So the Malaysian GP is done and dusted. The Finn fan in me is of course ecstatic with two Finns on the podium and was very happy to see Robert Kubica also there.
But what of the race. First, McLaren. They certainly weren't as bad as the end results show, at third and fifth. Both McLarens were punished after qualifying and started the race at midfield, yet 15 laps into the race, as the first pit stops started, Hamilton had climbed up to 5th and Kovalainen to 7th. Out of that, Kovalainen ended up third and onto the podium. What happened to Hamilton was a botched pit stop which cost him 10 seconds directly, and further was hurt by bad traffic when he returned to the track. Before the pit stop Hamilton was 4 sec ahead of Kovalainen. Under "normal" conditions Hamilton would have easily finished ahead of Kovalainen, at the very least McLaren would have had 3rd and 4th places, but very likely, Hamilton's 4 second gap in his first pit stop would have put him ahead of all the traffic that also slowed Kovalainen down, and let Kubica get away. Hamilton, in a faster car, would have caught and probably passed Kubica by the second pit stops, thus it really should have been Hamilton 2nd and Kovalainen 4th. Considering both cars (and drivers) finished, that was their true pace. Hamilton was hurt by the pit stop.
But what of Massa then? This is the second time he threw the race away with a driver error. Very bad indeed. This time a totally unforced error, too much power from the turn, spinning the car and then beaching it. Zero points. And this was after Kimi had overtaken him fair and square on the first pit stops. When Massa saw he was not going to win (again), he lost his focus and made an unforced error. Very poor form. Especially for a driver for the Scuderia. This way Felipe will find himself soon shipped away from the Prancing Horse, possibly even during this season. (For the record, Massa was running 2nd when he spun out of the race).
Kimi - pretty well perfect drive, from second on the start, flawless race, taking over the lead from the first pit stops and then except for the second pit stop window, held the lead to the end.
Kubica. Very good smart drive. He was lucky, first Massa spinning away from him, then the McLaren pit stop taking Hamilton out of contention, and finally the remaining McLaren, Kovalainen, was stuck behind Button and Coulthard and falling so far behind as to not pose a threat to Robert in his BMW. A relatively easy race for him to 2nd place.
Heikki Kovalainen - very good drive from 9th to 3rd. With some luck, could have even made 2nd, but there was no way the McLaren was to catch the Ferrari(s) on this Sunday. Made just about the best he could.
Others worth mentioning?
Heidfeld in the other BMW was very unlucky at the start, fell back to 10th I think. Salvaged 3 points with a 6th place finish.
Webber, solid drive to 7th, 2 points.
Alonso, disappointing finish at 8th with the last point
Best of the rest, certainly Trulli in the Toyota, finishing 4th. He started 3rd (because the McLarens were relegated) and managed 4th (because Massa messed up, Hamilton's pit stop and Heidfeld's bad start) so there was luck in his drive, but a good driver needs also to be lucky. So yes, very good finish for Toyota, considering that they are not as fast as Ferrari, McLaren or BMW. 5 points for Trulli.
A good, exciting race. The lack of traction control seems to be doing a lot of good for better racing, that at least bodes well for an exciting season. But Felipe Massa, ouch. He needs to get his head together real fast or he may become the first driver not to finish the season without traction control...
Next race in Bahrain in 2 weeks. I'll do a separate posting about the form of the teams now that we have two full races to analyze and explore.. Stay tuned.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Australian GP review and thoughts
Well, it was an eventful race, wasn't it. And pretty near the worst kind of start for Ferrari. And near best possible start for McLaren, in particular for Lewis Hamilton.
But lets dig deeper.
Lewis Hamilton. Had a perfect weekend. Pole position, fastest lap (I think, I haven't seen the stats yet) and easy cruise to win. Managed to avoid most of the hassles with the pace car that messed up so many others including his team mate Heikki Kovalainen. Great race, Lewis. You earned the 10 points and a winner needs to be lucky. Perfect start to the season.
So Heikki? The qualifying could have been better but still starting on the second row was not bad. Then the race, he was right with it at the front, until unfortunate timing with his pit stop and a pace car. Was heading for a podium now that was lost. Still he at least brought the car to the finish. (this also means the McLaren is a solid and fast car to start the season)
Which is not what can be said of the Prancing Horse. Ferrari had horrible reliability issues, from Kimi's fuel pump in the qualifying to his engine dying at the race. And Massa lost his engine in the race. Come on, Ferrari. This is not the right time to produce unreliable cars! But yes, Kimi. So he started from 15th. Massa proved the car was good enough to be a front runner. So Kimi started to pass cars and by the time of his pit stops, Kimi had fought himself to third place.
As Kimi was on a one-stopper strategy, and his front-running rivals were two-stopping, at that point - when Kimi wanted to pit - he had in effect fought himself to the podium, and was very realistically fighting for the win. But then he had his major bit of bad luck with the pace car. As he could not enter the pits, with dead tyres, he was stuck going around the track several more times behind the pace car, with dead tyres now having no grip and losing whatever little bit of heat they might have held, Kimi then on the re-start ended driving off the track. Very luckily he avoided a crash, and returned - but due to the pace car situation, now all remaining cars had shot past him - this would never happen in normal race conditions if a driver overshoots a curve, he'd lose one maybe two places. Now Kimi went from third to I think 11th, anyway, dead-last in the queue. He must have been devastated.
Still, he fought back. Had his pit stop, fresh tyres, fought himself into about 5th or so, until again his tyres and now probably also engine (and pretty messed up car overall) were letting him down. So he finished 9th, but because Barrichello was disqualified, he picked up one point for 8th finish.
Yes, a pitiful performance, with several spectacular spins and driver errors - but I'm totally willing to forgive these for his brave fighting to overtake and get up the order, first from 15th to 3rd, and then again from 11th to 5th. His 8th place finish is not in any way a fair haul of points for what he did on Sunday.
But it does mean, that Ferrari do have a fast car. And a nimble car. And it suits Kimi's driving style. But he is now 9 points behind Hamilton. Not the best way to start the season. Expect Kimi to be very fired up for Malaysia.
Meanwhile Massa? Felipe, Felipe? What happened. You were Ferrari's front runner. You should have finished well ahead of Kimi, essentially in the same car. Certainly, where you start 4th and Kimi starts 15th, when the race is ten laps in, we'd expect the car running 6th to be you and the car running 20th to be Kimi, not the other way around !!
I think Massa showed again that he is prone to errors out of pressure. The spin on the first lap by Massa was not caused by any contact with any other driver. That was just driver error on new tyres at the start of the race, in relatively clear field position (not the heavily over-congesed mid-field); in short an un-forced error. Bad move Massa. Very bad. But his engine did break already at half distance so we never know if he might have had more luck in the roulette of the pace cars of this peculiar race.
Now then BMW? I wrote in my last prediction, that I expected BMW had been going backwards during the winter. Now we have Heidfeld finishing second and Kubica was running very well earlier in the race. What happened? It seems that BMW has been fooling the press and pundits, by "sandbagging" or hiding their true speed in the winter trials. Maybe they carried some extra weight in the car, to not reveal just how fast they were. Ha-ha, pretty clever... BMW seems very strong and will challenge McLaren and Ferrari for the podiums each race. I think they'll be winning their first race this season - and inspite of this race, I still think Kubica is the better driver, he'll be most likely the one to do it (with a bit more luck).
Then Williams. This team seems to be true to the pre-season form, taken giant steps ahead during the pre-season. Certainly the podium was a lot of luck with both Ferrari's out and Kovalainen behind them and only one BMW finishing the race, but still, Williams was clearly faster than Renault or the Red Bull. Happy to see Nico up there - and obviously Lewis and Nico are best friends, happy too to see such friendship among athletes who are technically rivals.
Alonso, drove a solid drive to fourth, well in excess of what the Renault really was able to do. Also Nakajima was clearly well behind his team mate in the other Williams. They picked their points simply because the rest of the field had not finished as they normally would do. The bit of particular joy for me was Toro Rosso and Sebastian Bourdais. The Toro Rosso was strong in pre-season and while its quite a long-shot for them to be in the points, happy they scored some on Sunday.
A few other observations. Nelsinho Piquet Jr was to me a big disappointment all through the weekend. I hope this is just rookie nerves, and he'll settle down much like Heikki did last year (he also started horribly badly in Australia).
I would have really wanted to see Barrichello actually win those points he had which he lost with the disqualifications. He is driving a dog of a car in the Honda, he's also that old, that he won't have many races left - maybe this season, but even one more season is starting to ask quite a lot. So these may have been his last legitimate chances for points. Shame about that.
Seven cars finished. I don't remember the race I saw that happen before ( there was once I have seen very long ago when there were less cars to physically finish than who won points, ie points were given to at least one car that did not finish) but its been a very long time.
Now to Malaysia. This race is more "normal" as a measure of team performance (Australia so often is peculiar and not really indicative)
Oh, and if you believe in omens, the winner of Australia tends to win the season. Bodes very well for Lewis Hamilton and McLaren. Still, I am sure Kimi is more happy to be in the Ferrari, even with broken fuel pump and engine, than being back at the Silver Arrows. Expect Kimi to be in top form in Kuala Lumpur...
But lets dig deeper.
Lewis Hamilton. Had a perfect weekend. Pole position, fastest lap (I think, I haven't seen the stats yet) and easy cruise to win. Managed to avoid most of the hassles with the pace car that messed up so many others including his team mate Heikki Kovalainen. Great race, Lewis. You earned the 10 points and a winner needs to be lucky. Perfect start to the season.
So Heikki? The qualifying could have been better but still starting on the second row was not bad. Then the race, he was right with it at the front, until unfortunate timing with his pit stop and a pace car. Was heading for a podium now that was lost. Still he at least brought the car to the finish. (this also means the McLaren is a solid and fast car to start the season)
Which is not what can be said of the Prancing Horse. Ferrari had horrible reliability issues, from Kimi's fuel pump in the qualifying to his engine dying at the race. And Massa lost his engine in the race. Come on, Ferrari. This is not the right time to produce unreliable cars! But yes, Kimi. So he started from 15th. Massa proved the car was good enough to be a front runner. So Kimi started to pass cars and by the time of his pit stops, Kimi had fought himself to third place.
As Kimi was on a one-stopper strategy, and his front-running rivals were two-stopping, at that point - when Kimi wanted to pit - he had in effect fought himself to the podium, and was very realistically fighting for the win. But then he had his major bit of bad luck with the pace car. As he could not enter the pits, with dead tyres, he was stuck going around the track several more times behind the pace car, with dead tyres now having no grip and losing whatever little bit of heat they might have held, Kimi then on the re-start ended driving off the track. Very luckily he avoided a crash, and returned - but due to the pace car situation, now all remaining cars had shot past him - this would never happen in normal race conditions if a driver overshoots a curve, he'd lose one maybe two places. Now Kimi went from third to I think 11th, anyway, dead-last in the queue. He must have been devastated.
Still, he fought back. Had his pit stop, fresh tyres, fought himself into about 5th or so, until again his tyres and now probably also engine (and pretty messed up car overall) were letting him down. So he finished 9th, but because Barrichello was disqualified, he picked up one point for 8th finish.
Yes, a pitiful performance, with several spectacular spins and driver errors - but I'm totally willing to forgive these for his brave fighting to overtake and get up the order, first from 15th to 3rd, and then again from 11th to 5th. His 8th place finish is not in any way a fair haul of points for what he did on Sunday.
But it does mean, that Ferrari do have a fast car. And a nimble car. And it suits Kimi's driving style. But he is now 9 points behind Hamilton. Not the best way to start the season. Expect Kimi to be very fired up for Malaysia.
Meanwhile Massa? Felipe, Felipe? What happened. You were Ferrari's front runner. You should have finished well ahead of Kimi, essentially in the same car. Certainly, where you start 4th and Kimi starts 15th, when the race is ten laps in, we'd expect the car running 6th to be you and the car running 20th to be Kimi, not the other way around !!
I think Massa showed again that he is prone to errors out of pressure. The spin on the first lap by Massa was not caused by any contact with any other driver. That was just driver error on new tyres at the start of the race, in relatively clear field position (not the heavily over-congesed mid-field); in short an un-forced error. Bad move Massa. Very bad. But his engine did break already at half distance so we never know if he might have had more luck in the roulette of the pace cars of this peculiar race.
Now then BMW? I wrote in my last prediction, that I expected BMW had been going backwards during the winter. Now we have Heidfeld finishing second and Kubica was running very well earlier in the race. What happened? It seems that BMW has been fooling the press and pundits, by "sandbagging" or hiding their true speed in the winter trials. Maybe they carried some extra weight in the car, to not reveal just how fast they were. Ha-ha, pretty clever... BMW seems very strong and will challenge McLaren and Ferrari for the podiums each race. I think they'll be winning their first race this season - and inspite of this race, I still think Kubica is the better driver, he'll be most likely the one to do it (with a bit more luck).
Then Williams. This team seems to be true to the pre-season form, taken giant steps ahead during the pre-season. Certainly the podium was a lot of luck with both Ferrari's out and Kovalainen behind them and only one BMW finishing the race, but still, Williams was clearly faster than Renault or the Red Bull. Happy to see Nico up there - and obviously Lewis and Nico are best friends, happy too to see such friendship among athletes who are technically rivals.
Alonso, drove a solid drive to fourth, well in excess of what the Renault really was able to do. Also Nakajima was clearly well behind his team mate in the other Williams. They picked their points simply because the rest of the field had not finished as they normally would do. The bit of particular joy for me was Toro Rosso and Sebastian Bourdais. The Toro Rosso was strong in pre-season and while its quite a long-shot for them to be in the points, happy they scored some on Sunday.
A few other observations. Nelsinho Piquet Jr was to me a big disappointment all through the weekend. I hope this is just rookie nerves, and he'll settle down much like Heikki did last year (he also started horribly badly in Australia).
I would have really wanted to see Barrichello actually win those points he had which he lost with the disqualifications. He is driving a dog of a car in the Honda, he's also that old, that he won't have many races left - maybe this season, but even one more season is starting to ask quite a lot. So these may have been his last legitimate chances for points. Shame about that.
Seven cars finished. I don't remember the race I saw that happen before ( there was once I have seen very long ago when there were less cars to physically finish than who won points, ie points were given to at least one car that did not finish) but its been a very long time.
Now to Malaysia. This race is more "normal" as a measure of team performance (Australia so often is peculiar and not really indicative)
Oh, and if you believe in omens, the winner of Australia tends to win the season. Bodes very well for Lewis Hamilton and McLaren. Still, I am sure Kimi is more happy to be in the Ferrari, even with broken fuel pump and engine, than being back at the Silver Arrows. Expect Kimi to be in top form in Kuala Lumpur...
Monday, March 10, 2008
On the Past, Present and Future Champions racing today
So lets talk Alonso, Raikkonen and Hamilton. The past champion, the current champion, and very likely the next (new) champion (whether this season or another very soon).
Last season, the closest season ever, with first and third place finisher in the championship separated by one point. One point between first and third. And so tight, the season was tied at 8 races with 2 wins each for four drivers; at 12 races, 3 wins for each of the four drivers, and at 15 races out of 17, still three drivers with the same number of wins, four each. Those three went into the final each having a chance to win the championship - and during that final race in Brazil, at different times of the race, if the race had been halted, a different driver would have won the championship.
What a season. The most competitive F1 season ever. And so exciting to follow.
Now, into 2008. The ruling champion Kimi Raikkonen remains with Ferrari to try for two-in-a-row. His nearest challeger, Lewis Hamilton, remains with McLaren who had the fastest car last season. And the deposed 2-time champion, Fernando Alonso, returns to Renault where he won twice in a row only a little over a year ago. Could it not be better for another legendary season of racing?
Yes and no. Lets look into the lives of these three drivers.
KIMI
Kimi at Ferrari. Usually when a race driver wins his first race, he gains confidence and often starts a set of wins (but there are the exceptions like Jenson Button). Also often - not always - winning the championship gives an extra boost of confidence.
Kimi had grown very frustrated at McLaren, in particular with their often fast but too unreliable cars. He had wanted to leave McLaren - and he envied Michael Schumacher's incredibly strong reliability at Ferrari - certainly the most reliable car of the decade of the 2000s (I can still remember the 1980s and 1990s when Ferraris were the LEAST reliable cars). Now Kimi is with that Ferrari team. They gave him a fast and reliable car (tied for second most reliable, and ironically McLaren was the most reliable car this past season). Kimi fought through the season to win his championship.
During the first half of last season Kimi was facing a lot of heat from his partner driver at Ferrari, Felipe Massa. Felipe led Kimi in points for a good part of the season and there were rumours that Felipe might gain the top driver position. Kimi fought on and took the championship. Now he has the Number 1 on his car and there is no question, Kimi Raikkonen is Ferrari's number 1 driver.
He is happy, on a team that is now focusing on him. He has finally gotten that very nasty monkey on his back (he twice lost the championship in the final race of the season). Kimi is very set. And where Massa had been a serious challenger last season, this season if Kimi drives well, there is no risk of Massa outperforming him. Last season it was Massa who was the established driver who knew the Ferrari team. Now Massa doesn't even have that advantage.
Also early last season there were rumours that the technical staff at Ferrari were hoping more input similar to what Michael Schumacher had given when he drove for Ferrari. Kimi doesn't go into that level of detail. But the team adjusted to Kimi's way. Now they know. From the start of the season, this is Kimi's team, and they now know from the start, how to get the maximum technical output from Kimi to help develop the car. And pre-season testing suggests it is a very fast car once again, making all at the Prancing Horse feel very enthusiastic for the new season.
As to Felipe. He had his one big chance last season to steal the number one driver status after Michael Schumacher had retired and as Kimi was clearly struggling early with Ferrari. Massa took 3 wins. That was one more than in his last season against Michael Schumacher. But 3 wins was not enough in 2007 to become Ferrari's top driver when Kimi took 6 wins. That was Felipe's chance. Now Kimi is clearly established as the top driver and Felipe knows in his heart, that he is relegated to the support driver role at Ferrari. How will this affect him? I think he can take it for one or two seasons, but it will eat him up and he will probably eventually want to change teams.
But for 2008 this is a team that is very well coming together around the champion. A good time to be named Raikkonen in Ferrari Red...
LEWIS
Lewis Hamilton had a cinderella season last season. But the McLaren team lost increasingly its focus with two disasters. One was the paranoid behaviour of Fernando Alonso, who felt he was not being treated as he felt he should as the reigning two-time champion, and later in the season, even felt he was not being treated as an equal (this I find ludicrous, as McLaren is by every bit of evidence the most fairly even team of any at F1 - meticulously giving both drivers always an even shake, and Alonso knew this full well, as he's been a McLaren fan from his youth). The other was the growing focus on the Spy Gate with Ferrari intellectual property at McLaren. So the team had produced the best car of the season for Hamilton and Alonso, but the team top management was ever more focusing on the two problems, rather than maximising the car and team performance at race weekends. Inspite of this Lewis finishes with four wins and one point behind Kimi in the champhionship. Wow what a season.
So now Alonso has left for Renault, and Lewis inherits the "After Alonso" ie Finnish driver Heikki Kovalainen who apparently has his career set in stone to follow Alonso. Last season Lewis was the rookie and both he and Alonso were new to McLaren's F1 race team. Now Lewis is the insider while Heikki is the new guy. Lewis has an inherent advantage already because of this. Plus Lewis has four wins, Heikki has never won a Grand Prix yet. Lewis should be much less threatened by internal politics this season. The team should have no big distractions, and thus give far better support to Lewis (and Heikki) during the season.
And Lewis was a rookie driver last season. He had never driven on most of the F1 circuits. Now he returns to most of the circuits knowing the race track. He is young, he is learning. Seems like everything is going better for Lewis Hamilton. Four wins last season? He should do more this season. If the McLaren is anything as good as pre-season testing suggested, Lewis will be a fixture there on the podiums again all through the season.
So what of Heikki Kovalainen? Well, he drove a good midfield car last season at Renault, against a partner who had won several races in his past. Heikki clearly outdistanced Giancarlo Fisichella and finished with almost 50% more points than his far more experienced partner. Now Heikki finds himself joining McLaren who had the fastest - and most reliable - car last season. Renault is a big team with a good budget, but McLaren is a bigger and wealthier team. At Renault he was the first Finnish driver. At McLaren Ron Dennis has worked with all three Finnish World Champions, Keke Rosberg, Mika Hakkinen and Kimi Raikkonen. There has been a Finnish driver on McLaren for something like 15 years straight. This will all help Heikki smile very widely.
And of these two young lions - both Lewis Hamilton and Heikki Kovalainen were rookies last season - they both will appreciate it that McLaren truly gives them an equal chance. Heikki knows full well that had he stayed with Renault, he would have been forced to take the support driver role with Alonso returning there. Not at McLaren.
Heikki finished second in Japan (in his Renault, behind the McLaren of Hamilton ahead of the Ferrari of Raikkonen). He is a winner waiting to happen. A race winner certainly this season. Perhaps even a championship winner eventually. But for Lewis Hamilton's brilliance, I don't see Heikki taking a championship before Lewis gets his, barring some accident or such disasters in their careers.
ALONSO
So Fernando at Renault. The only two-time champion still racing in F1, returning to the team where he won both his championships. This should be a fairy tale. But there are very serious doubts about this season and pairing. First, Fernando had wanted to leave Renault. He had been unhappy at Renault even when he won his second championship in 2006 and was eager to join McLaren, a team he had idolized since being a child. Now the McLaren fantasy has been crushed by reality, but it is telling what Alonso did NOT say when he was searching for a team after McLaren. Renault said immediately that they wanted Alonso back. He was very non-committal and suggested he preferred other teams. This is not a love-affair. Alonso ended back at Renault, because he had to go there, to have a decent car for the season. He did not go back to Renault because he wanted to return there.
Meanwhile, Renault was clearly the best car in 2006. But in 2007 it was not even the third best car (McLaren, Ferrari and BMW clearly better than the Renault all year; my analysis puts even Williams slightly ahead of Renault, during the toughest part of the year when it most counted). Alonso left the team when it was the champ. Now he returns to the team when its struggling to remain as a mid-field contender.
Now, Renault is very competent and competitive. They have not had major technical staff changes. And they are particularly motivated to deliver a contender car for Alonso. But they took a big step back last season. It is very difficult to climb back to the front - look at Williams and how much it has struggled the past ten years since its last championship. I think it is inevitable that Renault won't be the fastest - nor the most reliable - car this season. Perhaps the margin is not big, but it might be considerable. In any case, the top driver that Alonso is, and having driven the past three years in the best car of the season, he will immediately know how much worse the new Renault is, compared to the top cars this season.
That will sting really badly. He spoiled his chances with his dream team, McLaren, who will almost certainly have a faster car this season than Renault. Then Alonso has to just take it, and drive the mid-field performance car that Renault is likely to be. The pre-season testing suggests this to be true as well. So he has to return to a team he had wanted to leave, and to make matters worse, that team is not as competitive this season as it was when he last was there.
Alonso's character will be tested very much this season by these conditions. At least he has Flavio Briatore as the team principle who understands Fernando very well and can communicate with him in ways that Ron Dennis at McLaren could not. That should help.
But what of his driver partner? Nelson Piquet Jr is the son of three-time world champ, Nelson Piquet. This is his rookie season. But this has all the makings of another Alonso-Hamilton personality disaster. Nelsinho is reputed to be very quick in the junior series where he battled some of the current young drivers. And as a fiery Brazilian personality, expect Piquet to bring his amount of emotion and passion to the team. It could very quickly develop into those political squabbles that Alonso had with Hamilton at McLaren.
But consider Piquet Jr. This is his first chance at F1. He's seen Nico Rosberg, Heikki Kovalainen and Lewis Hamilton all do well here. Piquet joins to a midfield team, not struggling with a backmarker team like Anthony Davidson on Super Aguri. So Piquet has nothing to lose. He'll drive his heart out. He has a father to support him who understands that these kinds of opportunities do not come easily, so he will also make the most of it.
So imagine Alonso not happy with his car on a given circuit, but Piquet flying - this is very likely going to happen at least some times this season, where a car and circuit suits Piquet more than Alonso. Then in the race Piquet finishes ahead of Alonso. How quickly will Alonso start to complain that Piquet is getting favoured treatment.
The signs are bad for Alonso for 2008. BMW may well be a faster car than Renault, Ferrari and McLaren almost certainly are faster. Alonso will be struggling to get onto the lowest step of the podium, while Kimi and Lewis will be featured on the top step most of the season. It will sting.
WHO AGAINST WHOM
Personally, I would love a three-way race in three different cars, Kimi in the Red, Lewis in the Silver and Fernando in the blue/yellow. But I honestly don't see that as being this season. Early on it is likely to be more a three way race between Kimi, Lewis and Felipe Massa in the second Ferrari. Hopefully Heikki Kovalainen will soon climb into that contest. But I really do expect Nick Heidfeld and perhaps Robert Kubica at BMW to be more of regular rivals to McLarens and Ferraris, than Alonso with Renault. And there is a strong chance that one of the other pretenders turns into the surprise contender this season -Williams, Red Bull, Toyota or Honda.
Of course it is also quite possible that the Renault this season is far better than last season. That the team is more focused to develop the car, and that it turns into a championship challenger by mid-season. For Alonso's sake that would be tremendous. But personally, I don't expect Renaults to feature much among the winners this season. And it will be interesting to monitor how Alonso will take it if that happens.
Last season, the closest season ever, with first and third place finisher in the championship separated by one point. One point between first and third. And so tight, the season was tied at 8 races with 2 wins each for four drivers; at 12 races, 3 wins for each of the four drivers, and at 15 races out of 17, still three drivers with the same number of wins, four each. Those three went into the final each having a chance to win the championship - and during that final race in Brazil, at different times of the race, if the race had been halted, a different driver would have won the championship.
What a season. The most competitive F1 season ever. And so exciting to follow.
Now, into 2008. The ruling champion Kimi Raikkonen remains with Ferrari to try for two-in-a-row. His nearest challeger, Lewis Hamilton, remains with McLaren who had the fastest car last season. And the deposed 2-time champion, Fernando Alonso, returns to Renault where he won twice in a row only a little over a year ago. Could it not be better for another legendary season of racing?
Yes and no. Lets look into the lives of these three drivers.
KIMI
Kimi at Ferrari. Usually when a race driver wins his first race, he gains confidence and often starts a set of wins (but there are the exceptions like Jenson Button). Also often - not always - winning the championship gives an extra boost of confidence.
Kimi had grown very frustrated at McLaren, in particular with their often fast but too unreliable cars. He had wanted to leave McLaren - and he envied Michael Schumacher's incredibly strong reliability at Ferrari - certainly the most reliable car of the decade of the 2000s (I can still remember the 1980s and 1990s when Ferraris were the LEAST reliable cars). Now Kimi is with that Ferrari team. They gave him a fast and reliable car (tied for second most reliable, and ironically McLaren was the most reliable car this past season). Kimi fought through the season to win his championship.
During the first half of last season Kimi was facing a lot of heat from his partner driver at Ferrari, Felipe Massa. Felipe led Kimi in points for a good part of the season and there were rumours that Felipe might gain the top driver position. Kimi fought on and took the championship. Now he has the Number 1 on his car and there is no question, Kimi Raikkonen is Ferrari's number 1 driver.
He is happy, on a team that is now focusing on him. He has finally gotten that very nasty monkey on his back (he twice lost the championship in the final race of the season). Kimi is very set. And where Massa had been a serious challenger last season, this season if Kimi drives well, there is no risk of Massa outperforming him. Last season it was Massa who was the established driver who knew the Ferrari team. Now Massa doesn't even have that advantage.
Also early last season there were rumours that the technical staff at Ferrari were hoping more input similar to what Michael Schumacher had given when he drove for Ferrari. Kimi doesn't go into that level of detail. But the team adjusted to Kimi's way. Now they know. From the start of the season, this is Kimi's team, and they now know from the start, how to get the maximum technical output from Kimi to help develop the car. And pre-season testing suggests it is a very fast car once again, making all at the Prancing Horse feel very enthusiastic for the new season.
As to Felipe. He had his one big chance last season to steal the number one driver status after Michael Schumacher had retired and as Kimi was clearly struggling early with Ferrari. Massa took 3 wins. That was one more than in his last season against Michael Schumacher. But 3 wins was not enough in 2007 to become Ferrari's top driver when Kimi took 6 wins. That was Felipe's chance. Now Kimi is clearly established as the top driver and Felipe knows in his heart, that he is relegated to the support driver role at Ferrari. How will this affect him? I think he can take it for one or two seasons, but it will eat him up and he will probably eventually want to change teams.
But for 2008 this is a team that is very well coming together around the champion. A good time to be named Raikkonen in Ferrari Red...
LEWIS
Lewis Hamilton had a cinderella season last season. But the McLaren team lost increasingly its focus with two disasters. One was the paranoid behaviour of Fernando Alonso, who felt he was not being treated as he felt he should as the reigning two-time champion, and later in the season, even felt he was not being treated as an equal (this I find ludicrous, as McLaren is by every bit of evidence the most fairly even team of any at F1 - meticulously giving both drivers always an even shake, and Alonso knew this full well, as he's been a McLaren fan from his youth). The other was the growing focus on the Spy Gate with Ferrari intellectual property at McLaren. So the team had produced the best car of the season for Hamilton and Alonso, but the team top management was ever more focusing on the two problems, rather than maximising the car and team performance at race weekends. Inspite of this Lewis finishes with four wins and one point behind Kimi in the champhionship. Wow what a season.
So now Alonso has left for Renault, and Lewis inherits the "After Alonso" ie Finnish driver Heikki Kovalainen who apparently has his career set in stone to follow Alonso. Last season Lewis was the rookie and both he and Alonso were new to McLaren's F1 race team. Now Lewis is the insider while Heikki is the new guy. Lewis has an inherent advantage already because of this. Plus Lewis has four wins, Heikki has never won a Grand Prix yet. Lewis should be much less threatened by internal politics this season. The team should have no big distractions, and thus give far better support to Lewis (and Heikki) during the season.
And Lewis was a rookie driver last season. He had never driven on most of the F1 circuits. Now he returns to most of the circuits knowing the race track. He is young, he is learning. Seems like everything is going better for Lewis Hamilton. Four wins last season? He should do more this season. If the McLaren is anything as good as pre-season testing suggested, Lewis will be a fixture there on the podiums again all through the season.
So what of Heikki Kovalainen? Well, he drove a good midfield car last season at Renault, against a partner who had won several races in his past. Heikki clearly outdistanced Giancarlo Fisichella and finished with almost 50% more points than his far more experienced partner. Now Heikki finds himself joining McLaren who had the fastest - and most reliable - car last season. Renault is a big team with a good budget, but McLaren is a bigger and wealthier team. At Renault he was the first Finnish driver. At McLaren Ron Dennis has worked with all three Finnish World Champions, Keke Rosberg, Mika Hakkinen and Kimi Raikkonen. There has been a Finnish driver on McLaren for something like 15 years straight. This will all help Heikki smile very widely.
And of these two young lions - both Lewis Hamilton and Heikki Kovalainen were rookies last season - they both will appreciate it that McLaren truly gives them an equal chance. Heikki knows full well that had he stayed with Renault, he would have been forced to take the support driver role with Alonso returning there. Not at McLaren.
Heikki finished second in Japan (in his Renault, behind the McLaren of Hamilton ahead of the Ferrari of Raikkonen). He is a winner waiting to happen. A race winner certainly this season. Perhaps even a championship winner eventually. But for Lewis Hamilton's brilliance, I don't see Heikki taking a championship before Lewis gets his, barring some accident or such disasters in their careers.
ALONSO
So Fernando at Renault. The only two-time champion still racing in F1, returning to the team where he won both his championships. This should be a fairy tale. But there are very serious doubts about this season and pairing. First, Fernando had wanted to leave Renault. He had been unhappy at Renault even when he won his second championship in 2006 and was eager to join McLaren, a team he had idolized since being a child. Now the McLaren fantasy has been crushed by reality, but it is telling what Alonso did NOT say when he was searching for a team after McLaren. Renault said immediately that they wanted Alonso back. He was very non-committal and suggested he preferred other teams. This is not a love-affair. Alonso ended back at Renault, because he had to go there, to have a decent car for the season. He did not go back to Renault because he wanted to return there.
Meanwhile, Renault was clearly the best car in 2006. But in 2007 it was not even the third best car (McLaren, Ferrari and BMW clearly better than the Renault all year; my analysis puts even Williams slightly ahead of Renault, during the toughest part of the year when it most counted). Alonso left the team when it was the champ. Now he returns to the team when its struggling to remain as a mid-field contender.
Now, Renault is very competent and competitive. They have not had major technical staff changes. And they are particularly motivated to deliver a contender car for Alonso. But they took a big step back last season. It is very difficult to climb back to the front - look at Williams and how much it has struggled the past ten years since its last championship. I think it is inevitable that Renault won't be the fastest - nor the most reliable - car this season. Perhaps the margin is not big, but it might be considerable. In any case, the top driver that Alonso is, and having driven the past three years in the best car of the season, he will immediately know how much worse the new Renault is, compared to the top cars this season.
That will sting really badly. He spoiled his chances with his dream team, McLaren, who will almost certainly have a faster car this season than Renault. Then Alonso has to just take it, and drive the mid-field performance car that Renault is likely to be. The pre-season testing suggests this to be true as well. So he has to return to a team he had wanted to leave, and to make matters worse, that team is not as competitive this season as it was when he last was there.
Alonso's character will be tested very much this season by these conditions. At least he has Flavio Briatore as the team principle who understands Fernando very well and can communicate with him in ways that Ron Dennis at McLaren could not. That should help.
But what of his driver partner? Nelson Piquet Jr is the son of three-time world champ, Nelson Piquet. This is his rookie season. But this has all the makings of another Alonso-Hamilton personality disaster. Nelsinho is reputed to be very quick in the junior series where he battled some of the current young drivers. And as a fiery Brazilian personality, expect Piquet to bring his amount of emotion and passion to the team. It could very quickly develop into those political squabbles that Alonso had with Hamilton at McLaren.
But consider Piquet Jr. This is his first chance at F1. He's seen Nico Rosberg, Heikki Kovalainen and Lewis Hamilton all do well here. Piquet joins to a midfield team, not struggling with a backmarker team like Anthony Davidson on Super Aguri. So Piquet has nothing to lose. He'll drive his heart out. He has a father to support him who understands that these kinds of opportunities do not come easily, so he will also make the most of it.
So imagine Alonso not happy with his car on a given circuit, but Piquet flying - this is very likely going to happen at least some times this season, where a car and circuit suits Piquet more than Alonso. Then in the race Piquet finishes ahead of Alonso. How quickly will Alonso start to complain that Piquet is getting favoured treatment.
The signs are bad for Alonso for 2008. BMW may well be a faster car than Renault, Ferrari and McLaren almost certainly are faster. Alonso will be struggling to get onto the lowest step of the podium, while Kimi and Lewis will be featured on the top step most of the season. It will sting.
WHO AGAINST WHOM
Personally, I would love a three-way race in three different cars, Kimi in the Red, Lewis in the Silver and Fernando in the blue/yellow. But I honestly don't see that as being this season. Early on it is likely to be more a three way race between Kimi, Lewis and Felipe Massa in the second Ferrari. Hopefully Heikki Kovalainen will soon climb into that contest. But I really do expect Nick Heidfeld and perhaps Robert Kubica at BMW to be more of regular rivals to McLarens and Ferraris, than Alonso with Renault. And there is a strong chance that one of the other pretenders turns into the surprise contender this season -Williams, Red Bull, Toyota or Honda.
Of course it is also quite possible that the Renault this season is far better than last season. That the team is more focused to develop the car, and that it turns into a championship challenger by mid-season. For Alonso's sake that would be tremendous. But personally, I don't expect Renaults to feature much among the winners this season. And it will be interesting to monitor how Alonso will take it if that happens.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Setting the base line for 2008 season
Its a week to the season. I can't wait.
Lets start with some benchmarks for this season.
LAST SEASON IS NOT GOOD PREDICTOR FOR NEW SEASON
First, this is Formula One. Each leading team has a staff of five hundred full time engineers working very long days all year to create a prototype racer that will only be used on 18 weekends. Imagine the amount of effort. Put 500 people to work on trying to win next year, and some team will get it "right" and another will get it "wrong". Look at Honda for example, one season it is the runner up to the championship, another it is fighting with the back-markers.
So regardless of what happened in the 2007 season, it is almost certain, that we will have some surprisingly strong teams, and some disappointingly weak teams, when compared with last season.
We have two major changes which affect all teams. The drivers aids that prevented wheel spin in the turns are now gone. So all the recent experience of drivers on how to "attack" a corner, now has to be un-learned, and a more traditional "driver-controlled" way of taking the corners needs to be re-learned.
These are F1 drivers, the best pilots in the world, so they will of course learn. But it is very likely, that this change will result in some subtle, and perhaps even some not-so-subtle re-arranging of the drivers, from best to worst. If a driver has been taking advantage of the drivers' aids in the past, and is in reality not quite up-to-snuff among the 20 best drivers in the world, now that will be revealed. Most of the drivers will adjust, no problem.
But it will bring about at least some opportunities for more errors. A tired driver, near the end of the race, trying to fight off a charging rival, locks up a wheel going into a corner. This is no longer saved by the wheel-spin control. Now the wheel locks up, and might force the driver off the line (and allow his rival to pass) or else create a bald spot on the tyre further harming the remainder of the race.
I do hope this brings more excitement into the races.
A related change is the standard ECU (Electronic Controls Unit). Previously all teams created their own, and this was a source of considerable competitive advantage for any given team in the development cycle of their particular car. The ECU was responsible for example for Renault's excellent starts a few years ago. Now all cars have a standard ECU. One area of competiveness is again removed from the teams.
(By the way, I hate this trend in F1. I did not like it that engines were "frozen" for the whole season, and that there is now only one tyre-manufacturer, so we have no tyre wars and they give no competitive advantage; and now a standard ECU. I think this is a very bad trend, if this goes on, some day they race a standard car.)
But yes, the standard ECU was put out to bid by Formula One Management and McLaren won the bid. This may give a (small) early advantage to McLaren, that their ECU won the contest. Whatever advantage that might give, will soon disappear as all teams learn the new ECU and adjust their cars to it.
Ok. So even before we look at last season for some insights to next, we have to remember, that the next season is not quite the same.
NATURAL CHANGES
Then we have the "natural order" of change in F1. McLaren has exhibited a very consistent see-saw pattern of up-and-down-and-up-again seasons. One season they are a title challenger, the next they are a midfielder, then up again. Last season McLaren had the best car. This season if the old pattern holds, McLaren is headed down.
The Champion usually repeats. This is not always so, certainly, but for the past 10 pairs of years from 1998 (not counting 2007), a new champion repeats. Mika Hakkinen repeated 2 in a row with McLaren. Michael Schumacher repeated 5 in a row with Ferrari. Then Fernando Alonso repeated 2 in a row with Renault. So there is a good chance that Kimi Raikkonen will be able to repeat for 2008.
A new team to the top will not usually manage to hold onto that position at the first attempt. Honda was a surprise in 2004, Toyota in 2005, but both crashed to under half their "peak" points in the subsequent season. This does not bode well for BMW.
The old stalwarts tend to bounce back. Williams is the third most successful F1 team of all time and was a major challenger to the championship in 2003. They are still well funded and quite capable of strong performances. They will come back, if not this season, then soon. Renault is the second most successful team of the past 20 years (when we include its predecessor team, Benetton) behind only Ferrari. They have had their ups and downs. They too are a solidly funded team, and they can very well bounce back to full championship challenger, if not this season, then soon.
BASE LINE FOR TEAMS
With all that, lets look at 2007 in a bit more detail. Obviously if we just look at the final standings (and allocate McLaren the points it lost due to the spygate), McLaren was the best car and with 218 points, Ferrari second best car with only 6% less points at 204. BMW a distant third with half the points from Ferrari at 101. Again a big gap to fourth, Renault with half again the points, at 51. Williams fifth best car with 33, Red Bull sixth 24, Toyota seventh with 13, Toro Rosso eight with 8, Honda ninth with 6, Super Aguri tenth with 4 and Spyker (now racing as Force India for 2008) last with 1 point.
So far so good. This to me is not a "real" accurate base line to consider 2008. Two very major reasons why. The initial start of the season has always some problems. Some teams are not ready at the start of the season, some have teething problems etc. And then at the end of the season some teams stop developing their cars, when they know they can no longer make meaningful gains in the standings. So some cars achieve artificially strong results in the start of the season, because everybody is not yet up to full speed. And at the end of the season, some teams collect points when others are no longer fighting that hard.
I think the most realistic evaluation of the season comes from approx mid season to the end of the European season. This past season the American tour provides a good timing point - as most teams did not develop their cars in any meaningful way between Canada and the USA. So if we start from when the teams returned from America - that is the French GP - and then count the next seven GP's until Spa in Belgium. After that the teams left for the last 3 fly-away races in Asia and Brazil, and again for these the development for many teams had slowed down or even ended.
Now, if we look at the 7 races from the French GP to the Belgian GP, the results are quite interesting..
The best car was not in fact McLaren. McLaren achieved its season-success from a strong start in 2007. Ferrari improved all season and ended strong. During this 7 race period, during which the teams raced their hardest - and where the last season's car is nearest to what this new season might be like - actually Ferrari was slightly better with 90 points earned by their two cars during these seven races.. McLaren was 4% weaker at 86 points. And BMW? Much better than half the points to second place, actually they scored 60% of second place with 51 points.
How about Renault? The end-of-season stats flatter Renault. In reality it was not that good, when it really counted and everybody was racing. Williams was marginally better, earning 15 points to Renault's 14. And Red Bull was sniping at their heels with 12 points. This is the mid-field. Note that BMW was much further ahead of this group, scoring more than 3 times as many points than Williams during the seven game stint.
A distant distant place behind them, Toyota scored 3 points and Honda scored 2. The backmarker teams earned no points during this seven race most-contested stage of the season.
So what does that tell me? First, that we had legitimately three groups (or four) of teams.
Ferrari, McLaren and BMW were the only real contenders for podiums. Obviously BMW was not competitive with Ferrari and McLaren, but much more close to the front-runners than the mid-fielders.
The midfield is three makers, six cars. Two Williams'es, two Renaults and two Red Bulls. These cars were very evenly matched. The big reason why Renault ran away from Williams and Red Bull in the full season was reliability. Renault was tied for second most reliable car (McLaren was most reliable, Ferrari and Renault tied for second most reliable). And Red Bull lost out in this battle of the midfield, as their was the least-reliable car of the three, failing twice as often as the Williams and nearly four times as often as the Renault.
The backmarkers really do include Toyota and Honda (sadly, considering their long term commitments and sizes of their budgets), together with Super Aguri, Toro Rosso and Spyker/Force India.
That is our base line for the cars.
Ferrari
McLaren
BMW
Williams
Renault
Red Bull
Toyota
Honda
Super Aguri
Toro Rosso
Spyker/Force India
NOW MY THOUGHTS
Quickly on each car and what may happen in 2008
FRONT RUNNERS
Ferrari. The team just returned to the championship. They won the drivers championship "fair" and the manufacturers' championship as McLaren lost its points in the spy scandal. Ferrari is very motivated to repeat (and to show the manufacturers' championship was no fluke). The internal driver contest that raged through last season - and probably caused some internal political issues, is now settled with Kimi holding the Number 1 on his car and being the clear team leader. There has been some turnover in the engineering staff, with Jean Todt stepping aside, but overall, the team is very cohesively the same unit as last year, in particular with both drivers Raikkonen and Massa returning. The pre-season testing has also shown Ferrari to have a promising car. And Kimi should be supremely motivated and happy. Should be a very good season for Ferrari.
McLaren. I mentioned about the see-saw of McLaren's consecutive seasons. When they have a top season, the next is very often a mediocre season. They are also hampered with some development issues, as a result of the spy scandal, that they cannot pursue some development options, to ensure they do not utilize intellectual property of Ferrari. But, they also have the early season advantage that it is their ECU which everybody uses. Cannot hurt. They've had some changes in the technical staff, but the big change is obviously Alonso departing to Renault, in exchange for Kovalainen. My gut says that McLaren's season-long team performance in 2007 suffered from two major distractions - the spy gate, and the internal squabbles between Alonso and Hamilton. Both are now past. And as for Kovalainen rather than Alonso as Hamilton's driver partner, I think this is one of the most friendly pairings possible, with Ron Dennis knowing Finns very well, and Kovalainen arriving only asking to be treated fair and equally - not demanding the preferred treatment that Alonso wanted. Incidentially, McLaren's season-long performance in 2007 was a clear downward trend (and Ferrari's the opposite). When these two distractions are removed, McLaren can be stronger. Hamilton now is the returning driver so for him everything about the second season in F1 will be easier. And considering that in his first season in F1, Hamilton won 4 races, this is an incredibly talented driver only getting better. For Kovalainen, it is a new team, so he will probably suffer typical early season adjustment matters. So McLaren could go either way. Their pre-season testing shows a lot of promise like Ferrari's. Could well suggest a strong season for McLaren as well, and one that may well improve with the season.
BMW. Here my heart says they will improve and my head says they will go back. As Sauber or BMW, they haven't ever performed as well as they did this past season. They took a giant leap up in points in 2007 almost trippling their points from 2006, from 36 to 101 points. Here history does suggest the leap has been so great, that there will come a downturn. Maybe not? It is a team that has been growing a lot, adding much in terms of a budget and staff. They have had several major changes in staff, but this is still the result of more growth than major losses of key talent. Oh, and BMW does have the most powerful computer for their CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) calculations, Albert 2 was rated the fourth-most powerful supercomputer at some point last year. They do have the stability in drivers, Quick Nick Heidfeld and Robert Kubica; Heidfeld was twice on the podium in 2007 and Kubica was three times knocking on the door, finishing fourth. If the team can stay focused and work hard, and have some luck along the way, it could be another step up - which would mean the first win ever for this team. I would hope to see that in 2008.
MID FIELD
Williams. This is a team that has been in the doldrums for several seasons, but seemed to hit bottom in 2006 when they had financial issues and driver issues. Last season shows a lot of promise and this is a very deep, talented team with a pedigree for winning with Sir Frank Williams and Patrick Head still running the team. Their technical staff lost two aerodynamists in mid-season 2007 but since then the staff has been stable. Of the drivers, Alex Wurz ended his career but Nico Rosberg had emerged as their top driver and returns. Kazuki Nakajima had one race in the car last season and is still a rookie for this season. My gut says Williams is "automatically" improving during the next few seasons and from modest performance last season, it would be relatively easy to improve this season. Williams could be a strong contender this season. Nico had a great second half so he is also likely to still improve in the car.
Renault. Here I am concerned. Renault should definitely be improving from a very bad year last year, when their points totals crashed to one fourth of what they had in 2006, dropping from 206 to 51 points. Yes, they lost their two-time world champ Alonso to McLaren, but in 2007 they retained Alonso's partner, Fisichella. And new boy, Kovalainen outperformed Fisi. So if we assume Fisi performed in the 2007 car about as good as he did in the 2006 car, then two important things - one, that the car was a dog, and two, that Kovalainen was somewhere near Alonso's class as a driver, certainly clearly better than Fisi. If so, then Renault took a major dive in 2007. That kind of drop in performance is very difficult to dig back. It would probably take a couple of years to return to top form for the team. I do think that Renault improves from its 2007 form, but I don't think they will be in the class of McLaren and Ferrari (and perhaps not even challenging BMW). Then we will see Alonso facing a very difficult challenge indeed. The past 3 years he's been sitting in the best car of the field. Now he'd be sitting in a midfield car, with his two major rivals for the championship (Kimi Raikkonen and Lewis Hamilton) both in cars clearly better than his. Alonso might be up to more of his bursts of anger and accusation. Renault may have a hard time with the former champ if the car is not immediately fast. And thats not even considering Junior Nelson Piquet.. Piquet may well pose further challenges to Alonso, in particular if Alonso starts to blame the slow Renault car, and Piquet feels motivated to win top driver status on the team... I am afraid Renault is headed for troubled times this year, and that this season will be another test of Alonso's character and maturity.
Red Bull. This is a team that is making solid progress. Steady steady up and up. This former Jaguar team has some of the best talent to build their car in design guru Adrian Newey and another legend, Geoff Willis. Some of Newey's cars in the past have been fragile - and the Red Bull last season was certainly prone to failure, but this is a team that is growing and improving. I think they'll make progress. Their driver lineup is the same with Webber and Coulthard. If the engineers manage to make a hit car, this could be a surprise team. Certainly the very experienced driver pair can capitalize on a good car if given one.
BACKMARKERS
Toyota. Oh, Toyota, when will you fulfill your promise? The team with very deep pockets, was humiliated that Williams used their engines and outperformed the works Toyota team with nearly tripple the points in 2007. Ralf Schumacher was underperforming and deservedly was let go. Jarno Trulli is a driver known for fast single lap performance but not strong races. Now rookie Timo Glock joins the team. On the engineering side the team has been quite stable. This is a team I keep hoping for every season and they quite consistently disappoint. Perhaps this is their year?
Honda. This is even more sad than Toyota. Similar big budget Japanese works team which was contesting the championship a couple of years ago and everybody thought the team with a big F1 racing pedigree was finally going to challenge the big names, but no. Now Honda just barely outpeformed its junior team Super Aguri (which used the one year older Honda design car). The big news for this season at Honda is Ross Brawn, who took a one-year sabbatical from Ferrari last season, and now joined Honda. He is one of those giants who can single-handedly turn this underperforming team around and seems to have energized the team. But last year's car was such a dog that there is very much to do to get back to being just respectable. What I would certainly expect, however, is that Ross Brawn will propel Honda out of the backfielders, during this season. At least to the midfielders, certainly by the second half of the season. Toyota watch out, Honda is aiming to pass you... The driver pairing of Button and Barrichello return, both drivers can win if given a front-runner car, but that is likely to not happen before 2009. A stolen podium could happen in 2008 for Honda.
Toro Rosso. Then we have the three junior teams that are the legitimate backmarkers, to fill the numbers. Toro Rosso will suffer being Red Bull's junior team. They are run by Gerhard Berger, so this is a team that will fight, but with a modest budget and junior drivers... Two Sebastians for this season. Sebastian Vettel actually performed very well last season after joining the team finishing fourth in China (on a Toro Rosso, that is a very respectable performance, Coulthard only managed one fourth in the Red Bull car..). Sebastian Bourdais is a rookie.
Super Aguri. The Honda junior team was having financial problems into the start of the season, I hope they are now resolved. We don't want to lose this small but spunky team, built around Takuma Sato. Anthony Davidson returns as the other driver. Some issues with Honda about how much support Honda can give the team, which may affect strongly how competitive they can be. This is one of those little guy teams, the over-performing underdog, that anyone can cheer for. Certainly we can't expect much more than the occasional point.
Force India (formerly Spyker). And the team formerly known as Midland formerly known as Jordan returns now as Force India. Adrian Sutil and Giancarlo Fisichella are the drivers. The team is a small player in a game where you need huge budgets to fight in the mid-field. Lets see if Indian billionaire Vijay Mallya wants to spend the kind of money to make Force India more than a backmarker. For this season, a couple of points is about the best they can hope for.
OK THATS ALL FOR NOW
Well, thats the base line for 2008, obviously I have no inside knowledge so its my gut and guesses and if anyone is reading, I've done these kinds of predictions (privately, before this blog) for a couple of decades and I've mostly been wrong, so please do take this with that grain of salt...
But its kind of fun to put the thoughts on paper, so to speak, to think through what changes are happening how next season may be different from the last.
Lets start with some benchmarks for this season.
LAST SEASON IS NOT GOOD PREDICTOR FOR NEW SEASON
First, this is Formula One. Each leading team has a staff of five hundred full time engineers working very long days all year to create a prototype racer that will only be used on 18 weekends. Imagine the amount of effort. Put 500 people to work on trying to win next year, and some team will get it "right" and another will get it "wrong". Look at Honda for example, one season it is the runner up to the championship, another it is fighting with the back-markers.
So regardless of what happened in the 2007 season, it is almost certain, that we will have some surprisingly strong teams, and some disappointingly weak teams, when compared with last season.
We have two major changes which affect all teams. The drivers aids that prevented wheel spin in the turns are now gone. So all the recent experience of drivers on how to "attack" a corner, now has to be un-learned, and a more traditional "driver-controlled" way of taking the corners needs to be re-learned.
These are F1 drivers, the best pilots in the world, so they will of course learn. But it is very likely, that this change will result in some subtle, and perhaps even some not-so-subtle re-arranging of the drivers, from best to worst. If a driver has been taking advantage of the drivers' aids in the past, and is in reality not quite up-to-snuff among the 20 best drivers in the world, now that will be revealed. Most of the drivers will adjust, no problem.
But it will bring about at least some opportunities for more errors. A tired driver, near the end of the race, trying to fight off a charging rival, locks up a wheel going into a corner. This is no longer saved by the wheel-spin control. Now the wheel locks up, and might force the driver off the line (and allow his rival to pass) or else create a bald spot on the tyre further harming the remainder of the race.
I do hope this brings more excitement into the races.
A related change is the standard ECU (Electronic Controls Unit). Previously all teams created their own, and this was a source of considerable competitive advantage for any given team in the development cycle of their particular car. The ECU was responsible for example for Renault's excellent starts a few years ago. Now all cars have a standard ECU. One area of competiveness is again removed from the teams.
(By the way, I hate this trend in F1. I did not like it that engines were "frozen" for the whole season, and that there is now only one tyre-manufacturer, so we have no tyre wars and they give no competitive advantage; and now a standard ECU. I think this is a very bad trend, if this goes on, some day they race a standard car.)
But yes, the standard ECU was put out to bid by Formula One Management and McLaren won the bid. This may give a (small) early advantage to McLaren, that their ECU won the contest. Whatever advantage that might give, will soon disappear as all teams learn the new ECU and adjust their cars to it.
Ok. So even before we look at last season for some insights to next, we have to remember, that the next season is not quite the same.
NATURAL CHANGES
Then we have the "natural order" of change in F1. McLaren has exhibited a very consistent see-saw pattern of up-and-down-and-up-again seasons. One season they are a title challenger, the next they are a midfielder, then up again. Last season McLaren had the best car. This season if the old pattern holds, McLaren is headed down.
The Champion usually repeats. This is not always so, certainly, but for the past 10 pairs of years from 1998 (not counting 2007), a new champion repeats. Mika Hakkinen repeated 2 in a row with McLaren. Michael Schumacher repeated 5 in a row with Ferrari. Then Fernando Alonso repeated 2 in a row with Renault. So there is a good chance that Kimi Raikkonen will be able to repeat for 2008.
A new team to the top will not usually manage to hold onto that position at the first attempt. Honda was a surprise in 2004, Toyota in 2005, but both crashed to under half their "peak" points in the subsequent season. This does not bode well for BMW.
The old stalwarts tend to bounce back. Williams is the third most successful F1 team of all time and was a major challenger to the championship in 2003. They are still well funded and quite capable of strong performances. They will come back, if not this season, then soon. Renault is the second most successful team of the past 20 years (when we include its predecessor team, Benetton) behind only Ferrari. They have had their ups and downs. They too are a solidly funded team, and they can very well bounce back to full championship challenger, if not this season, then soon.
BASE LINE FOR TEAMS
With all that, lets look at 2007 in a bit more detail. Obviously if we just look at the final standings (and allocate McLaren the points it lost due to the spygate), McLaren was the best car and with 218 points, Ferrari second best car with only 6% less points at 204. BMW a distant third with half the points from Ferrari at 101. Again a big gap to fourth, Renault with half again the points, at 51. Williams fifth best car with 33, Red Bull sixth 24, Toyota seventh with 13, Toro Rosso eight with 8, Honda ninth with 6, Super Aguri tenth with 4 and Spyker (now racing as Force India for 2008) last with 1 point.
So far so good. This to me is not a "real" accurate base line to consider 2008. Two very major reasons why. The initial start of the season has always some problems. Some teams are not ready at the start of the season, some have teething problems etc. And then at the end of the season some teams stop developing their cars, when they know they can no longer make meaningful gains in the standings. So some cars achieve artificially strong results in the start of the season, because everybody is not yet up to full speed. And at the end of the season, some teams collect points when others are no longer fighting that hard.
I think the most realistic evaluation of the season comes from approx mid season to the end of the European season. This past season the American tour provides a good timing point - as most teams did not develop their cars in any meaningful way between Canada and the USA. So if we start from when the teams returned from America - that is the French GP - and then count the next seven GP's until Spa in Belgium. After that the teams left for the last 3 fly-away races in Asia and Brazil, and again for these the development for many teams had slowed down or even ended.
Now, if we look at the 7 races from the French GP to the Belgian GP, the results are quite interesting..
The best car was not in fact McLaren. McLaren achieved its season-success from a strong start in 2007. Ferrari improved all season and ended strong. During this 7 race period, during which the teams raced their hardest - and where the last season's car is nearest to what this new season might be like - actually Ferrari was slightly better with 90 points earned by their two cars during these seven races.. McLaren was 4% weaker at 86 points. And BMW? Much better than half the points to second place, actually they scored 60% of second place with 51 points.
How about Renault? The end-of-season stats flatter Renault. In reality it was not that good, when it really counted and everybody was racing. Williams was marginally better, earning 15 points to Renault's 14. And Red Bull was sniping at their heels with 12 points. This is the mid-field. Note that BMW was much further ahead of this group, scoring more than 3 times as many points than Williams during the seven game stint.
A distant distant place behind them, Toyota scored 3 points and Honda scored 2. The backmarker teams earned no points during this seven race most-contested stage of the season.
So what does that tell me? First, that we had legitimately three groups (or four) of teams.
Ferrari, McLaren and BMW were the only real contenders for podiums. Obviously BMW was not competitive with Ferrari and McLaren, but much more close to the front-runners than the mid-fielders.
The midfield is three makers, six cars. Two Williams'es, two Renaults and two Red Bulls. These cars were very evenly matched. The big reason why Renault ran away from Williams and Red Bull in the full season was reliability. Renault was tied for second most reliable car (McLaren was most reliable, Ferrari and Renault tied for second most reliable). And Red Bull lost out in this battle of the midfield, as their was the least-reliable car of the three, failing twice as often as the Williams and nearly four times as often as the Renault.
The backmarkers really do include Toyota and Honda (sadly, considering their long term commitments and sizes of their budgets), together with Super Aguri, Toro Rosso and Spyker/Force India.
That is our base line for the cars.
Ferrari
McLaren
BMW
Williams
Renault
Red Bull
Toyota
Honda
Super Aguri
Toro Rosso
Spyker/Force India
NOW MY THOUGHTS
Quickly on each car and what may happen in 2008
FRONT RUNNERS
Ferrari. The team just returned to the championship. They won the drivers championship "fair" and the manufacturers' championship as McLaren lost its points in the spy scandal. Ferrari is very motivated to repeat (and to show the manufacturers' championship was no fluke). The internal driver contest that raged through last season - and probably caused some internal political issues, is now settled with Kimi holding the Number 1 on his car and being the clear team leader. There has been some turnover in the engineering staff, with Jean Todt stepping aside, but overall, the team is very cohesively the same unit as last year, in particular with both drivers Raikkonen and Massa returning. The pre-season testing has also shown Ferrari to have a promising car. And Kimi should be supremely motivated and happy. Should be a very good season for Ferrari.
McLaren. I mentioned about the see-saw of McLaren's consecutive seasons. When they have a top season, the next is very often a mediocre season. They are also hampered with some development issues, as a result of the spy scandal, that they cannot pursue some development options, to ensure they do not utilize intellectual property of Ferrari. But, they also have the early season advantage that it is their ECU which everybody uses. Cannot hurt. They've had some changes in the technical staff, but the big change is obviously Alonso departing to Renault, in exchange for Kovalainen. My gut says that McLaren's season-long team performance in 2007 suffered from two major distractions - the spy gate, and the internal squabbles between Alonso and Hamilton. Both are now past. And as for Kovalainen rather than Alonso as Hamilton's driver partner, I think this is one of the most friendly pairings possible, with Ron Dennis knowing Finns very well, and Kovalainen arriving only asking to be treated fair and equally - not demanding the preferred treatment that Alonso wanted. Incidentially, McLaren's season-long performance in 2007 was a clear downward trend (and Ferrari's the opposite). When these two distractions are removed, McLaren can be stronger. Hamilton now is the returning driver so for him everything about the second season in F1 will be easier. And considering that in his first season in F1, Hamilton won 4 races, this is an incredibly talented driver only getting better. For Kovalainen, it is a new team, so he will probably suffer typical early season adjustment matters. So McLaren could go either way. Their pre-season testing shows a lot of promise like Ferrari's. Could well suggest a strong season for McLaren as well, and one that may well improve with the season.
BMW. Here my heart says they will improve and my head says they will go back. As Sauber or BMW, they haven't ever performed as well as they did this past season. They took a giant leap up in points in 2007 almost trippling their points from 2006, from 36 to 101 points. Here history does suggest the leap has been so great, that there will come a downturn. Maybe not? It is a team that has been growing a lot, adding much in terms of a budget and staff. They have had several major changes in staff, but this is still the result of more growth than major losses of key talent. Oh, and BMW does have the most powerful computer for their CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) calculations, Albert 2 was rated the fourth-most powerful supercomputer at some point last year. They do have the stability in drivers, Quick Nick Heidfeld and Robert Kubica; Heidfeld was twice on the podium in 2007 and Kubica was three times knocking on the door, finishing fourth. If the team can stay focused and work hard, and have some luck along the way, it could be another step up - which would mean the first win ever for this team. I would hope to see that in 2008.
MID FIELD
Williams. This is a team that has been in the doldrums for several seasons, but seemed to hit bottom in 2006 when they had financial issues and driver issues. Last season shows a lot of promise and this is a very deep, talented team with a pedigree for winning with Sir Frank Williams and Patrick Head still running the team. Their technical staff lost two aerodynamists in mid-season 2007 but since then the staff has been stable. Of the drivers, Alex Wurz ended his career but Nico Rosberg had emerged as their top driver and returns. Kazuki Nakajima had one race in the car last season and is still a rookie for this season. My gut says Williams is "automatically" improving during the next few seasons and from modest performance last season, it would be relatively easy to improve this season. Williams could be a strong contender this season. Nico had a great second half so he is also likely to still improve in the car.
Renault. Here I am concerned. Renault should definitely be improving from a very bad year last year, when their points totals crashed to one fourth of what they had in 2006, dropping from 206 to 51 points. Yes, they lost their two-time world champ Alonso to McLaren, but in 2007 they retained Alonso's partner, Fisichella. And new boy, Kovalainen outperformed Fisi. So if we assume Fisi performed in the 2007 car about as good as he did in the 2006 car, then two important things - one, that the car was a dog, and two, that Kovalainen was somewhere near Alonso's class as a driver, certainly clearly better than Fisi. If so, then Renault took a major dive in 2007. That kind of drop in performance is very difficult to dig back. It would probably take a couple of years to return to top form for the team. I do think that Renault improves from its 2007 form, but I don't think they will be in the class of McLaren and Ferrari (and perhaps not even challenging BMW). Then we will see Alonso facing a very difficult challenge indeed. The past 3 years he's been sitting in the best car of the field. Now he'd be sitting in a midfield car, with his two major rivals for the championship (Kimi Raikkonen and Lewis Hamilton) both in cars clearly better than his. Alonso might be up to more of his bursts of anger and accusation. Renault may have a hard time with the former champ if the car is not immediately fast. And thats not even considering Junior Nelson Piquet.. Piquet may well pose further challenges to Alonso, in particular if Alonso starts to blame the slow Renault car, and Piquet feels motivated to win top driver status on the team... I am afraid Renault is headed for troubled times this year, and that this season will be another test of Alonso's character and maturity.
Red Bull. This is a team that is making solid progress. Steady steady up and up. This former Jaguar team has some of the best talent to build their car in design guru Adrian Newey and another legend, Geoff Willis. Some of Newey's cars in the past have been fragile - and the Red Bull last season was certainly prone to failure, but this is a team that is growing and improving. I think they'll make progress. Their driver lineup is the same with Webber and Coulthard. If the engineers manage to make a hit car, this could be a surprise team. Certainly the very experienced driver pair can capitalize on a good car if given one.
BACKMARKERS
Toyota. Oh, Toyota, when will you fulfill your promise? The team with very deep pockets, was humiliated that Williams used their engines and outperformed the works Toyota team with nearly tripple the points in 2007. Ralf Schumacher was underperforming and deservedly was let go. Jarno Trulli is a driver known for fast single lap performance but not strong races. Now rookie Timo Glock joins the team. On the engineering side the team has been quite stable. This is a team I keep hoping for every season and they quite consistently disappoint. Perhaps this is their year?
Honda. This is even more sad than Toyota. Similar big budget Japanese works team which was contesting the championship a couple of years ago and everybody thought the team with a big F1 racing pedigree was finally going to challenge the big names, but no. Now Honda just barely outpeformed its junior team Super Aguri (which used the one year older Honda design car). The big news for this season at Honda is Ross Brawn, who took a one-year sabbatical from Ferrari last season, and now joined Honda. He is one of those giants who can single-handedly turn this underperforming team around and seems to have energized the team. But last year's car was such a dog that there is very much to do to get back to being just respectable. What I would certainly expect, however, is that Ross Brawn will propel Honda out of the backfielders, during this season. At least to the midfielders, certainly by the second half of the season. Toyota watch out, Honda is aiming to pass you... The driver pairing of Button and Barrichello return, both drivers can win if given a front-runner car, but that is likely to not happen before 2009. A stolen podium could happen in 2008 for Honda.
Toro Rosso. Then we have the three junior teams that are the legitimate backmarkers, to fill the numbers. Toro Rosso will suffer being Red Bull's junior team. They are run by Gerhard Berger, so this is a team that will fight, but with a modest budget and junior drivers... Two Sebastians for this season. Sebastian Vettel actually performed very well last season after joining the team finishing fourth in China (on a Toro Rosso, that is a very respectable performance, Coulthard only managed one fourth in the Red Bull car..). Sebastian Bourdais is a rookie.
Super Aguri. The Honda junior team was having financial problems into the start of the season, I hope they are now resolved. We don't want to lose this small but spunky team, built around Takuma Sato. Anthony Davidson returns as the other driver. Some issues with Honda about how much support Honda can give the team, which may affect strongly how competitive they can be. This is one of those little guy teams, the over-performing underdog, that anyone can cheer for. Certainly we can't expect much more than the occasional point.
Force India (formerly Spyker). And the team formerly known as Midland formerly known as Jordan returns now as Force India. Adrian Sutil and Giancarlo Fisichella are the drivers. The team is a small player in a game where you need huge budgets to fight in the mid-field. Lets see if Indian billionaire Vijay Mallya wants to spend the kind of money to make Force India more than a backmarker. For this season, a couple of points is about the best they can hope for.
OK THATS ALL FOR NOW
Well, thats the base line for 2008, obviously I have no inside knowledge so its my gut and guesses and if anyone is reading, I've done these kinds of predictions (privately, before this blog) for a couple of decades and I've mostly been wrong, so please do take this with that grain of salt...
But its kind of fun to put the thoughts on paper, so to speak, to think through what changes are happening how next season may be different from the last.
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