Jenson Button is the perfect example of this. He has the best F1 brain in the paddock. He judges tyres and wet conditions better than anyone else, and we saw the results of that once again last night. The same applies to dry weather racing and overtaking. It may be true that most of the time he’s not quite as fast as Lewis in normal conditions, but he makes the best of what he has at his disposal, and often out races Lewis after being more steady and calculating.

Lewis should stay aggressive of course, it’s who he is as a driver, but should just make sure an overtaking move is really on before diving down the inside. F1 is a non-contact sport, which, like in Basketball, doesn’t mean contact doesn’t occur, but unlike basketball, you can’t win if you get in tangles. F1 cars aren’t touring cars or Nascar stock cars. Their front wings for example aren’t built to withstand even light touches and you have to take that into account when overtaking. The tyres of course are also completely exposed and can be punctured by sharp wings or other bodywork very easily.

I don’t want to be really critical like some people online are being towards him. After all, it’s none of our business how he drives a racing car. No one can deny though that he’s been making himself look pretty foolish in recent weeks, and it’s a trend he’s going to want to buck very soon.

Image via Wikipedia

The Turkish Grand Prix in Istanbul extended F1′s streak of exciting races to start this season. While we still had the same winner and pole sitter, that didn’t stop it from being an enthralling race in which you couldn’t predict the podium result until right near the end of the race due to predominantly the tyres.

People will undoubtedly lay blame at Red Bull’s door for being too dominant and making the outcomes predictable, but that would hardly be fair. It’s not their fault that the competition aren’t pushing them hard enough so far in the season. All they’ve done is design the best car possible under the regulations, and had drivers, one in particular that have driven them to their potential. I expect Ferrari, McLaren and possibly Mercedes to stay close to them and win multiple races this year, and not just on strategy alone, as McLaren did with Lewis Hamilton in China. We may even see Renault get back to podium clinching ways in Spain.

In other words, while Red Bull are certainly the favourites as things stand to repeat their double championship success from last year, they certainly won’t have things their own way for much longer. The other top teams have too much money and talent to let that happen.

As far as the race itself, I think it was pretty eventful, even confusing at times even for long time fans of the sport. The DRS seemed to be a bit too strong this weekend which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing as it allowed multiple overtakes and re-passes from the likes of Webber and Alonso, where normally one car will get past and be done with the rival, as they won’t be able to get back into the one second window for DRS deployment.

I was happy to see Rosberg and Mercedes come back up to 5th place in the race at the end after they appeared to be struggling badly on high fuel and getting passed by everyone early on. It may be true that 6th would have been the best he could have hoped for had Button not made the mistake of only pitting 3 times instead of 4, but after his strong start I think he and the team deserved it.

Williams seemed to be stronger in qualifying pace, almost getting into Q3 with Rubens, but it wasn’t to be. Points also weren’t to be once again, another blow but at least progress is slowly being made. I hope they can finally score in Spain, but they could face stiff competition from Team Lotus, who will bring big upgrades including a blown diffuser which could find them a second in pace. They’re not just looking for their first point of the season, but ever, so both teams will be intensely fighting for that 10th place.

The other midfield teams, Sauber and Toro Rosso will also be looking to stay in the points in the next round. Kobayashi thought 7th was possible after a puncture sustained with Buemi caused him to change strategy. He made a 3 stop strategy work which was impressive and finished 10th, which is still very strong considering the car he was driving as well as having to come from the back of the grid.

The final midfield team Force India will be hoping to get back to form and into the points battle too after struggling in Instanbul. Sutil finished 13th and Paul Di Resta retired 44 laps in with mechanical failure.

Virgin had a terrible weekend. First, their upgrades including the rear wing, floor and blown exhaust system didn’t work correctly and had to be removed. Adding to this, Glock’s car had transmission issues before the race and couldn’t start. Jerome D’ambrosio drove a strong race and was the only driver to make a 2 stop strategy work. Virgin also beat HRT comfortably which is good, especially as they did it without their upgrades. They certainly can’t rest on their laurels though.

Finally, a quick mention for Felipe Massa who, if you look at the race result, you would think was comprehensively beaten by his team mate. I thought so too, but then heard that he had problems on 3 of his 4 pit stops.  This cost him considerable amounts of time and then dropped him back out on track in traffic, further ruining his race. Hopefully he’ll have a bit better luck next time out in Spain.

I’m excited for the next race at Catalunya in a couple of weeks. Many eyes will be on Team Lotus to see if they really can mix it properly with the midfield.

Austalia

• The DRS wasn’t very successful in the first race, not long enough to make it work as desired but it did add some overtaking at least, but not enough.
• Red Bull far ahead of everyone else, good if you’re a fan of them but bad if you like close competition, something we rarely see in F1.
• Great podium by Petrov shows Renault will be right up there challenging for podiums, although probably only for the beginning of the season until Ferrari and Mercedes get their acts together.
• McLaren make massive improvement from testing.
• Lotus not as compeitive as expected, stuck in a division all their own. Too far behind established teams yet far ahead of Virgin / HRT.
• HRT embarrassingly don’t qualify for opening race, Virgin very slow.

Image via Wikipedia

Now that testing has come and gone, and we’re 2 weeks away from the start of the season in Melbourne, we’re a little closer to understanding where all of the teams will be in performance. We still are essentially guessing, as a variety of factors can prevent onlookers from getting a true sense of where the teams stand in ultimate pace.

Here’s how I would rank the teams based on what I’ve read over the last couple of months.

1. Red Bull – clearly they have a great car again. It looks to be more reliable than the previous model, at least at the beginning of the season, but you really never know. Regardless of reliability, I think they’ll prove very hard to beat this year, especially as Vettel now has all of the pressure off him as he’s already achieved his ultimate goal in the sport. Not only this, but he and the team have just agreed to and announced a two year contract extension that ties him to them until 2014. The speculation regarding team switching has been silenced for at least the next two years, if not 3. Not many people would want to bet against him and Red Bull repeating their success.

2. Ferrari – It was essentially a two horse race last year and Ferrari, despite their strong car and very strong driver lineup, especially Fernando who didn’t struggle with the tyres like Massa did. I think Alonso did a great job fitting into the team instantly last season and this year should be stronger. Felipe looked a shadow of his 2007 – 2008 self last season and I really hope he can get it together this year.

3. McLaren – While I did say that last year was a two horse race, it would really have been 3 had Lewis not had his extremely costly mid-season slump last year. Despite crashing out at multiple races where he could have challenged for podiums or even wins, he still was technically in the title fight until the last race. Jenson did well to win two wet races but he needs to step it up in the dry. The less durable tyres should help him more but we’ll see.

The team has had a tough testing and people are starting to write them off. Personally, a company with the resources of McLaren can never be written off. Even in 2009 when they misjudged the new regulations and built a very bad car to start with, they were winning races in the second half of the season. I don’t think this car will be anywhere near as bad as that one was because the rule changes this year aren’t as all-encompassing, and you would think it would be hard to lose that much speed in one off-season. I think that even if they take a few races to get up to speed, they will be there sooner rather than later.

4. Mercedes – The fourth spot is a very tough call. The reason I’m going with Mercedes now is because I feel that over the season they are more likely to have strong upgrades to improve the car. Williams might fall back over the season if their development is not as strong. Mercedes appeared to bring a very strong update to the final test last week and their performance looks promising. Whether the other teams have more developments at the first race that will push them back ahead is unknown, but for now they seem to be in a much stronger position than they were last year.

5. Williams – I think Williams could fill the fourth spot at the beginning of the season if their car’s revolutionary gearbox provides a strong performance benefit over the other cars. What could happen though is something similar to 2009 where they were one of the three teams to start the season with the controversial double-diffuser. Despite having this great advantage in the first few races, they didn’t really capitalize on it when they had the chance. When all of the other teams incorporated their own versions of the device, Williams fell down the grid. I hope that this scenario doesn’t play out again if Williams do find themselves with a competitive car in Melbourne and I hope they can keep in contention for strong points throughout the season.

6. Renault – This team were dealt a massive blow with the injury to star driver Robert Kubica, who they can’t really replace fully. I think Nick Heidfeld will do a strong job for the team, but I don’t know if they will be able to challenge the 3 top teams. I really hope they can and their car proves to be as good as it looks.

7. Toro Rosso – This is a team that everyone is touting as having made great progress in their new car. It apparently has a kind of double-floor concept which is very innovative, and if it works, could really help them climb up the grid this year. Hopefully it’s also something that is not easily copied if it is an advantage, in a similar way to Williams’ diffuser. Their drivers will have immense pressure on them to perform. They would have done anyway with Daniel Ricciardo looming over their shoulders as the third driver, ready to replace either one of them mid-season if they slip up. With a competitive car, the pressure will be even higher, with them being expected to score points regularly and maybe even collect a podium or two if they really have something special on their hands.

8. Sauber – I haven’t heard much about the Sauber car this year. Like the new Williams’ car it almost embarrassingly for one driver, Sergio Perez, is adorned with advertising from his native Mexico. This makes both him and Pastor Maldonado look like pay-drivers not there on talent alone which is unfortunate and not how the sport should be. I do think though that he is a good driver and like his team-mate Kobayashi did last year, will bring excitement and a fresh feeling to F1 which would be great. Their car seems to be an unknown quantity at the moment which is very interesting, but I still don’t think they will challenge too many of the teams above them.

9. Force India – I think this team will struggle to be as good as they were at the start of 2010. They gradually faded in performance throughout the year and I don’t see how they will be able to claw that performance back now. They are one of the lower budget teams and this, coupled with the fact that many of their top technical staff have either gone to Sauber or Lotus will really curtail their progress in designing their 2011 car. Paul Di Resta will be the exciting ingredient in their 2011 season regardless of how competitive the car is. He could be a real star of the future.

10. Lotus – Team Lotus are the only one of the new teams from last year to have a realistic chance of catching up to the back of the established group of teams this season. With the Renault engine supply and Red Bull gearboxes, their performance will be far stronger than last year right off the bat. Not only this, but they have gone for a much more aggressive aero design this year which should also dramatically improve their pace. I’ll be disappointed for them if they aren’t fighting the two or three teams above them in the first few races. If they still can’t join the midfield by the end of the season, then I’m sure the guys there will consider the 2011 campaign a total disaster so I hope it doesn’t come to that. I do think that their 10th place prize money is pretty much secure already though, unless we see some big surprises.

11. Virgin – Disappointingly, I think Virgin’s progress won’t be enough to lift them into the mid-pack of teams, or even stay with Lotus. They aren’t running KERS and also are stuck with the Cosworth power which supposedly is the weakest engine on the grid, even if Williams are using their expertise to get more out of it. The car looks nicer than the first one but I don’t think it’ll be enough.

12. HRT – The biggest surprise HRT could produce this year would be if they weren’t absolute last in everything. Their car definitely looks better this year, at least in its livery. Performance wise it’s hard to say but considering they only started designing it fairly late into the year after their agreement with Toyota fell through, I can’t see how they could have improved that much. I’m pleased to see Tonio Liuzzi back on the grid in 2011 as I feel he was treated very badly by Force India who clearly wanted to force out Tonio and replace him with Paul Di Resta. There’s nothing really wrong with wanting to go in a fresh new direction, but they should have been up front and honest about it much earlier in order to give him more time to find a new seat. Luckily, he managed to secure the final one on the grid. Narain Karthikeyan seems like a nice guy and a fast driver, certainly popular when he was racing in the Nascar Truck Series last year. I think he’ll be good for the paddock if nothing else.

I hope that I’m wrong with these predictions. I would love to see Williams and Renault out front in the opening race, and have a story like the Brawn GP one from 2009. It seems unlikely, but you never know in this sport. I’m really excited about the start of the season.

Williams finally showed off their car in its final form today with the definite colour scheme it will sport for the 2011 season. Upon first glance, it isn’t a whole lot different from the last several years, but for several new details which harken back to the 1990s when the team was sponsored by Rothmans. It’s a cool retro look in a way, going along with the current trend of retro coming back, as seen with the Lotus Renault black and gold.

I generally have preferred the Williams cars of the past that have been more white than navy but this one is still a cool looking car. I suppose it makes sense for them to differentiate themselves from the rest of the field, and navy blue is the definitive colour of the team.

Sam Michael and the team are talking positively about the team’s chances this year. While they have some encouraging signs with how their car is designed, I’m reluctant to commit to any such thoughts myself until we’ve seen a few races. The issue is that every team always say that they’ll improve, but I just have this bad feeling that they will fall greatly short of these lofty aims.

After watching and loving the end of the Daytona 500 recently, it pains me to see how pitiful F1 continues to be in making teams as equally competitive as possible. Practically nothing is being done to ensure a level playing field. The closest F1 will ever get to a Trevor Bayne story is Lewis Hamilton’s immediate impact in 2007 but that was only because of his extraordinary talent and belief, and in no small part because he was raised in motorsport terms by McLaren.

Still, back to the subject, I think Williams should be better this year and you would assume they will stay ahead of Force India and the other midfield teams, by more than a single point this time too. Considering how many important members of staff Force India have lost to Team Lotus and Sauber, it’s hard to see how they can keep their development at a high enough level to challenge the Grove based team. Whether they can edge closer to Renault and Mercedes is less likely, but it would be a great story if they could do so.

This team is not lacking in funding and they need to put their money and brain-power to good use to get themselves back to where they should be, fighting for wins at the very least.

Going back to the cars themselves, from what people close to the sport are saying, Red Bull appear to have the best car, unsurprisingly blitzing everyone else in terms of down force, with reports suggesting that they can use their movable rear wing in the middle of high speed corners. If true, it would be a massive advantage in qualifying if they were the only team able to do this.

I’m a bit fearful that despite everyone talking up their chances, especially last year’s new teams Lotus and Virgin, that they will once again flop and will still be in effectively a championship of their own. Lotus have the best chance to make an improvement but I think that they will again struggle to keep up with the back of the established pack, especially with Toro Rosso appearing from early indications that they might have a relatively competitive car on their hands.

The other recent news that excites me is that Tonio Liuzzi has been tested by HRT in Barcelona this weekend which I hope will lead to him landing that race seat. I think he was treated abominably by Force India, especially when most of the incidents that happened to him last year were mechanical and not his fault. I did mention before that he could end up being paid twice this year, and that looks increasingly likely, as I can’t see any better candidates for that second Hispania seat than him when you consider his fast experience of modern F1 cars that almost no other contender can match.

He’s a seasoned campaigner and even though the HRT will no doubt be very uncompetitive, it’s still a drive and it still keeps him in the sport he loves to compete in, and that’s got to be a great thing for him. Especially as excellent drivers like Nico Hulkenberg are having to sit out the season.

Mercedes are a team that everyone thought would bring themselves into contention as the fourth real contender after suffering a dismal 2010 compared to their championship winning form the previous year. Up until today their pace and reliability were both a concern. Pleasingly, they seem to be getting a grip on the teething problems with various parts of the car and Nico Rosberg set the fastest time in today’s test session. While this doesn’t necessarily prove they have genuine pace, it’s at least a positive sign of things to come.

Likewise, Renault who have also been tipped to challenge for wins this season have had one massive setback, the injury to star driver Robert Kubica. It’s hard to gauge how well they will do this year, but I’m glad for Nick Heidfeld that he’s been given a final chance to prove himself in what is believed to be a competitive car. He’s known for his consistency as opposed to pure speed but he should still prove to be a worthy replacement for Kubica, even if he probably won’t be able to match the Pole’s pace in the car.

McLaren were the third fastest team this year, and everyone seemed sure that they would be even more competitive this year. They’ve had car trouble and their running time has been considerably cut down from what they wanted. Whether their car is as fast as it looks is unknown but Lewis Hamilton was fastest this morning until Rosberg took that honour in the afternoon session. I don’t think you could ever count out a team like McLaren anyway. They’ve shown multiple times, especially in 2009 that they can turn a terrible car into a race-winner with regular in-season upgrades.

Whether or not Bahrain happens in March or not, whenever and wherever the first race is, I hope as many teams are competitive as possible, so we can see the best racing possible. If only they would leave the regulations alone for one season to give the smaller teams a chance to catch up, because there’s only so fast a car can go under a set of static regulations. However, the changes in the last few years have allowed some great things to happen such as Brawn GP and Red Bull elevating themselves to glory. I suppose when you consider those things, you would still prefer to have constant technical changes but perhaps there needs to be a kind of trade-off where the regulations only change every other year or only when absolutely necessary.

VJM04, via Autosport

The new Force India car is an interesting subject. The air-box has been changed considerably to use the blade style pioneered by Mercedes last year, and adopted by Team Lotus this year. It’s an interesting change considering Mercedes themselves haven’t continued with that concept and have gone back to a traditional style.

The front of the car is where I am most perplexed though. The nose looks chunky, just like last year’s VJM03 and also the Renault from 2010, which was considered by quite a few to be the worst looking nose of any car last season. I don’t really understand why they haven’t followed the trend of sleeker, slimmer noses on their new car, but they were at least ahead of most of the rest in having a high nose on the car, along with Sauber who also have had a similar design for several years. I just hope that their bulbous one doesn’t detract from their performance gains elsewhere.

As far as the look of the car livery wise in concerned, I really like the new digital look of the accent colours over the white base. The layout of the logos is also improved and it’s a really nice change from their livery of the last two years.

They will run the car for the first time on Thursday in Jerez.

It’s clear to see where Daniel Simon got the inspiration for this livery. They even call it the cosmic motors livery in the above picture. It looks a lot better than last year’s ugly grey design but I’m not sure what it really has to do with Spain. That’s not necessarily a problem, but even last year’s car had small indications, like the narrow yellow and red stripes that went from the front of the car to the back of the engine cover.

Speaking of the engine cover, from this early image, you can see that they have actually gone with the same square shaped engine cover that Red Bull have with the RB7, which is quite interesting. It’s probably a coincidence but it makes you wonder why only HRT have done the same as the championship winners. That is unless Force India do but we haven’t yet seen their new car. It’s the last remaining to be shown in some capacity and I’m excited for that.

The next test starts on Thursday in Jerez.

This is a bit of old news now, and I don’t really want to cover this silly argument much more, but it was interesting that Tony Fernandes responded to Gerard Lopez’s accusations that Team Lotus only kept the name to keep the FOM money for coming in 10th place in the championship.

So in a way Gerard Lopez was right, but Fernandes also talked about his passion for the Lotus name and how he played with his toy Lotus car when he was a boy, so he is showing that it’s about far more than money to him. I’m sure if push came to shove, he would relinquish the name reluctantly and adopt the Team Air Asia moniker as his GP2 team does. Obviously if they can come to some agreement where they keep the FOM prize money as well then that would be the best solution to this saga, as Lotus Renault GP I don’t believe can be forced to abandon the sponsorship agreement with Group Lotus.

I hope this gets sorted out very early in the season so it doesn’t drag out and allows both teams to focus on the task at hand, racing to win.

Robert Kubica‘s high speed rally crash puts season and maybe career in jeopardy

Obviously this is a big shock to everyone, a great shame for Robert and the team, and for all the F1 fans out there who desperately wanted to see him challenging for wins this season in that beautiful new black and gold car.

Apparently he was in a worse way than we were led to believe at first. We heard that he had broken an arm and a leg, which is bad enough. What we didn’t see at first though was that he had partially severed his hand in the crash. He had to wait at least 30 minutes to be cut free of the car and had to undergo 7 hour long surgery to make sure that movement in his hand was saved. Obviously, no one has to explain how vital this is to his career so it’s good to read that things have gone well so far, and in the next few days we should get a clearer idea of how it is and how long he will be out for.

Renault showed immense compassion and of course, as you would expect, put the safety of the driver above their dampened season hopes. They said that everyone at the team and Robert himself knew and understood the risks. They wouldn’t want to attempt to stop Kubica from participating in his hobby of rallying, no matter the danger, as they knew how big a part of his life it is.

Some F1 teams, and certainly teams in other sports such as football would not be so lenient and would have a kind of get out clause in the contract to allow themselves to bail out if an athlete injured themselves while participating in an activity the team banned them from. Perhaps when they signed Robert, they thought that they were lucky to have signed such a talented driver to their line-up at a time when the team were in the midst of the fallout to crash-gate. With that said however, I don’t think this really played into it too much.

Bruno Senna is the obvious choice to replace Kubica for the time he is out, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we see another driver from Force India moving teams mid-season to replace an injured starting driver. Felipe Massa was eventually replaced by Giancarlo Fisichella and Nico Hulkenberg could be an appealing prospect, as he is currently only a test driver at that team. Then again, that could be seen as a massive snub to Senna and Grosjean who both have considerable F1 experience. It would really depend on how competitive the car is and if they think anyone else would be able to get more out of their car than the two reserves they have under contract currently.

Karun Chandhok closing on Team Lotus Test role

It has just been announced that Karun will test for the team in Jerez this week. The team clearly like the Indian former HRT driver and want to make him a permanent fixture with the team in this role. I hope this next test goes well and we see him hanging around the Team Lotus garage at each of the 20 races this year.

Virgin Racing MVR-02

Today was the turn of the latest F1 team to launch their 2011 car. Virgin Racing, now officially named with Marussia, the Russian sports car maker and major sponsor in the title, unveiled their new car at the BBC television centre. I really like the shape of the new car over the previous one. The nose last year was quite unique in that it was very slim at the tip, similar to the one Red Bull started with in 2009 before they changed it later on in the season.

The new nose is very reminiscent of most of the other cars on the grid, and it’s clear that they were trying to incorporate everything they could from the leading cars to try and gain ground on their rivals. You wouldn’t expect anything less in F1. Like the other 2011 cars we’ve seen, gone is the long engine cover stretching back to the rear wing, and in its place is a still nicely shaped but smaller version.

Also gone is the tribal style livery that the team started with in 2010. Although, it’s probably been replaced on the car for most of last season as well, when sponsor additions called for livery changes. I think it looks nicer and cleaner anyway.

Other changes aren’t as obvious but I’m sure the car will be much stronger this year. Whether they will still be fighting with Lotus or not remains to be seen. I very much hope they’ll be with the tail end of the main pack as opposed to stuck battling HRT for this season. I think Lotus are likely to make big progress due to their more aggressive car design, Renault engines and Red Bull gearboxes. I hope Virgin can keep up with them but it’s going to be difficult unless they’ve made significant performance improvements with aero and in its use of the Cosworth engine.

I’m going to be rooting for all the smaller teams and hoping they all claw their way into contention for points this season.