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Archive: Super Aguri

Predictions for 2008: the teams

13 March 2008 17:42

Categories: Preview

Well, the teams have all now arrived in Melbourne. First practice gets under way at 11pm GMT this evening! How exciting! It also means that I have to rush to get my preview post written while there is still a point in making a prediction. I was hoping to write more predictions and hopes for the season, but a) some of my hopes have already been met!; and b) I don’t have the time to write any more just now.

This post is long enough though, as I look at the prospects of each of the 11 teams competing this season.

Ferrari

I hate to say it, but it looks like Ferrari are going to have it all their way this season. Their testing form has been monumental. Jarno Trulli’s arms even dropped off in awe. I do hope he’s managed to attach them again.

In all seriousness, I would actually be amazed if Kimi Räikkönen does not become the 2008 World Champion. I am a big fan of Räikkönen. I think he has just the right approach to racing. He keeps his foot to the floor and his head out of the politics. He never seeks to blame anyone else for his failings, even when there would be a case for him to do so.

And off the track he lives his life just the way he wants to, and doesn’t let anyone else’s criticism of that get in his way. If only the 21 other whiners would follow the Finn’s example.

If Räikkönen continues the form he showed in the second half of last season, he will be a formidable force. When his mind is focussed, Räikkönen is absolutely unbeatable.

As for Felipe Massa, I’m sorry but I still don’t get it. Massa must be Ferrari’s weakest driver in well over a decade. He is dire in the wet (as we saw at last year’s European Grand Prix). The loss of driver aids is also sure to hamper him more than most.

Okay, so Massa has won races. On his day he can do a good job. But a cynic might say that this just goes to prove that these days anyone can win so long as he is in the right car. The consistency just isn’t there for me to take Massa seriously.

BMW Sauber

Last season I had the utmost respect for what BMW had achieved. Under the expert leadership of Mario Theissen, it is impossible to believe that BMW can do anything other than improve. The team secured (moral) 3^rd place in the Constructors’ Championship with such ease that they were able to stop developing their 2007 car to concentrate on the 2008 car. Theoretically, this should have made them highly competitive for 2008.

Unfortunately, the reports from testing are not good. The design of the car is said to be radical, and some think that it is just too radical. The drivers are complaining about stability and balance issues. This is ominous. A balance problem is not easy to fix. Just ask Honda.

I would love to see BMW do well this season. Sadly, the initial signs do not look good. This could be a difficult learning season.

There is little to worry about in the driving department. I think Nick Heidfeld is the grid’s most underrated driver. The fact that he has never been given a chance in a truly decent car is an utter travesty. Can anyone give me a good reason why Massa should be at Ferrari and Heidfeld shouldn’t?

Meanwhile, Robert Kubica is a good, solid driver. He took in his relative stride an absolutely horrendous 75g crash in Montreal last year. He took just one race off and returned as strong as ever. However, I doubt he has the potential to become a great in the vein of Räikkönen or Alonso.

Renault

Renault is another team I like to see do well. But I just don’t think they can do it. A lot of people will be asking why Renault are off the pace. But I see no reason why they should be on the pace. Some people act as though 2007 was an unthinkably bad season for a team of such stature. Not so.

Okay, so they achieved back-to-back successes with Fernando Alonso. But apart from that, what? The same team, back in the days when they were called Benetton, also achieved back-to-back successes with Michael Schumacher — which was followed by a decade-long barren spell.

Renault has some very smart people working for it. Pat Symonds and Bob Bell are both experienced and highly capable senior personnel. You do not win World Championships by fluke.

But at the same time, where was this team in 1998? In 1999? 2001? Benetton / Renault has as many if not more mediocre seasons as it has good ones. It seems as though Renault is in one of its troughs and it’s not about to emerge from it any time soon.

It is just as well they have a proven driver like Fernando Alonso there, otherwise I would see no reason for optimism whatsoever. In my view, Alonso is the best driver on the grid. Michael Schumacher aside, he may even be the best driver of the past fifteen years. He does not make the same silly mistakes that Räikkönen makes from time to time, and he has an almost psychic ability in the wet.

But does Alonso want to be at Renault? Many have been tempted to paint this as a “homecoming” for Alonso, but he must have originally left Renault for some reason. He might not fit in to the team as well as some people seem to think. There is also the possibility that Alonso is simply using Renault as a stepping stone to another team (almost certainly Ferrari). He went to great lengths to attempt to secure a one-year contract, which raises suspicions. Alonso may lack motivation as much as he did at McLaren.

As for Nelsinho Piquet, I have to confess he is a bit of an unknown quantity to me. I haven’t managed to watch as much GP2 as I would have liked. However, what I have heard about him isn’t good.

He seems to rub a lot of people up the wrong way. A lot of people talk about his arrogance. These descriptions remind me of Ralf Schumacher. Does he think that championships should run through the family automatically? Ralf Schumacher found out the answer to that one as well.

Williams-Toyota

I feel certain that this is Williams’s year. A decade without a Championship win is a painfully long time for a team with the racing heritage of Williams. It’s amazing to think that the last time Williams won the Championship they were almost equal with Ferrari in terms of Championships won. Now Ferrari have nearly double the amount that Williams have.

The barren period has been long and painful. We have become accustomed to seeing Williams occupy the lower midfield of the grid. An acrimonious split with BMW came in the process, and the subsequent success of the German squad must have been like salt in the wound. As F1 has become increasingly dominated by big manufacturers (or soft drinks companies) with plenty of money to throw around, I have to admit that I thought Williams were doomed in the long term.

Now they are bouncing back, and how great it is to see. They even look set to embarrass their engine suppliers, Toyota. The Williams team of 2008 is very different to the one we saw in 1998. They have found their own golden boy in Nico Rosberg and seem desperate to hold on to him. What a change from the Williams of old which saw drivers as disposable commodities, almost even inconveniences.

I think Nico Rosberg is the real deal. He is very handy on the track. There have been a couple of hairy moments over the past couple of seasons, but you sense that Nico Rosberg is just the sort of person to learn from them and improve even more. And what immense maturity he has shown by remaining with Williams in the face of a “majestic” offer to race for McLaren. Clearly, the team and the driver trust each other immensely. As we have seen in the recent past with Michael Schumacher, this can be hugely important.

His team mate is Kazuki Nakajima. A lot of people scoff, but Nakajima is my dark horse for the season. He was impressive enough in his race début in Brazil last year. And his testing pace has been fairly quick on occasion as well. I see no reason why Nakajima is bound to be a failure. A cynic could say that he is only there to keep Toyota happy. But Williams can be quite a stubborn team, and I doubt they would take on a driver just to please the management bods at Toyota.

Red Bull-Renault

Along with Williams, I think Red Bull are on track to impress this season. The potential has been there for a while. You could hardly ask for a better design team than that of Adrian Newey and Geoff Willis.

The only reason Red Bull have not done so well before is really their dire reliability record. As pointed out in the post below, there were 14 mechanical DNFs last season, which is an unacceptably high figure. Word has it that the troublesome gearbox still has issues to be ironed out. Given that gearboxes are now expected to last for four races (or else drivers will be hit with a 5 place grid penalty), this must count against Red Bull.

As for the drivers, I know it is a clichéd comment to make, but I cannot resist it. For a team that is supposed to be youthful, what a couple of dinosaurs they are lumbered with.

On the other hand, this is a solid line-up of elder statesmen. David Coulthard’s career has been given a new lease of life at Red Bull Racing, and he shows no sign of stopping producing the goods. But DC’s career must be in its final one or two years now.

Mark Webber is a similar quality racing driver. But he is not a proven race winner like Coulthard, and you really have to wonder if that race win will ever come. I highly doubt it.

Looking at the line-up though, you have to ask: do Red Bull truly aspire to become a championship winning team? Is a line-up of solid but unspectacular — and ageing — drivers good enough? At the moment, this looks like a team with mid-grid aspirations. And whatever happened to the Red Bull driver programme? They are very quiet about that these days…

Toyota

Oh my goodness, are this lot still here? Will they ever take the hint and give up. Toyota reportedly have one of the biggest budgets in the pitlane, but their approach is so out of touch with the reality of running an F1 team that they might as well take the budgets away from the other teams completely — Toyota would still not win the Championship.

It is true that Honda suffer from the same problem of an ivory tower-based management who think that a car should be designed by committee. But at least Honda have won a race in the past, and BAR (although not strictly Honda) came second in 2004. And Honda have made the right move by hiring Ross Brawn to sort out their problems. Will you ever see such an action coming from Toyota? Never. We know from Ralf Schumacher’s comments that they refused even to speak to Brawn. That just says it all.

Their testing form has been inconsistent. Jarno Trulli did top the timing sheets once, but Toyota have form on running light cars to get a fast but meaningless time. I will never forget what they did at Indianapolis in 2005. That weekend had a lot of enemies, but the way the team celebrated that empty, meaningless pole position was weak. The only kind of victory that Toyota can ever win is a pyrrhic one.

Jarno Trulli is well past his sell-by date. Yes, he is a handy qualifier, but his name is also associated with the ‘Trulli train’, the phenomenon whereby Trulli falls asleep soon after the race has begun and everyone else lines up behind him, unable to overtake. Unless he can find himself in a situation similar to what Fisichella has found at Force India, I would have thought this will be Trulli’s last season in F1. Never mind; I’m sure a great career lies ahead in the vineyard.

As for Timo Glock, we will have to wait and see. This is his second chance in F1 — and not many people get that. His first stab was quite a long time ago now, so the period spent in lower formulae is suspicious. Does Glock really have what it takes?

Well, Toyota entered into a tug-of-war with BMW to secure his services, so both teams obviously think he’s worth fighting over. But Glock also played a role in GP2′s calamitous afternoon in France last year, with an embarrassing start line crash.

Toro Rosso-Ferrari

Toro Rosso have a mountain to climb if you ask me. Seemingly due to a lack of funds, they are starting the season with last year’s car, which can be and advantage as the drivers have optimistically pointed out. But their new car won’t come until around the Turkish Grand Prix, which is five races into the season. On the plus side, that Toro Rosso car had a really strong finish to the season last year, so maybe they can carry that through to this season.

Last year was quite tumultuous for Toro Rosso though, with managers and drivers falling out all over the shop, even to the extent where there were allegations of physical assault. Is that a sign of mismanagement? Do Gerhard Berger and Franz Tost have what it takes to run an F1 team? And how long will Dietrich Mateschitz be prepared to bankroll not just one but two Formula 1 teams?

Sebastian Vettel is highly rated. He impressed me a lot last season, and I am sure that will continue this season. I would say he is promising more in a Robert Kubica sense than in a Lewis Hamilton sense though!

Confusion will abound as his team mate has a similar name, Sébastien Bourdais (and that is in addition to Red Bull test driver Sébastian Buemi!). Bourdais has made the move from ChampCar to F1 just in time for the US open wheel series to be eaten up by the rival IRL series.

On the plus point, Bourdais won four ChampCar championships on the fly. On the minus, he won four ChampCar championships. Not only was ChampCar a bit of a derelict series, but US open wheel racing in general does not have a good track record of generating talented F1 stars.

On the plus side, there is Jacques Villeneuve — but was he really talented enough? On the minus, there are Alessandro Zanardi, Cristiano da Matta and Juan Pablo Montoya. All came with big hopes — all left with their tails between their legs.

Bourdais is also really late into his career to be making the switch to F1. Yet again, Red Bull isn’t exactly hiring a spring chicken. And what’s that about the Red Bull driver programme? I can’t hear anything…

Honda

My tip for the back of the grid! Seriously, given their continuing problems, I would not be surprised if Force India beat Honda on a regular basis this season. That would leave Honda at the back with… Super Aguri.

Undoubtedly Honda will begin to go in the right direction soon. Unless everyone has completely overestimated Ross Brawn’s ability, the only way is up. But until his influence seeps through, it is still a case of a chronically slow car (albeit one which apparently isn’t as unstable as last year’s shitbox). And who could forget that terrible livery? Okay, it’s an improvement on last year’s, but not by much.

If anyone can squeeze a result out of a terrible car, it is Jenson Button. We saw that last year. I never rated Jenson Button all that much, but I have to take my hat off to him for coping with that terrible car. He didn’t let himself get depressed by the situation and managed to score a fair few points by the end of the season, essentially saving Honda’s face.

Rubens Barrichello was not so impressive. He did allow himself to get depressed about the situation. By the end of the season, he and Honda were exchanging frosty comments through the press. Barrichello is on course to become the most experienced driver of all time this season — but if the Sword of Damocles is hanging over any driver, it is Barrichello.

Super Aguri-Honda

They have replaced Minardi as the small team that everyone wants to see do well. But while they pulled some impressive results out of the bag last season, I don’t see them replicating that form this season. Their financial troubles have been particularly acute this winter, and although they have now found backing they have had precious little time on the test track. I don’t even know what car they will be using this year. Plus, the management overhaul is bound to disorient the team slightly.

Takuma Sato is a much maligned driver; the butt of all kinds of jokes. But I rate Sato. Who could forget his amazing overtaking manoeuvre on Fernando Alonso at Canada last year?

It is fair to say, though, that Sato has probably had longer in F1 than he truly deserves. It is incredible that Honda even went to the trouble of setting up an entire F1 team for him, just to placate the Japanese public. Sato is one lucky man.

As for Anthony Davidson, no-one has had as rough a deal as he has. Years of graft as a test driver for Honda have culminated in a poorly-supported second-hand drive where he plays a secondary role to Sato. Surely Davidson deserves more than this.

Force India-Ferrari

When I was younger, I was a fan of the Jordan team. The heady days of success in the late 1990s were sweet. But the decline was depressing to watch. Then as the team changed hands on an annual basis, any hope of a return to the glory days faded fast. All of the energy from the Jordan team has been sucked out by a succession of cynical businessmen who didn’t realise what they were getting themselves into and just how much money they had to commit.

But at last, the Jordan team appears to be in good hands. Vijay Mallya has deep pockets and seems to be a genuine F1 fan. He appears determined to succeed for the love of the sport, not just to push his brand.

As I have said before, initially I thought Force India should have hired Vitantonio Liuzzi as their race driver. As it is Liuzzi is their test / reserve driver, which makes sense. Giancarlo Fisichella does deserve another chance at F1 glory. When most teams at the back of the grid rely on dodgy pay drivers, it is good for Force India to be able to use an experienced driver like Fisichella to push forward development. I hope it pays dividends.

Adrian Sutil is still a bit of an unknown. He is highly rated, but his on-track performances are still sporadic. How sick must he feel though — apparently he came close to clinching that McLaren drive. As it is, he has to slog for another season at the rear of the pack.

McLaren-Mercedes

This is the big question mark. How will the turmoil of last season — and, to an extent, the off season — affect the McLaren team’s preparation? Undoubtedly, the team will have been distracted. It has also had to halt development on three areas of the car, which is also have a small adverse effect.

On the other hand, they may be more determined than ever to win this season’s Championship. I don’t think they are quite there with Ferrari yet. But they are undoubtedly the red team’s biggest rivals, so you can’t write them off.

Lewis Hamilton has a lot of responsibility on his shoulders this year. The British media spotlight will be glaring on him more intensely than ever. The hungry media doesn’t forgive losers easily. It’s a cliché to say that the British media builds people up to knock them down, but it’s true. Hamilton will have to perform this year to prevent this from happening.

Hamilton also has more responsibility because he is team leader for McLaren after just one season. He is spearheading McLaren’s title campaign but he is still relatively inexperienced.

However, Lewis Hamilton is a supremely talented driver. His overtaking manoeuvres and starts last year were often unbelievable. But there is still a question mark in my mind over his tyre management, which appears to be his weakest area. Hamilton will have to learn to be more patient before he can win the Championship.

There are a lot of expectations for Heikki Kovalainen as well. He has made a name for himself by the fact that “if he was at McLaren and Hamilton was at Renault, all the hype could be surrounding Kovy.” Well, this year we will find out. Kovalainen is also relatively inexperienced. With two drivers lacking experience, that could harm McLaren this season in terms of development — although they still have wise head Pedro de la Rosa as a test driver.

I have written previously about Hamilton and Kovalainen over at BlogF1.

2 comments

F1 season review: the constructors (11th–6th)

25 November 2007 23:09

Categories: Formula 1

2007 F1 season review

A series of posts

F1 season review: the backmarkers
F1 season review: the frontrunners
F1 season review: the constructors (11th–6th)
F1 season review: the constructors (top 5)
F1 season review: broadcasts
F1 season review: podcasts
F1 season review: websites

This is the third of my posts looking at different aspects of the 2007 Formula 1 season. I have discussed the drivers here and here.

This post is the first of two in which I will assess the constructors. Or is that teams? Toro Rosso and Super Aguri barely deserve to be called constructors. Nevertheless, this post will rank the teams on all aspects of their performance — on the track, in the pitlane and beyond. So don’t expect this list to mirror the Constructors’ Championship!

11 — Spyker–Ferrari

This is becoming a familiar story. Once again Spyker struggled all season to lift itself from the back of the grid. And once again it changed owners. Spyker Cars ran into major financial difficulties this year meaning that it been sold yet again. The team that was once called Midland and was once called Jordan is now called Team Force India. This makes it four name changes in as many years.

They seem to be in competition with Super Aguri to see who can have the most ridiculous sounding name. Super Augri and Team Force India both sound like bad super hero characters from a Japanese comic.

Anyway, back to this year’s performance. There is not much you can say really. They came up with an under-performing car, and hired largely under-performing drivers. Some people rate Adrian Sutil, but Christijan Albers, Sakon Yamamoto and Markus Winkelhock were never going to set the world alight.

The team worked hard to bring out a new chassis for mid-season. Embarrassingly, however, it failed its crash test so had to be delayed still further. Even so, when the car was eventually brought to the race track, it wasn’t much more competitive.

There were a few flashes of promise for the car. A particular stand-out was the Belgian Grand Prix, where Adrian Sutil spent a considerable amount of time in 12^th position before eventually finishing 14^th. However, even here the only other cars running behind Sutil at the end of the race were Super Aguris, and Sakon Yamamoto still managed to finish last of the classified runners.

At least at the following race, the rain-soaked Japanese Grand Prix, Adrian Sutil managed to score a point. Even this was a bit of a fluke though, as it was awarded in the stewards room after it was judged that Vitantonio Liuzzi passed him under yellow flags. In the following two races, Spyker were back to their usual positions on the back row.

Still, a point is a point and this was enough to save Spyker’s blushes. They didn’t finish at the bottom of the table. Even this is a pyrrhic victory though. The only team that finished behind them was McLaren, who built arguably the best car this year and had their points taken away by an over-zealous FIA.

They have taken Minardi’s place as Formula 1′s perennial under-achievers. But thanks to their status as a temporary home for naive businessmen, they completely lack the romance that made Minardi a fans’ favourite.

10 — Honda

Oh dear. What an embarrassingly bad season Honda have had. Even Nick Fry sounded pretty pessimistic at times. I thought I’d sooner see the apocalypse.

It started off with a cheesy PR stunt to paint the Earth on the car in a supposed bid to highlight environmental concerns. While this is a laudable enough idea, it came off badly. Those in the know observed that Honda probably only did this because they couldn’t find any sponsors. Meanwhile, the reaction from non-F1 fans that I saw invariably pointed out the hypocrisy of a energy-greedy F1 team trying to boast about its environmental credentials.

Then there was the car itself, which was about as disastrous as it could get. Early in the season the drivers reported that the car had a tendency to behave unpredictably under breaking, which is hardly going to give the driver the confidence to push to the limit.

While this problem was seemingly ironed out, the car had a more fundamental issue: a lack of speed caused by fundamentally flawed aerodynamics. Undoubtedly part of the reason for this must be the inexperience of the car’s designer, Shuhei Nakamoto. Nakamoto’s experience is in motorcycles, and apparently he had never designed a car in his life. It also seems that there is a serious flaw with Honda’s wind tunnel.

The result was an embarrassingly awful car. Good reliability, but precious little speed. Honda’s RA107 chassis was regularly outpaced by the Super Aguri SA07, which was essentially last year’s Honda car. It really is something to think that Honda would have been better off with last year’s car. Every time the drivers were interviewed they sounded utterly demoralised. And who could blame them?

Thanks to some heroic performances from Jenson Button, Honda managed to score 6 points, and it could have been more at Japan. Given how bad it all looked at the start of the season, that is pretty good going. But it is a far cry from the 86 points scored in 2006 or the 119 points they scored when they finished second in the Constructors’ Championship just three years ago.

At least Honda are now doing the right thing to rectify the problem. Hiring Ross Brawn — one of Formula 1′s greatest talents — was a master-stroke. Results might not come as early as next year, but undoubtedly Honda will be on their way up again (not that they could possibly go much further down).

9 — Scuderia Toro Rosso–Ferrari

If you are a naive businessman looking to buy Team Force India in around ten months’ time, look at Toro Rosso for an example of how not to run your team.

The first thing to point out is probably the disgraceful treatment of the drivers. They refused to confirm Scott Speed as one of their drivers until about 5 minutes before the flight for Melbourne was about to leave. This is hardly the way to get your drivers in the right frame of mind.

Things went from bad to worse as it became clear that team bosses Franz Tost and Gerhard Berger were none too pleased with their drivers. Barbed comments were constantly being made about driver performances through the press and even in the team’s own press releases.

Things came to a head at the European Grand Prix where it was rumoured that Franz Tost had physically attacked Scott Speed during an altercation. Tost had blamed Speed for spinning in the rain, even though several other drivers — including the much-lauded Lewis Hamilton — had done exactly the same thing. The row was the end of Scott Speed’s relationship with Toro Rosso, and Formula 1.

It seemed as though Vitantonio Liuzzi was not in favour with his bosses either. It was obvious by mid-season that they didn’t want him there. How Berger and Tost expected Liuzzi to get better under these circumstances is still unknown.

On the track, Toro Rosso’s performance leaves a lot to be desired as well. With this year’s Adrian Newey-designed Red Bull chassis and this year’s Ferrari engine, you would expect them to be running a lot higher than they were.

Despite those woes, the team showed considerable improvement towards the end of the season. The Toro Rosso car seemed particularly strong in the wet, and Sebastian Vettel in particular put in some great performances towards the end of the season. They came close to scoring in Japan, and scored a massive 8 points in China.

8 — Toyota

Ugh, who cares any more? Really. It is the same old story. Gigantic budget, precious little to show for it. The team is run by committee. The management has its head in the sand. We all know the story. It shows no sign of changing.

How long will it take before the Toyota big wigs start properly taking notice? My hunch is that they would sooner pull out of the sport altogether rather than make any real changes.

For once, Ralf Schumacher is right. The fact that Toyota refused to speak to Ross Brawn says it all.

7 — Super Aguri–Honda

They might sound like the title of a discount NES game, but Super Aguri are in fact a wonder of Formula 1. They might have their chassis made by Honda. But let’s not forget that it’s last year’s Honda. And beyond that they seem to get very little help from Honda at all.

The odds are against them, yet they still manage to put in highly respectable performances. Regularly outpacing the Honda ‘A’ team, Super Aguri have been hard done by in the Constructors’ Championship. In the end they only scored 4 points to Honda’s 6. But the reality was so different.

The highlight of the season came in Canada where Takuma Sato pulled off a brilliant pass on Fernando Alonso to net Super Aguri 3 points. Delightful.

Apart from the odd sponsorship difficulty, they are fairly anonymous off the track. Especially given the events of this year, that is how it should be. In this era of big budget manufacturers and drinks companies crushing the privateers, Super Aguri have become the small team that everybody loves.

I just hope they don’t have to put up with that dire Honda car next year.

6 — Renault

I don’t like to see Renault doing badly, but 2007 was a bit of a stinker for them. The team has looked exceptionally strong since 2004, and it has taken two Drivers’ and two Constructors’ Championships in the process. But this year’s car was obviously not up to those standards. Pat Symonds said that in Australia the car was almost as bad as the Honda.

I don’t things were quite that bad. But for a Championship-winning team, it is shocking that they were never in a position to win a race all season (except, arguably, in Japan). They were comprehensively outpaced by BMW all season long.

The departure of Fernando Alonso clearly hit them hard. Indecision left them lumbered with the increasingly sluggish Giancarlo Fisichella and the wet-behind-the-ears Heikki Kovalainen. Kovalainen had a disappointing start to the season and later on in the year Fisichella was becoming badly covered in cobwebs.

Now Renault once again can’t seem to make their mind up about drivers. Despite impressing, Heikki Kovalainen seems to be left without a drive as the team seems set on promoting Nelsinho Piquet and wooing back Fernando Alonso.

Worst of all, events since the end of the season have been highly damaging. With McLaren having been put through the wringer for so-called “spying” allegations, Renault now face allegations which are every bit as serious as (if not more so than) what McLaren faced. Moreover, Renault have already confessed that more engineers knew about the drawings than McLaren.

It’s difficult to see how it could be worse for Renault. They won’t succeed in wooing Alonso under these circumstances, especially since Alonso has just escaped a similar mess at McLaren. And if the FIA is consistent (I know, but bear with me), Renault are headed for a huge penalty. And if that happens, chances are that Carlos Ghosn will pull the plug.

Those are my thoughts on the not-so-good six constructors. Check back next Sunday to see my top five ranking.

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F1 season review: the backmarkers

11 November 2007 20:36

Categories: Formula 1

2007 F1 season review

A series of posts

F1 season review: the backmarkers
F1 season review: the frontrunners
F1 season review: the constructors (11th–6th)
F1 season review: the constructors (top 5)
F1 season review: broadcasts
F1 season review: podcasts
F1 season review: websites

At last! I have got round to starting on my review of the Formula 1 season. Because it has taken so long for me to get round to it, I have had enough ideas gestating around for me to write several posts on this. So I will write one post every Sunday for a few weeks. Hey, somebody has to provide some F1 action on a Sunday!

Each post will focus on a different aspect of the season. Future posts will look at the performances of teams. I will also assess the various F1 media outlets — ITV, FOM, websites, blogs and podcasts.

But today I’ll start with a look at the drivers. This is the first of a two-part run-down.

It’s not easy to rank drivers. As I said a few weeks ago, they are all heroes really. But we all know that some drivers are better than others. No doubt there will be plenty of disagreements, but that is what it’s all about, huh?

26 — Sakon Yamamoto

I have seen some people say that Yamamoto compares favourably to Adrian Sutil. I just don’t get it. Why is he even in F1? He was rubbish last year at Super Aguri, and he didn’t do very much interesting this year at Spyker. Perhaps part of this is the fact that he is tootling round at the back pretty anonymously, and has therefore been overlooked.

But looking at the figures, Yamamoto was outqualified by Sutil in every single race. The books will say that Yamamoto started ahead of Sutil in Brazil, but only because Sutil started in the pitlane, presumably due to mechanical problems. In fact, looking at the qualifying times, Yamamoto set the 22^nd-”quickest” time in every single qualifying session. His blushes were only ever spared by other people’s mechanical failures.

He must have some really good sponsors.

25 — Christijan Albers

It’s a shame for Christijan Albers. He seemed like a really nice guy. Unfortunately, he simply caused too many embarrassing incidents. He was warned midway through the season by the Spyker team to clean up his act. Not long afterwards, he dangerously drove out of the pitlane with the fuel hose still attached. It was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

24 — Ralf Schumacher

Oh my goodness. What an awful season Ralf Schumacher had. Seemingly everyone had it in for him this year. The Toyota team finally lost patience with him and he appears to be out of a drive for next season.

Ralf Schumacher himself is going around telling everybody that he will be in F1 next season. If he’ll be in F1 next season, it will be driving in the Safety Car, although I’m sure the FIA would rather find someone faster.

Part of the problem with Ralf Schumacher is the fact that he is just so damn deluded. At the start of the season he declared himself to be one of the top three drivers (!) and the Toyota the fourth fastest car (!). So where were the results to back it up? Only five points all season.

And all too often he failed to cross the psychological barrier of Q1. For a team with such a huge budget and a driver with such a huge pay packet, that is simply unforgivable. Tragic. Once upon a time Ralf Schumacher was a steady pair of hands, and a proven race winner. That feels like a very long time ago now.

23 — Anthony Davidson

At last, Anthony Davidson finally got a full season in F1. What did he do? I can’t remember. A couple of impressive moments. I seem to remember one particularly unlucky qualifying session. Bad luck dogged him actually, most notably when he hit a groundhog while running 3^rd in Canada.

But he also had bad moments of his own making, like spinning during qualifying at Silverstone. Otherwise, Davidson was too anonymous for me to place him any higher.

22 — Markus Winkelhock

Markus Winkelhock’s début grand prix will surely go down in history as one of the most eventful débuts ever. The son of Manfred Winkelhock made his début where his father made his exit from F1, at the Nürburgring. It looks as though it will be Markus’s last F1 race too.

Were it not for Lewis Hamilton, Markus Winkelhock would have been the only person to lead in his début this year. In a way, Winkelhock’s achievement is all the more impressive given that he did it in the Spyker (the worst car) rather than the McLaren.

Of course, in reality luck played a huge part in Winkelhock’s race. A risky strategy was employed by Spyker as weather conditions worsened, and luck played straight into their hands. At one point, Winkelhock led by over 30 seconds and had made Kimi Räikkönen look rather silly. But it was all because of that risky strategy to put Winkelhock on extreme wets.

It was a decision that only Spyker — at the back — could afford to take. In the end, it wasn’t much more than good PR. The race was stopped because the conditions were so atrocious, and at the restart Winkelhock was swamped by faster cars. In the end, he was in the sort of position you’d expect a Spyker to be. Then in another position where you’d expect a Spyker to be — in the grass, smoking.

Still, it’s a neat thing to put on your CV. Winkelhock is the only driver in history to have started the same race at the back of the grid and at the front!

21 — Kazuki Nakajima

Another F1 son, Kazuki is the son of Satoru Nakajima. Drafted in at the last minute to replace Alexander Wurz, who went on early retirement, Nakajima had a pretty mixed Brazilian Grand Prix.

Most notably, he was involved in a horrendous accident in the pitlane where he basically crashed into two of his mechanics. Fortunately, nobody was seriously injured. Perhaps it can partly be explained by nerves and the fact that it was his first ever F1 pitstop. But it was nevertheless an unforgivable accident. He didn’t shine too much in qualifying either.

However, his race driving was pretty hot. He set the fifth fastest lap of the race, ahead of Fernando Alonso and fancied team mate Nico Rosberg. He powered through the field to finish 10^th. This has been a year of notable rookie performances, and for me, Nakajima’s Brazilian Grand Prix is up there.

20 — Rubens Barrichello

I know that the Honda was a shockingly bad car. But let’s face facts here. Jenson Button outperformed Barrichello all year. Whereas Button fought to get fast, Barrichello let the car’s poor performance get him down. It’s a far cry from his heroic days at Stewart. If he’s not over the hill, he’s certainly given up climbing it.

19 — Scott Speed

An F1 career wasted. Either Scott Speed simply wasn’t fast enough, or his career was ruined by Red Bull / Toro Rosso bosses. He had a few good drives, making a particularly good attempt at Monaco where the Toro Rosso car worked well. But of his retirements, more were down to accidents and driver error than mechanical failure.

It’s all water under the bridge now though as Scott Speed heads off to forge a new career in stock cars in the USA.

18 — Vitantonio Liuzzi

As Scott Speed, but with some points. Liuzzi also shone at Monaco. At one point in qualifying he was running among the front-runners — setting the fourth-fastest time in Q1 — until a set-up change ruined it all. He eventually qualified 13^th and had an unlucky race, being crashed out by Coulthard.

Things looked up a bit towards the end of the season. It became clear that the Toro Rosso was pretty handy in the wet, and Liuzzi was able to wring out some respectable results — almost scoring in Japan and finishing 6^th in China. However, he was still outperformed by team mate Sebastian Vettel towards the end of the season. Overall though, Liuzzi’s qualifying performances tended to outshine those of his team mate, whether it was Speed or Vettel.

Midway through the season it was clear that, as with Scott Speed, Liuzzi’s relationship with the management at Toro Rosso had broken down. So he won’t remain at Toro Rosso. Is this the last we’ve seen of Liuzzi? I feel as though he’s had a lot of bad luck in his career. It is only a few years ago that the F3000 champion was being talked about as a future Ferrari driver.

17 — Jarno Trulli

Toyota is like an old folk’s home. But a one where they pay you to stay there. I guess this was just like 2006 for Jarno Trulli, but with fewer jibes about the “Trulli train”, the phenomenon whereby everybody gets stuck behind Jarno Trulli and the leaders disappear off into the distance. I give him one more year in F1.

16 — Giancarlo Fisichella

It’s much the same with Giancarlo Fisichella. In fact, when you look at it, the careers of Trulli and Fisichella have followed extraordinarily similar paths. The broke onto the scene with Minardi, then had some promising stints at Benetton / Renault and some wilderness years at Jordan.

Since then they have diverged a bit, with Trulli going to the Panasonic Toyota Retirement Home and Fisichella constantly being given the benefit of the doubt by Renault. It is clear that Fisichella is not as fast as some people once thought. Outclassed entirely by Alonso and now by rookie Heikki Kovalainen, it is obvious that Fisi is on the wane, big time.

He lucked in to an extension of his Renault contract with the departure of Alonso. Now it might happen again if Kovalainen moves. Expect Nelsinho Piquet to give him a pasting in 2008.

15 — Adrian Sutil

I am not sure if my placing of Adrian Sutil is a little on the high side. It is difficult to tell when a driver is in the worst car. But in a way, it is this very fact that makes me place him so high.

Sutil is a bit of a question mark. Some people seem to be quite impressed with him, while others think he is nothing special. But for me, the facts speak for themselves. He was only outqualified twice all year, and three different drivers were up against him in that Spyker.

It would be fascinating to see how he measures up in a better car. My gut feeling is that Sutil is a competent driver like, say, Button rather than a truly fast driver like Alonso.

14 — Takuma Sato

Takuma Sato has further cemented his reputation as the greatest driver ever to come out of Japan. He has outshone Anthony Davidson for most of the year, if not in qualifying then certainly in the races. Who could forget the moment when Sato overtook Alonso in Canada? I was jumping with joy. Certainly one of the best moments of the year.

That’s my view on the back half of the field. Next week I’ll post my thoughts on the other 13 drivers who competed this year.

« — Next in series »

4 comments

I am fed up with the power-crazy FIA’s interfering

19 October 2007 20:13

Categories: Formula 1, Max Must Go

I have really had enough. Formula 1 is being ruined by a ridiculously Byzantine rule book, political in-fighting, inconsistent penalty decisions, nonsensical posturing and the power-crazy FIA President responsible for it all.

It seems to me as though the FIA is increasingly determined to stick its nose in everything, constantly bossing the teams and bosses around for no good reason, and ruining the sporting spectacle for the fans at home. All too often the race result is changed hours after the chequered flag is waved. And with the multitude of almost-random grid penalties being handed out race-in race-out they really might as well draw lots to determine the grid order.

There is no need for McLaren to be given a special scrutineer to ensure that Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso are given equal treatment throughout the weekend. Even Fernando Alonso — whose complaints set off the chain of events that led to McLaren getting the extra scrutineer — says that it is completely unnecessary.

There is surely no-one who seriously considers that McLaren would do anything but offer their drivers complete equality — as far as they possibly can — this weekend. For a start, if anything goes wrong with Alonso’s car, there will be no shortage of people ready to suspect the worst and waiting to throw stones at Ron Dennis for it.

But even if McLaren were to ditch their long-standing (and contractually-binding) policy of equality between their two drivers, what business is it of the FIA’s? None whatsoever. McLaren are a private team, and they should be allowed to run their team in whatever way they see fit. Of course, Max Mosley sees it differently.

How interesting, though, that the FIA turned a blind eye to Ferrari’s policy of explicitly favouring one driver over another during the years that Michael Schumacher drove for them. Not only was this Ferrari’s well-known policy, but Ferrari were proud of it. Many today see it as the model by which all modern F1 teams should be run. If the FIA are so worried about equality, why are they not intervene when Michael Schumacher was competing for any of the five World Championships that he won for Ferrari, or for Ferrari’s own six Constructors’ Championships?

As if that wasn’t bad enough, on Friday at Interlagos came news that three drivers had broken a rule that nobody had heard of. Why on earth is there a rule concerning the number of sets of wet tyres a team can use during a practice session?

Quick, fire up the FIA Random Penalty Generator. Because we don’t know where Takuma Sato, Jenson Button or Lewis Hamilton will be on the grid. That’s right, Lewis Hamilton. Given all the criticism the FIA have faced this season, you would think they would be sensible enough to keep their grubby mitts off the championship battle and let the drivers decide the outcome on the track, the way sport should be.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I am not the biggest fan of Lewis Hamilton. But I must sympathise with him and the McLaren team here. Of course, it is fair enough if Lewis Hamilton and the McLaren team have broken a rule. To be frank, it baffles me why Lewis Hamilton needed two sets of tyres when he only did a dozen or so laps. And McLaren (and Honda and Super Aguri) should not be in the sort of situation where they find themselves not knowing the rules.

But this is quite a silly rule that I can’t understand the point of. This probably comes under the FIA’s catch-all “cost cutting” heading, the excuse they give for introducing all of their silliest rules. It is on days like this when I wonder if Formula 1 would not be better just re-writing the rules from scratch.

A good government needs to learn when to leave things alone and treat people as mature adults who can sort things out for themselves. Of course, most governments rather prefer to grab as much power as they can, and the FIA is no different.

9 comments

Too many thoughts on Fuji

2 October 2007 23:15

Categories: Formula 1

Firstly — apologies for the lateness of my review of the Japanese Grand Prix. Another busy weekend spilled over into Monday, and is spilling over into Tuesday and Wednesday as well. (I am being very naughty by writing this post.)

There are so many talking points that it is difficult to know where to start.

I guess I should start by noting that it looks as though Lewis Hamilton will be this year’s World Champion. On the basis of his performance in treacherous conditions at Fuji, he fully deserves it. I still think that Fernando Alonso deserves to be World Champion more because I think he has been on balance the better driver. But it’s points that matter.

Hamilton’s drive at Fuji was solid and impressive. In a lot of ways it was a basic pole-to-flag drive for Hamilton. Besides a little run-in with Kubica, he had no real challenges to face. Not much impressive in that, dreadful conditions aside of course. This does not rank alongside, for instance, Senna at Donington in 1993, or even with Alonso at Hungaroring in 2006.

But Hamilton’s race showed firstly that he can drive in the wet. As his engineer noted at the end of the race, he has ticked the “driving in the wet” box that he so conspicuously failed to tick earlier this year at the Nürburgring. It also shows just how quickly he is learning. He made no obvious clangers at Nürburgring, but it was overall a pretty scrappy and unimpressive race. Fuji put that to bed.

It was exactly the opposite for Alonso. It is difficult to know exactly what was wrong with Alonso at Fuji. The conditions should have worked in his favour. Driving in the wet is a major strength of his, as last year’s Hungarian GP demonstrated. At Fuji, though, he was all over the place (certainly in comparison to Hamilton). Seemingly, Hamilton got pole with a heavier car as well.

For another reminder of how well Hamilton is doing, you just had to look from the back of Hamilton’s car on lap 45. Behind the safety car, Sebastian Vettel caused one of the most embarrassing crashes of the season. Mark Webber was running second for Red Bull, and he felt like he was in with a chance of winning. Sebastian Vettel was in third for the Red Bull sister car, Toro Rosso. It would be a historic finish for Red Bull, and for Toro Rosso who were on line for their first ever podium, and their first points of the season.

Then Vettel lost his concentration behind the safety car and slammed straight into the back of Webber. Both cars had to retire from the race. Vettel was distraught — crying in the garage upon his sheepish return to the pitlane. How does he explain to the boss what happened?

Webber was noticeably furious, and threw the steering wheel from his car as though he were an Olympic shot put competitor. ITV reported that early on in the race Webber had been sick in his helmet. Lesser men would give up when their stomachs empty themselves. That’s what separates us from Grand Prix racing drivers. The decision to continue was being paid off in the form of second place.

I bet while he was running in second he had forgotten all about the vomit in his helmet. Being slammed in the rear by a driver of his sister team was probably enough to make him sick all over again. Take a sip of water to calm yourself down. Oh no, you were sick into your straw.

Furious Webber stormed back to the pitlane and blasted Vettel in the strongest possible terms. It provided the funniest moment of the race. On live Saturday morning television, in the same slot where Pocoyo is normally shown, he blasted, voice noticeably trembling with rage:

It’s kids, isn’t it. It’s kids with not enough experience, and they just go and FUCK IT ALL UP!

Here it is on YouTube — enjoy it while you can, before FOM remove it.

Vettel has probably lost a lot of his reputation with that moment. Usually it would be forgiven as a rookie mistake, but the problem is that this year there is a rookie who you cannot envisage making that kind of mistake. More evidence of what a good job Hamilton is doing. (Having said that, I can’t think of Kovalainen dropping any similar clangers either.)

Someone else who lost a lot of reputation — as if he had any left to lose — was Ralf Schumacher. During qualifying 1 he was seemingly worried about not making the cut. For whatever reason he felt the need to take an ambitious move alongside a Spyker. Unfortunately, instead of going alongside the Spyker, he just went straight into it and damaged his car so badly that he wouldn’t have been able to go into Q2 anyway. To rub salt into the wound, he qualified for it. Yesterday, Ralf Schumacher ~~was sacked~~ left Toyota.

I suppose this is the thing about wet races. It makes some people look like complete idiots. It makes other people look like superheroes. So many drivers put in amazing performances at Fuji. I have already noted Hamilton, Webber and Vettel (before his boo-boo moment).

But Kimi Räikkönen was probably the most impressive driver on the track. He suffered badly from Ferrari’s strategic (and rule-breaking) blunder to start the race on intermediates while everyone else was on full wets. It was a nonsensical decision in the first place, and after just a few laps behind the safety car both Ferrari drivers had to pit in to change to full wets, relegating them to dead last.

Despite this, and in those crazy conditions as well, Räikkönen and Massa both managed to get themselves into potential podium positions. Räikkönen in particular had a stunning race, with a notable move on the outside of David Coulthard being the highlight. It really is the stuff that champions are made of. I hope Räikkönen’s career won’t finish as a case of “if only” as it has been so far.

Kudos also to Massa who was ahead of Räikkönen which is really inconvenient for Ferrari’s hopes in the Drivers’ Championship. And team orders don’t exist, especially from Ferrari. So it was time for a suspicious “splash n dash” to let Räikkönen ahead of Massa, who dropped straight back to 7^th.

I suppose we shouldn’t be so cynical. It did let us see a truly amazing last-lap ding-dong battle between Massa and Kubica. There was an uncomfortably high amount of the run-off areas being used. I feel that Massa’s wide line through the run-off at the final corner is what gave him the edge over Kubica in the end, but they were both guilty of using the run-off areas. It provided some damn fun racing, but you can’t help feeling that they were both… cheating?

Ah yes cheating. What about that business with starting on intermediates when they were told to go on wets? Ferrari didn’t get the email apparently! Hah! Yeah right. All of the other teams and even the commentators knew the deal, but Ferrari didn’t. Likely story. Of course, FIArrari believed them.

I should also mention Jenson Button. After his torrid season in a shitbox Honda, he qualifying performance was truly encouraging and I was hoping that he could get a good result. Unfortunately he lost his front wing early on and had to get it replaced.

Rather alarmingly, though, he ran sans front wing for a few laps without any major drop-off in performance. An illustration of just how bad that Honda is — it can lose its front wing and you wouldn’t be able to tell from the times being set.

Liuzzi almost scored a point for Torro Rosso. It would have been scant consolation for Vettel’s lost podium, but it would have been something. Yup, it would have been, had he not passed Sutil under a yellow flag! Doh!

So instead, Adrian Sutil scored his first point, and Spyker’s first point as well. Just in time to impress their latest new owner (they must have had four owners in as many years!). In seriousness, Sutil is seriously impressing this season. A drive at a better team for 2009 surely beckons.

History also for Heikki Kovalainen, who took Renault’s first podium of the year, and his first podium of the career. Apparently it is also the first time two Finns have been on the podium, so a good day to remember for Finland.

A shockingly awful day for Japan though. On their home territory, all of the teams with Japanese links did awfully. I have already mentioned Schumacher and Button. Barrichello was 10^th, Trulli finished dead last of the runners, both Williams-Toyotas and both Super Aguris failed to finish. Sakon Yamamoto was 12^th. Who would be a Japanese F1 fan?

This is just a bit of what I have been thinking. I could go on and on and on about that race, but I have to stop somewhere. The championship looks like it’s nearly over, but I can’t wait for the Chinese Grand Prix. Luckily, we only have to wait a few days for it.

Update: As soon as I published this, I spotted this on Sidepodcast. It provides very convincing evidence that Hamilton could have caused the collision between Webber and Vettel. It also backs up Vettel’s post-race comments about how he was being put off by Hamilton. Commentators noted Hamilton’s erratic driving behind the safety car, and it does look a little bit like Hamilton was taking things rather over the line with his excessive start–stop driving.

You can only assume that he was deliberately trying to cause an accident, or rattle his opponents. (As Sidepodcast notes, it can’t have been warming brakes, because that involves abrupt changes in speed, not the gradual halt that Hamilton comes to.) What do you think? Watch quickly, before FOM take it down.

I have to say, well done to the person who took the footage. It’s better than anything the actual TV director took of the incident, and reveals a whole lot more of what was going on in the incident.

Update: The original video has, as predicted, been removed by FOM. For the benefit of the many visitors still reading this post, here is another copy of the video. This will probably get pulled down as well.

Via Telegraph Technology.

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