F1 2012: The Preview

It is fair to say, with the changes to F1 over the winter, returning drivers and rookie talent the F1 2012 season could not be set up any better. We also have a brand new Grand Prix in the US to look forward to.

(c) Octane Photographic

So this is part 4 of my F1 2012 season preview. It is titled “the preview” because I will be previewing all the drivers and teams, reviewing how they fared over the winter and what their expectations are. I will also be looking at the new US GP track and previewing the Australian Grand Prix.

The 2011 season was a great spectacle at the front, the midfield and the trailing pack; but the leading driver was dominant. Sebastian Vettel put together a Michael Schumacher 2001/2002/2004-esque campaign to win a second title. He will be hoping the RB8, with its distinctive step nose letter box vent, will be competitive this year. Could he take a 3^rd world title? We will have to wait and see. Mark Webber has been consistently off Vettel’s pace in testing but whether that’s due to different set ups and programmes is yet to be seen. He will want to be fighting at the front and beating Vettel, which I think is quite possible. Red Bull have Adrian Newey as their weapon of domination, I think thanks to the banning of blown diffusers we could see the pack close up but Red Bull will be up there for sure.

(c) Octane Photographic

Mclaren had a disastrous 2011 winter testing and Lewis Hamilton highlighted that on one day of Barcelona Testing, he completed more laps than the team did 12 months earlier in the whole test. They shocked everyone in 2011 by being Red Bull’s nearest challenger with both Button and Hamilton producing solid point’s drives and the odd win here and there. In fact, some of the best wins of the season came from the Mclaren drivers such as Germany and Canada. For 2012 the team have expectations to be at the front and close the gap to Red Bull. In testing they have been incredibly quick in the short and long runs which is an extremely positive sign. Jenson Button has been in a good place in his life for a while now and he is extremely positive and relaxed, especially after such a good and consistent 2011 season. Lewis Hamilton has admitted he was not in the right zone in 2011 which caused a number of catastrophic errors like in Belgium and Monaco. He is ready to put these right however, and is rearing to go in Australia. I definitely think Mclaren can beat Red Bull but behind them I think there will be a fair few other teams ready to challenge. Plus they have the benefit of having the best looking car on the grid, always a bonus.

The Ferrari F2012 seems to have hit every branch on the ugly tree, and a few more, on its road to the F1 2012 season. It is hoped that the car can bring Ferrari further forward and challenge consistently for wins, something they did not do in 2011. Last year, Ferrari scored just 1 win. For any other team they would rate that season as being good, but Ferrari rated it as a pretty bad campaign. Speaking of pretty, their new car is not. It also has been slow in winter testing with the team changing a number of components and developments to try and help Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso find the right balance and confidence. They have even ditched their new exhaust for a simpler version to try and solve the problems. Alonso is ready to race, and win, but I think it could take some time in 2012 before he could challenge. He scored 1 win last year at the British Grand Prix but had one of his more reserved campaigns, sticking more to the latter end of the podium or best of the rest. He will want that to change. Massa is on his last lifeline. After his horrific accident in Hungary 2009 he does not seem to be the same. Has that really affected his driving? Despite a season long side pod scraping scrap with Lewis Hamilton in 2011 it was only because Hamilton had fallen back due to mistake or accident, not because Felipe was that strong. He has to be better in 2012 if he wants to keep his drive for 2013 and beyond.

Mercedes have a 7 time world champion in the driving seat, and another who has shown raw pace but in a simply “ok” car, which is partly the reason we have not seen Schumacher and Rosberg factor too much in the podium race. In fact, the team’s best result in 2011 was a single 4^th place for Schumacher at the rain affected Canadian Grand Prix. Despite more points finishes in 2011 they still scored worse results than their debut year as Mercedes in 2010 where Rosberg scored three 3^rd places. The team unveiled the W03 car at the 2^nd test, instead using the 2011 car at the 1^st test. Whether this came as a disadvantage or not will only be seen in Australia, but they surely are on the back foot in terms of gathering the amount of data and knowledge about the car because there was only so much they could gather from testing the 2011 car. 2012’s winter testing saw the W03 be reliable but not exactly setting the standings alight. In the 2 tests they had with their 2012 spec car they completed some of the most laps of any of the teams. As for expectations they want to be fighting with Ferrari and maybe even Mclaren. Schumacher and Rosberg both expect podiums and maybe a win so the bar is high, whether they can achieve that is what I am unsure about. Maybe towards the end of the season but I fear they could be ending the season win less again.

Lotus Renault GP has now morphed into the Lotus F1 Team and with that change brings a whole new driver line up. Not 1 driver, racing or reserve, has been retained for the new season. They have scored big with the returning 2007 world champion Kimi Raikkonen, who partners GP2 champion Romain Grosjean who returns to the team after driving for them, when they were known as Renault, in 2009. Jerome D’Ambrosio also left the now Marussia team to join them as their reserve driver. 2011 saw the team gain podiums at the beginning but slip back at the end. Their controversial and innovative 2011 design led to the creation of the blown diffuser which has now been banned. Now, looking on to 2012, they have had 2 successful winter tests out of 3. They topped the times 3 times out of 4 at the 3^rd and final test as well as topping the times at the 1^st test too. It was that one in-between that caused the trouble. After just 7 laps Grosjean entered the pits and said the car did not seem and feel right. They searched for the problem and discovered a damaged chassis which had to be flown back to the factory, meaning their test was over after just 7 laps. Whether this will affect them going into Melbourne is unknown but they will be contenders for the podiums for sure, particularly Raikkonen.

(c) Octane Photographic

Force India had their best year yet in 2011 after finishing the 6^th in the constructor’s title. It was a sharp contrast to their debut year in 2008 where they did not even score a single point. After such a strong year with drivers Adrian Sutil and Paul Di Resta it was a shock for the former driver to be ditched. Was it partly due to his Chinese GP nightclub brawl with Renault man Eric Lux? Possibly, but it is surely a strong talent lost. Now they have drafted in Nico Hulkenberg to create one of the youngest partnerships on the grid. After getting strong backing and financial investment from Indian group Sahara and their VJM05 car looking fast in winter testing the “only way is up” for Force India in 2012.

Sauber are the only team, bar the top 4, to keep their driver line up for 2012. After seeing their year pan out in 2011 there was no reason not to retain Kamui Kobayashi and Sergio Perez. They both scored decent results in a car which, especially in the mid-season, was struggling at times. A highlight for the year was Kobayashi’s 5^th in Monaco but it was bitter sweet after Perez crashed heavily in qualifying the day before and had to recover in hospital. They also started strongly in Australia with 7^th and 8^th place finishes but they were disqualified through no fault but the teams after it was found they had broken one of the sporting regulations. They unveiled their C31 just before the first test and despite it not having the looks; it has shown to be a competitive car. Perez and Kobayashi have both had their turn at the top and have faced no major gremlins. The plan for 2012, probably to score consistent points (something every midfield team want) and finish races. The midfield is looking likely to be quite tight so Sauber will be cautious that one slip up could mean falling to the back of the pack.

Toro Rosso are another team to completely ditch their 2011 line up, replacing them with younger, fresher faced Red Bull backed youngsters. After having a strong 2011 compared to the year before, they decided to part ways with Jaime Alguersuari and Sebastian Buemi. The later seeked refuge at Red Bull as their reserve driver but the former revealed his shock after being reassured by the team he would be driving for them in 2012. They have been replaced by HRT’s 2011 driver Daniel Ricciardo, his experience of racing so far being extremely valuable as he embarks on his first full campaign, and French driver Jean-Eric Vergne. They have shown that their 2012 STR7 car has the pace to be at the top of the midfield but some big setbacks in testing have proven their car needs some work to get it to become reliable. Whether they can transfer this into point scoring pace, I highly bet they will.

Williams, where did it all go wrong? After challenging for titles as recent as 2004 they have slowly slipped down the order. No doubt about it, 2011 was one of their worst campaigns. Just 5 points were scored in a ratio of 4:1 in Barrichello’s favour, but yet he was the one that was dropped for 2012 and not Maldonado, someone who has coined the term “pay driver”. After 19 seasons in F1 Barrichello bowed out of F1 to be replaced by the Nephew of Rubens’ hero Ayrton Senna, Bruno. He raced in the latter half of 2011 for the Lotus Renault GP team and has shown he can be quick, but it’s about keeping that consistent. Williams have had a big shake up in their team, with some major team personnel being replaced, in the hopes new people can help bring the team forward. In testing it seems they were even further off the pace than before but the last test showed they are still in the fight for points. I really hope Williams can battle at the front of the midfield but I fear it is more likely it will be Senna than Maldonado.

Team Lotus has now been re-launched as Caterham and with that, they have roped in Vitaly Petrov as a late winter replacement for Jarno Trulli. The team are pushing forward and will have KERS for the first time this year, in the hope of joining the midfield. After mixing it with the Williams and Sauber drivers at the end of 2011 the Caterham F1 Team want a taste of more midfield action, maybe even points in the right situation. Winter testing has shown that they are closing the gap, possibly not quite there at the first 2 tests but they impressed in the final test to be beating some of the more established and better funded teams. It is now apparent that team owner Tony Fernandes has done incredible things with this little team. I expect them to be in the midfield pack in 2012 just like they hope to be, and I really would love to see the first Caterham points.

(c) Octane Photographic

HRT have yet again started the year on the back foot. They failed a number of crash tests and have missed every test bar 1, which was in the 2011 car, and have started the year as unprepared as the last 2. They have drafted in experienced tester Pedro De La Rosa to help bring the team forward and close the gap to the midfield. It is fair to say the F112 is one of the better looking cars when it was launched on a media filming day, but whether it can be competitive is unlikely. Karthikeyan, the teams other driver, is said to be happy with getting 10 laps in the car under his belt but surely they would have been happier with a few hundred from a winter test. So why leave it so late? What fundamental thing is stopping them being more prepared? It could be budget; it could be that the team have just relocated to Madrid? But surely 2012 will just be HRT and Marussia at the back as the rest of the field power away, well that what I see in the future anyway.

Marussia are another team who failed the initial FIA crash tests. It was revealed they failed 1 of the 18 and so had to miss the final test to sort the problem out. Like HRT they have had limited running of their 2012 car, which avoids the stepped nose, which has put them on the back foot. Bringing in Charles Pic as their 2^nd driver alongside Timo Glock has meant that the young Frenchman will be thrown into the deep end during Melbourne’s FP1. So why are they so unprepared like HRT? That last crash test failure was a major blow for the team as they planned to test at the 3^rd and final meet, but they couldn’t. Whether they will be with HRT, ahead of behind them is unclear but they will certainly be in that large gap between Caterham and the back of the pack.

There you have it, a review and preview of all of the 2012 teams and drivers. They will be embarking on the 20 race long season pretty soon and their journey will take them all over the world, 1 of which is to America. They will return to the US after a 5 year absence to the new Austin track in Texas, named the “circuit of the America’s. The layout looks good, with a mixture of medium speed straights and an array of different styled corners to test the drivers. It also looks, from sketches and artist impressions due to it still being built, exciting with the circuit elevations and a number of overtaking places. The FIA were unsure that it would be on the calendar after financial and permission problems but it is now back on track and even ahead of schedule after workers worked through the nights to get it ready for its date in November.

Now let’s look on to the Australian Grand Prix. The popular Albert Park track runs alongside stunning city centre parkland and lakes but is quite unforgiving. Due to its street style nature it is lined by challenging barriers which when combined with difficult corners creates an exciting spectacle. Australia has kicked off the F1 season 15 times and is one of the most exciting on the calendar for fans, spectators and the teams, with over 300,000 people attending each year. FP1 is a true test of who is prepared and is key to learning about the cars. With the banning of the blown diffusers, the cars have lost a lot of down force which could make the circuit tricky. It combines mainly high and medium speed corners with short straights. The drivers love it too, with its bumpy and challenging nature being one of the perfect ways to start a season.

You will have to set your alarms for an early start for all you European F1 fans who want to watch F1, with FP1 starting at 1AM. Qualifying is on Sky Sports F1 Channel 408 at 5AM and the race is live on Sky Sports F1 HD at 4.30AM for a 90 minutes build up.

The F1 2012 season looks like it could be one of the best we have seen, 6 world champions, a tight midfield and world class circuits it could be great. The fans too have great coverage with a dedicated F1 channel from Sky Sports, and the BBCF1 team live at 10 races and highlights for the rest, what more could we ask for.