Force India step up in the tight midfield battle

It’s time to eat humble pie. Before the season began I wrote a couple of posts outlining my pessimism for the prospects of Force India and their new driver Paul di Resta. I think it’s now fair to say that I was wrong on this! The “midfield battle” for sixth place in the Constructors’ Championship […]

Has Force India peaked?

It is a cliche to say, but it’s true — predicting a team’s performance on the basis of testing form is a mug’s game. Just ask Mr Sniff Petrol. But one thing I am pretty sure of is that Force India have taken a step backwards. Force India’s 2010 was a story of unfulfilled promise. […]

Does Paul di Resta deserve to be in F1?

Let me start off by pointing out that I would really like to see Paul di Resta do well in F1. It is always good to see fresh blood and I am a big fan of his cousin, Dario Franchitti. But I have found Paul di Resta’s route into F1 curious. Why does Paul di […]

F1 2010 mid-season rankings — part 2

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 […]

What went wrong with Williams?

I’ll be upfront here. While many like Williams, with their “plucky underdog” status and stridently independent approach, they have never been my among my favourite teams. To the extent that I have ever liked them, it has been as the anti-Ferrari. In other words, I like them about as much as I like McLaren, which […]

Boring Bahrain backlash

I have to say I have found the Bahrain Grand Prix boring — well, the aftermath of it. All the same old whingers keep on stomping their feet about their old hobby-horses. They couldn’t wait for this season to start so that they could claim that Formula 1 has been broken by X, Y and […]

The bad and ugly sides of the new F1 teams

Yesterday, I began looking at this year’s new F1 teams. This was following Ferrari’s controversial blog post and the news surrounding some of the new teams that has dominated the F1 news websites. Yesterday I looked at the good aspect of the process — the relative success of Lotus and Virgin. Today, I turn my […]

2009 driver rankings: #25-#11

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 […]

Au revoir Renault?

On top of the exits of Bridgestone and Toyota came news that Renault had held an emergency board meeting to discuss their future in Formula 1. According to Andrew Benson at the BBC: The French car company was considering whether to remain in the sport with its own team, switch to simply being an engine […]

Button’s bounce back

This season never ceases to amaze me. The racing hasn’t always been the best, but the outcomes have seldom been predictable. At first, the utter dominance of Brawn, and Button in particular, was unbelievable. They were unstoppable, and it took longer for the other teams to catch up. Then when the other teams caught up, […]