Deadpool update: HRT sinking?

Motorsport.com is reporting HRT in 'major financial trouble':

"People with half a brain can understand what is going on," the source is quoted as saying. "We engineers have gone unpaid for two months.

"Five engineers have quit already," he revealed.

When you are not paying the staff, and the staff is noticing that they are not getting paid, you are in trouble. For most startups, this is where the end happens -- worthless options are snowblown at the remaining staff in liu of of real money. However the operation is usually running on fumes and the end is merely days away.

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.

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

Crazy Time At HRT

OK, this one takes the cake as the stupidest thing said in F1 for... oh, quite some time:

Alguersuari: tyres could put HRT in front of Ferrari

Speaking to reporters in Barcelona he said: “You could see Hispania running faster than Ferrari if they are on new tyres and Ferrari were on worn tyres. You could see Hispania overtake Ferrari.”

Personally I think the only way a HRT will overtake a Ferrari during a race is if the Ferrari being passed is parked on the side of the road with at least two wheels knocked off it.

At least we know HRT has the budget for the really good drugs this year.

Deadpool 2011

So let's review my predictions from last year:

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.

Campos Meta became HRT, but somehow made it through the whole season -- possibly through not spending a dollar on car development. HRT has shown computer-generated images of their 2011 car, but nobody's actually seen it yet.

Lotus and Virgin both made it through the whole season, with Lotus comprehensively winning the "best of the new teams" category for 2010.

Implied in my prediction was that USF1 would survive 2010. They didn't.

For the more established teams, I note that the Renault team's ownership has been further diluted through the infusion of Group Lotus. I remain certain that Renault will divest themselves of the race team within a couple of years, at this point Group Lotus looks like the most likely buyer.

I also predicted that Toro Rosso would be sold last year, and that didn't happen. Between HRT and Sauber grasping for money to keep going, there was a surplus of teams available for purchase, so the Toro Rosso deal never even got started.

For 2011:

None of the premier establishment teams (Ferrari, Red Bull, Mercedes, McLaren) are at risk.

Of the remaining establishment teams:

• Lotus-Renault has momentum from last year and should survive.
• Sauber is showing signs of weakness, but I think they will make it to the end of the year. I'm going to say they don't get sold.
• Toro Rosso will get sold if a ready buyer steps up.
• Williams will survive, but this season marks the beginning of a sea change. Patrick Head is basically selling off his shares (he is going from 27% ownership to 5% ownership) in the team through a stock-market scheme. He and Frank Williams are both in their 60s, and won't be able to do this forever. If this is a short term way to boost financing issues due to a lack of sponsorship, Williams is probably doomed next year or the year after.
• I continue to not understand how Force India continues to get around, but they will continue to get around for at least this year.

For the new teams:

• Team Lotus will be the best of the rest, possibly regularly beating Toro Rosso and Sauber. Finance is a bit more of a question though. I say they make it.
• Barring some kind of disaster, Virgin will continue through into 2012.
• HRT is my candidate for not making it, since they are only showing computer-generated imagery of their car thus far, and said imagery is very short on sponsorship.

As always, tune in next year for the laughing and pointing.

Mark your calendars

Ferrari unveil their 2011 car on January 28th.

The Missing 2010 F1 Car

F1.Fanatic has pictures of the unraced TF110, built by Toyota and supplied to StefanGP which hoped to race it.

There has obviously been some development work done on it as the front wing shows more complexity than the other 2010 cars did at the beginning of the year. Generally it has smooth and uncomplicated lines.

With Toyota's engineering behind it, one suspects that it would not have started the season in dead-last place, and perhaps might have been faster than some of the established teams.

The question as to if StefanGP could have financed the operation properly, and set the stage to make more progress in 2011... this is the larger question that remains unanswered.

Success

The Itallian press is demonstrating its calm, steady, measured approach to covering Ferrari's escapades in the Formula One series:

Ferrari 'heads will roll' after title loss

"Some things will change and, sure, some heads will roll," said the authoritative Italian daily La Gazzetta dello Sport.

...yeah, not so much.

I don't think that there is any way for Ferrari to view 2010 as anything other than a run-away success. The fact that Alonso was still leading the championship going into the final event beggars comprehension considering how fragile the Ferrari engine was through the rest of the season.

The rest of the team organization, though, fired on all cylinders when it counted. The principle example of this was Monaco, where Alonso wrote off a car on Friday, and the replacement turned a wheel for the first time on the shake-down lap Sunday afternoon, and the car ran flawlessly for the entire race distance -- that's a Ferrari accomplishment to be truly proud of.

For all my dislike of Alonso as a person, I think he is one of the best drivers on the grid today. Performances like Singapore, where he held off Vettel's visibly faster car for the whole event, stand up well beside events where the Ferrari cars had the edge on the rest of the field.

To suggest that Ferrari faltered at the end is too easy a Monday-morning quarterback call to make. Alonso had a devil's choice: stay with Vettel and risk Webber passing him before the pit stops; or cover Webber's stop and hope Vettel had to follow suit immediately.

I thought it a strange choice to cover Webber. At the very least I would have left Alonso out another lap to look at Webber's sector times after he got the new tires going; waiting that long would have cast doubt on the viability of the strategy.

But Ferrari made their choice.

Massa I think was a study in disappointment through this year. From visibly holding his team mate up in the early races, to suffering mysterious failures here and there, Massa's engagement seemed to be reduced by what happened in Germany. I still think Massa is a capable driver, one fast enough to help Alonso achieve a Manufacturer's title for Ferrari, but head-to-head Alonso is going to be the faster man more days than he's not. If Massa can accept that his days as a title contender have passed, he can still enjoy the success that a Ferrari can bring him. However I suspect Massa is too much the competitor to let that aspect of racing go, and he will continue to be less engaged in 2011, to both his and Ferrari's detriment.

For the team overall, this has been a huge year. This was supposed to be a building year, getting the personnel and experience together for a proper run at the titles in 2011. While Ferrari's presence near the front owes much to the mistakes made by the other teams and drivers, Alonso and Ferrari were good enough and consistent enough to take advantage.

To expect 2011 to be an improvement is extremely optimistic.