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Archive: Nick Heidfeld

Why is so much bodywork falling off?

9 April 2011 17:42

Categories: *, Formula 1

While it is by no means unheard of for pieces of bodywork to come off an F1 car from time to time, there has already been quite a lot of it this season. In fact, after one and a half race weekends, I can think of four big bodywork failures.

Firstly, there was Kamui Kobayashi’s engine cover detatching itself during practice in Australia. Sauber have since modified the bodywork.

During the Australian Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton’s floor became loose.

Nick Heidfeld also had a substantial amount of damage to his car’s bodywork, and it’s not clear how it happened. There is apparently no TV footage of it, and to my knowledge there has been no real explanation of what actually happened to cause the damage.

Then this morning the qualifying session for the Malaysian Grand Prix was halted after Sébastien Buemi’s left sidepod flew off his car and settled on the racing line.

There is every chance that this is all a coincidence, but I do find it intriguing that so much bodywork has fallen off the F1 cars this season already, and the second race hasn’t even started yet.

Update: I have been reminded by The F1 Times on Twitter that two onboard cameras have also fallen off this season already. Felipe Massa’s came off in Practice 3 in Australia, while Sebastian Vettel’s detatched in Practice 3 in Malaysia.

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F1 2010 mid-season rankings — part 2

22 July 2010 10:09

Categories: Formula 1

You can read part 1 of my mid-season rankings, where I assess the bottom half of the grid.

6. Force India

Force India have come along way in the past couple of years. From being perennial tail-enders, they are now solid midfield runners and can regularly expect to beat the likes of Williams, BMW Sauber and Toro Rosso. Vijay Mallya has succeeded where Alex Schnaider and Spyker failed.

A question mark remains over the driver lineup. I still find Adrian Sutil rather unimpressive. In his fourth season, surely we should be seeing more. And Vitantonio Liuzzi, while showing flashes of excellence, has generally failed to live up to expectations.

Force India also need to be careful that their progress up the grid does not come to a shuddering halt, with a mass exodus of their technical team having occurred this year. James Key has moved to assist in Sauber’s resurrection, while Mike Gascoyne has poached some of his ex-Force India colleagues to join him at Lotus. Looking at the five teams that are ahead of Force India in the Constructors’ Championship, it is difficult to see how they can make much more progress.

5. Mercedes

It hasn’t quite gone to plan for Mercedes. Seemingly fed up with McLaren, the manufacturer opted to buy the Brawn team that was so stunningly successful last season. Then, in a crass marketing stunt, they signed Michael Schumacher with much fanfare. Well, it’s all been a bit of a damp squib.

The car has not met up to expectations, and I have heard rumours that Ross Brawn is not too happy with the way Mercedes run the show (who knows if there is truth in that though).

For my money, Mercedes must have the worst driver line-up with the possible exception of Sauber. Nico Rosberg is relatively well rated. But let us face it — we all know there is still a question mark as to how good he really is. Meanwhile, it was clear to me from the very start that Michael Schumacher would be rusty, and his performances has fully justified my view.

It would have been much better for both Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher if a more sensible driver was chosen. Schumacher could have kept his dignity in retirement; Rosberg could have learnt from a genuinely solid and reliable barometer. Someone like Nick Heidfeld, perhaps. Or, you know, Jenson Button or Rubens Barrichello…

4. Ferrari

It has similarly come apart for Ferrari. Although they showed promise at the start of the season, with a win in Bahrain (even if they didn’t quite have the outright pace). But since then the story has been one of a slow but steady decline as the season has progressed, as Ferrari have failed to keep up the pace of development, and as the Championship has increasingly focussed on Red Bull and McLaren whose cars are far superior.

The drivers have to take their fair share of the blame too. Fernando Alonso has been making many more mistakes than usual, and he is not as enjoyable to watch as he used to be. A worrying development for the person I consider to be the best driver of the past decade. Meanwhile, after a relatively bright start in Bahrain, Felipe Massa has seemed off-colour for most of the season.

3. Renault

They may be fifth in the Constructors’ Championship, and, yes, they have the fifth fastest car. But I have elevated Renault in my rankings because it is an astonishing comeback.

It is incredible to think that just a month ago, the Renault F1 Team was mired in the quite unsavoury scandal that became known as ‘crashgate’. Having lost its sponsors and its star driver in addition to its team principal and technical director, you would expect 2010 to be a rebuilding year for Renault.

But the rebuild was swift. The team has rebranded to focus on its racing heritage, feeling less like the team that descended from Benetton. It has a steady new boss in the shape of Eric Boullier, who I think is doing a fantastic job. And its new star driver, Robert Kubica, looks set to become the team’s long-term centrepiece.

Kubica is doing really well just now and seems happy — by his standards at least! Vitaly Petrov is a fair bit off his pace, but he has not disgraced himself in my view. It should be remembered that Petrov is the only rookie among even the midfield teams, never mind front-running teams — so he should be given a bit of room to breathe and develop.

2. Red Bull

Red Bull should be number 1 on this list. This ought to be their year. They came out this season with easily the fastest car. Their car is still easily the fastest car. They have two of the best drivers on the grid.

Unfortunately, the last little bit — professionalism, cohesion, restraint — that takes all these ingredients and turns an operation into a championship winning Formula 1 team is missing. If it isn’t some kind of reliability problem, it is a strategy goof, or the mother of all mismanagements.

Just now, Red Bull remind me of where McLaren were at a few years ago. Unable to control team mates. Bizarre strategy calls. Constantly walking into traps that they set up for themselves. Somehow conspiring to hoof it over the bar in the face of an open goal.

The statistics illustrate it well. Out of ten races, Red Bull have had nine pole positions, but have had just five wins. They lag behind McLaren in both championships. For a team that has what is probably comfortably the quickest car, Red Bull have managed to immensely stuff it up so far.

1. McLaren

McLaren have not been without their troubles this season. At the start of the season, it was clear that their car was not as quick as they would have liked. But the way they are dealing with it is the opposite to Red Bull, and that signals to me that they have learnt a lot from their difficult period in the mid-2000s.

As with Ferrari, they were scuppered by poor tactics during qualifying for the Malaysian Grand Prix, severely compromising their race. Yet they still salvaged a fair points haul. Jenson Button did the same again at Silverstone a couple of weeks ago. Even when it goes wrong, McLaren sort it and get it right. McLaren is now more agile and astute in its strategy calls than it was two or three years ago.

Martin Whitmarsh has done an outstanding job to plug the few gaps in McLaren’s abilities that Ron Dennis left behind. Now McLaren are a formidable force that should never be underestimated.

McLaren’s pace of development alone makes them stand head and shoulders above the rest. The high-profile failure of their new blown diffuser at Silverstone is only really notable because it is so unusual for a new McLaren part to go wrong. Other teams have this sort of difficulty all the time. Witness the various botched attempts to adopt the F-duct, another part of the McLaren package that makes it the best of 2010 so far.

Then there are the drivers, who are both on song. Despite various figures constantly trying to goad them into a bloody deathmatch, they appear to get on like a house on fire.

Witness the difference between the McLaren team mates and their Red Bull counterparts at Turkey. McLaren’s drivers had a misunderstanding, but instead of blabbing to the media or making silly hand gestures, the drivers sorted it out with a quick chat after the race. Very professional. Lewis Hamilton’s and Jenson Button’s approach is a very healthy approach to racing all round.

That is what makes them championship winners, and today’s championship leaders. That is why McLaren are still the best team, even when they don’t necessarily have the best car.

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2010 Formula 1 predictions

1 February 2010 22:31

Categories: Formula 1, Media, Television

This article marks the return of Formula 1 to this website, as I have decided to (partially) close down vee8. For those of you who would rather not read the F1-related articles, you may like to subscribe to the F1-free RSS feed.

To break this process in gently, I have decided to make the first post a light-hearted look at what might happen in the 2010 Formula 1 season.

The season will be the most exciting ever, but the title of the DVD will make it sound like a wet Wednesday

In 2006, Fernando Alonso took his second World Championship in scintillating style that went down to the wire. The title of the official Formula 1 season review DVD was “Once Again”, making it sound like your drunk uncle has just wet himself for the umpteenth time.

In 2007, after a tense season-long battle between McLaren team-mates Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton, Kimi Räikkönen amazed the world by snatching the title from both of them in the final race of the season, overcoming a 17 point deficit with two races to go. The DVD was called “Kimi made it at last”, as though he had just come home late from a heavy night.

In 2008 Lewis Hamilton took the Championship in heart attack-inducing style on the last corner of the last lap of the last race. The DVD was called “Luck does not come into it”, which I still haven’t worked out the meaning of.

And the DVD really sold the 2009 season well by calling it “Not in a hurry…”, as if Jenson Button did not have a record-breaking winning streak at the start of the season.

Even if the Championship showdown is host to the first ever alien visit to this planet and is settled with a massive 200mph laser gun fight involving seventeen drivers from the planet Q’txxp’he, it wouldn’t surprise me if the DVD was given some madly dull title like, “I’d rather be watching paint dry”, “Isn’t Corrie on the other side?”, or “I’d stick with watching lawn bowls if I were you”.

Confectionery diffuser face-off

2009 was the year of the Double Decker diffusers. The 2010 pre-season testing period has seen a similar curiosity surrounding the rear end of F1 cars, with teams being notably coy about showing off their behinds.

The concept has now moved way beyond Double Decker diffusers. Among the new types of diffuser will be Red Bull’s Drifter diffuser, McLaren’s Mars Bar diffuser, Toro Rosso’s Curly Wurly diffuser and USF1′s Snickers diffuser. However, once again, Ross Brawn will find the upper hand when he reveals Mercedes’s Boost diffuser.

FOM will fail to improve television coverage

Although Bernie Ecclestone’s FOM is supposedly covering the world’s most technologically advanced sport, the television pictures will still resemble a smudgy YouTube video. Bernie Ecclestone will insist that there is no need for HD coverage because, “my IT guy told me he swears by his old CRT television”.

Despite the decision to give HD the cold shoulder, FOM will stick with their existing on-screen graphics, which are so small that they are actually bloody impossible to read on any 4:3 display. They may be declaring the start of World War III on those captions for all I know.

Intense McLaren Championship rivalry

The title will come down to the wire in Abu Dhabi, with the main protagonists being McLaren team mates Hamilton and Button.

Towards the end of the race, John Button will think he has the upper hand by unleashing his killer move – undoing the last button on his shirt. Little will he anticipate that Anthony Hamilton will win the Championship by staring even more intensely.

Michael Schumacher will be the world’s most superstitious man

Following on from the revelation that Michael Schumacher has a mad superstition for odd numbers, the German will reveal a litany of hitherto unknown superstitions. Among these will be an insistence that his team mate runs with an inferior set-up because “it makes me feel a bit better about my car”.

He will also reveal that he has a special form of OCD that means he just has to brake-test any drivers that are behind him, and cannot stop himself from driving straight into anyone who has just overtaken him. He also has a strong superstition for getting to choose his own parking space, and will park his Mercedes car in Race Control, where he can literally control the race by tampering with the timing system.

No-one will think to point any of this out, because nothing is allowed to get in the way of Princess Michelle’s Fairy Tale Comeback.

Cosmopolitan Valencia will continue grid boy tradition

Valencia’s tradition of having grid boys in addition to grid girls at the European Grand Prix will continue. Coincidentally, Flavio Briatore will make his F1 comeback at the very same race.

New teams to struggle

New teams will be unable to shake off speculation surrounding their ability to see out the season. While the early focus will be on USF1 and Campos, the spotlight will soon switch to Virgin Racing.

Suspicions will be raised mid-season when the Virgin team mysteriously re-brands with a green livery and makes a formal application to change its name to ‘Zavvi’. A few months later, the team will run out of money and close down, but not before a special fixtures and fittings sale where fans will have the opportunity to buy the screws that once held the car together.

The bearded beggar who appears at races is not homeless

Having made a tactical error by trying to get a drive at Mercedes only for some seven time World Champion or other to get in the way, Nick Heidfeld will begin the 2010 season without a job. He will resort to sleeping on the floor in the paddock and begging.

If you see a suspicious-looking bearded man in the paddock, it is probably Mr Heidfeld, the world’s greatest ever second place finisher. Although he might speak as though he is slightly drunk, he is not homeless and is perfectly harmless.

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2009 driver rankings: #25-#11

30 December 2009 21:51

Categories: Opinion, Report

25. Nelsinho Piquet

I don’t think there is much need to justify why I have placed Piquet at the bottom of the list. Suffice it to say that I hope he never races competitively again.

24. Sébastien Bourdais

Sébastien Bourdais spent the 2008 season explaining that we should wait to judge him until the return of slicks in 2009. Slicks came in 2009. He has been duly judged.

23. Romain Grosjean

I feel a little bit sorry for Romain Grosjean. He was thrown into as difficult a situation as it is possible to imagine. Having done no testing whatsoever, he became Renault’s second driver just in time for a massive scandal involving Renault’s previous second driver to envelop the team. He didn’t perform very well, but they were exceptionally difficult circumstances in my view.

22. Kazuki Nakajima

I thought Nakajima did a good job in 2008, but 2009 was a huge disappointment. His main achievement of the season was to qualify an admittedly impressive 5th place for the British Grand Prix. However, his race was poor and he finished 11th. Way to hoof it over the bar.

21. Jaime Alguersuari

As with the other drivers who were expected to hit the ground running mid-season, Alguersuari was disadvantaged by the fact that he had done no testing. It may also be said that he was brought into F1 too quickly by the impatient Red Bull driver development juggernaut. While he was British F3 Champion of 2008, he was having a moderate season in World Series by Renault and may have befitted from some extra time to develop his skills away from the intense spotlight of F1. As a result, Alguersuari spent a lot of his time crashing or being rather unspectacular.

20. Adrian Sutil

I do wish Adrian Sutil could show us something — anything — that would once and for all conclude that he fully deserves a place in F1. He does show flashes of potential, but contrives to throw his chances away. He could have had a decent points finish in China if he had been more careful in the worsening weather conditions. And he has gained a reputation for being involved in a lot of needless crashes. His crash with Nick Heidfeld in Singapore following a needless spin was particularly unnecessary. This was made all the worse by the fact that he pulled off a frighteningly similar manoeuvre in Japan at the following race. His performance in Belgium looked poor in comparison with his team mate who battled for the win all race long. The main saving grace was a fourth place in Italy.

19. Luca Badoer

Yes, Luca Badoer was massively disappointing as the substitute for Felipe Massa at Ferrari. However, as I have written before, he had a harder job than anyone else on the grid, being expected to become instantly competitive after 10 years away from racing. Given the circumstances, I think Luca Badoer performed quite admirably. It is not as though Fisichella could do much more in that Ferrari — and he didn’t have the excuse of being out of practice for a decade.

18. Sébastien Buemi

I think Buemi did a decent job overall in 2009, although it’s difficult to remember any real stand-out moments. He should have another year in F1, but ought to show more in 2010 in order to justify his continued presence on the grid.

17. Heikki Kovalainen

2009 was another disappointing year for Heikki Kovalainen. The Finn was totally outclassed by his team mate all season long, and never looked like a driver who deserves to be driving for a team as good as McLaren. He seems competent enough, but clearly lacks the hunger and seems incapable of putting in a truly great performance.

16. Vitantonio Liuzzi

Liuzzi made his long-overdue return to the cockpit in a Force India this year. He did a great job at his first race back in Monza, but was slightly disappointing for the remainder of the season. 2010 will be a very important year for his career — it’s make or break time for Liuzzi.

15. Kamui Kobayashi

Kamui Kobayashi was notable for being the one rookie who grabbed your attention. He had only two races, but he made a huge impression on the F1 world. He was ballsy and aggressive, and provided some hugely entertaining racing, particularly against Jenson Button! The downside to this was that he overstepped the line once or twice, particularly when he caused a crash with Nakajima in Brazil. I also doubt whether the driver that races for Sauber in 2010 will show the same hunger. In these two races, Kobayashi had nothing to lose and so took the necessary risks. In 2010 it might all be very different.

14. Giancarlo Fisichella

At the beginning of the season, Giancarlo Fisichella continued in the trajectory his career has generally taken — downwards. The season began ignominiously when he missed his pit box in Australia. There were even rumours that Force India were less than impressed, and were looking to replace him. Then came the rumours that Ferrari were looking to Fisichella as the replacement for the struggling Luca Badoer. Bang on cue, Fisichella put in one of the drives of his life. With his Force India car on song at Spa, he really should have won the race were it not for the kers of the Ferrari car he was about to step into. Once he’d secured his dream drive for Ferrari, it was back to business as usual as he lurched from disappointment to deeper disappointment.

13. Robert Kubica

Robert Kubica was unable to shine this year in the difficult BMW car. Matters were not helped by his height, which was a major disadvantage when BMW tried to run with kers. He took a while to score his first points of the season, and was behind his team mate in the Drivers’ Championship all year. The main consolation was a superb second place finish in Brazil. I hope that Renault can produce a good car for him next year — he deserves a better chance than this.

12. Nick Heidfeld

It was a difficult year for Nick Heidfeld. The BMW car was a massive disappointment and it must have been quite a demoralising season for Nick Heidfeld. Nevertheless, he managed to grab a handful of points, including a second place in the curtailed Malaysian race. He also did a better job at scoring points than Robert Kubica. I deeply hope Heidfeld gets a drive for next season.

11. Jarno Trulli

For a long time, I have disliked Jarno Trulli. However, grudgingly, I have to admit that he did a fairly good job in 2009, despite the Toyota team’s best efforts to throw it all away. Two third place finishes near the start of the season reflected the performance of the car. But his second place in Japan was truly impressive.

Come back tomorrow to read my top ten.

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Sayonara Bridgestone

4 November 2009 22:39

Categories: History, News, Opinion

The end of this season has not been a particularly healthy one for Formula 1. Two major names have left, and another has had an emergency meeting to consider if it should leave too.

First of all, the sole tyre supplier, Bridgestone, has announced that it will quit F1 at the end of 2011 when its current contract ends. This came as a shock. With the spotlight on car manufacturers, it doesn’t seem to have entered anyone’s mind that a company such as Bridgestone, which has been so incredibly loyal to the sport, would consider upping sticks.

I can remember a time when Bridgestone were not in F1, but only just. When I started watching Formula 1 in the mid-1990s, Goodyear was the sole tyre supplier. But Bridgestone entered in 1997, beginning the “tyre war”. When Goodyear left soon afterwards, it was not long until Michelin came in to begin an even fiercer tyre war.

I wasn’t a big fan of the tyre war. Mostly, one tyre was a major advantage over the other, so we were essentially left with two championships — a Bridgestone championship and a Michelin championship. Considering Bridgestone practically tailor-made their tyres to suit Ferrari, this essentially made Ferrari a shoo-in for the championship every year. That was until the 2005 regulations — which banned mid-race tyre changes — handed the advantage to Michelin in a big way.

2005 was the year when the tyre war well and truly jumped the shark. In the quest for the competitive edge, both companies had made their tyres softer and softer. The resurfaced banking at Indianapolis bit, Michelins exploded all over the shop and we were left with a farcical race in which only the six Bridgestone-shod cars competed.

On the back of the problems, the FIA decided that a sole company should supply the tyres for all the teams. The problem with this was that it had the potential to severely reduce the amount of exposure that tyre company got. With no tyre war to talk about, people might not talk about tyres. For this reason, Michelin refused to have any further part in F1.

The upshot was that Bridgestone and the FIA colluded to concoct the maddest new rules and gimmicks in order to contrive some interest in the tyres. One has to paint green lines all over the tyre in a crass attempt to pretend they care about the environment. Of course, the green on the tyres clashes with teams’ liveries, making the scheme not only nonsensical, but also damn ugly.

Teams are also forced to use a sub-optimal tyre compound at some point during the race. While this may have superficially “spiced up” the action, it is artificial. Drivers are critical of it, and Fernando Alonso even said that he would rather race with wet tyres on a dry circuit.

Moreover, there is a sense that Bridgestone may have deliberately made their tyres behave strangely in an attempt to get drivers and teams discussing tyres with the media. Nick Heidfeld has said that the tyres could be “ten times better”. Joe Saward expanded:

The Bridgestones react differently on each car and finding the tricks that make them work is not easy. Some drivers can do it at some tracks and not at others. Even World Championship challenger Jenson Button has struggled with this…

Bridgestone seems to have concluded that it is better to have people talking about the tyres rather than not talking about them – even if a lot of the references are negative.

I rejoiced when it was announced that a “control” tyre was to be brought in. But it has brought the wrong sort of control. I am not too sure that the current dark behaviour is an improvement over the honest competition of the tyre war.

If you have reached the stage where your marketing strategy is to have people make negative comments about your product, it probably is time to call it a day.

In many ways, Bridgestone get a huge amount of brand exposure through their involvement in F1. As noted in this week’s Formula1Blog.com podcast, you simply cannot watch a Grand Prix without learning that Bridgestone supply the tyres. Yet, after thirteen seasons (fifteen by the time they leave), the marginal returns to their investment must surely have diminished to almost zero. And As Keith at F1 Fanatic has pointed out, their costs are set to soar as they now have to supply twelve or thirteen teams rather than ten.

Nonetheless, it is a shock and a surprise that Bridgestone, a company that has stuck with F1 through thick and thin since 1997, has so abruptly pulled the plug. Now the FIA and Bernie Ecclestone will have a big headache trying to find someone to take Bridgestone’s place. With bridges burned with Goodyear and Michelin, and Pirelli uninterested, options seem thin on the ground.