Your Q3 Qualifiers:

Seven Mercedes, two Ferraris, and one Renault.  Clearly engine choice makes no difference.

Now while in the long run having homologated engines is good for the sport, I fear that the fact that there is no longer any in-season development being done means everyone who doesn't have a Mercedes engine behind their shoulders is looking at a long season with scant chance of even points.  And that I think means that this year could be a right snoozer.

Respect

From Google:

Quiet Day Of Racing Down Under

So the fans in the stands were not terribly impressed with the noise, and frankly after listening to this I don't blame them:


I suppose that the bottom line for Ferrari is that we have to be reasonably pleased that both cars got home at the end.  Alonso looked reasonably quick as compared to the mid-fielders, so this car likely won't be struggling with the back-of-the-packers.  There's clearly still much to do to make this a competitive package.

Your overwhelming winner on the day was Mercedes, powering four of the top five places (and five of the top six), with Alonso being the only outlier.

Renault has to be the overwhelming loser, between problems for Vettel and the total Caterham collapse and Lotus' problems.  The highest place non-excluded finisher was a Toro Rosso back in 8th.

The honorable mention for being the loser has to be Red Bull, with Riccardo's car being excluded at the end -- one can only assume that had Vettel made the flag he would have had similar problems, Red Bull never being shy about doing what they think is right even in the face of overwhelming evidence otherwise.  At least the car wasn't slow and illegal.

Bottas showed that the Williams can be fast in the right hands, promising for them.

However over all the racing felt very dry to me.  Now this has been a common complaint for me about Australia, something about the circuit does not seem to be conducive to generating entertaining racing.  So I'll reserve judgement for now on the new rules.

Another complaint I had was that the safety car period felt like it went on for ever and ever, and TSN piling on commercial after commercial didn't help that feeling.  You can say a lot about the old CART days, but one thing they knew how to do was a safety car period.

Qualifying Notes, Australia

This the first time I have been able to listen to he sound of the engines.  After the high RPM of the past generation, and growing up with V10 and V12 power plants, is have to admit I don't like the sound.  It isn't even a growl, it is more of a "rasp". Definitely not my F1.

And since I have changed TV providers over the winter, I cannot judge if the cars look slower because of the rules change, or due to some artifact of being able to see a reasonable picture for the first time ever.

Hard to say at this point if the results were a function of "new rules" lottery or "wet session" lottery.

Mercedes at the front, more or less what I expected.

Expected Vettel to do better, with or without his team mate's performance.

Alonso 6th... Not what we expected.  Neither was Raikkonen being out after Q2.  Raikkonen sounded kind of vague as to what happened -- "playing around with the switches or something".  At this point it does not look like Ferreri were sandbagging in testing...

The displays on the steering wheels are quite elaborate this year.  (See caviar above about a reasonable picture.)

Ricardo did his job well -- run with the big boys when Vettel ran into trouble.  The rain might have masked power problems with the Renault, we will have a better idea about hat over the next few events.

Odd that Williams didn't figure more in Q3.  

Hope for a dry race tomorrow.

Half-Assed Predictions For 2014

Well with Australia less than a week away, it is time for our annual half-assed predictions for the coming year, something which I skipped last year for the usual no good reason.  Also, I was lazy.

Your Manufacturer's Champion: the smart money at this point of the year after testing would indicate Mercedes or Williams.  I have an irrational dislike for the Mercedes team, and I don't think Williams will be able to maintain and convert on their early season promise.  That said Mercedes have the strongest driver lineup of the Mercedes cars, so betting against them would be foolish.

Your World Champion: Jenson Button. McLaren will have the Mercedes engine, as well as a team able to make and maintain improvements through the season.  They'll be behind Mercedes and Williams at the start of the year, but I think they'll be on top at the end.  They'll lose out on the manufacturer's title because their new boy won't get up to speed quickly and/or will have a few silly offs.

Ferrari might be third in the manufacturer's title.  Right now the testing tea-leaves suggest that while the Ferrari is reliable, it isn't particularly fast.  If cars in front of them are less reliable, they'll pick up places and points, but not enough to seriously challenge on either championship table.

Alonso or Raikkonen: Alonso if the car is fast and reliable, and Raikonnen if it isn't.  Raikonnen will go about his business no matter what state the car is in, while Alonso will probably tilt himself if the going is heavy.

Renault-runners:  Renault looks unusually like it will be a train wreck for the first part of the year, what with the packaging problems causing overheating issues.  That and the rumour mill suggests that their engine isn't fully baked.  I think Lotus will start the best, but Red Bull will overtake them by year's end because Grosjean isn't really an elite driver and Lotus will spend most of the year scrabbling for finance rather than improving the car.

Red Bull's prospects: I think this year will bring Vettel back to earth with a bump.  There's a good chance they'll have things sorted for the back third of the year, but the 2013 champion will be conspicuous by his absence at the sharp end for much of the year.

Williams will enjoy (relative) success for the first third of the year, then the bigger teams will improve faster than they do and they will fade down the stretch.

The Mid-Field: Williams, Force India, Lotus, and Sauber -- in that order at the end of the year.  Force India will have a more predictable and steady year as Williams and Lotus fade down the stretch.  I don't think Sauber will actually do anything other than fade.

Force India might actually see a change of ownership this year as their billionaire owner appears to be merely a multi-millionaire now.

Making up the numbers: for Catarham and Marussia it is a pure lottery, one that will be driven by random unreliability between them and ahead of them on the road.  The team that finishes in front of the other will almost certainly do so on the strength of a single lucky (relatively) high finish granted them by unreliability on the parts of others.

Looking to 2015: The FIA will go through all kinds of contortions to avoid granting the proposed entry for 2015 to the Haas team, perhaps even going to the extent of pushing the entry back to 2016.  It's clear to me that for some reason they prefer the idea of the Romanian entry, even though that's clearly less credible.

Also in 2015: With Ecclestone finally gone, there will be chaos if the Concorde Agreement is not settled before he goes as everyone and their dog maneuvers into the power and money vacuum left when he departs.

Your 2014 Deadpool predictions:

• Bernie Ecclestone (low hanging fruit that I've been swiping at since 2012) -- he'll skate on the bribery charges, but I suspect he'll "retire" before his paymasters publicly fire him.
• Force India ownership
• Lotus ownership
• Marussia -- I feel like one of the two spear-carriers won't make it, and although I think it is a toss-up as to which one it will be, I'll pick Marussia just to narrow it down.

Tune in when November rolls around for the laughing and pointing.

Why Not Be Blatant About It

It kills me that this is what we're going to be watching run around this year:

Size Matters

...it's a penis with a Caterham attached to the back of it.

News from the front indicates the FIA is going to punt on the weird noses for this year and "address the issue in the regulations for 2015".

So for now we'll just have to deal with the less metaphorical expression of a sports car as a male appendage substitute.

Ending On A High Note

It is hard to believe, but despite the last half of the year I thought Brazil was a positive race for Ferrari.  Sure, it is merely a 3rd place, and sure, much of that was due to the lottery-like conditions where it seems like everyone else (except the Bulls) prepared for more rain than actually happened, but frankly the last little while has been so dry I'll take it.

Over all though I can't consider this year a step forward.  It started well, but it seems that things took a nose dive after the tire conspiracy and for whatever reason Ferrari didn't rebound as well as other teams did. It didn't help that Red Bull's dominance crystallized at exactly the same time.   Mercedes got their act together enough to take second in the constructor's title as Ferrari let it slip away.

Next year we're back to lottery conditions, what with the new engine rules in play.  We might see some teams less reliable than in recent years, and as long as Ferrari isn't in that group it might make things more interesting.

So although the 2012 car was ugly, it did do better than the 2013 car did.  More proof that looks don't always translate into results.

Tune in after winter testing for the quasi-regular half-assed predictions for 2014.