thermonuclear:

 

C'mon Jaxson, when you firing up the 2024 thread?

 

 

 

Being reported this morning that Guenther Steiner has been given the elbow by Haas as TP.  Can't say that I'm surprised, perhaps only that he lasted this long.  He's certainly been one of the more colourful characters in the Paddock, as highlighted by Drive To Survive.

 

Although DTS has given him an enhanced profile, not sure it's done him any favours career-wise.  Hard to gauge his true skill-set, though he's had quite a few years with Haas so Gene must have seen something in him that he liked.  End of the day the results were poor last season, so probably time for a change.

 

Will be interesting to see how the new guy gets on.

 

hASS started with a bang with some innovative initiatives around sourcing components cheaply etc. similar vibe to the pink Mercedes etc

Let's be honest though, they're not to top tier team and they spend most of their time scavenging for sponsorship funding.

They ruined Mick Schumacher and really their claim to fame is Netflix and being the team that burning man crawled out of.

Changing TPs isn't going to change much, now they'll get less screen time than ever with Guenther gone.

How are others going to watch F1 this year?

Last year i got the F1TV PRO subscription for $80 (it was a pre-season special they ran for couple weeks before the first race), worked out at $3.33 per race weekend. Even at the regular price of $100 that's $4.16 per race weekend. Still pretty good value considering a Skysports subscriptions runs into $45 per month.

I enjoyed the F1TV Pro app, coverage and quality of the feed. Watched some of the F2 and F3 races, as well as some pre/post race shows. You also get the Skysports audio if you want it and the driver view live video was pretty cool especally when Lawson was tip toing around Zandvoort in the wet for the first time. The only downside was you don't get any of the Skysports video feed. Not the end of the world but Bundles track walk pre-race is interesting as well as some of the pit side video they shoot. 

Jvipers2: https://www.formula1.com/en-nz/subscribe-to-f1-tv?from=us&to=nz

$99.99 per year now. I hope the Skysports audio option is retained. Their own commentary isn't as informative and unnatural.

Yep waiting for the sale price to be offered again.

For those who purchased this on sale, is it limited to first time customers or anything like that, or can you renew again at a lower price each year?

Jaxson:

 

Jvipers2: https://www.formula1.com/en-nz/subscribe-to-f1-tv?from=us&to=nz

$99.99 per year now. I hope the Skysports audio option is retained. Their own commentary isn't as informative and unnatural.

 

 

 

Yep waiting for the sale price to be offered again.

For those who purchased this on sale, is it limited to first time customers or anything like that, or can you renew again at a lower price each year?

 

From what I've read, it's new users only but you can obviously get around that with a different email address.

However, may not be a good idea waiting, the F1TV Reddit has a few examples where the prices are going up on the 15th. Not sure if NZ will be affected, but decided to lock in now to be safe.

Jaxson: Thanks for the heads up.

Does this have an app and does it support chromecasting to a tv etc?

Yes to both. I have the app installed on the Chromecast as well. I rarely use the phone app, I think it was one of those things were you had to sign up via app. I watch it on my laptop when I'm away with work. 

I found the F1TV Google TV app to be far more reliable on my Chromecast HD than I ever did with Chromecasting. That said, only typically watch a couple of races on the TV, normally I end up using Multiviewer on my PC because Live Timing and driver cameras/etc, that and not wanting to keep others awake at 2am.

Putting together everything I have seen on Youtube today, it would appear the Steiner's contract was up and Gene Haas decided he did not want to renew it, and also did not want to pour any more money into the team. The new boss has a mandate to improve the team using the resources they currently have, which is not what Guenther was wanting to do.

As for how I will watch, I also grabbed the $80 deal last year for F!TV Pro and will likely let that roll over this year for $100 or whatever the full price is. I like being able to watch everything when I decide and actually prefer the commentary to the Sky Sports F1 team.

Jaxson: Thanks for the heads up.

Does this have an app and does it support chromecasting to a tv etc?

Thanks Jaxson. 👍

I was too slow on the cheap price last year also and ended up paying $100 for F1TV before the first race weekend.  From memory, the 20% off offer comes up in the week prior to pre-season testing, and withdrawn prior to that first day at Barcelona.

I've got the app installed on my Nvidia Shield, works flawlessly on that for me.

Brumfondl:

 

Putting together everything I have seen on Youtube today, it would appear the Steiner's contract was up and Gene Haas decided he did not want to renew it, and also did not want to pour any more money into the team. The new boss has a mandate to improve the team using the resources they currently have, which is not what Guenther was wanting to do.

 

The latter I'm a bit confused by. From https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.exclusive-gene-haas-guenther-steiner-departure-f1-team-future.3pt87IVfCzoOgJLV19Atf4.html (It's login required I think, F1TV login works or a free account IIRC), Gene says that they were within 10m of budget cap the last few years which I think is a lot closer than some pundits suspected. Gene himself seems to admit that they're not spending that wisely and seems to point to outsourcing what they can... but he seems to want to keep outsourcing and buying Ferrari/Dallara parts, despite his implications that it's not cost-effective... that's a major HUH? in my books.

Personally I wonder if a part of it is Guenther becoming completely risk-adverse though. He constantly reinforced a 'no more rookies' stance, mainly after Mick & Nikita, and going for two experienced drivers. Most teams are siding with experienced + rookie/recent rookie combo, which to me makes more sense, and even Ayao Komatsu seemed to be singing Ollie Bearman's praises after the mandatory FP1 sessions (Guenther seemed quiet). So to be honest, I wouldn't be shocked if Silly Season 2024 we see a change there, going for experience + rookie for 2025 onwards (maybe Bearman (after hopefully an excellent 2nd F2 season), maybe someone else).

Surprise early look at the 2024 livery for McLaren the other day, anyone got thoughts on it? In the absence of a Kiwi driver on the grid currently, I tend to throw my support behind them and Norris in particular.

It's obviously a marketing exercise more than anything, aimed at moving vast quantities of merchandise to the dedicated fans. Other than the light blue apparently gone, it's much of a muchness with the papaya and black. If the car is quick, I doubt it will matter to most supporters though.

Speaking of merch, just wanted to give "Fuel For Fans" a plug if you're looking to line up a few items for the wardrobe. Dealt with them a couple of times last year, prices are pretty competitive from the shopping around I did and shipping to NZ is extremely reasonable and fast via Fed-Ex. 

You can get free shipping if you spend enough, not hard to do but if you go that route, changing your currency to USD on the order does mean the threshold for free can be reached slightly earlier/cheaper than if you leave it in Pounds or Euros.

Looking ahead at the season, F1 have put up a page with all the race times/etc at https://www.formula1.com/en/racing/2024.html and it's just under a month until pre-season testing (21-23 Feb; 8pm to 5am sessions, ouch for us), I saw somewhere that the sprint weekends aren't all 100% confirmed though.

As for car launches, looks like at this stage they're all between the 5th and 14th Feb although I think one or two teams haven't announced their events yet.