Higgins describes it as “the biggest moment of my life”. But the journalist looks nonchalant! It is an incredible save.

It reminded me of another incident that was similar, but with very different consequences. In 2003 the then Jaguar F1 driver Antônio Pizzonia took a journalist round Albert Park in a Jaguar road car. The problem was that he appeared to forget that he was driving a road car, and allegedly used the F1 braking point — with disastrous consequences.

This time the journalist seemed to have his wits about him more than Pizzonia did. Thank goodness they both escaped unscathed from that one.

Pizzonia wasn’t a Jaguar F1 driver for long…

This is a post that I should have written at the end of last season, but didn’t get round to before deciding to go on hiatus. Many of these points will have been made before, and it may be a bit past its sell-by date — but here it is anyway.

I am in awe of what Red Bull Racing achieved last season. In one sense, it should all be so easy. They have the best designer in Adrian Newey. And they have one of the best drivers in Sebastian Vettel — and Mark Webber is pretty handy too.

But those elements were in place in previous years too. Plus, it is easy to forget that Adrian Newey has not been involved in a championship victory since 1999.

Vettel, too, was by no means a shoo-in for the championship. It took a fairly bizarre set of circumstances for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix to go his way. And it was a tall order for him to become the youngest ever world champion.

The truth is that the achievements of Red Bull Racing and Sebastian Vettel are massive. Red Bull is a soft drink company. Yet they have shown world-class car manufacturers and experienced grand prix teams how to do it.

When I grew up watching Formula 1 in the 1990s, the talk was of F1′s “big four”. These were the dominant teams: Benetton, Ferrari, McLaren and Williams. Between 1979 and 2008, no-one outside of the big four won the Constructors’ Championship (if you account for the fact that Benetton became Renault).

In the past two years, there has been a breakthrough. The stranglehold was broken, first by the Brawn team in its first — and only — year in F1; an unprecedented achievement. But, impressive though its achievements were, the Brawn team could trace its history in F1 back to Tyrrell’s first grand prix in 1968.

In a way, therefore, Red Bull’s achievements are even more extraordinary. Although Red Bull (much like the Brackley-based Tyrrell-BAR-Honda-Brawn-Mercedes squad), bought an existing team, this team in much younger. Originally set up as Stewart Grand Prix in 1997, it took 14 years for this team to win a Championship having been set up from scratch.

Red Bull truly is part of a new generation of championship winners. The next-youngest championship-winning team is Benetton / Renault, originally set up as Toleman in 1981.

A hat must go off to Paul and Jackie Stewart for their roles in this. I have heard it mentioned in passing once or twice, but I am surprised that more has not been made of it.

The Stewarts expended great efforts to set up their grand prix team, and against all the odds they achieved great things in the short three year lifespan of the team. Despite the best efforts of Ford to run the team into the ground with its misguided Jaguar Racing venture, the team has since gone on to achieve even greater things as Red Bull.

So hats off to Paul and Jackie Stewart. And hats off to Dietrich Mateschitz, Adrian Newey, Christian Horner, Sebastian Vettel and everyone else inolved in Red Bull Racing’s amazing achievement.

Now, normally such an announcement wouldn’t raise too many eyebrows. Ever since I started watching Formula 1 in the mid-1990s, I have watched teams and manufacturers come and go on a regular basis.

I saw Renault withdraw from the sport as engine supplier to Williams and Benetton in 1997, only to return as a fully-fledged constructor when they bought the Benetton team just a few years later in 2000. Ford came to the party when they bought the Stewart team in 1999, only to leave the sport entirely a few years later in 2004. Peugeot left the sport in a huff at their own lack of success in 2000, having only joined the circus in 1994.

I learnt quickly, therefore, that manufacturers’ interest in F1 is almost always transient. For every Mercedes that appears fully committed, there are a handful of Renaults and Hondas who will enter and exit the sport according to the wind direction.

Honda’s announcement was shocking partly because of its suddenness. The speed with which the decision was taken is made clear when you read James Allen’s account. There is also the fact that at the start of this year Honda owned not one but two F1 teams. Now they have dramatically trimmed right back to zero, and will not even offer an engine supply to any teams next season.

There is also the fact that Honda were massive spenders in F1. This appeared to signify a magnificent commitment to the sport, despite the relative lack of success. But the flipside of this is that it made Honda an absolute laughing stock within the sport.

The huge amount of money the Honda F1 team spent also made it more vulnerable to the red pen of the bosses. No other manufacturer will save as much money by axing their F1 team. It may be true that Honda’s withdrawal is for political reasons, as former BAR-Honda driver Jacques Villeneuve posits. But it is Honda’s huge costs, coupled with the utter lack of success, that made it vulnerable to such political manoeuvring.

As such, the withdrawal of Honda is not such a shock when you think about it, even though I wouldn’t have predicted it. Moreover, Honda is not a fixture of Formula 1 like Ferrari, or even Mercedes. The current incarnation of the Honda F1 project only got the nod in 1998, and even then it was quickly reigned in to become a mere engine supply deal with BAR. Honda bought the team when tobacco sponsorship left the sport just a few years ago. Despite having run a team in the 1960s, and the huge success of the corporation as an engine supplier in the 1980s, an F1 institution it is not.

What makes people worried, though, is the economic climate in which this news has come. Whereas Ford found a buyer for Jaguar Racing easily enough in Red Bull in 2003, buyers for Honda will be thin on the ground due to the lack of credit that will be available to interested parties.

Next season’s Formula 1 calendar has already lost two races — Canada and France — and China and both German circuits currently in use have recently warned that they may not hold races for much longer. Again, it all comes down to money, with circuit owners being unable or unwilling to pay Bernie Ecclestone’s fast-increasing costs of staging a grand prix at the same time as attendances are tumbling.

Meanwhile, car sales are in freefall on a global scale, with a number of large car manufacturers seemingly in serious financial danger unless drastic action is taken. In the backdrop of these events, participation in motorsports looks like an extravagance. Even if the old “win on Sunday, sell on Monday” mantra holds true in normal times, right now western consumers are tightening their belts meaning that any increase in sales may be too small to be justifiable.

As such, Honda’s withdrawal is seen as just another sign that Formula 1 faces a crisis. We have a slimmed-down calendar that relies increasingly on flyaway races away from the sport’s European heartland to help pay CVC’s bills, and no races in the vitally important North American market for the first time in five decades.

Now there is a slimmed-down grid of just 18 cars — a number that is getting smaller. When you consider that the 2008 season was originally destined to contain 24 entries, F1 has essentially lost a quarter of its teams in a matter of months. Formula 1 is beginning to look like a shadow of its former self.

Now the question everyone is asking is, “who is next?” Initially the finger pointed at Toyota. Many pointed out that Toyota are only really in F1 because Honda were there. Toyota are also, like Honda, huge spenders with little to show for it.

But Toyota quickly put the lid on the speculation by issuing a statement that appeared to affirm their commitment to F1 — although, as James Allen pointed out, the word “currently” in front of “committed” looks like a carefully worded way to give them an easy exit should things take a turn for the worse. After all, if Honda’s decision was so sudden, why would a decision from Toyota not be?

BMW and Mercedes-Benz have both also affirmed their commitment to F1. But one manufacturer has spoken with a deafening silence.

I always suspected that the first manufacturer to go would be Renault. Its CEO, Carlos Ghosn, is said to be sceptical of motorsport participation, and there has been a question mark over the team’s future ever since he joined Renault in 2005. Besides which, Renault’s history in F1 has shown that it will come and go as it pleases.

Even though some news websites have reported that Renault is committed to F1, I have seen no quotes which the other manufacturers have been happy enough to provide. Was the media palmed off with a stock answer from a Renault spokesperson?

Meanwhile, rumours circulate around Red Bull. Dietrich Mateschitz recently re-bought Gerhard Berger’s 50% stake in Toro Rosso, but many think he did this so that he could sell it more easily. But with billions to play with and no car sales to drop off a cliff, I see little reason why he would pull the plug on both teams.

Williams has been perceived to be in a vulnerable position for a few years now. It is the last brave privateer team that is in it not to sell cars and not to sell drinks, but purely for the love of racing. It has been hit hard, but it doesn’t have to be seen to be reducing costs for political reasons like the manufacturers have to. Ironically, Williams may be safer than some of the manufacturers now.

We will just have to wait and see. It’s clear that Formula 1 is currently undergoing a massive change. Could the ground be being laid for a return to a privateer era? If so, you won’t find me complaining too much, no matter how painful the current events are in the medium-term.

I just happened to mention in passing to “me” from Sidepodcast on Identica the short-lived F1 magazine GPX. He asked me to upload it so that he could see what it was like, so I took photos of the two issues of GPX I own and uploaded them to Sidepodcast’s Dropio. I hope the people at Haymarket don’t mind too much. But this is over ten years old and it obviously didn’t make them much money at the time, so…

If you’re interested, Issue #3 starts here, and you need to click the left arrow to go through the magazine. Issue #4 starts here.

Issue #4 was the final issue of GPX. Obviously Haymarket had high hopes for it, and I even remember seeing posters in the window of a WH Smith advertising it. The magazine totally tanked though.

Originally designed to be a “laddish” magazine, issue #4 shows some signs of desperation with features designed to appeal more to females, including the “Top 20 sexy F1 drivers of all time” and a “hunky” poster of Mika Salo. Stuart C from F1 Racing has a bit more on GPX over at Sidepodcast here and here.

In retrospect, GPX wasn’t a quality magazine. It did have some good gags in it though. I like ‘Brainstorming with the Prost team‘ and the joke about spelling out ‘Schumacher’ with beer cans made me chuckle at the time.

The magazine as a whole has slight shades of The Red Bulletin and Sniff Petrol. In fact, GPX might actually have had a chance if it was as consistently funny as Sniff Petrol…

While I was rummaging for those issues of GPX, I found some other interesting old F1 magazines and various other bits and pieces. Most of these almost certainly came free with F1 Racing. Click below to see what I found.

Apologies for the poor quality of my photography here

This one isn’t very old, but remember F1 Racing Green? It came free with issues of F1 Racing. Billed in its first issue as a “quarterly supplement”, it was quietly dropped after issue 2 and I have to confess I had completely forgotten about it. (I read very little of it anyway.)

Here is one I had totally forgotten. See if you can work out what it is supposed to be just by looking at the cover. Believe it or not, it’s “the epic story of Ford’s 100 years in motorsport”. So why are there no Ford logos anywhere to be seen? Odd.

Toyota — One Aim: midfield mediocrity.

Remember when Marc Gené was a Williams test driver? Apart from boring Williams stuff, this magazine features an article about F1 television coverage. Bernie’s in it talking about Bernievision: “Once the public understands it, they will buy it.” It ceased broadcasting the following year.

There is also a bit about James Allen headed, ‘The new Murray?’ One thing I didn’t know was that in James Allen’s first job as a PR agent he looked after Martin Brundle! I never knew that.

Here is an issue of McLaren’s magazine, Racing Line, from 2001. David Coulthard and Alexander Wurz both look very young here! The magazine is mostly quite boring, but contains an interesting feature about Coulthard’s and Häkkinen’s fantasy circuits. There is also a small article about Lewis Hamilton! It advertises his success in Formula A and his move up to Formula Super A in karting.

Here is Jaguar Racing from Jaguar’s entry into F1 in 2000. This is more of the same sort of yawnerific stuff you get in these corporate mags, although there is an interesting article about the decisions that went into designing the livery. The letters page is a bit strange though, as it is filled with letters from famous F1 figures only. “The launch of the Jaguar Racing mag is the talk of F1″. Riiight.

The baby version of Jaguar, Stewart, also had a celebratory supplement in F1 Racing. Like the Jaguar mag, this contains an article about the design of the livery.

White? Not quite

…[T]he particular shade of ‘soft white’ (cut with a little ochre) was mixed to reduce glare on camera… Incidentally, choosing white also means the weight of the SF-1′s livery is among the lowest on the grid!

Another interesting fact contained in this magazine is that the Stewart Grand Prix logo is actually based on the profile of the SF-1′s nose!

Ferrari’s Inside Track magazine. I’ve got about half a dozen of these, given away by F1 Racing over the years. Does this still exist?

Aah, 350 Goodyear Grand Prix wins. Ford, this is how you do it!

Here is an actual F1 magazine that you could buy in the shops, F1 News. The slogan says, “Puts the fun back in Formula One”, although my recollection was that it was a slightly dull magazine. I didn’t like it as much as F1 Racing, but I definitely appreciated it for its more regular publication.

There were a few good features. The race results page was more detailed than anything else I ever saw at the time, complete with warm-up times, fastest lap classification, pit stop summary and a full lap chart! F1 Racing has never given results this in-depth. There was also a lap-by-lap description of the race along with a short paragraph for each driver summarising his race. A pretty good idea as often some drivers can never get mentioned in a race report.

Another feature was ‘Bob’s burning question’, where Bob Constanduros asked 8-or-so people a certain question. At the end of the season, Mr Constanduros cruelly chose to ask pants manufacturer (and pants racing driver) Ricardo Rosset, “What is your greatest memory of 1998?” The maligned Brazilian driver’s answer? “There wasn’t a lot to celebrate professionally.” I almost felt sorry for him there.

It looks like F1 News was produced on a relatively modest budget. But it had contributions from a few quality writers including Bob Constanduros and Joe Saward. I’ve no idea what happened to F1 News in the end — I stopped buying it in late 1998. But I don’t think it would have survived in the internet age anyway. It definitely has the same kind of feel of Pitpass and Grandprix.com.

Finally, here is the oldest magazine in the collection — an ‘end of season special’ Grand Prix 96 magazine, “The official BBC sports magazine”.

Here is an indication of just how old this magazine is: “Williams wiped the floor with the lot of them to equal Ferrari’s record of eight constructors’ championships.” Blimey, a time when Williams were as successful as Ferrari.

There is also an interesting article with Jonathan Palmer’s top 10 of the season. The editorial spits, “And yes, he really does rate Mika Hakkinen — who drivers for JP’s old team, McLaren — a better driver than Damon Hill.” I guess 1996 was a different time…

And a short interview with Martin Brundle:
“What will you be doing in 1997?”
“Driving a Formula 1 car.”

Whoops.

Since the turn of the decade I have watched Formula 1 pretty much as a neutral. Of course, I prefer some teams and drivers more than others. In case you’re wondering, my favoured teams are BMW, Red Bull, Renault and (at a stretch) McLaren. Out of the drivers, I like Räikkönen, Heidfeld, Kubica, Alonso, Coulthard, Webber, Barrichello and (at a stretch) Kovalainen.

When I was younger my attention was grabbed by Stewart Grand Prix. Jackie Stewart’s was a famous name that I could latch onto, and the Scottish iconography appealed to me as a young Scot. I also loved the fact that they were a new team, seemingly with the odds against them, but did a fairly solid job.

Rubens Barrichello’s drive to 2nd in Monaco in 1997 was exciting to watch, and for a second I thought they were going to win when Michael Schumacher briefly ran off the road at Ste Devote. Mostly though 1997 was a year fraught with reliability problems. 1998 brought a further dip in form.

But the 1999 season as a whole was brilliant for Stewart GP as Barrichello once again shone. Who could forget Barrichello leading at the Brazilian Grand Prix? And then Johnny Herbert took a fantastic win at the Nürburgring. This team was only three years old, yet was in a position to fight for good points hauls, finish 4th in the championship and even win a race. That’s more than the team’s subsequent owners, Ford (as Jaguar) and Red Bull can say for themselves.

Besides Stewart, I developed a soft spot for Jordan. I loved the way they came back from a disastrous start to 1998. Halfway through the season they hadn’t even scored a single point. Then things started to look up during the British Grand Prix. I can remember watching a fly-on-the-wall documentary about Jordan’s 1998 season. Eddie Jordan was nervously pacing around the Jordan pit area mumbling, “I need this feckin’ point… Come on, I need this feckin’ point so much.” He got that feckin’ point.

Just a few races later Jordan Grand Prix scored a magnificent 1–2 in Belgium, with Damon Hill heading Ralf Schumacher. It was the team’s first win and it ushered in a new, though fleeting, era of competitiveness for the team.

The 1999 season was a joy to watch, not only for Stewart but for Jordan and Heinz-Harald Frentzen in particular. The German driver took an amazing six podiums including two wins, particularly memorably in France. For a long while it looked as though Frentzen was a genuine championship contender, though in the end it was not to be.

In retrospect, the work the Jordan team put into the 1999 season diverted their attention away from the future. Ian Phillips said as much in the latest Inside Line podcast — the championship run burnt the team out, and they never recovered.

In subsequent years the Jordan team drifted ever further into mediocrity and it became more and more difficult for me to like the team. 2003 was particularly painful. Giancarlo Fisichella took a flukey win in Brazil, but that disguised a truly awful season in which the team otherwise scored the miserable total of three points. If the previous year’s scoring system would have been in use, the win would have been their one and only points score.

To compound matters, in 2003 Eddie Jordan got into a needless legal fight with Vodafone which he was seemingly never going to win. From then on Jordan struggled financially. That team is now known as Force India and has had four different owners in the past five years.

However, the late 1990s were great Jordan-supporting days. And along with supporting the team comes the merchandise. I had two Jordan caps (one generic Jordan and the other Damon Hill, mimicking the Hills’ famous helmet design). I also had a Damon Hill t-shirt that commemorated the “place in history” that Hill took by taking the first win for the Jordan Grand Prix team. I also have a 1:43 diecast model of Damon Hill’s Jordan 198, the car he drove in 1998 and helped secure Jordan’s famous 1–2 in Belgium.

That is not the only F1 merchandise I bought when I was younger. I also had an Orange Arrows cap. I think I got it because I liked the colours. I am sometimes surprised to see people still wearing Orange Arrows gear from time to time, around six years after the team folded. I also had a rather colourful Ferrari t-shirt commemorating their 1999 Constructors Championship victory. What can I say? The folly of youth.

In addition to the Damon Hill 1:43 diecast, for a period of five years I decided I was going to collect 1:43 scale models of every single Formula 1 world champion. So in 1998 and 1999 I bought two Mika Häkkinen McLarens and from 2000–2002 I bought three Michael Schumacher Ferraris.

To spice things up a bit I bought models of Alberto Ascari’s 1952 Ferrari 500 F2 and Nelson Piquet’s 1981 Brabham BT-49C. But I got bored after that.

Grand Prix Legends were looking for excuses as to why diecast models don’t sell so well nowadays. I think the reality is that 75 quid for a 1:18 model that will only gather dust on a shelf is a bloody rip-off. Back in the day I think I spent around £20 per 1:43 model. I don’t think that’s something I would do today.

Aside from the normal annual purchases of video games (when available) and the season review DVD, I have not bought any Formula 1 merchandise for a while.

Until now.

I have bought this jazzy BMW Sauber t-shirt to express my support for the team. Like many, I have been wooed by the methodical, grounded approach of the team’s principal Mario Theissen and its drivers Nick Heidfeld and Robert Kubica.

The win was coming for a while, and the fact that it was a 1–2, just like Jordan’s maiden win, was the icing on the cake. The team’s recent dip in form won’t deter me. Now, for the first time for several years, I am not a neutral. I am supporting BMW Sauber.

It’s strange because I was never a supporter of the Sauber team at all. Nor was I keen on BMW when they were in partnership with Williams. But the magical combination of BMW and Sauber under the leadership of Mario Theissen has attracted me to them to the extent that I am a card-carrying, t-shirt wearing fan.

So which teams do you support, and do you buy merchandise to show that support?

Entry requirements

At present there are ten constructors (the posh word for teams) in Formula 1. Each team enters two cars, meaning that 20 cars are entered into each event. There is nothing set in stone about these numbers. It is thought that according to the Concorde Agreement (which will be covered in a future bluffer’s guide) a minimum of 20 may enter. According to the FIA Sporting Regulations, a maximum of 24 cars may start a race.

Teams normally stick with the same two drivers throughout the season. However they may use up to four different drivers in one season, or more at the FIA’s approval.

In addition to the two race drivers, every team employs test drivers. These test drivers may be used during the Friday Practice sessions, although each team is still limited to running two cars. For this reason, teams tend to use their race drivers anyway.

A driver must be awarded an FIA Super License before he may compete in Formula 1. To achieve this, a driver must show consistent form in a lower category. Failing that, a driver may get a Super License with the unanimous approval of… whoever makes that decision — provided he has tested for at least 300km at racing speeds in a current car.

This is basically to prevent rubbish but rich drivers from paying loads of money to achieve his childhood dream of entering a Grand Prix. However, it hasn’t stopped the occasional bad egg from slipping through the net!

The decision to enter

Unlike some other sports, there is no promotion or relegation in F1. The decision to enter Formula 1 is essentially little more than a business decision. Once a team has met the FIA’s requirements, all a team has to do is be able to fund itself in order to keep going.

The huge costs involved in running an F1 team are enough to keep the list of potential entrants low. There is space for 12 teams in the Championship and only ten of them are taken. One of those teams is currently up for sale. There is little point in setting up a new team if you can easily buy an existing one.

This season began with 11 constructors. But when Super Aguri ran out of funding it had to pull out.

Similarly, drivers have few requirements to meet. They must have a Super License (as outlined in the section above). But apart from that, all they have to do to get a drive is basically to persuade a team to give them a drive.

This does not depend on talent alone, although that is of course a huge factor. Many drivers get a slot at a poorly-funded team by bringing sponsorship money. Such drivers are known as ‘pay drivers’ because they effectively pay for their drive at a team.

Some pay drivers have gone down in history as being notoriously awful. Ricardo Rosset had lots of cash as he was the heir to an underwear business. Fittingly enough, his performances in F1 were, indeed, pants.

The 2008 season is said to be the first year for a very long time (perhaps ever) when the grid did not contain any pay drivers. However, it is also thought that Nelsinho Piquet and Adrian Sutil bring substantial sponsorship moneys to their respective teams.

A team sport or an individual sport?

Formula 1 (along with most other forms of motor racing) is rather unique among sports because it is both a team sport and an individual sport. A good driver would be nowhere were it not for a team of hundreds working tirelessly to provide him with a good car. On the day of the race, an army of people analyse the race as it happens to try and come up with the best strategy for the conditions. And the efforts of the pit crew cannot go unnoticed, as they must be relied upon to ensure that pitstops are carried out smoothly.

In this sense, you can say that Formula 1 is a team sport, but one that places a huge amount of the responsibility on one individual. Once the driver is on the track, there is not much more the team can do to help him, and it is up to the driver not to make a mistake. For this reason, there are two championships in F1 — one for drivers and one for constructors.

Each team enters two drivers and these are often referred to as “team mates”. However, often there is nothing “matey” about the relationship between these two individuals. Indeed, they might hate each other because the one person they want to beat more than anyone else is their team mate, who is usually racing with equal equipment. Comparing team mates with each other is an important barometer of a driver’s skill, so it is usually in a driver’s interest to undermine his team mate.

However, pragmatically a driver has to remember that he is an employee of his team. If a team decides that it is in their best interests to help one driver more than another, they are within their rights to do this. This is known as “team orders” and is part of racing. (Team orders will be discussed in more detail in a future bluffer’s guide.)

Testing

Teams spend a lot of time testing their cars to make sure that their developments work properly before racing with them. Such tests must be held at an FIA-sanctioned circuit. Testing is limited to 30,000km per team per calendar year. This limit excludes promotional events and young driver training. A young driver is defined as a driver who has not competed in a Formula 1 event for 24 months or has not tested an F1 car for more than four days in the past 24 months.

Teams often employ test drivers whose specific job is to test the car. Often race drivers are used at test sessions in addition to test drivers. Some drivers become highly regarded for their ability to give feedback to their engineers and for their knowledge of how to set up a car. Examples of such drivers include Pedro de la Rosa, Alexander Wurz and Anthony Davidson. These drivers are all highly regarded as test drivers but struggle to get a race drive.

Car development

F1 teams do not just launch a car at the beginning of the season and race with it all year. Teams work throughout the year to improve their performance and developments are made to the cars several times per year as the teams see fit. In most cases, the car at the end of the season is completely different to the car that began the season. Check out Formula1.com’s excellent technical section to keep up with the main car developments throughout the year.

Logically, though, the largest leaps are made over the winter when there is no racing going on. Usually each car is an evolution of the previous year’s car. Sometimes cars are re-designed almost from the ground up each year. This used to happen fairly often, but is increasingly rare these days — unless a team hires a new chief aerodynamicist or some other radical team structural change.

Every time there is a major change to a chassis, its name changes. Usually the name changes in a predictable way for the start of each season. For instance, in 2007 Ferrari’s chassis was the F2007 and McLaren’s was the MP4-22. This year those teams’ chassis are the F2008 and the MP4-23 respectively.

Of course, there’s nothing to stop a team from using the same chassis for two years in a row (although this usually doesn’t happen because the pace of development is such that running a two year old chassis would be a serious disadvantage to any team) or from running two different chassis in one season — just as long, of course, as the chassis met the technical regulations. It is quite common for a team to use their old chassis for the first few races of the year if the development of the new car has been delayed for some reason. This happened to Toro Rosso this year, whose new STR3 was not used until the Monaco Grand Prix, six races into the season.

Liveries

Historically, teams ran traditional liveries with each nationality having a traditional colour. Britain, of course, had British Racing Green, and Italian cars ran in the deep scarlet colour (‘Rosso Corsa’) made so famous by Ferrari. Of course, with the introduction of sponsorship in the late 1960s, this was never going to last and now teams appear in whatever colours take their fancy. But is it true that F1 cars are “glorified cigarette packets”?

The arrival of sponsorship does not mean that the history has gone forever. McLaren (Mercedes) run with a predominantly silver livery and red car numbers, a reflection of the Silver Arrows’ history. BMW run with their corporate colours of navy blue, though the majority of the car is white, Germany’s traditional racing colour.

Honda and Toyota have also run in Japan’s traditional white and red (although today Honda runs in a white, green and blue ‘Earth’ car to highlight environmental concerns). When tobacco sponsorship was still allowed in F1, Honda cleverly used the Lucky Strike logo to double up as the traditional ‘red sun’. Ferrari, of course, are famous for running their traditional ‘Rosso Corsa’ colour. However, in recent years this shade has become lighter, more similar to the shade of red used in Marlboro packets (Phillip Morris still heavily fund Ferrari even though tobacco sponsorship technically does not exist in F1).

Ligier / Prost used blue until the team’s demise in 2002. When Jaguar briefly participated in F1 at the start of this decade, it ran in a deep green. However, it was slightly lighter than British Racing Green, apparently to make sponsor logos stand out better on television. The team that Jaguar bought, the (Ford-powered) Stewart team ran in white and blue, the American racing colours.

Of course, there is nothing in F1′s rules that dictates that teams should use traditional colours. These rules were relaxed in 1970. But clearly many F1 teams still value their heritage enough to run colour schemes that are inspired by history.

Some aspects of the livery are restricted though. The two cars of each team must look “substantially” similar at every event in a year. In 1999, the new BAR team (owned by British American Tobacco) wanted to advertise two of its cigarette brands, one on each car. However, the FIA would not be moved. BAR’s compromise was to advertise one brand along the left side of the car and a different brand on the right. The resulting livery was a real mess and widely derided. From 2000 onwards, BAR’s ditched the ‘dual livery’ scheme.

Each car must display the badge of the car make on the front of the car. The name and national flag of the driver should be displayed on the side (usually just behind the driver’s helmet on the engine cover). The car number should also be visible from the front and the side. However, many spectators complain that the numbers are so small that you cannot see them.

Nowadays, a different way of telling apart the two cars of each team is to look at the ‘T-cam’ (the onboard camera that appears on top of the rollover structure just above and behind the driver’s head). For the lead driver, this is a fluorescent red. For a team’s second driver, it is fluorescent yellow.

Of course, another way to tell drivers apart is to look at their helmets. Traditionally, drivers design their own helmets although these days they are covered in sponsor logos just like the cars are. A good helmet design can become as famous as a historic car livery. Just think of Ayrton Senna’s yellow helmet, Graham Hill’s deep blue helmet with white tabs around the top (an adaptation of a London Rowing Club design, and also used by Graham’s son Damon) or Jackie Stewart’s white helmet with a tartan band around the top.

Car numbers

A minor, but interesting, point is how car numbers are allocated. Car numbers are published by the FIA before the start of each season and remain the same all season.

The current World Champion always races with the number 1. His team mate is allocated number 2. In instances when the World Champion is not participating in the race, it is probable that the Constructors Champion would use the numbers 0 and 2.

Under the old system of allocating car numbers (which ran until 1995), this happened in 1993 and 1994 when Damon Hill ran with the number 0 for two years running. The first time was because of the retirement of Nigel Mansell and the second time was due to the retirement of Alain Prost.

After the numbers 1 (or 0) and 2 are allocated, the following numbers are allocated according to the finishing position in the previous year’s Constructors Championship. So, ignoring the Constructor bearing numbers 1 (or 0) and 2, the highest-scoring constructor will carry the numbers 3 and 4, the next highest-scoring will carry the numbers 5 and 6, and so on. The number 13 is skipped for unclear reasons, though it’s safe to assume that this is due to superstition.

Not all superstitious numbers are removed though. In 2005 Japanese driver Takuma Sato was allocated the number 4 which is an unlucky number in Japanese culture (ominously being closely associated with death). True enough, his season was riddled with bad luck and strange mistakes.

This season McLaren are racing with the numbers 22 and 23 because they were excluded from last year’s Constructors Championship. Super Aguri were allocated numbers 20 and 21. Although Super Aguri no longer participates in F1, McLaren’s numbers remain 22 and 23 for consistency throughout the season.

McLaren Mercedes

Last year people were saying that Fernando Alonso had made a big mistake by signing for McLaren while Renault were undoubtedly the strongest team. It’s amazing how a few winter tests can change the world topsy-turvy.

The McLaren is said to be right up there at the top. What a turn-around after 2006 being McLaren’s least successful Formula 1 season for at least a decade. Alonso at least looks almost certain to win races this year. Relief for all at Woking after a victory drought last year.

Barring any serious mishaps, I would guess that Alonso is once again in the running for the Championship this year. Even if the McLaren turns out to be a bit of a turkey, if anybody on the grid can win with a mediocre car it is Alonso.

I am more worried about Lewis Hamilton. The poor guy has never even entered a Formula 1 race, and already the British media is shining a powerful spotlight on him, hyping up his chances. We are already sick of the tedious, clichéd references to “the Tiger Woods of F1″ and the fact that he is Formula 1′s first ever black driver when he isn’t.

It is surely a bit much for a young débutante to take. Remember what happened with Button. He had so much hype that his entire career ended up being an albatross around his neck. Let’s hope the same thing doesn’t happen with Hamilton. Some people are saying he can win a race this year. Maybe he can. But I hope he doesn’t get criticised too much if he fails to do so in what is, after all, his first ever season in an F1 car.

Renault F1 Team

This is probably the year where is all starts to go wrong for Renault. Winter testing hasn’t looked too hot. Renault boss Carlos Ghosn’s is lukewarm towards Formula 1. Despite the belated announcement of future commitment to the sport, it wouldn’t surprise me if things start winding down for Renault if results are average this year.

It was the uncertainty over Renault’s future in Formula 1 that has left them with a hugely unimpressive driver line-up this year. A team that has won back-to-back world championships shouldn’t struggle to get the best drivers, but it managed to lose Fernando Alonso (whose own manager is Renault’s director!) and failed to lure Kimi Räikkönen.

As such, Renault are left with the increasingly unimpressive Giancarlo Fisichella as its lead driver and the untested Heikki Kovalainen as his team mate. Rookie Kovalainen might turn out to be really good, but as things stand the driver line-up definitely lacks the superstar status.

Remember just how badly Fisichella did compared with Alonso in the past two years. Fisichella struggled to win more than one race per season. If they were to rely on him, Renault would have been screwed. Now they are relying on him, and it seems as though the car isn’t up to scratch compared with its rivals.

This will probably be a disappointing season for Renault. We’ve seen it happen before to the same team — two back-to-back championships were scored by what was Benetton, thanks to a certain Michael Schumacher who promptly went off to a mid-field team in desperate need of a resurgence. The parallels with Alonso’s move to McLaren are almost uncanny.

Scuderia Ferrari

If you were to ask me four months ago, I would have said that Ferrari — and specifically Kimi Räikkönen — would have run away with this year’s title. Now I am not so sure. Ferrari still look like the strongest team, but McLaren will probably give them a run for their money.

And the usual questions about Räikkönen have to be asked. Every so often somebody comes along and claims that he is not interested or determined enough, that he doesn’t communicate well with his engineers and that he drinks too much.

As such, this is probably a make or break year for Räikkönen’s career. If he fails to impress this year, in a Ferrari, then he probably never will. As things stand, it is uncertain whether Räikkönen is really to blame for his poor record as of yet, or if it was his slow and unreliable McLaren.

But Räikkönen’s début was in 2001, and within a year he was being touted as a future World Champion — before Alonso started truly turning heads. Since then Alonso has won two titles, and Räikkönen has won barely a handful of races.

Räikkönen is indeed impressive, most often when the odds are stacked against him and he has had to start from the back of the grid (Spa 2005) or the time when he had to go out first in qualifying for the 2005 Hungarian Grand Prix. But we have yet to see if he can be a world champion. He has never had a better chance than the one he will have this year, so he had better make the most of it.

It is almost the reverse case for Felipe Massa. A year ago he was seen as an unsafe pair of hands, and his signing to Ferrari stank of nepotism more than anything else. He also made some clumsy errors at the start of the season.

That all changed by the end of the season. He matured immensely to the stage where he could win grands prix in his own right. His performance at Turkey was very impressive. He will win races this year, and Kimi Räikkönen will be an interesting barometer for his talent.

But while it is fathomable to imagine Massa beating Räikkönen, and Räikkönen has a good chance of winning the championship, it still feels a little bit wrong to talk about Massa as a potential world champion. I could be proved wrong though!

Honda Racing F1 Team

Apparently Honda’s testing has been going pretty badly. Even the Honda team themselves — known for unrealistically hyping themselves up right back from the days of BAR — seem pretty subdued about their chances.

Moreover, Button’s belated début win doesn’t seem to have lifted the pressure off him. In fact, people are now asking him to win regularly, as his Hungarian win was a little bit of a fluke.

It’s difficult to know what to really expect of Honda this year. By the looks of things, they won’t be visiting the podium as regularly as they might hope, and that second race win will be as distant as their first always seemed to be (remember, their first win was a fluke).

BMW Sauber F1 Team

BMW Sauber is a team to be really excited about. Mario Theissen is clearly determined to make the team a success, and they look to be on their way to becoming a regular front-running team.

Even last year, BMW were seriously impressive, to the extent that they were possibly the second-fastest car at Monza, a true speed circuit. This year BMW have been turning heads during winter testing.

BMW is also associated with some very strong up and coming drivers. Robert Kubica is clearly an exciting talent, and people will be expecting a lot from him this year. Kubica was brought into the team mid-season last year after impressing as a third driver. He replaced world champion Jacques Villeneuve.

Now a BMW’s new test driver, Sebastian Vettel, is also putting in impressive performances. Nick Heidfeld had better watch his back!

Toyota Racing

The most unromantic team. A corporate juggernaut, nobody seems to like Toyota. They just throw money at F1 and are never able to achieve results, and their aloof image makes them highly unpopular with fans.

Their driver line-up is also less than inspiring. Jarno Trulli and Ralf Schumacher may be established names and proven race winners. But they are also a pair of over-rated and overpaid dinosaurs. Ralf Schumacher’s recent claim that he is the third best driver in F1 was notably laughable.

Moreover, bar a brief successful period at the start of the 2005 season, Toyota have constantly unveiled mediocre car after mediocre car. It just isn’t good enough for a team with a budget that dwarves all the others. If it really is the case that Toyota are only in F1 to sell cars (and it certainly looks that way), then it is highly embarrassing that “the car in front” is actually the car behind.

The smart money appears to be on Toyota pulling out of Formula 1 before too long. They have already made a step in that direction by deciding to supply engines to Williams. Williams may have had a bad spell recently, but it is a name that you don’t mess with, and they are on the resurgence.

Many are tipping that Williams-Toyota will beat the actual Toyota team. That could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back and leads to the end of the Toyota F1 team as we know it. They wouldn’t be missed.

Red Bull Racing

It’s not looking good for Red Bull. They brought superstar designer Adrian Newey on board, and Newey has produced a car that bears his distinctive hallmark as seen at McLaren over the past few years.

Unfortunately, he has also brought with him the unreliability issues that have dogged McLaren over those same years. It begs the question — are Newey’s designs the cause of the failures? His tight chassis is said to be causing cooling problems in the Red Bull.

Moreover, the drivers are complaining that they cannot squeeze into his tightly-sculpted car. This is a theme we are familiar with from McLaren — particularly when Alex Wurz couldn’t race because the car did not have the capacity for his tall frame. An F1 car is no good if you can’t fit a driver into it.

Even worse, the uncompromising chassis design doesn’t even seem to be particularly fast. It can’t be the engine’s fault — they have the world champion’s Renault powerplant in the back. Maybe Newey should be designing yachts after all.

There is also the question of where Red Bull’s driver programme has gone. David Coulthard has been there for the past two seasons, but now he is joined by Mark Webber. For a team with such a youthful image, Red Bull has the oldest driver pairing on the grid this year (an amazing feat when you consider Toyota’s drivers).

Webber knows the team well from back in his Jaguar days, so this is something of a homecoming for him after a period of false hope at Williams. But Williams are turning the corner, and this year’s Red Bull car is disappointing — he’s jumped ship and chosen the dinghy with a puncture in it (albeit a very nice looking dinghy).

The team itself is actually ten years old this year, having begun life back in 1997 as Stewart Grand Prix. Over the years, the team has occasionally shown great promise, particularly in its amazing 1999 season, complete with race win and 4^th in the constructors’ championship.

But otherwise — whether it felt strong or not — the team has resolutely refused to finish higher than 7^th in the championship. By the looks of things, unless their fortunes drastically improve, they look set to retain their mid-field reputation.

Williams

The dark horse this year? Williams have had a shockingly bad few seasons. This once great name of Formula 1 has been languishing ever further towards the back of the grid. The much-trumpeted partnership with Cosworth was doomed as the car proved to be both unreliable and slow.

You would assume that there are some serious long-term problems somewhere in Williams. I get the impression that during the BMW years they were too busy pointing the finger at anyone but themselves instead of actually getting round to fixing the problem. Perhaps the team was too arrogant to believe that it could be their fault?

Anyway, there are signs that Williams have finally taken action to stop them from falling even further back. And a Toyota engine should propel them further than the Cosworth was able to.

The Toyota deal is interesting. As many people have noted, it is entirely possible that the Williams-Toyota could beat the actual Toyota team. In that case, it could be curtains for Toyota’s team. That could open the door for Toyota to develop a long-term relationship with Williams as an engine partner. Both Williams and Toyota would probably be able to achieve more this way.

As for the drivers, Nico Rosberg showed great promise at the start of last season but started to make himself look a bit silly for the rest of the season. It was almost the reverse of what happened to Massa.

This year will be vital for Rosberg. If he doesn’t impress this year, that could be that for his career. Personally, I think he has the potential of someone along the lines of a Heidfeld. But not an Alonso. Probably not even a Coulthard. But we’ll see.

The choice of second driver, Alex Wurz, is very interesting. I always felt that Wurz never got the chance he deserved in F1. His height (and therefore weight) didn’t help matters, and he was notoriously unable to fit into his McLaren when required to stand in for injured Montoya a couple of years ago.

Wurz exploded onto the F1 scene ten years ago now, but most of his experience since then has been as a test driver. He might be a bit rusty at racing. Then again, when he (eventually) stood in for Montoya, he was no slouch. But Wurz is undoubtedly in the twilight years of his career.

Scuderia Toro Rosso

Okay, there is no avoiding the issue now. Customer cars. Essentially, the Toro Rosso is alleged to be the main Red Bull car with a different paint job. Cue hysteria from other teams — most notably Williams and Spyker, who risk being the worst team of the year (and would thereby receive no prize money whatsoever).

I’m not sure what to make of it yet. At the moment, I am prepared to tentatively support the Toro Rosso design. After all, Sauber’s (alleged) copycat Ferrari was never properly investigated, and Ligier’s copycat Benetton got away fairly lightly. So there is a precedent here.

It also provides a juicy chance to directly compare the Renault and Ferrari engines. The Red Bulls will run with Renaults, and Toro Rosso (being Italian) will race with Ferraris. These are probably the two best engines in Formula 1, and it will be fascinating to compare them in two near enough identical cars.

The problem with Toro Rosso’s approach is that the Red Bull could well prove to be a turkey for all the reasons discussed above. In that case, they might have been better off just quietly designing a cheap and cheerful car, rather than risking the controversy and ultimate failure of the Newey design.

Toro Rosso keep the same drivers as last year. It’s difficult to know what to make of Liuzzi and Speed. Liuzzi shows occasional glimpses of promise, but not often enough. Speed is mostly good for the comedy value. He did provide the funniest moments of last year including:

• Sweary-poos incident at Australia with kind-of team mate David Coulthard in the steward’s office
• “…last night, I had a boner — this big!“
• “Someone’s head is gonna roll!”
• “I definitely think we should go onto dry tyres very soon.”

Spyker F1 Team

There doesn’t seem to be much to say about Spyker. They are pretty much destined to be at the back of the grid. Mike Gascoyne is a big name designer there, but nobody seems to think he’ll be able to pull them around.

To think that not so long ago this was the Jordan team. In 1999 they were just spectacular. For a brief period it looked as though they were capable of winning a championship. Ever since then, it has been a depressing, terminal decline to the point where they are the worst team in the field.

At least Spyker has a little bit of a better image than Midland did!

Super Aguri F1 Team

Hats off to Super Aguri! They did ever so well last year having only been invented mere months before the beginning of the championship, and with a four-year-old Arrows car that wasn’t even that good four years ago.

Then they built their own car and it got to the stage where Sato drove a convincing race to finish in tenth place in Brazil, ahead of all the Red Bulls and Midland / Spykers. Now they have what is supposedly a Honda car, they ought to be punching at that sort of level on a regular basis from now on.

The driver line up is not to be sniffed at either. They have ditched their pretensions of being an all-Japanese team after finally realising that Japan has no good drivers. Takuma Sato remains, but his team mate is now Anthony Davidson. Just a few years ago, it was conceivable that this could have been the actual Honda line up. So it’s not bad at all.

Davidson will also be relishing the chance to finally get a full-time F1 drive. Sato has his moments. He appeared to calm down a lot last year after an unforgivably erratic time at Honda. If they can pull their act together, Super Aguri might well end up scoring the odd point this year.

Conclusion

So, here are my final predictions:

World Champion: Kimi Räikkönen. But if the McLaren is half good (which it seems to be), then Alonso could give him a run for his money. What a mouth-watering prospect!

Constructors’ Championship:

1. Ferrari
2. McLaren
3. Renault
4. BMW
5. Honda
6. Williams
7. Red Bull
8. Toyota
9. Super Aguri
10. Toro Rosso
11. Spyker

What a shame it’s such an inadequate circuit then!

The Monaco Grand Prix usually isn’t a good demonstration of what F1 is all about. It can go one of two ways:

1. Mundane procession where the person on pole position leads the race from start to finish due to the fact that it’s almost impossible to overtake on the narrow, twisty street circuit
2. All-out crash-fest where no-hopers can grab a few points just for staying on the track

One of the first Monaco GPs I saw was back in 1996, a race which was won by Olivier Panis in the unspectacular Ligier car (the team only scored 5 points in the whole of the rest of the season). Mika Salo in the Tyrrell was able to collect two points without making a pit stop.* Only four cars saw the chequered flag! These sorts of races can be quite exciting, but it hardly makes for beautiful viewing, no matter how nice it is to see complete underdogs grabbing so many points.

Luckily, last year’s Monaco Grand Prix was quite good, with plenty of overtaking which is very unusual for Monte Carlo. I particularly remember Michael Schumacher’s cheeky move on his team-mate, Rubens Barrichello, on the last lap. Barrichello was less than impressed.

Not all races at Monaco are that good. There might be a few crashes, if that’s what you’re looking for, but the chances are that the race will be processional. The circuit is so narrow that Nelson Piquet likened it to “flying a helicopter in your living room.”

My advice to you, if you are not really a big Formula 1 fan but are planning to watch the Monaco GP anyway, then catch the qualifying session on Saturday as well.

A lot of drivers are warning that the qualifying session this year is going to be truly insane, with 22 drivers all trying to record a fast lap in just fifteen minutes. Qualifying is going to make for very interesting viewing, as drivers will almost inevitably get stuck in traffic. Some big names could lose out.

And because qualifying near the front is so vital at Monaco, drivers will be all the more eager to perform well. At Monaco, the real racing will happen during the qualifying session.

Update: BlogF1 brings us a history lesson.

While we’re at it, I forgot to mention that this weekend McLaren are celebrating their 40^th anniversary in F1. They’re celebrating by racing with diamond-encrusted steering wheels this weekend. The diamonds gimmick is getting a bit old now — Jaguar did it a couple of years ago at Monaco, and I seem to remember McLaren racing with diamonds in the drivers’ helmets. I personally prefer the ice car!

Check out the changes that McLaren and F1 have gone through in the past forty years.

* Update: Don Speekingleesh in the comments pointed out that Salo’s non-stop effort was actually in 1997 (I need to get the old season review videos out to refresh my memory!). I remember now because that was the race that was hit by a tremendous downpour, leading to the race ending after the two hour limit, shortening the distance by 16 laps. So Salo finished fifth in both 1996 and 1997!