The 2012 Driver transfer discussion/speculation thread

[Tom]

No. The speculation specifically says that Kobayashi would be replaced by Jules Bianchi.

The only reason Kobayashi would be dropped is if someone came along with Significant money. They wouldn't replace him for Sutil.

So, this pretty much means that Sutil is out of a seat next season then? Shame..

 

[astrosdude91]

He's been in talks with Williams about a drive there. Though, if that doesn't work out, then yes this may be the end of his tenure in F1, at least for now.

 

[Seismica]

Cosworth aren't that bad, you're going to an extreme on that, and they're supposedly suppose to be making good power. If they were a new engine company like Pure will be in 2014 then that might stand, but they've been making engines as long as the other teams almost. Also from what you say that would be like saying that Honda engines sucked, since Super Augiri never did well yet that doesn't explain BAR. Same goes for Renault with RBR and Renault, they both had the same engine and mapping system, yet one was awful and the other was amazing. I would say that it's more of Cosworth being the money saving option when compared to other engines and being bought by teams with so far horrible chassis. Last years williams was pretty good, but this years was awful, yet nearly the same engine is in the car.

Also Williams is most likely able to afford Renault engines now because of PDVSA, and is a company they've done work with before, but also probably feel it will suit the car better than the cosworth or any other make.

It's a good point, if Cosworth were that bad how did Hulkenberg qualify over a second infront of anybody else in Brazil? Yes he warmed the tyres up better etc. but if the engine was that terrible he wouldn't have even made the top 10.

What, you got shares in Cosworth or something? If Cosworth were any good, McLaren would be looking at them, so would Red Bull, so would Force India. Face it, any team with money will buy the best engines, and no one with money has bought a Cosworth Engine for ages. Cosworth F1 engines not that bad? Yeah, maybe compared to an Indy Motor, but compared to other F1 engines (which seems natural given they compete in F1) they are the worst.

I heard that last year at least, raw power wasn't their main problem, it was more driveability and longevity of the engine. After a race the engine lost so much power whereas the other engines had more life in them and maintained their power.

Monza is said to be the most demanding GP on the engine. In 2010 both Williams cars qualified and finished in the top 10, despite the Force Indias being tipped to do well due to Mercedes power.

The difference in the engines is very small now, the FIA have really tried hard to close off this area of development and they have to some extent succeeded. It's true that Cosworth couldn't take full advantage of the blown diffuser but how could they when their customer teams didn't have the funds to help them develop it?

EDIT: Force India are yet to announce any of their drivers. I know to some it's a foregone conclusion that Hulkenberg will take Sutil's place, but it's not a certainty... yet.

 

[Sach]

I mean, even if you gave Marussia and HRT Mercedes engines I wouldn't really have expected them to be finishing much higher than they do. I believe Williams was the only one of the three to have a KERS system.

This. I don't think they're as good as the Renault engines, but they're also pushing cars that lack in more areas than simply power.

 

[astrosdude91]

If the engine was that important, then Team Lotus would be racing side by side with Red Bull, but we all know this isn't the case. It's the entire package that counts. Maybe the Cossy powerplant isn't as good as the other three, but by no stretch of the imagination is it a bad engine.

 

[Tom]

If the engine was that important, then Team Lotus would be racing side by side with Red Bull, but we all know this isn't the case. It's the entire package that counts. Maybe the Cossy powerplant isn't as good as the other three, but by no stretch of the imagination is it a bad engine.

Indeed, it's nowhere near as bad as those Porsche V12's....

 

[peter_vod69]

It's a good point, if Cosworth were that bad how did Hulkenberg qualify over a second infront of anybody else in Brazil? Yes he warmed the tyres up better etc. but if the engine was that terrible he wouldn't have even made the top 10.

Hulk got lucky with tyre choice on a drying track in the dying seconds of qualifying. It had nothing to do with overall performance, and if you recall the race he got swamped as soon as the lights went green.

 

[Bram Turismo]

It's a good point, if Cosworth were that bad how did Hulkenberg qualify over a second infront of anybody else in Brazil? Yes he warmed the tyres up better etc. but if the engine was that terrible he wouldn't have even made the top 10.

That lap had nothing to do with an engine, or the car to a certain extent. As pointed out above it was purely due to a very late tyre change.

 

[Seismica]

Hulk got lucky with tyre choice on a drying track in the dying seconds of qualifying. It had nothing to do with overall performance, and if you recall the race he got swamped as soon as the lights went green.

That lap had nothing to do with an engine, or the car to a certain extent. As pointed out above it was purely due to a very late tyre change.

The key part of that sentence being if the engine was that bad (i.e. as bad as some people are insinuating the cosworth engine is) how did he even get into Q3? You can't attribute the final Q3 lap to the engine, just as you can't attribute the poor performances of Virgin/HRT to the engine. The Cosworth is a good engine, it just has no outstanding feature. I will concede, driveability was a weakness of it, but this was because they didn't have the development years that the other teams had after traction control was banned. But in terms of peak power, it's a very good engine.

 

[The Outlaw]

The answer is rather simply really.

This year the Cosworth engine was particularly weak in the area of being able to maximize the engine mapping for exhaust blowing. Although Team Lotus used the Renault powerplant & gearbox, they didn't have anywhere near the resourses or budget to use the EBD to extent that some of the big teams were able to. And LRGP can't really be used as any reference, as they had come up with the forward exit exhaust which had limited potential to begin with, and was a very complicated system to tune when upgrades came.

Next year with the erradication of the EBD, Cosworth should be a much more competitive package overall.

 

[LMSCorvetteGT2]

What, you got shares in Cosworth or something? If Cosworth were any good, McLaren would be looking at them, so would Red Bull, so would Force India. Face it, any team with money will buy the best engines, and no one with money has bought a Cosworth Engine for ages. Cosworth F1 engines not that bad? Yeah, maybe compared to an Indy Motor, but compared to other F1 engines (which seems natural given they compete in F1) they are the worst.

PS BAR never really did well either. Especially given the prodigious amount of money poured down their toilets (I'm only assuming that's where it went, because it didn't go into race-winning cars).

OH and PPS - where was I being extreme? Jordan won with a Cosworth Engine in 2003 when everyone else made like it was a GT5 shuffle race and punted each other off the road, but they haven't had a consistent winner in F1 (as I said, besides the cheater Benetton) since the very early 80's.

Wow, I love the opening to your argument, because everyone knows that if your going to give fair play to what is being argued you have to own shares of that company. That really does compute bravo. Also you make little sense, if it came down to engines then I suppose McLaren should be using a renault engine instead of a Mercedes, because that is the engine that won the WDC two years straight. Also Cosworth will most likely do well in 2014 when the V6 turbo are used, seeing as they were extremely good during those times. Show me evidence that the Cosworth is as bad as you make it? Maybe data sheets or legit drop off rates over a grand prix race, hell even a dyno sheet would suffice compared to the other 3 engines. Jabbering and getting mad when someone challenges your argument doesn't do much.

You also go on a further rant saying Hulk was lucky in 2010 with his pole lap, yet he had two other laps that beat out Vettel before his pole lap. He also qualified fifth earlier in the season. Also Rubens had good results especially European and British GPs, point is when given an adequette car the engine did the job it could for the car. Oh and it probably doesn't help that the cars they're put into (engine that is) do not have a Kers system beside this years FW33, but it failed on more occasions due to the extreme rear end they when with this year.

Also Seismica makes a good point.

The answer is rather simply really.

This year the Cosworth engine was particularly weak in the area of being able to maximize the engine mapping for exhaust blowing. Although Team Lotus used the Renault powerplant & gearbox, they didn't have anywhere near the resourses or budget to use the EBD to extent that some of the big teams were able to. And LRGP can't really be used as any reference, as they had come up with the forward exit exhaust which had limited potential to begin with, and was a very complicated system to tune when upgrades came.

Next year with the erradication of the EBD, Cosworth should be a much more competitive package overall.

I agree, yet I don't think the lack of EBD is cosworth's fault but just the sad reality that their teams don't have much money or funding, HRT was bought out by the bank this year, Virgin's car was all CFD again and built by Wirth and the Williams rear end did alot more harm than good. If these same situations happen next year, people will still blame Cosworth and not the teams and the cars using them.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

So, this pretty much means that Sutil is out of a seat next season then? Shame..

No, it doesn't. Sutil has been in talks with Williams for a drive, and there is always the possibility that he will stay with Force India.

 

[LMSCorvetteGT2]

No, it doesn't. Sutil has been in talks with Williams for a drive, and there is always the possibility that he will stay with Force India.

We will have to see, I'm not taking anything for granted. Especially after Grosjean took over Petrov's seat. However, I really hope that Petrov doesn't go to Marussia but it makes sense. A russian f1 team with a russian driver.

 

[The Outlaw]

I agree, yet I don't think the lack of EBD is cosworth's fault but just the sad reality that their teams don't have much money or funding, HRT was bought out by the bank this year, Virgin's car was all CFD again and built by Wirth and the Williams rear end did alot more harm than good. If these same situations happen next year, people will still blame Cosworth and not the teams and the cars using them.

Well in the case of HRT & Virgin that is mostly true, as they didn't have the budget or resources to tackle the EBD (like the big teams did) regardless of what engine package they ran.

But in the case of Williams in 2011, they were the best example of a team who was held back by running the Cosworth package...as the engine provided much less ability to use an engine map that would be beneficial (reliably) to the exhaust blown diffuser concept - mainly because the engine homologation regulations didn't really allow Cosworth to improvise such a feature during the season.

 

[F1 fan]

Hulk got lucky with tyre choice on a drying track in the dying seconds of qualifying. It had nothing to do with overall performance, and if you recall the race he got swamped as soon as the lights went green.

Well, not quite. He got beaten by Vettel off the line and got dummied by Webber on lap one at the start of sector 2, but he did manage to hold off Alonso and Hamilton for quite a while. Let's not forget that Mclaren have a long history with Mercedes. They have what is supposed to be the best engine on the grid. The simple facts are as such. The engine is just one (very important) part of a formula one car. When BMW supplied Williams with engines, it was the best engine on the grid. The Williams chassis simply didn't do the job as well as BMW were hoping. BMW constantly underestimated the importance of the Chassis design and learned a very hard lesson when they started their F1 team.

Despite having the best engine, their chassis was third at best in 2007 and 2008. This amounted to one single win. It was a 1-2 for BMW sauber, but it might have been very different had Hamilton and Rosberg not suffered brain fade in the pitlane and taken out Kimi Raikkonen with them .

The engine is an important part, but you have to have all ingredients in place to win on a normal day. Clearly, none of the Cosworth teams have that.

Anyway, how did we start talking about engines? This thread is to discuss driver transfers and rumours of transfers.

 

[Seismica]

Well in the case of HRT & Virgin that is mostly true, as they didn't have the budget or resources to tackle the EBD (like the big teams did) regardless of what engine package they ran.

But in the case of Williams in 2011, they were the best example of a team who was held back by running the Cosworth package...as the engine provided much less ability to use an engine map that would be beneficial (reliably) to the exhaust blown diffuser concept - mainly because the homologation regulations didn't really allow Cosworth to improvise such a feature during the season.

But the blown diffuser wasn't necessarily down to the engine supplier. Look at Sauber and how they couldn't develop it (Due to re-allocation of resources following the rule change which was later overturned), whereas Toro Rosso made a huge step forward, even though they both had the same engine.

 

[The Outlaw]

But the blown diffuser wasn't necessarily down to the engine supplier. Look at Sauber and how they couldn't develop it (Due to re-allocation of resources following the rule change which was later overturned), whereas Toro Rosso made a huge step forward, even though they both had the same engine.

I agree, which is why I said this/bold writing (which implies that the "blown diffuser wasn't necessarily down to the engine supplier"):

"This year the Cosworth engine was particularly weak in the area of being able to maximize the engine mapping for exhaust blowing. Although Team Lotus used the Renault powerplant & gearbox, they didn't have anywhere near the resourses or budget to use the EBD to extent that some of the big teams were able to. And LRGP can't really be used as any reference, as they had come up with the forward exit exhaust which had limited potential to begin with, and was a very complicated system to tune when upgrades came."

Which basically implies that, just because you have a good engine with a very effective/powerful exhaust blowing feature/engine mapping, doesn't mean that you will automatically have success or have the ability to take advantage of it. As you need to have a lot of resources to be able to analyze and understand this area, in order to take advantage of it to a good degree.

 

[Seismica]

I agree, which is why I said this/bold writing (which implies that the "blown diffuser wasn't necessarily down to the engine supplier"):

"This year the Cosworth engine was particularly weak in the area of being able to maximize the engine mapping for exhaust blowing. Although Team Lotus used the Renault powerplant & gearbox, they didn't have anywhere near the resourses or budget to use the EBD to extent that some of the big teams were able to. And LRGP can't really be used as any reference, as they had come up with the forward exit exhaust which had limited potential to begin with, and was a very complicated system to tune when upgrades came."

Which basically implies that, just because you have a good engine with a very effective/powerful exhaust blowing feature/engine mapping, doesn't mean that you will automatically have success or have the ability to take advantage of it. As you need to have a lot of resources to be able to analyze and understand this area, in order to take advantage of it to a good degree.

I see, you're saying you need both the right engine/engine map and the funds/means to develop it with the car's package 👍

To some extent this year, I think Williams had neither.

 

[The Outlaw]

Maybe a moderator can move this discussion to a more appropriate thread

I see, you're saying you need both the right engine/engine map and the funds/means to develop it with the car's package 👍.

Exactly 👍

To some extent this year, I think Williams had neither.

I agree for the most part, although I think (just my opinion) Williams would have most likely done a fair bit better had they been running a Mercedes or Renault unit in particular. Regardless, next year it will be interesting to see if they can bounce back, as the Renault engine certainly shouldn't be a handicap to them

 

[LMSCorvetteGT2]

Maybe a moderator can move this discussion to a more appropriate thread



Exactly 👍



I agree for the most part, although I think (just my opinion) Williams would have most likely done a fair bit better had they been running a Mercedes or Renault unit in particular. Regardless, next year it will be interesting to see if they can bounce back, as the Renault engine certainly shouldn't be a handicap to them

I still somewhat agree, but the main reason I'm defending Cosworth is because they're not that bad as some were putting it. Williams did say themselves that the agressive rear end package caused Kers and Gearbox failures through the season. Also I believe that when the car was being developed for this year they didn't have PDVSA money, till much later last year or start of this year. I think if they had the money this time last year they'd have the Renault engines for this year instead of 2012, but I also think that even still with that rear end, problems would have arose despite teh engine.

Like I said I think Cosworth is just a product of their easy ability to be bought at a fraction of what others cost.

EDIT: Has anyone heard if teams are wanting Senna or will he go back to his reserve role at LRGP?

 

[peter_vod69]

Not as bad as people say, worst in F1, it's all the same thing. See what I did there?

 

[Tom]

Has anyone heard if teams are wanting Senna or will he go back to his reserve role at LRGP?

The Senna Rumors have died down somewhat. I'd love to see him at Williams for 2012, but then again, maybe not..

 

[prisonermonkeys]

There are currently no rumours connecting Bruno Senna to any available seat.

 

[LMSCorvetteGT2]

There are currently no rumours connecting Bruno Senna to any available seat.

As much as I like the guy I have plenty of other drivers to follow, I guess that's how the cookie crumbles.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Well, Renault evidently didn't see fit to keep him, and nobody else has approached him. He may not even get a third-driver role at Renault; as a Gravity driver, Jerome d'Ambrosio has been linked to the position.

 

[Peter.]

There are currently no rumours connecting Bruno Senna to any available seat.

I heard something a while back about him going to Williams. It makes sense, considering the money he will bring to the team, which really needs that kind of money given their financial situation. It would only happen though if Rubens retires, and Sutil keeps his Force India seat. Even in Sutil gets the boot, Williams needs money, and Sutil's Medion sponsorship may not be enough.

What I don't understand though, is why Force India wants to boot Sutil? He has done an excellent job over the years leading that team from the tail end of the field, to right behind Mercedes, ready to take advantage of any misfortune the frontrunners may suffer. He's beaten di Resta a lot more than the British media would make it seem (no offence to any British users), and Hulkeenberg can't be that good, with only 1 year of F1 experience, even with that pole in Brazil last year.

 

[Bram Turismo]

It's not Sutil that brought the team in the midfield, it's Malya's money.

 

[Tom]

There are currently no rumours connecting Bruno Senna to any available seat.

Which is a real shame as he's obviously got the speed, I mean Schumacher qualified in 7th at Spa in 1991 and he went on to win 7 World Titles. Senna qualified in 7th, maybe it's a sign! 💡

 

[prisonermonkeys]

I heard something a while back about him going to Williams. It makes sense, considering the money he will bring to the team, which really needs that kind of money given their financial situation.

There are no solid rumours connecting Senna to anyone, much less Williams. Williams have said that their second driver will be "more experienced [than Maldonado]", disqualifying Senna.

What I don't understand though, is why Force India wants to boot Sutil?

Because he has been with the team for five years and they feel they have gotten the most out of him.

I mean Schumacher qualified in 7th at Spa in 1991 and he went on to win 7 World Titles. Senna qualified in 7th, maybe it's a sign! 💡

The key difference here is that Michael Schumacher didn't crash into Jaime Alguersuari.

 

[peter_vod69]

The key difference here is that Michael Schumacher didn't crash into Jaime Alguersuari.

No, he crashed into Damon Hill, and Jacques Villeneuve.