Zoxxo

Formula One - Abu Dhabi - Schedule on NBC Sports Network AND on CNBC

THINGS ARE DIFFERENT THIS WEEKEND SO HEADS UP

SHOWINGS WILL BE ON NBC SPORTS NET AND ON CNBC

LIVE Qualifying will be shown on CNBC

Practice is being shown TWO times.

Qualifying will be shown THREE times.

The Race will be shown THREE times.

The Pre-Race show is built in to the schedule this week.

The post-race show "F1 Extra" is shown immediately after the race
show whatever time that may be. The simplest way to make sure you
record it is to just add enough extra time to the race broadcast recording to
get (a) any extra time that was needed to record the entire race
including any delays, and (b) "F1 Extra". My standard is to
add:just to make sure I cover most eventualities.

I pull this info from from my Tivo's schedule backed up by the
zap2it.com listings, NBCSN's listings and the Racer.com listings.
All of this is then checked against the times at f1calendar.com
and Bernie's own formula1.com schedule for the given race.
[Sometimes these do not all align properly and my head starts
to hurt. ]

I have no guarantee that it is correct but it usually is.


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ALL TIMES PACIFIC DAYLIGHT TIME !!!!! Eastern time in parens
------------------------------------------------------------------

Friday November 27, 2015
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Saturday November 28, 2015
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Sunday November 29, 2015
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Monday November 30, 2015
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GP2

Sunday November 29, 2015
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Enjoy!! And see ya next year! March 18-20, 2016 In Melbourne.

Z//

froggy47

Thanks Z!

BrianCunningham

Thanks

Nowanker

Happy Thanksgiving!
Thank you for keeping used posted on the F1 broadcast times. Another F1 season, shot to hell.

VetteDrmr

Thanks again, Z! And hope you have (had) a Happy Thanksgiving!

Mike

Zoxxo

Thanks! We did, indeed. Back at ya!

Z//

VetteDrmr

Ok, so what the heck happened to Vettel in Q1?

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/122037

They sent him out to firm up his time, so why not just run the lap out?

Zoxxo

Maybe because he knew that lap wasn't going to make a difference and he wanted to save the engine? Maybe because his place in the championship is already settled and the motivation isn't there? Maybe because he (they?) wanted to put Kimi in the spotlight for a change?

I dunno. It seemed odd at the time. It seemed even more odd when you factored in the unwarranted theories being tossed out by Diffey and Matchett that something was wrong with the car (transmission.) That was clearly NOT the case as the video of Vettel's 100% unattended race car in the garage showed. (Can you imagine that happening if there was actually something wrong with the car?)

Vettel was all too dismissive of the thing. If they had actually screwed up and cost him dearly on the starting grid like that, he would (should) have been, well, let's just say "more animated" about it. So, IMO, something odd happened that they clearly were either prepared for or actually instigated. It was, indeed, strange.

Z//

BrianCunningham

That pit exit is definitely different!

VetteDrmr

Race wasn't too bad, but I wonder why Merc didn't put Hamilton on SS tires for the last sprint. Would have made things interesting at the end of the race, and points made no difference at all in standings.

BTW, GP2 race was fun to watch!

now we settle in for the long off-season.

Have a good one,
Mike

raff

It certainly was a fun race.
There was more passing in the first 6 laps than in the entire F1 season.

Did you catch the one car that became the first ever --- to crash in the pit exit tunnel?

Zoxxo

The answer:

http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/an...-for-hamilton/

Indeed. The lesser formulae tend to be interesting for much the same reason that college football is interesting - many of the players/drivers are angling for the big league (NFL/F1) so they tend to be anything but conservative. Usenet lets us net-savvy fans see the F3 races if we want and they are *really* crazy (twice this season they have stopped the races because the kiddies were being TOO dangerous/crazy.) Watch this crap:

http://tinyurl.com/j68dd55

and this:

http://tinyurl.com/zdbd3fs

That's just Monza in the first laps


On the topic of young drivers, here's an interesting article from Christian Sylt, et al, on the finances of becoming an F1 driver (the "standard route") I would normally provide just a link but the site is a royal PITA (they make it so on purpose) so here's the thing in text mode.

--------------


$8 Million Rookies Rev Up The Action In Formula One

Lucy Morson and Christian Sylt.


Every year millions of children dream of becoming race car drivers but
only a tiny percentage will succeed. Perhaps the biggest hurdle in
their way is the need to raise an estimated $8 million



Today’s season-ending Grand Prix in Abu Dhabi was somewhat of an
anti-climax to 2015. Britain’s Lewis Hamilton clinched the
championship in October at the United States Grand Prix in Texas after
dominating the entire season. However, whilst the title race was
tantamount to a foregone conclusion, further down the grid bright new
sparks were lighting up the action.

After Hamilton, one of the most talked-about stars has been
18-year-old Max Verstappen who this year became the youngest driver in
F1 history with a seat at Toro Rosso, the outfit owned by energy
drinks giant Red Bull. Verstappen joined Red Bull’s driver development
scheme just two weeks before the announcement of his sudden signing
and only one year after graduating from karting. It is a move which is
far from the norm.

In contrast, Verstappen’s team-mate Carlos Sainz Jr, who also marked
the beginning of an F1 career this year, joined as the reigning
champion of the Formula Renault 3.5 series and came with four years of
experience under Red Bull’s supervision.

He is amongst an impressive list of graduates from Formula Renault 3.5
which will simply be known as Formula 3.5 V8 next year after losing
Renault’s support. Its place in racing history nevertheless stays
secure as 3.5 litre alumni include F1 stars Sebastian Vetteland Daniel
Ricciardo alongside Sainz.

Both Sainz and Verstappen proved their worth in their debut year and
finished strongly in the driver’s championship.

Undoubtedly, it has been Verstappen who has grabbed most of the
headlines owing to a series of impressive drives where he has cleanly
beaten many an F1 veteran. The roll call includes former champions
Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso, in their struggling McLarens, as
well as Ricciardo and Daniil Kvyat, the drivers of Toro Rosso’s more
senior sister team Red Bull Racing.

Verstappen’s best finishes of the year came in Hungary and Austin,
where he finished fourth in both races, but arguably it is his
aggressive overtaking ability that has won him the most attention. His
pass around the outside of Marcus Ericsson’s Sauber at the Blanchimont
corner during the Belgian Grand Prix has been lauded by F1
personalities past and present. Likewise, his ruthless mentality, as
evidenced in Singapore where he refused to follow team orders and let
Sainz pass him, has led many to tout him as future champion with a
Ferrari destiny as soon as 2017.

Sainz has also enjoyed a very successful rookie season, overcoming a
plethora of mechanical failures and reliability issues to consistently
take the fight to his mid-field rivals. His season will perhaps be
remembered most for one of his lowest points – a hair-raising
high-speed crash in free practice at the Russian Grand Prix. However,
equally memorable was the manner in which he was ready to race again
by Sunday. Though often in the shadow of his teammate, it was Sainz
who ended his 2015 season on top in the intra-team qualifying battle,
starting ahead of Verstappen on the grid 10 times this year.

In Abu Dhabi today both drivers ended their rookie seasons with
results to be proud of as Verstappen and Sainz cemented 12th and 15th
in the championship standings respectively. It was Sainz who finished
in front on the track, crossing the line in 11th place while
Verstappen’s ruthless streak cost him and led to several
investigations by the stewards. He ultimately finished the race in
16th.

Ironically, the racing itself is the easy part for young drivers. The
real challenge is deciding the best routes to take.

The easiest part of the journey is giving young children experience of
motor racing as this can be done at a local kart track. However, as
they race through the ranks on the road to F1 they face a bewildering
range of options. For every seat available, a number of drivers are
thrown into the frame, each with different backgrounds and experience.

Some championships have more of an impact than others. At the top of
the list is the Formula 3 category which is responsible for 79.2% of
last year’s F1 line up. It is followed by 58.3% who raced in entry
level Formula Renault and 48.5% in F1’s official feeder series GP2.

The remaining two series have been tied to manufacturers and make use
of similar car designs to highlight the championships’ most talented
drivers. They are Formula BMW, which was a training ground for 41.7%
of last year’s F1 incumbent, and Formula Renault 3.5 at 37.5%.

To understand the significance of these rising stars and their
championships, it is important to note the long and storied history of
rookies in F1. Famous names such as Michael Schumacher, Lewis Hamilton
and Jacques Villeneuve impressed even the sternest of team bosses on
their way to championship success. This year, four young drivers
completed their first full season in F1 as they graduated to racing’s
top rung, bringing their own tales of success and uncertainty from the
depths of junior competition. It cost them dearly.

Toto Wolff, team principal of this year’s champions Mercedes, is an
expert at steering drivers into the the sport. Mercedes recently took
up an option to retain as a junior driver Esteban Ocon - last year’s
European F3 championship-winner and newly crowned champion of GP3
which sits one rung below GP2. Mercedes’ reserve driver, Germany’s
Pascal Wehrlein, also came through F3 and has enjoyed a stellar season
in the DTM touring car series this year.

"If somebody is talented, very talented, [they] probably need to spend
$1 million in karting through junior, senior and international races,"
says Wolff. "You need at least a season in F4 or Formula Renault which
is another $350,000 if you do it properly. You need $650,000 for an F3
season so we are at $2 million. You probably need another season of F3
so you are at $2.6 million or $2.7 million and then you haven’t done
any GP2 or World Series. So let’s say you are at $3 million if you are
an extraordinary talent.

"GP2 is another $1.5 million so probably, if you want to be on the
safe side, you are around $4.5 million and $5 million and you have
only done one year of GP2. You are on the verge of getting into
Formula One but you are not in there. You need another $2 million to
$3 million to get the drive. So you are talking about $7 million to $8
million so let’s call it $8 million."

Wolff says that "it’s not possible to bring that cost down because it
has become a business so you need to have a sugar daddy or a rich
daddy."

Purists may frown at teams which take drivers because they are paying
but it has opened the doors to many a talent. Three time champion
Fernando Alonso began his career at Minardi as a so-called ‘pay
driver’ and indeed Austrian Niki Lauda, a name so synonymous with F1,
took out a bank loan in order to pay his way into the BRM team in
1973. He went on to win three world championships and 25 Grands Prix.

Getting drivers to pay to race may seem like a modern concept but in
fact it is nearly as old as racing itself. Even famed 1950s champion
Juan Manuel Fangio supplied funding from the government of Argentina
on his way to winning five titles. The trend is still in place as this
year Sauber hired Brazilian Felipe Nasr who is somewhat of a
poster-boy for F1?s financial culture. The 23-year-old lured local
bank Banco do Brasil to the team giving it an estimated $20 million
boost in sponsorship.

Although Nasr has a respectable junior career, finishing third in GP2
last year, he still epitomises this decidedly unpopular trend of
paying to drive.

Britain’s Will Stevens is also partially funding the resurrected Manor
team after its collapse into administration last year under the name
Marussia. He is joined by Spaniard Roberto Merhi who finished third in
Formula Renault 3.5 last year while testing for Caterham at three F1
rounds. Stevens too comes from Caterham and raced for the team at the
season-ender in Abu Dhabi in 2014.

Like Marussia, Caterham also hit the wall last year and only made it
to the final race by raising $3.6 million through crowd-funding. The
additional boost from Stevens and his team-mate Kamui Kobayashi
amounted to $775,000 but this did not prevent Caterham from closing
its doors in February citing the financial strain of competing in F1.

The risks of such a leap of faith were evident with Stevens seemingly
putting his 2015 budget and career reputation on the line to compete
for a team which could not guarantee a long-term future.

One way for young drivers to reduce the expense is to enlist in a
training scheme which puts them on a track to F1.

Driver development schemes offer young drivers the opportunity to
learn under the guidance of a top racing team but obtaining a place is
fiercely competitive. It is a route which has proven successful for
some of F1’s most recognisable names including Vettel, Ricciardo and
Hamilton.

The ascent of both Vettel and Hamilton through the ranks to F1 shows
how successful driver development programmes can be, with both drivers
setting countless records on their way to becoming multiple world
champions for Red Bull and McLaren respectively. Ferrari too has its
Driver Academy, where lead driver Jules Bianchi proved to be a
tantalising F1 prospect with Marussia until his career was so
tragically cut short by a fatal accident at the Japanese Grand Prix
last year.

The downside of development schemes is that they do not come cheap and
getting one of the limited places still requires luck as well as
talent on the part of the driver. If they fail to meet targets their
F1 careers could be over before they have really begun. Another
problem is that there are often simply no seats available at the time
when the time comes for a young driver to make the step up to F1, a
problem which McLaren are now attempting to resolve in order to give
GP2 champion Stoffel Vandoorne his chance at the top level.

Wolff says that "the most sensible route at the moment is Formula
Three. It is a huge grid, almost 40 cars. We have seen in the last
couple of years, the best ones have come from Formula Three and, at
the moment, that is probably the race series I would be looking at the
most." So when the action in F1 isn’t at its hottest that’s the place
to look to find the stars of the future.

///

Zoxxo

Here's a very interesting development from today:

World Council gives Todt and Ecclestone mandate
to push F1 changes through

The FIA World Motor Sport Council met today in Paris and took the
unusual step of giving Jean Todt and Bernie Ecclestone a mandate to
address key issues facing F1 – which could mean that they could
introduce measures that have not been voted through by the teams in
the F1 Commission.

The big issue of the moment is that of power units, and the
manufacturers are due to present proposals in the middle of January.
Todt and Ecclestone have agreed to come up with answers by January
31st

The FIA said: "The World Motor Sport Council approved, by a near
unanimous number (just one vote against), a mandate for the FIA
President, Jean Todt and the Representative of the Commercial Rights
Holder, Bernie Ecclestone to make recommendations and decisions
regarding a number of pressing issues in Formula One such as
governance, Power Units and cost reduction. Mr Todt and Mr
Ecclestone expressed their intention to establish conclusions on these
matters by 31 January, 2016."

Meanwhile the WMSC also addressed some key regulation changes, including
clarification on how the engine token system will work in years to
come:

"The number of power unit tokens allowed for in-season development
will be allocated as follows over the coming seasons:

2016 – 32, 2017 – 25, 2018 – 20, 2019 – 15

"Any new Power Unit manufacturer will be allocated 15 tokens in their
first year, and 32 in their second."

It also confirmed that all manufacturers can now run previously homologated
engines: "Power Units homologated in previous seasons may now be
re-homologated. Previously nomanufacturer could supply more than
one specification of PU. The World Motor Sport Council was also
advised that the FIA had agreed for Ferrari to supply a fourth customer
team with a 2015 specification Power Unit in 2016."

The latter is a reference to Scuderia Toro Rosso.

The tyre regulations have been adjusted to allow teams to have a
choice of three tyres each weekend.

"The tyre supplier will now provide three dry-weather compounds instead of two.

"Of the 13 sets of dry tyres available to each driver, the tyre supplier
will choose two for the race (only one of which must be used in the
race), and one set (the softest available) that may only be used in Q3.
Each driver may then choose their remaining ten sets from the three
available compounds

"Unless intermediate or wet-weather tyres have been used, a driver
must use at least two different specifications of dry-weather tyres –
at least one of these must be the one chosen by the tyre supplier."

There are also changes to the Virtual Safety Car: "In the event of a
Virtual Safety Car (VSC), DRS will now be re-enabled immediately after
the VSC period. Furthermore, the VSC may also be used in practice
sessions to reduce the amount of time lost during a stoppage."

Finally, "The maximum number of Championship events in a season
has been increased to 21 (from 20)."

///////////

VetteDrmr

Those F3 videos show one very significant difference to F1 (amidst others): car count! It surely seems as if F1 could sustain a larger field, although I doubt they have any defined limits of the numbers of cars; instead it's limited by funding.

The new tire rule *might* make a difference, but I'll just have to wait and see. Many times I've thought teams might try some out of the box strategies, but many times they all do the same thing (probably because it's the best strategy, duh!).

Have a good one,
Mike

Zoxxo

Well, the current car count in F1 is 20 while the rules set the maximum at 24. Some years back there were more than that and F1 actually had pre-qualifying (!!) And for sure the cost of a year of F3 is somewhat less than for F1

But at least with the new way the teams have more leeway in their choices. Having it all come down to "do we run soft or supersoft in the final stint?" for *all* of the teams really doesn't do much for the concepts of "unpredictability" and "alternate strategy."

Z//

VetteDrmr

That's my hope as well. Hey, only a little over 3 months to go!

Have a good one,
Mike

Zoxxo

Pay attention as there will be a test afterwards.


Teams can split drivers on tyre choice in 2016,
Pirelli confirms

Pirelli has issued more information about how the 2016 tyre rules will
work after the FIA World Motor Sport Council approved the new system.

From next year there will be five compounds, with the purple-marked
ultrasoft joining the range. Teams can choose three of the compounds
for each race weekend, within certain guidelines.

The choices will be made to a deadline set by Pirelli – before the tyres
are made and shipped – and the selections will only be made public two
weeks before the race. Intriguingly drivers within teams can have
different choices.

Pirelli explains the full rules as follows:

"In consultation with the FIA, Pirelli will decide in advance which
three compounds can be used at each race, and communicate this
information to the teams.

"The total number of sets that can be used during practice, qualifying
and racing remains the same as it is currently: 13.

"Pirelli will nominate two mandatory race sets for each car.
Furthermore, one set of the softer compound will have to be kept for
use in Q3 only.

"The two mandatory sets chosen by Pirelli can be of two different
compounds, from the three that have been nominated for the race
weekend. These sets will obviously be identical for each team.

"The remaining 10 sets can be chosen by each team, from the three
compounds nominated for the race weekend.

"The teams will make their choices within a deadline set by Pirelli. They
will communicate their choices to the FIA, which will in turn tell Pirelli
how many tyres to produce. The choices for each car will remain
secret until 2 weeks before the race. If a team does not meet the
deadline, the choice will be made by the FIA.

"Once the choices for each car have been made, the FIA will continue
to assign the tyres randomly via a barcode, as is the case currently.

"The choices made by each team can vary for each of its cars: so
each driver within a team can have a different allocation.

"The tyres will be distinguished by different coloured markings on the
sidewalls, as is currently the case.

"Teams will still have to give back tyres according to a certain
schedule, but they can decide which tyres to give back at the
following times:

"One set after the first 40 minutes of FP1

"One set at the end of FP1

"Two sets at the end of FP2

"Two sets at the end of FP3

"The two mandatory sets nominated by Pirelli cannot be given back
during practice and must be available for use in the race. At least one
of these two sets must be used during the race – but the teams can
decide which one.

"The top 10 at the end of qualifying will still have to give back the set
of the softer compound nominated for Q3, and start the race on the
tyres with which they set their fastest time in Q2 (the same rule as is
the case currently). All other drivers will be able to use the set that is
saved for Q3 during the race."

////////

VetteDrmr

I promise you, I clicked on a similar article's link from racer.com and my browser locked up. When I got everything cleaned up and went back, the link had changed. Co-incidence??? I think not.

In all seriousness, I like this much better than the new rules to "make" the engines sound better.

But, then again, we've come to accept DRS, haven't we?

Have a good one,
Mike

Zoxxo

I had a similar thing yesterday exiting racer.com. Something tried to take me to some weird friggin site and my anti-virus software (trend micro enterprise) yelled "DANGER!!" about it and wouldn't let me go there. I suspect that racer.com has been hacked and perverted. Beware! Go into your firewall and block the ip address range 104.x.x.x. (both inbound and outbound.) Then update your antivirus software and do a whole-system scan.

Such stopgap measures are a sad indictment of the total failure of the engineers to understand the *entertainment* value that F1 has. That's what has given us these insane "relevant" power units that are NOT relevant (but it's a great smokescreen for Merc,) cost a freakin' fortune, can't be removed and reinstalled in under a week, etc., etc.

The "blow-off valve" change might add some interesting sound tweaks but in no way can it replace that old N/A motor sound. Not a chance. They did it because it looks like they are doing something, it costs them about $50 to do it, and it changes the performance 0.0%

Maybe YOU have...

Z//

VetteDrmr

Stepped into that one, didn't I?!?