Alonso to miss season opener in Australia

Fernando Alonso will miss the season opener in Australia on 15th March due to worries about second impact syndrome. A statement from McLaren reported by autosport.com says 'Fernando's doctors have recommended to him that, following the concussion he sustained in a testing accident on February 22nd, for the time being he should seek to limit as far as is possible any environmental risk factors that could potentially result in his sustaining another concussion so soon after his previous one'.

Alonso has been allowed to return to training in preparation for the Malaysian Grand Prix two weeks later on the 29th March. It's a strange situation as there has been conflicting information about the accident in winter testing after which Alonso spent three days in hospital.

McLaren boss Ron Dennis suggested Alonso hadn't got a concussion, but that is now known to be wrong. The doctors say physically he is fine and the Spaniard believes he is ready to race, however with concussion it is good to be safe.

Kevin Magnussen will replace Alonso, driving at the race where he made such an impact last season. It'll be a great opportunity for him to show up Jenson Button too, the man who was chosen ahead of him to partner Alonso this season.

Why McLaren should pick Button

Formula 1 doesn’t stop, just two days after the final race in Abu Dhabi finished, crowning Lewis Hamilton world champion for a second time, testing began in earnest as teams tried out new parts, new drivers and in McLaren’s case a new power unit, the Honda hybrid engine making its public debut although it only completed 5 laps.

Driving the car was Stoffel Vandoorne, McLaren young driver and runner-up in GP2 this year in his rookie season. There are rumours floating around that Vandoorne could be the one to partner the yet to be announced Fernando Alonso at McLaren in 2015. McLaren racing director Eric Boullier has poured cold water on this idea, it’s most probable he’ll stay in GP2 for one more year, and I’m not sure Alonso would appreciate being partnered by a rookie at McLaren.

The Woking team say they’ll announce their 2015 line-up on December 1^st. If we assume, and I think it’s fairly safe to say that Alonso is one of the drivers, then who will be the second? It’s certainly between current incumbents Jenson Button and Kevin Magnussen.

I could easily make a case for Magnussen to stay on. He’s young and has had a fairly impressive rookie campaign, took second in his first race, out qualified Jenson nine times, had a number of spectacular and aggressive drivers and will only improve in his second year. Being part of the McLaren driver program, they surely would want their protégé to get a good chance.

But this is Formula 1, it’s a tough place to be and after his second place in Australia, Magnussen was fairly mediocre for a while, failing to get to grips with the tyre management, getting too many penalties for his aggressive driving, couldn’t out-qualify Button over the whole season and had less than half the points too. Is that really good enough?

McLaren have been very unfair on their current drivers, pawing over Alonso, trying to persuade the Spaniard that he should return to the team he had such an acrimonious departure from after just one year in 2007. Particularly I think they could have shown Button more respect as a world champion rather than getting to the final race not knowing whether this was to be his last or not.

After 15 seasons but still only 34 years old, albeit 35 at the start of 2015, Button has had an impressive career. He’s come back against the odds when all seemed lost, particularly after 2008. He took his title opportunity in 2009, and then raced brilliantly against Lewis Hamilton at McLaren, where more often than not he was the equal of him, and sometimes just better.

I’m not going to talk about Button’s career as if it’s over, because in my opinion his time in Formula 1 should have at least another couple of years left. But looking back everyone expected Button to be trampled on by Lewis’ speed at McLaren despite being the reigning champion when he joined McLaren. But he raised his game to meet the challenge.

Yes he wasn’t as strong as him in qualifying, and his main problem is working around problems if the car isn’t to his liking, but that wasn’t seen as much at McLaren when up against Lewis. Button actually out pointed Lewis over their three years together and only took two victories less.

Give Button the car and he can be unbeatable, just look at Belgium in 2012, no one could get near him that weekend. Perhaps those weekends don’t come round often enough, but if you need a fast reliable racer who will get the job done, then Button is your driver.

Sergio Perez last year and Magnussen this year have both been young chargers who may have the raw speed but ultimately have been out performed by Button. He will bring home the points. He’s also very good with developing a car. As McLaren enter a new era with Honda, that expertise will be crucial especially in the first year.

Jenson also is popular in Japan and with Honda having worked with them while at BAR which became the Honda F1 team which is now Mercedes. His knowledge of how they work could make it easier to develop the car at a quicker rate from the driver’s perspective.

Alonso is probably still the best overall driver on the grid and his capture by McLaren is seriously good news for the team, but as good as I think Button has been the last couple of years, I think like with Lewis, he’ll be step up again and be more than a match for Fernando and there’ll probably be less of the tension.

In the end I think Alonso would have the better of Button, but Jenson will give as good as he gets and he would not let the Spaniard have everything his own way. In fact he could even surprise Alonso, if the chassis is decent then Button is just as good at running a race as he is. That competition would surely drive the team forward at a quicker rate. I don’t see Magnussen being able to offer that same competitive edge to Alonso just yet.

I do see him being able to learn a lot with a year as a test and reserve driver for the team with the aim being to slot in in 2016 if a seat became available. In the end though I think it’s going to come down to age and money. Button would realistically only be around for another couple of years in the sport whereas Magnussen can get much better and is very young and also very cheap.

I believe Magnussen deserves a second chance, but I think he’d benefit from a learning year, it certainly did Alonso no harm at all. And personally I’d love to see Button have a crack at Alonso, it would be a lot closer than many might think and the team would benefit from the car being developed by two experienced racers. Alonso is in a hurry to get a third crown, he’s only a year younger than Button, and if he’s smart, I get the feeling he’s already got some influence over the team so desperate were they to get him, then he’d use that to make them keep Button so as to sort the car out and make it competitive quicker, rumours go he’s already working on it.

Talking about the better numbers Button has against Magnussen Boullier told autosport that ‘If it was all about statistics, it would be really easy…but it is not like this’. McLaren Group CEO Ron Dennis is said to want Magnussen while other senior staff would prefer Button. Unfortunately you get the feeling Button may well have driven his last race in Formula 1 and that’s a great shame for the sport and McLaren as he’s one of the most genuine and sporting guys out there. Still, the World Endurance Championship is growing nicely and it’s been a while since anyone has done the F1 championship and Le Mans double.

all photos taken from autosport.com

Kvyat the big winner as Vettel leaves Red Bull

Sebastian Vettel is to leave Red Bull at the end of the year with Daniil Kvyat to take his place in the current World Champion team. Red Bull all but confirmed Vettel is off to Ferrari, most likely in place of Fernando Alonso whose relationship with the Scuderia has fallen apart, while Alonso is likely to end up with McLaren.

A shocking announcement to wake up to as qualifying for the Japanese Grand Prix got underway. Nico Rosberg took pole position ahead of Lewis Hamilton to set up another enticeing battle in the championship fight but all talk was for the driver movements affecting 2015.

Vettel's decision to leave comes as a complete surprise. Not so much that he's leaving Red Bull but how soon it is to happen. Although not confirmed by Ferrari it is almost certain that's where he's off to, but why?

Well Red Bull haven't been as good this year, Technical director Adrian Newey is going to step back, he's been taking a beating from Daniel Ricciardo and perhaps he wants to prove to the doubters that he can win in another team as many still seem to think he only won because he was in the best car. It's sound reasoning therefore that he would want to take up a new challenge and get Ferrari back to the top.

Although if Alonso can't win with them and they're in a worse state than ever it seems a curious decision. It's no secret Vettel has struggled to adapt to these new cars this year, I'd have thought stick with what you know and see how Ferrari get on next year, meanwhile do your best to get one over on Ricciardo.

But what if Ricciardo continued to beat him next year? Vettel's market value would diminish and potentially he could be left with fewer options about where to go. There's so many permutations to this it could be assessed forever. In the end it's probably a wise decision as Ferrari will of course one day get it right again, but how soon? And as one F1 journalist tweeted today, if Vettel struggles with them will they be left reflecting on how Alonso would be doing, or worse how Ricciardo would have done?

One thing we know for sure is that Alonso can drive round a bad car, but Vettel seems to need things more suited to him, it's going to be fascinating to see how this pans out. There's so much more to this situation as well, what of Kimi Raikkonen? Will he stay after such a miserable season. Vettel and Kimi are two drivers who have openly admitted they've struggled to adapt to these new turbo cars, is this what Ferrari want to lead them? Meanwhile this looks like it certainly means Alonso is on his way.

With all the management changes going on at Ferrari and the relationship between driver and team on the critical list at least since last year when Alonso criticised the team, it was inevitable that he would leave but I think most people thought it would come next year.

After the catastropic 2007 campaign he had with McLaren no one would have thought he'd end up back there but negotiations are on-going and it'll no longer be a surprise to see him end up back there. Ron Dennis wants the best drivers, and like at Ferrari there's been a lot of restructuring in the management and in the technical departments, so perhaps both team and Alonso are putting the past behind them to look to a brighter future.

More importantly though Honda want a big name driver, McLaren's new engine partner for 2015. They have long since targeted Alonso and I think whether Ron liked it or not, they were going to get their way as they aim to re-start their latest stint in F1 in a positive fashion. Honda will spend what they need to secure wins and like Ferrari it is inevitable that they will get it right again one day. But how soon?

Alonso is desperate for a third title and after five years of trying at Ferrari, they've not been able to make it work. We know he has a reputation for sometimes putting teams on edge, but for so long they seemed very much in love, how can this relationship have fallen apart so dramatically? Maybe he was demanding too much, maybe the new management at Ferrari had had enough of him looking for other options or were tired of everyone believing Alonso was carrying the team (which to be fair, he has been). Whatever it is, it's not a harmonious departure.

On that note how long can Alonso suffer another team in flux? It'll take a while for Honda and McLaren to get it right, perhaps he might take a year out, perhaps we're about to get another bombshell regarding a drive at Mercedes. Who knows? Alonso seems quite relaxed and happy and says he knows, so thats who. 

If Alonso is to go to McLaren I would think it'll be at the expense of Jenson Button. I think after the investment they've put into Kevin Magnussen who is at the start of his career they'll decide to stick with the Dane. But Button would raise his game considerably up against Alonso, like he did with Hamilton so it could be argued they should stick with him and give Magnussen a year out?

Unfortunately for Jenson that scenario is unlikely and it looks like it could be his last year in Formula 1 because as a former world champion do you really want to race for say Force India? Probably not. It would be a sad way to end, but nothing is confirmed yet.

Arguably it could be said that Vettel and Alonso are swapping their current seats for potentially worse seats, at least in the current situation, so you have to say that Kvyat's move from Toro Rosso to Red Bull is the really big winner in the driver moves.

What an opportunity for the young Russian driver after only one year in the junior team to be promoted to the four time champions. He has to believe Renault are going to make a huge improvement on the power unit and Red Bull will still have a car which will have been predominantly overseen by Adrian Newey despite him stepping back, at least for 2015.

He has been mostly hugely impressive this year and you could say looked better against his team mate Jean-Eric Vergne than even Ricciardo did last year, especially when you consider it's his rookie campaign. It could be quite a close battle at Red Bull next year and I don't think you can say their driver line up looks less despite the loss of a four time champion because quite simply Ricciardo has been brilliant and is a star in his own right while Kvyat looks a worthy addition for the reasons I've just given. Potentially if you look at the comparisons between drivers at Red Bull and Toro Rosso, then he could be in line to be the first Russian world champion in Formula 1. You got to say that it is not an unlikely scenario.

Vergne is rightly annoyed too that he was looked over. But it was never going to be him moving to Red Bull when Max Verstappen was announced for Toro Rosso. He's matched the 2015 Red Bull line-up, he deserves a seat but like Sebastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari before him, the Red Bull young driver program is ruthless.

It's also been rumoured Nico Hulkenberg might be off to sports cars which would be a great shame as he has deserved a seat in a top team for years but it seems he will be continued to be overlooked and admittedly he hasn't been quite as on it this year, perhaps for this reason. Force India say he is under contract for 2015.

A roller coaster of a Saturday morning and so many different scenarios, reasons and arguments that can be presented for all this situations. It's fascinating and there's probably a few more shocks to come in this crazy world of F1.

all photos taken from autosport.com

Radio silence for helping drivers

"The driver must drive the car alone and unaided." So says Article 20.1 of F1's sporting regulations as the FIA clamp down on radio communication between team and driver that help's with the performance of the car and driver.

Mercedes are a fine example of this, often you can hear them talking to Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg telling them where they could be braking later, where the advantage of their team mate is coming from on track. The perception is that the wider public are now viewing these once great gladiators in control of viciously fast machinery as mere puppets under the pit walls control.

In a way I guess that might not be too far from the truth, although not one I fully agree with. The full message sent to the teams on Wednesday night from FIA reported in autosport reads like this: "In order to ensure that the requirements of Article 20.1 of the F1 sporting regulations are respected at all times FIA intends to rigorously enforce this regulation with immediate effect. Therefore, no radio conversation from pit to driver may include any information that is related to the performance of the car or driver."

I think the intent of what the FIA are trying to do makes sense. They want the driver to be the star and for the public to see that he is the one in control and not attached to strings from the garage. I'm all in favour of the driver being given more control and can understand a sense of frustration when you hear a communication which helps a driver out and therefore erodes an advantage of another not through that drivers talent but from an engineer sitting by telemetry traces on a computer.

To my mind though it's just another case of Formula 1's current obsession with self improvement where it's not needed. As I've written before there is nothing wrong with the product, what’s wrong is the division of money to teams, about teams struggling for survival when there's no need for that to be the case, the fact that Formula 1 hasn't embraced social media and has no idea how to promote itself even with the major opportunity of a brave new world of regulations this year which no one knows about other than it's not as noisy. 

I'm sure there are some drivers who appreciate the radio help from the team, but equally I'm sure there's some drivers who just wish to be left alone. Perhaps it is a bit unfair when you're a driver who can cope with the complexities of the sport on your own and are able to manage all aspects but then that advantage is cancelled out because you're team mate or main rival has an engineer who is guiding them along.

To me it more emphasises the team element of the sport which unfortunately is so often overlooked. The radio transmissions add to the television coverage, and with this ban I'm sure we'll hear a lot less of the goings on of the drivers and the insight that brings. For instance you're able to learn how some teams operate, or which drivers request more information. How often do you hear Fernando Alonso looking for advice for instance compared to the Mercedes pair? It lets you realise sometimes who are the ones that need help, who want it, who don’t and who will get it anyway.

When does a communication become help anyway? How will that be defined? Thankfully the team will still be able to advise on pit strategy so we shouldn't lose classics like Hamilton's engineer Pete Bonnington saying it's 'hammer time' when it's time to push. Rob Smedley on the radio to Felipe Massa was always fun in the Ferrari days, but was often helping him and that kind of thing might be lost.

Still after all that, it's not going to effect anything radically and I hope in general there's still plenty of chatter broadcast, probably involving a lot of code words from teams that mean what they now cannot say. I do think it is just another case of F1 getting a thought in it's head and running with it for better or worse. We'll lose an aspect of team and driver and how they operate but maybe we'll gain from drivers being thought of as the real stars and in control of their machines again.

However as they’re the ones sitting in the car I always thought they were the ones in control and just utilising everything they could to drive them quicker. I think most people thought that anyway as at the end of the day when you're in a wheel to wheel fight no amount of advice is going to help a driver then and there. The new regulation comes into force at the next race in Singapore.

Ten years since Schumacher's last title glory

The Belgian Grand Prix, Spa-Francorchamps, 29^th August 2004. Sitting second on the grid Michael Schumacher must have been thinking another win would come his way, after all he’d spent the previous five months almost winning everything; 12 wins from 13 races. Surely he’d wrap up his inevitable seventh title in victorious style.

It wasn’t to be, although it would have been so appropriate to claim his last title at the track which was always so intertwined with his career; his debut for Jordan in 1991, his first win a year later, a controversial disqualification, the defeat of Damon Hill on a wet track while on dry tyres, several classic strolls into the distance and another mesmeric destruction of the field in the rain.

Spa did give him the title, he finished second to Kimi Raikkonen after slipping back at the start, but after having won the title so many times, I guess in a year of supremacy the only way you’d want to clinch the championship is in style, and second wasn’t the style he was accustomed to.

Schumacher dominated the sport for so long it seems incredible that today marks ten years ago that he wrapped up his final and seventh world championship. Even now for those who have only a peripheral knowledge of the world of Formula 1 he is the name that is conjured up. So complete was his hold on the sport that many people thought he was still out there winning.

Perhaps that is because he so embodied everything about the world of Formula 1, its good and its bad points. He took it to a whole new level of professionalism and brought or established new things which many would now consider essential tools in the driver trade.

His absolute dedication to his fitness, his ability to motivate and be a full part of the team driving them in a positive direction, his constant search for perfection, being one of the first drivers who would twist and turn various instruments during the race which is now common place.

Schumacher was a class apart, his commitment to his goals was unmatched. Nothing was left unturned in his pursuit to be the best out there. Many people at the time became dissatisfied with his constant glory but I thought it was great to be watching a legend do his work right before us. His seven titles (1994, 95 & 2000-2004) and 91 wins could well be matched but it’s going to take someone of complete single minded determination to maintain a win rate such as Schuey had.

The alarming thing is he could well have won a lot more. The titles he missed out on could be said to be even better than some of the championships he took. To my mind at least his 1997 season was majestic. For a modern day comparison think of Fernando Alonso taking the championship to the wire in 2012 except that in ’97 the Ferrari was even more of a dog of a car.

He lead the points into the final race but obviously to the greater world his year was tarnished when faced with the possibility of losing to a car and driver which should have had the title sewn up several races ago if it weren’t for the efforts of Schumacher he swiped into the side of the Williams of Jacques Villeneuve.

A bad ending and one of his professional fouls which he actually admitted to, but to me it takes nothing away from the fact that he had no real right to be challenging for the title that year anyway. The following season he was up against the equally superior McLaren of Mika Hakkinen as the Williams had been before. Again he managed to take the title to the final race. Finally, while leading the 2006 Japanese Grand Prix ahead of Alonso he was just 17 laps away from taking a two point lead into the final race of the year when his engine failed. His luck which had always been so good was finally deserting him as his first career came to a close.

Of course it possibly should have continued at Ferrari for another year or two. For reasons which remain unclear Kimi was signed without Schumacher’s knowledge and he was ushered into a retirement he wasn’t really ready for. Can we speculate what might have happened? Well you can never be sure, but I’m pretty sure nevertheless. 2007 wouldn’t have been the three way classic between Kimi, Alonso and Lewis Hamilton. It would have been a final Schuey title.

The way those three capitulated and the fact Kimi and Felipe Massa were so evenly matched when Schumacher had mostly had the beating of Massa pretty comprehensively leads me to believe he’d have used the 2007 Ferrari to devastating effect. It certainly would have been interesting to witness the following year, Hamilton against Schumacher in equally matched cars. It's a missing highlight just like the lack of a proper full title fight between Schumacher and Ayrton Senna, it's added to the long list of what could have beens.

We caught a glimpse of how good it might have been in the 2011 Italian Grand Prix with an epic dual between Hamilton and Schumacher which was an utter joy and also beautifully aggressive. Because of course Schuey did retire at the end of 2006 before coming back in a blaze of glory in 2010 for Mercedes.

It didn’t work out quite as well as had been hoped, the luck I mentioned earlier was practically non-existant this time around. Despite Mercedes spawning from the ashes of 2009 championship winners Brawn GP, the car wasn’t up to it. In fact the car, the tyres, the competition had all moved on. Schumacher was also faced with ageing, even he couldn’t hold back time. There were stupid accidents, moments of indecision and several poor races. But there were highs too, that battle with Hamilton, fourth in Canada 2011, the pole lap of the season in Monaco 2012, his podium in Valencia and a comeback charge from the back to seventh in his final final race.

He said later his Mercedes comeback taught him how to lose, but you could see that mostly he was still enjoying it, I think gone was the total commitment to winning, he still wanted to certainly and some of his on track manoeuvres proved that, but he was a more relaxed individual in the public eye and seemed happy enough to be racing and working towards something.

The rewards never came but as we’ve come to appreciate, his comparison to Nico Rosberg is nothing at all to be ashamed of as Nico matches Hamilton in this years championship. Schumacher was often faster on race pace, so despite not demonstrating the devastating winning habit that characterised his first career it wasn’t quite as bad as some make out and when analysed properly doesn’t take anything away from his legacy. 

Not only is it ten years since his last title but later on this year it will be twenty since his first title. No one else has managed to sustain such comprehensive success to stay at the top of the sport for season after season, he will forever be talked about amongst the greats.

Of course there were the controversial moments, including questionable driving methods, favouritism from his team and the sports governing bodies. With regards to the team favouritism, he worked himself into that position so why should he not have benefitted? But these controversies are not what should be remembered about his career.

It should be just how exceptional he was, how much of a racer he was and how much he loved the sport he dominated. I remember the first time I saw him win live at the 1998 British Grand Prix in the pouring rain which encapsulated his career for me as it showed the racer and the controversy. It was mesmeric watching his hands dancing on the steering wheel as you could see him delicately balancing the car coming through club, driving hard through the spray but to win in the pit lane created uproar at the time.

You always knew something would happen when Michael Schumacher was racing. Since he retired for the second time he was still looking for challenges, looking for fun and thrills while also helping extensively with charities which wasn't overly publicised. I truly hope he can make as good a recovery as possible from the horrible skiing accident at the end of last year that left him in a coma for nearly six months. So now is the time to remember his success and continue to wish him well for more success in the future. Keep fighting Michael.

For some of my favourite Schumacher moments, please click here

all photo's taken from autosport.com

Sebastian Vettel fighting back

“When he [Vettel] will have a car like the others, if he wins, he will have a great recognition and be one of the legends in F1… When one day he has a car like the others and he is fourth, fifth, seventh, these four titles will be bad news for him because people will take these four titles in a worse manner than they are doing now.”

There’s a German leading the championship in the best car in 2014. It’s not Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull though. However, the Red Bull team have mostly been the second best out there and have taken two victories so far this year, but neither was scored by their four time champion. Two facts which make the above quote from Fernando Alonso at the tail end of last year stand out just a little bit more.

At the time of Vettel’s victorious years many in the F1 world wondered whether it was just the car catapulting him to win after win. Could it be that he was merely a good driver piloting an exceptional car? I wondered during winter testing when it became apparent that Red Bull would be facing an uphill battle if Vettel would struggle when confronted with a car which wasn’t an immediate front runner.

In brief I speculated that with the banning of blown diffusers, something Vettel had exceptional technique with and a major advantage of the Red Bull if he’d full back in the pack. Further to that the conservatism with which Pirelli approached this season because of the huge torque coming from the new for 2014 hybrid turbo power units, and the fact that I think they were fed up with their tyres being blamed for everything took another advantage of Vettel’s away. He was brilliant at getting the best out of those more brittle tyres, better than anyone else.

Two major elements had been taken away along with a whole chunk of downforce and one major addition of a power unit where the throttle pedal is extremely sensitive, unlike in the blown diffuser era where you practically stepped on it and let the aero sort you out, it would stick in the corner, now it won’t. It doesn't help that his Renault power unit is the worst in the field as much as 90bhp down on th Mercedes.

I thought back in February that if Vettel were to struggle it would be an ideal opportunity for his new team mate Daniel Ricciardo, promoted from Toro Rosso, to take advantage. But Vettel is a four time world champion, so I dismissed this as a possibility but highly unlikely. As has become quite clear during this season, never dismiss Ricciardo for the young Australian is a brilliant talent.

He leads Vettel in qualifying by 6-5 which should actually be 7-4 as Ricciardo suffered a 10 place grid penalty in Bahrain which put him behind his team mate. In the races he is even further ahead. When both cars have finished Ricciardo has beaten Vettel 6-1.

Ricciardo has scored five podiums of which two were wins and this is not including the second place he was disqualified from in his home race. Vettel has managed to get on the podium just twice this year and each time it was the bottom step. For all the world to see these statistics provide a compelling case, when he’s finished it’s been mostly fourths and fifths, kind of what Alonso said might be the case if Vettel were to sit in a car which wasn’t the best, you know that’s what the Spaniard was implying.

First of all that shouldn’t take anything away from Vettel’s achievements of the previous four years, it was a different era of Formula 1, one in which he exploited the potential of the machinery available to him to the full. In that era, with that technology he was unsurpassed. This is a very different Formula 1, one in which he hasn’t yet got used to. 

Alonso is a brilliant driver, probably the best all-rounder in the business, he can adapt to anything that comes his way, to me that makes a great driver. His current team mate Kimi Raikkonen was meant to challenge him but Alonso has wiped the floor with him, I don’t think that means Kimi is suddenly a bad driver. He has been brilliant these past few years, but something about this new era doesn’t sit well with him a bit like Vettel.

Vettel is sensitive to change, he needs a car where the back end will stick, something that the cars are not capable of doing to the extent they have been in the recent past. Vettel has not been able to change his style and feel comfortable in the car whereas Ricciardo has jumped in straight from Toro Rosso which didn’t have as advanced blown diffuser technology and straight away adapted to this new Formula. He is a team mate who is eager for success, something Vettel has not had to put up with for a while as probably since 2011 Mark Webber was demotivated a lot of the time after losing his one shot at the title.

This doesn’t mean he won’t learn how to deal with these cars or that success has somehow dulled his driving when he’s got to fight harder for it. If anything his frustrated radio messages this year show just how much more he wants, just how annoyed he is at being beaten. This car and this team mate is the toughest time he's ever had in Formula 1, even though he denies this. Ricciardo has been constantly shading him in qualifying. Just when you think Vettel might have the beating of the Aussie, Ricciardo pulls a lap out of the bag. In the races Ricciardo is feisty, attacking, amazingly consistent, including the Mercedes drivers, he has probably been the most impressive driver of the season so far.

Vettel is up against a star of the future, just like Alonso was when Lewis Hamilton got his chance at McLaren when the Spaniard was beaten. This is plainly not some journeyman driver who has turned up at Red Bull, he’s been through the same young driver program Vettel himself went through, there is little doubt that Vettel is up against a future world champion.

Having said that, there are signs that Vettel is turning a corner, especially since FRIC suspension was banned, he looked strong in Germany and out-qualified Ricciardo in Hungary. But even before then, he hasn’t been quite as trounced by Ricciardo as it might seem; it could be argued that both Ricciardo’s wins could have been Vettel’s. Delays in traffic meant he exited behind Ricciardo after pit stops in Canada when he was running in front for most of the race. It could well have been him who took advantage of the struggling Mercedes.

In Hungary he was in third when the safety car came out as he was passing the pit lane, just behind Ricciardo was one of the first into the pits which put him into the lead at the restart. Circumstance has not gone his way nor has reliability, it’s like they’ve given him Webber’s car.

So yes, Vettel has been out performed this year, he hasn’t made the best of the equipment at his disposal, so he’s certainly not out-performing the car like a great can. However, he has out-performed the car in previous years (Red Bull never had an advantage like Mercedes have this year), he is improving in this era and he is beginning to match an exceptional young driver.

Might you have expected more from a four time champion? Yes, quite probably, but this car doesn’t suit him, but it’s coming to him and I will not be surprised to see him match and beat Ricciardo more often after the summer break. He won’t dominate him like Webber, he may not even beat him overall this year, but he’ll match him. He is a very intelligent driver, very mechanical minded and he won’t leave a piece of telemetry unturned until he’s worked out how to succeed once again.

It’s not all lost for Vettel, he’s only just turned 27, he is still learning himself and sometimes it does you good to experience losing. But he won’t want it to last for long. He has achieved great success, but is he a great yet? Greatness is too often bandied around, greatness is earned, it’s about how you achieve success, how you exploit it when the opportunity arises and how you get it back when times are tough. Vettel is going through those hard times, but as the season continues and turns into 2015 I won’t be surprised to see him standing atop the podium once again. He’s turning a corner, adjusting, and it may take until next year, but it’s coming to him, and he’ll make sure it does.

all photo's taken from autosport.com

Will Fernando Alonso ever win another title?

Fernando Alonso is arguably the best driver currently racing in Formula 1. He’s a two time world champion who has proved his worth in the best cars and most certainly in many poorer cars as he drags them to wins and podiums they shouldn’t be achieving. He’s come so close to adding another title but missed out so often but with Ferrari continuing to squander the talents of their lead driver and the Spaniard certainly in the latter stages of his career will he get another opportunity to secure the third title he so desperately craves? 

Since he won his last world championship all the way back in 2006 for Renault, he has fought for a further three, all of which he perhaps should have won in 2007, 2010 and 2012. Two of which, and one in particular when he was driving a car which just didn’t deserve to be competing at the front, let alone nearly winning the world championship.

After winning for Renault he joined McLaren which was a tumultuous season and which quickly meant an exit back to Renault to have two relatively uncompetitive years where he scored just two wins and failed to win in 2009. But everyone knew he was still fighting as hard as he could mostly, especially when a sniff of a decent result came along.

Ferrari likes to have the best driver available and so rescued him for what would surely become one of the most successful partnerships in the sport. It hasn’t been. Admittedly it should have accrued him at least another two titles but that was more down to the driver than the team. This Alonso-Ferrari combination is now entering its fifth season together and if you go on the Michael Schumacher-Ferrari formula of success, it should be bearing the fruits of countless winners trophies. But it isn’t, it’s probably going to result in Alonso’s first winless season since the dark days of 2009, and that is just unacceptable to a man of Alonso’s quality and drive to succeed.

His lack of winning titles hasn’t done his reputation any harm at all. If anything it’s enhanced it greatly. 2012 should go down as one of the best examples of driving a near perfect season as anyone has ever seen only derailed by others mistakes, and I’m sure it will for the many knowledgeable fans out there, but for the casual fan the name written next to 2012 as the championship winner will be Sebastian Vettel’s and that’s all they’ll know.

I think it would be a tragedy for a driver the calibre of Alonso to end his career without another world title especially because in my opinion he is so much better now than when he won his first two titles. Is Alonso destined to be a driver remembered for just a couple of titles but mainly for outperforming his machinery? 

There’s something heroic about that, but in the end it’s not what gets you recognised as a true great around the world, success is the true barometer of a sportman’s legacy for many, and unfortunately for Fernando that’s been in short supply for too long. He needs another title, as if you cared to you could question his first two championships? When Kimi was a true speed king, he might well have won in 2005 if his McLaren hadn’t have been so unreliable. 2006 too, Schumacher probably should have won if it were not for an engine failure while leading at the penultimate race. 

I do tend to look at it another way though, 2005 he maximised his machinery and as is his way, built a championship, won when he could, maximised the points available if he couldn’t. He took the title with two races left to run. His 2006 title will always remain one which should be highly regarded as he battled an at his peak Schumacher to the last race of the season and beat him in pretty equal machinery. But since then he has played second fiddle to Vettel as the young German has exploited the maximum potential of the Red Bull machinery. Alonso has been the main guy to push Vettel, always the one challenging when perhaps he shouldn’t be. It's caused him much frustration to watch Vettel rack up the wins in a superior car when Alonso believes he's not as good as his four championships suggest.

On the Sky sports website, it was noted that that once again it was Alonso who was mixing it with this year’s dominant power unit Mercedes, but asked if he got much satisfaction from outperforming his car he replied tellingly. ‘"Not much," he sighed. "It's been five years like this. There is always satisfaction that everyone believes you are always performing at your best. There's the respect from drivers, Team Principals and fans for the job that you do. But I prefer to have no respect and to win more trophies."’

And there’s the rub of it. Alonso has made no secret of the fact that he deeply desires a third world title to put him amongst the greats like Ayrton Senna (although there’s plenty of great double world champions too), but as he approaches his 33rd birthday in just a month, time is running out for him to achieve his ambition.

You could say he has at least another four to five seasons but at the moment he is contracted at Ferrari until 2016, a team which should be producing consistently competitive cars but which have now been struggling to do that for over five years. Periodically Ferrari go through fallow periods, I don’t expect this one to last as long as the 21 year wait that Schumacher ended in 2000, but it’s not unreasonable to say it could be longer than four or five years.

Ferrari has been struggling with the calibration of their wind tunnel and even the supposed fix for this season doesn’t seem to be producing. They’ve brought in people like Pat Fry who designed for McLaren before and James Allison who was at Lotus and worked for Ferrari in the latter stages of the Ferrari steamroller of success. After the Schumacher era though, the core group of people that made the team work so harmoniously fell apart gradually, and it hasn’t had that same harmony since. It’s like trying to tape up a cut when it needs stitches; it’s not going to get better quickly. It’s taken Alonso to drag the limping horse to its feet these past few years and he continues to do that this season as he makes a mockery of the excitement that (an admittedly struggling) Kimi Raikkonen would challenge him as his team mate this year. 

Alonso publically maintains belief that Ferrari can step up next season, but it always seems to be next season at the moment with scarlet team. So where could he go? It’s well known his management team did a bit of investigating at Red Bull last season, but the likelihood is that with the immediate success of Daniel Ricciardo partnering Vettel, that driver combination will remain for a few years yet, although if Vettel doesn’t start beating Ricciardo a bit more you never know. 

McLaren have Honda coming on board next year, it’s a partnership that should work but McLaren aren’t exactly producing great chassis at the moment either and it’s bound to take a few years for this partnership to come to fruition. Despite saying things to the contrary I’m not sure Ron Dennis would want Alonso back after the 2007 spy gate affair lead to his acrimonious departure after just one season of a three year contract.

Mercedes? I think they’re quite happy with Nico Rosberg and Hamilton to be honest despite a Mercedes board member heaping praise on the Spaniard. I’m not sure any team would really want to put Alonso and Hamilton together again.  There really doesn’t seem anywhere open to him that would be immediately competitive. I’m afraid also that his reputation of throwing his toys out of his pram on occasion at Renault, the bust up at McLaren and the increasingly frosty relationship he seems to have at Ferrari has put people off him, he could disrupt the team especially if a team mate gets too close for comfort.

Unfortunately for Alonso he looks stuck at Ferrari as his best bet and that might mean he may never win a title again. As the younger generation become more established and he is in the latter years of his career, it becomes increasingly unlikely that a team will look to him to lead them for the future. After this season it will have been eight years since he won the world title. It wouldn’t be right for his career to be defined by early success and then a constant fight with sub-optimal cars that he out drove.

However, I’m not sure it would be right for him to jump into the best car and beat everyone either. No, for a fighter such as Alonso I think it would be far more poetic for him to create the perfect season as his legacy in a car just off the best. To drag and cajole it to perform miracles that no one on the grid (apart from perhaps Lewis when the mood takes him) could do. 

It’s obviously frustrated him to be given substandard machinery, after the epic 2012, last season he seemed subdued sometimes but who can forget that stare after he lost the title in the final round, it spoke of just total amazement and devastation, it was like he couldn’t quite believe that he could have lost after everything he’d done. He had put so much effort into 2012 that I think it was inevitable that after all he had done for Ferrari and they once again failed to keep up their side of the bargain that he would be sometimes below par. 

However he has regained the fight this year despite another poor car. I truly believe he can recreate a 2012 performance again. He might want to do it in the best car, but I’m not sure Ferrari can give him that for a while and there are no openings elsewhere. One more perfect season Fernando, he can be king again and he deserves to be.

all photo's taken from autosport.com

Will Vettel struggle in 2014?

With the racing yet to even start, the leaders of Formula 1 for the past four years already find themselves on the back foot. Red Bull completed just 20 laps in the first test at Jerez and just 116 laps at the next test in Bahrain. In comparison the leaders of the winter, Mercedes, completed 309 and 315 laps respectively.

It doesn’t help that there hasn’t even been a hint of the pace we’ve come to expect from Red Bull in recent times while Mercedes have been toward the top of the charts in practically every day of testing so far.

These problems have mostly come down to the new turbo Renault power unit which has suffered from heating issues amongst other things while Adrian Newey has once again made the Red Bull as compact as possible to the exclusion of cooling which apparently the Renault needs a fair amount of.

Obviously these problems are being sorted as quickly as possible, but even if the team sort out their car, Renault say they are weeks behind the development of Ferrari let alone the pace setting Mercedes powered teams. Rumours go they may be even further behind than that.

It’s not often that Sebastian Vettel has had to struggle in his Grand Prix career, or worse be faced with a car that might not be competitive. This situation could about to become a reality as he tries to equal Michael Schumacher’s record of five titles in a row.

At times when the car has not been fully optimised Vettel’s former team mate Mark Webber was often able to equal or better the German. Certainly in 2010 they were matched for almost all the season until the exhaust blown diffuser came on stream to give Vettel a decisive advantage as only he could fully exploit the driving style required.

After dominating 2011, 2012 started out with Red Bull struggling slightly and again Webber was back on terms after being comprehensively outperformed the previous year. What I’m suggesting is that when the car is less able to perform at its maximum, Vettel is not as able to drag that car to results as well as others like Fernando Alonso or Lewis Hamilton might. On the other hand when a car is performing well, I don’t think anyone can get the best out of it as well as Vettel.

But it’s all change in 2014, the blown diffusers are a thing of the past. What made Vettel so special in these years was that he was perhaps the finest in the art of counter intuitive driving, getting on the throttle to blow the exhaust gases on to the diffuser to create more downforce while usually you wouldn’t be touching the right pedal.

This technology is gone and with it one of the biggest advantages Red Bull and Vettel had. He was also the best at using the high degradation Pirelli tyres. With the new engines having so much more torque Pirelli have rightly gone conservative for this year, so another advantage of Vettel has been taken away.

It’ll be interesting to see how his new team mate Daniel Ricciardo gets on. He is there to make an impression, it’s the biggest opportunity of his career so far and he’ll want to make the most of it. If Vettel struggles, Ricciardo could well take advantage. However, I just can’t see this happening.

Let’s not get carried away with the Red Bull struggles just yet, this is a mere hypothesis about what could happen. Red Bull have Newey and a great team which will be working on how to solve their current problems 24/7, if they’re not competitive now, they certainly will be at some point.

And as I have written before, to me Vettel more than proved he had learned to get results from a less than perfect car, like in the first half of 2013 where let us not forget it was a lot closer than the end result would have you believe. Vettel was never out of the top four in that first half and scored wins he really shouldn’t have. That part of the season really showed that perhaps the issues that were once there had been eliminated.

The year is all up in the air still, but one thing is certain Red Bull are not going to be cruising away with this one and Vettel will be tested to the limit but there’s little doubt that he’s more than up to the task. If anything it’ll make him better and more determined to get back to the top such is his will to win and when Red Bull get it right, which they will, Vettel will be there to exploit it.

all photo's taken from autosport.com