth taking the penalties for the benefit of power, or is it not humanely possible to gain enough power benefit compared to reliability?

Possibly, but it's not what Mercedes are doing. If that were the case they would have burned up their 5th engine with 7 or 8 races still to go. Instead, they burned it with 5 to go, and then went back to their 4th for the next race. That means their 5th engine will do 4 races (exactly the number you'd expect), assuming no fatal issues.

[Manoah2u]

Mercedes showed utter dominance not just the entire year by running @ the front from start to finish, but also from falling to the back and finishing 2nd (nico) if the car is still intact and the tires will work accordingly. Thus, their power benefit must be huge.

That's a pretty huge leap of logic... It could just be that they have a very good chassis. Williams for example have shown no such ability.

ps. i wasn't referring to Mercedes having such power benefit they can afford this theory. i just noticed how 'easy' they blast from the back to the front, and got me thinking.

in other words; is it worth taking the penalties for the benefit of power, or is it not humanely possible to gain enough power benefit compared to reliability?

Possibly, but it's not what Mercedes are doing. If that were the case they would have burned up their 5th engine with 7 or 8 races still to go. Instead, they burned it with 5 to go, and then went back to their 4th for the next race. That means their 5th engine will do 4 races (exactly the number you'd expect), assuming no fatal issues.

again, i was not referring to mercedes at all. I used them as example in how to blast from the back to the front, not them as actually doing this theory in real life, sorry if i caused this confusion.

so again, could you benefit from accepting grid penalties for the gain of power benefit??? [and no i'm not accusing any current team of this]. A thought excersize, no suspicion of any team actually doing this right now.

[Jonnycraig]

So this means we'll lose 4 in Q1 and 2? Or do we lose 5 and have a top 8 shootout?

Rules will be unchanged. 2,6,10. Vettel isn't bothering though, and rumour is that Alonso won't either due to 6th engines.

[mikeerfol]

Will it be just a 6th engine for Alonso? So only 10 place penalty?