First 2013 test is go!

Pre-season testing for the 2013 season launched today at Jerez with 10 of the 11 teams bringing their new cars. Most noticeable is that many of the teams have either got rid of the stepped noses or have at least smoothed them out with the obvious exception of Caterham which just looks so pretty!

So below is a run down in one nice blog post of all the new cars excluding Williams who will launch their new car on February 19th. Although just how similar they'll look by the first race will be interesting such is the pace of development in Formula 1.

Red Bull

They'll certainly be expecting to be in contention for the title again, especially after the brilliant development they showed last season to get Sebastian Vettel his third world title.

Rumours go that they're a little behind schedule with their new car, well according to Ted Kravitz on Sky's F1 review show, but then they started with such a high baseline I'm sure if they are, they won't be behind for long. Mark Webber will hope to challenge Vettel again.


Ferrari

Ferrari need to hit the ground running from the off this season if they want to finally deliver Fernando Alonso a long awaited third world title. 

Fernando can't be expected to drag their car to the top again. He's missing the first test, but Felipe Massa will be in the car for three days hoping to continue his end of 2012 form when he was the faster Ferrari driver. They'll be in the hunt for sure.



McLaren

Outwardly, the McLaren doesn't look much different from last year. Under the skin though, we're assured it's all change.

Jenson Button has had more influence over the car this year, if it suits him perfectly he'll be in with a chance, if not well McLaren could be in for a struggle this year. Button and new team mate Sergio Perez aren't exactly the best qualifiers in the business.


Lotus

The team from Enstone are certainly on an upward curve. I fully expect them to be even stronger than last year. Kimi Raikkonen is fully motivated to deliver more wins. Maybe not quite championship contenders, but certainly ones to watch.

Romain Grosjean is quick enough to challenge and I think he'll have learnt from his mistakes of 2012. If he hasn't he may not be here by the end of the season.


Mercedes

Perhaps the most exciting team to watch this year what with the addition of Lewis Hamilton. I fully expect him to win races. I worry about the long term future of the team though, there's a lot of messing about going on with the teams hierarchy, don't they know Ross Brawn will get it right if they leave him to it? 

I can't see Nico Rosberg beating Lewis, Hamilton is just too fast.


Sauber

Sauber tailed off towards the end of the year, but with the addition of the impressive Nico Hulkenberg, I'm sure they'll still be able to throw in the odd surprise result, maybe if they're lucky a win.

Esteban Gutierrez is the new driver replacing the missed Kamui Kobayashi who should have a drive. At least they keep their Mexican money after Perez joined McLaren.

Force India

Force India became one of the stronger teams towards the end of 2012 and should have won in Brazil. Paul di Resta keeps his seat and will be the teams main driver, with the second seat still yet to be announced but likely to go to Ferrari young driver Jules Bianchi.

I think this team could well end up surpassing Sauber as the team to watch for those surprise results.


Toro Rosso

Toro Rosso weren't exactly off the pace last year, but they certainly didn't get the points that they perhaps should have done. With the loss of HRT, they'll be hoping to have developed enough to keep out of the Q1 drop zone.

Daniel Ricciardo and Jean-Eric Vergne deserve a decent opportunity. They certainly were upping their games towards the end of the year, I expect a few decent scraps for the lower end of the points.


Caterham

With the regulations allowing for the step noses to be got rid of, I think Caterham should have made more of an effort! But they're developing for further down the season as operation facilities were deemed more important.

They start the season with one years experience between both drivers. Charles Pic drove for Marussia last year while Geido van der Garde was in GP2. I think points are still some way off.


Marussia

I think Marussia could best Caterham this year, but entering their fourth season they really should be challenging for points at least. Still, it's their first car designed with the addition of a wind tunnel and they now have KERs so at least they're going in the right direction.

The loss of Timi Glock due to finances will be a blow, they have Max Chilton and Luiz Razia graduating from GP2, for a developing team a lack of F1 driving experience can't be the best thing in the world.


Williams

As I've said, their car is yet to be launched but I'm really excited about what they may offer us. I think they've got the potential to be challenging far higher than they finished last year. It was only Pastor Maldonado's attempts to crash into people and Bruno Senna's sluggishness in qualifying that prevented them scoring at least double the points they ended up with.

Maldonado should have learnt as he enters his third season with the team and Valtteri Bottas is a very exciting addition to the team, I expect big things from this team.

So there's the teams, the cars are out on track as I write, Formula 1 2013 is go, go, go!

all photo's from autosport.com

edited due to Marussia's announcement of Luiz Razia joining the team.

Five stories to keep watch on in F1 2013

It’s only been six weeks since the end of the 2012 Formula 1 season but already launch dates are being announced, the first of the winter tests starts in less than a month, and the first race of the year is only a mere 10 weeks away.

Formula 1 is forever looking forward and you can bet that Red Bull and Sebastian Vettel are well on the way to plotting how they can hold on to their titles for a fourth consecutive year. Don’t worry though dear casual viewers, the likelihood of someone doing that again is very doubtful, in fact 2013 could be even more competitive than last year.

We’ve got no really big changes in the regulations this year. There are a few little tweaks here and there but nothing so major as to result in a revolution of design principles. All this means is that the grid should be getting ever closer with even more potential for the midfield teams to spring a surprise or two, especially at the beginning of the year.

So with that said and all the teams feverishly preparing for the off here are five things I’m looking forward to seeing in the year ahead.

New Flying Finn

Valtteri Bottas is the new Finnish superstar that Williams have chosen to replace Bruno Senna. He’s proved himself well in the junior formulae including winning the GP3 title in 2011, before becoming Williams’ reserve driver last year where he took part in the majority of first practice sessions.

So he’s had a year of experience in the background and now it’s time for him to enter the real limelight of being an F1 race driver. I think he’s an exciting talent, he seemed able to match his team mate Pastor Maldonado last year so it’ll be interesting to see how he copes with a full race weekend and how Maldonado handles this too.

Bottas is about as prepared as he can be in this age of no testing, I’ve a feeling he could be a future superstar of the sport and what with the progress Williams made last year and the hope they’ll be able to carry it over this year it’s going to be a fascinating season in the Williams garage this year.

Team Enstone ready to win

Staying on the Finnish theme for a bit longer, Kimi Raikkonen could be in for a great year. After two years away Kimi Raikkonen’s comeback with Lotus was nothing short of brilliant as he stayed in the title fight until two races from the end.

I’ve written in previous blogs how in previous incarnations the team from Enstone seem to have a cycle as to when they challenge for the title. In 1994/95 as Benetton they took Michael Schumacher to two consecutive titles, 10 years later in 2005/06 Fernando Alonso won a brace of championships.

It’s only 7 years further on from that, but after a few seasons of simmering their form last year shows they might be ready to come to the boil once again. Of course Kimi will take this in his stride, he knows what he’s doing.

How long can Alonso take not winning?

Who can forget that stare of Alonso as he climbed from the car in Brazil after losing the world title to Sebastian Vettel at the final race for the second time in three years. He hugged his mechanics and appeared justifiably jubilant after producing a near perfect season and falling short through no fault of his own.

But then he stood with his visor up, eyes seemingly not focused on anything, just staring into the distance, probably wondering what he has to do to win again. In the six years since he last won a title he could have won another three, but he hasn’t and that must get to someone like Alonso, who has many a time previously thrown his toys out the pram when things haven’t been going his way.

By contrast his time at Ferrari has seen him grow into quite a calm inspiring individual who’s prone to quoting Samurai proverbs. But what if Ferrari can’t produce a top car again? What if Felipe Massa’s increased speed and confidence at the end of 2012 carries over to 2013? What if he sees Vettel getting another title over him? What then?

This situation would test his relaxed mature demeanour to the maximum, but what if Ferrari does produce a top car? Well on the form of last year, Alonso would walk it.

McLaren and Button

When the car is to his liking Jenson Button can be the best out there. When it’s not? Well you need a driver like Lewis Hamilton to drive around the problem and still get some decent points. Unfortunately for McLaren, they no longer have Lewis.

In fact judging by the form of last year when Button and his new team mate Sergio Perez weren’t exactly prolific in qualifying they’re going to have to do some serious work with their drivers on making the car work for them on Saturday’s or they’re going to be having to focus on heroic drivers from poor grid positions to the podium rather than seeking the wins.

However, I think if they’ve managed to design a car more suited to Button like the 2011 car then we could see Jenson really move forward. He’s a full on team leader now, he won’t expect Perez to outclass him in his first year at least. This could be a brilliant opportunity for Button or a year in the doldrums for McLaren.

Lewis Hamilton’s new challenge

Lewis’ move to Mercedes was brave and some would say slightly mistimed by about a year. But then again as many have said Hamilton needs to grow and to do that he had to leave McLaren. Whatever, I’m going to write a bit more about this later in the month, but all I can say is it’s very exciting to have a top driver move teams to take on a challenge as big as this. I think he’ll win races this year, and I meant to use the plural.

Here’s a cheeky sixth

No more stepped noses, cars will look pretty again!

A little reflection

Formula 1 moves so fast it’s easy to forget some of the brilliant events of last year, so seen as this is my first blog of the year here’s a brief summary of five stories I enjoyed in 2012.

Well this one is quite prominent, Kimi Raikkonen’s comeback year. As I’ve already mentioned, it was superb.

Felipe Massa turning his season around to the extent that in the last few races he was asked to hold station behind Alonso, and particularly in the last 2 weekends was just outright quicker.

F1 needs a place in the USA and Austin was fantastic and to my mind at least produced the most tense and thrilling race of the year.

I thought Pastor Maldonado not getting a race ban while Romain Grosjean did was pretty note worthy. A lot of the incidents Grosjean had weren't his fault especially earlier in the year. Maldonado deliberately swiped his car against Sergio Perez in Monaco. However, I know this is a controversial opinion but for a supposed pay driver Pastor Maldonado is bloody quick. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him win more races this year and towards the end of 2012 he looked like he was beginning to learn his lessons. Same for Romain Grosjean, although he still got involved in too many incidents he is fast, both are sure to be mixing it up this season, hopefully for the good this time.

Finally for me, Michael Schumacher’s pole lap in Monaco. Utterly brilliant, showed that sometimes he still had it.

But that’s all over now, Formula 1 just keeps on going.

all photo's from autosport.com

Top 10 drivers of 2012

So here we are at the top, everyone this year had a chance to show their quality, but who made the biggest impression? 25-11 can be found here, but these are my top 10 drivers of the year.

10. Michael Schumacher (Mercedes)

Schumacher’s come back is at an end and it’s fair to say it didn’t go according to plan. There were far too many incidents, mistakes that he just wouldn’t have made before, and most important of all his outright speed had diminished over time.

This season he had the worst reliability of anyone on the grid but yet after all that, he still showed what he is, an out and out racer. He’s out qualified Rosberg 10 times this year, was more often than not faster in the races, and took probably the best pole lap of the season in Monaco. Such a shame he had a grid penalty for that race. 

He said he learnt how to lose in his second career, but I think he also takes great credit for never giving up and for showing he could still mix it with today's drivers, some of whom are 20 years younger. He’ll always remain a legend, and his drive in Brazil in his final race, charging from the back into the points showed true class; a legend.

9. Sergio Perez (Sauber)

At one point in the season he’d have been much higher up but from when he was announced as Lewis Hamilton’s replacement at McLaren he seemed to be trying to prove too much and failed to score in the last six races through a few too many mistakes. Hopefully this is not a sign of how he’ll handle the pressure he’ll get at McLaren.

Before then he was brilliant a lot of the time scoring three podiums, but he also should have had a win in Malaysia. There’s still a lot of untapped potential there, especially in qualifying but he’s not the finished article, hopefully McLaren will give him the time to flourish, because he can be brilliant; his drives in Malaysia and especially in Italy were great charges through the field.

8. Felipe Massa (Ferrari)

At one point this season Massa would have barely made the top 15, but the second half of the year showed that perhaps Felipe wasn’t done yet. He scored points in all of the last 10 races including two podiums. His form improved once Ferrari announced he had a seat for 2013, but there had already been glimpses of the old 2008/9 Massa before his accident.

He actually out-paced and out-raced Alonso in the last two Grand Prix of the year, I always thought Massa could challenge Fernando on a more consistent basis and providing Ferrari and Fernando allow it he should be able to give the Spaniard more of a challenge next year. It’s been a good recovery which seems to have put him back on the upward curve again.

7. Mark Webber (Red Bull)

Webber seems to have a slight edge over Vettel when the car isn’t quite as good as it could be, he can grind out the results. His two victories at Monaco and Silverstone were some of the most impressive drives of the year, especially his charging down of Alonso at the British track.

He was 10 points ahead of Vettel at the half way point, but it was around then that the German got the edge on him. Red Bull improved the car, and Webber can’t quite exploit the maximum potential of a great car as well as Vettel. The points dried up albeit a lot of that was due to unreliability but he also didn’t seem to have the pace that Vettel showed was there. Still, he can push Vettel, and given the circumstances he can still be a title challenger.

6. Jenson Button (McLaren)

Three wins for Jenson this year is the same amount he scored last year when I rated him the 2^nd best driver of the year. It started so well with the win in Australia it looked like he was carrying on his form from 2011, but after that the main difference this year is that he was absolutely trounced by Lewis Hamilton for most of the season. The points don’t show it but he was soundly beaten, not helped by him completely losing his way with how to set up the car to use the Pirelli’s usefully.

However on his day he can be unbeatable, he was totally untouchable in Belgium but those days need to come more consistently if he’s to mount another title challenge. He’s effectively a team leader next year so if McLaren have managed to design a car around him he can do the job; he’s certainly more than capable.

5. Nico Hulkenberg (Force India)

Yes it is a bit of a surprise to have him up this high, but whereas the likes of Webber and Button were a bit inconsistent with their performances Hulkenberg was on a steady upward curve that resulted in him nearly winning the Brazilian Grand Prix. He had been on the side lines for a year so it wasn’t unexpected that di Resta had the edge over him at first.

But slowly and surely Hulkenberg emerged as the star driver of the team. His performances actually seemed to make di Resta’s worse, which is saying something as the Scot is very highly rated. Nico culminated his year with a brilliant drive on slicks in wet conditions at Interlagos leading for the vast majority before two small slip ups saw him collide with Lewis Hamilton. He still recovered to 5^th.

It’s been a good year, although his somewhat puzzling decision to switch to Sauber for 2013 when Force India were emerging better by the end might halt his rise to the top for a while.

4. Kimi Raikkonen (Lotus)

Now this is how you make a comeback! Ok, he is 10 years younger than a certain Michael Schumacher and was out of F1 for a year less, but still this was a hugely impressive year. Up until the last few races he was a genuine title contender such was his consistency.

He’s still not quite as fast in qualifying as he once was, and he’s not quite as decisive as he could be when overtaking; he almost certainly lost a win in Bahrain because of that. But generally his race craft is fantastic, he delivers what the car is capable of in the races and you can’t ask for much more than that.

He scored seven podiums and scored in every race but one. His win in Abu Dhabi was brilliantly controlled, he knew what he was doing, something he had no hesitation in telling his team on the radio.

He was on it as if he’d never been away, his drives in Bahrain and Hungary onto the podium were truly brilliant. He is certainly going to be even better next year and if Lotus can develop their car a bit better next year he should be a championship challenger.

3. Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull)

There’s one reason I’m putting Vettel third which is he was in a Red Bull, and they were the best team of the year. He drove brilliantly again this year and as I’ve written elsewhere is a more than deserving world champion for the third consecutive time. But two other drivers above him had a car which was never the fastest and a team which felt he shouldn’t win too often.

Vettel was again fantastic, his car was not great in the first half of the season, but he managed a win and a few other podiums to keep himself in the title hunt just like everyone else was doing. He was always there, and when the opportunity presented itself with a car which became the best in the field he exploited it fully and took pole and victory as if it were 2011. Four wins in succession pushed him to the top of the standings after he’d been 44 points down earlier in the year.

But he can drive through the pack too and his recovery from last on the first lap of the final race after being spun round was fantastic, a brilliant champion’s drive that demonstrated just how determined he is to keep on winning.

2. Lewis Hamilton (McLaren)

If you don’t count his penalty in Spain which dropped him to the back of the grid, Hamilton recorded 8 pole positions and was in the top 3 on the grid 15 times. The closest anyone else came to him was Vettel with 6 poles and 10 top 3 starting positions. This was how demonstrably fast Lewis was this year.

He won 4 races but he should have won at least 7, twice dropping out with mechanical failure while being taken out in the other. He started the season with the consistency that has made Alonso so remarkable this year. He kept on scoring the points even when his team were trying to throw them away with various pit stop problems in the first 7 races.

But then a misjudgement with fighting Maldonado in Valencia and various other pace, puncture and mechanical issues over the second half derailed his campaign. 2012 should have been so much more for him, but this is motor racing. But how good was Hamilton this year?

USA Grand Prix should answer that. Vettel was fastest all through practice and brilliantly quick in qualifying. Lewis pulled out a lap that nearly got him pole, he then tracked Vettel relentlessly through most of the race and when the opportunity presented itself he made the move and held Vettel off. It was pure racing, and he deserved more from the year. Whether his move to Mercedes will give him anymore anytime soon is very much open to debate.

1. Fernando Alonso (Ferrari)

Who else but Fernando? The Ferrari was over a second slower in testing, when they got to the first race in Australia it wasn’t any better. He dragged that car up to 5^th in the race after starting 12^th. In Malaysia it rained, the Ferrari came alive, he grabbed the opportunity and took the win. That he went on to take a further 2 victories and 10 more podiums is a brilliant achievement.

This was Alonso in 2012, taking every opportunity available and maximising it as best he could. People have raved about his win from 12^th on the grid in Valencia, but to me his best victory was in Germany. After taking a pole position in wet conditions which the Ferrari liked, the dry race should have seen him drop back.

But he managed the gap behind him and controlled the race beautifully, making sure he was out of DRS range just enough, knowing which parts of the track to be fast to keep him at arms length, and when he could look after the tyres. It was a fantastically judged drive.

Let’s not kid ourselves though, by race five Ferrari had done a pretty good job and for the majority of the year it’s race pace easily made it a podium capable car. But it was in qualifying where it lacked the most, and it was Alonso’s ability to always make sure that despite his starting position the race pace available could be used to forge ahead and into the top 3 and he did it time and again.

We of course can also talk about his two start accidents which cost him the title, they weren’t his fault, but neither were Vettel’s alternator failures in 2 races. In the end Alonso put together what was quite the bravura performance of the year, he shouldn’t have been in with a chance of the title really, but he made it happen. That he didn’t win the title doesn’t take away from the fact he put together an almost perfect season of Formula 1.

all photo's taken from autosport.com