Ultra_Nexus

I'm gonna kick this off with my predictions

WDC - Rosberg
WCC - Merc

Ferrari 0.3-0.5 behind.

McLaren better than Williams

Red Bull with a Renault engine

Haas first score points in the second race and better than Sauber/Manor/Lotus-Renault over the season

Alonso still threatens to quit

tozerman

Ok then, my thoughts.

WDC Hamilton
WCC Mercedes

Vettel will be a much bigger threat next year and I think Rosberg is not up to the level to fight with vet/Ham for the same championship.

Haas will be at Sauber level fighting with Lotus/Renault and Honda will be up there with the Williams.

also from what I/we have just seen on TV Redbull Mercedes anyone ?

fluffyninja

Interesting article on sky about rule changes for 2016.
One of them was that telemetry will be governed by an FIA approved system.

When I was speaking to Johnny Herbert (can't beat a good name drop!) he was saying that one of the reasons Texas was such a good race was because set up time was so limited meaning the engineers really couldn't optimise cars. That meant drivers who could drive around issues or could set up quickly did well.

Reading between the lines I'd guess they are going to try and put the set up onus onto the drivers meaning the engineers will have less info with which to get them into the sweet spot

MB

Not bad predictions Ron, I could go with those. Would mean it's the second time Hamilton hasn't been as good as his team mate

He might come back all guns blazing though.

I think Ferrari will be closer to Merc than this season and Vettel will be right up there.

BuggyofMildDiscomfort

Hamilton, Vettel, Rosberg for the championship.

alSpeed2k

It still hasn't started yet?

I can't wait!

Hamilton and the Silverarrows, I think, is still the team to beat. I hope I'm wrong. Hopefully Honda can get it's shit together. It should be interesting to watch Verstappen continue to develop.

Dembo

That happened a couple of times this (last) year, I forget when. Perhaps there's a good argument for getting rid of Friday practice and just give them 1 hour setup time on Saturday morning. Of course that means less for fans to see and less TV coverage.

2016 is over; Ron said so. But I'm going to predict Vettel for WDC, and Mercedes for WCC.

imc27

I'm not predicting anything until after Qualifying in Australia.

Can Honda turn things around and provide McLaren with a competitive power unit? Well, they had two years to develop this year's unit, including a year with access to what Mercedes were supplying, and they still couldn't match what the previous weakest power unit, Renault, managed in their first season. They're restricted by the "token" system, so any upgrades will need to be incremental rather than fundamental.

Add to that the fact that McLaren have produced some very poor chassis in the last few years, and their chances don't look good, even with Peter Prodromu heading the aero department. Divided intra-team management won't help either.

The Renault/Lotus saga, amazingly, drags on. According to Ted Kravitz during his post-race Notebook yesterday, matters are close to a conclusion. But we've heard that before. Apparently, Renault want additional "preferential" treatment from FOM with regard to allocation of TV money due to their heritage in F1. In my opinion, Renault have pulled out of F1 more than once when it didn't suit them any more, so they shouldn't expect any additional payments this time around.

Which leaves the Renault/Red Bull debacle to be resolved. Current rumours of a Renault engine, reworked by Mario Ilien and using Red Bull developed ERS systems appear to be the most credible solution. Possibly.

Ferrari need another development step over the winter of at least similar magnitude to the one they achieved before the start of the 2015 season. I think that their poor 2014 was down to prioritising reliability for the inaugural season of the new power units in 2014 and they were caught out by the Mercedes engine's better packaging giving the works cars an aerodynamic advantage to go along with the power benefits which came from having better charge cooling and a less bulky intercooler setup. For 2015 the entire Mercedes package was further refined, with some significant aero advantages from the front wing and suspension, with clever use of the lower wishbones providing better airflow around the lower half of the sidepods to the area above the diffuser. As a package, the Mercedes really is the class of the field, and it's up to the others to catch up.

As to the drivers, there's not much to choose between Hamilton and Rosberg, and both Vettel and Ricciardo are capable of outperforming their machinery. Sainz and Verstappen are able to scrap effectively, but the Torro Rosso isn't on the pace of the front runners - like Force India, they will always be a development step behind.

There's much to look forward to in 2016. But until Qualifying in Melbourne nobody will show their hand.

Ultra_Nexus

Well, I have worked for a bookie on several occasions


It is clear that Honda have looked at what Merc was doing and then decided to go completely radical in order to outperform them. Along with the super compact rear end of the McLaren, it provided off the bat problems. And then you have the token system that only applies to a small part of the 'engine' and is restricted.

However, this year there will be no excuses for Honda.

Dembo

I'm sure Honda know exactly what's wrong but can't fix it without major changes, not just to the engine but the car too. Which is why they couldn't do anything mid season. They had some okay-ish results though; without all the unreliability and 75-place grid penalties they weren't all that much worse than they were in 2014 with the best engine. I can't believe they'll jump to the front but they need to be consistently top 10.