F1 Obsessed

Mercedes GP – 2010 Outlook

December 6th, 2009

Mercedes GP starts its second full constructor endeavor into Formula One by taking over the 2009 world champions Brawn GP for the 2010 season. Apart from the name and driver lineup, not much else is going to change in the structure of the team. The highly sucessful Ross Brawn will continue to head the team while Norbert Haug joins the team from McLaren. Interestingly, Mercedes GP is taking over Brawn GP which took over Honda less than a year ago. Because of this Mercedes GP will be entering the 2010 season with at least some of the work carried in from Honda. The driver lineup for 2010 has Nico Rosberg in the first seat while the second seat is still open with Nick Heidfeld the likely choice.

On the technical side of things you can expect Mercedes to field a strong race winning car, but I am a bit skeptical if they are able to produce a championship winning car for 2010. The tail end of the 2009 season they were only the third best car in the field, behind Red Bull and McLaren, and I am expecting that trend to continue. Much of the great raw performance from the start of the 2009 season was based on an “interesting” interpretation of the new technical regulations. Since the rules for the 2010 season are not going to change much I don’t believe Mercedes will be able to produce something remarkable like the double diffuser again.

The driver lineup is going to be unproven. Assuming it will be Nico Rosberg and Nick Heidfeld in the seats they will both have a bit to prove to show that they deserve such a drive. Neither driver has yet won a grand prix.

Nico Rosberg is no doubt a top quality driver, but so far in his career his teammate has not been capable of pushing him to the limit. The only high end teammate he has had was Mark Webber who actually outscored him in 2006, albeit this was Rosberg’s first season. However the performance he showed at Williams, especially in the 2009 season where he scored 34.5 points while his teammate scored absolutely nothing should show that he is a highly capable driver.

Nick Heidfeld is not known to be of the highest calibar driver. Unfortunately for him the best year of BMW’s run as constructor, 2008, Heidfeld struggled against Kubica. However Heidfeld actually outscored Kubica in 2007 and 2009. It is my feeling that Heidfeld is a very underrated driver who has the capability of very strong performances when possible.

It is of my opinion that the Rosberg/Heidfeld combination is a strong one and Mercedes GP would have nothing to worry about in that regard.

Expect Mercedes to be right up there challenging for race wins, but I don’t believe they will be able to make a strong challenge for the title. Of course they definitely have a chance, never overlook the Ross Brawn factor.

Posted in Mercedes | 6 Comments »

McLaren – 2010 Outlook

November 28th, 2009

McLaren is the second most famous name in Formula One behind Ferrari. Based out of Woking, Surrey, United Kingdom, McLaren has enjoyed tremendous success in Formula One, winning 12 drivers championships and 8 constructors championships since joining the sport in 1966. McLaren will be using the Mercedes engine in 2010 and have the two most recent drivers champions in their team, Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button.

Mercedes has recently annouced that they are selling their stake of the McLaren team back to the McLaren team by 2011 but will still provide engines to McLaren up to the 2015 season. This will force a bit of a restructure of the McLaren team but I don’t expect this to really destabilise the team at all nor do I think the performance of the 2010 car will be impacted. After the disasterous start to their 2009 season I believe McLaren would have learnt from that and we should see a much better team and a much better car in Bahrain. McLaren had made vast strides thoughout the 2009 season to end up with quite a strong challenger and this will continue during the off season.

In terms of drivers, it’s hard to argue with a driver lineup with includes the latest 2 world champions. The obvious issue with Button could be that he is entering a team which is quite focused around Hamilton, so it could find himself stuck in a bad situation.

I am expecting McLaren to have a better season than in 2009. I believe they have worked hard to iron out the deficiencies of the 2009 car and we should see a championship challenger in 2010.

Posted in McLaren | 22 Comments »

Manor Grand Prix – 2010 Outlook

November 28th, 2009

Manor_Grand_Prix

Manor Grand Prix is one of the new entrants to the 2010 Formula One season. Based out of South Yorkshire, England their history includes racing in F1 support classes (notably F3) with some success. Manor will be using the Cosworth engine for 2010 and have signed Timo Glock for one of their race seats for next year. The seconds seats is still to be confirmed. Although not yet official, strong speculation suggests Virgin have purchased a share of Manor and the team will be renamed Virgin F1 before the start of the 2010 season.

One of the major talking point of the Manor foray into Formula One is their decision to use computational fluid dynamics exclusively rather than also using a traditional wind tunnel. This is quite an interesting prospect as most teams, including the other new entrants to F1, will use both a wind tunnel and CFD. Of course a major reason to do this is to reduce costs but it also raises an interesting question of whether modern technology has rendered the wind tunnel obsolete. None of the other teams seem to think so though. Other than using CFD not a whole lot is know on the development process on Manor’s F1 car. The sponsorship from Virgin should mean that Manor is well financed.

On the drivers side Manor has hired Timo Glock to lead the team. In my opinion experience is the name of the game for a new F1 team which Timo can provide, albeit Trulli would have been a better choice in this regard but it looks like he is off to Lotus. Glock has shown he can provide a solid performance when the car is right so this is a good pickup from Manor. Not much is known about the second seat at this stage.

I’m expecting Manor to be between the lower end and mid table of the F1 grid, probably the second best of the new teams behind Lotus.

Posted in Virgin F1 | 6 Comments »

Ross Brawn, investor of the year?

November 28th, 2009

Think about this, Brawn purchased the Honda team for £1. Less than a year later he sold it to Mercedes. It hasn’t been reported (as far as I can find) how much exactly it went for but it looks like good old Brawn may have made a 100,000,000% return on his invested.

Well I find that humorous anyway, don’t know about you guys.

Posted in General | 6 Comments »

Lotus F1 – 2010 Outlook

November 28th, 2009

Lotus_logo Lotus F1 is one of the four new teams making their debut in the 2010 Formula One season. Taking the name from the famous Lotus marquee, the new team will be based out of Norfolk, United Kingdom initially with plans to move the headquarters to the Sepang curcuit in Malaysia. The team will be using the Cosworth engine for 2010. The driver lineup has yet to be announed but rumours include Jarno Trulli and Jacques Villeneuve.

Lotus is a perfect example on how to properly launch a new Formula One team. When setting up something as difficult as a Formula One team you try and mix in as much experience as possible. To begin with Lotus has on board noted technical director Mike Gascoyne to that respective position. Gascoyne has been noted for his success is various other F1 teams in the past and is without a doubt the best technical director Lotus could have hoped to have. Apparently he’s a bit of a prick to work with, but you pretty much have to be to get things done, and since I don’t have to deal with him that doesn’t bother me one bit.

In terms of infrastructure they have numberous organisations supporting them, including Proton (who own the Lotus brand), so they appear well funded and will have top end headquaters in Malaysia available to them soon.

On the drivers side of things, although not confirmed, Lotus is looking at both Jarno Trulli and Jacques Villeneuve. I’m not sure if they will end up with both of them but if they do that is one quality line-up, especially for a new team. Trulli is the best qualifier in the business at the moment which is very useful to see where the actual performance of the car is, it’s too bad Trulli can’t seem to maintain that performance for the race itself otherwise he may have been considered as one of the best drivers ever. Villeneuve is a bit more of a dark horse, of course he is a former world champion but that was a while ago now and he’s last stint in F1 wasn’t too successful at all and has now been away from the sport for a few years as well. However he is a great driver and if he can put it all together he will be a force once again.

Of the 4 new team entries for the 2010 season I’m expecting Lotus to perform the best, probably somewhere in the midfield challenging some of the more established teams, possibly even picking up a few points. I personally can’t wait to see the Lotus name back on the F1 grid, hopefully with the classic logo intact.

Posted in Lotus | 6 Comments »

Force India – 2010 Outlook

November 28th, 2009

Force_India_logo Force India enter their 3rd season of Formula One on a high from their good results at the end of the 2009 season. Based out of Norfolk, United Kingdom, the Force India team takes their heritage from initially the Jordon team, then followed by Midland F1 and Spyker before settling on their current form. Their drivers lineup for the 2010 season will be Adrian Sutil and Vitantonio Liuzzi while continuing with the Mercedes engine for the 2010 season.

A solid 2009 season should continue on to the 2010 season. Stability is the name of the game for Force India in 2010 as they continue on with the same engine and the same drivers they finished the 2009 season with. On the technical side there are not going to be any major personnel changes to the team which produced such a great car on a relatively tight budget so I feel they should be able to produce something that will challenge the midfield while possibly breaking into the top 10 on occasion.

On the driver side of the equastion we have Sutil, who seems to enjoy crashing into people, and Liuzzi, who so far seem to like to go by unnoticed during a grand prix (which isn’t exactly a good trait). So while the driver lineup may be a little worrying Sutil can turn on a good performance when things are right and I still feel that Liuzzi has something special to show, of course this will likely by Liuzzi’s last chance to show that.

Don’t expect race wins for the Force India team but do expect a solid performance from this small team while keeping the top teams honest.

Posted in Force India | 5,637 Comments »

Ferrari – 2010 Outlook

November 28th, 2009

Ferrari is the longest serving Formula One team in history having contested every season to date. Based out of Maranello, Italy, Ferrari have traditionally been the most popular team within F1. Ferrari have won 15 F1 drivers championships and 16 constructors championship which makes them the most successful F1 team in history. Their drivers for the 2010 season will be Felipe Massa and 2 time world champion Fernando Alonso.

Ferrari will have an extremely strong drivers line up for 2010 so they aren’t laking there. Everybody knows the qualities of Alonso who I believe will integrate well into the Ferrari fold while Massa has really become a complete driver in the last year and a half.

However I would have to say in the technical side of things the Ferrari lineup may be a step behind that of the personnel available at the likes of Mercedes and Red Bull. The genius of Brawn and Newey may be a hard thing to overcome. Also the Ferrari engine is probably a touch behind the Mercedes engine in terms of performance as well. Because of this, while they will be up their at the pointy end of the grid and will likely win a few races, I don’t believe they will be challenging for the championship.

Posted in Ferrari | 12 Comments »

Campos Meta – 2010 Outlook

November 28th, 2009

Campos Meta is one of the four new teams making their debut in the 2010 Formula One season. Based out of Madrid and run by former F1 driver Adrián Campos, Campos has raced in categories such as F3 and GP2 previously and is stepping up to Formula One with the backing of Meta. Their chassis is being built Dallara who has previous (albeit not glorious) F1 history and will be running the Cosworth engine. So far the team has confirmed that Bruno Senna will be one of their drivers for 2010, while the second seat is still vacant.

It’s quite hard to ascertain how well Campos will do next year, they do seem to have experience in racing in general with Campos being quite successful in lower categories as well as having Dallara one board who have been involved in F1 on and off for a while now. However they don’t seem to have a wealth of personnel on board with modern day Formula One experience which will probably show at least to beginning. An experienced driver options now seem limited for the second seat so they may be forced to run two rookie drivers in 2010, this is not ideal for an established team let alone a brand new team.

As things stand at the moment, I’m expecting Campos to be at the back end of the field.

Posted in Campos | 6 Comments »

Driver of the Year 2009

November 28th, 2009

Jenson Button

What were the odds of Button being world champion in 2009 this time last year? Button provided some wonderful drives at the start of the 2009 season which were the backbone for is 2009 glory. While he struggled in the second half of the season he was still able to deliver what was necessary to win the championship. There was no doubt that Button was the revelation of the 2009 season and is therefore Drive of the Year.

Honourable Mentions

Sebastian Vettel

You never know, if the Red Bull had the double diffuser from the start of the season we could be looking at Vettel as the world champion. A tremendously impressive performance throughout the year from Vettel solidified himself as one of the current era’s top drivers.

Rubens Barrichello

Clearly the second driver in the BrawnGP team in the first half of the season, unable to match the pace of Button, he got his head down and was able to turn the tables around on Button for the second half. Unfortunately for Barrichello the Brawn car was not as competitive in the second half of the season compared to the first so he was unable to close the points gap to Button, but he still showed an impressive performance.

Lewis Hamilton

With an obviously frustrating start to the system, including the whole lying affair in Melbourne, Hamilton was was still able to turn in some stunning performances when it was possible to do so. He obviously wasn’t perfect, but Lewis showed great tenacity and driving spirit to work though the difficult times and produces great results when those opportunities presented themselves.

Posted in Drivers | 41 Comments »

Team of the Year 2009

November 23rd, 2009

It’s hard to argue against giving BrawnGP the team of the year award. This time last year the BrawnGP name didn’t exist at all, while Honda was getting ready to announce their withdrawal from the sport. During the course of the next few month the team continued working on their car while buyout negotiations took place, which ultimately ended up in a management buyout from Brawn. While initially the plan was for BrawnGP to use the Ferrari engine, the complexity of integrating the Ferrari engine into the BrawnGP chassis forced Brawn to switch to Mercedes. Throughout this whole time Brawn did not do a single day of testing while the other teams were well advanced in their testing programs.

However despite all this Brawn rolled out their car at the last scheduled testing session of the pre-season and completely stunned everybody with some tremendous pace.With their fantastic car design, innovative diffuser, powerful Mercedes engine and with Button and later Barrichello setting up, BrawnGP went on to win 8 of the 17 races of the season as well as both the drivers and constructors championships.

Honourable Mentions

The only team who consistently challenged the Brawns for the top spot of the podium, Red Bull Racing showed that they have stepped up to the top level of the Formula One world. While initially lacking the double diffuser design, the Red Bull car was still a strong competitor, winning 6 of the 17 races including the last 3. You never know, if Red Bull had the diffuser design from the start of the championship we could be looking at a different world champion now.

Force_India_logo

For such a small outfit, Force India were extremely impressive this year. Desperately unlucky not to have scored even a single point until the Spa round, they really turned some heads at the Belgium. Scoring pole position and second place in the race, a race which they would have won had they had more front end running experience, Force India showed they are not a team which should be overlooked.

Posted in Teams | 5 Comments »