Last Of The New Boys

One thing that F1 Fanatic called my attention to was the fate of the last round of "new teams" that were introduced with such fanfare in 2009:

• USF1 didn't make it to the first test
• Campos became HRT and expired at the end of 2012
• Virgin became Marussia and have deteriorated to the point where they are having to choose drivers with money over drivers with talent
• Team Lotus became Caterham and has managed to beat Marussa; being in the top 10, they are guaranteed money from the commercial side of Formula 1.

While F1 is supposed to be a meritocracy, and it is a good idea to have more teams than money-paying positions, you want to always have someone on the outside looking in, hungry to join the elite.  That keeps the old guard hungry, and if/when teams fall by the wayside you have someone new ready to pick up the position.

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.

Lets Review:

These are new the teams selected by the FIA for inclusion in the 2010 F1 World Championship:

• USF1: Dead and finished. Probably permanently.
• Manor Racing: Now Virgin Racing. This may or may not be a buy-out, it is hard to tell. They have introduced, and started testing, a real racing car.
• Campos Meta: Now Hispania Racing Team, or HRT. Original owners no longer involved. Still waiting for the Dallara-designed and built car to be introduced, although that is allegedly going to happen on Thursday or Friday, a week before Bahrain. This means the first time it does any running, trivial or not, will be free practice session one at a race weekend.
• Lotus: so far the most stable of the lot. No ownership changes, and they have introduced a (plain, slow) F1 car and done some testing.
• BMW-Sauber: lost their entry while BMW was trying to exit involvement, only to gain it back when Toyota abruptly departed. Perhaps the most ironic team on the grid, since BMW is not involved at all any more, and the engines are Ferrari. Probably the best prepared of all the "new" teams since they really are not that new. We can't really count them as in trouble because all their drama happened last year.

So from five teams, you have one outright failure, possibly two total ownership changes, one very uncompetitive team, and one moderately successful team which again doesn't count because they are not really that new.

Oh, and the FIA has decided that Stefan GP won't be participating this year, even though USF1 has failed.

Now to be fair, part of the problem is that the first group of teams to sign up for 2010 did so when the FIA was planning the spending cap rules. The championship formula that eventually was decided on was very different, meaning that all these teams were suddenly underfinanced. USF1's Ken Anderson claims that the delay in sorting out the regulations for 2010 (there wasn't a peace brokered until mid- or late July 2009) meant that the new teams had no idea what set of goal posts they would actually be working towards until very late.

So you end up with a truncated timeline to meet a standard that suddenly would cost a lot more money than initially planned.

With these factors in mind, it isn't much of a surprise that the new teams would have difficulties.

Mosley's Crusade

Ferrari's latest salvo at the FIA is thinly disguised as a complaint about the poor quality of F1 teams added to the sport for 2010.

Now to be fair, Ferrari has a point. Let's look at who they picked:

• USF1, backed by Peter Windsor and with YouTube money. On paper this looked fabulous, especially when combined with American engineers with something to prove. However it turns out that progress has been lacking and money to continue isn't forthcoming.
• Campos Meta, a spanish organization that was going to pay Dallara to design and build cars. This operation also had money problems, and is currently existing only thanks to an emergency infusion of the YouTube money that has deserted USF1.
• Manor Racing, which might or might not have been taken over by Virgin.
• Lotus, an operation bankrolled by the Malaysian government.

So of the four, Virgin and Lotus are the only ones which don't have immediate cash flow issues.

And while the car unveiled by Lotus was disappointingly basic, it is a F1 car and it is turning (some) testing mileage.

Two from four is not a very good batting average for what is supposed to be a premiere motor sport. Even though the FIA claimed they had done their due diligence on the applicants, it clearly wasn't enough.

Let us remember that all this came about because Mosley wanted to turn F1 into a much cheaper sport to participate in, and in the process of having a showdown with his established teams, brought on a collection of new teams to fill up his entry list. It is worth remembering that the F1 regulations for 2010 are a compromise from his budget-based F1, meaning while the existing teams have to reduce their budgets somewhat, the new teams are suddenly looking at battling established competition which will be spending more than they had anticipated when signing up. I doubt many in either camp were particularly happy.

As I mentioned, if either USF1 or Campos (or both!) fail to be in Bahrain, it will be a black eye for the FIA, although one which can be placed squarely at the feet of the now departed Max Mosley.

While Virgin and Lotus will probably be much more fragile and off the pace than the other series regulars, their presence will serve as a foundation for their future growth -- assuming they can find someone to fund it.

Ferrari also complains about Stefan GP, which has picked up the abandoned pieces of Toyota's F1 program and is lurking about in the bushes waiting for one of the anointed four to fail. This I think is more F1 business as usual -- there are always an assortment of marginally crazy people trying to get in. Every circus needs a sideshow.

Lotus Launches Boring Car

Here are launch photos of the Lotus T127. After seeing the spy-shots, there isn't really much new to see except a bit of the detail.

The overriding feeling I have looking at this car is disappointment. The nose looks positively agrarian, with no kink -- only two token bumps on top of the suspension mounts. While the front wing looks excitingly complex, the attachment between the nose and the wing itself looks primitive. From the air box back, the rest of the car is positively boring.

While it is good that a new team understands that instant success isn't likely at all, it is a bit discouraging to hear that Truly is already cautioning against optimism.

More Cars, Deadpool Update

Recently:

• The Force India VJM03, which looks to be a pretty conservative car. No Red Bull kink, no sculpting on the nose, and very little in the way of interesting aero at the back. There's already speculation that the aero isn't going to get it done for Force India in 2010.
• The Red Bull RB6: the kink, sculpting on the nose, and a similar steep drop in the sidepods down toward the car's rear end to that seen on the McLaren. Oh, and another huge shark fin, all dressed in the mandatory deep blue that makes it hard to see what is going on. I'd love to see an overhead shot of this car.
• ...aaand Autosport has a spy-shot of the new Lotus. This car looks as odd as the Red Bull RB5 did last year, however I have my doubts about the Lotus' potential.

I think that's all of last year's teams debuted, plus Virgin and the not-yet-cleared-to-participate Stefan GP. So I think we are waiting on a formal launch for Lotus, plus USF1 and Campos.

Meanwhile from a deadpool perspective, Motorsports.com reports that the FIA is insisting that teams must show up and participate at all F1 events for 2010:

From a sporting and regulatory point of view, each team that has registered for the championship is obliged to take part in every event of the season. Any failure to take part, even for just one championship event, would constitute an infringement both of the Concorde Agreement and the FIA regulations.

Pretty clear.

This puts Campos in severe danger, since their finance is definitely not sorted out.

There are persistent stories about USF1 being in trouble, but I find it hard to believe that Peter Windsor would have been involved this long and not had his ducks lined up at this late date.

2010 Deadpool

Well I went 0-for-3 on my initial predictions last year. I predicted that Honda and Torro Rosso would be gone this year, and that Williams and Red Bull would be the low-hanging fruit for 2010.

So Bernie Ecclestone is predicting two team failures even before the first grid. His low-hanging fruit: USF1 and Campos. So lets quickly have a look at the current grid, plus first-alternate-elect, and see if we can call any failures.

The Establishment:McLaren, Ferrari, Red Bull, Williams, Mercedes. All definitely in.

Not Really Establishment: Torro Rosso. Red Bull's junior team is getting their own manufacturing capability, which means they are going to have to design their own car. This was a necessary step in separating the team from their big money parent. Red Bull wants out of Torro Rosso -- they'll get sold sometime this season, possibly to one of the potential entrants who were thwarted during this summer's expansion.

Similarly I drop Force India in here. While there were some surprising results in 2009, and while team owner Vijay Mallya hasn't run out of money yet, I really don't know anything about the ownership structure of the team. Results will continue to depend on the organization being a McLaren B team. I will say they will continue through 2010.

Former Members Of The Establishment: Renault is executing a graceful exit by selling 75% of the team to a third party. Renault as an organization will be out of F1 within three years; however the team should be good to continue on at least through 2010.

Similarly, Sauber (ex-BMW) will be good to participate all through 2010. Technically the team should be able to perform in the top half of the grid, although I have doubts of their ability to either step up to the top tier, or to keep up with the big teams in terms of ongoing development through a season.

First-Alternate-Elect Stefan GP has acquired the designs for Toyota's 2010 car, and as such qualifies as a "Former Member." The team intends to test their car next year if they are not permitted to race. Should someone fall out before Australia, Stefan GP may get the nod to show up. Personally I don't give them much of a chance of being able to show up in 2010, even if asked to. If space opens up for 2011, look for them to show up then -- and we'll re-evaluate them then.

The New Boys: Lotus Racing is the organization bankrolled by the Malaysian government. The Lotus name has a storied history, but unfortunately the most recent parts have not been covered in glory. The Malaysians have money, so the team will participate through 2010. However if the results are not there, they may not make it to 2012.

USF1 has been making a splash all year with their intentions to race in 2010. I believe they will have the finance to make it through 2010. The results, combined with the F1 visibility in the USA and whether or not an economic recovery starts to take hold there will dictate how much further they get.

Virgin Racing has an infusion of cash from the Virgin brand. While this is a splashy sponsorship, keep in mind that Richard Branson never spends money he doesn't have to and decided not to pursue title sponsorship with Brawn. Nick Wirth is involved, and while his ownership of Simtek didn't go well, he isn't the owner this time, just technical director. I would say they have a chance, probably a better chance than Lotus or Campos. But not much better.

I don't know anything about Campos Meta. However they do have Bruno Senna driving for them, so I presume that money will be OK for at least the first part of the season.

My predictions:

I would say that the bubble teams are Campos Meta and Lotus, with Stefan GP not being able to show up even if asked. Virgin could end up on the bubble next year depending on results.

Tune in next year for the laughing and pointing.