On Off-Track Excursions

So with Hungary weekend already under way as I write this I'm certainly late to the party, but I wanted to comment on the rules about leaving the track during races in general, and Vettel's penalty from last weekend in Germany in particular.

The relevant section in the FIA Formula 1 2012 Sporting Regulations say:

20.2 Drivers must use the track at all times. For the avoidance of doubt the white lines defining the track edges are considered to be part of the track but the kerbs are not.  A driver will be judged to have left the track if no part of the car remains in contact with the track.  Should a car leave the track the driver may rejoin, however, this may only be done when it is safe to do so and without gaining any advantage.

The evidence, such as it is, turns out to be pretty clear cut:

There we see Mr. Vettel well off the left hand side of the track as denoted by the white lines.  In this case, the blue-and-white kerbing is not part of the track.

But -- and this to my eyes is the most interesting part -- the McLaren of Mr. Button is hanging off the track.  Mr. Button has clearly not left the track, since his right hand wheels are still between the white lines.

Here's why this is interesting:  had Mr. Vettel kept his car between the white lines -- or just tried to hang on to the track with this right had wheels -- the two cars would have collided.  The question as to who would have been "responsible" for the collision would be a toss up based on which result the view would most like to see.  Button's supporters could argue that since he had the inside line around the hairpin, his car had "the racing line" and therefore Vettel should have yielded.  On the other hand, since Vettel's car was on the outside, it had the racing line once the line came out to him, and Button should have yielded.

Personally, I would rather Button have the place since he is further behind Alonso in the Driver's Championship table; but I also personally see the value in drivers given the option to avoid collisions and surviving to contest another corner, so I would have ruled in Vettel's favor.

I think if the FIA is going to enforce this "leaving the track" regulation in these circumstances they are going to have to be clearer about who has to yield in these circumstances, because otherwise drivers are going to hang onto the track and we are going to have collisions as cars race.

A prime example of this would be the collision in Valencia between Maldonado and Hamilton.  Yes, one could argue that Maldonado was off track immediately before the collision; however we could equally argue that Hamilton pushed him there.  In any event, the stewards evidently considered Hamilton's retirement punishment enough; and Maldonado was awarded a drive-through penalty for being there at the time.

The FIA really needs to figure this one out.  If drivers end up retiring after collisions caused by desperately hanging on to the track to avoid this "leaving the track" nonsense -- how is that a net benefit for F1?

Half-Assed Predictions for 2012

With the 2012 season gearing up, here are my predictions, such as they are, for 2012:

• Your manufacturer's world champion: McLaren.  Just watching the testing buzz I think that Red Bull is vulnerable this year for some reason and that the McLaren will have an early, run-away advantage over the field.
• Your world champion: Either Jensen Button or Sebastien Vettel.  I think that Vettel is the real deal and if anyone can overcome the challenges that I think Red Bull will have in the early going it will be him.  If he can't, my view is that Hamilton will be easilly rattled early going and Button will be the one with the lead. The question will be "can Vettel catch him before the end of the season".
• Ferrari will have a miserable year.  Maybe two wins maximum, both for Alonso, both when the McLarens and Vettel are sidelined or held back for some reason.  Possibly regular podiums.  The car will be reliable rather than fast and the team will struggle to find speed.  Ferrari will be best of the rest this year -- possibly a distant 2nd or 3rd in the Manufacturer's title behind McLaren but on the approximate order of Red Bull.
• Alonso will collect maybe two wins and a handful of podiums, but the car will be reliable rather than fast.  Alonso will deal with this reality better than Massa does.
• 2012 will be Massa's last year at a top F1 team, possibly his last year in F1 at all.  Massa is a quality driver, no doubt -- he just isn't an elite driver and the car won't be able to make up that difference.  He'll be in around the Mercedes and Webber and achieve a reasonably reliable record.  It won't be considered enough and Ferrari might be decent enough to wait until the end of the season to announce a replacement -- but more likely it'll happen before September.
• Mercedes may win one race, but it won't be Schumacher.  It will be Rosberg and he'll do it on merit -- not through "changeable conditions".  Overall they may hound Ferrari but my view is they'll be 4th overall.
• Politically: FOTA will continue to implode as the FIA uses Ferrari's absence as a wedge with the rest of the teams.  There will be no replacement Concorde Agreement signed in 2012.  There will be some talk about the teams buying an interest in the commercial side of F1 but I expect this will be blocked by the smaller teams on the grounds that buying an equity position into F1 as a requirement for participation will blow affordability out of the water, and the alternative (the grandee teams owning an interest while the smaller teams don't) would be construed as the fox guarding the hen house.  Besides, any and all negotiations will be thrown up into chaos because...
• Shocker: 2012 will be Bernie Ecclestone's last in F1.  I don't know if he's gonna die or have a stroke or get sent to prison or something, but my gut tells me we'll be dealing with the chaos of his sudden absence rather than his continued presence.  And chaos it will be since he won't be around to manipulate the Concorde Agreement negotiations or help take care of whatever regulations interpretation firestorm blows up.  There will be a ton of opportunists who streak in either to "take control" or make a money grab.  If the courts are involved and the various shell and holding companies Ecclestone uses have to be liquidated then control of the sport will be in doubt.  It will be a very tense winter in the run-up to 2013 with lots of people wondering if F1 will survive into 2014.

My 2012 Deadpool predictions:

• Bernie Ecclestone (see above).
• HRT will change ownership at least once if not expire completely.
• Marussia (formerly Virgin) will change ownership at least once but probably survive into 2013.
• Lotus Cars will experience ownership problems that will result in the Lotus team (formerly Renault) having catastrophic cash flow problems.  Whether or not the Lotus team survives is up to whomever buys Lotus Cars (unlikely) or the team's ability to find a large quantity of alternative financing in a hurry.  The results of the early season will be critical in terms of finding that finance.
• Red Bull will have another go at selling Torro Rosso but be stymied again by the global economy and the fact that HRT will always be a cheaper buy.
• I think the Indian billionaire financing Force India will stay ahead of the hounds for 2012, but the team will be fundamentally owned by someone else for 2013.

Tune in again in November for the laughing and pointing.

Stupid Regulations

I'm more than a bit peeved that I added an entire extra hour on the end of the scheduled grand prix time, and it STILL managed to cut out just before the end of the 2 hour rain delay. So I got to see almost NO racing.

Also disappointed by the poor Ferrari showing. Alonso's tire gamble for intermediates backfired, and Massa managed to be in the wars. The rain was always going to make Sunday into a lottery, effectively wasting the good qualifying showing. As I commented on Saturday, it's amazing what a poor season will do for lowering standards of good news.

Also pathetic was Hamilton's trail of "incidents". He banged wheels with Webber with no consequence, then banged wheels with his team mate which managed to only put himself out. He also had a safety car speed violation, which was rendered academic by his self-inflicted elimination. I think Lauda goes too far when he claims Hamilton is going to get someone killed; but I think he needs to settle down just a bit perhaps.

But hey, let's give props to Button for being the clear master of the conditions -- fighting back from extra pit stops and a drive-through in order to put pressure on Vettel at the end, and being able to take advantage of a Vettel's uncharacteristic mistake on the last lap. I agree with Button, this was probably his greatest victory so far in his career.

What We Learned: Australia 2011

What we learned from yesterday's GP:

• DRS isn't working in its current form. The only convincing DRS-enabled pass was Jenson Button blowing past a backmarker that he'd have blown past later anyways. When his McLaren was on even terms with Massa's Ferrari -- that is to say, the McLaren was visibly faster once released by the Ferrari -- DRS didn't help. Most of the other passes that happened could be attributed to tire degradation, in that cars with fresh tires are much faster than cars on worn tires. Watching one of the Ferrari's stalk Button before he peeled off on a tire change, you could see the DRS being deployed and it making almost no impression on the McLaren. Definitely not the go-faster tool that the FIA envisioned.
• Ferrari is probably the third-fastest car right now. Alonso had a terrible start, but even so managed to be making up ground on third-place Petrov at the end. If he had not had the terrible start, he probably would have been ahead of Petrov's Renault. However he'd also be behind Button's McLaren, so at this point there is work to do. The F150* will almost definitely win races and may contend later this year, but for now it is clearly best of the rest.
• Vettel still has it: a dominating performance in qualifying gave him the platform to convert to an almost uncontested win. This car/driver combination still looks unbeatable. What more needs to be said?
• I don't want to write off Massa, but this performance is just more of the same we saw last year -- much slower than his team mate and vague complaints of technical difficulties, this time "rear tire issues". It would be too easy to write him off at this point, we'll check back in after a couple more races before we polish the axe.
• Petrov impressed, but would Kubica have bettered that result? The year's worth of experience had done Petrov's performance a world of good, and a trouble-free run grants him his first podium. He probably is the beneficiary of Alonso and Button's poor luck. All things being equal, I don't see him regularly coming home in front of those two cars.
• Sauber stumbles: running the entire distance on one tire change, especially when others were having severe problems making them last, is impressive. To see both cars excluded due to a technical infringement that didn't grant them a competitive advantage is a shame.

---
*= ...th itallia blah blah blah, whatever. It's the F150 to me.

Farewell to Turkey?

It seems disappointing that a circuit which promotes actual racing is now possibly to be dropped by the series.

Where else have we seen this much actual racing -- in the dry no less?

• Hamilton and Vettel off the start, and then back again;
• Button passing Schumacher towards the end of the first lap;
• Vettel having a go at Webber, even if it ended in tears;
• Button and Hamilton having a go at each other;
• Alonso passing Petrov for position.

And that's just the for-points passes.

Button's McLaren may have been up to a second a lap faster than Schumacher's Mercedes, but the point is that he was able to pass instead of being held up.

This circuit shows how a race course should be set up, both to let the cars run and to give them opportunities to pass.

It is too bad that is is out in the middle of nowhere and cannot attract sufficient spectators to make it a viable enterprise. This seems to be putting an end to the event, even though the track itself seems custom-made for actual racing.

Business As Usual

Well I was working enough this weekend that I somehow failed to get the PVR sorted, and being on the job this morning meant I couldn't catch the race live. But like any good commentator I can have an opinion about something I've not seen, right?

So what happened?

• Rain;
• Button making a lucky brilliant tire choice;
• collisions in the mid-field; and
• Hamilton doing something which feels vaguely improper in some way but somehow escaping from the incident with nothing more than a warning reprimand. (Sure do enjoy the difference these former-drivers-turned-stewards are making to the effectiveness of the rules enforcement, eh? What's going to be the magic term for the next race? He'll be "cautioned" instead?)

Sounds like business as usual at the FIA.

Button: Man or Monkey?

F1Fanatic ranks this year's drivers, ending with Jenson Button as number one. But the telling quote is the reader-supplied quote on Button:

It’s all well and good having a good car, but Barrichello has proved that its not just about the car. Button has driven superbly this season, and completely outdone Barrichello in the same machinery. --Claire MSJ

The thing is, I still don't rate Button very highly, for the same reason that I never rated Villeneuve highly -- his success only came when he was in a car which had a huge advantage over the rest of the field.

In Villeneuve's case, my description is usually Williams built a car that a monkey could win the world championship in. And in this case, there is a compelling argument that this is precisely what happened.

When Villeneuve's career was winding down, he found himself in the BAR with Button in the opposite car. While the car flattered neither driver, neither driver particularly covered themselves in glory while driving it.

The way Button's season has suddenly appeared to sag at the seams just as everyone was warming up the Button Becomes World Championship headlines gives lie to the suggestion that while he is certainly a competent driver, he is hardly exceptional.

The excuses have been convenient -- the Brawn can't deal with the cooler temperatures which prevailed at Silverstone or Nurburgring. The KERS cars had a technological edge in Hungary. But the fact is that those same KERS cars where overwhelmed at Monaco, where the Brawn put on a clinic of domination.

Brawn walks a tightrope as a team right now, balancing the need to strike the Championship now, while the fire is hot, and building a team which will compete reasonably in the future. Given their financial state, and the almost total lack of visible sponsorship support, one would think that the short-term thinking of maximizing performance potential today would be the best thing they could do; otherwise, their performance could drop off before a big-money sponsor is committed for next year.

But all that aside, if Button is going to promote himself from the ranks of the truly adequate, he's going to have to bring something special to the second half of the season.