2016 Formula 1 (Real World)

The first race of the 2016 season is just around the corner (March 20th in Australia). How do you guys think the season will shape up?

With the cars only changing slightly from 2015, it would seem Mercedes would continue to dominate. On the other hand, maybe this means Mercedes doesn't have much room to improve while the other teams have had an off-season to close the gap.

Ferrari and Williams were the closest to Mercedes last year, and Ferrari has made more significant changes to their car than most teams. Maybe they can knock Mercedes off the top?

Red Bull has a new engine, McLaren-Honda gets a big boost in horsepower, and a new Renault team apparently has a much better engine than the Renault powered cars had last year.

Sauber, Force India, and Manor aren't likely to mount much of a challenge. Force India was solid last year, but this year will be running recycled cars. Scuderia Toro Rosso could be a factor towards the front, with maybe more HP to give to their young, aggressive drivers.

Then there is the big unknown. Can the Haas team from America (but based in England) make an impact in their first year?

It's hard to tell but if Mercedes are on form, they will be difficult to beat. Button snatched victory from the jaws of defeat when Honda pulled out years back. so who knows? I'll be rooting for Hamilton as is my patriotic duty. Can't wait.

Really looking forward to seeing how redbull will do with new engine and to see how they are after the not knowing and whether this shall effect how they perform. I'm sure merc shall be a powerful team but yeah . Cannot wait to see how it all pans out for all! Bring it!

Go go Ricardo!

I prey honda doesn't make a fool out of themselves again.

We should try to arrange to watch a race while we are all on comms together (teamspeak or such). Not the same as having your buddies arranged around the couch in the man cave but might be fun. And of course the only race fans around here are NASCAR.....

Bah nascar, Shenanigans.

Jenson Button is probably my favorite driver, so hopefully he will get a usable car this year.

He represents the old guard and it would be great to see him in a decent set of wheels whizzing past those young upstarts.

Short but sweet.

I can,t waith
Go MAX 33

Looks like the new qualifying system didn't work out very well. Seemed to me like it could be cool, until I saw how it played out. Big change is Toro Rosso mixing it up near the front of the grid, ahead of Williams and Red Bull. Haas looks like it could be competitive, but they messed up their qualifying so they will start this first race at the back.

Honestly a bit disappointed to see Mercedes go 1-2 again in the season opener. Nothing against them, but I always like the underdogs. I think it makes for more interesting racing when one team doesn't always win.

Still, an exciting race, and I think with slightly different strategy Kimi's engine holding together, there was a chance Ferrari could have gone 1-2 instead. Haas and Toro Rosso show they can be a factor. Even Manor looked decent. Williams was maybe the one negative surprise, not being as competitive as I expected.

No idea how Alonzo walked away from that crash. There didn't seem to be a big enough piece of car left to fit a body.

It was great racing! One thing I must say is that HAAS for basically a new comer to F1 I was very impressed! Also Hamilton being able to climb back was amazing, shame Vettel off tracked at turn 14 (which seemed to be a recurring theme over the weekend) Alonsos crash was intense but what a image to show how great the design is of the modern F1 cars and design team and builders should all be congratulated for doing an amazing job! If you see the pile of scrap f1 car and Alonso hopping out in under 10 seconds is incredible!

Also seeing all the podium winners having a ball and getting along was actually the best part of the day for me!!

You could still see a little tension between Vettle and Webber, but overall ya they showed great personality on the Podium afterwards. That was great to see.

Lewis Hamilton stated that the new clutch start procedure is more or less the same as it was except now you have one clutch instead of two. If you need to know what that means like I did here is an explanation of the old procedure.

In spite of a unanimous vote by the teams to revert back to the 2015 qualifying system, the 2016 system used in Australia will remain in place for at least the next race. It seems Bernie Ecclestone doesn't want to go back to the 2015 rules, and still wants the new 90 second elimination format for at least Q1 and Q2.

So Bahrain will have the same qualifying system as Australia, but it least the teams should be better prepared for it. It seemed like some of the teams in Australia didn't even know the rules, or at least struggled to figure out the timing of when to start a hot lap.

Apparently Alonzo didn't quite miraculously walk away uninjured from his big crash in Australia. He broke some ribs in the crash, which haven't healed enough to race this weekend in Bahrain. McLaren is putting backup driver Stoffel Vandoorne from Belgium in his place. He has been a test driver the last two years in F1, but this will be his first F1 race. He has been a start in GP2.