Driver Skill Is Obviously All-Important

Your finishers, in China 2015:



If only Sainz had not fallen out and spoiled a perfect finish.

Best Of The Rest

A solid 3-4 finish is pretty good, especially considering the mess of futility that last year was.  I am pretty happy about it.

Thinking about it, I think the deficiencies, we can assume that the Ferrari engine is a huge step forward this year.  Maybe not "Mercedes" class -- although the engine is powering perenial back-marker Sauber into more reasonable competitive results, and we know traditionally their car isn't much good -- but still pretty good (the engine).  So from that, I think that the Williams car is inferior to the Ferrari car, which fits with my theory of the Williams merely being the best also-ran last year which benefited from the Mercedes dominance.  With the Ferrari resurgence, Williams is once again behind the serious leaders.  The other Mercedes team that benefited last year, Force India, is similarly unremarkable, and Lotus is really just coming to grips with things.  Clearly, the Mercedes is less of an advantage this year.

Renault is in big trouble, and not just because Red Bull is threatening to have a temper tantrum and go home.  Their engine is where the Ferrari of 2014 was -- which was nowhere.

Red Bull having a gearbox which is apparently made of glass isn't helping any either.  This is the first post-Newey year, but you'd expect them to have their act together a little better than this.

Honda is of course the worst of the worst, but that's because they are in their first year and anyways are showing a surprising amount of realism in their expectations.  I think Q2 is a reasonable goal for this year, judging from what's happened so far this year.

For me, I think this is as good as we can expect for this year.  Ferrari isn't going to take the race to the Mercedes week in and week out, but with reliability they can collect solid points and be there for when the Mercedes duo trip over each other.  Perhaps in the desert at Bahrain things might go better, and perhaps at circuits where engine power is less important (ie: Monaco) they will have a chance, but for me the titles are already out of reach.  And frankly I'm okay with that.

Interlude

Well that turned out a lot better than we were afraid it was going to, didn't it?

(Yet!) another fifth place on the grid for Alonso, and another forgettable grid position for Raikkonen, and one might be forgiven for anticipating yet another race of mediocrity -- with maybe some points at the end of the day. Instead Alonso ran in the top three with little to genuinely worry him. While the Mercedes were -- again -- in a different zone, it didn't look like they were on the different planet that they were in Bahrain two weeks ago. Alonso never really challenged them. But conspicuous by their absence was every other Mercedes-powered team: Force India (6th and 9th); Williams (7th and the error dropping Massa); and McLaren (forgettable and worse than that).

The Bulls were around as usual, but Ricciardo didn't really look like he'd be able to collect up Alonso before the end of the event. The Bull was faster at the end, but the Ferrari was fast enough.

With all that, I don't think this is a breakthrough or a turning point, just a track that the Ferrari suits better than the other cars. I rather suspect that it will be back to business as usual next time with Mercedes-powered cars dominating the points, with the Bulls and the Ferraris -- in that order -- collecting what's left.

What We Learned: China 2011

Having watched Sunday's race through a haze of small children and pain medication, I may not be especially coherent.

• Red Bull isn't invincible: Somehow Vettel found himself unable to fend off Hamilton's McLaren at the end of the race, having wrung the life out of his tires at that point.
• Qualifying poorly may be a tactical advantage: Too bad that Webber and the team got the qualifying dance wrong, with Webber lining up 18th. But Webber put on a clinic on how to put to good use all the available, unused option tires he had available as a result. Definitely the drive of the day.
• Strange Strategies: the teams at the front which deviated from the expected two stop race (ie McLaren, Webber, Mercedes) all fared better on balance than the teams that did the expected (which actually is just Vettel and the Ferraris). Massa and Vettel were out front with only a handful to go, but their tires were done and they were powerless to resist those which caught them. In Massa's case, he slid all the way back to 6th, as Hamilton, Webber, Button, and Rosberg all steamed by and was still only 15 seconds back of winner Hamilton at the flag.
• Alonso brings up the rear again: For the third event in a row, Massa finished the first lap in front of his team leader. Massa seems to be either getting luckier than Alonso is right now -- or he is just better at making his own luck.
• Another DRS fault for Alonso: While not exactly in his favor, at least it wasn't to his detriment the way it was last week in Malaysia. Ferrari has some work to do with this system still.
• Faster cars burn more fuel: or so Mercedes has learned with Rosberg's car. Rosberg had to go into serious fuel consumption management during part of the race or would have risked running out.
• Whither Renault? After impressing at the first two stops, the Renault cars did not impress the way some had expected in China. Time will tell if this is merely a case of the rest of the field developing while Renault stands still, or if the Renault car is going to turn into a specialist for some types of circuits.

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.

Rain Action

So we've now had two races with rain, and both of them yielded more action than the dry desert race we had before.

Australia featured a lot of action, with cars having more ability to pass each other. Malaysia seemed to be drying faster, and after the initial burst of activity we were left with a high-speed procession -- until mechanical failures happened.

While the track at Bahrain was not conducive to having a lot of passing, one would have hoped that a car which was a second faster than the one it was catching up to would be able to at least have a couple of good goes.

Australia had the tire change gamble that paid off for Button and not so much for the Red Bull cars or Hamilton. Behind the leaders there was quite a bit of action due to the still wet sectinos of the track. Malaysia seemed to dry more quickly and once everyone settled down there wasn't much action.

At this point people are predicting rain for China tomorrow, and while that might be good as far as action goes, it would be nice to see a dry race to see if the 2010 cars are actually any good at providing more than a high speed train.

Tied With Force India

It is almost inconceivable that Ferrari has sunk this low: three races in, and only Force India sits with Ferrari as not having scored any championship points this year.

Some people are pointing to Massa's positioning before his retirement as a good sign; some had him finishing fifth or fourth splitting the Brawn cars had he been able to continue running. The team's evaluation is even rosier, claiming a podium was not out of the question. While I think that more than a bit optimistic, points were definitely on the table when this "electrical" problem forced him to come to a stop. The bottom line is that you shouldn't go counting your points before the checkered flag. No finish == no points, with Massa only 1 for 3 in the "finished" category this year. And Malaysia was a lottery when it came to finishers and points, but it is a lottery Massa failed to score in.

Raikkonen, on the other hand, comments on a lack of grip after a pitstop, a problem which "went away on its own". While the Ferrari is definitely not a world beater, in Kimi's hands these days it looks especially ordinary.

Looking ahead, there is little change in the cards for Bahrain; new aero bits are scheduled for Spain.

There are, however, rumblings in the media. Take for example this story from Autosport:

Ferrari not ruling out writing off '09

Speaking at Shanghai on Sunday night, Domenicali refused to rule out the possibility of the team abandoning the development push on its 2009 car if matters do not improve when a double-decker diffuser version of its F60 is raced for the first time at the Spanish Grand Prix.

In other words, the story says: Ferrari isn't giving up on 2009 yet. Well I don't see stories being written about McLaren giving up on 2009 yet.

It is far too soon to start thinking this way -- there is a lot of work yet to be done for 2009.