F1 - Season 2011 *Spoiler*

[1nsane]

F1
The series that has so much action packed into one season that even the Hollywood gurus would start to laugh. If they just knew about the sport...

Indeed, the 2010 season was so action packed that you couldn't clearly say who would be the champion until the final checkered flag was waved.
Since the last season was so epic, now it's the chance to hype the next season so we can get very disappointed because one team will dominate the whole season! Yay!

The 2011 season will see no new teams, since FIA turned down Villeneuve & Co. This means there are no new places available. The top teams are also practically locked, so there won't be that many driver changes this year. The new teams are eager to get some new sponsors, so this way some of the youngsters might get a chance. But at the same time some of the youngsters will have to step aside.

During the 2010 season there was the fight between the Lotus and the Lotus over the name Lotus. Lotus wanted to use Lotus but Lotus refused and wanted to keep Lotus so Lotus fought against Lotus and now Lotus decided to change the name and so Renault will be called Lotus. Clear? Good. I don't understand it either.

Also, the situation of HRT seems to be very dark currently. They have no money, no sponsors, no drivers and now even Toyota decided to break the contract, so the team doesn't even have a car. The team was the only one struggling through the season. Will we even see the team next year?

Williams has also lost many sponsors and are running low on money, so expect them to get a pay driver too.

Lineup

(This will propably change dramatically during the winter and will be updated as the information pours in. The list will have some of the rumours in it, and they will be added and removed as they come and go.)

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Constructor || Engine
Drivers

Red Bull || Renault
Sebastian Vettel || Mark Webber

McLaren || Mercedes
Lewis Hamilton || Jenson Button

Ferrari || Ferrari      
Fernando Alonso || Felipe Massa

Mercedes || Mercedes
Nico Rosberg || Michael Schumacher

Lotus Renault GP (Renault) || Renault
Nick Heidfeld || Vitaly Petrov

Williams || Cosworth
Rubens Barrichello || Pastor Maldonado

Force India || Mercedes
Adrian Sutil || Paul di Resta

Sauber || Ferrari
Kamui Kobayashi || Sergio Pérez

STR || Ferrari
Sébastien Buemi || Jaime Alguesuari

Team Lotus Renault (Malaysian1) || Renault      
Heikki Kovalainen || Jarno Trulli

HRT || Cosworth
Narain Karthikeyan || Vitantonio Liuzzi

Marussia Virgin || Cosworth
Timo Glock || Jerome D'Ambrosio

- some places were already sure, I've changed them, edited by Herbal -

The 2011 season will be the longest one in the history with 20 races to be held. The new track on the calendar is the Indian Grand Prix, if the track just gets done in time. They might still encounter the same situation what the Korean GP had. Shanghai is currently under the threat of being dropped from the calendar if it doesn't work out the drainage system.

The season will once again start in Bahrain, but this time it will have the original layout again, so the racing should be better again. The season, and propably the title chase will end at Brazil. Otherwise there are just some minor changes.

The Singapore GP might get shorter for 2011. There have also been requests to change the Abu Dhabi GP layout a little.

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Race   Grand Prix    Date
(1   Bahrain GP    13 March)
2   Australian GP    27 March
3   Malaysian GP    10 April
4   Chinese GP    17 April
5   Turkish GP    8 May
6   Spanish GP    22 May
7   Monaco GP    29 May
8   Canadian GP    12 June
9   European GP    26 June
10   British GP   10 July
11   German GP    24 July
12   Hungarian GP    31 July
13   Belgian GP    28 August
14   Italian GP    11 September
15   Singapore GP    25 September
16   Japanese GP    9 October
17   Korean GP    16 October
18   Indian GP    30 October
19   Abu Dhabi GP    13 November
20   Brazilian GP    27 November 

Who to look at?
(These will obviously change if the situation in some teams change.)

Mercedes
While the top 3 teams were fiercely fighting for the championship the last year, Mercedes was dropped out of them quite quickly. With the rules changing dramatically again, and the long time Mercedes has used to develop the new car, they might be the big surprise of the next year. A victory could well be possible, given the talent the team has in Rosberg and Schumacher, backed up by Ross Brawn, the technical genius.

Nico Rosberg
This might be the true break through season for Rosberg, if the car just is fast enough. He finally proved his skills to everyone last year, gaining a couple of podiums with a car that was clearly just the 4th best of the grid at best.

Michael Schumacher
People were pretty much split on should Schumacher still continue or not. He decided to continue. Now he has had a year to get used to the car again, and surely the 2011 car will fit him better than the 2010 model. Maybe these will help him to gain some top spots again?

RBR (The defender)
So now the team has finally won the championship. Both of them. But will the team stay on laurels for too long? They have also pumped a lot of money and development time to the 2010 season, so the car might not be as good this year. But then again, they have Adrian Newey. And when he designs something, the laws of physics will follow his commands. And they have two strong competitors in their team, so they could still get another championship even on a more average year. The strong drivers will clearly be an issue too, though. We saw it even last year, and now since Vettel took the championship from the grip of Webber, the Aussie might not be too happy. They have admitted that they don't like each other too much on private life, but is this going to be seen on the track too?

Ferrari & McLaren (The challengers)
They missed their chances last year, but will they have better luck this time? Alonso was undeniably the strongest driver of the last half of 2010. He will surely prove to be strong this year again. The question is, can Massa finally get his shape and help Alonso or will he just fade away even more. McLaren also has two of the stronger racers. Hamilton is the true strong force, while Button keeps on bringing the car home on every race. They also seem to work together quite well, so this year just might be McLaren's once again.

Robert Kubica
So he didn't get the good seat again. But he is still easily one of the Top 5 racers of the field. Will his hope for the better days start to crumble as the season goes on? Or will he once more prove that he doesn't need the best car to win?

Lotus (The slow one)
Last year the team proved to be the best of the three new teams and has now got some good contracts in their pocket. They also have the biggest chance of the new teams to develop and get better. So will they actually get their first point this season? Or is it just all talk and no walk?

HRT
Quite simply... Will this team survive through the year? The story seems quite dark at the moment.

Pre-season lookup: Nico Hülkenberg
He was easily one of the better new drivers on the grid. But unfortunately these days money talks. Will he get a spot or will he be robbed from a seat by someone who has more money? Williams can't keep him anymore.


Important new rules:

-107% rule: If the driver is 107% slower than the fastest driver on Q1, his weekend will end there, unless he has proven to be fast enough on the free practice.
-Double decker diffuser ban: Only one level is now allowed and they have also been made smaller.
-F-Duct ban
-Kers: Optional for teams
-Increase of the minimum weight to get the teams to use the Kers system
-Adjustable rear wings

To spicen things up even more, the tire manufacturer has changed from Bridgestone to Pirelli. They have promised to bring significantly softer tires than what Bridgestone did. The first few races will show whether this is true or not. At the tire tests the Pirellis were slower than Bridgestones.

But here we go, the season is now (un)officially open! Who do you think will get the remaining seats and who will be crowned as the champion at the end of the year.



Also to get the polls running again, predict the champion! And also write your opinion on a new post if you want to have your guess on the front page so we can compare on who gets it right!

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Prediction - User
Fernando Alonso - 1nsane
Fernando Alonso - Christiano Bohessef
Fernando Alonso - Sutinen
Robert Kubica - Buka
Felipe Massa - Ivo Porc
Felipe Massa - Shifted
Sebastian Vettel - HSC King
Mark Webber - Manzur

Merged double reply from Wed Dec 08, 2010 5:28 pm: [Ah, it merged it here. Oh well. ]

((And sorry, a double post, but I'd like to move the current discussion from the 2010 thread to here...))

Old Lotus - that with Tony Fernandes has already announced gold black colours, few weeks ago. There is public competition so anyone can make attempt on their design.

New Lotus - former Renault - announced that today.

It is going to be messy . Also I´ll miss current Renault´s colours, I liked them a lot....

Ah true, I just checked the news. Wow, that will surely be quite a messed up grid then, trying to separate those two. I guess the only way to do so is by looking at those Total sponsors.

Yeah, the current Renault colours were very nice. They should have lasted for longer than just a few seasons.

A picture of the livery of the new Renault:


Those Pirellis look nice though. Hmm, I think they could have just used the Renault yellow instead of the gold. And then the Lotus Lotus Lotus(Fernandes) one should have had the gold ones. Or something.

[Alex]

Lol the Renault Lotus thing reminds of the 1990 season when Ferrari, Dallara and Life looked identical to each other. Here are some pics to compare.

[Mad Dan]

Ok but they had at least racing colour of italy so it wasn´t that weird . And different names .
Life didn´t pre-qualify in whole season and Dallara was far from points.

[Lukeno94]

And also the cars look different, whereas now, they all look far more similar - clearly differences in front wing, rear wing, nose and rollover cage/engine cover...

[1nsane]

Well we will see how much they will differ in the end once both of the car are revealed. Unfortunately that won't be until right before Bahrain...

Ah, if just Orange came back to sponsor a team so we could get that beautiful black and orange color back!

And

These are the two reasons I miss those late 90's and early 00's races so much.


Edit: Oh and just to give you a little tongue twister/mind game for the next months... We now have Lotus Renault GP Team and Team Lotus Renault on the grid. Only thing we really need is to either have the old Renault to get significantly slower or the old Lotus to get significantly faster so they would always end up finishing close to each other. Then we could pick someone who doesn't watch the sport and make them guess which of the team was previously Renault and which one was the only Lotus. Or maybe they could combine their powers at some point and their name could be something like Lotus Renault GP Team Lotus Renault.

This feels like the BP oil leak. An endless stream of jokes that can't be put off.

[Buka]

Why you didn't mention Liuzzi in FI squad? AFAIR he has contract while Sutil hasn't.

And about prediction: I voted for Kubica.

[Trigger Happy]

I'm the so far only voter of Masa. BTW Imho the poll should be time limited to start of 1st GP.

About new rules, what about adjustable front wing? I read somewhere it's abandoned.

[1nsane]

Why you didn't mention Liuzzi in FI squad? AFAIR he has contract while Sutil hasn't.

Yeah I did the board pretty much right after the last season had ended and at that point it seemed more likely that Sutil would definitely stay and Liuzzi would be on the line to leave. I'll have to check this situation out and do the fixing.

Edit: Just as I guessed, Liuzzi has just said that he has a contract, but nothing official has come out yet. I added his name to the list though.
I also updated the list to show all of the open spots, they now have (?) behind them. And the names are the ones I have read/hear during the last weeks. If you have read about someone who might be aiming at a seat, just say and I will check them out. So don't say that Bottas is aiming to drive at HRT, that's not going to happen.

BTW Imho the poll should be time limited to start of 1st GP.

Yep, I'll turn it off before the first session of the next season starts and will put the stats up on the first post too. Or then I will count the days until that.

I'm the so far only voter of Masa. BTW Imho the poll should be time limited to start of 1st GP.

About new rules, what about adjustable front wing? I read somewhere it's abandoned.

Hmm, that might be true too. Although I remember that they should keep the adjustable front wings, so they can move all of the wings now. And there wasn't anything at wikipedia about this atleast. I will have to check this out and change it.
Edit2: Hmm, this is what I found from formula1blog.com:

Under new moveable bodywork regulations for next season, drivers will be able to adjust the rear wing from the cockpit, with the current moveable front wing due to be dropped.

But there is nothing about this at F1.com. Nor anywhere else really.. So I will leave the rules on the beginning post as they are until there are more places where I can find a mention about this, or finally once the final updated 2011 rule changes are posted to F1.com. (Yeah, I'm not going to read the FIA book of regulations now.. )

The rules might change during the winter time anyways so don't keep them as 100% sure yet either. Everything's.... open!

[Cristiano Bohessef]

For me Alonso is going to be the champion. I think he is a step ahead of any other driver, and Ferrari will have a great car, probably the best next year. Vettel is still likely to commit mistakes... but I know he will get better and better with time, and Red Bull has Adrian Newey

BTW

De la Rosa and Davide Valsecchi are also looking for a seat at HRT;
Jose Maria Lopez is completely out of chance of being in Formula 1 2011;

[bduddy]

Mike Gascoyne, who works for the "old" Lotus (of last year), posted a poll on Twitter about their colors, and reported that people were overwhelmingly in favor of green and yellow, so it's possible that they might end up different after all...

[Alex]

I think bduddy is right. Not 10 minutes ago was the official car released. It looks to be green and yellow but i can't tell from the darkness.It still has renaults' sponsors.

[1nsane]

Alex, I think you are messing up the teams now.
The old Renault, now Lotus (as in your picture) is black & gold. And it will be.

The final colouring of the old Lotus and still Lotus is still open, and haven't been shown. They are running the contest for us normal people to design the livery. But yeah, I've read the same thing that the fans would like to see the green & yellow on the car. We will see what will happen. Will they just replace the black with green and gold with yellow on the winning livery, or what.

And the "final" rule changes have also been given out today. There's no mention about taking off the adjustable front wings. They will just limit the flexibility more. Some changes (that I won't put on the first post since you won't see these changes on track really...) are:

- The article forbidding team orders (39.1) is deleted. Teams will be reminded that any actions liable to bring the sport into disrepute are dealt with under Article 151c of the International Sporting Code and any other relevant provisions
- Amendments to the list of penalties Stewards are permitted to apply
- Revisions to driving and driver conduct
- A limit on the width of the fast lane in the pits
- The introduction of a regulation permitting the Race Director to close the pit lane during a race for safety reasons
- The re-introduction of intermediate tyres for 2011
- Penalties to be applied to any driver who fails to use both specification of dry weather tyre during the race
- An amendment requiring gearboxes to be used for five consecutive races, instead of four
- Clarification on when cars can overtake the safety car
- A refinement to the principles of the regulations already agreed concerning moveable rear wings
- A better definition of the reference plane, and reinforcement of bodywork deflection tests, especially at the front of the reference plane
- The allowance for anti-intrusion panels to protect drivers’ legs

And the penalty to be applied for a driver who doesn't use both tyres is (very likely) going to be a disqualification.
Also, does anyone happen to know what this anti-intrusion panel does/is?

The complete list of changes will hopefully come soon so the final set of rules will be known pretty quickly.

[TuomoH]

Arcticle forbidding team orders deleted? That's great news since everyone knows team orders are in action anyway - now they don't have to pretend anymore...

[Lukeno94]

Intermediate tyres? I thought we had them last year?

And this anti-intrusion panel must be to stop objects, including carbon fibre from the car itself, from hitting the driver's legs, or that's my guess anyway.

[1nsane]

Intermediate tyres? I thought we had them last year?

And this anti-intrusion panel must be to stop objects, including carbon fibre from the car itself, from hitting the driver's legs, or that's my guess anyway.

Yeah, I guess they just changed the name of those light rain tyres, or however they were called.

And I was just thinking wether the panel had something special. I mean why couldn't the teams put one before?

[bduddy]

Last year, the wet tires were technically called "wet" and "extreme wet". I believe that at some point there were three separate kinds of wet tires... could they be going back to that? That would be sort of weird, considering how obsessed they are with cost-cutting, but I guess if Pirelli is OK with it... Could make for some really interesting wet races, considering how good the current "wet"/intermediate tires are in most conditions... Maybe Pirelli are worried they won't be able to do that...

EDIT: Now that I check again, they actually changed the names last year. Maybe they forgot?

[Rebellion765]

I believe in Scuderia Ferrari for the next year, they will come stonger certainly, and Massa too.
I believe in Massa's championship win.

[GeneSuomi]

I believe in Massa's championship win.

I believe that Massa is going to be the new Barrichello. For me, it looks impossible that Alonso would so much slower than Massa in a couple of first races. They will just say that Massa has to help Alosonder.


Will the Lorus-Renault celebrate the 500th Gp like malesian-Lotus did last year

[Martyn]

Lotus Racing (Trulli / Kovaleinen) own the rights to the name Team Lotus and therefore all the history. Lotus Renault (Kubica) will be run by Lotus Cars which are owned by Proton

[Rebellion765]

I believe in Massa's championship win.

I believe that Massa is going to be the new Barrichello.(...)

Oh yeah, I'm beginning to think you're right.
The brazilian fans believed in Barrichello and he...you know...

[Lukeno94]

If Barrichello had gone anywhere but Ferrari, and been given a good, reliable car, IMO he would've won the championship at some point - he gave Button a run for his money and he was past his prime then, so...

[Alex]

If Barrichello had gone anywhere but Ferrari, and been given a good, reliable car, IMO he would've won the championship at some point - he gave Button a run for his money and he was past his prime then, so...

Yeah his tyres got punctured unfortunately at Brazil. It also happened at this years' brazil race. Weird.

[Lukeno94]

Barrichello's luck at Interlagos is world-famous.

[Doorslammer]

Breaking news on Twitter is that Jerome D'Ambrosio will join Timo Glock in the second Marussia Virgin F1 car. Um, yay?

Oh, and in a return to the first post, an interesting fact is that the Life W12 engine was a completely different pattern to the W12 Volkswagen came up with for their cars.

[Martyn]

Narain Karthikeyan will drive for HRT in 2011.

surely Chandhok would be a better choice than Karthikeyan

Updated driver list.

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Constructor || Engine
Drivers

Red Bull || Renault
Sebastian Vettel || Mark Webber

McLaren || Mercedes
Lewis Hamilton || Jenson Button

Ferrari || Ferrari     
Fernando Alonso || Felipe Massa

Mercedes || Mercedes
Nico Rosberg || Michael Schumacher

Lotus Renault GP (Renault) || Renault
Robert Kubica || Vitaly Petrov

Williams || Cosworth
Rubens Barrichello || Pastor Maldonado

Force India || Mercedes
Adrian Sutil/(?) || Vitantonio Liuzzi/Nico Hülkenberg/Paul di Resta/(?)

Sauber || Ferrari
Kamui Kobayashi || Sergio Pérez

STR || Ferrari
Sébastien Buemi || Jaime Alguesuari

Team Lotus Renault (Malaysian1) || Renault     
Heikki Kovalainen || Jarno Trulli

HRT(?) || Cosworth
Narain Karthikeyan || Bruno Senna/De La Rosa/Davide Valsechhi/Sakon Yamamoto(?)

Marussia Virgin || Cosworth
Timo Glock || Jerome D'Ambrosio