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F1 season 2010 predictions #f1

As everyone is getting excited for the new season, I thought I'd have a stab at some predictions myself.

1) Alonso will win the title.  There I've said it.  Massa will match him for speed and often be quicker, but Alsono will keep on getting big results which will add up to a title.

2) Better racing.  For the first time in a long time, there's no incentive for drivers to "wait till the pit stops" because they may never come.  This means drivers will not only need to try to overtake, but also have the ability.  Fresh tyres will mean a big performance boost, but being stuck behind slower cars.  

Rubens Barrichello sees the same possibilities.
"It depends on traffic, but at least in the first couple of laps, when a guy makes a pitstop he's going to be able to overtake, but the difference on pace might be greater than a second and when we are talking that much it's an overtaking opportunity."

3) Hamilton and Button are going to be pretty evenly matched, with Hamilton showing more pace but Button getting better results.  In many ways it reminds me of Prost vs Senna with the raw speed of Senna up against the smoothness of Prost.  Lets hope McLaren control the rivalry better now than they did back then!

4) Schuie will be quick enough to win a race or two, but the car won't be quick enough to win the title.  The cars are very different to when he last raced  (refuelling ban, slicks, adjustable aero), but I don't think he to struggle with that.  A car's a car and he'll adapt and drive it quick.  What I think he is going to struggle with is the fact that he used to have the Ferrari car and Bridgestone tyres developed for his tastes, not to mention he would rack up huge milages in testing and he always had team mate that wasn't allowed to beat him.  I also think Rosburg will be able to match him for pace.

5) Driving standards will fall.  It's been 3 years since Schuie retired and the new breed of young guns have all upped the driving standards.  With the exception of Sutil who seems to be able to hit anything moving or stationary and Kobayashi who was a little overkeen in Brazil last year, all drivers have really improved driving standards and there have been remarkably few incidents.  

Schuie is well known for not being able to handle pressure  or behave well in the midfield without resorting to wheel banging  so I think it's likely he's going to get into alot of tangles.  How the FIA responds will be interesting.  Jean Todt is boss man now, but will he favour his old team or his old driver, or neither and stay out of it all completely. I really hope it's the latter and the FIA adopts a no-nonsense approach to any antics he might get up to.  History suggests otherwise however...


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6) The new teams will all be disappointingly slow.

7) We will have at least 8 winners this year.  This might seem bold, but between Ferrari, McLaren, Williams, Sauber, Force India, Mercedes and Red Bull, there really are 7 potential race winning teams and probably 12 potential race winning drivers.

Martin Brundle on the big rivalries in F1 2010

 

Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso, Michael Schumacher and Jenson Button
The four world champions on the grid will vie to add another in 2010

Martin Brundle
By Martin Brundle
BBC F1 analyst

The 2010 Formula 1 grid is packed with a real quality and depth, including four world champions Michael Schumacher, Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button.

The last time I remember seeing a field of this calibre was in the '80s and early '90s.

On top of that, the make-up of the driver and team line-ups gives an added dimension - with history, and the occasional bit of bad blood, adding spice to the mix.

I'm expecting some sensational performances, bizarre results, and the reigniting of some tasty rivalries on and off the track.

 

JENSON BUTTON V LEWIS HAMILTON

It's going to be very close between McLaren's all-English line-up of successive world champions, Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton.

Right now they are in the honeymoon phase and saying all the right things, but come November there can be only one winner. And of course, one loser.

After winning the 2009 crown for Brawn GP, Button has found a new challenge right inside Hamilton's backyard.

He has settled at McLaren very quickly and he won't be any slouch in the car, which I expect to have real pace.

But he still has to gel with the team and his new race engineer because his old one, Andrew Shovlin, remains with Michael Schumacher at Mercedes GP.

On the other hand, Hamilton has been the team's main man for some time; indeed he joined them at 13 and is very comfortable there.

The 25-year-old won the title with McLaren in 2008 and will be super-motivated. He wants the number one back and will be relishing the opportunity to show who is top Brit.

Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button
Hamilton and Button say they'll work together at McLaren but will it last?

Hamilton knew he could beat his former team-mate Heikki Kovalainen day in day out, and so all the resources and effort were focused on him. The car will automatically have evolved towards his driving style to some degree.

Now both he and Button will be trying to galvanise the team around themselves; after all, they're both world champions.

As the team's most expensive employees, they also have to follow instructions, which will include going all out to win the constructors' championship for McLaren. There will be pressure in and out of the car.

Even if Button and Hamilton manage to keep their personal ambitions under control, I can see there being fireworks sooner or later - it's inevitable as they both try to achieve a mutually exclusive goal.

The outcome will really depend on how the tyres hold out with no race refuelling for the first time since 1993. If tyre and brake preservation is the key then Button is ace at that. If the car has several handling change phases through a race, Hamilton copes better.

But if I had to choose I'd put my money on Hamilton to shade the battle.

 

SCHUMACHER V HAMILTON

This is a sporting contest we never thought we'd witness and I'm really looking forward to it. Schumacher may have been away for three years but he's still the man who is, by some margin, statistically the greatest driver of all time.

We caught a glimpse of this rivalry at the Barcelona test when Hamilton came up behind Schumacher and passed him cleanly.

The seven-time champion effectively carries a great big target on his rear wing; getting one over on him is a way to score some credibility points and enhanced reputations for the whole grid.

I'm eagerly anticipating Hamilton versus Schumacher in the same way I did Schumacher versus Ayrton Senna.

Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher in 1992
Three-time champion Senna competed against rising star Schumacher from 1991 until the Brazilian's death in 1994

There are only a few great drivers in Formula 1 and every so often they go head-to-head; there's always a king and a pretender to the throne.

Senna was the king and then by 1994 Schumacher started regularly beating him. A decade or so later Fernando Alonso seized the initiative.

It's like the handing over of a baton when greatness passes on, and we may well see that happening this season between Hamilton, Schumacher, Alonso and Sebastian Vettel. Not to mention Button, Mark Webber, Nico Rosberg, Felipe Massa, and Robert Kubica.

Yes, it's that good.

 

HAMILTON V ALONSO

There's bound to be some friction at some point between Hamilton and Alonso, his former team-mate and Ferrari's new recruit .

It is not necessarily a grudge match between the two, but there's some underlying tension from their tempestuous 2007 season as McLaren team-mates.

Alonso won't be shy to show anybody aggression in wheel-to-wheel combat, be it Hamilton, Michael Schumacher, or his own team-mate Felipe Massa

 

Hamilton conceded recently that he probably didn't handle the situation as well as he could have, but clearly Alonso understood he was McLaren number one back then, and rookie Hamilton had other ideas.

Alonso has endured two years in the Renault wilderness since leaving McLaren.

But the Spaniard won't be focused only on Hamilton; he's desperate to beat the lot of them. I expect him to be on fire from the first lap, and he really is a man who can drive a car through different phases of handling.

Alonso won't be shy to show anybody aggression in wheel-to-wheel combat, be it Hamilton, Michael Schumacher, or his own team-mate Felipe Massa.

 

ALONSO V FELIPE MASSA

Massa is definitely the darling of the team - but Ferrari will back whoever looks most likely to deliver results and titles.

The Brazilian has shown a consistent ability to raise his game, and he's going to need another step I suspect. Alonso will try to make the team his own in short order. Massa specialises at some tracks such as Istanbul, but he'll need that form everywhere.

Ferrari drivers Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso
Massa has welcomed Alonso at Ferrari but how long will the smiles last?

Alonso is on fast-forward right now; he's driving well, the F10 has shown initially good speed in qualifying trim and over longer stints during testing, and pre-season he'd be my favourite for the championship.

Massa will find it an awful lot harder both in and out of the car to cope with Alonso than Kimi Raikkonen, especially given that they have had verbal fights before.

I don't think Alonso cares who's in the other Ferrari - he's not looking for a new best friend

 

ALONSO V SCHUMACHER

Alonso will relish the return of his old rival Schumacher. He pretty much had the measure of him when he took the seven-time champion's crown in 2005 and 2006.

I think he'll have the upper hand again. He's the man in the Ferrari now and Schumacher has got it all to prove.

The interesting thing for me is how Schumacher will feel going wheel-to-wheel with a Ferrari. Psychologically, what will it be like for him to fight his beloved team?

 

But Alonso won't be especially focused on Schumacher, and I doubt he'll allow Michael to shove him on the grass at 180 mph as he did at Silverstone back in 2003.

But underestimating Schumacher is never a good idea. He'll be very aggressive and Mercedes will soon have the car sorted out. I expect some intense moments between these two, especially in the later phase of races.

The interesting thing for me is how Schumacher will feel going wheel-to-wheel with a Ferrari. Psychologically, what will it be like for him to fight his beloved team, the one which gave him five titles? It'll be fascinating to watch.

 

McLAREN V MERCEDES

The team rivalry that I expect to be played out at full throttle is between McLaren and Mercedes. There are a lot of reputations hanging on that grudge match.

After 15 years together, McLaren are now the customer team and the German company is selling its McLaren shares and has bought into reigning champions Brawn, renaming them Mercedes GP.

While McLaren field the two English world champions, Mercedes have the legendary Schumacher and compatriot Nico Rosberg, son of former world champion Keke.

The England versus Germany aspect is so perfect it's humorous in many respects, but I expect to see a very serious rivalry between the two.

 

RED BULL V EVERYONE

Red Bull are now a front-running team and they dominated the end of last season. They don't quite fit into the rivals category, but what they've got that the others haven't is continuity and it will be interesting to see if they can maintain that dominance into the new season.

Vettel and Webber line-up for their second season as team-mates and there is no palpable sense of internal friction.

Red Bull drivers Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber
Vettel and Webber could do more celebrating for Red Bull after a champagne 2009 season

Vettel is one of the great stars of the future and Webber has a new-found confidence now that he is a race-winner.

All the signs are that Red Bull are in the mix, although they claim to have a power deficit with the Renault engine.

The season will be all about which of the top four teams, Ferrari, McLaren, Red Bull, and Mercedes, can develop their cars quickly and effectively.

The energy drink tycoon Dietrich Mateschitz has already come out and said he expects his team to go one better and win the 2010 title. No pressure there, then.

 

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via news.bbc.co.uk

 

Are new teams good for F1?

On the eve of the 2010 F1 season, the shake up of the winter season is becoming clearer and the effect of teams leaving and joining is now almost certain.

As we all know, Toyota and BMW left, each pursuing a different course of action to do so: 

BMW "sold up" to Peter Sauber who will be doing well to keep the team running next year when the BMW dowry runs out (my money is on Volkswagon jumping in assuming they haven't already by then).  He knows how to run a team on a smaller budget and the facilities are top notch and apparently attracting alot of good people, but the he'll have to reduce the overheads of the large organisation  BMW built up in order to survive.

Toyota decided first to just close down, then did a u-turn and sold up to Stefan GP although the details of the deal are unclear so this may turn out to not be the case.  Pulling out first the way they did was a big mistake as they forfeited their place in the 2010 series first, then saw Mike Gascoyne poach their best staff.  This was very misjudged by Toyota (who seem to have the anti-midas touch in everything they do recently), and going on how other teams have been reacting to Stefan GP, they're not going to approve its entry and because this needs to be a unanimous decision, they could fall at the first hurdle.

Then there are the new teams and this is where the real tragedy / comedy starts.

First Lotus.  I for one hope and think Lotus will do very well.  I've always thought Mike Gascoyne has been an exceptional team manager (and a great pundit when he stood in for Eddie Jordan last year) but never really been appreciated at his former teams.  He was involved in nearly making Frentzen champion at Jordan in '99, helped Renault to a world title and even the eternally underperfoming Toyota improved significantly under him (although that could just be down to getting rid of Ralf!).  On his return to Jord-land-Spyk-India, they turned out a car which (after he was given the boot), last year got a pole, a podium and gave Ferrari a run for it's money in Belgium. There's alot of good things about Lotus to be confident about.  The name and heritage are the obvious, but it's being done with reverence and respect.  They've been bold with driver choices (no pay drivers here), the staff were cherry picked by Gascoyne and the team seems to have secure funding with their owners/backers in it for the long haul so I'm sure by next year they'll start moving up the order and at least stand a decent chance of being around for many years to come.  It's also good to see Lotus back on a firm footing after they faded away in the 90s.  A brief respite in '92-'93 when they could leverage their active suspension research came to an end with Max's ban on everything (except Benetton and Ferrari's traction control) and they faded away in 1994 and disappeared at the end of that season.

Then comes Virgin Racing.  Branson is a very shrewd operator personally but I think this could be what dooms the F1 effort.  Traditionally Virgin related enterprises haven't actually had anything major investment from Branson.  Instead other companises are setup as franchises of the name (Virgin Radio, Virgin Media) or joint ventures and the history of Virgin Group companies is littered with failures, selloffs and flops.  I believe the only companies that he owned/owns were Virgin Records and currently Virgin Airlines.  Few of the other businesses have had long term success - Virgin Megastores / Zavvi, Virgin Cars (remember them???) Virgin Cola, Virgin Brides.  Virgin Racing went down the CFD only road and although their car looks nice and swoopy, time will tell if it was a good idea.  My main concern however appears to be that Virgin get their name on the side without actually committing any money apart from some capital to buy into the team.  Instead they're hoping other sponsors will jump on because of the draw of the Virgin name.  I think this is very risk as they may find that Virgin as a brand is too well known so other sponsors don't want to swim with such a big fish.  I can also see Branson pulling out after a couple of years when he's bored and results aren't coming.  The Virgin brand itself will have had lots of nice exposure by then and there's bound to be another sucker waiting in the wings to buy the share in the company, but how long it'll survive after that is the key.

Then the other two.

Campos F1 was set up as a Spanish Team, presumably in the post-Alonso popularity F1 has achieved in Spain.  The premise was sound.  Campos Racing was an established team, already running in F3, and decided to outsource the manufacture of the car and focus purely on the running of the car at races.  It now appears that funding was an issue from the start and it's still uncertain where they money's going to come from, although at least reports from their chassis supplier are that it's ready to go once they are paid.

USF1 always had rumours circulating that they weren't moving forward very fast right from when they announced the project at the start of 2009.  It seems that they had some good commercial deals, but for whatever reason they just didn't progress with the car development very quickly.  By all accounts this wasn't for lack of hard work, but more from poor management, but we'll probably never know the real reasons until the team is dead and a post mortem is carried out.

The real frustration is that the FIA under Max Mosely were supposed to have done due dilligence to ensure that the new teams were viable.  Sadly it seems in the case of Campos and USF1 this was either done badly or not at all.  Quite how established Motor Racing teams such as Prodrive and Lola could be overlooked for such pitiful teams as these is hard to imagine.  The FIA seems to now be getting worried their grid might not be full and rather too late are seeing how USF1 is progressing.

Will someone close the stable door please?

Button slaps Alonso

Not on the track (hopefully that will happen later) but regarding Alonso's whiny comments about the refuelling ban stopping overtaking. 

Quite how he came to that conclusion I don't know, but Button was quick to point out the obvious performance differences between new and used tyres, plus his engineer weighed in to point out that strategy will be more reactive than planned.

Button 1, Alonso 0

More here: http://en.espnf1.com/mclaren/motorsport/story/7696.html

Stop messing with the rules please!

Wow that didn't take long.  After finally ending the refuelling era and race-fuel qualifying, F1 is now determined to undo all the good work and mess things up again.

This time the suggestion is that drivers in Q1 have to start the race on the set of tyres they set their best time on.  This might sound like a good idea "to spice up the show" but I think it hasn't really been thought through.  If the cars on the fresh tyres swamp the cars from Q1 in the first couple of laps we'll soon see the silly situation of no-one qualifying properly because it's a disadvantage to be in Q1.

With a refuelling ban there's already going to be alot of differences between the cars during the race (except for the drivers/teams that do the best job).  Artificially forcing drivers to use certain tyres at certain times just goes against the "purity" of F1 and for what?  Just to make some drivers pit early?  It's this obsession with the idea that pit stops are required to give more action that annoys me.  Overtaking is what makes a race exciting, not pit stops.  There have been plenty of Spanish GPs that had loads of pit stops, not one overtake and were all as dull as can be.  Likewise for Monaco which is only rescued by being so glitzy.

I don't remember the ding dong battles during the 80s era of no-refuelling requiring any help to make them happen.  Mansell vs Piquet at Silverstone didn't happen because Mansell was forced to started on knackered tyres or to use two difference compounds during the race.  Still, this is one rule I'm sure is going to happen so we might as well get used to it.

see http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/81069 for more info

Fuel consumption

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via f1numbers.files.wordpress.com

One of the interesting things in 2010 will be to see how the engine manufacturers balance fuel consumption vs power.  Having an efficient engine has several benefits which could prove vrey decisive at some tracks.

The car can be significantly lighter at the start of the race which straight away gives a lap time gain.

The second benefit is that tyre degradation is reduced which depending on the characteristics of the new tyres for 2010, could mean that they need fewer and/or much later fuel stops than their rivals.

The third benefit will be less wear on the brakes, which are unchanged in size for 2010.  There's alot more potential for someone to run out of brakes and have to ease off (or spin off like Mark Webber in Singapore last year).

A lower fuel means a smaller tank size and more scope for optimising the aerodynamics.

Finally there's also the marketing potential for engine manufacturers to shout about how efficient their engines are, although somehow I doubt any of them will.

As can been seen from the chart for 2009 fuel consumption figures, Renault are out in front by quite a way.  McLaren have quite a lead on Force India and Brawn with the Mercedes engine, presumably because of KERS (remind me again why it's banned next year?)

It's another wilcard factor in the paper-scissors-stone era that the refuelling ban is introducing and for me much more interesting than everyone stopping on lap 15 and giving up racing after the last stop!  Hopefully no-one will get everything right and it'll be a ding dong battle all year between many teams.

Should drivers be forced to pit? (Poll) | F1 Fanatic - The Formula 1 Blog

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via f1fanatic.co.uk

Keith over at F1 Fanatic has decided to run a poll for whether compulsory pit stops should be introduced and the result is pretty conclusive.

The result is currently running at 86% saying drivers should NOT be forced to pit (out of some 2315 votes).

I was somewhat surprised and pleased at the one sided nature of the result. It's been clear to me for many years (and I've bored plenty of people about it too!) that refuelling is bad and flexible strategy is good. Sadly I doubt anyone will notice.

By forcing drivers to use a specific strategy (even if just through requiring them to use 2 compounds ot tyres), the FIA are reducing the variation in options, reducing driver choice and making things more predicatable and less exciting. There's nothing worse than the refuelling era "we'll hold station after the final stops" mentality which guarantees nothing happens at the end of the race unless it rains.

Pre-refuelling ban (with flexible tyre options), there were some cracking finishes to races - Jerez 1986, Silverstone 1987, Mexico 1990 being 3 that spring to mind. All of them were because of competing strategies of the tortoise vs hare. One driver on hard tyres eeking them out, another putting on a fresh set of boots and going for it.

Click the link to vote:
http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2010/01/18/should-drivers-be-forced-to-pit-poll/