2014 F1 season prediction

[jens]

I know rjbetty used to do this last year. I don't know if he will pop out again, but thought I'd come and share my prediction of the 2014 F1 season.

Well, last time we had significant rule changes - 2009 - I got all predictions horribly wrong. Eager to see, what comes out of this. :p

In my mind played through all the races, including double points at Abu Dhabi, and the final score looks like the following:

1. Lewis Hamilton GBR Mercedes 286
2. Sebastian Vettel GER RBR Renault 275
3. Fernando Alonso ESP Ferrari 266
4. Nico Rosberg GER Mercedes 253
5. Kimi Räikkönen FIN Ferrari 210
6. Daniel Ricciardo AUS RBR Renault 137
7. Jenson Button GBR McLaren Mercedes 120
8. Nico Hülkenberg GER Force India Mercedes 101
9. Romain Grosjean FRA Lotus Renault 70
10. Kevin Magnussen* DEN McLaren Mercedes 67
11. Sergio Pérez MEX Force India Mercedes 63
12. Pastor Maldonado VEN Lotus Renault 45
13. Valtteri Bottas FIN Williams Mercedes 33
14. Felipe Massa BRA Williams Mercedes 28
15. Adrian Sutil GER Sauber Ferrari 25
16. Esteban Gutiérrez MEX Sauber Ferrari 20
17. Jean-Èric Vergne FRA STR Renault 12
18. Daniil Kvyat* RUS STR Renault 8
19. Jules Bianchi FRA Marussia Ferrari 1
20. Max Chilton GBR Marussia Ferrari 0
21. Kamui Kobayashi JPN Caterham Renault 0
22. Marcus Ericsson* SWE Caterham Renault 0

1. Mercedes (M) 539
2. Ferrari (F) 476
3. Red Bull (R) 412
4. McLaren (M) 187
5. Force India (M) 164
6. Lotus (R) 115
7. Williams (M) 61
8. Sauber (F) 45
9. STR (R) 20
10. Marussia (F) 1


Vettel had a storming end to the season again, including winning the double points in Abu Dhabi, but this time it wasn't quite enough. Four drivers were within a shot of a WDC before the title decider, which had the maximum of 50 points on offer.

So, waiting for your predictions before the winter testing begins. :D

[lars75]

I aint going to add the points!

1. Vettel
2. Hamilton
3. Alonso
4. Raikkonen
5. Rosberg
6. Ricciardo
7. Button
8. Hulkenberg
9. Perez
10. Magnussen
11. Grosjean
12. Sutil
13. Maldonado (his own prediction)
14. Vergne
15. Massa
16. Bottas
17. Guiterez
18. Kvyat
19. Kobayashi
20. vd Garde
21. Bianchi
22. Chilton

1. Mercedes
2. RedBull
3. Ferrari
4. McLaren
5. Force India
6. Lotus
7. Sauber
8. Williams
9. STR
10. Caterham
11. Marussia

[anfield5]

Seems like a fools errand, but since I am said fool....

1. Alonso (Ferrari will finally provide him a worthy car, instead of a big red dog)
2. Hamilton
3. Vettel
4. Rosberg
5. Kimi
6. Grosjean
7.Ricciardo
8. Button
9. Hulkenberg
10. Magnussen
11. Perez
12. Sutil
13. Maldonado
14. Massa
15. Vergne
16. Bottas
17. Guitierez
18. Caterham 1 (driver TBA)
19. Kvyatt
20. Bianchi
21. Caterham 2
22. Chilton


1. Mercedes (although with no Ross Brawn I a doubtful this will occur)
2. Ferrari
3. RBR
4. McLaren
5. Renault
6.Force India
7. Sauber
8. Williams
9. STR
10. Caterham
11. Marussia

[steveaki13]

I got my predictions last year quite accurate but with this seasons rule changes its more difficult.

1. Sebastian Vettel 287
2. Lewis Hamilton 263
3. Fernando Alonso 255
4. Kimi Raikkonen 211
5. Nico Rosberg 196
6. Jenson Button 174
7. Daniel Ricciardo 168
8. Romain Grosjean 156
9. Nico Hulkenbberg 77
10. Magnussen 75
11. Pastor Maldonado 68
12. Sergio Perez 51
13. Felipe Massa 42
14. JE Vergne 36
15. Adrian Sutil 26
16. Valterri Bottas 21
17. Esteban Gutierrez 17
18. Kyvatt 15
19. Jules Bianchi 1
20. Kobayashi 0
21. VD Garde 0
22. Max Chilton 0

1. Ferrari 466
2. Mercedes 459
3. Red Bull 455
4. McLaren 249
5. Lotus 224
6. Force India 128
7. Williams 63
8. Toro Rosso 51
9. Sauber 43
10. Marussia 1
11. Caterham 0

That's my workings. I really am not sure though. Cant wait to find out.

[Tazio]

My prediction????????-PAIN
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJnKm6ftPu0 :p
Actually I really don't have a good feel for how it is going to end up. It will probably be close between Mercedes, Red Bull, and Ferrari.
Most people are saying that the Mercedes lump in the works car has an advantage. I guess we will see. If so I predict "The Boss" for the WDC.
Let us not discount Red Bull and all their recourses, as well as Seb behind the wheel.

Ferrari may just be up to the task, and if they follow recent form (which there is no reason to expect they will), they may have an advantage in reliability. Gearboxes have to last 6 races this season.
But all in all this is pure speculation.

Come on practice :cool:

[jens]

Thanks for the thoughts.:)

I find interesting though that despite all the regulation changes our predictions are not too dissimilar, in fact differing only in details. We have the same selected group of drivers going for the championship, certainly the same three 'factory' teams at the top. We have McLaren having a marginally better season and Lotus dropping back at least a little. Force India is expected to have the best chance of doing anything among traditional midfield teams. Marussia and Caterham still at the bottom. Let's see, who or what can truly shock us.:D

The balance of power between Mercedes v Ferrari v RBR will be fascinating to see. Having played through the whole season, I had the following scenario.
- Mercedes getting the best start of all. Despite leading the championship all season they are not quite able to fully capitalize on their advantage though, a bit like Red Bull in 2010, so rivals run them close until the end. Hamilton edges Rosberg, but there are weekends, where Hamilton struggles and Rosberg capitalizes.
- Ferrari getting a great run mid-season, Alonso almost catching WDC lead. But like in many seasons, they struggle to develop the car in the end with windtunnel issues and drop back. Räikkönen has a few weekends, where he outshines Alonso, but most of the time Alonso finishes ahead.
- Red Bull getting a below-par start like they have done in the past + reliability issues with Renault package. I had Vettel only 5th in the WDC behind Mercedes and Ferrari drivers after Monza. They are strong though and can never be underestimated. They came to top form in the final phase again.

- I got Lotus as one, who gets away slowly with new regs, compounded by financial issues. A bit like BAR was nowhere in early 2005 after getting regular podiums in 2004. In the end of the season Lotus recovers somewhat, like the other cash-strapped Sauber did in 2013.

I think early season can bring us a few fascinating individual race results. The only (usual) midfield runner I predicted to get podium finishes, was Force India, but we might get more than that, like we did in 2012. Bottas? Sauber or Toro Rosso in the wet?

[rjbetty]

Nice thread Jens, and nice to see the thoughts of everyone. Now here are some of mine.

I have a brand new keyboard now, so can actually type, yet for some reason many keys do not work. But just now I have gained the use of the spacebar (phew)!
Bear in mind I don't have way to much time on my hands in 2014 as I did early last year. :)

I actually think this season may be easier to predict than 2013, where I didn't have a clue really (see my FGP).

Thoughts about how I'm making my predictions
I have now been following F1 since 1997; this will be my... 18th season(!) This does not include 2008 and most of 2009 when I was doing something different in life altogether, and 2007 where I mostly only checked results online. But this means I now have a fair bit of experience in judging things. I certainly learned quite a bit from last year.

One thing is that it seems many insiders often don't seem to have that much a better idea than we do. 12 months ago, Sergio Perez predicted Sauber would win races. He also predicted he would be champion... Button said the new McLaren was the best one ever. Williams also felt they would make an improvement.

But there are people who know what they're talking about, and I think it's maybe learning which people's opinions to give more weight to and who's to take with a pinch of salt.

Gary Anderson seems to be a very smart guy. He was the one who, having watched the 2013 cars testing, called out the Red Bull as having "10% more downforce". He also insisted to watch out for Mercedes when I didn't have much hopes for them.

I am also very much taking note of James Allison, who said that the "works" cars should have a huge advantage in 2014 and big gaps will open out. He also rightly said the 2012 Lotus (Renault) would be like their 2005 car. Christian Horner also said half the field could retire in Melbourne. I am going to watch out for these.

I find that Gerhard Berger seems to call things very well too. He recently gave his views on the sport and some drivers. Some of it may seem controversial, but if I am fair and impartial and as objective as possible, I think he has pretty much hit the nail on the head. I remember this time 12 years ago when McLaren were looking good to challenge Ferrari and the field seemed to be closing, and Jordan also looked pretty strong, Berger insisted no, there would be 3 big teams only, and the others wouldn't get close, not even close. As it happened, he was exactly right, against all my feelings.



2014 in general
People generally seem to be thinking this season will be closer than 2013. I am sorry to disappoint, but experience tells me that the gas throughout the field should be bigger than ever. It could surpass even 2002.

I believe as in that season, this one will be about a big 3. Most of us are in agreement that this will be Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari. I put them in that order.

I do however, think things could actually be very close early on. This reminds me very much of the 2011 WRC, when major new regulations saw totally new cars. This meant that for the first rally in Sweden, all works teams and privateers had the same spec car, as there were no older versions to hand down to privateers. This meant that Mads Ostberg shocked everyone by leading much of the rally and only losing to works Ford driver Mikko Hirvonen by 7sec. Also, privateer Per-Gunnar Andersson showed winning pace by messed up.

What an exciting new era that was - everyone had a chance. Except... The flip side of the new cars was that they had masses of room for development as the works teams learned and got used to them. This meant that actually the gap between works and independents got bigger than ever as the works teams made big strides ahead, but the privateers were all still left with the basic spec versions, and this meant a huge gap. And it happened scarily quickly too, by round 3 or so. It turned into even more of a 4 horse race between the works Ford and Citroen drivers, with only Solberg able to keep up.

I fear that this is what 2014 will be like. Pretty close early on, but then Renault (read Red Bull), Mercedes and Ferrari will start to get a grip on their engines and develop well ahead, adapting the units much more to their own car's liking.

There's no guarantee that customer teams will get any updates of the latest specs. This means they could all be left completely behind. I think James Allison will be right.

As for unreliability, I am relishing a greater taste of this in 2014. Sadly I don't think it will be like old times as people are saying - certainly not that bloodbath someone said recently. I think the increase in unreliability will be much less dramatic than predicted - more like 2010 levels, though I think it could maybe be like 2006, when the V8s debuted. Christian Horner recently feared that half the field could retire in Melbourne. But the way he said it was suggesting this was bad and disastrous. This made me realise how used and indoctrinated we have become to supereliability. Does he not realise that before 2003, we regularly had more retirements than that, sometimes much more. Unreliability = unpredictability, a commodity which the greatest seasons invariably have a strong dose of, so any increase will be welcome.

Red Bull - Renault
I believe the hopes that Red Bull will be toppled by Mercedes have at least some wishful thinking involved, sadly. It's true that a new season can make all the difference, but Red Bull are now the best drilled team. I say do not be fooled into thinking they will be anywhere other than right up there. I would say at worst, they will be a smidgen off Mercedes.

I think they are again underplaying their chances as they do. Remember, they have been working on 2014 for pretty much longer than anyone else. They are no fools. They will be working closely with Renault, and understand headline power figures are not everything. The long game is more important, and Renault have tended to do very well on fuel consumption and driveability. I really don't think it's just going to be all about engines like a lot of people say; I merely think they will just be more of a factor, but things will be much the same. I don't set that much store by the banning of exhaust blowing - I'm sure Adrian Newey will just do a better job of the new exhausts than most.

Even if Renault are down on power, and even if their engine is not the overall best, I still see Red Bull having the best, or just about the best overall package.

As for the drivers, surely Vettel can not run away with it again by as big a margin. Despite what people say about Mercedes, I am going to install Vettel as the favourite. He could fairly dominate again, but I just cannot see how he can pull out even more of a gap. I'm thinking I'm sure Mercedes will be closer and Seb will be made to sing to sing for his supper this time round, even if it turns out to be only slightly more than in '13.

Daniel Ricciardo is of course a big unknown. Frankly, he hasn't been able to put any major points on the board, in the way that Alonso and Vettel did for the same team (Toro Rosso was formerly Minardi, remember). This must be a concern, and even if Vettel were to take a 5th crown, the WCC seems less certain, and Mercedes, with two strong drivers seem to have more of a chance here. Having said that, lots of Dan's lack of points were down to the team and car. Now he steps up to a top car and a top team with better strategy, he should achieve more potential. Winning a maiden race is not a certainty though, as even a still pretty strong Mark Webber was unable to do so last year remember - though only cos he was cheated out of that and had strange problems every time he was in contention. He won't be a disaster, but the jury is well and truly still out.

[rjbetty]

Mercedes
Big things are expected of the former BAR team this year. They have long been built up as the favourites, and we have been hearing things like their engine having a 100bhp advantage. There is a lot of hype going on here.

But my instinct tells me that though Mercedes will duly enjoy their best season yet, and seem set to at least consolidate their standing as the 2nd best team, there is still more hype than substance. I don't see them utterly dominating and Red Bull struggling. But they certainly have their best chance ever of major success.

Much of this depends on which Lewis Hamilton we are getting for 2014. I am a huge fan of Lewis - his 2007 is just about the most impressive thing I've ever seen - but I am now going to say some strong things: I agree with Gerhard Berger's recent assertations, and the time has come for me to accept that Lewis is (currently) not the (overall) best driver in F1 (as he is at the moment) (please take note of the words in brackets - this is not set in stone forever) though fastest is something else...

I will lay it out now frankly, and say that until he gets rid of that woman for good, Lewis will never ever achieve his full potential - which is a shame as I think he is faster and more gifted than Sebastian Vettel. Or Fernando Alonso. And especially Kimi Raikkonen. I fully agree with The Black Knight (or was it Truefan32 - I get them two mixed up you know) who a year ago said Nicole messes Lewis up.

All this means that it could well be Nico Rosberg who is professional enough to take up the fight. If the Mercedes is really as good as some hope, I see him getting the WDC job done this year. He seems a driver who does better in a better car and comes ahead of Lewis more through studious, diligent work and application than outright raw talent I feel. I mean imagine Nico winning in a pig of a car. His wins have all come from the front/been inherited. Lewis is still the one who transcends.

Nico surprised most of us last year with his closeness in pace and performance to Hamilton. This led to some hyperbole and stuff saying he was better than Hamilton. I've tried to be as objective as I can, but still fully believe that Hamilton did marginally the better job.

Vettel will be very hard for either to beat. Daniel Ricciardo however, should be rather easier. Therefore, though the WDC may be out of reach again (by a little or a lot?), the WCC can be a real possibilty.



Ferrari
Another season, another set of hopes for the titles. This is beginning to look like the late 90's all over again. To be blunt, why are things going to be different this time? Do not think that just because the ruies have changed and everyone starts from zero, that this in itself means that Ferrari will suddenly be transformed. There is no real reason to think so. In fact, the team don't seem as good as Red Bull, so if anything, major regulation changes are prime conditions for the scud to lose yet more ground.

This may seem rather downbeat, but I have spent too many years stoking up high hopes during the pre-season only to see them dashed come the racing proper, as cold hard reality hits. Sadly, it seems there is no magic in F1. Alonso and Raikkonen could find themselves consigned to 4th and 5th places this season with not too many podiums.

This is though, pretty much the worse case scenario. Or is it? Are they going to do another 2012? I think not, and even if the worst happens, they should be fairly safe in 3rd in the constructors.

Having said all this, there are reasons to hope. Ferrari have realised that desperate times call for desperate measures(my-spacebar-has-gone-again,I-will-return-later-with-more...)

[rjbetty]

Ferrari (continued now I got the spacebar back (this keyboard is weird))

Right, as I was saying; desperate times call for desperate measures, and Ferrari have responded by enlisting the help of an old friend: The 2014 Ferrari will enjoy input from none other than Rory Byrne. The last car he was in charge of was the F2004... His previous 3 designs in particular were quite good too. But is this 'comeback' going to be glorious, or reflect his former colleague Schumacher's (very respectable but ultimately not as hoped)? Or will he go down the Patrick Head route by still living in the 80s? I don't think so. Byrne's involvement should be a benefit. This, and the involvement of James Allison (credited with much of Lotus' strong form in recent years), plus seemingly finally having the use of a decent windtunnel, give some hope to close the gap.

Apart from this though, the fact is that Ferrari are still not as cutting edge as Red Bull, if we face facts. Therefore, in the cold light of day, why should we expect Ferrari to beat Red Bull in 2014? I hope they can, and have both drivers running strongly. Even if they don't achieve their aims, it would be so great to see them stirring the pot at least some of the time.

Ferrari are experts in reliability, but it's hard to tell where they are with their powerplant. It's not looking like the best.

The arrival of Kimi Raikkonen has an unknown effect. It will shake things up for better or for worse. I feel it will be both, but more of the latter. There are now too many egos in the team, and this all looks very volatile. If there are any on track issues - team-mate collisions, or getting lost on performance again, this could all come to a head. There definitely seems to be a lot of underlying resentment between top members of the team - and I can't remember any time recently when a team in this sort of situation has secured any titles - that is the simple fact.

Now some eccentric fans are claiming Raikkonen is the best driver in the world and will come in and show Fernando around. This reminds me of when Fisichella joined Renault for 2005 and many people, notably respected journalist Tony Dodgins made bold declarations and predictions for Fisi. My feelings to that at the time were "I don't know where you get your confidence" (in Albert Wesker's voice (some of you may know what that means if you completed RE:CVX))

But Raikkonen is too comfortable in his own skin to be rattled like Fisi was. I think it will be more like the Hamilton/Button partnership at McLaren. I truly believe that if Fernando is himself, he should definitely come out on top.

However, Alonso may not really be himself these days. He has shown weakness, to quote someone else, and I have felt that he is now in decline and we have now seen the best of Fernando, even before anyone mentioned it last year. I personally wonder if the Grosjean incident at Spa 2012 has had an effect on Alonso. He hasn't seemed quite the same since then. And with his bad relationship with the team, he could well be vulnerable and his performance will be affected. Therefore it could very well be like McLaren 2011 where Kimi may actually score more points as Fernando somewhat self-destructs. Button may have scored more points than Lewis in 2011, but there is a difference between this, and being the best driver.

Unfortunately, if this does happen to Fernando, then we will never hear the end of it from Kimi fans. So it's very important that Alonso does himself justice. He doesn't have to beat 2012, but to match or just about match will pretty much guarantee his defeat of Raikkonen. Whatever happens, I just hope that it's representative and the truth is revealed.



Lotus - Renault
Oh dear. As someone said, is Lotus going the way of the original Lotus...? Their financial problems are well known, and their 2014 budget seems almost entirely based on Maldonado's dodgy money. This is bad, but it's still possible for a team to punch above their weight in this situation.

Except that they have suffered a severe brain drain as their best members have left due to the situation. It is this, more than the lack of money, that looks set to send Lotus stumbling to the midfield. The team seem much less prepared than Red Bull, who have been expending a massive diligent effort for 2(?) years. The reality is that when you compare the two teams' preparations, the conclusion is that Lotus should be nowhere near Red Bull.

New regulation changes always seem to bring changes to the form book. Like Jens said, this could be compared to BAR's 2004 to 2005, to illustrate how much a year can change things. Lotus 2013 and BAR 2004 seem pretty similar.

The team is still too good and their drivers too strong to do a Williams 2011/13 I'm sure, but a big step back seems inevitable. My prediction is that they will have similar form to what they had in 2011. It could even be slightly worse.

How this affects Romain Grosjean is yet to be seen. The star has often talked about his hopes of winning his first grand prix. 2014 will be another stern test for him as having tasted life at the front, he may have to accept a step back for now. Hopefully, he will understand and use what could well be years, to keep developing himself, building his character, and prepare for his time to come later in his career. Hopefully he can have a bigger picture view and overcome the inevitable disappointment. Romain's transformation in 2013 shows hope that he does have the mental strength to eventually come through this, and he will be stronger and better for it, able to capitalise when like Button, his time finally comes.

Pastor Maldonado has shown enough for us to know he does have talent, but we know that's not why he has this seat. Any hopes of front running may be dashed as he finds he's not much further up than he was at Williams. Pastor has shown a very different attitude to Grosjean and he could well self-destruct (and take the team down with him thru reckless crashes etc). Few expect him to topple Romain, and rightly so.

Yet there is hope for the Venezuelan hothead. Despite showing signs of being a true sociopath/psychopath (seriously), he has at least shown some capacity to be able to learn. See the second half of 2012, where he did sort of realise he needed to calm down a bit. In all fairness, he did curb himself and if you look objectively and fairly, there wasn't that much he did wrong in terms of crashes etc from then on. It was all in the first half of 2012. This carried over into 2013.

Therefore, Maldonado may not be a totally hopeless case. There is the possible potential for a transformation of sorts if the guy can show some maturity and just concentrate on himself. Unfortunately, it's probably much more likely he will be rattled by Grosjean and get his knickers in a massive twist, causing problems for all.

I expect nothing better than Renault 2007/2011/McLaren 2013 kind of form from Lotus in 2014, and depending on Maldonado and other things, they could have trouble with Force India too.

[rjbetty]

Grand Prix 2

I've also decided to run a season on Grand Prix 2. I used Grand Prix 4 last year but it is a terrible game with massive glitches, and it also gave the result of Perez as champion and Vettel 8th after a strange season.

I find that GP2 is the most reliable. I've used Steven Young's brilliant GP2Edit32 to edit the game for 2014, and used a 2013 mod from grandprix2.de which I updated for 2014. I have been careful to give realistic qualifying and race values for the drivers and engine power and reliability values for the cars.

But there is no DRS, KERS, ERS, or anything else, and pit stops have to be done the traditional way with refuelling and different fuel loads in the race. There is also no Pirelli and qualifying has to be a single 20min session, as I find that best simulates the 3 stage qualifying F1 has now. Kobayashi and van der Garde are the Caterham drivers, and as Grand Prix 2 obliges you to run with 26 cars, HRT-Renault with de la Rosa and Karthikeyan and Scorpion-Ferrari with Razia and Senna join the field.

So here we go

1.Australia - Melbourne
Starting Grid
1.Ricciardo - a great way to start in a top team
2.Vettel
3.Hamilton +0.4
4.Raikkonen +0.4
5.Rosberg +0.5
6.Magnussen +0.7 - what an amazing debut qualifying
7.Alonso +1.0 - struggling a bit
8.Hulkenberg
9.Bottas
10.Vergne
11.Grosjean
12.Kvyat
13.Sutil
14.Maldonado
15.Button - couldn't set a representative time
16.Perez
17.Massa
18.Gutierrez - just 0.7 ahead of the Caterhams

Interesting to see the start and how the race goes. In fact I turned out letting the whole race run while I cleaned my friends dvds to go to the shop!

GO! Dan Ricciardo manages to just hold the lead to turn 1, the Ferrari's get a good start. But what's this? Magnussen has had a stormer. Surely he can't go all the way. He does! He takes the lead from 6th on the grid. And woah! Contact at the back, a Caterham lifts of the ground slightly, spinning round. It's Kobayashi. He spins into Sutil. I made the cars a little stronger as they are in real life these days and both manage to survive though Sutil is dead last. Kobayashi only dropped a few places.

So lap 1, Magnussen leads but Ricciardo lines him up into turn 1 and is through. Later in the lap Vettel does the same and sets about closing the 1.4sec gap to his team-mate. The Ferrari's got into 4th and 5th at the start with the Mercedes cars behind. After a few laps, one Mercedes get's through and eventually both lead the Ferraris, but the 4 run in close formation through the first 15 laps. Raikkonen retakes 4th from Rosberg.

There is the strange sight of a retirement on lap 7 - Sergio Perez in the Force India from 17th. Button has had a terrible start as are the Lotuses. Grosjean is the highest of the 3 in 15th. The Toro Rosso's of Vergne and impressively, Kvyat are running in the top 10.

Magnussen holds 3rd for a while, but once Hamilton get's through, the closely following Ferraris and Rosberg very quickly follow suit devoting the Dane to 7th. His pace is dropping off but he has a big lead from Hulkenberg, who retires, and the Toro Rossos. The 2nd retirement is Kvyat, from the top 10. Then Rosberg is out too - possibly a major title contender gone already.

Through the early laps Ricciardo leads and the Aussie crowd hope for home success, but Vettel is the fastest and catching. Of the group behind, the Mercedes and Ferraris are only a few tenths to equal to Ricciardo, but only Lewis is really matching him. Vettel takes the lead around lap 7 into turn 1, with the others 6+sec behind. But sensationally, Ricciardo retakes the lead into turn 2! I can imagine the crowd cheering. Next time round though, the inevitable happens and Vettel hangs Ricciardo out to dry into turn 1 costing him momentum and protecting himself. He now pulls out a lead.

Around lap 12-15 and going through backmarkers, a car has spun at turn 13: amazingly it's Vettel!! He has spun and cars pass him left and right but he recovers quickly to 5th. Ricciardo is still generally 2nd fastest and has a gap to Lewis and co. Could it be? Also, at the same time, Magnussen has spun from a clear 7th behind the top 3 teams into turn 8 and drops right down the field.

Raikkonen pits relatively early, and OMGosh, Vettel is off again, breaking his wing this time. This is a very Schumacher 2003 start to the season and already doesn't seem as perfect as 2013. This compromises his strategy and he exits 14th behind Kobayashi, a minute down. van der Garde ran 13th in the opening laps and consistently in the top 15 as others retired. Maldonado pits with mechanical issues. Grosjean retires from the top 10.

Vergne is quietly impressing in 5th, around 1.3sec per lap off his old team-mate Ricciardo. The group behind, led by Bottas aren't getting within 2.0sec really.

Around lap 30 Ricciardo pits from the lead. Lewis takes the lead, pitting a couple of laps later having consistently stayed just over 2sec off Ricciardo. He exits behind, and Raikkonen now takes 2nd on a two-stopper. Alonso is now about 12sec off Ricciardo. Vettel meanwhile catches Vergne in 5th but both have to pit again.

Later in the race, Sutil is making his way up the field. van der Garde is impressively close to the points and Kobayashi is about 4.5sec behind throughout the race. The Caterham is hanging onto Gutierrez through merit and the gap stays around 1sec.

Around lap 40, Lewis takes the lead of Ricciardo. The Australian's pace then drops a bit as he seems to let his head drop a bit now. Raikkonen is also through but Kimi pits again while the others don't have to stop. Vettel also stops and is now mega fast setting a fastest lap almost 0.6sec faster than his previous best. But with just over 15 laps left he is 32sec behind Raikkonen, who himself is 30sec off the lead in 4th, and out of contention for a podium, unless any more retirements come.

Further back, van der Garde takes Gutierrez fair and square, but Maldonado is less than 20sec behind. At the same time as this Sutil makes his way up through his team-mate and the Caterhams, and gives chase to Massa, who VDG is going quicker than.

There are to be no more and in the end Hamilton takes the chequered flag 12sec ahead of Ricciardo, who despite the defeat still did a great job. Alonso took a great 3rd a further 10sec back after his bad qualifying. Kimi was over 10sec back in 4th and Vettel a way back in 5th. Vergne was easily best of the rest consolidating an easy 6th. Button eventually got by Bottas having raced him for a long time, while Magnussen eventually recovered to 9th. Sutil got by Massa for the final point before the end. Not bad considering he was last behind even the HRTs and Scorpions after lap 1.

Australia Result
1.Hamilton
2.Ricciardo
3.Alonso
4.Raikkonen
5.Vettel
6.Vergne
7.Button
8.Bottas
9.Magnussen
10.Sutil
11.Massa
12.Maldonado
13.van der Garde
14.Gutierrez
15.Kobayashi
16.Bianchi
17.Chilton

I won't go into much detail for the rest. The first race is always the most interesting. :)



As for the rest of my 2014 F1 preview:

McLaren-Mercedes
The good news is that McLaren do remain a top organisation and surely they won't suffer as badly this year. 2014 may be to 2013 as 2008 was to 2007 for Renault, an improvement.

Remember that McLaren had marginally the fastest car, in qualifying trim anyway, as recently as 2012. They aren't going to sink right down. Ron Dennis retaking CEO position should help. Though he's not as likeable as Martin Whitmarsh, I guess he can be tougher maybe and do the tough stuff that may be needed. So I predict that McLaren will pull ahead of the midfield, but at the same time the 3 works teams will have a huge advantage, so McLaren may take the position Mercedes had in 2011 of being in a no-mans land as 4th best, especially since Lotus look set to drop back a bit. I think pace-wise they may only therefore, only make a smal improvement, Jenson being 1.0-1.2sec or so off the pace, maybe 1.5 if the gaps are really big through the field.

Hopefully the fact this season shouldn't be as bad as last year should inspire Jenson a bit more, as should his new team-mate Kevin Magnussen who's flair should push JB further. But Jenson can sense his job may be in danger for 2015. How will this affect him?

Wins? Ohhh I'm not sure. How about podiums this time. That seems realistic. I wouldn't expect more than 2 wins max though even in the best case scenario. But overall a decent enough recovery ready for 2015.

I don't know what to expect from Kevin Magnussen. He does seem like he should deliver a lot more than his dad. Is Jan really his dad? Has that much time gone since 1998? Am I now old? It's his potential that McLaren are interested in and he seems to be applying himself well. I can't really see him matching Jenson for speed first year round, but then Perez outqualified him 10-9... I think Magnussen could actually finish 8th in the WDC. I don't think he will be totally inconsistent and down the pack.

[rjbetty]

Grand Prix 2

Round 2: Malaysia
Starting Grid
1.Vettel
2.Hamilton
3.Ricciardo
4.Rosberg
5.Button
6.Raikkonen
7.Alonso
8.Maldonado
9.Hulkenberg
10.Bottas
11.Magnussen
12.Perez
13.Grosjean
14.Vergne
15.Massa
16.Sutil
17.Kvyat
18.Bianchi
19.Chilton
20.Kobayashi
21.van der Garde
22.Gutierrez

An uneventful start, though the Mercedes take the lead. Bottas and Kvyat are the first retirements, followed by Maldonado and Perez again. Rosberg is delayed down the back, while Hamilton gets a lurid spin out of turn 2 in backmarkers, colliding with Vettel. Lewis is out, but Vettel pits for a new wing. This leaves Ricciardo in front.

Vettel is very fast, but retires with a mechanical failure. Hulkenberg goes strongly challenging the Ferraris early on.

van der Garde is doing another sterling job from 21st and later on is beating at least 1 Sauber. Vergne was heavily delayed and not very fast anyway this time.

Ricciardo builds up a huge lead on the Ferraris but Rosberg eventually looks good to catch up for 2nd but retires for the second race in a row. This leaves Button on course for a fine return to 2nd and the podium, but he crashes with a few laps left in what turns out to be a race of attrition. He is not out though and despite losing much time, pits and comes out behind Hulkenberg who he massively catches and overtakes.

Before this, with little more than 10 laps to go, van der Garde is catching Sutil fast, and easily ahead of Gutierrez. Bianchi has already retired having run out of position in 15th early on. As others retire, van der Garde is on course to inherit 10th, but he himself suffers a heartbreaking oil leak before he gets into that position.

Gutierrez then takes the 10th place that van der Garde was about to come into, only to retire himself.

This leaves only 12 finishers as Ricciardo scores a hugely popular victory, miles ahead of Raikkonen and Alonso, with Button and Hulkenberg not far behind. Grosjean and Magnussen are a fairly distant 6th and 7th, with Massa putting in a slow but steady drive for 8th. Sutil is even further back and a much delayed Vergne takes 10th, absolutely nowhere. This means Kobayashi and Chilton take 11th and 12th.



Round 3: Bahrain
Starting Grid
1.Hamilton
2.Alonso
3.Vettel
4.Rosberg
5.Ricciardo
6.Raikkonen
7.Magnussen
8.Perez
9.Grosjean
10.Hulkenberg
11.Bottas
12.Sutil
13.Button
14.Maldonado
15.Massa
16.Gutierrez
17.Vergne
18.Kvyat

Hulkenberg stars early on but retires, as does his team-mate and the Toro Rossos. Rosberg is caught in an incident and needs to replace his front wing, ruining his race again. On the exact same lap, Hamilton inexplicably gets caught in backmarkers again, puts a wheel off track and his wheel ends up being ripped off. He was putting in a real challenge for victory and was leading. This lets Vettel through.

Vettel is on a 2 stop and come out behind Alonso, but soon overtakes him and builds up a big lead in the remaining laps to win, over 20sec. Ricciardo is very close behind and takes another good result in 3rd. Raikkonen manages to hold off the recovering Rosberg for 4th. Magnussen scores a good 6th ahead of Button, while Bottas and the closely matched Lotuses led by Grosjean round out the points. There are 14 finishers.



Round 4: China
Ricciardo just edges Vettel for pole at the death. Mercedes take the 2nd row just a little slower, Rosberg ahead. Ferraris take row 3, but Magnussen stars again in 7th. Gutierrez outqualifies Sutil in 14th and Vergne and Kvyat are 17th and 19th, van der Garde impressively splitting them.

Oddly, Ricciardo takes a close victory from Vettel, Hamilton and Rosberg. The Ferraris stay the same. Button, Perez, Massa and Grosjean fill out the points. There are 6 retirements.



Round 5: Spain
Top 6 on grid filled by usual suspects, though Raikkonen 3rd.

Vettel utterly dominates this one I'm afraid, by just over a minute (sigh). It's very close behind as 2nd-5th are covered by 5sec. Hamilton finishes 1sec ahead of Rosberg, the gap having stayed that way for much of the race.

Raikkonen and Ricciardo had been having a tense fight, with a small gap, then one taking the other. In the end Raikkonen just made it to another 4th. There were 6 retirements: Button, Grosjean, Perez, Massa, Kvyat (has retired from every race) and Kobayashi, who retired after a stupid collision with Raikkonen at turn 2 while he was fighting Ricciardo near the end.



Round 6: Monaco
Starting Grid
You know how at Monaco, sometimes you just can't get a time in.

1.Hamilton
2.Ricciardo+0.2
3.Rosberg+0.5
4.Raikkonen+0.9
5.Alonso+1.3 - could have gone faster
6.Button+1.7
7.Bottas+1.8
8.Grosjean+1.9
9.Vergne+1.9
10.Sutil+2.1
11.Maldonado+2.1
12.Magnussen+2.3 - could have maybe had 5th
13.Kvyat+2.4
14.Perez+2.8
15.Massa+2.9
16.Gutierrez+3.3
17.van der Garde+4.1
18.Kobayashi+4.5
19.Hulkenberg+4.6
20.Bianchi+6.6
21.Chilton+6.7
23.Vettel+7.9 - behind even Bruno Senna's Scorpion!

Ricciardo takes the lead but reitres on lap 2 - his first of the season! This delays Hamilton and Raikkonen takes his chance and leads the race. Vettel is already challenging van der Garde for 15th at the end of lap 2. Gutierrez was in for a new nose on lap 1 and Kobayashi spun at the chicane on lap 3.

By lap 7, Vettel has already caught up to the top 10 and a train of cars but can't get past Kevin Magnussen.Van der Garde retires from a promising 16th.

[jens]

Wow, rjbetty. What an elaborate preview of the season.:)

Interesting thoughts. Since it is a prediction, we really cannot argue ( :D ), but we can discuss in general about some things.

Firstly, about predictions in general. I think I have been making pre-season predictions roughly since 2004, occasionally even before, but those I can't remember properly any more. I have done either on a race-by-race basis in an Excel table, or just imagined, thought and written up next year's ranking/pecking order in general.

One thing I have noticed is that some seasons have been easier to predict than others. Of course it is impossible to make a perfect prediction, but in „easier“ cases you can avoid getting too many things wrong. I mean you can roughly anticipate the general state of games, even if details differ. For instance if in 2014 indeed the three „factory“ teams are above others, this season will be among the „easier“ ones.

In my mind 2013 was among the „easier ones“ too. McLaren was wrong, it was difficult to anticipate this, but many other things were quite close to expectation.

Also the period of 2006-2008 was relatively „logical“ to predict. By predicting I mean predictions before winter tests, before we have any markers.

Before 2006 I thought Ferrari and Renault were going to be top2 teams and Mercedes will get its V8 engine wrong. Like they had done in the past with other engines.

Before 2007 thought the title was going to be fought between Räikkönen, Alonso and also Massa. Renault was expected to drop back at least a little. Hamilton was the main spanner in the works not to be foreseen.

Before 2008 Ferrari was the favourite with McLaren expected to get hit at least slightly by 100M $ fine, but if anyone was going to take the fight to Ferrari, it was expected to be Hamilton. BMW Sauber seemed like a potential dark horse after a strong 2007.

Some seasons have a huge spanner in the works that even the experts find difficult to predict. 2005, 2009, 2012 were for me cases in point.

Based on pre-2005 winter tests I thought Schumacher, Räikkönen and Alonso were going to fight for the title. But before winter tests it was hard to see that McLaren and Renault were going to be well above others and Toyota also pretty good, because none of those three teams had been convincing in 2004. I think before winter tests my 2005 order looked like 1. M Schumacher, 2. Räikkönen, 3. Button. Ferrari/Bridgestone losing so much ground after a dominant 2004 was a surprise.

2009 of course. Rjbetty has said that he is trying to learn from insiders, but no-one saw this coming before winter tests certainly. Incredible season.

2012 was difficult to anticipate.
RBR lost a lot after their domination.
Ferrari had a difficult car, but despite that they developed so much Alonso led the WDC clearly in mid-season.
Lotus improved so much that Räikkönen was a remote title contender.
Sauber and Williams had a very fast car not just occasionally, but for most of the season.

It was very hard to foresee such a combination of things, combined with Pirelli tyres that saw 7 different winners in first 7 races.

- - -

One thing I have personally learnt from predictions is that they are often too much based on previous season. New season, new beginning has to be predicted with a new view, but taking into account the current potential (as much as we can see) of each team.

However, predictions are often too similar to previous year, because past year is our guideline and we are not aware of current developments. We do not have a guideline for the future. Let's take 2009 and Red Bull's rise. Before 2009 it was not a convincing argument that RBR should be predicted as a top team, just because they have Newey. You could say - „but RB-s were designed by Newey in 2007-08, yet they were in midfield.“ You did not have a convincing argument to have RBR as a top team, yet you had evidence that RBR was actually a midfield team with Newey on board. So there it goes.

- - -

Some rjbetty's points about 2014.
I agree that reliability is not going to be „dramatic“, even if a little worse. We could indeed have half of the cars retiring, but this would more likely be an exception rather than a rule. Certainly not a disaster like Horner claims. After all, we had only 7 finishers in 2008 Australia! But it wasn't the norm for the season.

I think Vettel could have an advantage over Mercedes' and Ferrari drivers by being a clear lead driver in the team. It could turn out to be quite important if your team-mate almost never finishes ahead of you. It was an advantage for Alonso back in 2010 in a fight against Red Bulls and McLarens.

Red Bull's general "invincibility" will be tested in 2014 though. It is possible that they will have lost a little bit of their former magic with new chassis-engine packages, also the team has lost a member of their "dream team" - Peter Prodromou. McLaren in 2012 proved Red Bull can be outraced (with proper reliability of course) if you get your package right, and this is what Mercedes will be aiming to do in 2014. Red Bull of course won't be weak, they should still be aerodynamically strong and still be pretty good particularly in the final phase of the season. But it will be hard to replicate their 2013 latter half utter dominance with new set of rules.

You are right to be concerned about Ferrari. I don't think Rory Byrne is going to be a big differentiator, because hasn't he been an "advisor" for a few years already? I think the arrival of James Allison could have more effect. But it is never that simple that a talented engineer comes from somewhere and makes a team competitive. The whole organization has to work like a clock-work. It took Newey quite a few years, before the synergy of RBR enabled them to get to the top. I am not convinced about the synergy of Ferrari under the leadership of Domenicali. Ferrari is not going to be absolutely rubbish, they are always there-or-thereabouts and they have a huge budget. But it is the matter of whether they are fighting for "regular podiums" or "regular wins". Basically it looks like the story of 2010-2013. If no-one can get a good and consistent run, Ferrari (Alonso) can stay in title contention (2010/2012). If someone does get a brilliant run (2011/2013) they won't stay.

I am not convinced of „big gaps“ yet. In 2009, despite big changes, cars were quite close to each other. Yet in 2011, after the rules had had some stability, RBR and some other teams had a breakthrough in EBD development and a few teams (with RBR spearheading it) emerged clearly above others. As we remember, in 2011 three teams were above and others didn't get a look in with the exception of Lotus getting two podiums early in the season.

However, in 1998 after rule changes the gaps were indeed significant at least early on. Also in 1994.

We remember back in the day (10-20 and more years ago) works engines had quite a significant advantage over customer ones (i.e 50 hp). The concern is valid that after time works engined cars could emerge above others. But early in the season we could get a few surprising results, especially if one engine company is above others (either generally, or in certain conditions, like wet or twisty Monaco). For instance if Mercedes is genuinely the best engine, McLaren, Force India and/or Williams could genuinely outrace Ferrari and Red Bull. Not regularly, but on some odd occasions.

But Mercedes, Renault and Ferrari are all experienced and big companies in building F1 engines, so it doesn't seem likely there will be a big gap between their powerplants even if there is a small disparity. Certainly when we are talking about „package“ Red Bull could be in contention even if they have engine deficiency. Like Benetton was in contention in 1994 despite underpowered Ford V8 engines.

When we are talking about McLaren, I think they could start out pretty well. Being a podium-challenging team seems likely. But as the season goes on, they are likely to fall back to minor points as they prepare to enter new era with Honda and co-operation with Mercedes loses importance. This gradual decline in performance was reflected in my prediction as well.

[jens]

Just one more thing for comparison. WDC points in 2010-2013. In some ways not too dissimilar. Incredibly. Four different years, but drivers are consistently scoring around the same region. Are we going to see more of the same? :D



Vettel 256 392 281 397
Alonso 252 257 278 242
Webber 242 258 179 199
Hamilton 240 227 190 189
Räikkönen - - 207 183


Basically only Vettel has gone up-and-down during those last four years, while everybody else has been scoring pretty consistently in the same region. Button was doing the same till 2013. Hamilton has stayed there despite changing teams. Räikkönen has joined them. Rosberg has obviously improved his points-tally in 2013, roughly swapping scores with Button. Will Ricciardo replicate Webber? Is there a strong argument the scores are going to be massively different? For that to happen someone's car has to be significantly better/worse than what we have seen. That's how Button/Rosberg swapped their scores.

[rjbetty]

Nice thoughts Jens,

Yes I totally agree that predictions are too much based on the previous season. We often find that things are very new in a new season.

2001 was a case in point. I expected Benetton to have their best season since 1998, even when everyone was saying they were terrible in testing. I also learned with Honda in pre-season 2007 and Jaguar 2002, even BAR 2005 and Toyota 2006 that if the widely held consensus is a team is going to struggle, they probably are. I mean even in 2009 people did predict from testing that McLaren and Renault would suck and Brawn would win early on. So although they say you can't glean much from testing, neither is it true that you can get absolutely no idea either.

In 2012, everyone was very closely matched with many setting competitive times - and that is how 2012 turned out.

Last year, through Red Bull were sandbagging, the view was that Mercedes would do well and McLaren wouldn't. Also Sauber did look ordinary and Williams nothing special. This is how it turned out.


Meanwhile
Monaco Grand Prix 2 (cont'd)
Raikkonen and Hamilton race at the front, and Hamilton gets ahead at the stops, but later on inexplicably crashes out lapping backmarkers again. This leaves Raikkonen and Alonso having their first real head-to-head, and it's for the lead.

Sadly, Raikkonen retires with about 20 laps to go. Other cars drop out, quite a bit of attrition here. This all allows Vettel to take a rather fortunate 3rd. There are 13 finishers though Kobayashi is the only back team finisher in 13th. It's payday for midfielders Vergne and Sutil in 4th and 5th.

1.Alonso - takes Ferrari's first win of the season
2.Rosberg
3.Vettel
4.Vergne
5.Sutil
6.Button
7.Grosjean
8.Hulkenberg - very good from the back of the grid
9.Perez
10.Massa


Round 7: Canada
Rosberg takes a close pole where the top 8 are quite close. Magnussen takes a close 7th, but Jenson surprises with a great 3rd on the grid. Vettel was only 6th having failed to get a clear lap. Alonso eventually jumped from 7th to 5th on the grid with Raikkonen only 8th. Massa and Gutierrez have their highest grid slots of the season so far in 12th and 13th.

In the race Rosberg retires again and it is generally much closer here, but in the end Vettel narrowly beats Ricciardo with Hamilton 3rd. Alonso retires with 3 laps to go.

1.Vettel
2.Ricciardo
3.Hamilton
4.Button
5.Raikkonen
6.Maldonado
7.Perez
8.Gutierrez
9.Vergne
10.Sutil
11.Kvyat - first finish of the season
12.van der Garde
DNF.Alonso
14.Kobayashi
15.Chilton


Round 8 - Austria (so glad to see this back) - I am going to run qualifying now then gotta go.
Hamilton takes a dominant pole from his team-mate, Vettel (who jumped from 5th at the death of quali), Raikkonen, Alonso, Ricciardo and the McLarens.

[jens]

Nice thoughts Jens,

Yes I totally agree that predictions are too much based on the previous season. We often find that things are very new in a new season.

2001 was a case in point. I expected Benetton to have their best season since 1998, even when everyone was saying they were terrible in testing. I also learned with Honda in pre-season 2007 and Jaguar 2002, even BAR 2005 and Toyota 2006 that if the widely held consensus is a team is going to struggle, they probably are. I mean even in 2009 people did predict from testing that McLaren and Renault would suck and Brawn would win early on. So although they say you can't glean much from testing, neither is it true that you can get absolutely no idea either.

In 2012, everyone was very closely matched with many setting competitive times - and that is how 2012 turned out.

Last year, through Red Bull were sandbagging, the view was that Mercedes would do well and McLaren wouldn't. Also Sauber did look ordinary and Williams nothing special. This is how it turned out.

:)
I don't remember myself predicting anything before 2001, other than expecting Schumacher to win the title. And Häkkinen being his closest rival again.
Before 2002 I thought top 3 teams (Ferrari, Williams, McLaren) were above others with McLaren possibly losing a bit ground. But certainly expected Williams to give a good run for Ferrari's money. The new Renault team seemed likely to emerge as fourth on the back of their strong finish to the 2001 season.

I wonder, what could be the thing of 2014, which is hard to predict right now. Almost every season has at least something, even if not at the front of the field, then somewhere else.

Caterham/Marussia regularly fighting for points? 2014 is their big chance, even if neither is a particularly big team by F1 standards. Shockingly getting the car running well in the early season mess?

Anything among STR, Williams, Sauber, Force India? It is hard to see any of them completely dropping out of points into the backmarker bunch (though Williams very nearly did it), so is the flipside that any of them can threaten top teams? Can someone be the "new Lotus" (2012 rise) with new regs? None of them is financially very well off. Though at least Sauber has IMO proved the last couple of years that they have some very clever engineers in the team and are able to design a fast car even on a shoestring budget.

Lotus and McLaren are the ones, who can be relatively tricky to predict at this moment - both in a good and bad way.

And the so-called potential top 3 teams. It is hard to reach a conclusion at this time whether we could either have a close fight for the title (2010/2012) or someone running away with it (2011/2013). At the moment have been going with the 'close' one.

But nevertheless, let's see what does testing bring us.:) Even the early days. Though it is often said the first days don't show anything as teams are only "dialling the cars in", sometimes having an immediate advantage can be vital. Others have to catch up and they may remain doing so.

[rjbetty]

Grand Prix 2: Round 8 - Austria (cont'd)

The first retirement is Vettel, who amazingly is out due to a driver error! Kobayashi retires, then on lap 17 Lewis is out from a handsome lead - would surely have won. Toward half distance, Gutierrez retires, then interestingly, Ricciardo too! What a terrible race for Red Bull at their home track - in fact, the circuit they own! The only other retirement is Bottas from a good 8th with 3 laps to go. Rosberg was again delayed early on and his race was all about recovery after an extra stop.

All this meant that the Ferraris were clear to score an immensely popular 1-2! Raikkonen and Alonso had tried different strategies with Alonso 2 stopping and Raikkonen once. Alonso stopped from the lead with less than 20 laps to go, and hunted Raikkonen down, but his tyres couldn't last and he settled for 2nd, 13sec down. What a great win for Kimi, and Ferrari's second in 3 races. Rosberg was 6sec behind Alonso in the end. Kevin Magnussen scored a fine 4th, 52sec off Kimi, while it was noticed at the end that 1-stopping Vergne had managed to stay ahead of charging 2-stopping Button. Kvyat had also crept into a strong 10th with Bottas' late exit. He was only 1sec behind Perez in 8th! Massa was only a further 4sec behind. Van der Garde was the highest back team finisher in 14th.

Result:
1.Raikkonen 2.Alonso 3.Rosberg 4.Magnussen 5.Vergne 6.Button 7.Hulkenberg 8.Perez 9.Grosjean 10.Kvyat


Mid-season summary
Points after Round 8 of 16 (only 16 races on GP2)
1.Vettel 118pts
2.Ricciardo 111pts
3.Alonso 109pts
4.Raikkonen 97pts
5.Hamilton 73pts
6.Rosberg 70pts
7.Button 58pts
8.Vergne 39pts
9.Magnussen 29pts
10.Hulkenberg 24pts
11.Grosjean 19pts
12.Perez 16pts
13.Sutil 14pts
14.Maldonado 11pts
15.Bottas 8pts
16.Massa 7pts
17.Gutierrez 4pts
18.Kvyat 1pt

1.Red Bull-Renault 229pts
2.Ferrari 206pts
3.Mercedes 143pts
4.McLaren-Mercedes 87pts
5.Toro Rosso-Renault 40pts
6.Force India-Mercedes 40pts
7.Lotus-Renault 30pts
8.Sauber-Ferrari 18pts
9.Williams-Mercedes 15pts

Ricciardo has had an immensely consistent start to the season despite not being that fast in race trim. His qualifying has at times been top notch however. Things have all gone his way so far and more couldn't have been asked. His only faults were crashing out of the lead at Monaco on lap 1, being defeated by Hamilton in Australia and Raikkonen in Spain. He has done a Frentzen-99-like job but always seems to lose out in a scrap, except for China!

Vettel has definitely been the fastest, especially in races, but uncharacteristic errors in Australia and Austria, plus being t-boned by Hamilton in Malaysia before retiring, and starting 23rd in Monaco show that though the performance remains, the invincibility has disappeared. He is still the title favourite by a large margin though.

That's because Mercedes have been even more unfortunate. It all looked so good after Hamilton won the first race, but so much has gone wrong. Lewis has astonishingly got caught in so many strange backmarker situations. This stopped him winning Malaysia and Monaco, and possibly Bahrain. He DNFed in all 3 instead! Rosberg has been even more unlucky. The opposite of Ricciardo, the cards are falling badly for Mercedes as Nico has had problems nearly every race (despite the decent reliability I gave Mercededs that should should see each driver retire 3, maybe 4 times in the season). This leaves the drivers and team well down.

Lotus have done terribly, Grosjean usually starting just outside the top 10 with a highest grid placing of 9th. Maldonado has been more up and down, starting 7th in Spain and 16th in Austria. Grosjean is the better racer, has suffered more unreliability than Maldonado and beaten him to the flag every time both finished. Romain scored a highest of 6th in Malaysia while Maldonado did score a strong 6th in Canada.

It's been a more decent season for McLaren, with Magnussen qualifying 6th on his debut and 7th four further times. Button also started 5th in Malaysia, 6th in Monaco and 3rd in Canada. Jenson would have taken 2nd at Sepang before going off near the end. He's retired once, in Spain, but everywhere else finished either 4th, 6th or 7th. Magnussen beat Button to 6th in Bahrain and came 4th in Austria.

Force India have done a decent job, usually starting around the top 10. Perez has surprisingly defeated the Hulk 5-3 in qualifying, but much of that is because Hulk lost out badly in qualifying in Monaco and Austria in particular. Nico has been the better racer and recovered from 19th on the grid at Monaco to beat Perez home in 8th. He also defeated Sergio by 30sec in Austria having started 3 places behind. Nico scored a mighty 5th in Sepang while Perez came 7th in Canada.

Sauber have not done well, Sutil only starting in the top 10 once. Qualifying has gone 5-3 in his favour. But Sutil has managed to finish around 10th in the races, though he picked up the pieces to grab 5th in monaco. Gutierrez lost 10th in Malaysia in the closing stages, but capitalised in Canada to come 8th, 2 places ahead of Sutil. He is doing alright, but was embarrassed by van der Garde in the opening two races, alo starting 22nd at Sepang.

Williams have improved and Bottas is definitely getting stuck in with the Force Indias and Lotuses. He has often retired from good positions though, such as 5th at Monaco. Massa has not yet qualified in the top 10, but plays a Bruno Senna 2012 role in claiming useful lower points finishes, or just outside the points.

Toro Rosso have been their usual self, in qualifying anyway. However, similar to Ricciardo, Jean-Eric Vergne has been a revelation in the way he has almost unnoticed quietly racked up a huge sum of points, just by unobtrusively being there. Actually, his race pace has been very good at times. Has shown a great ability to always be there and capitalise. 6th in Australia, 7th in Spain, 4th in Monaco and 5th in Canada are amazing results, with other points finishes in Malaysia and Canada. Daniil Kvyat has yet to outqualify his team-mate but has been very competent. He has suffered terrible unreliability, retiring from the first 6 races, sometimes in good pints-scoring positions. He finally got to the flag in Canada, a close 11th before going one better to open his account in Austria.

The bottom two teams have been their usual poor selves, though Caterham seems generally ahead. Van der Garde in particular has raced extremely well and looked like finishing as high as 9th before his car gave out not far from the end, Luca Badoer Nurburgring 1999 style. Unreliability has enabled them to finish a little higher than usual, but points still elude both teams.

[jens]

They will be working closely with Renault, and understand headline power figures are not everything. The long game is more important, and Renault have tended to do very well on fuel consumption and driveability. I really don't think it's just going to be all about engines like a lot of people say; I merely think they will just be more of a factor, but things will be much the same.

I missed this quote, but I think it is a very valid comment. I believe a technical director or an engine man (was it Ferrari's?) commented on this also recently. That in the end the package matters, not just engine alone. An engine has to fit into a chassis well, and work harmoniously and reliable in the car to make it go very fast around a circuit.

But the argument is very valid that Renault engine could have some important strengths, like fuel consumption. And we know that fuel saving as it has been put, will be absolutely vital this year. In fact, it is considered to be part of drivers' skillset for 2014 in addition to tyre saving skill we have had since 2011 with Pirellis.

My personal hypothesis is that... Mercedes-powered cars go well on faster circuits like Montreal and Monza, where sheer horsepowers count more. And just like in 2010 and 2012, RBR could struggle at Monza, while in 2011/13 they were very competitive there. However, on street circuits, where drivability counts, RBR-Renault package could be the one to beat. A hypothesis. I am also wondering whether Renault-engined cars could have an advantage in the wet, where also drivability is important? Though fuel saving is not so important in the wet. And I must admit I am not aware, which circuits are more "thurstier" for engines and which less.

I think it could possibly vary from track-to-track and circuit-to-circuit, which engineor should I say package is the best. A bit like throughout the years we have often seen with cars/chassis anyway or when we had tyre war in the past. Or even further back, when we had "engine wars". I mean the same Ford V8 engine was pretty handy at twisty circuits, while Ferrari V12 was the one to have at Hockenheim. However, as all the engines are going to be 1.6l V6, the differences in performance are not going to vary as much as the performance between V8 and V12, obviously.

[rjbetty]

Re: Jens:

You're right Jens, most seasons have had unexpected form, good or bad, from certain teams.

I have been predicting a lot since 2000, even 1999 maybe. I got 2000 spectacularly wrong where I thought Jordan and Jaguar were going to create a big four with Ferrari and McLaren (sigh). BAR were only slightly off my prediction, while Williams surprised everyone by coming 3rd with an engine that turned out to have 800bhp.
I thought Prost were going to be very strong too.

But the biggest surprise was a great pleasure and unexpected: The amazing Orange Arrows. I'll never forget the first time I saw it on ITV's coverage as it sped efficiently through the lush Albert Park overgrowth, then watching them come 12th and 13th in qualifying, having been regularly beaten by Minardi just months ago. They were even stronger in the race, then even more so in Brazil. This is just about my highest F1 highlight ever.

For 2001, I thought Benetton were going to strong with Renault and Jordan would bounce back to not 1999 levels, but something better. The surprise was a bad Benetton, and a great Williams and a very impressive and strong Sauber.

For 2002 the surprises were that the gaps widened. not closed, through the field. Jaguar's poor form and Toyota's good form were unexpected.

For 2003 I didn't expect Renault to be so strong and Alonso to be SO amazing!! Nor Raikkonen to eclipse Coulthard quite so much. Especially not Button to destroy Villeneuve, or Jordan and Minardi to do so badly sadly... :(

For 2004, Ferrari's dominance, BAR doing SO well, Williams being a disaster (we kinda had a clue McLaren might not be good, but nowhere near the catastrophe it was)

2005: So much - Ferrari, Toyota, Red Bull & Coulthard, Sato doing badly, BAR not scoring a legitimate point till halfway through the season. Fisichella doing SO badly against Alonso (sob - I remember how painful that was). I remember doing 2005 a lot on Grand Prix 2 before the season, and everything went wrong for Fisichella and he was far down from Alonso. I was horrified but thought "phew I'm glad there's no way it could possibly happen like that!"...

2006: Massa coming 3rd in the WDC. BMW doing well.

2007: Well actually I initially thought Hamilton might be around 9th overall, but I was now becoming more experienced and realised that actually, this guy might well come 4th overall and be say +0.23sec down on Alonso. I thought that would be very impressive indeed. I had no idea.
Renault doing so badly. I had hoped that Renault would have an advantage and with Kovalainen gaining experience, Fisi having a good chance of the title. Deep down though, I could tell it was just a pipe dream. I saw the pictures of the launch, and just looking at Fisi you just knew he wasn't going to make it. But I didn't think he'd just give up when Kovalainen started coming on, and have such a shocker.

Heidfeld beating Kubica. The other teams being well behind the top 2. Super Aguri. Most of all for 2007 - HONDA


2008: don't know. In retrospect, when I finally allowed myself to look at the 2008 results around September 2009, I was utterly flabbergasted to see that Vettel had come 8th in a Toro Rosso with 35 points, and won a race. Just stupendous. I thought at the time this was more impressive than Hamilton's 2007, but Vettel subsequently being matched by Webber in 2010 gave me more perspective.
Finding out that Fisichella was still in F1.

2009: Finding out that Fisichella was still in F1. Finding out that he almost won Spa. I thought I was seeing things. Bourdais doing so badly. Red Bull doing so well. Toyota doing well. Sauber and Renault not doing well.

2010: Somehow I called this season almost 100% perfect. I have never come close again, before or since.

2011: Ferrari not being equal with Red Bull. Button finishing ahead of Hamilton (BY DEFAULT), Heidfeld being slower than Petrov, Force India not regressing, Williams doing so badly, Maldonado outqualifying Rubens, new teams not improving much.

2012: Where to start. Raikkonen coming 3rd. Michael on pole in Monaco (I think it is at least fairly certain he would have won. Michael was always better in race trim and Nico said the Merc was faster than Webber's struggling Bull on Sunday). Rosberg dominating China. Biggest shock of all - Maldonado's win. The closeness of the field in general. Caterham not scoring a point - I was almost completely certain this time. Vergne being a poor qualifier but better in races than Ricciardo - I predicted the other way round. Maldonado dominating Senna so much. Jenson being so destroyed by Hamilton.

2013: The form of Nico Rosberg and Force India. McLaren doing so badly. van der Garde being closer to Pic than expected. Williams going back to 2011. Ferrari fading so much.

What will 2014 bring?

[jens]

That's a pretty good overview on a year-by-year basis.:D
Actually so far we have been predicting team performances, but also driver performances surprise at times. For example, Räikkönen's 2008 and Hamilton's 2011 were not predicted. Which driver is going to impress and who is going to struggle unexpectedly in 2014?

It is hard to see Vettel getting beaten by Ricciardo. I don't think Ricciardo is that good and Vettel having such a shocker, though reliability may "equalize" things like it did in 2010. Hamilton and Alonso are more iffy though they are favourites. For Alonso this is a new match-up, for Hamilton it was a bit too close for comfort in 2013 though he came out on top. However, if you have such a marginal advantage, the tables can easily turn if you have a bad patch in form. Both Button (2010) and Massa (2007) were close to their team-mates and capitalized on the advantage next year, when their team leader went off the boil.

Button is his usual self, mostly solid, sometimes struggling with balance. Age isn't on his side any more either, but Magnussen has to be absolutely superb to topple him already this year. Hülkenberg has been more convincing than Pérez in both 2012-2013, so based on that form I see the German ahead. Grosjean is the incumbent in the Lotus team and seems more convincing now.

Between Bottas and Massa it could be a close call. Bottas though is one of my guesses for a "shock" podium this year if Mercedes is really good engine, Williams again improves closer to its 2012 level and ... Bottas in his second full season can put in some great drives like Pérez put in in his second year (2012)! On paper Sutil is favourite over Gutiérrez, but it depends, how much the Mexican improves in his second year and how well Sutil can settle in in the new team, so it could be close too...

So which driver pairing battle can surprise us?

--
Trying to recall some things too...
The main thing before 1999 I remember I was expecting the fresh dominant CART champion Alessandro Zanardi to impress. Obviously nothing came out of this and I was a kid at the time and didn't know a thing.

You have a good point about having difficulty in predicting 2000 midfield. Obviously McLaren and Ferrari seemed like favourites, but behind them it was a hard call. I don't remember if I was expecting anything from the new Williams-BMW package, or the new BAR-Honda. I remember during winter tests it was said on TV that Jordan looked good and I liked it.

As you say, Arrows turned out unbelievably fast at times (Verstappen leading UK qualifying for a moment, then Austria, Hockenheim). But Prost-Peugeot was a huge disappointment with Alesi (who I rated highly at the time) and the new fresh F3000 champion Heidfeld.

Regarding 2001... I think the new Williams-BMW package could have been expected to improve a little, but Montoya dominating already third race in Brazil on merit in dry conditions on brand new Michelin tyres as well was a proper shocker.

Regarding 2002 I am not sure if Jaguar (they had been disappointment in 2000/2001 anyway) or Toyota (in lower midfield most of the time) surprised me, but I think I was pretty disappointed in Jordan-Honda, which had been regular points contender in previous years, but now with Fisichella on board was often pretty low down the pack.

2003 big surprise was to find out that after the Brazilian GP Renault was actually ahead of Ferrari in WCC! What a weird start to the season, though weather largely contributed to it. Never expected Ferrari to get lapped in Hungary, while they looked good enough to lap everyone there in 2002! Also midfield looked surprisingly strong, Webber even qualified into top3 at times.

2004 was also a season hard to predict. 2003 saw new pretenders Montoya and Räikkönen almost beating M.Schumacher. And Michelin tyres emerging as superior to Bridgestone, who was losing clients (also BAR went to Michelin in 2004). Yet it all turned around in 2004. For me personally one of the hardest seasons to predict along with 2005. Behind 2009 obviously, which was hardest of all.

2005-2008 already discussed. Though in 2008 even though teams weren't far off, among drivers there was some disparity, because was expecting Räikkönen and Heidfeld to finish above their team-mates, especially after the ban of TC!

2010 – interesting that you mention it was easy to predict. I think I have got to agree. The main team I underrated, was Ferrari. I thought they'd struggle more and let Vettel and Hamilton to fight it out for the title. Mercedes always seemed likely to drop back on the back of Brawn's financial struggles during their 2009 title campaign.

I was unconvinced of what to expect from Kubica-Renault. Either a few podiums or getting lost in midfield. However, was expecting a lot from Force India after a strong finish to 2009 and having stability without team owner pulling out. Also was curious about the early season potential of BMW Sauber despite pullout, but doubtful about their drivers.
2011 – was certainly expecting Ferrari to fight it out for the title. After all the switch to Pirelli tyres seemed suitable for them... at least in theory!

[steveaki13]

Wow Rjbetty. I thought you said you had less time on your hands.

That was impressive. You too Jens.

I struggle to recall my predictions from years past.

I do remember like you Rj that I thought Benetton 2001 was going to be a decent car, I also remember the Prost setting a lap record in testing and thus thinking maybe they would be a top 6 team more regularly again, but both returned near the back.

[AndyL]

I'm sceptical about the assumption everyone seems to be making that the "works" teams will automatically have an advantage. Because each manufacturer can only homologate a single specification of engine, there will be no engine advantage for the works teams. Even if they manage to subvert the engine freeze and sneak in performance upgrades under the disguise of "reliability," as they have in the past, they will still have to make the same changes on all the customer engines. Certainly the works teams have had the benefit of being able to influence the engine design to better fit with their chassis and aero plans, but that is by no means a conclusive advantage. The customer teams are in a much better position in this respect than Brawn were in 2009. At least they have known the parameters of the engines they need to design around for a long time.

A better assumption I think would be that the well-resourced teams will have an advantage, which would mean a big 4 rather than a big 3.

[jens]

AndyL, a fair point. I think when James Allison (?) claimed that works teams are going to have a significant advantage, he indeed meant "packaging advantage", not horsepowers or other differences in engines itself. The difference with V8 engines is that everyone got so used to V8's that even despite "reliability upgrades" everyone knew them like the back of their hands. V6 is going to be new, and teams with more in-depth knowledge (i.e factory teams) could have more of an advantage than in previous years.

But I do think that if a so-called private team can come up with an excellent chassis, they will be competitive too and not notably handicapped. Like Lotus was in 2012-13. And I am sceptical about claims that gaps could be big. I think they may be small(ish) as well, depending on the phase of the season. I think ultimately the difference in "gaps" isn't so dependant on whether we have a rule change or not, but more on the quality of the teams itself. By the end of 2013 we had had quite a stable set of rules, yet Red Bull was dominating by a bigger margin than ever before.

The main issue is, which "non-factory" team can actually come up with a top-notch package, because the three main teams we are talking about seem to be more complete teams in general and it's not just about engines - great engineering/design teams, very good drivers, experienced and proven leadership, big budgets so that they can develop efficiently. Competition is close anyway and this is where the "completeness" of a team is important - that you can eek out just a little bit more to rise above most of others and be a genuine frontrunner. McLaren is in a bit of a transition phase and regardless of whether they are "handicapped" by engines, transition phases always have at least some kind of influence - it is a state of re-building.

[RS]

I think Torro Rosso could make progress this year as their car will probably be more of a rebadged Red Bull than ever now they have the Renault drivetrain too.

[rjbetty]

Force India - Mercedes
As a team that invariably produces a solid car year in year out, Force India should be in pretty good shape in 2014. From the start, they have always improved every year in some form. Last season, they only went off the boil because the tyres were changed. They had actually designed a very strong car, and unlike other teams had actually taken into account the tyres. Therefore they had earned their advantage and it was very harsh that it should be taken from them. But it was the right thing to do as the steel belted tyres were too unsafe.

If it hadn't been for that change, plus the fact that the team committed many errors, which saw retirements from strong positions and Paul di Resta sent out of Q1 when the car was good not once, but about 4 times, Force India could most certainly have taken 5th in the WDC ahead of McLaren on merit. That would have been a fine achievement and a confirmation of what the team are capable of.

The operational errors were a real concern though, and they cost di Resta in particular many points. Adrian Sutil was a solid returnee, and actually impressed very much by being on it right away, and it was one of the biggest shames of the season to see him tumble out of the lead towards the end of the Australian GP and just get swallowed up by a mass of cars, and almost his team-mate too. Sutil did lose out a lot too early on when the car was great, but overall he fell a little short of di Resta.

It was a shame that he wasn't able to do more to prevent such a fall in Australia, but more so that he in particular went missing after the car changed mid-season. It would have been nice to see more inspirational moments, as well as avoiding his criticism of the car post season. He can consider himself fortunate to have bagged a Sauber drive, as there are more worthy candidates out there. But he did a good job. Maybe Bianchi wouldn't have banked the same points and the team could have lost 6th, who knows.

But now, in Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez who are both entering their fourth seasons, Force India can boast a line-up that could possibly be their strongest ever - and that includes the Jordan days - if you take into account where the drivers are on their development curve, and go by the performance they can actually be expected and ready to deliver for 2014.

Hulkenberg needs no introductions, and like many, I am a fan and he is one of my favourite drivers. Never once enjoying the year-on-year continuity at a team that is so important, he will have no problems settling in, especially as he already knows the team from recently. Taking into account that like Martin Brundle and Jos Verstappen, Hulk has rarely enjoyed continuity and has always had to settle into new teams (just look at Hamilton to see how hard it can be), it makes his performances maybe even more impressive.

I sing Nico's praises along with the many others who do. But interestingly in Gerhard Berger's interview, he said that Hulk was a little overhyped. Now this takes being as objective and stoic as possible, removing feelings, but despite liking Nico very much, I have thought this.

Hulkenberg is a driver who seems to have few weaknesses. He can qualify, he can race, he hoovers up points as well as showing great flair, he has a good attitude through good times and bad, and is generally one of the nicest genuine guys around. But despite all this, there is a nagging doubt that he may be A+ material, like Hamilton, maybe just A.

Hear me out! I'm just being as realistic as possible and being cautious because if it is the case, it will be found out. I have in mind Giancarlo Fisichella. In a lot of ways, Nico reminds me of him, and part of the reason I support Hulkenberg is that I believe he will go on to the be the driver I hoped Fisi would be. They are similar in that even though Fisi wasn't the all-time greatest, both drivers spent FAR too long in midfield teams while lesser drivers enjoyed the plum seats. They are both capable of amazing underdog results. And they are both among the more likeable people around (though Fisi was rattled during his Renault years, and unfortunately this maybe spilt over to an innocent person or two) - but where these two drivers will differ is that Nico will not wilt in the heat at the top; he is too strong and professional for that.

McLaren dumpee Sergio Perez joins to create an all-new line up, which truth be told was maybe a little stale in 2013. I think Perez may actually surprise some people in how close he is to Hulkenberg - in qualifying trim anyway. Do not see him as a failure, he is still a very worthy driver, and depending on how he has taken his rejection, can either be a strong driver, or sink a bit. But I don't think anyone expects him to genuinely outdo Hulkenberg at all.

If it's all able to gel, Force India should be in for a swag of points. The Mercedes is the engine to have, it appears. Maybe talk of regular podiums and even wins should be cast down for a more realistic single podium, or maybe two.



Grand Prix 2 - F1 2014 Simulation (continued)
Round 9: Britain
Row 1: Mercedes, Nico ahead
Row 2: Red Bull, Ricciardo ahead
Row 3: Ferrari, Raikkonen ahead

They finish this way except Vettel takes 3rd. Alonso was on course for 4th but was overhauled by Ricciardo. The Force India's (Hulk ahead) Grosjean and Magnussen complete the points.


Round 10: Germany - Hockenheim
A good one this.
Top 6 qualifying the same as Silverstone, but Hamilton pole and Nico 4th.
GO! Great start from Rosberg to take the lead. Trouble at the back as Massa's car is launched violently over the turn 1 exit kerb, bounding through the gravel and is out. On lap 2, Button breaks his wing and has to pit. On lap 3 Raikkonen spins! Both at the back fighting through. Raikkonen is pretty much the fastest out there today! Vettel is only 5th, then he retires lap 15. But he is still jammy in that this happened on a rare, less competitive day.

[rjbetty]

Round 10: Germany - Hockenheim (cont'd)
Rosberg eventually retires whie fighting for 2nd with Ricciardo. Magnussen scores his second 4th in three races.

Result: 1.Hamilton 2.Ricciardo 3.Alonso 4.Magnussen 5.Hulkenberg 6.Raikkonen 7.Sutil 8.Bottas 9.Grosjean 10.Maldonado


Round 11: Hungary
Another good one. A close qualifying sees Alonso edge a surprise pole ahead of the Red Bulls, Mercedes (Rosbrg ahead) and Kimi. Force India and Williams take up a poor rows 8 and 9.
Despite wildly different strategies, the top 6 finish 15sec apart! No idea who was going to win. Vettel was dominating but making more stops. Alonso made a stop then had to charge through the field. It wasn't looking good to overtake Mercedes cars on this twisty track. But somehow he eventually made it work. When Vettel pitted, Rosberg on old tyres took a slender lead. 1 sec behind, Vettel and Alonso were side by side through the first 2 turns as Vettel exited the pits! Alonso had to hold on and against the odds managed it. The strategies meant that Rosberg led, Alonso was directly behind but much quicker, and Vettel was directly behind, even much more quicker, all according to freshness of tyres. The three raced in the closing laps, but backmarkers helped each hold the other off. But Alonso got through to the lead with a few laps left. Vettel was all over Rosberg and the 3 crossed the line separated by a few secs, with Hamilton a further second or 2 behind, and Kimi just a little further, then Ricciardo a few more seconds down. Button, Vergne (who was challenging Button yet again), Grosjean and Gutierrez rounded out the points.


Round 12: Belgium
A long laps means not much chance to qualify well, and so while Hamilton and Vettel led the rest by over 1sec, Alonso, Grosjean and Perez started 16th, 17th and 19th. Maldonado made it to 6th.

Surprisingly, Raikkonen retired, but more of a shock was Vettel out! Not many retirements till halfway through when Ricciardo made it another rare Red Bull exit. Alonso spent the race making his way up from 16th. All this left Lewis Hamilton putting in the most astonishing drive of his life to almost lap the entire field, and was less than 10 sec from lapping his team-mate Rosberg in 2nd and Alonso a couple of seconds behind, both close to 2 minutes behind Hamilton!

But what's this? The first major casualties of the new regulations as there is a mass running out of fuel on the last lap. Lewis is out at the bus stop. Others fall by the wayside. It looks like no-one will complete the full laps and the result would simply be taken from the previous lap (so nothing changing) - but then the realisation that if just one person can make it across the line, they can vault from the back and win!

So this Brazil 2003 like race saw 3 drivers in the top 12 manage to cross the line. Sensationally they all jumped to the top 3 as Kevin Magnussen was the first to have enough fuel and claim a shock win, followed by Valtteri Bottas for Williams and Pastor Maldonado in the Lotus. There was no-one else so Hamilton, Rosberg and Alonso still got 4th 5th and 6th. Kobayashi did cross the line too but simply jumped from 13th to 12th as he was lapped. Button, Hulkenberg, Grosjean and Vergne completed the top 10. Remarkably, Jenson has still either finished only 4th 6th or 7th every time he's finished.


Round 13: Italy
Qualifying is close but its the usual 6, with Vettel on pole. Hamilton gets a great start. Light fuel is the way to go and Alonso and Kvyat make hay, the latter running 7th after starting 13th. But what has this guy got to do as he retires early on, again. What's this? Vettel has spun at turn 1?! Yes, it's one of those afternoons. He isn't the first by any means as now championship leader Alonso joins. Both make their way back up, but Vettel retires! Mistakes continue and it's left in the end for Kimi Raikkonen to take an immensely popular win in front of the tifosi ahead of Hamilton, both reviving their title hopes. Ricciardo also missed out and in the end just pipped Gutierrez for 10th at the end.

Valtteri Bottas took an amazing 3rd, his second podium in a row! Felipe Massa took a welcome 6th.

1.Raikkonen
2.Hamilton
3.Bottas
4.Button
5.Hulkenberg
6.Massa
7.Alonso
8.Magnussen
9.Maldonado
10.Ricciardo


Round 14: Japan
Another hard one to qualify for and get a clear lap, resulting in this top 10
1.Hamilton 2.Vettel 3.Raikkonen 4.Ricciardo 5.Button 6.Perez 7.Massa (first top 10 this season) 8.Sutil (second top 10) 9.Bottas 10.Grosjean

Title leader Alonso and contender Rosberg are only 16th and 18th (the second time in three races Alonso's started there)

In the race m Sutil is up to 4th with Raikkonen pressuring Hamilton. Alonso is up to 12th. Alonso is fast but Rosberg is even faster, the engine helping him scythe through traffic. What would have been an eventual 3rd place went bust as he crashed out, not for the first time this season. It's a tense race with Hamilton and Vettel pretty much in a race of their own. Hamilton wins. Kimi loses 3rd with a mistake but recovers 5th. Alonso gets by Ricciardo for the podium.

Result: 1.Hamilton 2.Vettel 3.Alonso 4.Ricciardo 5.Raikkonen 6.Button 7.Bottas 8.Magnussen 9.Massa 10.Sutil

[AndyL]

I'm loving this... the real season will seem like an anticlimax after this :D

[steveaki13]

Its a brilliant effort rjbetty.

How do you run these simulations exactly, not being well up on Grand Prix 2.

By the way I thought you said you were short on time :p This must take hours to work through.

Cant wait to see who wins your championship.

[rjbetty]

Its a brilliant effort rjbetty.

How do you run these simulations exactly, not being well up on Grand Prix 2.

By the way I thought you said you were short on time :p This must take hours to work through.

Cant wait to see who wins your championship.

I know, I was incredibly busy at the end of the year. Got some time off for now, almost a month so gettin some rest and stuff. I use accelerated time a lot (no way I'm that bothered to do it all in real time :eek: :) and also am doing stuff while it's going on in the background.

I just finished it now. I 'll post an update. :)

I just do a championship season but with no players. It will run with all AI cars. And use GP2EDIT32 to change each drivers and teams performance, reliability, everything. I got it all off grandprix2.de :)

[steveaki13]

Other cars drop out, quite a bit of attrition here.

A quick off Topic. I know you're like me rjbetty and loved the old days of attritional races. I used to play a Grand Prix Game based on F1 1997 and racing at Monaco as Eddie Irvine I started 17th and ended up winning as every other car retired. I spent the last 2 laps lapping Monaco on my own. Weird :p

Back on Topic then.

[steveaki13]

I have given my idea's on Championship standings on Page 1, but time to give my views on F1 2014 line ups now that they are complete.

Red Bull - I see no reason sadly why Newey and team shouldn't build the best car yet again, although this season is the best chance for someone to break the dominance.

Sebastian Vettel- Not much to say, but he has impressed me more and more with each season, and thus if he gets another top car he will be able to win the title again.

Daniel Ricciardo - This is going to be great to see, I mean we all loved moaning at Webber for being a lap dog, but Daniel has got to spend a season learning about being a top driver. I don't think unless Red Bull produce a monster of a car, that Daniel will be supporting Vettel much and will be looking for some podiums and maybe a win. Next season he should move on and push Seb.

Mercedes - I fancy they might produce the car that finally gives them a shot, however if they get it wrong again and they still cant compete for the title I do worry that Mercedes may withdraw.

Lewis Hamilton - I think Lewis will be the team winner by seasons end, but he may get frustrated if the team fade. I predict Lewis will challenge and maybe win the title this year.

Nico Rosberg - I like Nico and he showed last season that he can win races and can match and beat Lewis. However he still has a few too many off days. Days where he runs 5th or 6th race that being 2nd or 3rd.

Ferrari - I cant decide on Ferrari. Year in year out now, they never seem to produce "That" car that will challenge for regular race wins and thus a Championship. This needs to change with two drivers like this.

Fernando Alonso - We all know how good he is, but I fear he may never win another title if the Ferrari is not good this year, because he may get frustrated and leave, but then is there a top seat left for 2015?

Kimi Raikkonen - I like Kimi, he says it like it is and races hard. I think he will annoy Fernando and make this a battle to remember, we have seen these two race against each other all the way through their careers and now side by side its going to be fun.

Lotus - Judging by the car being delayed and some comments by the team boss. I worry that Lotus are going to sink away. And of course the driver line up is weaker than 2013.

Romain Grosjean - I like Romain and he proved me wrong last year as I thought he would be a crash fest again, but he was awesome. The way he raced Red Bull a couple of times towards the end of 2013 was amazing.

Pastor Maldonado - Pass. I have no idea what he will offer. The money must be good, but I think he will get into trouble more this season. Could be exciting though.

McLaren - I hope they come back with a better car and get back to winning races.

Button - If they have a decent car he might win a race or two, but his Championship challenging days are over I fear.

Magnussen - Don't know much about him really. Give him a top car and we might see a Lewis Hamilton style first season, but give him an average car and he could fade into the midfield.

Force India - A team that varies from season to season and from race to race in those seasons. I hope to see them stayed up there, with there two drivers they have a chance of decent results.

Nico Hulkenberg - Still cant believe he didn't get a top drive this season, but if its a half decent car, then he can get a podium or two. I think he is that good,

Sergio Perez - Still cant decide on him. Looked average, then great at Sauber over his seasons there. Then up and down at McLaren again. I don't see him matching Hulkenberg over the season, but could spring the odd decent result.

Sauber - A team that could fade this season. After their late season comeback in 2013, I think they will return to a early 2013 sort of speed and form.

Adrian Sutil - Don't rate him and don't think old Slash deserves his seat really, but he will bring experience and wet weather skills to the team

Gutierrez- Didn't rate him the first two thirds of 2013, but late season he picked up and I hope he can build on that. I would like to see him do well.

Williams - Who knows. 2011 barely score a point then, 2012 win a race and run in points many weekends. Then 2013 and barely scoring a point again.

Felipe Massa - I like Felipe but probably his career is mostly over but nether the less I think he could score some points for the team.

Valterri Bottas - I like this guy and give him a better car and regular points could follow.

Toro Rosso - I never warm to Toro Rosso, but they always seem to improve as the season goes on, this year I don't really know.

JE Vergne - I really like this guy. He seems to have something which could see him stick around for a few years, I would like to think more points will follow.

Kyvat - Don't rate him massively but lets give him a bit of time.

Marussia - I would like to think that the redesign of the cars for 2014, but see them close in and tag onto the back of the field, and maybe score a point.

Bianchi - Remember his first half of 2013 was brilliant. Outraced his back 4 rivals and challenged a couple of other cars ahead, but faded as the team did after being overtaken by Caterham.

Chilton - I like him as a guy, but not really sure he deserves a second season. Spent most of 2013 trailing off at the back. Hope a second season helps him improve.

Caterham - Wayward team with no consistency in driver line ups, but did a decent job to get ahead of Marussia in the latter half of 2013.

Kamui Kobayshi - He is always fun and I fancy a few banzi starts might see him launch ahead of midfield cars at the starts and then get involved for a while, but will more than likely be involved in a few crashes.

Ericcson - Not a stunning record coming into F1, but lets see. I fear he maybe battling Chilton for distant 2nd last.

Oh well there are my thoughts.

[jens]

Sauber - A team that could fade this season. After their late season comeback in 2013, I think they will return to a early 2013 sort of speed and form.


One possible problems for Sauber could be that like Lotus, they have lost also key people. James Key in 2012 and Matt Morris in mid-2013. The general depth of their engineering team seems to be pretty good though, combined with modern infrastructure from BMW days, but in this close midfield competition everything will matter.

[dj_bytedisaster]

so while we're all still emptying our stomach over the dick and bellend noses, FIA and the toad from Suffolk quitely blackmailed the teams into finally accepting the double-points finale. Ghastly cars and a fake fix at the end of it - yeah, that's really a season to look forward to. :hmph:

[steveaki13]

Can or will F1 ever return to a more realistic motorsport do you think? It saddens me.

[jens]

With Boullier also leaving Lotus I am suspicious I may even have been too optimistic about predicting Lotus to finish 6th in WCC... :p


Can or will F1 ever return to a more realistic motorsport do you think? It saddens me.

Realistic? I think what we are witnessing is the reality of the current world/life anyway, the developments of F1 just reflect this. However, at the moment world doesn't seem to be turning back to its roots, so F1 can't be an exception.

In a few decades we will probably have all-electric F1 anyway with silent cars. I think motorsport is in the process of a fundamental change currently. Environmental and other global issues plus entertainment needs through media force all these changes.

[zako85]

Williams becomes a best of the rest team while Lotus struggles to stay in the mid-pack. Maldonado cries crocodile tears but no one can hear him.

[rjbetty]

Right, my spacebar's gone again, but here is an update on my season

Grand Prix 2 - Round 15 (of 16 available): USA
Here are the points in the closing stages!

1.Alonso-188pts
2.Hamilton-183pts
3.Vettel-166pts
4.Ricciardo-162pts
5.Raikkonen-158pts
6.Rosberg-123pts
7.Button-90pts
8.Magnussen-75pts
9.Hulkenberg-54pts
10.Bottas-51pts
11.Vergne-44pts
12.Maldonado-29pts
13.Grosjean-25pts
14.Perez-22pts
15.Sutil-21pts
16.Massa-17pts
17.Gutierrez-5pts
18.Kvyat-1pt

This is very close, too close to call. And the best thing is, there was no artificial tampering on my part. I was as realistic as possible, yet this is just the way it has turned out. The top 5 drivers are all in with a very real shout, and Nico Rosberg is still mathematically in it, due to double points. How is it going to turn out?

Ricciardo takes his 3rd pole of the season ahead of Hamilton and Alonso. Vettel is only 4th.

It's not that eventful today, but there are two major surprises: both Ricciardo and Hamilton are out from the front! This has a huge effect as Alonso leads a Ferrari 1-2 with Vettel only 4th, not a great weekend from him.

Result: 1.Alonso 2.Raikkonen 3.Rosberg 4.Vettel 5.Magnussen 6.Vergne 7.Hulkenberg 8.Button 9.Bottas 10.Kvyat


This leaves the points like this, with 50 (ugh) available in the final round: Brazil...

1.Alonso-213pts
2.Hamilton-183pts
3.Vettel-178pts
4.Raikkonen-176pts
5.Ricciardo-162pts
6.Rosberg-138pts
7.Button-94pts
8.Magnussen-85pts
9.Hulkenberg-60pts
10.Bottas-53pts
11.Vergne-52pts
12.Maldonado-29pts
13.Grosjean-25pts
14.Perez-22pts
15.Sutil-21pts
16.Massa-17pts
17.Gutierrez-5pts
18.Kvyat-2pts

Rosberg is now officially out of it, while Ricciardo's unfortunate DNF was very costly as he is now left 51 pts behind...

Tune into the next episode where the champion team and driver will be revealed.

[steveaki13]

Can I get the next episode on iplayer? :p As I might be out.

[rjbetty]

Grand Prix 2 2014 Simulation - Season Finale!

Here it is, the big showdown (which was a couple of days ago actually, but I've got the spacebar working again now)

If you are out, don't forget to catch it on BBC iPlayer later.

Round 16: Brazil - Interlagos
So, here we are. 4 drivers left in contention for the title
1.Alonso (Ferrari) - 213pts
2.Hamilton (Mercedes) - 183pts
3.Vettel (Red Bull) - 178pts
4.Raikkonen (Ferrari) - 176pts

Constructors
1.Ferrari - 389pts
2.Red Bull - 340pts
3.Mercedes - 321pts

How is qualifying going to go?

The title contenders take a back seat today as it's Nico Rosberg who blasts to pole ahead of Daniel Ricciardo. Ferrari's take row 2, Alonso ahead. Hamilton is only 5th, but worse for Vettel who is only 11th! Further down, Kvyat makes his first top 10 appearance. Remarkably, this is also the first time he has outqualified Jean-Eric Vergne this season, despite doing pretty well. Massa and Vergne are only 17th and 18th.

GO! Ricciardo takes the lead and holds it for much of the race. It's really between these 2 for the win today. Hamilton and Alonso fight for 3rd. Vettel is strangely subdued today, more so than the previous round. On a high fuel load, it's not really working and he is down in 17th early on. Though his pace on 1-stop fuel is at least equal to the top 2, he is a long way down: He needs o get moving fast if he's to secure this title.

It's not a classic race, and there are 4 retirements: van der Garde, Vergne, Perez, and Button.

Further on, Rosberg is able to take Ricciardo to beat him to a close win. At the end, Alonso is only about 1.5sec behind Ricciardo. He crosses the line 3rd, magnificently winning the title! Hamilton is 4th, Kimi 5th, and Vettel was not far off but could only manage to recover to 6th.

This means Alonso is champion again, ahead of Hamilton, and because it's DOUBLE points, Ricciardo judges edges ahead of Kimi, and both demote Vettel. Rosberg's bumper 50pts brings him close to the 3 in front.

Full Race Result: 1.Rosberg 2.Ricciardo 3.Alonso 4.Hamilton 5.Raikkonen 6.Vettel 7.Magnussen 8.Grosjean 9.Hulkenberg 10.Maldonado 11.Bottas 12.Kvyat 13.Sutil 14.Massa 15.Gutierrez 16.Bianchi 17.Kobayashi 18.Chilton

By the way, Caterham and Marussia didn't score a point again!


Final Championship Standings - Includes Double Points
1.Alonso - 243pts
2.Hamilton - 207pts
3.Ricciardo - 198pts
4.Raikkonen - 196pts
5.Vettel - 194pts
6.Rosberg - 188pts
7.Magnussen - 97pts
8.Button - 94pts
9.Hulkenberg - 64pts
10.Bottas - 53pts
11.Vergne - 52pts
12.Grosjean - 33pts
13.Maldonado - 31pts
14.Perez - 22pts
15.Sutil - 21pts
16.Massa - 17pts
17.Gutierrez - 5pts
18.Kvyat - 2pts
19.Kobayashi - best finish 11th
20.van der Garde - best finish 12th
21.Chilton - best finish 12th
22.Bianchi - best finish 12th

Constructors
1.Ferrari - Ferrari - 439pts
2.Mercedes - Mercedes - 395pts
3.Red Bull - Renault - 392pts
4.McLaren - Mercedes - 191pts
5.Force - India - Mercedes - 84pts
6.Williams - Mercedes - 70pts
7.Lotus - Renault - 64pts
8.Toro Rosso - Renault - 54pts
9.Sauber - Ferrari - 26pts
10.Caterham - Renault
11.Marussia - Ferrari

[rjbetty]

Gutierrez- Didn't rate him the first two thirds of 2013, but late season he picked up and I hope he can build on that. I would like to see him do well.

Oi, he helped me pip you in FGP last year, on our way to a glorious 41st overall. :p

btw, when is FGP 2014 starting, now all the drivers are in?

[steveaki13]

Whenever Nick "Bernie" Jones has some time to spare and set it up I guess.

Thanks rjbetty for that I really enjoyed it. Cant see Ricciardo finishing the championship ahead of Vettel though.

As for FGP, Aki Hedghog Racing Team has major dealings afoot.

[rjbetty]

No prob, glad you enjoyed it, was a good bit of fun. :)

As for Vauxhall F1 Team, we may be going for a radical approach again with a completely new line-up (gotta get itright sometime).

Meanwhile,

Sauber F1 - Ferrari season preview
Well, this is one of the more difficult teams to predict fortunes for: On one hand, they have great infrastructure and capabilities; on the other, they are short of cash to use them. I can see Sauber as one of the teams that might get it wrong this year. Someone recently spoke about some teams being ready for 2014 while others will be comparatively totally unprepared. I have been wondering which teams fall into which group, though everyone is positive at this time of year.

You don't have to be Adrian Newey to figure out that Red Bull will be in the former group. As for those who don't have a clue, Lotus spring to mind. But maybe Sauber are another one; for if they didn't have a clue how to make a 2013 car (for much of the season), how much more might they struggle to nail these new tougher regs down. Generally, I find it easier to envisage Sauber struggling than being a great success - especially with the fairly uninspiring drier line-up.

On that front, Adrian Sutil is a decent choice, and I like him, but there are better drivers out there. At least he has wet weather skills, though sadly this will not be put to use as F1 doesn't run in the wet anymore. :mad: He doesn't seem like someone who will inspire and lead the team through hard times, given that he moaned about Force India last year. In that light, he can count himself fortunate to still have a drive.

Esteban Gutierrez struggled most of the time last year. It was a little unfair a he himself said he wasn't ready for F1 just yet. He was shoehorned in by the team to please the sponsors. I remember my second ever copy of Autosport; it wa the 1998 season review edition. In it, Martin Brundle ranked all 23 (including Jos) drivers (and he did it in his usual style - basically whoever won or was at the front got the highest places while those further back got lower places, seemingly without much thought that some drivers had much worse cars - though he did rank Takagi 12th!) Anyway, he said for Esteban Tuero "someone did this kid a great dis-service"... by putting him in an F1 car too early.

That's how I felt about Gutierrez. So perhaps it is very fair that he now gets a second chance. I for one, think he could mildly surprise and be quite a lot closer to Sutil than expected. I predict 0.4sec, but am hoping for 0.3, which it needs to be really if he is to progress.

Interestingly, sifting well between the lines shows that Esteban actually often showed very good pace compared to Hulkenberg last year, which implies a talent there, though it may also raise some questions about Hulkenberg. For example, when Nico scored that great 3rd place in qualifying at Monza, Gutierrez was about 0.5sec IIRC in Q1, yet started 17th from where he was in traffic, making it difficult to progress.

On the surface, all we saw was crashes (though he did so much less than some) and Q1 knockouts. But under that, there is enough to say he deserves another go. He should be a stronger this year, and certainly display more consistency, though if the car isn't good, outwardly results may not change. There were also two top 10 qualifying appearances, along with several points near-misses in the races - and don't forget, he has a fastest lap!

We also don't know how reliable Sauber wil be. They could even end up 9th in the WCC if they don't capitalise on enough opportunities.




Toro Rosso - Renault
The switch to Renault power could be an inspired choice for the Red Bull Jr team. Though the talk is of Mercedes having a power advantage, it could all turn out to be much more about driveability, fuel consumption, and reliability. We have not hear so much about these factors. It could possibly turn out that despite lacking pure grunt to Mercedes, Renault could actually be the best, or even dominant(?) overall engine in 2014.

I do not though, think that this guarantees that Toro Rosso are going to make a huge step. They do seem a lot more independent from the senior team than some might think, for in 2012, Ricciardo qualified, on average for all 20 2012 races, about +1.3sec behind Vettel.

In 2013, despite Ricciardo having more experience, the gap was probably a little larger to Vettel, more like 1.6 sec (I'm not totally sure). So it might not necessarily be that Toro Rosso are still effectively running a Red Bull clone, as I don't feel the junior drivers are really that much slower.

The gap opened out between Toro Rosso and Red Bull in 2013, so there's no reason for it not to a little again in 2014. Sadly, I don't see any reason to expect a huge leap, and therefore expect the same old to some extent, which is a shame since it makes it harder to get behind the team, though I do like them.

Jean-Eric Vergne is a driver under great pressure. Sebastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari know that Helmut Marko wants to see performance after 3 years - not just sufficient performance, but something remarkable and special. Vergne is now in year 3. And boy has that gone quickly. Simply put, he must deliver.

The good news is that he can do it. He really wowed with his Canada performance last year, having been abject there in 2012. He qualified 7th and finished 6th in the dry, and he did destroy Ricciardo on that occasion. I honestly thought it would be he who got the Red Bull drive, and I felt he showed more than Ricciardo, in that there was an extra spark.

So it was most disappointing to see his bad reaction when he failed to get the drive at Red Bull. He scored no more points, and hardly outqualified Ricciardo again, and actually ended up with less points than in 2012. This is a great concern, and JEV really needs to re-invent himself this winter. He really has to have a season like in my Grand Prix 2 one, scoring 4 top 6 finishes and banking lots of points. The pressure is totally on - if he does merely a good job, nothing better, he WILL be out at the end of the year, and who would take him on them? Time to mean business JEV.

As for Daniil Kvyat (I have spelt his name right I think), I don't know enough about him, but he seems handy, though I expect inconsistency with hopefully some promising performances, which he has to have really as this programme is brutal. I am not necessarily against his signing over Antonio Felix da Costa, since what the team is looking for is not someone who's necessarily ready, but someone who simply has raw talent and potential. This is actually fine with me, and I wish Kvyat the best (I like Russian drivers for some reason).



Ohgreat,myspacebar'sdiedonmeagain...

[rjbetty]

Grand Prix 2 Season Conclusions

And here finally is the qualifying and race performances I predicted for the drivers and entered into the game, which resulted in the season I had.

Qualifying
1.Hamilton
2.Vettel +0.08
3.Rosberg +0.10
4.Ricciardo +0.38
5.Alonso +0.60
6.Raikkonen +0.76
7.Button +1.10
8.Magnussen +1.32
9.Grosjean +1.67
10.Hulkenberg +1.74
11.Perez +1.85
12.Maldonado +1.90
13.Bottas +2.15
14.Massa +2.20
15.Sutil +2.33
16.Vergne +2.37
17.Gutierrez +2.74
18.Kvyat +2.78
19.Kobayashi +4.12
20.van der Garde +4.12
21.Bianchi +4.58
22.Chilton +5.06

Race
1.Vettel
2.Rosberg +0.10
3.Hamilton +0.10
4.Alonso +0.58
5.Ricciardo +0.63
6.Raikkonen +0.63
7.Button +1.17
8.Magnussen +1.54
9.Grosjean +1.67
10.Hulkenberg +1.74
11.Perez +2.02
12.Maldonado +2.04
13.Vergne +2.18
14.Bottas +2.27
15.Massa +2.35
16.Sutil +2.44
17.Kvyat +2.78
18.Gutierrez +2.82
Caterham and Marussia same as qual


I tried to be as realistic as possible and tried not to judge too much by the previous season (as Jens rightly pointed out is a common problem to which I'm no exception), and tried to keep feelings and desires for a close field out of it.

I made Ferrari 6 to 7 tenths off, which is not close. So it was great to see even with these 'realistic' figures, it all turned out very close between the top teams. The figures reveal my overall predictions for pace this year (though I may have modified them slightly now).


Limitations of the game
1.Pit stops have to be the old fashioned way, with refuelling.
2.No DRS, KERS, Pirelli or anything
3.Qualifying has to be a single 20min session as that best simulates what F1 has. The cars are on rails here and any longer in the session would result in no-one ever being out of position slightly, as doe happen in real life.
4.Has to be 16 races - dropped Singapore, Russia and Abu Dhabi
5.Has to be 26 cars, so I add HRT and Scorpion.
6.You can modify AI mistake rates for each track. But this does not discriminate between drivers and treats all equally. This means that Sebastian Vettel is as likely to mess up as Pastor Maldonado, which is not realistic.
7.I didn't prepare the season well and actually had China and Bahrain the wrong way round. Several races had the wrong number of laps. Some drivers used wrong helmets, Kvyat used Webber's for example and Kobayashi didn't have this.
8.I'm sure I'll notice more.



The season did help me get an idea of how things could finish, and I can use it as a base guide. Things went badly for Vettel this season while much went right for Ricciardo. It could easily have gone the other way though.

I did also put in realistic probabilities for retirements. There were no crazy races with 6 finishers or anything. On average there were about 6-7 retirements per race, which I think is realistic and not too much.


Review of the season, and maybe some lessons to learn
Red Bull
Vettel was the quickest driver, certainly in race trim. over the season. Both drivers suffered 3 mechanical retirements. But Vettel crashed out early at Austria and Spa, and also made big mistakes in Australia, finishing 5th when he should have won, and Monza. We cannot count on that many in real life. Even so, he finished a full 49pts down.

Ricciardo hit the ground running with 4 podiums, 2 poles and 2 wins in the opening 4 races, including pole on his debut at Melbourne. It was a Frentzen-99 like season in which things went his way, at least early on. He crashed out of Monaco on lap 2 having taken the lead from Hamilton off the line. Suffered mechanical failures in Austria, Belgium and USA while leading which ended his title hopes.

However, after the first 4 races (all podiums), Ricciardo only scored 3 more podiums, all 2nds, and didn't add to his early win tally.

Both drivers scored 3 poles each, and surprisingly outqualified each other 8-8! Vettel had 5 retirements (unrealistic I think), Ricciardo 4.


Mercedes
A real season of what if. Neither driver qualified lower than 5th, except for Rosberg 18th in Japan, in what was the best qualifying car due to the power advantage. It looked so good when Hamilton won the opening race, but another win in Malaysia was ruined by a backmarker in turn 2, causing Lewis to violently swipe into Vettel, ending Hamilton's race. Bizarrely, backmarkers also caused Hamilton to crash in both Bahrain, where he was challenging for a win (though prob would have been 2nd) and Monaco where he would have won. He did score two 3rds and a 4th between this though. He was then very unfortunate to suffer an engine blowout while fairly dominating Austria. The same thing happened in USA while leading. There was also running out of fuel at the last corner at Spa, having led the race by 100sec! All a case of what if.

It was the same for Rosberg, with more mechanical unreliability putting him out in Australia, Malaysia and 3 others, while also costing him a possible win in Austria. He crashed out of Japan and damaged his wing in Bahrain, much delaying him. Eventualy finishing just 55pts down, also what if.

Hamilton outqualified Rosberg 10-6. Hamilton scored 6 poles and 3 wins, Rosberg 3 poles and 2 wins. Hamilton retired 5 times, Rosberg 6.


Ferrari
A lack of pace meant the first half the season didn't look good for Ferrari, as their drivers struggled to make the podium. Their pace was again not great, as shown by a single pole all season for Alonso in Hungary. Amazingly they kept plugging away picking up the big points when Red Bull and Mercedes faltered, and ended up taking both titles by stealth. Tellingly, Alonso only suffered 1 retirement all year, 3 laps from the end in Canada. He made no race ending errors either. Raikkonen also retired just twice. It seems that reliability really is the key, as on pace Ferrari were mostly nowhere. Interesting.

I can't not mention the intra-team rivalry. I made Raikkonen slower than Alonso in qualifying but closer in the race. It was a great surprise then that it was in qualifying after 14 rounds that the Finn headed the Spaniard 10-4 (Alonso took the final two)! While it was in the races that Alonso took the spoils, with 3 wins and 10 podiums to Raikkonen's 2 wins and 4 total podiums.

Raikkonen outqualified Alonso 10-6. Alonso retired once, Raikkonen twice.


Lotus
Oh dear. Even though I anticipated Lotus taking a sizeable stepback, shown by me giving them only marginally better pace than Force India, the way this season turned out (only 7th in the WCC) was worse than that. Usually qualifying between 8th-13th, Grosjean only started in the top 10 7 times, peaking with 7th on the grid at Silverstone.

Surprisingly, Maldonado had the upper hand early on, starting 8th at Malaysia and China and 7th in Canada, outqualifying RoGro 4-3 in the first 7 races. But from then on, he only started ahead once, at Spa. And that was because Grosjean had an unrepresentative qualifying, in 17th, though Maldonado was a team season-highest 6th on the grid.

Grosjean also asserted himself more in races despite having more retirements. But for both, points were only in the lower end of the top 10, Grosjean's best being 6th in Malaysia, 7th in Monaco and 8th in Brazil. Maldonado did grab a good 6th in Canada and bagged that podium at Spa when everyone ran out of fuel. Despite that, Grosjean did eventually finish ahead on points (but only because of the double rule).

I had thought I was too harsh on Lotus, and resolved to upgrade them. Since then however, I have decided that this could be their real performance...

Grosjean outqualified Maldonado 11-5. Grosjean retired from 4 races, Maldonado 3.


McLaren
It was at least a definite improvement on 2013. Button qualified in the top 6 five times, including a great 3rd on the grid at Canada. He had the curious pattern of coming either 4th 6th or 7th in every race he finished; that was until he spoilt it by losing time in the US, coming 8th, when he could well have repeated the pattern. Still, it beat 2013. A black mark though for throwing away 2nd at Sepang in the closing stages.

I really don't know what to expect from Kevin Magnussen. How ready is he after only doing FRenault 3.5? He did not have a season of driving in practice like Bottas? I may have made him too strong, only 0.2 off Jenson in quali, and been taken in too much by the Hamilton talk maybe.

Magnussen started a sensational 6th on his debut in melbourne, and went even better by leading the first lap of the season. He never qualified that high again, but started 7th on no less than 9 occasions! He grabbed two good 4th places mid season follwing finishing 6th ahead of Button at Bahrain, a 5th in the USA and his day of days at Spa to win, following the crazy last lap fuel crisis. What's more, with scoring in the finale while Jenson retired, this all meant he actually scored more points than his team-mate. This is unlikely, especially as I created a fairly big gap between the drivers in race pace, but it goes to show what picking up the right results on the right days while your team-mate wasn't able to, plus the effect of the double points rule, can do.

Button and Magnuseen outqualified each other 8-8. Button retired 4 times, Magnussen 3.

[jens]

Interesting thoughts about midfield teams. To me one of the main questions is if any of the "standard" midfield teams can impress with reg changes and do what Lotus did in 2012 - break clear of the midfield and become a remote front-runner.

If we are trying to predict the WCC positions of midfield teams, it is interesting to see that at least during the last 5 years (2009, since the last major reg overhaul) their positions have not fluctuated much. So something must change massively for any of them to dramatically change their fortunes now.

Force India - 6th, 7th, 6th, 7th, 9th.
Looking at their design team, I haven't heard about major changes (in the way for instance Lotus has collapsed), but they seem to have a solid and consistent base. Based on predictions most likely to pull above their and threaten top teams combined with the rumoured Mercedes engine advantage.

In my book Hülkenberg is certainly most likely to put in some inspiring results from the midfield, much like he did in 2012 and 2013 as long as the car is decent enough. But are these results just going to be „good upper midfield results“ like in early 2013 (i.e di Resta was fourth in Bahrain) or they can hit the ground running with new regs? As said, based on evidence so far, the design team doesn't give a notably different vibe compared to previous seasons. And after all, in the end all-around "package" counts, not so much if your engine has ~20hp more. In 1994 Ligier had Renault factory engines, yet were nowhere except at Hockenheim.

Sauber – 7th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 6th
They started the 2009-13 era as a BMW Sauber factory entry. They had a challenging transition to becoming a pure privateer coupled with financial issues, but their WCC positions haven't changed much. Their worst was 8th in 2010, when they had appalling reliability in early 2010 after switching to Ferrari engines and thus lost valuable points.

Like Lotus, the team seems to have some inherent engineering quality in the team despite loss of key people and financial struggles. I think their car can run pretty well occasionally, but I haven't seen any changes in the team that could possibly propel them to the very top though they did surprise in 2012, but were let down by both team operations (i.e strategy), pure unluck and driver inconsistency. This could hurt them again, even if the car is very fast.

Williams – 9th, 8th, 9th, 6th, 7th
Recent years have seen a gradual decline compared to where they started this era. Though the 8th in 2012 doesn't fully reflect their car, because as we remember it was very fast.

The new era is about to begin with mild optimism. New Mercedes engines. A change? In the past Williams has switched to Toyota (2007), Cosworth (2010) and Renault (2012) engines without a notable change in fortunes. Williams is a team, which is somewhat hard to predict considering their fluctuations during the last few years. They can be nowhere (2011, 2013) or have a pretty decent car (2012). However, it looks like regardless of this they are still going to be somewhere in the midfield – the question is whether in „lower“ or „upper“ midfield.

STR – 8th, 9th, 8th, 9th, 10th
Toro Rosso is a team that regardless of form fluctuations has always been in certain positions in WCC. In 2011 they had a pretty decent car, we remember Alguersuari getting a fair few 7th places in late 2011. In 2013 Ricciardo was qualifying into top 10 a lot, the hiring of chief designer James Key probably helped.

Yet regardless of whether the car is lower midfield or a strong midfielder, to me it is hard to see a significant change in WCC position fortunes. They are still a small brother of RBR and is likely to stay there. In addition to that I lost a lot of belief in Vergne during 2013 and even though he can impress at times (in the wet), he doesn't do it consistently. Kvyat could have some serious potential, but he is only 19 years old. When Vettel joined F1 and STR at the age of 19, he was actually getting outraced by Liuzzi for a portion of the year. I guess if STR is going to have a strong season, it is more likely to be in 2015, when Kvyat is already fully up to speed.

This has been the quality of these teams during the 2009-2013 regulation phase, consistently in places from 6th to 9th in WCC. The question is – what's gonna change? If anything at all?

If we compared them to previous breakthroughs, then before 2012 Lotus showed a lot of potential. They got two podiums in early 2011 and dropped backwards only after it became clear they had a flawed car design concept, which was difficult to develop. And they were getting podiums in 2010 as well.
Red Bull breakthrough in 2009 - they showed potential in 2008, when the Red Bull clone in Toro Rosso colours won a race at Monza.
Brawn/Honda - even if they didn't show much beforehand - had a huge budget before 2009 and a few inspiring signings in the personnel (i.e Brawn).

These current midfield teams have been "status quo" for five consecutive years already. None of them has a huge budget or a significant change in ownership and all leave an impression it could be the same ol' story in the new 2014 V6T regulation era as well. Only to be potentially joined by Lotus in midfield battles.

[jens]

Gutierrez- Didn't rate him the first two thirds of 2013, but late season he picked up and I hope he can build on that. I would like to see him do well.





Esteban Gutierrez struggled most of the time last year. It was a little unfair a he himself said he wasn't ready for F1 just yet. He was shoehorned in by the team to please the sponsors. I remember my second ever copy of Autosport; it wa the 1998 season review edition. In it, Martin Brundle ranked all 23 (including Jos) drivers (and he did it in his usual style - basically whoever won or was at the front got the highest places while those further back got lower places, seemingly without much thought that some drivers had much worse cars - though he did rank Takagi 12th!) Anyway, he said for Esteban Tuero "someone did this kid a great dis-service"... by putting him in an F1 car too early.



I wanted to make one comment about Gutiérrez.

I have to say that he didn't impress me, not at all. Several people consider him to have "improved" late in the year, but in my mind it was very much down to the improvement in car. While Gutiérrez got a few Q3 slots, Hülkenberg was qualifying into top 6 on several occasions. And the point-score tells us: Hülkenberg - 51, Gutiérrez - 6. As we remember, most of Sauber's points were scored at the end of the year, when the car was good, so Esteban was beaten thoroughly in the latter stage of the year. In my book about as badly as Rosberg beat Nakajima in 2009 or Kubica Petrov in 2010.

However, I think Gutiérrez can improve in 2014 and if we are looking for a potential "surprise" in team-mate battles, it could be the Sauber one. However, I don't think Gutiérrez is a very good driver in the making and if Sutil struggles against him, it will be more about the German not performing at his best.

Rjbetty, it is interesting you mentioned Tuero and Takagi. Just recently I watched 1998 Australian GP qualifying results. Rookie drivers - Toranosuke Takagi in the Tyrrell-Ford 13th and Esteban Tuero in the Minardi-Ford 17th, both ahead of several big teams with famous drivers. Just mindblowing! I guess if there were Internet forums back in the day, both drivers would have been considered as future WDC-s based on that single session, which was their first ever Formula One race weekend! But as we remember, the reality turned out to be rather different...

Also, in the next few GP-s another (almost) rookie Alexander Wurz finished 4th on multiple occasions - also creating a basis or hype for him to be considered a future champion. So the 1998 era didn't only start with new regulations and new team 'order', but also some driver performances were out of ordinary compared to how we view these drivers from historical point of view. So maybe some drivers can perform "out of ordinary" in early 2014 as well, either due to a very good car or other reason? And hence create unrealistic expectations.

Imagine early 2014. For some reason Sauber has a rocketship off the line. Gutiérrez finishes on the podium, while Sutil still adapts and struggles. Internet forums go mad "omg Esteban on podium, where did that come from, he is a superstar!!" :p Only for half a year to pass, things to get back to normal and hype to die down.

Oh, just remembering - that's how Petrov started 2011...

[jens]

Grand Prix 2 Season Conclusions

And here finally is the qualifying and race performances I predicted for the drivers and entered into the game, which resulted in the season I had.

Qualifying
1.Hamilton
2.Vettel +0.08
3.Rosberg +0.10
4.Ricciardo +0.38
5.Alonso +0.60
6.Raikkonen +0.76
7.Button +1.10
8.Magnussen +1.32
9.Grosjean +1.67
10.Hulkenberg +1.74
11.Perez +1.85
12.Maldonado +1.90
13.Bottas +2.15
14.Massa +2.20
15.Sutil +2.33
16.Vergne +2.37
17.Gutierrez +2.74
18.Kvyat +2.78
19.Kobayashi +4.12
20.van der Garde +4.12
21.Bianchi +4.58
22.Chilton +5.06


When I first looked at this data, 2007 sprung to my mind. Two or three teams above others and behind them a very tight midfield with Renault (here McLaren) slightly above the rest.

Regarding qualifying predictions - I think over a full season both Magnussen and Kvyat can perhaps even match/beat their team-mates, who are not known as quali specialists. But both Button and Vergne are likely to perform better in the race than in quali relative to their team-mates. However, it is still hard to rate particularly Magnussen and it is easy to get carried away with the hype - after all before him McLaren rated Pérez highly, or Jackie Stewart rated Kevin's dad Jan highly!

Alonso v Räikkönen is interesting. The quali speed of both drivers has been questioned. It will be interesting to see, how it pans out in reality. Also for years Ferrari has been designing cars, which are stronger in race trim than over a lap. Regardless of all the new regulations, I don't see evidence for this to change. So it could be an adequate view that over a full year Ferrari qualifies behind both Mercedes and Red Bull on average and has to make their way back on Sundays.

Bottas v Massa is also interesting, because for years Massa's forte has been quali rather than race. If Bottas can show well against Massa particularly on single-lap pace, it will reflect well on him.

Maldonado is an odd one. He was very and very fast in 2012 in qualifying. Also in late 2011 against Barrichello. But not so much in 2013. However, Grosjean has proved himself to be good over a single lap, compared to Räikkönen at least. On average Grosjean seems favourite, but not by a big margin and I think when we approach single race weekends, you never know, what is going to happen, because these drivers can be unpredictable.:)

[rjbetty]

Thank you for your interesting thoughts steveaki and jens.

Yeah I kinda agree about Gutierrez but I do like him. I remember the insider consensus around 2011 or so was that Gutierrez was good, but not quite as much as Perez. He does have potential to be a good but not great F1 driver, good enough to keep a place in F1.

There have been a lot of examples of drivers looking rather unconvincing in their first season, only to go on to be markedly stronger the next one. I can't think of any examples though...!

Just before I came on here, I was very encouraged to read this

http://www.planetf1.com/driver/18227/91 ... ting-mode- (http://www.planetf1.com/driver/18227/9135059/Gutierrez-in-full-fighting-mode-)

The difference in his attitude compared to 12 months ago is marked. Last year, he seemed nervous, unprepared and unsure of himself - he said himself he didn't feel ready for F1 and It was indeed a difficult slog for him. But now, he is much more confident. His honest comments last year cause me to believe this isn't just swagger now and he is in a much better place this time round. Though he is no future WDC, if he is prepared, I think he can give Sutil something to think about in qualifying, and may impress here. His "reeeeeace peaace" (Coulthard) may still need a little work though. I predict that over the season, he will be 0.3sec behind Sutil, which would be quite good.

Kvyat and Magnussen are really hard to judge. With Kevin, I understand he hadn't actually driven the car that much, had a season of preparation? Therefore, it may be hard to see how he can be totally on Button's pace. If he has little experience of driving the car before the season, it will surely still take time to really get up to speed, which would result in an increased gap to Button. If he had done loads of testing, then I believe he can match and beat Jenson in quali. Whatever happens, I expect Jenson to pull ahead in races as that's his forte.

I don't know how good Kvyat is and how ready he is. Da Costa seemed more ready, but Toro Rosso have seemed to prefer someone who they felt had more raw potential even though the actual performance they are ready to deliver may be less for now. Vergne is still a good driver and is now in his 3rd year, so I don't know if Kvyat can match him for pace in his first season. I also don't know if Kvyat will be better in races or qualifying. Vergne has to get his act together and not be like Heidfeld in 2003 regarding Ricciardo when Kimi was doing well at McLaren. I have absolutely no doubt that a failure to shine, not just be sufficient, will result in Vergne's sacking at the end of the year. If that's the case, I can't see how he would continue in F1, so he simply must pull out all the stops and deal with the Ricciardo issues.

As for Maldonado, I gave him a gap behind Grosjean as I feel that he will be demotivated by the car probably not being a world beater, and the big step up he was hoping, especially if Williams improve when he's now gone. If he drives like 2012 then I say he would be close with Romain, but as it is, I can't see him giving his absolute best fighting for 10th-14th places if that's how it turns out. This will be more the case with Eric Bouiller gone. I feel Bouiller is underrated by fans, and if there was any chance of someone being able to nurture Maldonado, he would have been the one to do it. I don't think Gerard Lopez is the guy to invest a lot in him, meaning Maldonado will be rather on his own and be more likely to self-destruct than succeed.


Williams - Mercedes season preview
Well that was a bit of a shocker last year wasn't it? Few teams have fluctuated as much as Williams in recent years. But happily, it looks like that wherever they are in 2014, it should be a better season this time round. Bottas is more experienced and in Massa they have someone who may not be the best or at his best, but in absolute terms can still perform at a reasonable level - the worst case scenario being about the same level as Sutil I think.

I gave Bottas only slightly more performance in races compared to Massa in the game, as I noticed that though Valtteri outqualified Maldonado 12-7 last year, Pastor was generally equal or a bit better in races (and Pastor is himself more of a qualifying specialist). My early impression is that Bottas is a qualifying specialist. Consider he should really have started 5th at Austin last year, and his eventual 8th place would actually be a drop down (even though it was an incredible result). So even though the gap I gave from Massa in races isn't too much, it was still a little more than in qualifying.

Based on historical examples, I feel Felipe will take more of a steady backseat role while Bottas puts in the headline performances, rather than Massa being rejuvenated and doing brilliantly. Especially since that despite his experience, Massa is the newcomer settling in and getting used to things.

Good news as Pat Symonds has joined. He recently said that the new Williams is a definite improvement aerodynamically over the 2013 car. So it's looking pretty good. Also factor in that at least one team is expected to drop back (Lotus) and one or two others could struggle, and suddenly there is a good chance that Williams could really be in the hunt for 6th in the WCC. Actually, if the car is really that decent, the drivers should be good enough that they may give fellow Mercedes engined team Force India a good run for their money. But I am more cautious than this, though Williams may be one to spring a mild surprise again this year, even if they don't quite reach 2012 levels.

[steveaki13]

I wondered if the differences we have seen in the cars designs thus far would have much of an impact on the performances of the cars and thus predictions.

We seem to have such a difference in styles and appearances. So far no two have been the same. However as Jens mentioned earlier the last time we have such differences between cars was 2009 and yet from 1st - 20th was probably the smallest time gap in F1 history.

I suppose more of the difference this year will be the engines. Afterall the engine makers may have quite different approaches to the Turbo's.

I think the two things combined may actually make the time gaps extend this season. We will see I suppose.

[rjbetty]

Yah, I'm sure the time gaps will increase over the season.

But I keep forgetting that the blown diffuser stuff is basically gone. This seemed to be the main culprit in ruining the 2011 and 2013 seasons, creating big gaps between the haves and have-nots. It's no co-incidence that 2012 was the closest season ever (top 15 within 1 sec on average over the season!) - that was the year the blown diffuser was banned, though it's effects were able to be replicated causing the team who mastered it to open out a big gap, and others to fall behind as they struggled to understand the concept (Williams).

But with it gone again, this should in theory cause gaps to close, but it depends on everything else. Maybe the start of the season could actually be very close, but I am certain, as people are saying, that there will be a development war like never seen. Though happily, it seems there may not be able to be huge differences (or any difference) between works and customer engines, the integration of those engines with the works' chassis will certainly open out a gap for the top teams as the season unfolds.

Also, exhaust blowing was known to be a cornerstone of Sebastian Vettel's success and performance in recent years. How will he now do without it? Maybe this could bring Ricciardo closer as it did Webber. But then again, Seb will now be stronger than in 2012, and I am thinking that while one door has now been closed, another 10 windows might open!

Consider that Mark Hughes in particular explained that it wasn't that the exhaust blowing just happened to fall into Seb's way of driving; but it was Vettel who diligently applied himself and learned and adapted his driving to the exhaust blowing. This could mean that whatever new challenges are ahead, Vettel will simply just master these new ones better than anyone else instead, and this would replace the advantage he had (worked for) through exhaust blowing.

It was Peter Sauber who said a few years ago that Vettel was brighter more than even Alonso, in the way he can apply himself to things. He seems to actually be the best out there. A few other people have recently said these new rules will suit Sebastian to the ground. Could be ominous.

[jens]

As for Maldonado, I gave him a gap behind Grosjean as I feel that he will be demotivated by the car probably not being a world beater, and the big step up he was hoping, especially if Williams improve when he's now gone. If he drives like 2012 then I say he would be close with Romain, but as it is, I can't see him giving his absolute best fighting for 10th-14th places if that's how it turns out. This will be more the case with Eric Bouiller gone. I feel Bouiller is underrated by fans, and if there was any chance of someone being able to nurture Maldonado, he would have been the one to do it. I don't think Gerard Lopez is the guy to invest a lot in him, meaning Maldonado will be rather on his own and be more likely to self-destruct than succeed.


The problem I see here is that you analyze the battle only from Maldonado aspect.

But let's take another look. Maldonado has already been used to driving crap cars (2011, 2013). Grosjean became very consistent and impressive in late 2013 in a fast car, but it is yet to be seen, how does he react if the car is rubbish. Because the Lotus of 2012-13 have been good. Perhaps Grosjean could be a bit like Button, who sort of disappears, when the car is not to his liking/good? After all, Grosjean was struggling pretty much in early 2013 too, when there was something about the car he wasn't comfortable about. Also Boullier has left, who was a bit of a mentor to Grosjean, so it is yet to be seen, how does it affect him.

Remember, how clearly Button beat Barrichello in Honda in 2006, everyone thought Barrichello was past his prime. Yet in the first half of 2007 in a rubbish car Barrichello suddenly had an upper hand.

Now I have to say I have not seen enough of Maldonado or Grosjean to draw certain conclusions, how comfortable would each driver feel in certain cars. But these have been things I have been pondering about.

Maldonado demotivated in a bad car? How about Grosjean, who got used to a regular-podium car in late 2013 only to drive a dog of a car around the tracks the very next year? When it comes to motivation, I don't see Grosjean having an 'advantage' so-to-speak in this battle. Motivation is a very interesting aspect to analyze about a driver. Usually unmotivation arises, when a person feels that he can't keep going in the same way and needs a change for the future. And if the car is rubbish and team finances still not sorted out, then sure enough - BOTH drivers would at least feel unmotivated at Lotus and would be looking for a new team.

Heck, now that I think about it, Maldonado could possibly have even more motivation. After all, he would still be new to the team and would firstly have to learn about the team and hope that perhaps things work out even if it is bad right now. After all, everything new (also a new team) is at least a little bit exciting, because it is a new experience. However, Grosjean has seen much better days at Lotus and it would be pretty devastating for him. Not so much for Maldo, who has seen it all at the lower midfield. Williams beating Lotus could hurt him - or spur him to fight more aggressively against them to prove his decision to leave was right.

Of course a young up-and-coming youngster would feel motivated in a bad car too, because he is still a nobody with a lot to prove - he has a different perspective. But I feel neither Maldonado nor Grosjean are now in such stage in their careers, where they have anything to prove in the middle or back-end of the field.

[jens]

I wondered if the differences we have seen in the cars designs thus far would have much of an impact on the performances of the cars and thus predictions.

We seem to have such a difference in styles and appearances. So far no two have been the same. However as Jens mentioned earlier the last time we have such differences between cars was 2009 and yet from 1st - 20th was probably the smallest time gap in F1 history.

I suppose more of the difference this year will be the engines. Afterall the engine makers may have quite different approaches to the Turbo's.

I think the two things combined may actually make the time gaps extend this season. We will see I suppose.

Having touched this matter before, I have reached a conclusion that the difference in "time gaps" is related to depth of teams themselves, not regulation changes. Let's recall 1992, 1996, 2002, 2011. Of course almost every year there are at least some rule changes, but before those seasons there wasn't really anything radical. Yet we saw a team or a handful of teams finding new avenues in car development, which enabled to pull them very clear of the rest of the field, resulting in big gaps.

So what kind of effect does the rule change have? I have concluded that while the depth of the engineering of a team will always be the main factor, it can influence particularly the first half of the season and highlight, who has been better prepared for the season. Because inherently rules can suit some teams better than others. But the advantage is short-lived, because all teams are professional enough to fight back - just for some it may take more time to cut through the initial difficulties.

Let's take 1994. Williams was perhaps the most complete team in engineering depth at the time, but they weren't very comfortable to start the season, because for the team rule changes were most radical. Because their car was most innovative in 1993, so for them the changes of abandoning all the high-tech stuff had deepest influence. Of course they still came back, improved and won WCC in the end. Of course the car was never bad, otherwise Senna couldn't have taken pole positions. But it didn't have the dominant edge of 1993, where they could lap 2s per lap faster than anybody else.

I think McLaren-Mercedes was always going to be a top team based on how they were coming along in late 1990s regardless of rule changes. However, what the 1998 changes gave for them was an opportunity to be not only "one of the top teams", but be well above in the initial phase of the season, lapping everyone in Australia. Also helped by Bridgestone a lot, who adapted very well to grooved tyres. However, the gaps closed. Other companies are competent too and once they develop through the initial challenges, they will be up there. Ferrari was competing with McLaren late in the season.

So what could 2014 give? For half a season someone could have an advantage, who for some reason has had a better preparation platform for new regulations. Based on rumours it could be Mercedes. Renault and Ferrari are of course competent enough and based on evidence so far Renault turbo could have some important strengths. But it could take just a little time, before they can maximize on their strengths and potential properly. Just like we saw in 1994 and 1998. So for half a year Mercedes-powered teams could enjoy a relative advantage.

Just a guess. It could be the other way around. Fuel-saving is so important that the fuel efficient Renault has an advantage for half a year before others catch up. Or there is something about chassis development that some teams could find easier to deal with early in the season. We'll find out.

[Tazio]

Great post Jens, I'd just like to add that with the regulations changing from 8 to 5 engines and gearboxes having to last 6 races(without penalty), as well as all the new elements affecting the power output, reliability is going to be a huge issue. Lauda, and Allison touched on this subject in the following link.
http://www.wheels24.co.za/FormulaOne/La ... y-20140126 (http://www.wheels24.co.za/FormulaOne/Lauda-Allison-Reliability-is-key-20140126)
I think we are going to be in for a very interesting season, at least I hope.

[Malbec]

The most important thing about the Sauber is that none of the stickers on the car and neither of the drivers are Russian. It looks like that deal has died a quiet death. I think Sauber will be racing against bankruptcy this season, if they also manage to race some midfield teams we should consider that a special bonus.

As for Grosjean vs Maldonaldo, the French/Swiss will crush the Venezuelan. Grosjean has improved his approach to racing with the help of a sports psychotherapist and has shown keenness to learn from his mistakes and improve. He has done so. Maldonaldo on the other hand is never at fault, the problem is always with the other driver/his team/stewards etc. There is no willingness to accept that he is less than perfect and therefore no ability to improve.

As for Maldonaldo's ability to drive poor cars, he showed what he is capable of last year being outdriven by a rookie. Grosjean will have to plumb some depths to fall that low.

[RS]

The most important thing about the Sauber is that none of the stickers on the car and neither of the drivers are Russian. It looks like that deal has died a quiet death. I think Sauber will be racing against bankruptcy this season, if they also manage to race some midfield teams we should consider that a special bonus.


Sirotkin is a named test driver so I think there is still some Russian influence in the team.

Sauber would be up sh1t creek without the Mexicans though, almost all their larger sponsors are from there. Expect to see Medion and VDGs sponsors on the car at some point though.

[steveaki13]

I think the point about regs and reliability could well have a big influence. Turbo's were of course notoriously unreliable back in the days, but in reality these days it won't be quite as much of an issue.

I mean I remember Martin Brundle saying when he drove for Tyrell he would start 18th-22nd behind every Turbo Car and by half distance in some races was in the top 6 as the Turbo's all blew.

If that were the case this season and with only 5 engines, the last 3 races of the season would see only 1 or 2 cars running without penalties. :laugh:

But as I say, these days it shouldn't be the same. That said, with more unreliability than the last few seasons, low fuel levels and a chaotic order perhaps in the first races we could see a few races with a low number of finishers.

All in all I am really looking forward to this season. Well until Seb wins in Oz by lapping the field. ;)

[minardi]

Going to quickly get my short predictions in just before the green line goes on for the start of testing.

Mercedes
A close season between Red Bull and Mercedes, but the Silver Arrows edge both championships, with Hamilton taking his second crown… just. Hamilton and Rosberg are close all year but Rosberg gets the bad luck of the team, allowing Hamilton to be #1 in the run up to the finale.

Red Bull
As said before, very close all year between the Red Bulls and Mercedes, but Vettel's car finally gets the bad luck with the car that MW had the past few seasons, which allow Mercedes to get the edge. Ricciardo has good performances and is closer to Vettel at points than expected, but consistency/experience means Vettel still has a clear advantage over him over the season.

Ferrari
A fast car and not far off the top two, but let down by being a little down in horsepower, which in a very close season, is enough to see them in third. Alonso wins in Monaco, and spurred on by inter-team rivalry, outscores the Finn over the season. The two have some very close encounters where body work comes off, with a slanging match over the radio and post-race ensuing.

McLaren
A better car than last year, which isn't hard, but just down on the pace over the top three. They'll return to the podium this year, but not quite enough to return to the top step. Button and Magnussen quality near each other all season, with Button having the more points in the first half, but Magnussen putting in better weekend performances in the second half. They finish close together with Button just ahead, but paddock is impressed with Magnussen and hope he can build on a solid (not spectacular) first season.

Force India
Hulkenberg finally makes the right move as Sauber languish towards the back, and Lotus' troubles continue (more on that later). Although the top four are a clear top four, Force India finish in 5th thanks to a couple of podiums due to reliability and generally good drives from Perez and Hulkenberg who both shine and mix it with the McLarens at time at particular circuits. While Perez gets his mojo back at times, Hulkenberg shines brightest, and everyone is still bemused when he still doesn't get snapped up by the big four.

Williams
Williams return to the points on a more regular basis than last year (again... not hard) thanks to a consistent but not spectacular car. Massa and Bottas are close all year alternating most weekends. Massa gets a podium at some point thanks to a crazy race, and the little Brazilian couldn't look any happier.

Toro Rosso
Another season of the same for STR as they show promise at times but mostly go out slap bang in the middle of Q2, except for the odd race where they show no pace, and Kyvat goes out in Q1, then the races where they seemingly pull it out of the bag, and Kyvat squeezes into Q3. Kyvat outscores Vergne despite being up and down all year.

Lotus
Money, money, money... or lack of it dogs the Lotus boys all year. The car is unreliable and a pig to drive, and they're always playing catch up, with a B-spec car talked about but never quite emerging. Maldonado has a horror of a year running into other cars, and looks a picture of frustration and uninterest all season. Grosjean easily performs better, but struggles with the car, and his late-2013 form is forgotten, causing frustration to settle in a couple of times.

Sauber
The car struggles from Day 1, and despite topping a test session, it's a bluff and the car is slow and down on power. Sutil outperforms Guttierez all season, and picks up a few points, but a disaster of a season. Sirotkin is talked about mid-season replacing Sutil but never quite happens as the team struggle with money.

Marussia
Marussia scores two points!! A chaotic race with a large number of retirees, allow Bianchi to take a 9th place early in the season. Chilton is nowhere. The car is better than the Caterham but still off the rest of the field, but Bianchi gets something out of the car and looks impressive in the races.

Caterham
Caterham finish last again and the talk of a takeover emerges around mid-season. Kobayashi outperforms Ericsson who has a couple of good drives in his debut season, but being at the back with the Marussias, it doesn't impress as everyone's eyes are on Bianchi.

[rjbetty]

Interesting thoughts everyone, and great review minardi! But are you sure you're a rookie and not a previous user under another name? ;)

Caterham - Renault Season Preview
Well, it's now year 5 of the 5 year plan, and though obviously wins aren't going to happen, or even being IN the midfield, the team MUST at least be within reasonable distance (maximum 1.0 sec) from the established teams this time, in order to be close enough to take advantage and get stuck in with them at least some of the time.

The bosses have been saying it's been pretty much all about 2014 for some time, even to the point of compromising their previous two(!) seasons. So with all that preparation, they simply must deliver, and at minimum beat Marussia. Failure to do even that could spell the end.

I am a bit sceptical, having been certain the team would open their points account in 2012, but quietly am hugely hopeful. If the best case scenario comes true, I don't see it that Caterham will be like 8th in the championship (still 10th whatever happens), but I do see they could mix it with Saubers, Toro Rossos, even a struggling Lotus or two, and Kobayashi could make several Q2 appearances.

I am being cautious though as I don't want to be disappointed, and will predict Kobayashi averaging about 1.0-1.5 sec behind the nearest older team car (Gutierrez or Kvyat).

In any case, I fear wherever Caterham or Marussia start the season, they will be hugely outdeveloped over the season like never before, and the gap to the front will grow to a gulf. But maybe the gap to the back established teams may not grow so much, but it seems early season, where unreliability and unpredictability is expected to be greatest, is the time when the backmarkers must capitalise.

Whether Kobayashi is the driver to do that remains to be seen. This is a guy, who the simple fact is, did scrape a single 3rd place in what was a race winning car in 2012. I still don't quite understand the hype around this guy (he's good, but maybe about 15 drivers or so are better I'd say) and why so many people seem to think he should be fast-tracked into a Ferrari AHEAD OF NICO HULKENBERG?! Really?

And we don't know how rusty he is. I don't know how professional he is. Whatever the truth was in 2012, we know he is not BETTER than Perez, the best case scenario is equal, but the truth was Sergio had at least an edge on him in every department except overtaking (and perception with fans!) - and this isn't taking account that Perez was only in his 2nd year and was further back on his development curve. I could be wrong and be missing something, but for the moment I cannot see it.

Even so, he is still a good driver. But will he be able to return and perform to his same level like Sutil did, or more like Verstappen in 2003? Hopefully, he will use his experience and apply himself well, because if not, I would say even a sophomore van der Garde would have been a better choice (as my Grand Prix 2 season showed, even though I made them equal). I hope to see some giant killing performances, but having scraped one podium to Checo's 3 in a car that should have won races - and spent much of the season being invisible, I hope he's the driver to make the best use of any rare opportunities for Caterham.

I don't know how good Marcus Ericsson is, but his record pre-GP2 looks good. A few think he underperformed in GP2, in which case he may do pretty well. Shouldn't do too badly in any case.

[minardi]

Interesting thoughts everyone, and great review minardi! But are you sure you're a rookie and not a previous user under another name? ;)

Cheers! Haha I'm 100% sure. Been reading these boards on/off for ages, but actually got round to joining and throwing my two cents in.

[jens]

I was reading an article on Autosport.com, written by Gary Anderson.
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/112329

Suddenly I remembered something from this thread.




But there are people who know what they're talking about, and I think it's maybe learning which people's opinions to give more weight to and who's to take with a pinch of salt.

Gary Anderson seems to be a very smart guy. He was the one who, having watched the 2013 cars testing, called out the Red Bull as having "10% more downforce". He also insisted to watch out for Mercedes when I didn't have much hopes for them.


And to bring out the first pre-season impression, Gary said the following:

If you had to pick one team to be in charge of based on where it is so far, which would it be?

Red Bull. The car only did three laps, but that's about reliability and functionality and it will improve. But the RB10 looks a very logical, well-designed car.

So, rjbetty, what is your verdict? Does Gary once again know, what he is talking about?

[Malbec]

Whether Kobayashi is the driver to do that remains to be seen. This is a guy, who the simple fact is, did scrape a single 3rd place in what was a race winning car in 2012. I still don't quite understand the hype around this guy (he's good, but maybe about 15 drivers or so are better I'd say) and why so many people seem to think he should be fast-tracked into a Ferrari AHEAD OF NICO HULKENBERG?! Really?

I've read your posts on Kobayashi filled with vitriol and its clear to me why you don't rate him, you manage to dismiss the way in which he outqualified Perez pretty comprehensively, are unable to understand how Perez being on a desperate alternate tyre strategy due to failure to qualify well reaped rewards nor see how Kobayashi was plain unlucky to miss out on many good points finishes often due to Grosjean. I'm sure you're aware as you appear to follow Sauber closely that Kobayashi often had his tyre strategy requests turned down by the team in favour of Perez, after all the Swiss had his sponsors to please and the team wanted to split strategies to reduce risk.

Time to take a step back and tone down your dislike isn't it?

Nor do I see the 'hype' you mention. He's a very good midfield driver able to execute strategies very well and IMO deserves a seat in F1. Whether Caterham is the appropriate springboard is another matter, he will be expected to beat Eriksson so that achievement will be taken for granted, yet will find it difficult to score points like every Caterham driver before him. Impressing better teams is very unlikely.

[jens]

Kobayashi had some hype around him two or three years ago, and certainly after his debut at Toyota. But it has died down by now. Currently he is viewed as merely an adequate midfield driver, who would be a competent addition to the grid.

And in comparison to Hülkenberg, times have changed. I have to say in my view Kobayashi had a more impressive season than Hülkenberg back in 2010. But Kobayashi has sort of plateaud since then, while Nico H. has very much improved. I don't think "people" would take Koba over Hulk any more.

[rjbetty]

There have been a lot of examples of drivers looking rather unconvincing in their first season, only to go on to be markedly stronger the next one. I can't think of any examples though...!

Nick Heidfeld, 2000-2001. :)

Amazing what an unexpectedly good car can do for your confidence.

Possibly Eddie Irvine 1994-1995 too?

[rjbetty]

Whether Kobayashi is the driver to do that remains to be seen. This is a guy, who the simple fact is, did scrape a single 3rd place in what was a race winning car in 2012. I still don't quite understand the hype around this guy (he's good, but maybe about 15 drivers or so are better I'd say) and why so many people seem to think he should be fast-tracked into a Ferrari AHEAD OF NICO HULKENBERG?! Really?

I've read your posts on Kobayashi filled with vitriol and its clear to me why you don't rate him, you manage to dismiss the way in which he outqualified Perez pretty comprehensively, are unable to understand how Perez being on a desperate alternate tyre strategy due to failure to qualify well reaped rewards nor see how Kobayashi was plain unlucky to miss out on many good points finishes often due to Grosjean. I'm sure you're aware as you appear to follow Sauber closely that Kobayashi often had his tyre strategy requests turned down by the team in favour of Perez, after all the Swiss had his sponsors to please and the team wanted to split strategies to reduce risk.

Time to take a step back and tone down your dislike isn't it?

Nor do I see the 'hype' you mention. He's a very good midfield driver able to execute strategies very well and IMO deserves a seat in F1. Whether Caterham is the appropriate springboard is another matter, he will be expected to beat Eriksson so that achievement will be taken for granted, yet will find it difficult to score points like every Caterham driver before him. Impressing better teams is very unlikely.


It's not really dislike and vitriol! I do actually like him and I say this and that he's good. I'm sorry that it's come across that way and I guess that's my fault. And I would say if there is one driver I could be wrong about, it's him.

this post is to clarify that the tone wasn't really meant the way it came across, and that I don't think he sucks. It's not that I'm trying to pull him down! It's that I feel things are a bit out of balance so I am using counter-arguments to try to show the other side too.

In 2012, he was pretty evenly matched with his team-mate in qualifying, and got the highest grid slot (2nd at Spa), but then Perez was denied pole at Silverstone. Kobayashi did outqualify Perez in 2011, but to be fair it was the 21yr old Mexican's first season, and my understanding is it normally takes a few seasons to really learn how to do well in F1. It wouldn't be right for me to say Ralf Schumacher was better than Jenson Button because he outqualified him by 0.504sec in his first season and just leave it at that.

I should have said that Kobayashi did suffer from misfortune especially in 2012, but then so also did Sergio: What could Perez have done at Barcelona having been Grosjeaned? At Silverstone, he was on course to finish ahead of his team-mate before being Maldonadoed - what could he have done if he had started from pole? Perez was also robbed of 6th in Melbourne on the last lap, having started last. But I have wondered that if Sergio made the tyre strategy work so well, couldn't Kamui have done it at least once?

I only say these things because I feel things are out of balance. It's like when Bobby Rahal said about Montoya "I think... he is the kind of driver you only get once every two generations" or something like that. Montoya was very good, but for goodness sake that was a bit much I think. I think this sort of thing is unfair on drivers who have earned the right to be regarded well, that someone should just be fast-tracked ahead of better drivers simply because he's exciting and spectacular (those are great things btw).

I feel the same when a lot of people say Chandhok is better than Bruno Senna. The facts say otherwise I'm afraid i.e. 7-3 qualifying to Bruno. I like Karun's personality too, but for me, it contributes nothing to his actual driving ability. It comes down to me feeling it's not very fair I guess.

To make it plain, I currently rate these 2014 drivers ahead. But I feel Kamui is already pretty equal with some and has more scope to improve, so can move up, overtaking Sutil and Massa. Though this doesn't include where Bianchi, Vergne and Magnussen may end up, if they improve.

In (sort of) no particular order:
1.Vettel
2.Alonso
3.Hamilton
4.Raikkonen
5.Rosberg
6.Hulkenberg
7.Button
8.Grosjean
9.Ricciardo
10.Bottas
11.Sutil
12.Perez
13.Massa
14.Kobayashi

I just get frustrated in particular that there is a feeling he should get a Ferrari drive ahead of Hulkenberg, as to me that seems very unfair; when he's regarded as top material when I haven't seen evidence of that, just of him being around where I've put him, just one amongst other very good drivers who in the right circumstances are capable of great things. I'll say again I think he will overhaul Massa and Sutil at some point.

The tyre strategies being turned down in favour of Perez is news to me though. Now that is something to think about. If Kobayashi can shine at Caterham and show what he's capable of, I'll be happy to make some revisions.

[rjbetty]

Kobayashi had some hype around him two or three years ago, and certainly after his debut at Toyota. But it has died down by now. Currently he is viewed as merely an adequate midfield driver, who would be a competent addition to the grid.

And in comparison to Hülkenberg, times have changed. I have to say in my view Kobayashi had a more impressive season than Hülkenberg back in 2010. But Kobayashi has sort of plateaud since then, while Nico H. has very much improved. I don't think "people" would take Koba over Hulk any more.

Now this is a very good point actually. The Brazilian GP 2009 was actually the first race I watched in exactly 2 years(!) and I saw what this guy did, getting Jenson upset when he was doing nothing wrong - just racing! I remember feeling it was pretty harsh when John Howett said his actual pace was a bit disappointing, or something like that. He came a good 10th when lots of good drivers finished. I didn't watch Abu Dhabi but to see he came 6th ahead of Trulli in his second race, now that was impressive.

I remember at the time noticing Kobayashi scored more points in an unreliable Sauber than Hulkenberg did in the Williams in 2010. He also matched Pedro de la Rosa (more of a qualifier than a racer) for pace.

Maybe that's the sort of driver who should get a better drive.




So why did he seem to fade? Because I think early 2011 was again very impressive? Does anybody have more about the true story of Kobayashi's 2012? Because the way I saw it, it was a season with high points. The only problem was, almost every driver had highs too, and it just seemed that Kamui was a bit lost and invisible a bit too much amongst other's high points. But there is room to revise this perception. Let's see.

[Malbec]

In 2012, he was pretty evenly matched with his team-mate in qualifying, and got the highest grid slot (2nd at Spa), but then Perez was denied pole at Silverstone.

Its extraordinary comments like this that I do not understand.

You claim Perez was denied pole at Silverstone. How so? He was fastest at one point during Q2. That doesn't make pole I'm afraid although I do agree that both Sauber drivers were looking at very good qualifying positions if the team had made the right call. But denied pole, really? I was under the mistaken impression that you had to make it to Q3 first to stand any chance of getting pole. Perez didn't.


Kobayashi did outqualify Perez in 2011, but to be fair it was the 21yr old Mexican's first season,

And through most of 2012 too. You fail to mention that Perez had to try odd tyre strategies because he had failed to qualify adequately and had to make the most out of being out of position in a quick car at the back of the grid.


But I have wondered that if Sergio made the tyre strategy work so well, couldn't Kamui have done it at least once?

You realise that Kamui's tyre calls were often overruled right?

Also lets flip that around. At Suzuka Kamui qualified well, raced well and finished well. That is a good old fashioned race weekend performance. Name a single time Perez managed the same? He never managed to string a good quali and race together did he.

Anyway it seems you have a problem with the way he is described by other posters rather than the guy himself, I wouldn't get bothered by that so much...

[Malbec]

So why did he seem to fade? Because I think early 2011 was again very impressive? Does anybody have more about the true story of Kobayashi's 2012? Because the way I saw it, it was a season with high points. The only problem was, almost every driver had highs too, and it just seemed that Kamui was a bit lost and invisible a bit too much amongst other's high points. But there is room to revise this perception. Let's see.

Kobayashi had several good chances over 2012, qualifying third in China and second in Spa. Problem was that in the first race he had to start on an oil patch from an earlier race, had wheelspin and dropped back while at Spa the entire right side of his car was damaged thanks to the huge accident started by Grosjean. In Sepang he complained through FP3 and quali that something was broken at the back of his car, his team disagreed until they found a broken suspension component. Although that was fixed for the race his setup was then completely off and a tyre change call he made during the race was overruled. Again without those issues how would he have done on a day when the Sauber did have the pace to win? Who knows?

He actually did extremely well in his consistent way over 2012, almost matching his teammate Perez who had scored almost all of his points in just four or five races. Kobayashi just had consistent but low end points finishes through the season. Had he been luckier in China or Spa (or both) he would have looked a lot better and caught the eye more. Then he finished the season with his performance at Suzuka, a difficult track to perform well on. Unfortunately though with his lack of sponsorship he wasn't going to survive on merely matching his sponsor-laden teammate.

[rjbetty]

So why did he seem to fade? Because I think early 2011 was again very impressive? Does anybody have more about the true story of Kobayashi's 2012? Because the way I saw it, it was a season with high points. The only problem was, almost every driver had highs too, and it just seemed that Kamui was a bit lost and invisible a bit too much amongst other's high points. But there is room to revise this perception. Let's see.

Kobayashi had several good chances over 2012, qualifying third in China and second in Spa. Problem was that in the first race he had to start on an oil patch from an earlier race, had wheelspin and dropped back while at Spa the entire right side of his car was damaged thanks to the huge accident started by Grosjean. In Sepang he complained through FP3 and quali that something was broken at the back of his car, his team disagreed until they found a broken suspension component. Although that was fixed for the race his setup was then completely off and a tyre change call he made during the race was overruled. Again without those issues how would he have done on a day when the Sauber did have the pace to win? Who knows?

He actually did extremely well in his consistent way over 2012, almost matching his teammate Perez who had scored almost all of his points in just four or five races. Kobayashi just had consistent but low end points finishes through the season. Had he been luckier in China or Spa (or both) he would have looked a lot better and caught the eye more. Then he finished the season with his performance at Suzuka, a difficult track to perform well on. Unfortunately though with his lack of sponsorship he wasn't going to survive on merely matching his sponsor-laden teammate.

Ok. Hopefully if he is capable of better than 2012 may have appeared, he can have a chance to show it. I also have concerns about what at the time I saw was a slightly Fisi-esque shrinking back when his team-mate appeared to be doing strongly. I hope this is wrong, but it's an impression I got. Koba is on the back foot having missed out on a season, but I am hoping to see a hard-trying plucky attitude like Kovalainen in 2010-11. I don't really follow Sauber that closely but I do take a real interest in Caterham so I'll keep an eye out. We'll see.

As for Perez, well he didn't manage to replicate any of his podium drives at last year, and in 2012, no I don't think he put a whole weekend together but I would have liked to see what he could have done in Spain. His Melbourne race was pretty good I thought.


Some more thoughts for the season
As Jens said, I had only considered the Lotus position for Maldonado. I had expressed faith in Grosjean being able to overcome wht now seems like inevitable disappointment as his hopes for a soon win may be put off for at least the time being. But this was when Eric Bouiller was still there. Now he's gone, that changes the situation, and now it's that much harder to see Grosjean being strong. But even so, he has still shown more evidence than Maldonado of coming through hard times. His start to last year wasn't easy at all.

With recent developments and now that two days of testing have gone, Lotus appear to be very much in an awkward place. As the form book of last year, and even the last 5 years, has been thrown out, I am wondering if the Enstone team could even suffer a season as bad as 2001 (as Benetton), due to their lack of preparation. I don't see that they've been getting ready for 2014 for 2-3 years like the top teams. They may actually be woefully underprepared. Throw in what's looking like a troublesome Renault engine, and the ingredients are there for a very difficult season indeed. Hopefully, there is still enough talent in the team despite the loss of staff, though in 2001 (another season with a bad engine) the staff seemed pretty good too.

I am thinking maybe it would be easier to summarise teams according to engines for now:

Renault
1.Red Bull - Well, I'm sure Renault will sort their issues, but it will take some doing to emerge as the best overall engine to have. Especially as they seem to struggle with energy recovery systems. There could be several failures on this side through the season, that even if not race-ending, will affect performance a lot. With the reporting that ERS will give a much bigger boost for 33sec per lap, the loss of this is estimated to now cost 1 whole second per lap! Whatever shape Renault are in though, we are sure that Red Bull will beat the the Renault teams hands down.

2.Lotus - Ok, I'm still going to put these guys ahead of Toro Rosso even though it could be a return to 2001, believing that over the season, the team can outdevelop Toro Rosso.

3.Toro Rosso - Jean-Eric Vergne has been saying the team has improved, but I don't know if this is just talk. I don't know how they will compare to Red Bull, but looking at the chassis shows there may be more independence from Red Bull than maybe expected. So being the Jr team is no guarantee of success.

4.Caterham - As much as the new rules give a chance to reset the field and give teams a chance to move up (or nearer), it can also go the wrong way, with Caterham maybe getting the concept wrong and being further than ever. It's a roll of the dice. Hopefully it will be the former, in which case it will be great to see Kobayashi being able to pluckily mix it with other teams at least some of the time - hopefully he's raring to go. Whatever happens, even if a point comes, or several points, I don't realistically see either Caterham or Marussia moving out of their 10th & 11th places this season.



Mercedes
1.Mercedes - Well I think the consensus is that the best Mercedes team will be Mercedes. With Seb and Red Bull starting to complain and be unhappy (now the shoe's on the other foot and they're the ones struggling), perhaps, just perhaps...

(ok,keysaren'teorkingagain,I'llcomebacklater)

[Roamy]

1. Alonso
2. Who gives a sh!t

[rjbetty]

Mercedes (cont'd)
As I was saying, Perhaps, just perhaps this could be Mercedes' year. The natural inclination might be then to install Lewis as the title favourite. However, Nico surprised most of us last year. He seems the type of driver who can find more when a car is good - and the 2014 Mercedes might be very good. Though I see Hamilton as the more gifted, a studious and diligent, and consistent approach may win the day, and thus it could be Nico in no.1? Especially if Lewis messes up a few races as he is prone to do under pressure.

McLaren-Mercedes
The opinions after some testing seems to be that McLaren might actually have a very good car. This shouldn't be a huge surprise, as apart from 2013, all their recent cars have been right up there. Can they beat Mercedes, the works team? Well since Mercedes creation as BAR in 1999, the team have only beaten McLaren 3 times, in 2004, 2009 and 2013. What did those years have in common? That's right, McLaren messed up badly. It's still hard to know what a complete rookie like Magnussen without 10,000s miles of testing can do straight away against Button. Unlike last year, when McLaren set one quick time with a weird race-illegal setup, this time they have topped the times in both wet and dry, which although times are 'meaningless', does hold quite some promise.

Force-India
Hard to draw any conclusions from testing, but they seem in comparably strong and solid shape - the least reliable of the Mercedes cars perhaps.

Williams
Pat Symonds promised that the aero has taken a step up on the 2014 car. Early signs show that just possibly, Williams could be set for a good but not great season. They might actually be better than Force India, in which case 5th in the WCC may be very attainable indeed. What price a podium or two for Bottas somewhere?

Sauber-Ferrari
Hmmm, miles off the pace so far, but the Ferrari seems like a fairly reliable unit, though rumour is the ERS stuff isn't really cutting edge maybe. I get a (not very well founded) impression that Sauber are running a 'basic' team and car this year due to cost, so do expect early 2013 form at best really.

Lotus - Renault
Not looking in good shape, but hopefully for them they have enough depth for decent development to maybe become around 5th best team later in the season. As I said, with their terrible preparation they could start off like Benetton 2001 as even the last established team.

Toro Rosso
Oh dear, like someone said, by day 3 they have managed to get within 6sec off McLaren's pace. We don't know what kind of weight or anything they're carrying, but at least they're managing some running. One of the less reliable teams it seems.

Marussia
I was happy to see what I thought was a very attractive looking Marussia. I like the 2014 paint job using their familiar colours, but like the nose even more. This reminds me of 2012 when they had a nice nose when everyone went stepped. That year, they were very respectable. Also, they seem to have ok (comparing to others) reliability, hopefully meaning some well earned points at last.

Caterham - Renault
Not many laps at all eh? Hard to tell where they stand. Someone pointed out that it's interesting that the top teams are running vaguely similar noses. No idea if Caterham's will work...


Prediction
Red Bull will struggle. Horner, Newey and especially Marko will wail and cry - then the rules will be changed to suit them again like they were with the tyres in 2013, and we'll be back to 2013 in the second half of the season. YAY!

[jens]

Prediction
Red Bull will struggle. Horner, Newey and especially Marko will wail and cry - then the rules will be changed to suit them again like they were with the tyres in 2013, and we'll be back to 2013 in the second half of the season. YAY!

Doesn't seem far-fetched though I forgot to predict politics in my predictions. Maybe next time.:D So far I have been pondering about the option of RBR struggling to keep up with Mercedes/Ferrari for half or even 2/3rds of the season before coming on-song for Asian rounds.

The hardest part has been to guess the state of game between engines. I guess perhaps at worst RBR can have a Ferrari-2005 kind of season, where the championship-winning team is so far behind largely because one important component has failed them badly. As I mentioned earlier, 2005 season was hard to predict and especially the complete struggle of Ferrari.

It would be a surprise if Renault gets it so wrong, considering they have won many championships and should be competent enough to build at least a decent-enough engine, even if not quite on par with others. Then again, Bridgestone was also supposed to be very competent before 2005, having won lots of titles, yet they were ill-prepared for the single-tyre rule.

This shows, how fine the margins in F1 can be and you can't mess up badly even in one area, because you'll automatically have a significant handicap.

Based on testing so far it seems Williams is relatively well off and can compete for regular points. Right now they seem like fourth force behind Mercedes-McLaren-Ferrari group. However, obviously based on the moment as we do not know, how can the Renault-powered teams perform, and how well can, say, Force India develop over a season. But a stronger season for Williams seems on the cards.

[RS]

What are the rules in regards to engine development now? Are the specs frozen immediately or can they actually develop them now?

[jens]

Mercedes (cont'd)
Williams
Pat Symonds promised that the aero has taken a step up on the 2014 car. Early signs show that just possibly, Williams could be set for a good but not great season. They might actually be better than Force India, in which case 5th in the WCC may be very attainable indeed. What price a podium or two for Bottas somewhere?


One more thought about Williams again. At the moment they look good, at least fourth best based on Jerez or even at stretch you could say they seem a match to Ferrari for third. They seem set to have a better season (can't be that difficult to better last year's 5 points), but how much better?

If I am trying to recall past years, the impression I get is that Williams has always looked better at winter tests than in the racing reason. And when I compare Force India and Williams, I think I'd still back Force India to finish the season above Williams even if they start out worse. 2011 and 2012 were good examples of Force India having a very good in-season development pace, where they ended strongly after a disappointing start.

Could Williams finish 6th though? It is a possibility, but very much dependent on how bad or good the Renault engines exactly are, which is very hard to tell at this point and on which the fate of Lotus and STR will depend on. Sauber hasn't made a strong impression so far, but during the season they may challenge Williams too.

---

Rjbetty. I find it pretty interesting that you compare Lotus' potential 2014 to Benetton's 2001. As we remember, Benetton came back pretty strong late in the 2001 season with Fisichella even grabbing a podium at Spa. Also a large reason for Benetton's struggle back then was the engine. The design team was competent enough (led by Mike Gascoyne at the time), but the new 111-degree engine was down on power. As it was, Renault never got this engine work well enough and ditched it after 2003. Since returning to a more conventional engine Renault developed into a championship-winning team.

By the way, I remember back in 2003 there were claims that Renault could possibly have the best chassis on the grid, only let down by the engine. So indeed, the chassis engineering quality has always been there at Enstone (the base of Lotus/Renault/Benetton). This was also the case in 2009, when they were let down by having to mess with KERS packaging - once again a component outside Enstone's facilities. In 2007 were perhaps hurt by Michelin's departure to which it was hard to adapt to.

Despite all those financial troubles I think the Enstone engineering factory is the best asset of the Lotus' team. It has seen all kinds of days - ownership changes, personnel/technical director changes, but one thing has always remained - inherent chassis engineering quality. I am impressed. It looks like the base has a good culture/athmosphere/aura, which keeps the performance up.:)

[rjbetty]

If I am trying to recall past years, the impression I get is that Williams has always looked better at winter tests than in the racing reason. And when I compare Force India and Williams, I think I'd still back Force India to finish the season above Williams even if they start out worse. 2011 and 2012 were good examples of Force India having a very good in-season development pace, where they ended strongly after a disappointing start.

Oh yeah I agree that's true. IIRC Williams looked very impressive in 2011 pre-season testing...

As for Force India, I guess you could count 2009 too as a good development year. :)


Despite all those financial troubles I think the Enstone engineering factory is the best asset of the Lotus' team. It has seen all kinds of days - ownership changes, personnel/technical director changes, but one thing has always remained - inherent chassis engineering quality. I am impressed. It looks like the base has a good culture/athmosphere/aura, which keeps the performance up.:)

I hope so, as I like the team. But I'm concerned they may have just lost too much important staff. But even so, I'm believing that even though their technical depth is much reduced, it could till be enough to see them do better later on in the year, and still have a basically sound chassis.

[Malbec]

What are the rules in regards to engine development now? Are the specs frozen immediately or can they actually develop them now?

They are homologated at the end of February up until which they can do whatever they want. After February they can carry on developing the engines but are limited to what components they work on. They are given a total number of points they can spend on parts of the engine, the total number of points drops substantially each year to hit zero in 2016 or 2017 or so.

I think its futile guessing relative performance at this point when many of the teams are still running some 2013 spec aero components and are testing with reduced revs and varying levels of ERS (if at all). Bahrain might tell us more but we will only know at the first race as usual.

[AndyL]

They are homologated at the end of February up until which they can do whatever they want. After February they can carry on developing the engines but are limited to what components they work on. They are given a total number of points they can spend on parts of the engine, the total number of points drops substantially each year to hit zero in 2016 or 2017 or so.

That was an interesting change in the new version of the regs that came out in December. These new engine development regs are not completely clear but as I understand it, what is homologated on 28 Feb is what they are stuck with for the rest of the year (except for reliability improvements approved by the FIA in consultation with the other suppliers - as has been the case in recent years).

Then the points budget comes in when it comes to submitting a modified engine to use in subsequent years.

Each component or design area of the engine has a points value - from 3 points for something really important like the combustion chamber geometry, down to 1 point for something simpler like the inlet trumpets or oil pump. The total engine design comes to 66 points.

For 2015 they are allowed to modify 32 points worth of components. Then for 2016-2018 it's 25, 20 and 15 points respectively.

In addition there is an increasing list of components that can't be modified at all. For 2015, only some major things like significant crankcase and crankshaft dimensions must remain unchanged from 2014. They have a fairly free hand to spend their points on changing whatever other components they choose. From 2015 on, additional components are frozen each year.

From the 2018 season, there is almost a complete engine freeze, but there are still some electrical items that can be changed each year after that (up to 2020 which is as far as the rules go).

This all looks potentially very expensive. All the manufacturers still have 4 years of costly engine development ahead of them.

[steveaki13]

I wonder if we can predict that Red Bull will have reliability issues this year.

I mean I have seen plenty of people jumping for joy that Red Bull are struggling and even heard them saying on the radio that Red Bulls domination is crumbling.

I think its a bit early to be predicting that. However it will certainly give them a headache moving onto Bahrain. I assume the first day or two will be spent making sure they are on top of their problems while others get a head start on development.

It maybe we see Red Bull fall from domination, but I would say that if there is one team who have the people to get the car back on track then it is Red Bull.

[dj_bytedisaster]

Word from the Red Bull bunker is that Adrian Newey has hastily drawn up a heavily revised car for the Bahrain test, although the design guru stresses that the aerodynamic package is a 'strictly interim solution'.

http://www.welt.de/multimedia/archive/00315/Trabbi_Pferdewagen__315816p.jpg

Should this, frankly ingenious, solution fail to deliver, too, Christian Horner has promised to grant him 'full creative authority and rumour has it that this fallback option has already been secretly tested by members of Red Bull's junior drivers program.

http://popeyethewelder.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/16-Sail-Buggy.jpg

Experts however doubt that even Red Bulls budget will cater for Newey's wish to use exotic materials like pixy dust and the mildly radioactive Unobtanium.

[Mia 01]

I´m afraid that Red Bull will be at it once moore, perhaps beside the first competition.

[Zico]

I´m afraid that Red Bull will be at it once moore, perhaps beside the first competition.

As I stated even prior to Jerez, I have a sneaky suspicion this will not be Red Bulls or Vettels year this time . The catastrophic testing failure at Jerez will also have set them back massively and so I do not expect them to be at the sharp end of the results especially in the opening race.... If they are, the rest of the grid would probably be as well concentrating on their 2015 car instead.

[dj_bytedisaster]

I´m afraid that Red Bull will be at it once moore, perhaps beside the first competition.

As I stated even prior to Jerez, I have a sneaky suspicion this will not be Red Bulls or Vettels year this time . The catastrophic testing failure at Jerez will also have set them back massively and so I do not expect them to be at the sharp end of the results especially in the opening race.... If they are, the rest of the grid would probably be as well concentrating on their 2015 car instead.

With the catastrophic failure called 'a Renault engine' they won't go anywhere before Silverstone, even if Newey manages to whip up a new car.

[Zico]

[quote="Mia 01":2m9lbwxh]I´m afraid that Red Bull will be at it once moore, perhaps beside the first competition.

As I stated even prior to Jerez, I have a sneaky suspicion this will not be Red Bulls or Vettels year this time . The catastrophic testing failure at Jerez will also have set them back massively and so I do not expect them to be at the sharp end of the results especially in the opening race.... If they are, the rest of the grid would probably be as well concentrating on their 2015 car instead.

With the catastrophic failure called 'a Renault engine' they won't go anywhere before Silverstone, even if Newey manages to whip up a new car.[/quote:2m9lbwxh]

Yep, agreed. Adrian Newey is a genius but I very much doubt even he is that good to be able to turn things around before the opener.

[Mia 01]

Red bull will be back, take it for granted. Two month, thats what it takes for Renualt to be on top of the game again. The rumour say so. I would like my driver Kimi stay on top with his lump behind his back but I have no illusions. Kimi has to fight with Seb hard, thats from the second run in the championchip.

[Zico]

Red bull will be back, take it for granted. Two month, thats what it takes for Renualt to be on top of the game again. The rumour say so. I would like my driver Kimi stay on top with his lump behind his back but I have no illusions. Kimi has to fight with Seb hard, thats from the second run in the championchip.

Fight for the WDC with Seb? I think you are jumping the gun just a tad. Even if Red Bull/Seb are able to run the show again, Kimi will have to beat a rather formidable tea mate 1st, not a foregone conclusion in my book. I strongly suspect Alonso will still unofficially be regarded as the established No1 at Ferrari and we all know what that means.. "Kimi.. Fernando is..........." Kimi won't listen then fireworks & possibly a team melt down will ensue. Likely result? No WDC or manufacturers championships... and/or Kimi gets sacked mid season for not playing the team game.

[dj_bytedisaster]

Red bull will be back, take it for granted. Two month, thats what it takes for Renualt to be on top of the game again. The rumour say so. I would like my driver Kimi stay on top with his lump behind his back but I have no illusions. Kimi has to fight with Seb hard, thats from the second run in the championchip.

Word in the paddock is that it'll take 20 weeks for Renault to sort out the dog's dinner they made of their engine, so we're talking Silverstone at the earliest:

http://thejudge13.com/2014/01/30/f1-testing-jerez-day-3/

The Judge was in Jerez and talked to sources he has within the teams and considering that, unlike any of the 'classic' F1 media, he published that Renault had built a pub, even before the first teams arrived at Jerez, I'd say that prediction is pretty accurate. The only Renault team that ran any significant number of laps was Caterham and their car has ridiculously oversized sidepods, so you don't need to be a rocket scientist to guess that Renault has a massive heat problem. Even if Newey can whip up a new car, that's a pretty useless talent if the engine is a complete bag 'o balls.

[Whyzars]

Interesting to read everyones simulations. Brilliant actually.


Betting markets have Vettel favourite which is appropriate but he's drifted a bit since the recent test.

I've taken some of the long odds for Ricciardo. He, or at least the car, is better than 40-1 .

For me its RBR Vettel/Ricciardo with Mercedes next.


BTW, did someone say that a driver couldn't win without a radio? What did he mean by that?

Will fuel be a race killer this year? Will the championship be won or lost on fuel management? :crazy:

Note to teams: Prius owners manual page one - Pump up tyres until they change colour.

[rjbetty]

dj I am sure Red Bull won't be a dead duck for long, as what tends to happen is the rules will be updated somehow, just like they got the tyres changed in 2013, then that was that for Ferrari and Lotus.

Marko will moan that it's not right that their amazing car is being held back by the engine regs. I expect a rule modfication to come, if not this season, then by 2015. And it will absolutely suit Red Bull...

[Zico]

BTW, did someone say that a driver couldn't win without a radio? What did he mean by that?


Pure speculation from me..

In addition to Rev limiting, efficiency modes may also likely include turbo boost levels as well as ERS thermal management. If that is the case one might not think that to be too much different from last year but maybe the person who made the statement you mention meant that with more and larger variables involved it could also become a lot more crucial to have more timely and accurate coms than a lap by lap pitboard could provide?



Will fuel be a race killer this year? Will the championship be won or lost on fuel management? :crazy:

Which engine manufacturer can build the most fuel and thermally efficient engine combined with best ERS package almost goes without saying... I also strongly suspect race strategy will now become more fuel mode based than tyre management based but I'd like to hear more opinions on this.

[Zico]

After further thought, 2014 may well in fact be decided by the reliability factor alone but there are also so many new technical challenges faced by the teams that it's likely to be a rollercoaster of a season. Here is just one that has become apparent at Jerez. http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/112453 . The Bahrain test will no doubt throw up a few more..

Only one things for sure... it's gonna be interesting!

[dj_bytedisaster]

BTW, did someone say that a driver couldn't win without a radio? What did he mean by that?

That was Rosberg. He said, you're pretty much fucked if the team radio goes out, because the engineers need to tell the drivers how slow they must go to make it to the finish with the fuel they have.

[dj_bytedisaster]

Which engine manufacturer can build the most fuel and thermally efficient engine combined with best ERS package almost goes without saying... I also strongly suspect race strategy will now become more fuel mode based than tyre management based but I'd like to hear more opinions on this.

I think this season will make last season's early races look exciting. Most of the season will be spent going deliberately slow to save fuel. Welcom to Greenpeace everybody.

[Malbec]

I think this season will make last season's early races look exciting. Most of the season will be spent going deliberately slow to save fuel. Welcom to Greenpeace everybody.

Yep, the technical regulations suggest racing will be like it was in 1988 when the turbos were last in with strict fuel capacity limits. What a shockingly dull season that was.

[rjbetty]

Heyhey,

I'm doing another 2014 season on Grand Prix 2 if anyone's bored enough ;) , but this time I posted it in the simulations forum as I thought it would be too much off topic and clog up this thread maybe...

viewtopic.php?f=103&t=160296 (http://motorsportforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=103&t=160296)



Also,

Marussia-Ferrari Season Preview
Well I had hoped to get this done before testing but anyway... Now Marussia are a team that come in for a lot of stick with people saying they should go etc... How mean! I for one am very glad they're there. There presence shows a lot of things: 1.How professional and on a high level the teams are these days - I mean just check out all the super duper reliability these days. We have become institutionalised (is that the right word to use? Have I even spelt it right?) by it, to the point where Christian Horner and dj think it's really really bad that you might get a race or two this year where maybe only 11 cars finish! Wow what a terrible thing. I don't know how F1 survived all those years!!! We can't have engine failures making the races unpredicatble and stuff! *bangs fist in protest* [sarcasm off]

Time was when AGS could turn up with a real ragtag crew, stick the ubiquitous customer Ford in the back and off they go, and maybe even get a point (top 6 back then remember). I think now that if Marussia were operating as they are now in the 1988 season, they would have a real shot at 4th in the championship, as a guess. This is also part of the reason to the answer to why they couldn't repeat what Sauber did in their debut season, as many people do ask. I remember Peter Sauber himself saying a long time ago (might even be as far back as 1999!) that there's no way Sauber would have been able to have that sort of debut season now (meaning 99-2000 whenever he said it) as F1 had just moved on so much.

When the new teams joined, I thought they would establish themselves, and over 5 years simply move up into the midfield. I actually think now that a team does well to simply remain in the sport and not drop back at all. This is because the playing field is so uneven, absurdly so. Marussia have spent the years strengthening themselves on a relatively frugal budget. I think they've actually been very smart, living within their means and not racking up huge avoidable reckless debts. I actually don't know how anyone could have done much better in their situation, with their resources, experience and funds. I actually now think they are better run than Caterham, pound-for-pound.

The team's growing infrastructure and stability is reflected in the fact that for the first time, both drivers are retained for a consecutive season. This is great for continuity.

A big plus is the new Ferrari engine, said to have good consumption even though it may be lacking in outright power to Mercedes? I read recently that the Cosworth engine was a full 80bhp down on Mercedes - does anyone know if this is true? If so, then Marussia should be boosted by over half a second through the engine alone. The drivers will also improve with experience. And the extra cash from coming 10th last year has helped the team stay alive. They also seem to have designed a fairly decent car for where they're at. If things go well, they could nip at the heels of Toro Rossos if the Renault engines struggle, and even maybe get close to Gutierrez's Sauber on occasion. Maybe even a Lotus on a bad day if they do turn out to be struggling.

I think that Marussia will probably be ahead of Caterham on merit definitvely for the first time this season. I also like their colour scheme and the cars always look good even though I'm sure the colours could be done a better way. A team I am rooting for and feel deserve their place in F1.

[DazzlaF1]

I included the double points for the final round (as mich as I despise that rule) and this is what I came up with

For surprises, I think Marussia and Caterham really will profit greatly in the expected early season reliability problems, Bianchi I think will make the odd show in Q2 and Marussia will again nick 10th spot in the constructors

As for the uppper echelons, I've got Lewis Hamilton to win in a narrow 3 way fight despite having Alonso win that double points decider, Vettel comng up after a late season charge after Red Bull sort their car out but despite that, its enough for hamilton to nick the title by a mere 3 points. Ferrari may score more race wins but I think it'll be the Merc's consistency that wins the day

I think Williams will be the surprise package, Massa to steal a couple of early season podiums as Williams take advantage of the Mercedes powerplants to nick 5th int he constructors from a disappointing Lotus who are et down mainly by Maldonado

DRIVERS CHAMPIONSHIP
1. Lewis Hamilton - Mercedes ................ 296pts (4 wins)
2. Fernando Alonso - Ferrari ................ 293pts (6 wins)
3. Sebastian Vettel - Red Bull ................ 289pts (4 wins)
4. Kimi Raikkonen - Ferrari ................ 171pts (2 wins)
5. Nico Rosberg - Mercedes ................ 169pts (2 wins)
6. Jenson Button - McLaren ................ 161pts (1 win)
7. Felipe Massa - Williams ................ 106pts
8. Romain Grosjean - Lotus ................ 102pts
9. Daniel Ricciardo - Red Bull ................ 82pts
10. Kevin Magnussen (R) - McLaren ................ 64pts
11. Nico Hulkenberg - Force India ................ 52pts
12. Valtteri Bottas - Williams ................ 47pts
13. Adrian Sutil - Sauber ................ 41pts
14. Sergio Perez - Force India ................ 30pts
15. Jean-Eric Vergne - Toro Rosso ................ 29pts
=16. Esteban Gutierrez - Sauber ................ 24pts (Gutierrez ahead on tie breaker)
=16. Pastor Maldonado - Lotus ................ 24pts
18. Danil Kvyat (R) - Toro Rosso ................ 23pts
19. Jules Bianchi - Marussia ................ 7pts
20. Kamui Kobayashi - Caterham .............. 4pts
=21. Marcus Ericsson (R) - Caterham ................ 3pts (Ericsson ahead on tie breaker)
=21. Max Chilton - Marussia ................ 3pts

CONSTRUCTORS CHAMPIONSHIP

1. Mercedes ................ 465pts (6 wins)
2. Ferrari ................ 464pts (8 wins)
3. Red Bull ............... 371pts (4 wins)
4. McLaren ............... 225pts (1 win)
5. Williams ............... 153pts
6. Lotus ............... 126pts
7. Force India ............... 82pts
8. Sauber ............... 65pts
9. Toro Rosso ............... 52pts
10. Marussia ............... 10pts
11. Caterham ............... 7pts

[rjbetty]

Thanks for that Dazzla, wouldn't mind if it happened that way. :)


So how about ranking the teams where we think they might be overall, or drivers?

I think

1.Mercedes
2.Ferrari - close
3.Red Bull - will use politics to get unfair advantage to mostly negate fair disadvantage
4.McLaren - good, able to win/challenge for wins, but not WDC. More like 2011/12 (but without Lewis)
5.Williams
6.Force India
7.Lotus - Now see them right there with Force India, or maybe ahead of Williams but no higher
8.Sauber
9.Toro Rosso
10.Marussia
11.Caterham

[steveaki13]

1. Mercedes
2. Red Bull
3. Ferrari
4. McLaren
5. Lotus
6. Force India
7. Williams
8. Sauber
9. Toro Rosso
10. Marussia
11. Caterham

[dj_bytedisaster]

Thanks for that Dazzla, wouldn't mind if it happened that way. :)


So how about ranking the teams where we think they might be overall, or drivers?

I think

1.Mercedes
2.Ferrari - close
3.Red Bull - will use politics to get unfair advantage to mostly negate fair disadvantage

Folks, I'm seriously starting to wonder what all that vitriol against Red Bull is all about :confused: Just because they did a stellar job for four years, everybody seems to think they need to pile the hate on them. I seriously wonder what 'unfair advantage' they are supposed to get to offset a broken engine?
As far as I can remember, RB have never done anything that wasn't perfectly fine before they even arrived in F1. They've stretched the rules, like every other team before them, but that's about it. In contrast to the likes of Ferrari, Tyrell, BAR, McLaren, Benetton, Renault they don't have a history of outright cheating or blatant race fixing, so if anything they're catholic school girls in comparison to things we've seen in the past.

[rjbetty]

Thanks for that Dazzla, wouldn't mind if it happened that way. :)


So how about ranking the teams where we think they might be overall, or drivers?

I think

1.Mercedes
2.Ferrari - close
3.Red Bull - will use politics to get unfair advantage to mostly negate fair disadvantage

Folks, I'm seriously starting to wonder what all that vitriol against Red Bull is all about :confused: Just because they did a stellar job for four years, everybody seems to think they need to pile the hate on them. I seriously wonder what 'unfair advantage' they are supposed to get to offset a broken engine?
As far as I can remember, RB have never done anything that wasn't perfectly fine before they even arrived in F1. They've stretched the rules, like every other team before them, but that's about it. In contrast to the likes of Ferrari, Tyrell, BAR, McLaren, Benetton, Renault they don't have a history of outright cheating or blatant race fixing, so if anything they're catholic school girls in comparison to things we've seen in the past.

When I said unfair advantage, I meant that Red Bull and Renault are seeking special dispensation from the FIA to have more time to sort their reliability after the freeze.

They had the same time and oportunity as did Mercedes and Ferrari. It is not fair they should have more. I can't see F1 allowing Renault to be so bad, so they will allow Renault everything they need to be more 'equal' to the other engines. I think this is more fake and artificial and against the spirit of what F1 is supposed to be. than anything else that has gone on lately.

Red Bull and Renault are seeming to want their cake and eat it. They ploughed all their efforts into last year while others were preparing for this. Others made the sacrifice and should now be allowed to reap the rewards in 2014. Red Bull-Renault want to have it both ways. I have almost no doubt the dispensation will be allowed.

Renault were previously allowed to increase their reliability/performance under the old rules, while being able to keep their fuel-consumption and driveability advantage over other engines.

If Renault should be allowed more time, so should Mercedes and Ferrari to make more developments and refinements - so then it's fair.

[driveace]

I agree entirely with your views rjb !
But F1 is afraid of loseing 2 ,2 car team so will buckle to RB !

[rjbetty]

3.Red Bull - will use politics to get unfair advantage to mostly negate fair disadvantage

Folks, I'm seriously starting to wonder what all that vitriol against Red Bull is all about :confused: Just because they did a stellar job for four years, everybody seems to think they need to pile the hate on them. I seriously wonder what 'unfair advantage' they are supposed to get to offset a broken engine?
As far as I can remember, RB have never done anything that wasn't perfectly fine before they even arrived in F1. They've stretched the rules, like every other team before them, but that's about it. In contrast to the likes of Ferrari, Tyrell, BAR, McLaren, Benetton, Renault they don't have a history of outright cheating or blatant race fixing, so if anything they're catholic school girls in comparison to things we've seen in the past.

dj, I have no problem with Red Bull or Sebastian's success at all, just as I never did with Schumacher (or Sebastien Loeb)! (I know that's probably quite unusual).

I don't at all hate Red Bull, or any team or driver, though I do dislike aspects.

Many of us congratulated Vettel when he sealed the title in India last year, cos we recognised he did a bang-good job. Though I do think Vettel easily performed at the highest level of anyone last year, I am not trying to take anything away by saying it's much easier to do so in the best car - I feel that's simply the truth. I do think Alonso would be capable of doing a slightly better job, and that Hamilton has the latent talent to do better than both. But no-one else, including Kimi (though Kimi is one of the drivers about who I have the biggest question mark, not being sure how I rate them, others including Maldonado and Kobayashi).

With Fernando now declining a bit imo, I rate Seb as currently doing the best job of all. I am no Garry Walker and do recognise Seb's talent and rate him between 1st-3rd. I think Hamilton has the greatest ability of anyone, but nowhere near the brains of Seb (though I think Lewis is at a good level there) and so Seb manages everything better overall. I think Seb can manage a season in the best car than even Schumacher could.

As for Red Bull, I also feel they optimise things better and are more 'invincible' than even Ferrari 10 years ago, which I respect them for. I did have a slight awe in how Adrian Newey and his team came up with such a good car in 2012 despite being so restricted by the rules, then coming up with "10% more downforce" in 2013.

But I don't particularly like the arrogance and attitude of the team, and how they seem to have a sense of entitlement, such as to keep developing their engine after the freeze, even though they didn't make the sacrifices the others did, thus wanting their cake and eat it. Unfortunately, due to the team not making themselves that likeable etc. I now won't touch their drink whereas around 2003-2005 I used to fairly regularly. I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels this way, so maybe Red Bull need to think about this - their ways have actually had a negative effect.

And yet, this isn't vitriol. I believe that stuff is really bad/unhealthy (I mean vitriol). It's more disappointment I feel.


Btw, to be fair, I made it a point to drink a can of Red Bull before every exam I did in college in 2003. I truly believe it made a real difference for the good. Though checking my shoulders and back, I was to find not even a single feather.

[rjbetty]

*as Septic Peg from Brian Conley, waving hands over crystal ball*

Oooooooooo... I predict... *continues waving hands over ball* ...that the World Drivers' Championship winner... Will be... a man. ...Oooooooooo... (that's more specific than Septic Peg's famous actual lottery prediction!)

(that rules out Seb then)




Ooooooooo... I can see... that the winner is driving... a car... *continues waving hands over crystal ball*


I also see a number... ...it's the winning driver's number! ......Ooooooooooooooooh... and the number is.........

....on the caaaaaaaaaar.


There will be... many overtaking manoeveurs... all using DRS...

[steveaki13]

A lot of posts there.

Its simple for me I hate Red Bull. :p ;)

(That saved a bit of typing) :p

[dj_bytedisaster]

When I said unfair advantage, I meant that Red Bull and Renault are seeking special dispensation from the FIA to have more time to sort their reliability after the freeze.

May I remind you that all engine manufacturers made use of that special dispensation during the V8 area? And they all 3 will do again this year. And as a correction, only Renault seeks that dispensation, not Red Bull. They aren't engine manufacturers. Frankly, this all just sounds like infantile jealousy-fuelled Schadenfreude to me.

[Triumph]

I would find it amusing if Vettel won the championship again by virtue of the double-points gimmick, having been out of the running for most of the year due to the Red Bull's early inferiority - especially considering that the whole gimmick was devised to prevent him from achieving any further success .

[Roamy]

I tend to think it is Newey that made Vettle. Last year there were 10 drivers who would have made in a Newey car. It is only a matter of time bdfore he rights the ship

[easy rider]

I would find it amusing if Vettel won the championship again by virtue of the double-points gimmick, having been out of the running for most of the year due to the Red Bull's early inferiority - especially considering that the whole gimmick was devised to prevent him from achieving any further success .


Whoever may win the 2014 WDC, with this imbecilic ruling of doubling the points in the last race, probably will have an asterisk placed alongside their name, because we will not see this stupid rule lasting into the 2015 season.

[Rollo]

Whoever could be world champion at the end of the season, is still only going to be a small pool.

The most significant impact that the rule has though is to do with TV revenues.

To come tenth in the Constructor's title is worth $40m and since say last year, the distance separating Williams, Marussia and Caterham was only 5 points, that last race could see who knows what deals transpiring up and down pitlane. Would we see a team deliberately hand over 8th place in a GP in return for a cut of the cash?

[henners88]

I am hoping its Mercedes year and we see Hamilton get the second Championship I think he has deserved. Just wish I could get my enthusiasm back! This is the first year for many where I haven't really kept up with testing and the first time I can remember where a colleague has asked me what is going on and I haven't been able to answer! :erm:

Just over a month until the first live race though, hopefully it'll rain in Malaysia. Australia is already written off. :)

[rjbetty]

Right then, so with 2/3 of the testing done, how do we think it's looking?

And yes, I know about the cliche that we can't read too much into times (I'm not!) and we will have to wait till Melbourne etc.


Well it does appear Mercedes indeed have the upper hand, just a question of how much. Bear in mind, Mercedes have without fail always flattered in testing only to not do as well when the season starts. Even so, it seems clear that they're going to be up there, and their best season awaits.

Are Ferrari sandbagging a little? I think Alonso said the new windtunnel is making a difference. Ferrari probably won't be the best qualifiers again, but I'm interested to know how they will do in races with the 100kg fuel. They seem to be wise in prioritising Sunday.

Early reports have McLaren as a WDC dark horse. But I think that although they will be competitive, they are some way behind Mercedes, and I feel that when Jenson Button lapped +0.713sec slower than a Mercedes on one day, that was an accurate gap. Jenson himself seems to feel the same way.

It's hard to know for Red Bull. I know they are the best team and cannot be ruled out. But I do now believe they are not in contention this season, and only would be due to some sort of politics to get the playing field skewed, like with the tyres last year. In testing, the times they have actually shown have put them about Caterham's level, and less reliable. Obviously they should improve, but all things being equal it's just too much to get the WDC. I know many can't see this happening, but neither could we see Ferrari's downfall in 2005, or Williams doing so badly in 1998. No team is infallible. I read somewhere that people also couldn't imagine McLaren-Honda being so far behind Williams-Renault in 1992, simply on the basis that they were McLaren-Honda. In the same way, simply being Red Bull will not in itself mean anything. Vettel and team will still optimise every result, but maybe challenging for the top 3 is the very best in the circumstances.

Lotus should come anywhere between 4th and 7th overall. Based on Maldonado's best time, it seems despite the team's situation the chassis is still pretty good quality. Depends on Renault though. I now estimate Lotus roughly round my original prediction (Grand Prix 2 Season 1) i.e. around Force India/Williams. Unreliability is a ? though.

Force India now look slightly quicker than Williams, though it's so hard to tell. Perez may surprise this year: Don't forget the disadvantage of Hulk's bulk.

Williams now appear to not be the dark horse (even for wins/WDC according to some) but are definitely in for a better season. I am wondering whether Massa will now shade Bottas, having had him a little behind before. It should be close either way.

I don't see Sauber finishing higher than 8th this year, and testing seems to confirm this.

Toro Rosso are also in trouble and I'm not sure they can beat Sauber.

In terms of what they've actually shown, Marussia look disappointing and unreliable. But surely in theory they should be ahead of Caterham and maybe challenging Toro Rosso a little.

Oh dear. I think the only way you can measure Caterham is against the other Renault teams, to determine if they've made a good step. They look to be around 1sec off Toro Rosso I think, though that's much better compared to the Faenza team than any other year.

[steveaki13]

Right then, so with 2/3 of the testing done, how do we think it's looking?

And yes, I know about the cliche that we can't read too much into times (I'm not!) and we will have to wait till Melbourne etc.


Well it does appear Mercedes indeed have the upper hand, just a question of how much. Bear in mind, Mercedes have without fail always flattered in testing only to not do as well when the season starts. Even so, it seems clear that they're going to be up there, and their best season awaits.

Are Ferrari sandbagging a little? I think Alonso said the new windtunnel is making a difference. Ferrari probably won't be the best qualifiers again, but I'm interested to know how they will do in races with the 100kg fuel. They seem to be wise in prioritising Sunday.

Early reports have McLaren as a WDC dark horse. But I think that although they will be competitive, they are some way behind Mercedes, and I feel that when Jenson Button lapped +0.713sec slower than a Mercedes on one day, that was an accurate gap. Jenson himself seems to feel the same way.

It's hard to know for Red Bull. I know they are the best team and cannot be ruled out. But I do now believe they are not in contention this season, and only would be due to some sort of politics to get the playing field skewed, like with the tyres last year. In testing, the times they have actually shown have put them about Caterham's level, and less reliable. Obviously they should improve, but all things being equal it's just too much to get the WDC. I know many can't see this happening, but neither could we see Ferrari's downfall in 2005, or Williams doing so badly in 1998. No team is infallible. I read somewhere that people also couldn't imagine McLaren-Honda being so far behind Williams-Renault in 1992, simply on the basis that they were McLaren-Honda. In the same way, simply being Red Bull will not in itself mean anything. Vettel and team will still optimise every result, but maybe challenging for the top 3 is the very best in the circumstances.

Lotus should come anywhere between 4th and 7th overall. Based on Maldonado's best time, it seems despite the team's situation the chassis is still pretty good quality. Depends on Renault though. I now estimate Lotus roughly round my original prediction (Grand Prix 2 Season 1) i.e. around Force India/Williams. Unreliability is a ? though.

Force India now look slightly quicker than Williams, though it's so hard to tell. Perez may surprise this year: Don't forget the disadvantage of Hulk's bulk.

Williams now appear to not be the dark horse (even for wins/WDC according to some) but are definitely in for a better season. I am wondering whether Massa will now shade Bottas, having had him a little behind before. It should be close either way.

I don't see Sauber finishing higher than 8th this year, and testing seems to confirm this.

Toro Rosso are also in trouble and I'm not sure they can beat Sauber.

In terms of what they've actually shown, Marussia look disappointing and unreliable. But surely in theory they should be ahead of Caterham and maybe challenging Toro Rosso a little.

Oh dear. I think the only way you can measure Caterham is against the other Renault teams, to determine if they've made a good step. They look to be around 1sec off Toro Rosso I think, though that's much better compared to the Faenza team than any other year.

That's a brave call on Red Bull rjbetty. I am still unsure and have this feeling they will still be there somewhere.

As for Marussia. I too so want them to do better, but its been a troubled start. :(

I am predicting only 9 cars finishing in Australia, and a Marussia to get a couple of points. ;)

[rjbetty]

That's a brave call on Red Bull rjbetty. I am still unsure and have this feeling they will still be there somewhere.

As for Marussia. I too so want them to do better, but its been a troubled start. :(

I am predicting only 9 cars finishing in Australia, and a Marussia to get a couple of points. ;)

Yeah, with Red Bull it's hard to tell. Look how they sandbagged last year. But I'm not sure I see them beating Mercedes now.

Oh yeah, I'm very much rooting for Marussia. I hope we get as few as 9 (it would make a nice CHANGE), but I predict 13, not wanting to get my hopes up too much...

[steveaki13]

If you take all factors into account, its realistic that 10 or less could finished. I mean firstly realiabilty is surely going to get rid of more than normal. So to 14 or 15.

Add in incidents maybe down to 10 or 11, then running out of fuel or mistakes takes us to less than 10.

I am probably going to be wrong, but it really could happen.

I have watched F1 since the early/mid 90s and this season has more question marks over it than any for a long time.

I would say similar seasons in terms of unknowns In recent years must be

1989 - After Turbo's
1998- Radical rules changes
2003 - Radical rule changes
and now 2014.

Its rare we have such upheaval

[The Black Knight]

It looks to me like Mercedes will be the team to beat this year. They really seem to have the most overall together package so far and it looks really good for them that they have started working on performance rather than reliability now. I honestly think that they will be the team to beat. I think RBR have lost too much at the start of this preseason testing and they will not have realistically caught up until 5 or 6 races in with one preseason test remaining. Even in the remaining preseason test I'll be surprised if they make magical progress. Either way, I hope they don't, sick of seeing Vettel demolish the opposition in the best car on the grid. It's time to see what he can do from behind. Is he a true great or not? Maybe we'll finally find out this year.

[Tazio]

Tazion, the holding co. for Tazio and it's afilliats, predicts that beside what has seemed to become the expected pecking order I would like to predict the biggest surprise:
Ferrari will benefit from a combination of a thoroughly efficient product from the clutch to the wiring haness destinations, but a conservative engine approach, which will help both drivers early. I don't think either one will win the WDC but you should bet on Ferrari winning the WCC
.Force India:
will and have been obliged to outfit the second best driver in the field with a rocketship, hopefully not to unreliable, this will be a big surprise. Even more fantastic, with the S. American money coming in for Felipe Baby:
Williams may be the biggest surprise of them all. If they can give FM a car with dewcent donforce, and good balance he will be schmoking :smokin:

champ.php?series=f1 (http://www.motorsportforums.com/champ.php?series=f1) :sailor:

[Tazio]

Tazion Inc, the holding co. for Tazio and it's afilliats, predicts that beside what has seemed to become the expected pecking order I would like to predict the biggest surprises:
Ferrari will benefit from a combination of a thoroughly efficient product from the clutch to the wiring haness destinations, but a conservative engine approach, which will help both drivers early. I don't think either one will win the WDC but you should bet on Ferrari winning the WCC
.Force India:
will and have been obliged to outfit the second best driver in the field with a rocketship, hopefully not to unreliable, this will be a big surprise. Even more fantastic, with the S. American money coming in for Felipe Baby:
Williams may be the biggest surprise of them all. If they can give FM a car with dewcent donforce, and good balance he will be schmoking :smokin:

champ.php?series=f1 (http://www.motorsportforums.com/champ.php?series=f1) :sailor:

Tazion Inc. is issuing a retraction of the previous post. One disgruntled employee got into our media department and made the press release containing these reckless assertions after swilling seven pints of Newcastle.
The offender has been dealt with, and currently has a bad headache. :arrows: :blackeye: :crazy:

[rjbetty]

So I've had a day or 2 free and spent far too much just having a look round at discussions here and elsewhere. I will now try to collate some thoughts here.

Apparently Rosberg has done many more laps than Lewis in testing. That, and Nico being able to push Lewis extremely close, plus the more cerebral approach required to reach a race now, and the fact that Nico presumably isn't disadvantaged by a certain lady screwing with his mind like Lewis is, and it starts to look like the 14/1 then 9/1 odds could actually have been a wise investment. I would have probably placed my first ever bet but finances have been incredibly bad temporarily this month.

Alonso has apparently had much more running than Raikkonen. For all the buildup, I can't really see Raikkonen toppling Alonso, also due to Kimi having to (re)acclimatise to the team against the incumbent Alonso. That is not dissing Kimi and that wouldn't be the end of the world. If he can do at least as well as Jenson did against Hamilton in 2010, his reputation should be fine.

Ferrari reportedly are lacking to Mercedes in the region of 75bhp right now...

I'm thinking Jenson's views might be quite good to go on. It looks like he thinks McLaren are a bit behind. Do not be fooled into thinking he is bluffing/sandbagging. I made that mistake last year and paid a terrible price, being not that much less of a laughing stock in FGP 2013 than the series promoter himself.

Jenson also apparently thought that Williams could possibly have the best race pace of all at this stage. :bounce: :eek:
Button seems to be someone who simply tells the truth as he sees it in these cases, rather than playing games.


Flippin heck, where did Red Bull get that time the other day? Hopefully they won't be able to keep up that pace for more than a few corners at a time (yeah I won't feel too sorry if they don't get it all their way this year, sue me).

Sauber look quite cr@p but not many are surprised. I wish they'd go for a more retro black design rather than dark grey!



What of Massa setting the overall fastest Bahrain laptime of 2014?
Some are going so far to say that Williams, amazingly, have the best car, and whisper it, may be a serious threat for the WDC. I'm not sure, but that time looks fairly 'real'.
"So what" you say, "Force India were quickest for two days too". But that was with a 1:35. Felipe set a 1:32. I do think Mercedes can show a little more though, and Williams won't develop as well.
People say that Williams are almost a new team with all their major staff changes. In 2012 they surprised us, and even though Williams have a real habit of flattering to deceive in testing, they do look like they could do quite well.

Marussia look faster than Caterham, and seem around 1sec off Toro Rosso. Maybe they can nip at their heels.

I'm wondering whether Christian Horner will start bleating about changes "for the good of F1" (which just so happen to massively suit Red Bull) - i.e. Renault being allowed to do as much as they please after the freeze.

I'll add my voice again to say we don't want double points. Bernie should stop trying to pinch ideas from FGP!!!

[jens]

Well, what can I say about these tests. To be honest, it looks like they have made predicting even more difficult than before the tests.:p: More car problems than I have ever seen before, even though it seems like the gaps have finally come down a little bit.

I think the hardest thing of the season to predict is the disparity between engines. Before testing I had a hypothesis that all engine manufacturers should be competent enough not to allow huge gaps. But especially the first few days were eye-opening. Of course the gaps will gradually come down, but Renault has a deep learning curve.

It looks like for the start of the season Mercedes is in brilliant position to capitalize to get an advantage over, specifically, Ferrari and Red Bull.
It looks like other Mercedes-teams (McLaren, Force India, Williams) are also in a good position to get strong results.
It looks like Ferrari is its usual solid self from last few years - thereabouts/podium material, but not outstanding. Of course it is claimed Ferrari's engine is behind Mercedes', but at least it looks like it functions well and is reliable, so should allow to achieve at least decentish results.
Lotus indeed will have a slow start, like rjbetty's 2001 Benetton example.

Red Bull? Their winter tests remind a lot of McLaren 2004. But it looks like a tough start in any case unless they find a miracle solution like McLaren did in 2011 – they messed all winter tests while struggling, but at Melbourne were suddenly clearly second best.

Now, Red Bull is a team with great potential and we have seen them not really being fully up-to-speed early on before. But now with new regulations their learning curve seems to be steeper than ever before. I think you could say the Red Bull has most untapped potential of all, combined with Renault, but the matter is how quickly they can get themselves properly running. This will be make or break for the season. Before one day they do it, championships may have already been lost. It is not the matter of finishing 2nd or 4th in early races like in 2012, it is the matter of getting points at all and actually finishing races, which what McLaren's early 2004 was about.

Now, if I am looking at my predictions now that I drew up before winter tests... of course I have questions. The engine factor (both speed and reliability) may have been greater than I anticipated, which means that now I question – should I have for example swapped Lotus and Williams for 6th and 7th in WCC? Should McLaren be closer to the top than I predicted? Should Red Bull be further down from the title fight?

However, one thing is to predict early races, other thing the overall season of 19 races, because especially in a season after big regulation changes, pecking order can change a lot during the season – as teams learn a lot about how to untap the potential of their cars, and this time engines as well.

Looking at my prediction on a race-by-race basis again, I had Rosberg-Hamilton-Button as top 3 in WDC after the fourth race, Chinese GP. With Vettel 7th, even behind Hülkenberg. But from the European season onwards the state of the game started to change.

The big question is about Renault now. How much will it take time for RBR get back to the game, if they get there at all. And when will Lotus become fast, because some say they are impressed with Lotus' innovational design (trademark of Enstone factory)? What about Williams, the eternal impressive team of winter tests, who struggles to realize its potential in the racing season? What about especially Hülkenberg in the Force India?

[jens]

Sauber look quite cr@p but not many are surprised. I wish they'd go for a more retro black design rather than dark grey!

What of Massa setting the overall fastest Bahrain laptime of 2014?
Some are going so far to say that Williams, amazingly, have the best car, and whisper it, may be a serious threat for the WDC. I'm not sure, but that time looks fairly 'real'.
"So what" you say, "Force India were quickest for two days too". But that was with a 1:35. Felipe set a 1:32. I do think Mercedes can show a little more though, and Williams won't develop as well.
People say that Williams are almost a new team with all their major staff changes. In 2012 they surprised us, and even though Williams have a real habit of flattering to deceive in testing, they do look like they could do quite well.


Yeah, it looks like Sauber is one of the teams, who is not going to have an outstanding start into 2014. It looks like they haven't managed a very good integration with Ferrari engine, and if Ferrari engine is down on power too as rumoured, it makes it a bit of a challenge for them.

Williams is a potential dark horse, but far from me be it to consider them as a title contender. However, I have been thinking about Bottas being a "surprise podium visitor" of 2014 for some time already. An interesting dream or thought to say. Everyone likes to talk about Massa and how the Brazilian is rejuvenated in a new team, but he will have his hands full with the young Finn I guess. Anyway, it should be one of the closer team-mate battles on the grid.

Williams was fast in 2012, as said, and it may be possible to sort of replicate that kind of season again. But it is important for them to capitalize on early-season opportunities, because over a full year especially the Renault-powered teams will get up-to-speed and will make competition more difficult.

[Tazio]

Ferrari reportedly are lacking to Mercedes in the region of 75bhp right now...



rj that is an unsubstantiated rumor, and wouldn't believe the doom and gloom being spewed by the media, or even Stefano Domenicali .

AMUS' Michael Schmidt along with every other journo in the first three rows has his own conspiracy theory:


Ferrari holds back on purpose?

If Ferrari as in recent years again before a comeback? The answers in the paddock vary widely. Some believe that the backlog really is this second. The others can imagine that Ferrari has not revealed all the cards. The usually skeptical Alonso sprayed too much confidence. And at the round analysis revealed some inconsistencies.

Ferrari has never packed all peaks in a round. If you swept with full top speed over the finish line, was driven deliberately slowly to the rest of the round. In a Sektorbestzeit you could bet that the other two sectors in comparison to fell off. In a discipline Ferrari is already tip. Alonso managed with 339.6 km / h the highest top speed.
http://translate.google.de/translate?sl ... ml&act=url (http://translate.google.de/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=de&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.auto-motor-und-sport.de%2Fformel-1%2Fwie-gut-ist-ferrari-mercedes-und-williams-sind-vor-uns-8164118.html&act=url)

[Tazio]

Ferrari reportedly are lacking to Mercedes in the region of 75bhp right now...
[quote]


rj that is an unsubstantiated rumor, and wouldn't believe the doom and gloom being spewed by the media, or even Stefano Domenicali .

AMUS' Michael Schmidt along with every other journo in the first three rows has his own conspiracy theory:


Ferrari holds back on purpose?

If Ferrari as in recent years again before a comeback? The answers in the paddock vary widely. Some believe that the backlog really is this second. The others can imagine that Ferrari has not revealed all the cards. The usually skeptical Alonso sprayed too much confidence. And at the round analysis revealed some inconsistencies.

Ferrari has never packed all peaks in a round. If you swept with full top speed over the finish line, was driven deliberately slowly to the rest of the round. In a Sektorbestzeit you could bet that the other two sectors in comparison to fell off. In a discipline Ferrari is already tip. Alonso managed with 339.6 km / h the highest top speed.
http://translate.google.de/translate?sl ... ml&act=url (http://translate.google.de/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=de&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.auto-motor-und-sport.de%2Fformel-1%2Fwie-gut-ist-ferrari-mercedes-und-williams-sind-vor-uns-8164118.html&act=url)
Also:

Domenicali brushed off rumours that the Ferrari engine is underpowered and heavier compared to its rivals, but admitted there was still work to do on the energy recovery system.

"First of all, I don't know [about the rumours] because I have heard so many numbers around it. I know what is for sure the situation on our side, and I can guarantee that what I heard are numbers that are throwing the dice in the air [and seeing what lands]!

"To be serious, I think that the most important thing we need to understand on our side is how to manage the balance between the electrical power, the ERS, the MGU-K and the battery. All those things have an effect in terms of horsepower and that's really something which I believe there is a lot of potential to take out." [/quote:25ho7gkz]
Read more at http://en.espnf1.com/ferrari/motorsport ... eipii46.99 (http://en.espnf1.com/ferrari/motorsport/story/147539.html#b8i8lvW1seipii46.99)

[steveaki13]

Steveaki13 - Oz Gp Weekend.

Grid:
1. Lewis Hamilton - Mercedes
2. Nico Rosberg - Mercedes
3. Kimi Raikkonen - Ferrari
4. Felipe Massa - Williams
5. Kev Magnussen - Mclaren
6. Nico Hulkenberg - Force India
7. Fernando Alonso - Ferrari
8. Jenson Button - McLaren
9. Valterri Bottas - Williams
10. Sergio Perez - Force India
11.Daniel Ricciardo - Red Bull
12. Adrian Sutil - Sauber
13. Romain Grosjean - Lotus
14. Esteban Gutierrez - Sauber
15. J E Vergne - Toro Rosso
16. Jules Bianchi - Marussia
17. Pastor Maldonado - Lotus
18. Danii Kyvat - Toro Rosso
19. Max Chilton - Marussia
20. Kamui Koabayshi - Caterham
21. Marcu Ericcson - Caterham
22. Sebastian Vettel - Red Bull * No Time

* Seb cant get the Red Bull out of the garage after problems in Saturday Practice.

Race Day

As the cars making their way around the green flag lap, Sutil's Sauber breaks down at the side of the track and only 21 take the start. Vettel starts in the pits to avoid the chaos.

So the 20 cars roar slightly quieter off the grid and head to turn one. Rosberg makes a stormer as does Hulkenberg, at turn one, Chilton and Kyvat collide and are both out early.
End of Lap 1 and its Rosberg, Hamilton, Massa, Hulkenberg, Raikkonen and Alonso the top 6.

By Lap 3 Ericcson pits after an issues and loses a lap. Lap 4 and Maldonado Blows an Engine and pulls of at turn 4.
Vettel is coming through the field and is up to 13th by Lap 5 out of the 18 that remain.

Fuel saving see's several drivers holding station, catching Perez out who rams Button on Lap 7. Button continues but Perez retires in the pits. JB is now 16th. Lap 9 and Gutierrez grinds to a holt meaning just 16 left and both Saubers are Out.

The first stops arrive and through the next few laps positions change. Hamilton leads, Massa now up to 2nd, Rosberg 3rd.

Kimi has an electrical problem and stops in the pits. while Vergne has lost time in the pits with a problem

Lap 15 and 15 remain. 1.Hamilton *, 2.Massa +7, 3.Rosberg, +11, 4.Alonso+ 21, 5.Magnussen +27, 6.Hulkenberg +32, 7.Ricciardo +41, 8.Bottas+ 42, 9.Grosjean +51, 10.Vettel +52, 11.Bianchi +1:01, 12. JE Vergne +1:06, 13. Kobayashi +1:16, 14. Button +1:18, 15. Ericcson +1 Lap.

Hamilton pulls away, but gear box failure on lap 19 sees Button retire for good. Seb battles hard but on Lap 23 problems return and he pulls into the garage.

Rosberg passes Massa on Lap 24, and the drivers push on after early fuel saving. Bianchi has a spin on Lap 25 sending Vergne wide and across the gravel. Both rejoin.

Lap 27 and second stops begin. Rosberg loses time, while Kobayashi gets a penalty for ignoring blue flags. Massa spins out into the gravel on Lap 29.

Lap 33 and 2nd pitstops are complete.

1. Hamilton *, 2. Alonso +23, 3. Rosberg + 28, 4. Magnussen+ 39, 5. Hulkenberg +43, 6. Bottas + 54, 7. Ricciardo + 1:06, 8.Grosjean +1:22, 9. JE Vergne +1 Lap, 10. Bianchi +1 Lap, 11. Kobayashi +1 Lap, 12. Ericcson+2 Laps

The race settles down but Bottas is catching Magnussen and Hulkenberg, and by Lap 37 We are down to 11 as Kobayshi parks his Caterham. A near miss on Lap 39 see's Bottas pass Hulkenberg.

Lap 43 and Ricciardo completes the expected miserable day for Red Bull retiring from 7th. Just one lap later Magnussen pulls off with Smoke pouring out of the engine. Ericsson meanwhile is slowing to around 10 seconds off the pace, desperate to keep it going.

Lap 43: 1. Hamilton *, 2.Alonso +29, 3. Rosberg +30, 4. Bottas +1:04, 5. Hulkenberg +1:11, 6. Grosjean +1 Lap, 7. Vergne +1 Lap
8. Bianchi +1 Lap, 9. Ericcson +3 Laps

Now Sebastian Vettel rejoins 20 laps down, but does some testing.

Lap 46 and amid the pitstops Alonso has a Gearbox issue and grinds to a halt. Seb pulls back in on Lap 48. The problem not fixed.

Lap 50 and pitstops over, there are just 8 laps to try and limp through to score some points.

Lap 51 1. Hamilton *, Rosberg +29, 3. Bottas + 1:07, 4. Hulkenberg +1:19, 5. Grosjean +1 Lap, 6. Vergne +1 Lap, 7. Bianchi +2 Laps, 8. Ericcson +3 Laps

Lewis eases off, and Nico brings the gap down while Vergne catches Grosjean.

Lap 54 and Vergne nurfs Grosjean and passes for 5th, Grosjean slows and has damage. He retires leaving just 7 cars lapping the circuit.

Lap 55 and Hulkenberg pits with an issues, but gets out again just ahead of Vergne.

Drama on the penultimate lap as Nico Rosberg slows and stops at turn 14.

The race is over and Lewis wins the opening race of the season.

Results
1. Lewis Hamilton - Mercedes - *
2. Valterri Bottas - Williams + 0:59:96
3. Nico Hulkenberg - Force India +1 Lap
4. JE Vergne - Toro Rosso - +1 Lap
5. Nico Rosberg - Mercedes +2 Laps - DNF
6. Jules Bianchi - Marussia +2 Laps
7. Marcus Ericcson - Caterham +4 Laps

:p

There you go, what a race that was. :lips:

[rjbetty]

:spinhead: Bravo! Very good report.

Hopefully it will happen something like that. But I would prefer to guess more conservatively and be pleasantly surprised than vice versa (which has been the case all too often over the years...)

[Tazio]

Intersesting Steve but ineffective. A) Kimi will not out qualify Fred by that much, if at all. I get what you are saying and it is a fantastic narrative.(which the best of are ALWAYS fiction ;)).B) You don't know what the crud is going to happen at the first GP, C) either do I, so quit acting like you do. :kiss: Ferrari will not lose a gearbox built for 6 races 3/4 the way through its first race. In fact if memory serves me correctly Ferrari was the only team to get 5 races out of each gearbox last year!
Best Wishes,
http://i.imgur.com/Ra9jlr5.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/y7Ln61U.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/bgwA9Df.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/AQ88Y.jpg

[Tazio]

Fred tips Massa

Mar.4 (GMM/Inautonews.com) Fernando Alonso has tipped his departed Ferrari teammate Felipe Massa to be a “strong rival” in 2014.

After eight years in red, Brazilian Massa’s move to the once-great British team Williams was seen as a clearly backwards step for the 11-time grand prix winner.

But after pre-season testing, Mercedes-powered Williams has emerged as one of the strongest forces for 2014, with Massa tipped as an outside chance for outright victory in Melbourne.

“I’ve talked with Felipe several times this year already,” Spaniard Alonso is quoted by Brazil’s Globo.

“He is happy, Williams has so much history in formula one and is not just any team, and they have had a very strong pre-season,” he admitted.

“It is very positive because now they can be fighting. Felipe will definitely be a strong rival this year,” added Alonso.

Alonso also played down the constant suggestions that both he and Ferrari will struggle to cope with his rivalry with Massa’s 2014 replacement, fellow champion Kimi Raikkonen.

“We are trying to work together, working for Ferrari and arriving in Australia to fight for the race,” Alonso said.

“So let’s have this internal competition – normal in every team – because we all want to be ahead of the other one, and hopefully this can help Ferrari,” he added.
http://www.inautonews.com/massa-to-be-s ... xV3UVnTnIU (http://www.inautonews.com/massa-to-be-strong-rival-in-2014-alonso#.UxV3UVnTnIU)

[steveaki13]

Hey... Taz........

Don't tell me I don't know what will happen, until its happened man. :mad: ;)

It was only a fun story. :cool: ......until it comes true. :eek: :dork:

[Tazio]

Hey... Taz........

Don't tell me I don't know what will happen, until its happened man. :mad: ;)

It was only a fun story. :cool: ......until it comes true. :eek: :dork:
It is a great narrative Steve, I think I already said that. I have to admit I have not gone into that much detail about race senarios, even though with every thing still up in the air the possibilities are extreme dude. Just to show I read your narrative (and enjoyed it ) I will bet you 8 ham sandwiches to one that Fred does not lose p2 behind the Boss because of a gearbox malfunction. Maybe you ought to put out an abridged edition of your very excelent narrative.You could write Fred out of the script in the first race, and say tthat he retired because his cars malfuction electricuted Alonso into a crusty smodering, and thoroughly dead cinder. OK? :dork:

[Valve Bounce]

I know rjbetty used to do this last year. I don't know if he will pop out again, but thought I'd come and share my prediction of the 2014 F1 season.

Well, last time we had significant rule changes - 2009 - I got all predictions horribly wrong. Eager to see, what comes out of this. :p

In my mind played through all the races, including double points at Abu Dhabi, and the final score looks like the following:

1. Lewis Hamilton GBR Mercedes 286
2. Sebastian Vettel GER RBR Renault 275
3. Fernando Alonso ESP Ferrari 266
4. Nico Rosberg GER Mercedes 253
5. Kimi Räikkönen FIN Ferrari 210
6. Daniel Ricciardo AUS RBR Renault 137
7. Jenson Button GBR McLaren Mercedes 120
8. Nico Hülkenberg GER Force India Mercedes 101
9. Romain Grosjean FRA Lotus Renault 70
10. Kevin Magnussen* DEN McLaren Mercedes 67
11. Sergio Pérez MEX Force India Mercedes 63
12. Pastor Maldonado VEN Lotus Renault 45
13. Valtteri Bottas FIN Williams Mercedes 33
14. Felipe Massa BRA Williams Mercedes 28
15. Adrian Sutil GER Sauber Ferrari 25
16. Esteban Gutiérrez MEX Sauber Ferrari 20
17. Jean-Èric Vergne FRA STR Renault 12
18. Daniil Kvyat* RUS STR Renault 8
19. Jules Bianchi FRA Marussia Ferrari 1
20. Max Chilton GBR Marussia Ferrari 0
21. Kamui Kobayashi JPN Caterham Renault 0
22. Marcus Ericsson* SWE Caterham Renault 0

1. Mercedes (M) 539
2. Ferrari (F) 476
3. Red Bull (R) 412
4. McLaren (M) 187
5. Force India (M) 164
6. Lotus (R) 115
7. Williams (M) 61
8. Sauber (F) 45
9. STR (R) 20
10. Marussia (F) 1


Vettel had a storming end to the season again, including winning the double points in Abu Dhabi, but this time it wasn't quite enough. Four drivers were within a shot of a WDC before the title decider, which had the maximum of 50 points on offer.

So, waiting for your predictions before the winter testing begins. :D

The mind boggles. How many hours did you spend coming up with all these predicted points? :eek:
I rack my brains for hours trying to pick a single winner, and usually fail! :D

[jens]

The mind boggles. How many hours did you spend coming up with all these predicted points? :eek:
I rack my brains for hours trying to pick a single winner, and usually fail! :D

:D
Spread across several days. And an hour or few per day. I remember I was also a bit sick in early January, so had a bit of spare time to do it, while wasn't active outside home.

I visualize a race, not a single detail of it, but what the general flow might be.
What track are we on and how could it roughly suit each car, at least at the front and midfield;
who might go well in qualifying, who drops out in Q1, then Q2, then see Q3.
then who gets away well off the line;
whether we could have a bigger accident (at start or somewhere else), a safety car at some point or rain;
a possible change in race performance (tyre wear rates of different teams most likely);
and then whose turn might it be to suffer from some car problems now.

Then in the end write up results (the top 10). I don't visualize everyone at once, but mostly front-runners and those at upper midfield, who are going well this time. And then last couple of points go to those, who maybe didn't get attention during visualization, but feel that they were "silently doing well" (like sometimes drivers emerge in good places from nowhere like it is said) and had a good strategy/race pace to maximize result.

Wet races with many varying strategies are a complicated thing to do - actually impossible to do for all competitors at once. I think I go through them in a simpler way than what is really happening. But also guess, who might have a good setup this day and just perform well even if normally you don't expect this.

However, have to do it with a certain feel for the whole season. Because there is a certain flow in every season. For example if I decide that team A has a car, which has proven to be difficult to develop from the get-go, then they don't start too well, but maybe rise upwards with a Barcelona upgrade. Or a Silverstone one.

But yeah, important thing while playing this thing through is a decision. Decide for a scenario. Say - Mercedes gets off brilliantly with the fastest car. It doesn't mean in actual visualization they will win races, because while you visualize, you see them hitting trouble. But they are in good position to compete at the front.

So before going about individual races I have to visualize, how each team's season (not in terms of results, but potential) roughly could unfold - how fast they are, how well they develop, how much depth they have, how good their strategy might be, how consistent or error-prone drivers might be.

[jens]

Other than that...

The impression I get now is that... Red Bull is very likely to drop too far behind competition before they get fully up to speed, so that even double points do not help them. There are claims Renault' engine might be coming good by the time of Silverstone and RBR might indeed be a front-runner in the second half of 2014, but it looks like the handicap of the first half of 2014 might be too much to overcome. Like it was for Hamilton in 2009 (before winning Hungary) Räikkönen in 2004 (podium in UK), Häkkinen in 2001 (scored only a few points before winning at Silverstone, but this was far too late for a comeback). As it is, the matter for Vettel is not if he finishes 3rd or 4th, but if he finishes at all and whether there are many teams in front of him (say, all Mercedes-powered cars). If so, he would lose far too many points to be in contention later on.

Let's put it this way - in terms of long-term outlook Red Bull is far more likely to be a title contender in 2015 than in 2014. 2014 seems a difficult transition year for them and Dr Marko is probably right that the season starts too early for them,

As it is, based on winter testing Mercedes is the season favourite. I am reluctant in counting out Ferrari in a season-long battle. They have traditionally been consistent and it remains to be seen, how much development potential they have versus Mercedes over a full season. Their situation is not ideal, but looks better than Red Bulls. So unlike RBR they might still be within striking distance by the final phase of the season. But it looks like it still requires Mercedes cocking up and/or not maximizing their potential properly to enable Ferrari to really capitalize, i.e exactly what happened to Red Bull in 2010. Or McLaren/Häkkinen in 1999 in a battle against Irvine.

Also looks like we are set for some interesting early-season results. Like we saw in 2012 for different reasons. Even a Williams or a Force India race win is not off the cards in a race with favorable circumstances for them. However, what we have to consider is that this win would most likely be a pleasant exception rather than a rule.

It will be fascinating to see the rates of reliability, unseen for a long time. And especially Red Bull and Lotus - how far from the pitlane can they even get. Like rjbetty says, this fun won't last forever. So let's enjoy the beginning.:)

[jens]

Steveaki13 - Oz Gp Weekend.

Results
1. Lewis Hamilton - Mercedes - *
2. Valterri Bottas - Williams + 0:59:96
3. Nico Hulkenberg - Force India +1 Lap
4. JE Vergne - Toro Rosso - +1 Lap
5. Nico Rosberg - Mercedes +2 Laps - DNF
6. Jules Bianchi - Marussia +2 Laps
7. Marcus Ericcson - Caterham +4 Laps

:p

There you go, what a race that was. :lips:

Decided to vision Australian Grand Prix weekend too and surprisingly similar to your results in some ways.:p

Qualifying (NT - no time set in that session)
Q1:
22 Ricciardo (Rbr) - NT
21 Grosjean (Lot) - NT
20 Ericsson (Cat)
19 Chilton (Mar)
18 Vergne (Str)
17 Kobayashi (Cat)

Q2:
16 Maldonado (Lot) - NT
15 Sutil (Sau) - NT
14 Kvyat (Str)
13 Bianchi (Mar)
12 Vettel (Rbr)
11 Perez (FI)

Q3:
10 Magnussen (McL) – NT
9 Raikkonen (Fer) – NT
8 Gutierrez (Sau)
7 Hulkenberg (FI)
6 Bottas (Wil)
5 Alonso (Fer)
4 Button (McL)
3 Massa (Wil)
2 Rosberg (Mer)
1 Hamilton (Mer)

DNS for both Maldonado and Hulkenberg. Maldonado can't get out of the garage, Hulkenberg off the line. Rosberg stalls and starts from the back of the grid.
Hamilton leads, but Button moves second ahead of the two Williams of Massa and Bottas, hunted down by Alonso, Raikkonen and fast-starting Perez.
Drama happening with retirements. Some drivers retire with blown engines already on opening laps. Ericsson has a collision with Rosberg, who manages to escape. Safety car.
SC off. Massa runs wide and both Bottas and Alonso move up a place.
Both Lotus are out, both Red Bulls are out. Now both Force Indias are out too. More drama. Magnussen blows up, faces in the McLaren garage are concerned. Sutil blows up and Gutierrez goes into the pits for repairs.
Hamilton, Button, Bottas, Alonso. Massa in fifth is under pressure from Raikkonen, but he too retires with a car problem. Raikkonen goes into the pits for repairs, but rejoins.
Kobayashi desperately wants to get that one point, but has to spend time in the pits for repairs too. In the end he isn't classified and doesn't get that point.
Alonso hunts Bottas down, but cannot quite catch him. Reminiscent of 2011 finish with Petrov.
Rosberg had some niggles, but recovered well from the pitlane to take fifth.
Relief for all those, who got to the finish.

1 Hamilton (Mercedes)
2 Button (McLaren Mercedes)
3 Bottas (Williams Mercedes)
4 Alonso (Ferrari)
5 Rosberg (Mercedes) -1L
6 Vergne (STR Renault) – 2L
7 Bianchi (Marussia Ferrari) -2L
8 Raikkonen (Ferrari) – 2L
9 Gutierrez (Sauber Ferrari) – 4L
NC Kobayashi (Caterham Renault) -9L

Post-race news:
Renault takes positives from sixth place finish. „It is not that bad, as long as this thing lasts you can get a solid result like Toro Rosso showed. Hope to improve the reliability with other teams.“
Hamilton: „A dream start, but we need to keep working hard.“
Button: „Couldn't catch Lewis, had to conserve the car a lot, but happy to be back in business.“
Williams is over the moon. Breakthrough for Bottas. „We knew he is a great driver. Pity for Felipe, who was going well too.“
Alonso: „Mercedes engines were too fast, but we'll work hard to catch them.“
Marussia is over the moon. „Finally we have done it.“ Bianchi says he got an idea, how Webber felt in 2002 as an underdog.
Gutierrez: „Happy with that Sauber, it's a good car. Problems cost us better points.“
Force India vows to improve reliability. „We have got potential, but didn't get results.“
Red Bull: „We didn't expect the car to last for more than 20 laps and that's how it went. Lot of works needs to be done. Better next time.“
Lotus: „Horrible winter testing showed here. But we'll fight back.“
Caterham: „Battery issue cost Kobayashi points. A pity, we had a real chance.“

[JasonPotato]

No one has predicted that not a single car will finish the 1st race. So i will do just that :D

[rjbetty]

Looks like you got about 6 drivers right in your grid Jens, quite impressive.

The grid has a few similarities to my GP2 season too! Ricciardo and Hamilton on the front row. Magnussen qualifying very well with Jenson around 11th. Hulkenberg and Bottas in lower end of top 10. Kvyat had one of his stronger weekends at the first race, as did Vergne. Kobayashi was the best of the backmarkers getting amongst a few higher teams with Gutierrez somewhere down the back.

It does indeed look like Benetton 2001 for the Enstone team so far...


By the way, I still predict more than 10 finishers, say maybe 13/14... Sadly.


I also had a dream that I didn't watch the first race as I was staying away from Formula 1 again like I did 5-6 years ago. But in the dream I didn't resist flicking through a copy of Autosport. Though reading things in dreams are often muddled and don't make sense, it was clear that Kimi Raikkonen was the winner, while I found that Alonso (who I think was 2nd) was 10pts ahead of Vettel in the championship (deduce that Vettel finished 6th). That's all I knew for certain, through it seemed there were a lot of finishers, like 15...

But every result in every dream I've ever had has been utterly of the mark of real life, without fail (try Damon Hill winning his final race or Pedro Diniz finishing 2nd in Malaysia 99 for example!), so don't read anything into that. :)

[steveaki13]

Certainly looks like those who do finish will be working hard for it. I still think its a bit up in the air as to what will happen.

[jens]

One thing is to predict, who will retire in this race, but another thing is to take a long-term view on the season and I have to say Red Bull's chances have improved massively. Even if they double DNF tomorrow, they have shown they have got speed and once they iron out issues they can be right up there again.

In 2009 RBR got double DNF in Australia, yet went to fight for the title later on.
In 2010 Vettel had only 12 pts after two races, Webber had 6, yet they went on to win titles.

I think among the three top teams (MB, RBR, Fer) Ferrari is the one, who has currently most to think about. Reliability may once again be a saving grace for them and save them some good points - we'll find out tomorrow - but in terms of speed they are in danger of getting left behind both Mercedes and RBR. And if this happens, it is a bit of a long shot to expect that only reliability can save you, if on terms of pure pace you barely make the podium.

[steveaki13]

Spot on Jens.

Ferrari seem to be in their usual trap, looking like being consistent but not very fast.

[jens]

Red Bull - Renault
I believe the hopes that Red Bull will be toppled by Mercedes have at least some wishful thinking involved, sadly. It's true that a new season can make all the difference, but Red Bull are now the best drilled team. I say do not be fooled into thinking they will be anywhere other than right up there. I would say at worst, they will be a smidgen off Mercedes.



Mercedes
Big things are expected of the former BAR team this year. They have long been built up as the favourites, and we have been hearing things like their engine having a 100bhp advantage. There is a lot of hype going on here.

But my instinct tells me that though Mercedes will duly enjoy their best season yet, and seem set to at least consolidate their standing as the 2nd best team, there is still more hype than substance. I don't see them utterly dominating and Red Bull struggling. But they certainly have their best chance ever of major success.

Ferrari
Another season, another set of hopes for the titles. This is beginning to look like the late 90's all over again. To be blunt, why are things going to be different this time? Do not think that just because the ruies have changed and everyone starts from zero, that this in itself means that Ferrari will suddenly be transformed. There is no real reason to think so. In fact, the team don't seem as good as Red Bull, so if anything, major regulation changes are prime conditions for the scud to lose yet more ground.

This may seem rather downbeat, but I have spent too many years stoking up high hopes during the pre-season only to see them dashed come the racing proper, as cold hard reality hits. Sadly, it seems there is no magic in F1. Alonso and Raikkonen could find themselves consigned to 4th and 5th places this season with not too many podiums.


Rjbetty. I think based on the first race of the season you have guessed pretty well. You mentioned you learnt lessons from the mistakes of former predictions and you have done that well.

You are close-to-right about „at worst RBR being a smidgen off Mercedes“. I think Mercedes actually has quite a sizable advantage over RBR, which we didn't see properly, but considering all the winter testing issues Red Bull has indeed done very well to be up there.

Mercedes is the best right now, but let's see, how does in-season development pan out and you also may have a point about their drivers taking points off each other. Mercedes has great pace, but like reliability issues with Hamilton showed, they have problems in maximizing their potential. That's why they may not dominate the season.

And you were right to be concerned about Ferrari and avoid involving „wishing thinking“ into seeing them emerging as the team to beat.

[rjbetty]

Dragging up an old chestnut:


So into the 4th race, how are the pre-season predictions shaping up now?


Incredibly, I am finding many similarities between the season and the simulated season I ran on Grand Prix 2! (It's here in this thread)

I had Red Bull only slightly off Mercedes (which I think they would be if there wasn't such a power deficiency in the Renault) I had Renault only 30bhp off in GP2. The big surprise in my season was the great initial form of Daniel Ricciardo, whereas Seb seemed slightly weak compared to his usual self. Incredibly, this is how it has turned out! I had Ricciardo consistently qualifying in the top few positions and getting strong podiums while Seb was more up and down and seemed to suffer more problems.


Mercedes are pretty much as expected, though on second thoughts, far ahead. They seem to have pace in hand. In my season, they were still very strong, though not totally dominant, but lost the title through so much misfortune, losing big results. In reality, they are getting the results, only failing Lewis in Melbourne.


As for Ferrari, well I had them 0.7 off but able to benefit thru reliability. They have turned out much worse.


In my Australia season, Kevin Magnussen starred in qualifying as he did in real life, while Jenson was 11th, as he was in real life! Ricciardo and Hamilton were on the front row as in real life. Bottas and Hulkenberg were around 7th to 8th with Perez 16th and Kobayashi doing well. Kobayashi had a significant turn 1 crash in Melbourne, as in real life! Vergne and Kvyat ran in the top 10 early on, as in real life (though Daniil retired in the game).


In my season, I had McLaren 4th best, but still quite a way from the top, though improved on the miserable 2013. Kevin Magnussen actually outscored Button in the end due to double points and scoring a shock win at Spa due to attrition.

The only thing I got really wrong was Ferrari being stronger in the game, despite being 0.7sec off, and surprisingly winning both titles through reliability.

[steveaki13]

two new teams in F1 next year rj.

So the Scorpian F1 cars can be in your 2015 season prediction for real rather than ghost cars. :p

[Tazio]

Dragging up an old chestnut:


So into the 4th race, how are the pre-season predictions shaping up now?


Incredibly, I am finding many similarities between the season and the simulated season I ran on Grand Prix 2! (It's here in this thread)

I had Red Bull only slightly off Mercedes (which I think they would be if there wasn't such a power deficiency in the Renault) I had Renault only 30bhp off in GP2. The big surprise in my season was the great initial form of Daniel Ricciardo, whereas Seb seemed slightly weak compared to his usual self. Incredibly, this is how it has turned out! I had Ricciardo consistently qualifying in the top few positions and getting strong podiums while Seb was more up and down and seemed to suffer more problems.


Mercedes are pretty much as expected, though on second thoughts, far ahead. They seem to have pace in hand. In my season, they were still very strong, though not totally dominant, but lost the title through so much misfortune, losing big results. In reality, they are getting the results, only failing Lewis in Melbourne.


As for Ferrari, well I had them 0.7 off but able to benefit thru reliability. They have turned out much worse.


In my Australia season, Kevin Magnussen starred in qualifying as he did in real life, while Jenson was 11th, as he was in real life! Ricciardo and Hamilton were on the front row as in real life. Bottas and Hulkenberg were around 7th to 8th with Perez 16th and Kobayashi doing well. Kobayashi had a significant turn 1 crash in Melbourne, as in real life! Vergne and Kvyat ran in the top 10 early on, as in real life (though Daniil retired in the game).


In my season, I had McLaren 4th best, but still quite a way from the top, though improved on the miserable 2013. Kevin Magnussen actually outscored Button in the end due to double points and scoring a shock win at Spa due to attrition.

The only thing I got really wrong was Ferrari being stronger in the game, despite being 0.7sec off, and surprisingly winning both titles through reliability.

Don't forget our bet dukie ;) :angel:

[jens]

I think the main pre-season miscalculation in predictions has been the engine/power unit disparity, which was very hard to foresee without any previous evidence. Should have been more bold with predicting Mercedes to be far ahead. But that's hwo things are and what I already wrote - predictions are too much based on the past season.

But I am glad I got several general developments pretty close - Mercedes champions, Williams stronger, Force India having a good season, McLaren a so-so-season, Red Bull losing dominance, Lotus dropping back, etc. Of course the reality is that the effect of all these "developments" has been stronger than predicted, which is what usually can happen with radical rule changes.

The difference is that Mercedes is far ahead, so that Red Bull and Ferrari don't get a sniff at title challenge. And Williams also even stronger than predicted. Both largely down to the PU advantage, which was greater than anticipated. Interestingly it doesn't make much of a difference to McLaren fortunes, while Force India has a good chance of battling with them all year in WCC standings.

Lotus has dropped back and shows signs of recovering, they should start collecting points soon. Didn't expect a great season from Sauber, but they are even worse than thought. Likely to get beaten by Toro Rosso in the end, who in turn is its usual "9th/10th place team in races" like they have been for many years.

Caterham/Marussia - business as usual. Reliability is already pretty good, only 2 retirements in China. So doesn't look like they have a good chance of opening point-score this year either.

Generally I feel I have managed to improve my predicting skills over the past year or two, especially what concerns general developments. Individual races can always go either way and these are very hard to foresee. But over a longer period some bigger trends can be recognized.

Drivers?

Ricciardo is giving Vettel a run for his money and although I still believe Vettel will come out on top as he is too much of a complete driver to just disappear, the points/performance gap will be closer.

Button/Magnussen situation was very hard to predict, but it looks like Button will come out on top, but again perhaps with a smaller advantage than anticipated. The performance of a rookie is always very difficult to predict. Even if you believe the driver is very talented, you never know, how well he settles in that particular environment (team/car).

Kvyat is already giving Vergne a run for his money. A bit more than I expected from the 19-year-old. Very promising driver is the young Russian, hats off.

Räikkönen is struggling. He will improve, but Alonso prevails.

Rosberg gets outraced by Hamilton, but should stay relatively close in point standings.

Maldonado is really struggling right now, I see better days for him to come. But Grosjean prevails.

Bottas and Massa is close as expected. Massa has had two unlucky races (Aus/Chn), which inflated the points gap. But I expect the two to race close to each other all year with the Finn coming out on top.

Pérez shines at times, but Hülkenberg is more consistent and comes out on top.

[rjbetty]

Don't forget our bet dukie ;) :angel:

Oh yeeeeeah, I'd forgotten about that. I do hope the boss (Lewis, not Verstappen) can do it, but still am concerned Nico might get it by stealth. Hamilton is proving me wrong so far, but I hope he can carry on. He seems to be someone who has the odd disaster here and there, and that can be enough to cost everything. I hope Nicole also behaves herself and can consider this is an important year for Lewis.

[rjbetty]

Very good overview Jens.

The other thing I didn't mention was that I was quite conservative with reliability levels in the game. I did not have crazy races with 3 finishers, but rather I tried to be as realistic as possible, and sure enough, every race I had varied between 12-18 finishers, a sensible and realistic amount.

Amazingly, the reliability has been even better than my conservative estimates and if China is anything to go by, we are already back to 2013 levels (sigh)...

That is another thing I have gotten very wrong over the years, and am now learning from. The amount of unreliability and incidents was always more outlandish in my feelings and thoughts before the season, but during the season was not the case at all.


As for Perez v Hulkenberg, did anyone read that article on skysports, which wondered if paradoxically, Nico drives too much like a top team driver, without the "carpe diem" moments that Perez can have?

That is thought provoking, but I am thinking maybe I disagree. What is the use of Perez having just a small spattering of great races when he's comparatively mediocre the rest of the time? I also think this does a dis-service to Hulkenberg: I find it hard to see how he's merely a solid driver when he has produced moments like Monza 2013 (probably Korea too), on course to win Brazil 2012 on merit, in a Force India(!) and pole position for Williams in 2010.

[jens]

The other thing I didn't mention was that I was quite conservative with reliability levels in the game. I did not have crazy races with 3 finishers, but rather I tried to be as realistic as possible, and sure enough, every race I had varied between 12-18 finishers, a sensible and realistic amount.

Amazingly, the reliability has been even better than my conservative estimates and if China is anything to go by, we are already back to 2013 levels (sigh)...

That is another thing I have gotten very wrong over the years, and am now learning from. The amount of unreliability and incidents was always more outlandish in my feelings and thoughts before the season, but during the season was not the case at all.


I think throughout the years I also have done the miscalculation of predicting more reliability problems than there really were.

I have made one conclusion on the back of the 2014 Chinese GP and mere 2 retirements. That the era of half of the field retiring (like 10+ years ago) is forever gone. If it didn't happen in 2014, it ain't ever happen again.

Which means the era of pushing technology to the limits, which sees the increase in technical troubles, is over. Nowadays everything is about saving and long-life components. And considering the world developments and how important economical use of technology and resources has become, this is the future. So almost all of the grid finishing races will be a norm till unforeseen future.

[airshifter]

As for Perez v Hulkenberg, did anyone read that article on skysports, which wondered if paradoxically, Nico drives too much like a top team driver, without the "carpe diem" moments that Perez can have?

That is thought provoking, but I am thinking maybe I disagree. What is the use of Perez having just a small spattering of great races when he's comparatively mediocre the rest of the time? I also think this does a dis-service to Hulkenberg: I find it hard to see how he's merely a solid driver when he has produced moments like Monza 2013 (probably Korea too), on course to win Brazil 2012 on merit, in a Force India(!) and pole position for Williams in 2010.

I haven't seen the article but if it implies that Hulk loses out by not having the "carpe diem" moments then I would have to disagree.

I'm a big fan of both drivers and Nico just quietly gets it done. It's not uncommon to not really notice him much during a race yet he finishes well. Consistency and solid times gets him to the right end of the pack.

Sergio on the other hand seems less consistent, and it sometimes seems that he has to fight harder for passes and such to get a good finish. This and sometimes the use of tire strategy (which is probably just as much influenced by the team) can get him to the right end of the pack at times.

As strange as it seems, often watching Sergio is more fun than watching Nico finish higher. He has to have those moments or he wouldn't get towards the front. Nico seizes the entire race in a more calm manner, and is less likely to push hard passes that might risk the car.


But I hope both of them have a great season. Force India seems to be doing well, and both are worthy of good cars probably better than what they are driving. It's shocking that Hulk didn't get picked up by Ferrari, and as it turns out probably lucky for Sergio that McLaren was stupid enough to blame the drivers for their turd and get rid of him.

I wouldn't be surprised if history shows both drivers ending up in the top teams.

[jens]

Hülkenberg certainly has had his moments, like mentioned in the Sauber last year. Qualifying 3rd at Monza was a stunner.

As for criticism, the goal of racing drivers is to collect as many points as possible over a full season. And in fulfilling that goal Hülkenberg is very efficient. Based on current situation he is right there battling with Alonso and the Red Bulls for best of the rest position behind the Mercedes' in the championship.

Even if he doesn't have a true standout drive out of the first four races this year yet, he is still at least on the level of prime form Heidfeld/Button, which is also a very good level, let's not underestimate that. Just to recall Heidfeld from 2007 or Button from 2011. The "quiet achiever" as the saying goes.

As for Pérez, I think chances are his inconsistency is likely to relegate him into having a midfield career for the rest of his career. Of course based on how team performances fluctuate it is hard to make conclusive claims, looking at how good Force India has been so far this year. But it is hard to see him in contention for seats, which are considered to be the prime places with biggest competition, like Red Bull, Mercedes or Ferrari.

[steveaki13]

I don't think I predicted Mercedes to be dominant.

My thoughts on 2014 so far.

Mercedes - I never saw such a level of domination before the season began. It seems like they should win every race 1-2 that they finish for now, but Red Bull could challenge them for race wins later in the season. Lewis appears to match my expectation that he would beat Rosberg generally, despite still being behind due to his retirement.


Red Bull - I predicted they would win the Championship again this season but its appearing to be unlikely they can recover the deficit. I still saw Vettel comfortably beating Ricciardo, but it looks like the Australian is really going to push Seb hard.


Ferrari - I thought Alonso and Ferrari might have been in a position to challenge this season but it looks as if they are worse than ever, and quickly returning to early/mid 90s form. Kimi appears struggling for any pace and only Alonso's brilliant drive in China has moved them forward from midfield.

McLaren - After a hopeless 2013 I thought that 2014 had improved after the 2-3 in Australia but since then its a return to 2013 form. Could it be that McLaren have produced a dog for the second year running.

Force India - The car looks to be third fastest now and even faster than Red Bull at times. Hulkenberg has had consistant class, while Perez has struggled but then got it together in the last couple of races.

Williams - The car isn't as fast as we thought in Oz, but it is clearly still faster than I feared. It just seems that they are harder on tyres and seem a bit more hit and miss. Hence why the team has not gained the results they deserve.
Massa & Bottas seem ultimately well matched to me.

Toro Rosso - They have scored more they I thought they would, but that could be because of other cars retiring. Kyvat has been far better than we feared, I remember a lot of doom predicted about him. Vergne is decent as per.

Sauber - Wow. Lucky I chose to give them the boot in my FGP team, the car is heavy, slow and unreliable. It appears the Sauber team are in a rut in 2014. I hope they can score some points soon and keep going into 2015. Sutil has looked really average in my opinion this season without Force India. While Gutierrez has done nothing special.

Lotus - No one predicted just hope dopey there season would start off. I mean the first two races they could barely get a car to the finish of any session. Since then they have improved reliability and speed. They are creeping closer and closer to the points. I hope they can keep going.


Marussia - I think most of us predicted a season with Marussia and Caterham still at the back, but I thought with the changes they might have found a point or two in the early races. However it seems that no more than 2 cars will retire from now on. I think It will be an interesting battle all season between Bianchi and Kobayashi. Bianchi has actually made some poor errors so far. Crashing into Maldonado in Malaysia and Sutil twice in Bahrain. While Chilton has done a fine job. Finishing 13th twice I think and finishing every race to continue his 22 or 23 race finishing streak.

Caterham - As with Marussia I predicted them to struggle again, but Kobayashi has mixed it with the lower midfield on occasions. I would love to see one of the backmarkers with Merc Power next year. It might actually close the gap to the midfield.


Those are my thoughts compare to my predictions after the early rounds.

[steveaki13]

As for Pérez, I think chances are his inconsistency is likely to relegate him into having a midfield career for the rest of his career. Of course based on how team performances fluctuate it is hard to make conclusive claims, looking at how good Force India has been so far this year. But it is hard to see him in contention for seats, which are considered to be the prime places with biggest competition, like Red Bull, Mercedes or Ferrari.

Your so right Jens.

Look at his podium in Bahrain. Brilliant and yet the first two rounds he was anonymous.

As for Hulkenberg. He's one of those drivers who I really want to get a shot soon at a top car. I would hate him to miss out on a top level career because he never lands a decent drive.

[rjbetty]

- Red Bull getting a below-par start like they have done in the past + reliability issues with Renault package. I had Vettel only 5th in the WDC behind Mercedes and Ferrari drivers after Monza. They are strong though and can never be underestimated. They came to top form in the final phase again.

- I got Lotus as one, who gets away slowly with new regs, compounded by financial issues. A bit like BAR was nowhere in early 2005 after getting regular podiums in 2004. In the end of the season Lotus recovers somewhat, like the other cash-strapped Sauber did in 2013.

I think early season can bring us a few fascinating individual race results. The only (usual) midfield runner I predicted to get podium finishes, was Force India

This looks pretty good now Jens!

[jens]

Well, now I can say... The prediction wasn't very good.:p: Not a big surprise before major regulation changes! But we remember how radically things have changed. At the end of last year Red Bull and Lotus were at the front, Sauber decent, while Williams was near the back. It would have been very bold to predict what is now without prior evidence.

Another issue with this year is that competition trends are very consistent. I predicted both Red Bull and Lotus to have an upward performance curve during the season, but none of this is happening. All the teams are roughly where they were in the beginning. Even Sauber doesn't have much chance of opening the pointscore.

Contrast to 2009, when after big reg changes the performance trends shifted significantly during the season. However, probably has to do with the type of changes and that in-season power unit development is banned, while during 2009 aerodynamic development, key of the year, was certainly as fast as ever.

Were I to predict 2015 though... I expect it to be more like a "status quo" year as opposed to 2014, which everyone knew would be a big year for changes, just nobody was sure which way it would go.

[rjbetty]

The season has pretty much basically ended in the next few days so I thought I´d start dragging up these old chestnuts we laid before the season. We can laugh at who´s predictions were the most terrible! To start with, I have minardi's prediction (hey I wonder what happened to him)

I have edited his post a little and added my comments in brackets.


Going to quickly get my short predictions in just before the green line goes on for the start of testing.

Mercedes
A close season between Red Bull and Mercedes, (no)
but the Silver Arrows edge both championships (yep),
with Hamilton taking his second crown… just (We'll see!).
Hamilton and Rosberg are close all year but Rosberg gets the bad luck of the team, allowing Hamilton to be #1 in the run up to the finale. (Haha got that COMPLETELY the wrong way round!!)

Red Bull
As said before, very close all year between the Red Bulls and Mercedes, (not quite)
but Vettel's car finally gets the bad luck with the car that MW had the past few seasons, (WOW great call!)
Ricciardo has good performances and is closer to Vettel at points than expected, but consistency/experience means Vettel still has a clear advantage over him over the season. (Well I guess you were closer than most of us there).

Ferrari
A fast car and not far off the top two, (no)
but let down by being a little down in horsepower, (Wow, understatement much?!!)

Alonso wins in Monaco, and spurred on by inter-team rivalry, outscores the Finn over the season. The two have some very close encounters where body work comes off, with a slanging match over the radio and post-race ensuing. (no)

McLaren
A better car than last year, which isn't hard, but just down on the pace over the top three. They'll return to the podium this year, but not quite enough to return to the top step. (yup good call)

Button and Magnussen quality near each other all season, with Button having the more points in the first half, but Magnussen putting in better weekend performances in the second half. (pretty close prediction)
but paddock is impressed with Magnussen and hope he can build on a solid (not spectacular) first season. (yep pretty much that)

Force India
Hulkenberg finally makes the right move as Sauber languish towards the back, and Lotus' troubles continue (more on that later). (Good call)

Although the top four are a clear top four, Force India finish in 5th thanks to a couple of podiums due to reliability and generally good drives from Perez and Hulkenberg who both shine and mix it with the McLarens at time at particular circuits. (er, sorta but not really)

While Perez gets his mojo back at times, Hulkenberg shines brightest, and everyone is still bemused when he still doesn't get snapped up by the big four. (ditto)

Williams
Williams return to the points on a more regular basis than last year (again... not hard) thanks to a consistent but not spectacular car. (sometimes it seems more spectacular but not consistent but I don't know)

Massa and Bottas are close all year alternating most weekends. (on pure pace but not in points)
Massa gets a podium at some point thanks to a crazy race, and the little Brazilian couldn't look any happier. (haha yep, I didn't see him getting a podium at this point)

Toro Rosso
Another season of the same for STR as they show promise at times but mostly go out slap bang in the middle of Q2, except for the odd race where they show no pace, and Kyvat goes out in Q1, then the races where they seemingly pull it out of the bag, and Kyvat squeezes into Q3. Kyvat outscores Vergne despite being up and down all year. (yeah kinda)

Lotus
Money, money, money... or lack of it dogs the Lotus boys all year. The car is unreliable and a pig to drive, and they're always playing catch up, with a B-spec car talked about but never quite emerging. Maldonado has a horror of a year running into other cars, and looks a picture of frustration and uninterest all season. Grosjean easily performs better, but struggles with the car, and his late-2013 form is forgotten, causing frustration to settle in a couple of times. (pretty much spot on! Nice one)

Sauber
The car struggles from Day 1, ...the car is slow and down on power.(YES!)
Sutil outperforms Guttierez all season, (not sure)
and picks up a few points, (um nope not so far...)
but a disaster of a season. Sirotkin is talked about mid-season replacing Sutil but never quite happens as the team struggle with money. (there was talk of van der Garde taking over)

Marussia
Marussia scores two points!! A chaotic race with a large number of retirees, allow Bianchi to take a 9th place early in the season. (BLOODY HELL! You win a prize! The cucumber sandwich Taz agreed to make me if Nico wins)

Chilton is nowhere. The car is better than the Caterham but still off the rest of the field, but Bianchi gets something out of the car and looks impressive in the races. (yeah pretty much)

Caterham
Caterham finish last again and the talk of a takeover emerges around mid-season. (Another perfect call)
Kobayashi outperforms Ericsson who has a couple of good drives in his debut season, but being at the back with the Marussias, it doesn't impress as everyone's eyes are on Bianchi. (Yeah pretty much)


All in all, minardi's prediction was very good actually. Well done. :)

[rjbetty]

Whenever Nick "Bernie" Jones has some time to spare and set it up I guess.

Thanks rjbetty for that I really enjoyed it. Cant see Ricciardo finishing the championship ahead of Vettel though.

As for FGP, Aki Hedghog Racing Team has major dealings afoot.

Just thought I'd drag this post up from after I did my test season on Grand Prix 2 in February. Amazing how the game got some things right. :D

[jens]

In retrospect I am a bit sad I wasn't a bit more bold in some predictions, because the "direction" was right, i.e Mercedes having the best power unit.

But I wanted to comment on one of the pre-season ponderings about midfield teams and what has happened.


Interesting thoughts about midfield teams. To me one of the main questions is if any of the "standard" midfield teams can impress with reg changes and do what Lotus did in 2012 - break clear of the midfield and become a remote front-runner.

The answer is YES! Williams! Wow, didn't expect that. But they are a "remote frontrunner", half-regular podium contender just like Lotus was. And about to finish third in the constructors championship. Great stuff!

Team-by-team. Results in bold include placings in the previous regulation era (2009-2013)

Force India - 6th, 7th, 6th, 7th, 9th.

Same old, same old. 6th again, now despite the best PU. I personally had thought maybe Force India could have the best chance of becoming a „surprise midfield team“, but didn’t happen. Their chassis department is still not good enough.

Sauber – 7th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 6th

10th (!) this year, by far the worst I can remember. Financial problems compounded by poor power unit have seen them dropping to their greatest low. Can they fight back?

Williams – 9th, 8th, 9th, 6th, 7th

3rd. Wow, this is an opposite example. A turnaround! The last time Williams finished in top3 in the constructors, was... 2003. Can they stay there though? Are their finances good enough for long-term success? Or are they like Lotus of 2012-2013?

STR – 8th, 9th, 8th, 9th, 10th

Toro Rosso is about to finish 7th this year, which is their second best ever results (6th in 2008). But in terms of performance STR is still where it usually has been, point-score is still modest. Their position in WCC has been helped by Lotus and Sauber being as rubbish as they have been.


These current midfield teams have been "status quo" for five consecutive years already. None of them has a huge budget or a significant change in ownership and all leave an impression it could be the same ol' story in the new 2014 V6T regulation era as well. Only to be potentially joined by Lotus in midfield battles.

Well, certainly Lotus has now joined the group of these „firm midfield teams“, while Williams has pulled clear for now.

[rjbetty]

I was just reading over this original post Jens.


The answer is YES! Williams! Wow, didn't expect that. But they are a "remote frontrunner", half-regular podium contender just like Lotus was. And about to finish third in the constructors championship. Great stuff!

The same thing came to mind when I read the "remote frontrunner" comment.

[jens]

I am glad I got the drivers and constructors World Champions right, even if not much anything else.:p: At least McLaren and Force India look very close to spot on.

[steveaki13]

I got my predictions last year quite accurate but with this seasons rule changes its more difficult.

1. Sebastian Vettel 287
2. Lewis Hamilton 263
3. Fernando Alonso 255
4. Kimi Raikkonen 211
5. Nico Rosberg 196
6. Jenson Button 174
7. Daniel Ricciardo 168
8. Romain Grosjean 156
9. Nico Hulkenbberg 77
10. Magnussen 75
11. Pastor Maldonado 68
12. Sergio Perez 51
13. Felipe Massa 42
14. JE Vergne 36
15. Adrian Sutil 26
16. Valterri Bottas 21
17. Esteban Gutierrez 17
18. Kyvatt 15
19. Jules Bianchi 1
20. Kobayashi 0
21. VD Garde 0
22. Max Chilton 0

1. Ferrari 466
2. Mercedes 459
3. Red Bull 455
4. McLaren 249
5. Lotus 224
6. Force India 128
7. Williams 63
8. Toro Rosso 51
9. Sauber 43
10. Marussia 1
11. Caterham 0

That's my workings. I really am not sure though. Cant wait to find out.

Wow I was way off.

Enough said. Although this was before any launches

[steveaki13]

Daniel Ricciardo - I don't think unless Red Bull produce a monster of a car, that Daniel will be supporting Vettel much and will be looking for some podiums and maybe a win. Next season he should move on and push Seb.


hmmm..... Not quite then



Mercedes - I fancy they might produce the car that finally gives them a shot, however if they get it wrong again and they still cant compete for the title I do worry that Mercedes may withdraw.

They might???

I think any fear of withdrawal has gone :p



Fernando Alonso - We all know how good he is, but I fear he may never win another title if the Ferrari is not good this year, because he may get frustrated and leave, but then is there a top seat left for 2015?



This is pretty much as it turned out I guess



Kimi Raikkonen - I like Kimi, he says it like it is and races hard. I think he will annoy Fernando and make this a battle to remember, we have seen these two race against each other all the way through their careers and now side by side its going to be fun.

Or not




Lotus - Judging by the car being delayed and some comments by the team boss. I worry that Lotus are going to sink away. And of course the driver line up is weaker than 2013.

Their line up was weaker and they did sink away



Force India - A team that varies from season to season and from race to race in those seasons. I hope to see them stayed up there, with there two drivers they have a chance of decent results.

Did have decent results, but did not stay up there



Sergio Perez - Still cant decide on him. Looked average, then great at Sauber over his seasons there. Then up and down at McLaren again. I don't see him matching Hulkenberg over the season, but could spring the odd decent result.
Pretty close I would say




Williams - Who knows. 2011 barely score a point then, 2012 win a race and run in points many weekends. Then 2013 and barely scoring a point again.

Felipe Massa - I like Felipe but probably his career is mostly over but nether the less I think he could score some points for the team.

Valterri Bottas - I like this guy and give him a better car and regular points could follow.


I under rated Williams massively but the drivers did OK



Kyvat - Don't rate him massively but lets give him a bit of time.



I still don't rate him massively but he now has a Red Bull seat.



Marussia - I would like to think that the redesign of the cars for 2014, but see them close in and tag onto the back of the field, and maybe score a point.



They did score a point, but I did not predict their demise.

Overall my 2014 predictions were shockingly bad.

[Doc Austin]

Overall my 2014 predictions were shockingly bad.

I did not make any predictions because I knew I would probably be so wrong!

There are so many variables that auto racing is always hard to predict. The complex new cars made that even more difficult, and Mercedes dominance was hard to see coming. It would have also been hard to predict that Ferrari would have the worst performing engine.

[henners88]

I am hoping its Mercedes year and we see Hamilton get the second Championship I think he has deserved. Just wish I could get my enthusiasm back! This is the first year for many where I haven't really kept up with testing and the first time I can remember where a colleague has asked me what is going on and I haven't been able to answer! :erm:

Just over a month until the first live race though, hopefully it'll rain in Malaysia. Australia is already written off. :)

Well my hopes came true and even though I've missed more races this year than I have in the last 20 seasons, it was still enjoyable to see my favourite driver clinch his second title. This was improved even more so by not arguing with cretins on the Internet which almost soured my last experience of Hamilton winning a title. A tough year at times but a thrilling team mate battle and I hope the other teams close the gap over the winter. Everything Lewis achieves now is a bonus and he can look back on a great career.

[minardi]

Going to quickly get my short predictions in just before the green line goes on for the start of testing.

Mercedes
A close season between Red Bull and Mercedes, but the Silver Arrows edge both championships, with Hamilton taking his second crown… just. Hamilton and Rosberg are close all year but Rosberg gets the bad luck of the team, allowing Hamilton to be #1 in the run up to the finale.

Red Bull
As said before, very close all year between the Red Bulls and Mercedes, but Vettel's car finally gets the bad luck with the car that MW had the past few seasons, which allow Mercedes to get the edge. Ricciardo has good performances and is closer to Vettel at points than expected, but consistency/experience means Vettel still has a clear advantage over him over the season.

Ferrari
A fast car and not far off the top two, but let down by being a little down in horsepower, which in a very close season, is enough to see them in third. Alonso wins in Monaco, and spurred on by inter-team rivalry, outscores the Finn over the season. The two have some very close encounters where body work comes off, with a slanging match over the radio and post-race ensuing.

McLaren
A better car than last year, which isn't hard, but just down on the pace over the top three. They'll return to the podium this year, but not quite enough to return to the top step. Button and Magnussen quality near each other all season, with Button having the more points in the first half, but Magnussen putting in better weekend performances in the second half. They finish close together with Button just ahead, but paddock is impressed with Magnussen and hope he can build on a solid (not spectacular) first season.

Force India
Hulkenberg finally makes the right move as Sauber languish towards the back, and Lotus' troubles continue (more on that later). Although the top four are a clear top four, Force India finish in 5th thanks to a couple of podiums due to reliability and generally good drives from Perez and Hulkenberg who both shine and mix it with the McLarens at time at particular circuits. While Perez gets his mojo back at times, Hulkenberg shines brightest, and everyone is still bemused when he still doesn't get snapped up by the big four.

Williams
Williams return to the points on a more regular basis than last year (again... not hard) thanks to a consistent but not spectacular car. Massa and Bottas are close all year alternating most weekends. Massa gets a podium at some point thanks to a crazy race, and the little Brazilian couldn't look any happier.

Toro Rosso
Another season of the same for STR as they show promise at times but mostly go out slap bang in the middle of Q2, except for the odd race where they show no pace, and Kyvat goes out in Q1, then the races where they seemingly pull it out of the bag, and Kyvat squeezes into Q3. Kyvat outscores Vergne despite being up and down all year.

Lotus
Money, money, money... or lack of it dogs the Lotus boys all year. The car is unreliable and a pig to drive, and they're always playing catch up, with a B-spec car talked about but never quite emerging. Maldonado has a horror of a year running into other cars, and looks a picture of frustration and uninterest all season. Grosjean easily performs better, but struggles with the car, and his late-2013 form is forgotten, causing frustration to settle in a couple of times.

Sauber
The car struggles from Day 1, and despite topping a test session, it's a bluff and the car is slow and down on power. Sutil outperforms Guttierez all season, and picks up a few points, but a disaster of a season. Sirotkin is talked about mid-season replacing Sutil but never quite happens as the team struggle with money.

Marussia
Marussia scores two points!! A chaotic race with a large number of retirees, allow Bianchi to take a 9th place early in the season. Chilton is nowhere. The car is better than the Caterham but still off the rest of the field, but Bianchi gets something out of the car and looks impressive in the races.

Caterham
Caterham finish last again and the talk of a takeover emerges around mid-season. Kobayashi outperforms Ericsson who has a couple of good drives in his debut season, but being at the back with the Marussias, it doesn't impress as everyone's eyes are on Bianchi.

Been away a while... not too bad.

[Tazio]

..

[Tazio]

dp

[steveaki13]

Hi Minardi :wave:

[rjbetty]

Time to rake up my own predictions now:


As for unreliability, I am relishing a greater taste of this in 2014. Sadly I don't think it will be like old times as people are saying - certainly not that bloodbath someone said recently. I think the increase in unreliability will be much less dramatic than predicted
I'm pretty happy with that prediction, though unreliability was even less than my conservative guess of between 4-8 retirements per race.


Red Bull - Renault
I believe the hopes that Red Bull will be toppled by Mercedes have at least some wishful thinking involved... ...I would say at worst, they will be a smidgen off Mercedes.
Ohhhh not quite.


Even if Renault are down on power, and even if their engine is not the overall best, I still see Red Bull having the best, or just about the best overall package.
Bear in mind I wrote this before pre-season testing and the well documented catastrophe... And they DID have the best chassis it seemed.


Despite what people say about Mercedes, I am going to install Vettel as the favourite.
I think I overrated Seb tbh. I was wrong.


Daniel Ricciardo is of course a big unknown. Frankly, he hasn't been able to put any major points on the board, in the way that Alonso and Vettel did for the same team. This must be a concern... ...He won't be a disaster, but the jury is well and truly still out.
The court has reached it's verdict - a great success (overinflated according to some, yet their favourite driver never being guilty of the same!)

[rjbetty]

Mercedes
We have been hearing things like their engine having a 100bhp advantage. There is a lot of hype going on here.
Wasn't far from the truth actually!


But my instinct tells me that though Mercedes will duly enjoy their best season yet, there is still more hype than substance. I don't see them utterly dominating and Red Bull struggling.
Man I REALLY need to work on my instincts. *massive facepalm*
To be fair, how many times did Mercedes look good pre-season only to flatter to deceive come season proper? Every single time until this year.


All this means that it could well be Nico Rosberg who is professional enough to take up the fight. If the Mercedes is really as good as some hope, I see him getting the WDC job done this year.

I was so sure of this, I'd have put money on him if I had it. Late season I did, so lost out.


He seems a driver who does better in a better car and comes ahead of Lewis more through studious, diligent work and application than outright raw talent I feel. I mean imagine Nico winning in a pig of a car. His wins have all come from the front/been inherited. Lewis is still the one who transcends.
Well that's kinda what most felt anyway? Nico did study his way to success this year, poring over Lewis' data like revising for an exam. It did the trick and helped him close the gap. I can't understand why Merc gave him that dossier if they were screwing him to support Lewis all along... Unless they weren't!


Nico surprised most of us last year with his closeness in pace and performance to Hamilton. This led to some hyperbole and stuff saying he was better than Hamilton. I've tried to be as objective as I can, but still fully believe that Hamilton did marginally the better job.
This is still the case this year, and I still feel the same. Actually, I think Lewis was far more convincing against Nico than in 2013, reading between the lines. Nico outqualified him many times but Lewis simply lacking pace was rare if not non-existent.


The WDC may be out of reach again (by a little or a lot?), the WCC can be a real possibilty.
Well got the WCC right but not the WDC.




Ferrari
Another season, another set of hopes for the titles. This is beginning to look like the late 90's all over again. To be blunt, why are things going to be different this time? ...If anything, major regulation changes are prime conditions for the scud to lose yet more ground.
Called it right. *feels pleased with self*


Alonso and Raikkonen could find themselves consigned to 4th and 5th places this season with not too many podiums.
Nailed it.


...even if the worst happens, they should be fairly safe in 3rd in the constructors.
Aw had to spoil the good run with that... :(

[rjbetty]

There are now too many egos in the team, and this all looks very volatile. If there are any on track issues - team-mate collisions, or getting lost on performance again, this could all come to a head.
I think I did pretty well here. I mean Domenicalli, Marmorini, di Montezemelo, and Alonso! All gone.


Now some fans are claiming Raikkonen is the best driver in the world and will come in and show Fernando around. This reminds me of when Fisichella joined Renault for 2005 and many people, notably respected journalist Tony Dodgins made bold declarations and predictions for Fisi.
Think I nailed this. Kimi somehow managed to fare even worse than Fisi...


I think it will be more like the Hamilton/Button partnership at McLaren. I truly believe that if Fernando is himself, he should definitely come out on top.
Naw, Raikkonen just didn't switch it on at all really, and cost Ferrari 3rd overall...


...if this does happen to Fernando (self destructs), then we will never hear the end of it from Kimi fans.
Ouch did I have to say that. I was feeling slightly narked cos Kimi won best driver of 2013 on crash net, and I felt he was very good but not that good. That's probably where this came from.



Lotus - RenaultMy prediction is that they will have similar form to what they had in 2011. It could even be slightly worse. It was slightly worse!


Pastor has shown a very different attitude to Grosjean... and he could well self-destruct (and take the team down with him thru reckless crashes etc). Few expect him to topple Romain, and rightly so.
Actually, Pastor has probably fared better off track than Grosjean! The rest of it was fairly correct


Therefore, Maldonado may not be a totally hopeless case.
Brave words - and I still stand by them! Am I crazy?


...it's probably much more likely he will be rattled by Grosjean and get his knickers in a massive twist, causing problems for all.Crashing a lot with money sparse didn't help.


I expect nothing better than Renault 2007/2011/McLaren 2013 kind of form from Lotus in 2014, and depending on Maldonado and other things, they could have trouble with Force India too.
Well it was worse than that, and they got nowhere near Force India. Where's my later prediction of a Benetton 2001 season? Come on, I called that just right!

[rjbetty]

McLaren-Mercedes[/b]]
...they won't suffer as badly this year. 2014 may be to 2013 as 2008 was to 2007 for Renault, an improvement.[/ quote]
Well in the end I was probably right on the money? Yes?

[quote]...Jenson being 1.0-1.2sec or so off the pace, maybe 1.5 if the gaps are really big through the field.
I'm claiming this one. Jenson was +1.56 off Rosberg I think.


Wins? Ohhh I'm not sure. How about podiums this time. That seems realistic. I wouldn't expect more than 2 wins max though even in the best case scenario. But overall a decent enough recovery ready for 2015.
Not a bad guess.


I can't really see him matching Jenson for speed first year round, [/b](nailed it)[/b] but then Perez outqualified him 10-9... I think Magnussen could actually finish 8th in the WDC. I don't think he will be totally inconsistent and down the pack. Ummm not so sure about the 2nd bit...

[rjbetty]

Force India - Mercedes
As a team that invariably produces a solid car year in year out, Force India should be in pretty good shape in 2014.

But interestingly in Gerhard Berger's interview, he said that Hulk was a little overhyped. despite liking Nico very much, I have thought this. ...there is a nagging doubt that he may not be A+ material, just A.

I think Perez may actually surprise some people in how close he is to Hulkenberg

If it's all able to gel, Force India should be in for a swag of points. The Mercedes is the engine to have, it appears. Maybe talk of regular podiums and even wins should be cast down for a more realistic single podium, or maybe two.

Yep I think FI had a good car. Didn't predict the money woes/no development though.
Sadly my thoughts about Nico could be true for now...
Perez maybe did surprise against Hulk.
They did get a swag of points, until the money ran out.
I was right about the more realistic single podium or two!

[jens]

Well, Rj. Great hindsight.:D I tried to read this thread from the beginning, but so-so much analysis and discussion about all kinds of details that it is pretty hard to deepen into all of this now.:D

One thing was confirmed once again though - that predictions are always too much based on previous season. And seems there is nothing to do about that, it seems so human regardless of what you do.

Especially when a new era begins, you must be very bold and predict something completely new.

2014 - it was easy to think "oh Red Bull has been so great, they must be up there." No! Mercedes dominates.
2009 - Ferrari and McLaren are great teams, they must be up there. No! Brawn and Red Bull dominate.
1998 - Williams have been having best cars for many years, they must be pretty good. No! McLaren dominates.
And so on.

Forget about the past, new era is a new era!

And were I to make a 2015 prediction now - yeah, needless to say, it would look pretty similar to 2014 pecking orders... Will never learn I guess. But what should I predict to change now?!?! No massive rule changes for 2015, even the engine is frozen.

But at least it will give a good consideration, what to predict, when next time major rule changes come around.:) Rule #1: Forget about the last year, it doesn't exist. Imagine F1 starts from the beginning again, this new season is the first ever F1 season. And that's how the pecking orders usually develop in new eras...

[steveaki13]

1998, 2009 & 2014 have all see massive rule changes and hence the change in order I guess.

1999 It stayed very similar

2010 - Red Bull stayed up there after the 2009 rule change.

So 2015 could well see a similar order and Mercedes will probably be at the front again

[jens]

1998, 2009 & 2014 have all see massive rule changes and hence the change in order I guess.

1999 It stayed very similar

2010 - Red Bull stayed up there after the 2009 rule change.

So 2015 could well see a similar order and Mercedes will probably be at the front again

I have noticed that even if order remains "relatively similar" there are still some small changes. For example in 1999 Jordan and Frentzen, despite being slower than McLaren-Ferrari again, went on to have a remote shot at the championship. That's a pretty big shock and vastly different to 1998! And Stewart was very good in 1999 as well.

If I am trying to recall two truly very similar years, 1994-1995 come to mind. It was almost a carbon copy. Benetton-Williams at the front, then Ferrari, then McLaren with unreliable car/engines, then Jordan-Ligier-Sauber, then others. The difference was that in 1995 #2 drivers of Williams and Benetton stayed the same all year, so finished 3rd and 4th WDC. While in 1994 they were changed all the time, so Berger in the Ferrari was comfortably third.

But other than that I am struggling to remember two truly almost identical successive years. So what about 2015? :D At least something has got to change, even if not regarding Mercedes, then somewhere behind them.

[rjbetty]

I have noticed that even if order remains "relatively similar" there are still some small changes. For example in 1999 Jordan and Frentzen, despite being slower than McLaren-Ferrari again, went on to have a remote shot at the championship. That's a pretty big shock and vastly different to 1998! And Stewart was very good in 1999 as well.

If I am trying to recall two truly very similar years, 1994-1995 come to mind. It was almost a carbon copy. Benetton-Williams at the front, then Ferrari, then McLaren with unreliable car/engines, then Jordan-Ligier-Sauber, then others. The difference was that in 1995 #2 drivers of Williams and Benetton stayed the same all year, so finished 3rd and 4th WDC. While in 1994 they were changed all the time, so Berger in the Ferrari was comfortably third.

But other than that I am struggling to remember two truly almost identical successive years. So what about 2015? :D At least something has got to change, even if not regarding Mercedes, then somewhere behind them.

How about 2007-2008. I always regarded them as similar, though Vettel in the Toro Rosso caused an upset.

I actually think 1995-1996 even with many driver changes.

As for the WCC, I tip McLaren to move up, possibly to 2nd. The most likely change is Lotus who I think will grab 6th.

[jens]

How about 2007-2008. I always regarded them as similar, though Vettel in the Toro Rosso caused an upset.

I actually think 1995-1996 even with many driver changes.

As for the WCC, I tip McLaren to move up, possibly to 2nd. The most likely change is Lotus who I think will grab 6th.

2007-2008 is a good call, though the seasons had some kind of a different vibe. In 2007 nobody could get close to McLaren and Ferrari, they won all races that year. But in 2008 somehow we got lots of different race winners (Alonso twice, Kubica, Vettel) and somehow Ferrari and McLaren were much more vulnerable even if they were still the best.

In 2015 terms it would mean that Mercedes would still win the championship (relatively comfortably), but would be much more vulnerable in race wins and would lose about close to half of the race wins during the season to other teams. Do we think this could possibly happen?

This also reminds 1988-1989. In 1988 McLaren was vastly dominant by win ratio of 15/16. In 1989 they were still the best, but ratio had dropped to 10/16.