A message to my readers

For those of you not already aware, I have an exciting announcement to make - as of today, I have finally achieved my long-standing goal of becoming a fully professional motorsport journalist after being invited to join the fast-growing team of writers at motorsport.com as UK Editor.

My appointment at motorsport.com is the culmination of a long, pain-staking process that begun in earnest just over five years ago, when I published my first post to this blog. I may only have had a relatively modest amount of hits since - about 23,500 as of the time of writing, which equates only to just over 100 hits per article - but the purpose of this blog was never to rack up of tens of thousands of hits, but to provide a vehicle to express my opinions and to hone my writing style. I like to think that I've achieved both of those aims; you need only to look back at some of my early work to see just how far I have progressed!

For some time now I haven't been able to update this blog as regularly as I'd have liked, but of course the demands of my new role mean that I will now have virtually no time to devote to it at all. As a result, I intend to turn it into something of a travel blog, documenting some of my adventures watching motor racing around the world in between dedicating myself to my new employers.

The events that I am attending this year and that I hope to cover in this way are:

- 24 Hours of Le Mans (13-14 June)
- Formula E at Battersea Park (27-28 June)
- DTM at Zandvoort (11-12 July)
- Belgian Grand Prix (22-23 August)
- IndyCar at Sonoma (29-30 August)

So, all that remains for me to say a very warm thank you for looking at this blog - I suppose everyone who's read anything of mine has, in a small way, helped me to get where I am today, and for that I am extremely grateful. Of course, I will be generating plenty of material this year over at motorsport.com, including reporting full-time on both the BTCC and British GT championships, so I encourage you to check the site out regularly for all your Formula 1 and motor racing news.

A 2015 F1 Season Preview (of sorts)

Anyone who watched last night's F1 Show on Sky Sports may have noticed an oddly familiar face lurking in the studio audience behind Simon Lazenby, Natalie Pinkham and co. That's because I was fortunate enough to attend the first recording of the new series at the Sky Studios in Brentford alongside my good friend Dougie Wilson, as evidenced by the below picture (I'm to the left of the fellow in the Lotus top, for the avoidance of doubt):

I should confess at this stage that I am in fact not a regular F1 Show viewer - I would describe it as perfectly decent, but hardly essential viewing for the motor racing fan, particularly later in the year when there are fewer obvious topics for discussion and when there is a tendency to rely more heavily on special guests and rather esoteric feature pieces.

But, being the first show of the year, there was happily much to discuss on this occasion, ranging from which teams shone in winter testing to the mystery surrounding Fernando Alonso's enforced lay-off from the season-opening Australian Grand Prix in a week's time and the recent resurrection of the Manor (née Marussia) squad. More on all that later, though.

For a regular viewer of Sky's F1 coverage, watching on as the presenters did their thing was something of a surreal experience, similar to that of watching Grand Prix cars in the flesh for the first time. It's a reminder that, for all the glitz and glamour of the F1 paddock, those fronting the coverage are really just ordinary human beings like you or I.

Not only that, but they are genuinely pleasant people, perhaps unsurprisingly given the nature of their work. Lazenby and Pinkham, along with the affable Johnny Herbert, made a real effort to interact with the audience both before and after the show, as well as during the ad breaks and VTs, making the whole business of standing up for an hour in a television studio a strangely enjoyable experience.

Indeed, after the show, I got to have a brief chat with Pinkham - I asked who her favourite drivers to interview were; Daniel Ricciardo, Valtteri Bottas and Jenson Button were the three names I got in return. When I asked whether there were any she was less keen on speaking to, she said there weren't, and that extracting a response from the famously laconic Kimi Raikkonen was a fun challenge!

Regrettably, the picture I had taken with her has to rank among the worst there's ever been of me - eyes shut, mouth agog and double chin in full view. A similar fate befell me when I bumped into Martin Brundle in the Monza pitlane last September, so perhaps I have some sort of allergy to Sky Sports presenters.

Moving swiftly on, Alonso's testing crash and its aftermath have understandably dominated the motor racing headlines in recent days. Though next weekend's curtain-raiser will be all the poorer without the Spaniard making his hotly anticipated McLaren-Honda bow, missing the race is unquestionably the right course of action, given the well documented risks associated with sustaining a second concussion so soon after the first.

That said, I still can't help but get the feeling that there's something amiss about the whole saga. Question marks remain over whether Alonso was indeed conscious at the time of his impact with the barriers at the Circuit de Catalunya, and it's not hard to see why McLaren would be keen to ensure Honda is spared the mortifying embarrassment of having to admit fault for the accident that has benched the team's multi-million dollar star signing.

Either way, McLaren's handling of the situation has been poor, much like its protracted dithering over finalising its 2015 drivers over the winter, with the Woking outfit seemingly contradicting their own press statements regarding Alonso's condition. Here's hoping that the FIA's investigation into the incident is able to shed some light where McLaren is seemingly unwilling to.

There's a certain irony in the fact that the team will be running the same line-up in Melbourne as last year, as Kevin Magnussen fills the breach alongside Button. For the Dane, it's an invaluable chance to show McLaren what they will be missing this season, assuming Alonso returns for Malaysia as expected, and perhaps to showcase himself to other potential suitors for 2016, given that Alonso and Button are both under contract for next season.

The other big story of the past couple of weeks has been the revival of the Manor team, a rare piece of good news that ensures that there will be 20, rather than just 18, cars on the grid in Australia. The man F1 fans have to thank for this is energy mogul and self-confessed petrolhead Stephen Fitzpatrick, who has reportedly invested £30m into the team known last year as Marussia to get the operation back on its feet.

The team's chief executive Graeme Lowdon - a true racer if ever there was one - and its only confirmed driver as of the time of writing, Will Stevens, were both present at the F1 Show recording, and I managed to share a word with the latter after the show. At least the picture I had with him wasn't quite as repulsive as my snap with Pinkham.

Stevens has spent the last three seasons in Formula Renault 3.5, in which his record would be best described as solid rather than spectacular, but proved on his one-off appearance for Caterham last year at Abu Dhabi that he's a perfectly competent operator behind the wheel of an F1 car. Asked how he found the transition from FR3.5, he remarked that the step up in power was the main difference, and that the cornering speeds were similar given the Caterham's woeful aerodynamic package.

The 23-year-old wouldn't be drawn on the identity of his Manor team-mate, although one name I mooted to him was former GP2 champion Fabio Leimer, who had been due to race in the Japanese-based Super Formula this season before splitting with his team yesterday. Stevens, who admitted that 2015 is likely to be largely a learning year, struck me as quite an intense and single-minded character, traits that will serve him well in the F1 paddock.

While Manor is likely to languish at the bottom of this year's constructors' table, running a modified version of last year's Marussia to begin with, winter testing suggests that Mercedes will almost certainly be the runaway victor once more this season. Nico Rosberg's best time at Catalunya was three tenths quicker than the nearest non-Mercedes, Bottas, despite being set on soft compound tyres and not the faster super-soft compound like the Williams driver.

That means fans are most probably in for another head-to-head battle between defending champion Lewis Hamilton and Rosberg as far as the drivers' crown is concerned. At 4/6, the Brit begins the season as heavy favourite to take a third title, but Sky Deutschland's Tanja Bauer advised the F1 Show audience not to write off the hopes of Rosberg, who, as she pointed out, should be stronger now with the experience of a title battle under his belt.

Testing suggests that the teams most likely to begin the year as best of the rest are Williams and Ferrari, whose James Allison-penned contender already looks to be a major step forward. Sebastian Vettel seems at home with his new employers, having regained his trademark boyish charm that he lacked during a subdued 2014, while Raikkonen, who struggled badly last year with a car lacking in front-end grip, also appears happier with his mount and will no doubt be eager to silence his critics.

Red Bull meanwhile still seem to be lagging somewhat, in no small part because of the travails of engine supplier Renault, but it should be remembered that Red Bull still bagged a (later disallowed) second-place finish following a dismal winter this time a year ago. What's more, Adrian Newey may no longer be involved with the Milton Keynes-based team on a day-to-day basis, but the RB11 still bears his hallmarks, and the design guru will doubtless have a bearing on its development.

Some pundits reckon there's plenty of potential locked away inside the aggressive Peter Prodromou-influenced McLaren, but it will be up to Honda to catch up with its rivals if the chassis' latent speed is to be realised. Winter testing will have come as a major wake-up call for a team that was talking up its chances of challenging Mercedes for Grand Prix wins off the bat, as well as a sober reminder that this is a long-term project and that both constructor and engine supplier will need to be patient.

As for the rest, the new Mercedes-powered Lotus looks solid, and should be a regular points contender, while the respective offerings from Toro Rosso and Sauber also both appear stronger than their predecessors. The team that could struggle most initially is Force India, which, owing to financial problems, only managed to complete two-and-a-half days of running with its 2015 car over the winter, but its Mercedes powerplant should help to mitigate their competitive slide to a degree.

Bearing in mind all of the above, here are my predictions for the top 10 in Melbourne, as well as for this year's championship:

Melbourne predictions: 1. Hamilton, 2. Rosberg, 3. Bottas, 4. Vettel, 5. Ricciardo, 6. Massa, 7. Raikkonen, 8. Grosjean, 9. Kvyat, 10. Verstappen

Season predictions: 1. Hamilton, 2. Rosberg, 3. Ricciardo, 4. Vettel, 5. Bottas, 6. Raikkonen, 7. Alonso, 8. Massa, 9. Kvyat, 10. Grosjean

As much as I would like to think that this season will prove at least as competitive as last year's titanic tussle between the Mercedes duo, I suspect Hamilton may just be too strong for Rosberg this year, especially if he is able to improve the qualifying form that appeared to desert him at times last season.

Ricciardo's undoubted class allied to an improving Red Bull will be enough for the Aussie to overhaul Vettel for third place, while Williams will lose ground towards the end of the year, limiting Bottas to fifth ahead of compatriot Raikkonen, who will be closer to his team-mate's pace than he was last year.

After a slow start to the year, Alonso will gradually work his way up to seventh in the final standings, with a couple of podium finishes to his credit, pipping Massa and Kvyat. Grosjean will round out the top 10 just ahead of Button, the Brit finding the task of matching his fellow McLaren driver tougher than expected.

Five sporting rule changes to boost Formula 1

In recent months, there has been plenty of debate within the Formula 1 fraternity regarding the direction the sport should take. While there appears to be a consensus forming regarding such proposals as returning to 1,000-horsepower-plus engines and wider tyres, addressing F1’s ills by altering the technical regulations is only part of the story.

Little has been suggested as to how to the sporting rules might be moulded to improve F1, which seems like something of an oversight considering how much easier and quicker it would be to implement such changes than reimagining what a Grand Prix car should be.

That’s why I’ve devised a list of five relatively radical changes to the sporting regulations, all of which could theoretically be implemented no later than next season. Some would have a knock-on effect on how teams would have to design their cars, but none of them are technical rule changes per se.

I’ve also avoided the thorny issue of how prize money ought to be distributed – as much of an impediment to a truly competitive championship as the present arrangement is – as well as the way the sport is governed in the Strategy Group era. Those are arguments for another article.

The following changes also don’t include any provisions explicitly aimed at boosting grid numbers from their current low ebb, though their indirect effect may well be to improve the spectacle to a point where more would-be sponsors and team owners decide they want to be involved.

1. Replace qualifying with a reverse grid sprint race

Rules heralding a dramatic reduction in aerodynamics are often mooted to generate more passing, but the very nature of modern F1 would make it impossible to reintroduce all the variables that made Grand Prix racing of yore so unpredictable. Instead, it’s time to consider something more radical – something that forces teams to produce cars able to overtake one another more easily.

Traditionalists may baulk at the thought of reverse grids, but there’s no doubting that forcing faster cars to overtake slower ones on a routine basis is a sure-fire way of generating the wheel-to-wheel action fans crave.  The non-points paying sprint race format helps to moderate the random effect that reverse grids could have on the championship if used in the actual Grands Prix themselves.

Grid order for the sprint races would be determined by simply reversing the order of the championship as it stands before each race, meaning the fastest cars would generally be at the back and the slowest at the front, also providing some sorely needed TV coverage for the minnows. For the first race, the grid would be determined by the previous year’s final standings.

The sprints would be approximately 45 minutes in length, with no pitstops permitted (except to repair damage), and each driver would use a single set of prime tyres; DRS would have to be scrapped to prevent the quickest cars scything their way through the order too rapidly. The finishing order would then determine the grid for the main event, with any retirees starting at the back.

Over the course of the season, the best car-driver combination would still prevail, but with more emphasis on the driver given the premium that reverse-grid sprints would place on the ability to pass – something even the purists can surely agree would be a good thing for the sport.

2. Overhaul tyre compound rules

Another way to spice up Grands Prix would be the creation of more strategic variables, meaning a rethink of the rules surrounding tyre usage is in order. As much as this writer would love to see a return to a tyre war (for the same reasons there would never be standardised engines, or even chassis, in F1), there’s still plenty that can be done in the context of a sole tyre supplier.

Pirelli has said in the past that they would be willing to expand their range of dry tyre compounds from the present level of four, if that’s what teams wanted – it’s the time for that offer to be taken up, with each team given the ability to choose their own ‘prime’ and ‘option’ for each race weekend, barring any compounds Pirelli deems unsafe for a particular track.

Thus, teams could opt to gamble on using softer tyres than normal in order to gain competitive advantage during the race, introducing a new layer of intrigue and providing more opportunity for smaller teams to overcome their bigger rivals through sheer tactical guile alone. The need to use both tyre compounds in a race to promote strategic variation would also no longer exist.

This new set of tyre rules could work both with the new sprint-race proposal outlined above, or with the existing qualifying format. In the latter case, there would be nothing to stop teams using softer tyre compounds to claw their way up the grid, but at the expense of being able to run lengthy stints in the races, providing a suitable risk-to-reward ratio.

3. Reserve FP1 for third and reserve drivers

Most observers agree that F1 needs to do more to give its stars of the future more track time, but little meaningful change has been effected in recent years to that end. The end-of-season young driver test was a (small) step in the right direction, but even that’s been effectively replaced by a return to limited in-season testing, in which teams are not obliged to run young drivers.

Proposals to create new test sessions specifically for rookies tend to be shot down because of cost concerns, and understandably so given the current financial climate in the sport, and introducing third cars to be raced by inexperienced drivers opens up a whole new can of worms that is, on balance, probably best avoided entirely.

The solution? Simply mandate that teams must use their third driver during FP1 at every Grand Prix weekend. Immediately, young drivers gain hours of valuable track time at no extra expense to the teams, while the designation of reserve driver would become meaningful once again as each team would have a driver totally familiar with the car and ready to step in if needed.

Some teams already reward their third drivers with the odd practice session, and in almost all cases they do a perfectly competent job of setting up the car, ready for the regular driver to take the reins once again in FP2. There would be an incentive for teams to employ truly capable reserves, but the rise of young driver schemes means that there’s no shortage of those.

4. Apply engine token system to chassis upgrades

Since the introduction of the new engine formula last year, a compromise ‘token’ system has been in place, allowing manufacturers to develop their power-units to a degree without the associated costs of a full-on engine war.

Despite disagreements over the precise amount of tokens manufacturers should be permitted to spend, and a brief controversy over how homologation rules should apply to new boy Honda, there seems to be a broad consensus that the token system itself is fundamentally one that works – so why not apply it to chassis development too?

Teams would still produce new cars for each season, but they wouldn’t be free to develop them as they saw fit beyond a certain homologation date; as with engines, each component would be assigned a token value depending on its effect on performance, with a limited number to spend throughout the year.

This would level the playing field to a certain extent, effectively preventing the biggest outfits from spending their way out of trouble and allowing smaller teams to maintain any early advantage gained for longer. In essence, teams would be forced to deploy their available resources more carefully, arguably the next best thing after a utopian budget cap.

5. Make ‘blue riband’ events more significant

Only four circuits on the current calendar featured in F1’s inaugural season back in 1950 – Monaco, Silverstone, Spa and Monza. This quartet, which all boast the atmosphere, heritage and soul that no amount of Middle Eastern oil wealth can buy, could be seen as the closest equivalent that the sport has to the ‘major tournaments’ of golf and tennis.

Perhaps, then, F1 should make more of these ‘blue riband’ events by making them more significant milestones in the Grand Prix season. While offering double points at Abu Dhabi was rightly derided by fans and insiders alike, there could be some merit in awarding extra points at extended versions of the four ‘major’ races at the four classic tracks listed above.

The four ‘blue riband’ races could be easily be made around a third longer without unduly compromising the schedule, also solving the issue of races at Monza and Spa regularly lasting less than 90 minutes. Naturally, fuel tanks would need to be made larger to accommodate the extra fuel needed, a change that could easily be implemented in time for the start of 2016.

The other implication of conferring a special status on Monaco, Silverstone, Spa and Monza would be to help ensure they remain on the calendar indefinitely. While feathers would no doubt be ruffled at FOM, fans would surely welcome an FIA intervention to prevent the four above Grands Prix from suffering the same fate that the German Grand Prix appears to be heading towards.