By Simon Baggus
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| A new era begins |
So first of all people, grab a cuppa or sit yourself down, as this is my longest, most detailed blog so far.
What has the story told us then.
Well this has been another year of change. The rules and regs, the driver line ups, the favourites for the title. All of which I am pleased about.
Lets begin the story with the power units. The new 1.6 litre v6 turbo units are more economical and only rev to 15, 000 rpm compared to 18, 000 rpm on the 2013 units. The sound, As we found out in Australia and even pre season, has changed also, many peoples view on the sound is, it is like your mother doing the hoovering, which is a fair comparison. But I enjoy the sound, you can hear every cog turning, every gear changing, every spit and splutter from the exhaust. The deep raspy, whining noise from that new unit I enjoy.
There also hasn't been a massive difference in speed or lap time, surprisingly, due to the new ERS system, which is an evolution of the well used Kers, given them 33 seconds per lap of extra horsepower usage, 161bhp usage to be precise. Compared to the 80bhp and 6.5 seconds last season. I feel they will be lapping quicker, compared to last season, in about 6 to 8 races time.
A new regulation to this years championship is also the fuel consumption limit of 100kg per race, which is roughly 35% less than the previos season, which is being monitored by the FIA, through a new fuel sensor, which has already proved costly at the expense of Red Bull and Daniel Ricciardo. Read my other blog for more details on that at, f1grandprixreview.blogspot.co.uk.
Now we can all see Mercedes power has a massive advantage compared to its rivals, Renault and Ferrari. This is due to the engine manufacturer stopping development of the previous power unit early and switching its focus to this years instead, which was done as early as, if my facts are right, 2012, ensuring they are off on the right foot, which indeed they are, after the dominant pole from Hamilton and even greater victory from Rosberg.
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| Mercedes power has come out on top |
This is compared to Renault, who never stopped developing the old power unit in persuit of those four world championships, whose engine was so poor, teams could not complete practice starts early pre season, otherwise the cranks in the power units would snap. Due to too much vibration.
Ferrari meanwhile had a low key pre season, not really excelling in one particular area but just getting down to business. As per the last five seasons, being there or there abouts and leaving its drivers, namely Alonso, exceeding the limits of his car.
The following power units and team combinations are as follows;
Mercedes power
- Mercedes
- Mclaren
- Williams
- Force india
Renault power
- Red Bull racing
- Lotus
- Torro rosso
- Caterham
Ferrari power
- Ferrari
- Marrusia
- Sauber
This years driver line up is an exciting one too watch also, many new, young, hungry, challenging competitors are coming up through the ranks, trying to show there worth. Also, new team mates, hungrier than ever to knock their respective team mates from their high horses.
Plenty of expectation is on their heads and no more so, than for Kevin magnussun, being drafted in at Mclaren, will it rain or shine all season for him?, or what about Daniil Kvyat, filling the shoes of Ricciardo, a replacment at Reb bull if Vettel moves on?. We also have Marcus Erricson, who you must feel for as he wont be able to show a great deal in the horrid looking Caterham. Apart from being compared to his compatriot and returnee, Kobayashi.
So the scene was set with many many questions unanswered going into the first GP. As we found out, it all unfolded pretty spectacularly right in front of our eyes, or, like me, in front of the tv screen. With more questions unanswered than of that answered after the GP had finished.
So the Australian GP arrived, with a massive buzz around the place and this is what we learnt. |
| Jenson racing at the Australian GP |
As expected we had seen pre season favourites Mercedes, constantly there or there abouts in all free practices, but the pecking order was still an unkown quantity. Come qualifying, all was revealed. Sort of.
Well Mercedes led the way in qualifying by the man Lewis Hamilton, who many regard, including myself, the ultimate one lap specialist. With the win, going to team mate Nico Rosberg, which was an emphatic 25 seconds. Considering this race was a venture into the unkown, that was spectacular in its own right, which leaves the question, has the championship already been won by Mercedes? I think so, they just seem to have hit the nail smack bang in the centre of that head with the whole package.
That win from Nico must worry Hamilton even if he does not show it, because without doubt, Nico has stepped his game up again and has grasped the new concept well.
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| Will anything get in the way of the two |
I believe Mclaren are next in line, powered by that Mercedes unit. Kevin Magnussun drove spectacularly in what was his first GP start and kept his cool all through the race, to land p3, later p2 after Ricciardo was excluded, which was very reminiscent of how Hamiltons 2007 season began and we all know what happened there? Maybe history is repeating itself.
Finishing up one place behind Magnussun, you have Jenson Button. He had a brilliant race to come from p10. Now Button put there double podium down to other teams reliability issues and misfortunes, which may be right, had Hamilton not retired, but they sure have speed to get a double podium, nonetheless. Will McLaren really want that Honda deal for 2015 now?
The fight is pretty much wide open for a hand full of teams then and too early to predict where they stand in the pecking order, but I will start with Williams who I feel may come next, when all settles down in a few races and this is why. Williams is a team who struck a late deal to switch to Mercedes power and boy it has changed their fortunes dramatically.
Had Bottas, who many feel was the driver of the day, not had that mistake, where would he have really finished is an unknown, maybe on that podium?, but p6 was great. Massa was very unlucky to get caught up in the problems that fell to Kobayashi. Regardless of this he did qualify p9, showing good pace in his first start in a Williams race car. Hopefully a better weekend in Malasiya will do justice for the Williams driver, but will he be out scored and taken to the cleaners this season by Bottas?, I believe so, as this is Bottas' team he has come into.
Red bull are next up in my eyes, maybe even above Williams if they can sort themselves out. Ricciardo who finished p2 in Australia has been under a lot of controversy since the race and I just feel, what is there true speed really?. It certainly isnt as fast as it is made out to be and had his fuel been run at the legal limit, how far back would he have finished?. Vettel had a nightmare weekend also, failing to make the final part of qualifying due to yellow flags and a mechanical problem, also pulling up 7 laps into the race. So much is yet to be revealed from a team that was of utter dominance during the previous phase of rules and regulations.
I am going to put the prancing horse into p5. By no means it was a hard and frustrating weekend for both drivers, who many feel, will have fire works sometime this season. I dont though as Raikkonen wont care about Alonso, but will realise what he has to deal with. As he found out on the weekend when Alonso got the double over him, which was expected being the iceman's first race back at Ferrari. P5 and p8 for the pair of them is certainly below expectation, but I feel the era of dominance from that prancing horse in the early 2000's will never re-appear. which begs the question, will Alonso hang around for another season if he goes 5 years without a title, or jump ship to McLaren where he is highly sought after.
Next you have a hand full of teams fighting for what i feel will be p6 in the championship. I will start with Force India as they must surely have the best chance at the hands of the Hulk. His drive in Melbourne was typical Hulkenberg, finishing p7, showing composure and class, with his team mate Sergio Perez, who had a poor running by my reckoning, finishing p11. They must surely have a chance of fighting for podiums this year as they are equipped with that Mercedes engine, which is the best of the bunch of manufacturers.
You have the sister team to Red Bull, Torro Rosso, who has new boy Kvyat. He had a mature run at his first GP, scoring 1 point in p10, making him the youngest ever points scorer under the new points system, taking the record away from Seb Vettel. Team mate Vergne, who i have never been that fond of was in p9 making it a double points score. Only Ferrari and Mclaren repeated this feat.
Sauber are way down the order this season after a couple of good seasons and podiums previously. They seem way off the pace this year with their whole package and considering you have Sutil and Gutierrez, who i both rate higher than a few top ten finishers in Australia, are struggling. There only hope of a top ten finish is, if more teams suffer reliability issues and even then, they will struggle to make it in. This could also be down to their engine, Ferrari, which is off the pace regardless. Although it has shown to be one of the more reliable units.
In all sorts of problems then are Lotus who had a double retirement. This was to be expected though as their pre season was worse than red bull, dire even, in the fact they did not show up at the first, had pretty much no running in the second, and numerous issues in the third. They qualified at the back of the grid and with their financial worries still at large, begs the question, is there season over already and will they even score a point? let alone a podium. It was a good move for Raikkonen, a terrible move for Maldonado, who has just been robbed of his 30 million investment and Grosjean, who showed much more maturity and promise last season, who would of/could of been a future world champion? What also does not help them is that Renault engine.
The last two teams Caterham and Marussia are pretty much still in the same position as they always have been, at the back of the field.
Caterham have two new recruits, Kobayashi, a previous GP racer, coming back after getting the funds from his fans back home. His flamboyancy is still there and he didn't disappoint, bowing out in fashion off the line. His team mate Marcus Erricson, to me has not proved himself, compared to the talent out there, to justify his position on the grid so if he can out score his team mate, there is a good comparison for us to follow.
Marussia have the same driver line up as last season and Max Chilton carries his record of consecutive finishes into this season making it home in Australia in p13, which was p12 after the exclusion. Bianchi still has much to prove in my eyes but again cannot do much with the equipment he has apart from being measured against his team mate, who he finished behind.
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| Rosberg takes first blood at Australia |
What will happen at the Malaysian GP on march the 30th, well that is for my next blog.
Thank you for reading, i hope you enjoyed it and i will see you again very soon with another one of my blogs, running through the build up to the Malaysian GP.
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