The 2011 Season Preview - the best just gets better (Part One - Three)
If you thought that 2010 was a classic year of F1, buckle up and get ready for the 2011 season in which four or even five teams seem set to go head-to-head as no fewer than five world champions go into battle, and the midfield fight promises to be harder-fought than ever.
Red Bull and Ferrari appear to have set the genuine pace in the four pre-season tests in Spain, with Mercedes moving up to a perceived third in the pecking order after the final runs but still slightly adrift, and McLaren possibly in trouble and seeming likely to battle initially with Renault for fourth place.
Sebastian Vettel, Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso, Jenson Button and Michael Schumacher give Formula One tremendous heavyweight glitter, while promising rookies such as Scot Paul di Resta, Mexican Sergio Perez, Venezuelan Pastor Maldonado and Belgian Jerome D’Ambrosio underline the sport’s ability to keep re-inventing itself. In between them, long-time runners Felipe Massa, Nick Heidfeld, Jarno Trulli, Heikki Kovalainen and Nico Rosberg add further depth.
The midfield battle is also likely to be just as fraught as the fight for the title, with Williams, Force India, Sauber, Toro Rosso and, perhaps, Lotus, scrabbling for supremacy.
Yet again, the rules have been revised, throwing things back into the melting pot once more. Out go the double diffusers (that so helped Jenson Button and Brawn GP to the world championship in 2009), F-ducts and the adjustable front wings that were meant to promote more overtaking but which most drivers neither liked nor used. In their place come moveable (for which, read adjustable) rear wings, KERS (making a return after a year’s hiatus), trick exhausts and a new tyre supplier in the form of Pirelli.
The idea behind the rear wing is that in certain parts of the circuit a following driver will get a signal that he can momentarily activate the control that opens the gap between the upper and lower wing planes, in order to boost straight-line speed by reducing drag. The driver of the car in front cannot do that, thus conferring a temporary advantage on the follower. The exact location and length of the ‘wing zones’ will be decided by the FIA, who are committed to making the technology work.
There has been talk of making the Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems (KERS) more powerful in the future, but for now the outputs are the same as in 2009 - 80 bhp. Unlike the rear wings, it’s up to the driver to decide when and where to deploy this technology. With KERS and adjustable rear wings to figure out, F1 2011-style is more likely to favour the more cerebral than the aggressive. In 2009 McLaren and Ferrari won with KERS, with which Renault, Sauber and Williams also experimented; this year McLaren, Ferrari, Red Bull, Mercedes, Renault, Williams and Force India will all use it, as may Sauber and Toro Rosso.
The forward-facing exhaust introduced this year by Renault on their R31 could, according to Mercedes GP’s Ross Brawn, be more significant than the double diffuser. By routing the gases forward, which the rules permit, teams can clean up the rear end of the car significantly, enhancing airflow and thus aero efficiency.
The arrival of Pirelli to replace Bridgestone has already started to shake things up. The Italian tyres degrade far quicker than the Japanese - deliberately, Pirelli stresses. Some drivers speak of only three laps on the super-soft compound and eight on the soft before performance drops off markedly, which suggests that the smoother, Alain Prost-like drivers will be advantaged when it comes to nurturing their rubber. Step forward Jenson Button...
With up to four pit stops envisaged at some races, it’s going to be a busy year for the pit crews and lap charters. Last year Ferrari and Virgin both recorded remarkable 3.6s stops, and that could well become the ante this season.
For all that, Fernando Alonso believes that it will still come down to the fastest car when all is said and done, rather than canny strategy, tyre preservation and fast stops. “As usual the quickest or best car will win the championship in the end,” the Spaniard says. “Maybe one or two races will be decided by very good strategy, which will be important, but over 19 races it will still be more important to have the best car and that’s what we will always be aiming for.”
Elsewhere, the dreaded 107 percent qualifying rule makes a return, which means that the tailenders won’t get to race if they don’t get within five or six seconds of the Q1 time on a Saturday afternoon. The ban on team orders has been lifted, in tacit recognition that it is almost impossible to police; the race stewards, aided once again by former F1 drivers, will have wider powers; and as drivers are now officially only allowed to move once to defend themselves in a corner, the act of crowding - such as Michael Schumacher did to Rubens Barrichello in Hungary last year - is now punishable.
So who is going to set the initial pace? It really is almost impossible to say. While Alonso acknowledges the inherent strength of Red Bull and counsels not to overlook McLaren’s threat regardless of testing form, Red Bull boss Christian Horner says he is feeling far from complacent.
“We genuinely don’t know where we are in comparison to the others,” he says. “The fuel loads make such a big difference.” In testing these could vary between 10 and 160 kg, with each 10 kg adding 0.3s to lap time.
“We’ve had our best pre-season to date, and arguably we are in the best shape ever,” Horner continues. “But there are no points for winter testing; the points start in Melbourne and right now everyone is on the same number.”
The 2011 Season Preview - Part Two
In the second installment of our look ahead to the start of the 2011 FIA Formula One World Championship, we examine the prospects of the key contenders in the race for the drivers' and constructors' crowns
Red Bull
1 Sebastian Vettel
2 Mark Webber
Red Bull-Renault RB7
A year ago Red Bull boss Dietrich Mateschitz made it clear that he expected his burgeoning team to deliver a world championship. It looked at times as if they were deliberately seeking a means by which to make things as difficult for themselves as possible, but in the end they came up with not one, but two, the constructors’, which they clinched in Brazil, and then the drivers’ which Sebastian Vettel wrapped up in the dramatic finale in Abu Dhabi. Can they do it again?
Well, don’t rule out some serious Red Bull domination. For the first time design guru Adrian Newey (whose cars have now won for three different teams) got his new contender out early, and pre-season test form has shown the RB7 not only to be fast in qualifying and race trim, but also fearsomely reliable.
Factor in Mark Webber, who will be fitter and more determined than ever, and it is going to be very difficult to beat the team from Milton Keynes.
McLaren
3 Lewis Hamilton
4 Jenson Button
McLaren-Mercedes MP4-26
Oh, oh. The signs this early in the season have not been favourable for McLaren. They deliberately ‘did a Red Bull’ and did not introduce their new car, the MP4-26, until as late as possible. But seemingly the plan has thus far backfired.
The new car looks the part, with its L-shaped sidepod intakes and trick rear end, but reliability issues dogged its progress in the three tests that it did, and the team have logged only about half the testing mileage of either Red Bull or Ferrari. That’s down to some technical issues which saw rear end problems - believed to have centred around the exhausts - seriously impinging on the test programme.
Jenson Button said he thought the balance was better when an upgrade went on the car for the final Barcelona test, while Lewis Hamilton has suggested that they haven’t really been able to put all the factors together at once, so that their form seems worse than it really is. Equally, however, the 2008 champion says the car is not yet a title winner... There’s much work to be done here.
Ferrari
5 Fernando Alonso
6 Felipe Massa
Ferrari 150° Italia
It is not possible to overstate just how much it burned Ferrari to have fumbled their world championship chance in Abu Dhabi last year. They were gutted. But where years ago heads would have rolled, Luca di Montezemolo and Stefano Domenicali simply pulled their troops back together over the winter and the Scuderia looks every bit as dangerous as it did at its title-winning best, even if the team did initially run into trouble with the Ford Motor Company after initially christening its 2011 contender the F150. The way it’s been going in testing suggests that nobody is likely to mistake it for a pick-up truck; it’s the one car that genuinely looks as if it is ready to give the Red Bulls a run for their money.
Alonso is raring to go, and remains what he has so long been: one of the two best drivers out there. If Vettel starts favourite, the Spaniard is right up there at his shoulder. Meanwhile, Felipe Massa knows that he has to deliver solid results this year, if he is to retain his Ferrari seat.
Mercedes GP
7 Michael Schumacher
8 Nico Rosberg
Mercedes MGP W02
The final test in Barcelona changed the way observers thought about Mercedes’ hitherto disappointing MGP W02 challenger. Up until then it had been generally disappointing, rather like the McLaren, but a significant upgrade transformed the car into something that was impressively quick in short runs. It remains to be seen how fast it is over a race distance, and the feeling persists that Red Bull and Ferrari will be the outright pacesetters, with Mercedes chasing them ahead of McLaren and Renault.
Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg both believe that the team, whose purchase from the former Brawn principals was finalised at the beginning of the month, now have the platform from which to make the significant progress that they lacked in 2010.
Schumacher said recently that while he does not believe they can challenge for the world championship, he does think podiums will be possible, while Rosberg will be going all out to prove that his dominance of the older German last year was no fluke.
Renault
9 Nick Heidfeld
10 Vitaly Petrov
Renault R31
Renault may have rallied quickly around Nick Heidfeld, but there is no doubt that Robert Kubica’s rally accident will have a very debilitating effect on the chances of a team that showed such promise in initial testing. The Pole has speed, commitment and charisma in spades and just loves driving an edgy car that gives its best at the very limit. Heidfeld is older and less aggressive, and prefers an easier car to drive. That difference may prove critical. That said, the German is a safe pair of hands, but one can’t help wonder whether the team would have been better off with Vitantonio Liuzzi, whom Kubica recommended.
Vitaly Petrov far from disgraced himself in his first season, despite a few heavy shunts, and his containment of Fernando Alonso in Abu Dhabi was indication of the progress he’d made.
Renault’s test form has been difficult to assess accurately, but their trick exhaust system has attracted a lot of interest and several other teams are investigating similar solutions. Expect Renault to challenge McLaren for fourth overall in the early going.
The 2011 Season Preview - Part Three
In the final instalment of our look ahead to the 2011 FIA Formula One World Championship, we consider the chances last year’s midfield teams have of challenging the frontrunners, and the odds on the newest teams breaking free from the back of the grid
Williams
11 Rubens Barrichello
12 Pastor Maldonado
Williams-Cosworth FW33
In Rubens Barrichello and reigning GP2 champion Pastor Maldonado, Williams have two very aggressive drivers. And now they have an aggressive car too, in Sam Michael’s FW33 which features one of the most tightly packaged rear-ends in the business.
The team have full sponsorship for 2011 and were recently floated on the German stock market, so things are looking up and there is an air of confident determination to get back to mixing it with the top teams the way that last happened at times during the ill-fated alliance with BMW.
Michael said in 2010 that Barrichello was the best driver he had ever worked with in F1, and the evergreen Brazilian still has much to give. Maldonado is an unknown quantity thus far in F1, but the Venezuelan brings welcome financial support from his national oil company, and could spring some surprises.
Force India
14 Adrian Sutil
15 Paul Di Resta
Force India-Mercedes VJM04
Out goes Tonio Liuzzi and in comes promising Scottish rookie Paul di Resta. Part of the Anthony Hamilton-managed youngster’s dowry is reportedly Mercedes’ KERS system, and that should help the Silverstone-based team to fight hard for its place in the upper midfield.
Adrian Sutil stays for another year, after plans to have him replace Felipe Massa at Ferrari fell apart in the aftermath of last year’s team orders argument. This will be a crucial season for the German, who showed great pace in 2010 allied to the occasional brain fade (Korea springs to mind). Di Resta will be praying for better reliability than Liuzzi enjoyed (notably with his car’s F-duct), and the man who beat Vettel to the European F3 title is itching to show that he can do the same to Sutil.
Sauber
16 Kamui Kobayashi
17 Sergio Perez
Sauber-Ferrari C30
Confounding the critics, Peter Sauber’s little team regrouped again in 2010 after the departure of BMW. Times were still tough for the men and women from Hinwil, even though there was some helpful BMW cash to smooth the transition, but they made it.
Along the way they acquired James Key from Force India as long-time technical director Willy Rampf retired, and the Englishman did not lose much time pointing the C29 in the right direction. At the same time Kamui Kobayashi established a reputation as a racer that was only marginally diminished by a penchant for long opening stints which meant he was later able to use fresher rubber to embarrass rivals towards the end of a race. Good tyre management will be a feature of 2011 races, so watch him.
In GP2 runner-up Sergio Perez, Kobayashi has a team mate who will push him all the way and the money that the fiery young Mexican brings from Telmex will undoubtedly help the team.
Toro Rosso
18 Sebastien Buemi
19 Jaime Alguersuari
Toro Rosso-Ferrari STR6
This time last year Sebastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari had been setting some very quick times during testing for Franz Tost’s Red Bull-supported satellite team. But in the races the STR5 disappointed more often than not. This time around the story looks the same, and even Lewis Hamilton was recently moved to suggest that the STR6 might spring a surprise.
But will all that apparent promise just turn out to have been some low-fuel grandstanding in an attempt to draw attention to a team that still needs to find decent funding? Time will tell, but it would indeed be surprising to see an outfit that has to design its own car these days being able to run at the pace of one penned by Adrian Newey.
Meanwhile, Buemi and Alguersuari will be looking over their shoulders in the first half of the season as World Series by Renault racer Daniel Ricciardo is waiting for the chance to step into one of their seats at the midpoint.
Lotus
20 Jarno Trulli
21 Heikki Kovalainen
Lotus-Renault T128
By the time his team heads to his native Malaysia, Tony Fernandes should know whether he can still use the Team Lotus name, as the court case with Group Lotus will be heard in London’s High Court during the Australian Grand Prix. But regardless of the outcome, the AirAsia boss has clearly won the right to race at the highest level.
Last year’s start-up T127 was a necessarily conservative machine intended simply to get the team racing. This year technical director Mike Gascoyne has been more adventurous with the aerodynamics, while mating the chassis to a Renault rear end complete with the pull-rod rear suspension made fashionable again on last year’s Red Bull RB6.
With Jarno Trulli and Heikki Kovalainen, Lotus have two proven race winners who can deliver the goods, and who should be able to challenge Toro Rosso and Force India if either of those more established teams falter. Reliability issues in testing, however, will be an early concern.
HRT
22 Narain Karthikeyan
23 Vitantonio Liuzzi
HRT-Cosworth F111
On the face of it HRT are in as much trouble in 2011 as they were heading to the first race of 2010 when neither of their cars had turned a wheel, after the sleek new F111 was unable to run as planned in the last Barcelona test. Ironically, the team’s national customs held up their dampers.
However, the new car comes from respected F1 designer Geoff Willis of BAR and Red Bull fame, and the statement livery from famed Hollywood designer Daniel Simon signals a clear intention by team principal Colin Kolles to move far away from the drab grey image the team had in its rookie season.
Signing Narain Karthikeyan, who last raced in F1 in 2005, is something of a gamble but makes sense as he brings strong budget from Tata and can be quick when the mood is upon him, while opting for Force India refugee Tonio Liuzzi is clear indication that Kolles values speed, experience and technical ability over other ‘renta-drivers’ potential budgets.
Virgin
24 Timo Glock
25 Jerome D’ambrosio
Virgin-Cosworth MVR-02
Like Lotus and HRT, Virgin defied the pessimists and go into 2011 stronger than ever thanks to recent investment by Marussia. The result is a sound financial position and enhanced management, but the early signs are that the latest car from Nick Wirth is some way off the pace. Glock, the tough German racer who is recovering from a recent appendectomy, admits that they are some way off realising their early season targets. D’Ambrosio, the quick young Belgian who replaces Brazilian Lucas di Grassi, will find his graduation to race seat status even harder as a result.
Credit: Formula One Administration Ltd (www.formula1.com)
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