Perspective

If someone had told us immediately after this year's disappointing pre-season test that Alonso would be 10 points behind the championship leader with two races left to run, I think we'd be ecstatic.

2012 has been another year where the car's performance has been constantly downplayed, yet Alonso has managed to score good points with it more often than not.  Combined with an excellent reliability record, plus no little luck avoiding other cars (Belgium perhaps excepted) and Alonso has placed himself in position to catch Vettel as the season winds down.

Unfortunately it isn't a case of catching Vettel, per se.  It is more a case of continuing with the reliability and consistency and being in a position to capitalize on Vettel's misfortune.

Sunday in Abu Dhabi offered hints as to what might have been.  Had Vettel not profited from the safety car periods falling when they had, Alonso might have cut the points lead that much more than he did.  However you can't wish away Vettel's good luck any more than Vettel could wish away the bad luck from Saturday.  Had that not happened, I think there's little doubt that the Red Bull would have circulated comfortably ahead of the Ferrari and the points gap would be larger than it is.

Red Bull is clearly the faster car right now -- I think Webber's fumbling around with it shows that the car has elite speed.  Massa's Ferrari still lacks parts that are on Alonso's,  but even so neither Ferrari can seem to live with either Red Bull right now.

With only two races left to run, the odds of a technological breakthrough diminish.  And we are definitely into the part of the season where express effort now against the rest of the 2012 season will negatively impact the 2013 campaign.

I think barring an extraordinary run of bad luck for Vettel, the title is his for 2012.

Those of us who cheer for Ferrari will once again have to be disappointed that the team came so close -- again -- and start contemplating next year.

Charmed Life

Red Bull drivers led a charmed life on Sunday.

While no one can dispute that Vettel got his act together when it mattered and managed to be in the right place at the right time, much of his spectacular result can be placed at the feet of profiting from the Safety Car periods that happened when he did. Further, while all the chatter about him passing a car while outside the white lines on lap fourteen, I counted no fewer than four changes of direction while he vigorously defended his position.  Vettel comes away very fortunate that he was permitted to continue without a sterner penalty than just giving back the position.

Webber, on the other hand.  His first collision I can excuse as a racing incident.  The collision with Massa similarly I would be willing to write off as a racing incident.  But my view is he caused Massa to spin -- the long-lens footage is inconclusive, but the in-car camera from Massa's car clearly shows Webber charging back on-track in front of the Ferrari, causing Massa to take abrupt avoiding action.

Massa was right to be incensed that no action was taken.  I wonder how the stewards would have ruled had Massa failed to take avoiding action and clobbered the Red Bull instead?

The comentators gleefully claiming that Webber had "frightened Massa into a spin" didn't help, either.

Frankly when Webber happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time once too often and got clobbered by Grosjean's avoiding action, I thought it was merely karma.

It isn't in Webber's history to drive like this.  I hope this is merely a one-off performance, and not an indication of things to come.

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.

Driver Stewards: Not Impressed So Far

So one of the new ideas for 2010 is that one of the stewards at an event will be a former driver. The idea is that this driver can bring balance to the stewards council and the stewards will therefore be seen to be more fair and balanced.

The Malasian GP of 2010 pretty much puts lie to that theory.

The stewards made themselves noticed twice during this event.

First, Lewis Hamilton was fighting for position with Dmitri Petrov's Renault. Hamilton got past into turn one, but went deep and Petrov went by on the inside. Second time past, Hamilton went back and forth and back and forth down the main straight, an action that a lesser man might construe as "weaving". Hamilton defends himself:

I wasn’t weaving for him, I was weaving to break the tow.

The stewards took a look at this behavior, and decided that while it wasn't weaving, it wasn't sportsmanlike behavior, and Hamilton was warned.

Warned!

Either it was weaving, or it wasn't. If it was, it deserves punishment. If it wasn't, then it doesn't deserve notice.

Now the problem from this is that drivers may get the idea that they can drive like that once and they will get away with a warning.

Consider this -- had it been Petrov's Renault doing the weaving trying to break the tow, no doubt McLaren would have been screaming bloody murder and Hamilton would have some words about how dangerous it was. And I don't doubt for a second that the stewards would come down hard on Petrov.

The second time the stewards got involved was at the end of the race when it was determined that eventual race-winner Vettel had passed a Lotus under waved yellow conditions during the race:

During Sunday's race, the 22-year-old passed Lotus' Jarno Trulli while yellow flags were waving, and a stewards report said Vettel "did breach ... the international sporting code".

Despite this determination, no penalty was assessed, because...

But the stewards, including former Grand Prix winner Johnny Herbert, said the Red Bull slowed down in the yellow flag area, and noted that Trulli at the time had "an obvious problem".

...the "obvious problem" being that he was recognizing the yellow flags.

We won't see this decision tested, because the driver home in second place was the other Red Bull and there wouldn't be anything to gain by Red Bull protesting their own driver's conduct. But had the Mercedes been home in second place that close to Vettel's car, I'm quite sure there would have been a protest.

Both of these "decisions" are reminiscent of the FIA's clown-court favoritism that results in popular, or championship-leading, drivers being held to one standard while the rest of the field is held to another. The only thing lacking from this weekend was a decision against a back-marker driver that was similarly marginal, defended by the paper equivalent of shrugging shoulders and a "well them's the rules, sorry" explanation.

Having the drivers on the stewards board was supposed to eliminate this type of circus.

I'm not impressed so far.

Desert Racing Extra Dry

Back in August of last year I said I was worried about the racing in 2010. The fact of the matter is that the cars just are not built to follow each other closely enough to effect passes -- witness Hamilton's efforts to pass Rosberg, despite having a car capable of going a half- to a full second faster per lap than the Mercedes, he couldn't get on terms to make the pass and had to do the business in the pits. The combination of the double-diffuser development with the intricate changes made to the front wings on the cars mean the following car just isn't as efficient as the car in front is.

I also noticed that there seemed to be a lot more flip-ups and aerodynamic "things" hanging on the cars than there were last year.

Even the "extra" action brought on by the new teams retiring at an increased rate did little to improve the show, although Senna's HRT car made it almost half way through the event, which is a decent enough amount for what was effectively its third day of running.

And while Ferrari had an almost perfect weekend -- missing out only on the pole position as an accomplishment -- one is left to wonder if their slow reeling in of Vettel was due to Ferrari pace or Red Bull exhaust issues slowly manifesting themselves.

I also have to comment on the graphics shown through the event -- a lot of the time it was difficult for me to understand what they were trying to tell me. I guess putting everything in stylishly slanted boxes is the coming thing.

One race is not enough to condemn an entire season, even if there are rumors about hastily amending the rules to make a second pit stop mandatory. Artificially trying to manufacturer more "show" is always going to result in silliness.

One just hopes that the FIA resists the urge to continue the silliness that was a hallmark of the Mosley years.

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.

Renault Preparing To Exit F1?

Joe Saward quotes Indian sources quoting Renault-Nissan boss Carlos Ghosen about F1:

“F1 is one of the most-seen spectacles in the world,” he said. “It is facing some challenges: Challenges on how fair it is and how do you marry F1 with the environmental concerns. Can you bring zero emission through technology? So there are lots of questions about F1.”

...and...

“I don’t think it is going to be very important for anybody, if it doesn’t answer some of the concerns that surround F1,” he said. “I notice that in the last year, three car manufacturers have bowed out of F1. Three in one year! That means there are a lot of questions that we need to resolve.”

If we are reading the hall of mirrors here, one would have to say that Renault wants out, at least as a team participant. They will probably continue to provide and service engines for whomever wants them since it will be very difficult for teams currently committed to Renault to change now. Since there isn't much in the way of engine development permitted to go on any more, the costs of the engine is a sunk cost and supplying them can probably even be profitable.

Right now only Red Bull is an engine customer, and they were allegedly trying to get Mercedes power for 2010. But by now they are committed.

I think that once the FIA decides what penalty to give Toyota for bailing, Renault will follow shortly after.

Formula 1 Deadpool, Revisited

Well I didn't see BMW's departure coming at all. I figured that BMW would recognize that the dynamic change in the rules, coupled with the predictable unstable "clarification" of some rules with respect to the aerodynamics (specifically, the double-diffusers), that this year was going to be a down year. I fully expected them to brush themselves off and carry on building towards a more successful year next year.

Their involvement and support of both the FIA's wacky technologies (KERS) and FOTA's insistence on having some control over their own destinies showed that they were trying to bridge the gap between the two positions and embrace the future of the sport.

Instead, they are gone.

In the short term, this is the perfect time to quit. It means that they can focus on finding a new ownership group for the team instead of paying to develop next year's car. The ownership should be pretty straight forward, the rumblings seem to suggest that Peter Sauber will get control of the team if nobody else more attractive comes forward; from that point, building for the future becomes someone else's problem. This reduces the risk that BMW will feed another Brawn, paying to develop a car which ends up being much more competitive than expected and making the departure look premature.

So what else has changed since we last looked at the deadpool?

Red Bull has become unexpectedly competitive. This will breath new life into Torro Rosso as a 'junior' team, assuming that the results continue to be suitably 'junior' and costs can be kept under control.

Toyota has had a down year. While they were optimistic about their chances this year, the results have followed the path from previous years -- being on the verge of a break-out at the beginning of the year, then falling back as the rest of the pack continues development. For some reason Toyota builds a better car on average at the beginning of the year but just can't develop through the season. It is an odd failing. Toyota also has to face the fact that their goals in joining Formula 1 will not be met -- they joined to beat Honda. The problem is that 1) Honda isn't in Formula 1 any more, and 2) even having left, Toyota can't beat the remnants (Brawn).

Renault has been revealed to be a bigger budget team than suspected. This makes them a prime candidate to be the next to depart, especially considering their results thus far and the treatment they are receiving for their behavior in Hungary. Their parent company continues to have a rough year financially and the Formula 1 team has to look increasingly like low-hanging fruit to cut from the expenditure table.

Toyota and Renault's uncertain future has to have an effect on their customer teams too. Williams and Red Bull are current engine customers, and should the parent team leave the supply of engines may be eliminated. One wonders if Red Bull knows something we don't, as there have been stories that they are seeking a supply of Mercedes engines instead. It's quite possible that they want to get rid of the Ferrari engines that Torro Rosso is using, and shuffle around who is using what, but the fact that they might have been quietly told that alternate arrangements will be required cannot be dismissed.

All in all, things are looking pretty grim for Formula 1 as a premier series. The series enjoys its status because of the manufacturer involvement. Should too many of the manufacturers withdraw, it will become just another international series.

We can only hope that Renault and Toyota stay the course for the next few years and then re-evaluate things as the costs come down.

BAR vs. Stewart

It occurred to me this weekend that the two teams at the top of the grid this year, Red Bull and Brawn, both have their roots in teams which were started about the same time. Red Bull has its genesis in the Stewart team started by Jackie Stewart in 1997, while Brawn's modern roots go back to British American Tobbaco's buy-out of Tyrell in 1998.

At the time there was a lot of back-and-forth in the media over whether it was better to start a new team from scratch, or effectively buy an entry from an existing team and throw everything else away.

In the end it was kind of moot as both teams went through a couple of metamorphasis to get to where they they are: Stewart -> Ford/Jaguar -> Red Bull and Tyrell -> BAR -> Honda -> Brawn.

But it is interesting to see two teams which were formed at the same time coming to prominence at the same time.

Contemplating the two teams, I am surprised that Honda bailed out when they did. While I am sure that the Honda board is kicking themselves for bailing out just before a dominant and successful season, I have serious doubts as to whether the team would have been as successful with a Honda engine in the car as opposed to the Mercedes. It also remains to be seen if Brawn can produce another competitive car for next year while pursuing this year's championship.

I am surprised that Red Bull managed to succeed at all. Their first year was flattered by the preparation done the previous year as Jaguar, and I really through they had bitten off more than they could chew when they immediately went out and bought Minardi as a junior team, and was unsurprised that by the end of the first year of Red Bull/Torro Rosso all four cars were circulating more or less together. The fact that Torro Rosso got the umbrella's first win (Vettel in Italy last year) only showed the ineptness with which the organization was being run. I had them pegged as an "all flash no dash" team and fully expected them to have divested themselves of Torro Rosso by now.

In a way both teams profited by the big two teams dropping the ball the way they did. However the fact is that they both had the means to take advantage of those mistakes by others.

Red Bull's Growth

Lost a bit in the kerfuffle of the New Diffuser World Order is the fact that Red Bull is surprisingly competitive this year. What makes it surprising is the fact that the car does not yet feature a double diffuser.

While one could wave aside the victory in China as Vettel cementing a reputation as a wet-race specialist, the fact remains that the car was extremely competitive in Bahrain, out shone only by the Brawn and the Toyota.

The records of the first four events show us that the car has qualified extremely well so far this year. Third and tenth in Australia. Third and seventh in Malaysia. First and third in China. Third in Bahrain, with the second car impeded. The car is clearly quick over the short haul, and Vettel's performances in the races make it clear that the car is quick over the long haul as well.

Another interesting thing to think about is the fact that the car features Adrian Newey's pull-rod suspension design. I read somewhere that this design on the rear of the car will make implementing a double diffuser a non-trivial task, due to the spaces that the suspension occupies.

But one really has to ask -- should Red Bull even bother? There are other areas where the car can be improved, and they are clearly not at an excessive disadvantage due to the lack of such a device.

Red Bull has come a long way since their Jaguar roots. I was one of those who wrote off Red Bull's performance their first year as being entirely the result of Jaguar's efforts the year before, and called their purchase of Minardi (or Torro Rosso) as a dangerous over-extension of the team's reasources. The following years proved me correct, as the Red Bulls frequently found themselves circulating with, or even behind, their "junior team" brethren.

Last year showed what the potential of the car was with Vettel's performance in Italy. I believe that Torro Rosso's performance there was almost entirely due to gambling on the wet conditions and being correct, instead of trying to do a safe and conservative compromise. Had the conditions ended up being different, Torro Rosso would not have factored in at all that day. I am not trying to take anything away from Vettel's performance that day, I am just saying that it was Torro Rosso's gamble that gave Vettel the opportunity to shine, and he grabbed it with both hands.

Red Bull is definitely in the "Best Of The Not-Brawn Cars" group, a group which includes Toyota, and possibly McLaren or BMW depending on the day.

Video: 2008 to 2009 explained

Red Bull has a video up showing the difference between the 2008 and 2009 rules.

2009 so far

F1Fanatic has a post up with visual comparisons of the seven (arguably eight) cars announced so far.

While the Red Bull is the most visually interesting so far, just about all the cars have interesting elements.

It is also apparent to me that the shark fin on the back of the cars will probably be a circuit-specific modification for some teams; while the Toyota was unveiled with only a small fin, its first public test showed it running a much more pronounced fin.

RB5 Unveiled

Red Bull has introduced their 2009 challenger, the RB5 (see also photos and technical analysis). Autosport reports that the design of the RB5 was kept fluid as long as possible, leading to the "more developed" look than some of the rival cars.

Personally I find the kink in the nose of the car the most visually interesting (but not pretty) feature, giving the car an almost hunch-back look when contrasted to the very narrow nose tip. It is difficult to make out some of the other details on the car given the paint scheme that Red Bull uses, so we will have to wait for the studio photos before we can examine them in any detail.