The Pre-Season Thread: launches, tests and all the rest!

[Enforcer]

Renault RS17



http://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/39042537

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/head ... ondon.html

[Wallio]

There's 15 pictures of the new Renault on Facebook, and I have to say I'm impressed. Aggressive is the only word that comes to mind.

Deeply undercut side pods, a floor that comes way out, big angles on the rear wing and a nose cone that appears to be blended into the barge boards.

If it goes like it looks 5th in the WCC (the teams goal) is certainly possible.

[Dj_bereta]

Scuderia Minardi is back ... oh wait, it's Renault.

[CaptainGetz12]

I quite like this Sauber. Too bad that, given the financial plight last year, they will end up at the back. It also looks cooler and meaner than the Williams.

Fingers crossed that Sauber don't go bankrupt at the end of the season. Manor finally got a cool livery, only to go bankrupt in the off-season.

[Aislabie]

A dude on Reddit replaced some of the black bits with blue and it looks gorgeous.

[DanielPT]

A dude on Reddit replaced some of the black bits with blue and it looks gorgeous.

That would probably be too much mild seven territory for them.

Anyway, I am glad they still like bees back in Enstone.

[Miguel98]

Damn it Force India. Why you do this? This is hideous

[madmark1974]

Force India making a strong case for ugliest 2017 design ... Could it yet be beaten though?



Looks like the designer left his set square on the drawing board and they incorporated it into the design!

[solarcold]

My take on the showings so far:

Williams pre-release photos: quite mediocre, as in, not much different from their previous livery. that's not exactly bad though, and the car looks slick, only they didn't touch the painting and I'm always in favor of livery creativity.

Sauber: the best livery so far. That said, I'm still mad at Sauber for their manormurder, but they did what they needed and they did it timely. The livery is gorgeous. Sauber didn't have this classy a livery for ages already. I'm no enemy of those shark things, and you can quite mask the uncomfortable nose if you need it. Sauber shows that you can make it look classy even if it has those dubious feautures.

Renault: though not as awesome, their livery is still fine and it too manages to hide the sharkey and incorporate it well into their design. I agree it looks aggressive. I love the tight backs, the angled wings and the new reglament overall, i have to admit.

Force India: "Hey guys, let's take the dullest design ideas McLaren has ever had, tweak them, add our logos, and add a big grey triangle!" No guys, that doesn't work. A car must be attractive, and to make your car attractive, you have to at least try to make it attractive. I seriously hope this is the worst design this season, because if it isn't, I don't want to know what is.

My predictions on what's yet to come:

Mercedes: They've teased us with some hints on their new livery, and if I get the message correctly, this car is going to be classy. Those blue lines will add the needed taste and uniqueness to their long-maintained corporate solid grey. Those lines are also an uncommon trait: I fail to remember anything similar over the last years. I very much look forward to their presentation.

McLaren are probably going for a mix of orange and white. The design wouldn't be too elegant, but it will be memorable and overall beautiful, refreshing after all those years of black anonymity. I expect the new McLaren to be aggressive, and, like the Merc, I expect them to opt for a classic nosecone design.

RedBull: I expect Red Bulls to ditch the purple elements they tried to play with last years and add some black elements instead. I expect it to be more different from 2016, than how 2016 was different from 2015. That said, the key elements are going to be there again, the big logo over the sidepods, and so forth. Maybe the new nosecone would be black rather than yellow.

Toro Rosso: Like probably all of you, I can't wait to see that lightblue soft cola red bull design. I don't expect it to be sky blue, rather light-electric kind of blue, with a mix of red. They and Redbull will probably opt for Force-India style aerodynamic silliness, but in this case it won't look as awful.

Haas: I expect their livery to be along the same lines as 2016 was. Only they will decrease the amount of white and increase the amount of red in their design.

[mario]

There's 15 pictures of the new Renault on Facebook, and I have to say I'm impressed. Aggressive is the only word that comes to mind.

Deeply undercut side pods, a floor that comes way out, big angles on the rear wing and a nose cone that appears to be blended into the barge boards.

If it goes like it looks 5th in the WCC (the teams goal) is certainly possible.

I'd agree that Renault's car does look like it is a rather appealing package, and it certainly does look like a much more refined and cohesive package. What could be more interesting is the talk of the refinements under the skin, with the suggestion that the team has made a quite sizeable change to the configuration of the MGU-H that mirrors Mercedes's design much more closely.

That said, by comparison I do have to agree with some of the other posters here that, at first sight, Force India's car does look a little more awkward by comparison. There are some features around the rear wing that are unusual, especially the slot gaps, and similarly around the bargeboards - however, the kink in the nose section, which at this stage has made some wonder if they are using a similar suspension system to Mercedes's passive hydraulic set up from last year, does look awkward and I do have to wonder if it could result in flow separation.

[madmark1974]

Just seen the pictures of the new Mercedes from its test run at Silverstone.

Compared to the Sauber, Renault and Force India it looks very smooth and refined, and no full shark fin (It's more like a horse's mane).

That could well be a very bad sign for all the other teams if Merc can get the car working without needing all those extra aerodynamic bits hanging off of it ...

[pasta_maldonado]

Mercedes seem to have VERY tall bargeboards. It's hard to see with the paint job, but this could be an area other teams have missed.

As for Merc domination, I'm still optimistic that Red Bull have produced a brilliant car.

[Wallio]

The Force India is pretty rough, but they're at least trying. I think the problem is the shark fin looks tacked on "Wait, other teams are running a fin? Shite!" They as seemed to try to keep their vented nose, but either due to regs, or whatever, had to hack it into the wang-type noses of years past.

The Merc is pretty bland, but with how much they dominated, why not? Here's hoping another team catches lighting in a bottle.

[IceG]

And you thought the Force India looked rough https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/merc ... ng-876436/

[Wallio]

Interesting. The article talks about the fins channeling air over the rear wing. I remember when Red Bull developed the first fin years ago, Newey said it was more for mid-corner lateral stability. IIRC, the fin as an extra wing piece came about with all the teams running f-ducts.

Wonder if different teams will be running different fins for different purposes?

As to the T-Wing, I actually lie it, but then again I'm the only person on earth who loved the '06-'08 cars.

[Spectoremg]

It'd be great if the T-wing was just a wind up to get the other teams scrambling for the drawing board

[Ataxia]

T-wing? Why aren't we calling this a "whale tail"?

[Dj_bereta]

So, the T-Wing is the spiritual successor of the double wing from the past (notable in 1984 season).

[IceG]

Wonder if different teams will be running different fins for different purposes?

Weirdly, I read that as "different fins for different porpoises".

It'd be great if the T-wing was just a wind up to get the other teams scrambling for the drawing board

That crossed my mind too

[Aguaman]

The McLaren looks a tad like Spyker

[DanielPT]

The McLaren looks a tad like Spyker

And I was thinking about Arrows. Orange and black liveries have awesome reject history. It bodes well for McLaren RoTY award hopes.

[RonDenisDeletraz]

The McLaren looks like somebody has left an old Marussia out in the sun for too long.

[Wallio]

The McLaren looks a tad like Spyker

I was all excited when I first saw the Macca this morning, but after seeing all the "Spyker returns lulz" memes, I can see it now. The orange does at least let you see all the front wing detail.

Ferrari bring back the Renault anvil nose, but those sidepods....

[Bobby Doorknobs]

Thoughts on liveries thus far (because I'm a superficial bastard):

Ferrari: It's red, it's a Ferrari, I would have been quite annoyed if it wasn't red, the white makes the shark fin look even worse than it is.
Force India: The new Ron Dennis McLaren. Gets pretty tiresome pretty quickly.
Haas: It'll probably be okay. Last year's wasn't too bad, despite the fact that it didn't turn out to be yellow as rumoured (or NART white/blue, as I would have loved to see )
McLaren: Orange and black could have gone well together here. They didn't; the white ruins it.
Mercedes: I hate any livery with Petronas sponsorship on it. Except BMW, who had the sense not to have it in teal. If you're reading this, Stuttgart (and I know you are), please, please, find a new fuel supplier, preferably one that's less intrusive, livery-wise. Thanks, I appreciate it.
Manor: Probably would have looked nice.
Red Bull: Will probably resemble a Red Bull livery. I hope (in vain, most likely) they ditch the matte paintjob.
Renault: Too much black. Otherwise pretty cool.
Sauber: Best of the bunch. Awesome.
Toro Rosso: I'm hoping for a 1992 Minardi throwba... yeah, it's going to be business as usual.
Williams: Classic Martini Racing livery continues. Nothing to complain about.

[solarcold]

I would only disagree with you, Simtek, in your opinion that the white ruins this McLaren. I think it's pretty nice overall, but on the contrary, I'd suggest to get rid of black there. We already have a yellowish-blackish contender, which is Renault. Having an orange-white livery would be an enhancement to diversity on the grid and would look pretty good, though not necessarily much better.
McLaren is good. Force India is now the enfant terrible. It's like they have had their design departments swapped.

[UncreativeUsername37]

I like the shape of the Ferrari. It's clean compared to the others. Which makes it look less 2017-like than it maybe should, but oh well. And the livery, well, it's red. Nothing much to say.

The McLaren's color pattern is awful. I do like how they made the fin not solid black, I was hoping someone would do that because it makes it less ugly. But other than that, I can't believe they screwed up black and orange.

[Izzyeviel]

Nice to see Marussia back on the grid. Mclaren-Marussia has a certain ring to it.

[Aislabie]

The McLaren looks a tad like Spyker

I was all excited when I first saw the Macca this morning, but after seeing all the "Spyker returns lulz" memes, I can see it now.

Nah, it's nothing like Spyker - the McLaren's never going to lead a Grand Prix.

[Izzyeviel]

Just realised the Sauber looks like a '95 Pacific.

[Wallio]

Williams releases photos of their actual car finally, and it features what may be the biggest shark find ever fitted to any car ever. Although it's probably just the striping making it look longer.

[Klon]

The McLaren looks a tad like Spyker

I was all excited when I first saw the Macca this morning, but after seeing all the "Spyker returns lulz" memes, I can see it now.

Nah, it's nothing like Spyker - the McLaren's never going to lead a Grand Prix.

Damn son.

Post of the year, shut it down, let's go home!

[watka]

Gosh, I really hate that bump on the nosecone of the Force India. I thought we had got rid of the stepped noses in 2014...

On the flip side, those sidepod air intakes on the Ferrari are monstrous!

[Aislabie]

It's beautiful.

[mario]

Williams releases photos of their actual car finally, and it features what may be the biggest shark find ever fitted to any car ever. Although it's probably just the striping making it look longer.

I suspect it is a consequence of the livery exaggerating the extent of the shark fin, since I would have thought that the dimensional box that the fin would have to fit into would be the same for all cars (a very rough and ready comparison suggests that it is no bigger than McLaren's shark fin, for example).

Now that Williams have actually revealed their car, rather than just a render, it does seem to still be a fairly conservative design from the team. It is possible that Williams have still been holding back on some elements, but so far there doesn't seem to have been a particular feature on this car that really looks like the team have pushed the boundaries in any particular area.

If you think about it, Ferrari have gone for a very unusual approach with their sidepods, Mercedes have made some fairly radical changes to their front suspension and have the integrated front chassis deflectors, Renault have their distinctive bargeboards and sidepod deflectors, Sauber have their blade style airbox, Force India are thought to have adopted a similar passive suspension system to Mercedes and McLaren have their slotted nosecone.

However, although there are inevitably some refinements with Williams's car, at the moment their car just hasn't struck me as showing any great innovations or refinements - it almost looks a bit like those illustrations of a generic F1 car that were produced to explain the 2017 regulations.

On another note, there also seem to be a few leaked photos floating around of the new Haas after a shakedown run in Barcelona.

It looks like they've also gone down a similar route as Ferrari with additional cooling slots on top of the sidepods, which might reflect changes in the architecture of Ferrari's 2017 power unit.

[Wallio]

An American race car painted in grey primer? Way to perpetuate the stereotype guys.

All kidding aside, I quite like it. Hopefully it scores enough to hold back Renault.

[pasta_maldonado]

The new Renault appears to be running a lot of rake - will Red Bull be running even more than this?

[Miguel98]

Red Bull's aprooach to their nose is.... interesting, at best. Very agressive rear packaging as well.

So, how long before teams start complaining about Red Bull's nose?

[solarcold]

Finally, our prayers for the changing of the Toro Rosso design concept were heard. This is awesome!

[solarcold]

The revelation season is over: let's rate them!

Sauber: 10 - classy.
Toro Rosso: 10 - a great leap forward in design.
Renault: 9 - good Renaultish livery.
Haas: 9 - you need to get used to that asphalt gray, but once you do.. Also, their shark fin is the BEST.
Mercedes: 8 - nice job, improved over the last year.
McLaren: 7 - difficult. Color change is refreshing, but looks too cheap, underdeveloped and Manorish (this isn't bad though).
Williams: 7 - classic modern Williams. Just keep using what worked well!
Ferrari: 6 - quiet predictable, but we didn't expect them to suddenly turn yellow anyway.
Red Bull: 5 - nothing sexy really, unless that hole in this nose is what turns you on.
Force India: 4 - "Well, nice to see you're on schedule with this car. Can't wait to see the final livery! Wait, what? This is the final livery?"

[Wallio]

If looks scored points than Toro Rosso has already locked up the WCC.