2010 team mate battles.

[Retro Formula 1]

So, who were the winners or losers.

Red Bull. Well documented title fight with the so called second coming sneaking it from a recognised journeyman. I think that if the Red Bull was comparable with the Ferrari or McLaren, then Alonso or Hamilton would have eaten them alive.

McLaren. 3rd best car out there (and 4th best when the Merc was on form) and punching above it's weight. Fair play to Jenson who was pretty solid all year and although the points difference was 36, a good #2 performance anyway. As for Lewis, what a season he gave us and if not for a couple of unfortunate tangles with Webber towards the end of the season, would have been Champion. My driver of the year.

Ferrari. 2nd best car but took a bit of time to get going. Few mistakes from the champ at the beginning and the team at the endand the usual controvasy that follows him like flies to s**t do little to mask another great effort. Butt Monkey doesn't have / is not allowed to have an answer to the preferred driver. I'll let Massa have a bit of free advice... it ain't gonna get much better mate. Best leave while you haven't got your dignity like Rubens did.

Mercedes. Schumacher's making Nico look very good but just how good is the boy. Personally, I think that car was good enough to beat McLaren this year with the right drivers. Swap Jenson and Lewis with Nico and Schumy and Mercedes would have been much closer to the front. I haven't a clue where Nico goes in the future because he looks to be ideally suited to the Merc. They have to ditch the dead weight and get a top class driver in there, not an advertisement for SAGA.

Renault. Kubica, Kubica, Kubica. I have to class him the same as Rosberb in a way because we don't know how good the Renault is. I would swap my Big and Bouncy collection to see Kube and Alonso teamed at Ferrari. Talk about a bitch fight. Can't see any cosy little game of cards then. As for Petrov, he showed in a couple of races but wasn't in the game at all. We do know that Renault struggle to concentrate on more than 1 driver at a time but perhaps Hulk in there for next year would have been a better bet.

Williams. Rubens did a solid job and Nico had a reasonable debut. Would have liked him to come back and hand Rubens his retirement next year.

FI. Sutil. Get the boy in a reasonable car. He needs a shot more than Hulk or Petrov. Even Massa could make way for this boy. VL might just as well go. He has shown me very little.

Sauber. Another chalk and cheese performance. KK is developing a bit of a Cult following. I don't know if I want him in a top team or keep him there scaring the bejezus out of the journeymen. I would love to see this boy in a McLaren in 2012 but he may have been snapped up way before then. Watch this space but I heard a whisper (well, more than that) that Toyota may be involved once again in F1 but possibly not as a works team. The F1 factory is alive and kicking as well as working on some sexy new technology for sustainability (Hmmmm, what do the FIA love). They also put a F1 car together for Pirelli? If you were one of the lower teams and a nice fat chunky technology partner bought you a drink, would you refuse?

As for the rest, who cares :D

[Big Ben]

I agree with most of the think you wrote but I think you kind of underrate the McLaren car and overrate a bit the Mercedes. McLaren were at some races the second best and even the best at very few (one of them being Canada IRC, I'm not really sure if it happened anywhere else though). mercedes seemed quite far all year long.

And where should Massa go? Which is worse, being the 2nd driver at Ferrari or driving a Sauber for 1 or 2 points?

[Sonic]

I agree with most of the think you wrote but I think you kind of underrate the McLaren car and overrate a bit the Mercedes. McLaren were at some races the second best and even the best at very few (one of them being Canada IRC, I'm not really sure if it happened anywhere else though). mercedes seemed quite far all year long.

And where should Massa go? Which is worse, being the 2nd driver at Ferrari or driving a Sauber for 1 or 2 points?

Or, perhaps more to the point, who would want to replace Massa and Walk into Ferrari as Fernando's b*tch? I can't see a Kube, a Nico or any other aspiring talent who is as fast/faster than Massa wanting to join the prancing horse.

[Retro Formula 1]

I agree with most of the think you wrote but I think you kind of underrate the McLaren car and overrate a bit the Mercedes. McLaren were at some races the second best and even the best at very few (one of them being Canada IRC, I'm not really sure if it happened anywhere else though). mercedes seemed quite far all year long.

And where should Massa go? Which is worse, being the 2nd driver at Ferrari or driving a Sauber for 1 or 2 points?

Fair point. It's all speculation but I have never believed the Mercedes is as bad as people think. I suppose it all comes down to whether you think Rosberg is top flight or more of a Massa / Button. Thats nothing against Massa or Button as they are very quick pilots who can win in a top car but possibly cannot hustle a 2nd or 3rd best car like Hamilton or Fernando.

[rjbetty]

Red Bull - Great effort from Mark, but Vettel came on strong near the end. Over the whole season, he was just better. But good try Mark.

McLaren - Jenson hit the ground running, causing many including me to re-evaluate his ability. But he didn't cope when the car wasn't really there. Overall, Lewis definitely seemed better, but Jenson did very well to only be 42(?) points behind at the end.

Ferrari - Who honestly expected Massa to beat Alonso? Unfortunately Massa seemed the same as Fisichella and got a bit buried didn't he? Germany was very unpalatable. I grudgingly take my hat off to Alonso. As soon as he got up to speed in the team, he flew.

Mercedes - It's so funny. It seemed to me that everyone thought Michael would kick di Caprio's butt, then spent the whole season acting like they knew Rosberg would come out on top!!! :O I feel like a real smart-butt because I was one of what felt like about 2% who predicted Michael would be behind this season, but still be close. I did not think he would struggle as much as he did, especially later on in the season when he actually seemed to get worse. He was beaten by Alonso in 2006, why should he have beaten him now? Nico did a brilliant job. He did a quality job at Williams and is underrated by superficial experts (no wins = average driver obviously, right?).

Renault - Did better than expected. Well done Kubica, free from the shackles of BMW, he flew and was more like his true self. He obliterated Petrov who did well at times, but his crashing was a bit hard to keep on taking when money is tight. Impressively held behind Alonso of all people at Turkey and Abu Dhabi without mistake - even throwing in a fastest lap at the former venue!

Williams - Why did everyone expect Hulkenberg to just walk in and beat Rubens? For some reason, I never felt he would do that. I thought Rubens would fit in well at Williams. Even though he is sensitive, he is a hard worker. I'd say he's only 0.2-0.3s off the best. Given that Hulkenberg was only about 0.2s off Rubens overall, he actually did well - already on a similar level to Sutil and Glock. Williams are real racer's so the decision to drop their protegé must have been so difficult, but the HAD to, to survive at all financially.

Force India - Sutil stepped up a bit with Fisi out of the way and a much-improved car. I'd say he is still 0.4-0.5s short off the best though. I understand that Fisi has been around a long time, but why was it better to replace him with Liuzzi? What do they see in him? The team believed in him - and he is talented. But often being out in Q1 and only utilising his talent about 10% of the time just doesn't seem good enough, and still the team are keen to keep him. I respect their decision. They know better than I do!

Sauber - I like Kobayashi as much as the next person. A great racer, but doesn't mean he's mega-quick (though after the season I am more positive). But he did impress with those points finishes. Valencia = :D . Disappointingly beaten slightly by rusty Pedro (Why did Sauber choose him over Heidfeld or Fisi? - Silly reasons Sauber gave!) Good to see Heidfeld back. He isn't on Senna/Prost level but VERY worthy of F1 place.

Toro Rosso - Buemi did fine/ok. Leading Canada - Well done. I absolutely could not understand though, why top teams were apparently after him mid-season. Just where would he get a drive at in this saturated market? Alguersuari impressed for his young age and really improved, scoring lots of 11ths at the end of the season.

Lotus - Very strong and solid job by both drivers. Trulli kept going despite all the bad luck, often qualifying very well. Heikki's attitude was as good as his driving. Sunny and never complaining at this plummet down the grid. Deserves success next year. Trulli deserves to be kept on too, at least for 2011. Maybe after that we can think of other drivers.

Virgin - Glock did an impressive job too. Di Grassi was quite disappointing, only outqualifying Glock twice! Worse than that was that the gap between them did not really close as the year went on. Not much reason to keep him sadly.

Hispania - Why is everyone saying Chandhok is better than Senna? Just because he had the higher early-season finishes. Reliability is a factor too, not just speed! Senna outqualified him much more often, the truth is Senna is better just as he was in GP2 when they were team mates. I like them both though, but let's be truthful and look beyond the misleading stats! Klien was very impressive and made the most of his opportunity. He actually did a strong job at Red Bull in 2006 (again looking beyond the stats) so maybe it's not too surprising. Yamamoto actually did show some talent at times. He doesn't seem to be utterly hopeless like Taki Inoue at all. At Super Aguri when Sato made headlines for finishing 10th and setting 9th fastest race lap(!), less known was that Yamamoto set the 7th fastest lap... Unfortunately, Senna was often disappointing, though did well at other times. Is he actually fantastic CONSIDERING his lack of experience?

[Retro Formula 1]

Mercedes - It's so funny. It seemed to me that everyone thought Michael would kick di Caprio's butt, then spent the whole season acting like they knew Rosberg would come out on top!!! :O I feel like a real smart-butt because I was one of what felt like about 2% who predicted Michael would be behind this season, but still be close. I did not think he would struggle as much as he did, especially later on in the season when he actually seemed to get worse. He was beaten by Alonso in 2006, why should he have beaten him now? Nico did a brilliant job. He did a quality job at Williams and is underrated by superficial experts (no wins = average driver obviously, right?).


I enjoyed reading your post and pretty much agreed with all of it except this ^^^

I was one of the 2% but like you, I didn't think it was going to be so much of a difference. Yet I'm not putting all the credit on Nico... yet.

It's not the no wins = average driver mentality and personally I think that is the stand of a naive and uneducated nit-wit. I think he is a strong and accomplished driver who would have won if you put him in a Red Bull this year but that's the point. 1/2 the grid could have won in that car this year and just like Vettel, he's a very fast pilot. BUT... just like Vettel, I haven't seen him really pushing for wins and positions like Alonso and Hamilton are capable of.

It's all a bit to clinical and no aggression but my mind is open to change.

[rjbetty]

I enjoyed reading your post and pretty much agreed with all of it except this ^^^

It's not the no wins = average driver mentality and personally I think that is the stand of a naive and uneducated nit-wit. I think he is a strong and accomplished driver who would have won if you put him in a Red Bull this year but that's the point. 1/2 the grid could have won in that car...

Haha I thought that would cause a reaction! Yep ok I wasn't being so clever with that remark, but I didn't mean it too seriously so no worries. :)

[jens]

The biggest disappointment to me was Massa. Have to say that his performances were quite fisichellaesque, recalling the Italian's Renault days. Maybe in retrospect we can now understand Fisi's struggles better too, because what can be noted that both Fisi and Massa were very highly rated drivers before teaming up with Alonso. But once that happened, they fell apart. Massa's only moment of glory was Germany, which he should have won, but as we remember, Fisi had his solitary moments of glory in 05-06 too by getting one race win each year. Both Massa and Fisichella are often considered to be mentally fragile and hence seems like driving as Alonso's team-mate can really be detriment to maximizing their potential.

Another obvious disappointment was Hülkenberg. He showed some good pace especially in the second half of the season, but mostly in qualifying. Alas in race trim he rarely looked too confident, which is kinda surprising, because based on GP2 I thought he would be better in race trim. I don't know, what was the exact cause. Lack of testing, the environment of Williams or that he really isn't that good despite having had a brilliant junior category record?! By that I mean that he was driving for the ultimate top team ART in feeder series, which - when he was there - was basically built around him. He was enjoying privileges he was missing in F1. Clearly he wasn't in such spotlight at Williams - both in terms of team's performance and attention on him (#2 driver after massively experienced Rubens, who had much say in the development of the car). Perhaps that shattered Nico's confidence.

Looking at the points table an odd thing is that Buemi outscored Alguersuari, because based on race performance I have to say Alguersuari left me a better impression. But Buemi happened to be at the right place at the right time in terms of points accumulation, while Jaime missed out and lost (potential) points on many occasions. Anyway, I think this pairing is a clear instance, where I have to say that points don't tell the real story.

Interesting that Kobayashi outqualified and outraced Heidfeld pretty consistently at the end of the season, so the gamble by Peter Sauber to replace de la Rosa didn't really give any significant benefits. One argument for Sauber to hire Heidi was to "evaluate" Kobayashi, but I wonder, how confident Nick felt in the car and how true picture did it give about Kamui?

[Retro Formula 1]

Haha I thought that would cause a reaction! Yep ok I wasn't being so clever with that remark, but I didn't mean it too seriously so no worries. :)

That's alright mate, there are people on here that think that way. For some, this forum is a place for imposing their view but I rather guess we're both in the other camp ;)

@Jens, I think "quick Nick" was a good yardstick for Koby. He's a pretty consistant player abut possibly not worthy of the acolades people have heaped on him in the past. Koby has answered all questions thrown at him and probably isn't too far away from a good drive if Toyota don't come back in some guise or other.

[rjbetty]

Yep definitely agree about Alguersuari. He seemed very good in races e.g. Malyasia + Spain. And he kept getting 11ths towards the end of the season. It looks like he has made some big improvements, but quietly because the team is not in the spotlight.

Heidfeld was complaining about his engine allocation meaning revs are turned down on his engines, not Kobayashi's. Maybe he was rusty, but I definitely think he should be in that car rather than De la Rosa. I always felt it should have been Nick over Pedro from the start. If not Nick, at least Fisi (who I am always a fan of, even though I felt so let down in Japan 2005...) Peter Sauber's explanation that having Nick would be like looking back, not going forward seemed really odd! But Kobayashi looked impressive against him.

I don't know if it's true, but I heard something about how in 2001, Sauber's designer Sergio Rinland came up with a front wing 0.2 seconds faster, but Peter Sauber looked at it and said he didn't like the look of it! So it never got put on the car!!! (Can anyone verify that?)