Bye Bye Mark

Mark Webber is done with F1.

Having walked away from Red Bull, he clearly doesn't care who he aggravates on his way out.  This little joy ride cost him ten places at the next Grand Prix:

Webber's so cool, he hails a F1 Ferrari as a taxi.

...not the ride itself, but the manner in which he hailed it.  And that, mostly because of two other reprimands he has already accumulated this year.

Plus there's that whole Malasian podium thing.

Somehow I get the feeling that this year Webber is finally tired of playing the games he's been playing for his F1 career, and he's either consciously or subconsciously getting back at the whole circus by being disrespectful.

I don't think the rest of the circus feels too badly for Mark Webber -- he's been paid very well to drive a car far better than most of the rest of the grid (if not all of the rest of the grid some years) and been granted the privilege to win with that car on occasion.  It is, frankly, a set of problems that most of the rest of the drivers would love to have.

Conspiracy Theory

So usually I'm not one for a conspiracy theory, but, the fact that immediately after Pirelli's proposed tire changes got blocked by some teams we had a cluster of potentially dangerous tire failures, leading to a clamor to change the tires.... is awfully interesting.

I wonder who is playing the opportunist now?

Personally I buy the theory that the combination of inappropriate low pressures and inappropriate use of the kerbing areas led some drivers to experience failures.  Not tire construction issues.

Better Looking Cars

The FIA has announced that from 2014, the stepped-nose cars we see today will be banned.  The change is to the maximum height of the rest of the car's nose, which will now be in line with the maximum height of the rest of the nose.

I did think that the vanity panel was an improvement over last year; we'll have to see what the 2014 cars end up looking like with the new rules.

Also for 2014, engine manufacturers will have to provide the same package to their customer teams that they provide to their factory teams; and the rules surrounding blown exhaust have been tightened.

Tire go-around

Personally I don't think it appropriate to change the tire compounds in mid season.  Some of the teams have come to grips with it; some of them have not. This is the nature of Formula One in all of its rules. Nor example, Ferrari has adapted to this rule set much better than McLaren has.  But that is no reason to change the rules.

These are the tires that Pirelli has produced.  I personally think the teams should be stuck with them for the season.

Pirelli really is in a difficult position with the tires.  If they are too robust and fast, nobody notices them. But since they were asked to produce tires that degrade, now everyone just complains about them even though at is what they were asked for.

I also think it unreasonable to blame the Monaco parade on the Pirelli tires.  Monaco is always a procession to a certain extent.  And the wild number of tire stops required elsewhere shows that things really can be up in the air.

I hope things can stabilize somewhat before next year.  All this complaining about tires is somewhat unseemly.  And I doubt that anyone really wants to go back to the bad old days of the tire wars.

Swing And A Miss

The facts of this dispute are fairly straight forward:

• That Mercedes did undergo a private test during the season with a current car; and
• That the regulations specifically prohibit testing during the season with a current car.

Frankly, anything else is muddying the waters.

Mercedes may suggest that they undertook this test at the behest of Pirelli -- the fact that a third party enticed them to break the rules does not remove the fact that the rules were broken.

Mercedes may suggest that Ferrari conducted a similar test, but with a 2011-spec car -- the rules are quite clear that once the car is two seasons past, owners can do what they want, where they want, however frequently they want, so this objection has absolutely no relevance to the dispute.

Mercedes may claim that they gained no advantage from this test.  While this may possibly be so, there is A) no reason to believe this, and B) to conduct such a test and not gain an advantage from it proposes a stunning level of incompetence on the part of team management.

That said, the penalty of being forced to miss the young drivers test at years end is not so much punishment for the team as for Formula 1 as a whole, since there will be correspondingly less seat time available to groom future talent.  It is a joke.

Pirelli's argument that there needs to be a mechanism to test tire changes is a valid one, however the whole issue of messing with tire compounds in-season is another issue.

Alonso Reigns In Spain

Have to do it -- have to celebrate the win in Spain.  The F138 was the car to have yesterday, as Massa's result showed.  Not sure why everyone else got it wrong, the Mercedes especially vanishing after the start.

I'm also not sure I agree with Red Bull's claim that F1 isn't racing any more.  F1 has never been about flat-out, maximum attack for the entire distance.  You are always managing some kind of resource, be it tires, fuel, brakes, or even driver energy.

Complaining about the rules is just proving your car doesn't fit the actual competition.

F138

The new F138 is gorgeous. It really is. Call it a "modesty panel" or "vanity panel", the lack of the stepped-nose really makes the car look like a proper F1 car again. And overall, now that we've had a few years with the new rules, I find the disparity between the huge front wing and the tiny tiny rear wing less visually jarring -- proving that with enough exposure, people can get used to anything.

The only dark thought which occurs to me is the thought that the car that has gotten the closest to being a world championship car has been the ugly one from last year.

I think I said a few years back when the car was ugly that the car would be considered beautiful if it was a winner.  And I'm sure that would have applied to last year's car -- had it been ultimately successful.

Hopefully this car will pick up where the last one left off.