2011 Team-by-Team Review

In my final blog post of the year, it’s time to look at each of Formula One’s twelve teams in turn, assess their 2011 form and rate their prospects for 2012.

Red Bull Racing                                 Constructors Champion, 12 wins, 650 points

2011 was just about as perfect a year for any F1 team as one could hope for when it comes to what appears for the time being to be the new hegemonic force of the sport. With Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber standing atop the rostrum a dozen times between them, Red Bull Racing acquired the most wins in one season since 2004, when Ferrari swept all-comers with an eye-watering fifteen of a possible eighteen wins. Numerous Adrian Newey-inspired innovations contributed to this enormous success, such as the exhaust-blown diffuser, the flexible front wing, and ‘wheel warmers’ which were supposedly the main factor behind Vettel’s mystery tyre blowout at the very start of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. The otherwise apparently unstoppable German is contracted at Red Bull for a further three years, whilst Webber is confirmed for next year only as the spectre of retirement begins to loom for the 35-year-old. Winning the title as early as the Japanese Grand Prix of course has given Red Bull breathing space to focus on its car for the upcoming 2012 season, so their title chances next year will largely boil down to how well their rivals from Woking and Maranello can respond to the gauntlet thrown down by the boys from Milton Keynes.

Vodafone McLaren Mercedes                   2^nd Place, 6 wins, 497 points

For most teams, six wins would have constituted a fine season, but such are McLaren’s exacting standards that 2011 can only be labelled as a bitter disappointment. Although the silver-and-red machines were never really expected to be in contention after the debacle that was their ‘octopus-style’ exhaust system used in pre-season testing, it became apparent almost immediately that McLaren were to be the only team with any hope of halting the Red Bull freight train. Lewis Hamilton’s win at China proved to be a false dawn, whilst Jenson Button’s surge in form equally proved insufficient. 1998, the year when McLaren last won the constructors championship, must by now seem a distant memory, and in spite of Hamilton’s litany of errors this season, it’s not been the driving strength that has been wanting – Button’s signed up for another three seasons, and Hamilton looks increasingly likely to extend his McLaren contract when it expires at the end of next season. The vow of team principal Martin Whitmarsh to go on the offensive from the very outset of 2012 seems to signify that the team have every confidence that it’s only a matter of time before they return to the top of the pile. Only time will tell whether this assertion will be proved right or wrong.

Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro                           3^rd Place, 1 win, 375 points

The oldest and most illustrious name in the sport endured a difficult 2011 season, Red Bull’s utter domination of the field leaving just room for one victory which, while undoubtedly deserved, came largely courtesy of the temporary ban on exhaust-blown diffusers – a concept which Ferrari appeared unable to master the way their opponents were able to. This was a great shame for Fernando Alonso, who after 2010’s near miss was ruled out title contention arguably after his heroic fourth-to-first start at the Spanish Grand Prix somehow turned into finishing one lap down 65 laps down the line. As for Felipe Massa at the wheel of the other car, the year could only be described as a total flop as the Brazilian; with the possible exception of China, he was simply unable to get even remotely on terms with his teammate’s blistering pace at any stage during the season. Surprisingly, he’s been given one last chance to prove his worth in 2012, but only a drastic improvement in his performances is going to prevent a relegation to the midfield, with Robert Kubica being touted as a likely replacement pending his full recovery. Alonso meanwhile finds himself hamstrung until 2016, meaning it’s down to Ferrari to construct him a car worthy of his talents.

Mercedes GP Petronas F1 Team               4^th Place, 165 points

It’s easy to forget that, just two short years ago, this was essentially the team that took Jenson Button to six of the first seven victories and subsequently a shock title success. Back to the present day, and whilst Mercedes may have consolidated their grip on the official ‘best of the rest’ mantra, the reality is that they have been further off the front-running pace than last year. Unlike last year, neither Nico Rosberg nor Michael Schumacher made a single trip to the podium during 2011, even if it was close but no cigar for the latter in the appalling conditions at Canada. For all their travails this year however, the Brackley-based team seems to possess all the necessary ingredients to take a step into the top flight with the recruitment of ex-Ferrari technical director Aldo Costa as well as Geoff Willis, who worked with the team in its BAR and Honda incarnations. Rosberg will be hoping this gives him the equipment to finally take his first win (having now racked up 108 starts without one), particularly since he’s committed himself to the team for two more seasons. Schumacher will be equally eager to take his first post-comeback victory, and there is now allegedly a distinct possibility of the seven-time champion hanging around for 2013 if this happens.    

Lotus Renault GP                                        5^th Place, 73 points

Ten months ago, many were predicting (myself included) a return to the big-time for one the sport’s biggest underperformers during the last couple of years. Then came Robert Kubica’s devastating rally crash which has meant that, contrary to estimates at the time, the Pole still hasn’t driven an F1 car as of the time of writing. All seemed to be well again when Nick Heidfeld was selected as a replacement, but his failure to live up to expectations as well as Renault’s inability to develop its car as effectively as its rivals has seen it finish a distant fifth in the constructors, just four points ahead of Force India. Vitaly Petrov didn’t exactly set the world on fire either, having scored two less points than Heidfeld prior to the German’s dismissal, whilst Bruno Senna’s results in the latter third of the season also left something to be desired. All that considered, it’s not hard to see why the team is opting for a ‘clean sheet’ approach in 2012 with the signing of 2007 champion Kimi Raikkonen, who returns to the sport after a two-year absence, and Romain Grosjean, who has spent this year carefully rebuilding his damaged reputation by winning the GP2 series after his disappointing stint at the team in 2009. Furthermore, the team will be officially rebranded ‘Lotus’ after a resolution with Tony Fernandes’ team was reached earlier in the year.

AT&T Williams                                           9^th Place, 5 points

If you were new to the sport this year, you’d be forgiven for having a hard time believing that Williams are in fact the third most successful F1 team of all time. After all, the glories of the 80s and 90s are a far cry from what has gone down in history as the team’s worst ever season since it began constructing its own cars in 1978. Of the nine ‘established’ teams, they were more often than not the slowest, as evidenced by a feeble points total of five. Four of these came courtesy of Rubens Barrichello, who despite some mercurial performances looks set to be forced to call time on his long and distinguished career in the sport. His likely replacement isn’t known at the time of writing, but Adrian Sutil, Bruno Senna and Jules Bianchi are all possibilities after Raikkonen’s surprise decision to sign for Lotus. Pastor Maldonado meanwhile may have failed to shine as brightly as his fellow first-year drivers Paul Di Resta and Sergio Perez, but has nonetheless done enough to secure his place with the team next year after some improved qualifying performances during the latter half of the year. Furthermore, Renault will replace Cosworth as Williams’ engine suppliers next year, something the team will be hoping improves their fortunes.

Force India F1 Team                                  6^th Place, 69 points

With each year that passes, Vijay Mallya’s pet project continues to go from strength to strength, his Force India team having gone from perennial tail-enders in 2008 to comfortably the fifth-fastest package on the grid towards the end of the 2011 season. They may have just lost out to Renault in the final reckoning, but sterling performances from both the seasoned Adrian Sutil and the novice Paul Di Resta, who took to the demands of F1 racing like a proverbial duck to water, brought them extremely close despite a slow start prior to the introduction of the revised VJM-04. Thereon, the points came in thick and fast, only the Japanese Grand Prix breaking a run of points finishes from the German Grand Prix all the way to the end of the season. The problem now for Force India is that they may have reached their performance limit – they lack the financial clout that would allow them to regularly fight the ‘big four’, so there must be doubts as to how much longer their ascent up the constructors table will continue. Tasked with this challenge are likely to be Di Resta and this year’s reserve driver Nico Hulkenberg, leaving Sutil to make a probable move to Williams, though this is yet to be confirmed.

Sauber F1 Team                                           7^th Place, 44 points

Entering the second year of the post-BMW era for Peter Sauber’s long-surviving team, things couldn’t have got off to a much better start – Sergio Perez finished a highly impressive seventh with a single-stop strategy on his debut with teammate Kamui Kobayashi just one place behind. Though they had this haul of ten points taken away from them on the grounds of technical infringements, both Perez and Kobayashi continued to rake in the points (with the sole exception of the European Grand Prix) right up until the German Grand Prix. It was at the following round in Hungary when things began to go awry – Force India’s new-found speed left the Swiss outfit powerless to prevent them snatching sixth place in the standings, and after that they found themselves having to defend seventh from Toro Rosso. As it happened, the team scraped together just enough points to prevent another slip down the table, but this state of affairs doesn’t exactly bode too well for Sauber. Just how Kobayashi and Perez will fare with the team next year therefore remains a mystery, but it’s apparent that there will have to be some fairly major changes of some kind if the team is to be anything other than a mere shop window for young talent.

Scuderia Toro Rosso                                    8^th Place, 41 points

Red Bull’s ‘B-team’ may be just that, but that isn’t to say that the boys from Faenza are content to simply be lower-midfield cannon fodder. The fact that Vettel took them to a race win (which subsequently led to them out-scoring Red Bull that year) three years ago is a reminder of that team is capable of greater things than they achieved in 2011. Unfortunately, on the evidence of the last three seasons, neither Buemi nor Alguersauri looks set to emulate Vettel, which makes it all the more baffling that both are allegedly set to be retained next season. On balance, one would have to say that it was Algersauri who has made the bigger impression of the pair this year, particularly with his seventh places at Monza and Korea, but Buemi is also supposedly valued by the team for his technical feedback. Still, I can’t help but get the feeling that both Daniel Ricciardo and Jean-Eric Vergne, the next drivers in line in the Red Bull young-driver scheme, would make better bets than the current drivers, but it seems that both will have to wait longer for their chances; though it could be that one of them gets a mid-season promotion as many thought would be the case this year. Either way, there will immediately be pressure on both Buemi and Alguersauri next year to perform.

Team Lotus                                                  Unclassified

The rebranded ‘Team Lotus’, in deference to Colin Chapman’s ultra-successful team of yesteryear, set itself the goal of scoring its first points in 2011. Whilst this goal may have quickly been proven to be rather pie-in-the-sky, the team are now on the brink of latching on to the tail-end of the midfield scrum. Heikki Kovalainen’s performances could barely be faulted all season, even making the occasional appearance in Q2, whilst Jarno Trulli’s two thirteenth-place finishes proved pivotal in the battle for the countback-derived tenth position in the constructors standings and the all-important prize money that goes with it. On the basis of their performance this season, the newly renamed ‘Caterham’ team can realistically expect to accrue their first points in 2012, though the exact shape of their driver line-up is still to be fully decided – Kovalainen will in all likelihood stay, even if he has seemingly caught the eye of a couple of the more competitive teams, but Trulli’s seat on the other hand is said to be in doubt with Red Bull looking to station their young protégé Ricciardo with the team after his endeavours for HRT this year. Lotus have undoubtedly been the best performing of the three new teams up to now, but it could well be that we no longer consider them in the same category as HRT or Virgin next season.

HRT Formula One Team                           Unclassified

After the crushing disappointment of failing to qualify either car for the curtain-raising Australian Grand Prix, things didn’t turn out too badly for HRT in 2011. Though they may have lost considerable ground to Lotus since last year, they were not only frequently battling, but also beating their rivals at Virgin, Vitantonio Liuzzi’s thirteenth place at Canada proving sufficient for the Spanish team to avoid finishing at the very bottom of the pile. Unsurprisingly, he was more than a match for returnee Narain Karthikeyan, who landed the seat courtesy only of his connections with Indian car giant Tata, but once Ricciardo took the reins of the second car, something was found decidedly lacking with Liuzzi’s pace. Whether he keeps hold of his seat for 2012 is yet to be decided, but if he does, he will be partnered with one of the sport’s elder statesmen in Pedro De La Rosa. Ricciardo appears to be headed for pastures anew in the form of either Toro Rosso or Caterham, and it remains to be seen whether Red Bull extends their partnership with HRT by placing Vergne there. However, rumours of an all-Spanish line-up are rife, which will come as comforting news to GP2 driver Dani Clos, who has confessed his desire to step up to the highest level with the team alongside his compatriot.

Marussia Virgin Racing                           Unclassified

Where Lotus and HRT took a step forward in 2011, it has to be said that Virgin in contrast remained stagnant. After giving up hope on the MVR-02 relatively early on, the car was scarcely developed at all, leaving the team in the unenviable position of having to battle HRT in an effort to avoid finishing twelfth and last among the constructors. The best efforts of Timo Glock and Jerome D’Ambrosio just weren’t enough when push came to shove, and the team is sadly stuck with numbers 24 and 25 once again in 2012. Whilst Glock has already committed his short-term future to the team, D’Ambrosio follows in the footsteps of Lucas Di Grassi in being replaced after just one underwhelming season with the Yorkshire-based team. Arriving in place of the ousted Belgian is the highly-rated French GP2 driver Charles Pic, who along with Grosjean will give France their first representation on the grid since 2009. His record in the junior formulae is substantially stronger than that of D’Ambrosio, so Pic has a good chance of breaking the trend that has befallen the pilots of the second Virgin thus far in the team’s short history. The team have also abandoned their budget-conscious CFD-only approach, which should give Marussia (as the team will be rechristened next season) a timely boost in their efforts to gain respectability in the F1 paddock.

And so brings to an end another year of posting on my site. Whilst Melbourne, the first round of next season may seem some way off, don't forget that it's only a matter of weeks before the teams will begin to launch their new machines, with testing commencing in early February. 2012 promises to be an incredible season for the sport, and I'll of course be back to provide previews, reviews, features, fascinating insight and sometimes controversial opinions about everything that goes on. Thanks very much to everybody who has read this blog this year - hope you'll be back next year.

The Top Ten Drivers of 2011

Now the 2011 season has drawn to a close, it’s time to reveal my top ten drivers of the season, taking into account their past performances and the machinery at their disposal.

10. Paul Di Resta                   Force India F1 Team, 13^th, 27 points

It was a tight contest between Di Resta, Sergio Perez and Jaime Alguersauri for the final spot on this list, but the young Scotsman just about gets the nod on the basis of his better consistency. Di Resta kicked off his season by joining the exclusive club of drivers to score points on their debut (albeit only after the two Sauber drivers were excluded from the results), and immediately posed a threat to his more experienced teammate Adrian Sutil. There was inevitably the occasional rookie error (hitting the back of Nick Heidfeld at Canada springs to mind), but in general the mistakes were less frequent than the other first-year drivers on the grid. Once the revised version of the Force India came on stream mid-season, Di Resta was a regular visitor to the points-paying positions, his drives at Hungary and Singapore in particular turning the heads of the F1 paddock. If he is indeed paired with Nico Hulkenberg in 2012 as we expect, it will be fascinating to observe how Di Resta rises to the challenge. There may well only be room for one of them as a top-flight driver in years to come.

9. Heikki Kovalainen             Team Lotus, Unclassified

Arguably, the biggest injustice in F1 at the moment is the fact that a driver as talented as Kovalainen is saddled with as uncompetitive a car as the Lotus. It’s all too easy to forget that the mild-mannered Finn was every match for Nico Rosberg in GP2; that he out-scored Giancarlo Fisichella in his debut season at Renault; that he stood atop the podium at the Hungarian Grand Prix just three years ago. He may have been no match for Lewis Hamilton during his tenure as his McLaren teammate, but then how many drivers on the grid would have been? Over the course of the last two seasons, his points total has been equivalent to the square root of zero, yet at just about every race this year, he has wrung as much speed out of the Lotus as possible, out-qualifying teammate Jarno Trulli on all but two occasions. It’s not hard to see why Lotus team principal Tony Fernandes is so keen to hang on to him – let’s just hope that Kovalainen’s herculean efforts with the team next year don’t go unrewarded as they have been up to now.

8. Michael Schumacher         Mercedes GP Petronas F1 Team, 8^th, 76 points

When it comes to the comeback of the most successful man in the history of the sport, it has to be said that things are looking decidedly rosier than they were twelve months ago. Where Schumacher barely scored half of teammate Rosberg’s points in 2010, he was just thirteen points in arrears this year. Admittedly, the Mercedes has been further from the front-running pace than last season, and there were perhaps one or more two more collisions than the German may have liked, but they don’t detract from what has to be regarded as a much-improved year for Schumacher. The occasions on which he outperformed Rosberg were far more regular with impressive fifth places at Spa, Monza and Suzuka as well as coming heartbreakingly close to the podium at Canada. These results as well as some electrifying starts serve to remind us that Schumacher still has the wherewithal to succeed if the team can provide the car. A ninety-second win cannot be ruled out if Mercedes does just that next year.

7. Adrian Sutil                        Force India F1 Team, 9^th, 42 points

With Di Resta impressing so much in the other during his maiden season, the performances of the man from of the other side of the Force India garage are easily overlooked. However, the record books will indicate that it was Sutil, who has just come off the back of his fifth F1 season, that scored the lion’s share of the points for the Silverstone-based team. With the notable exceptions of Hungary and Singapore, Sutil by and large held the upper hand when it came to race pace, his sixth places at the Nurburgring and the Interlagos finale being particular stand-out performances. In spite of that, he looks set to leave the team with which he has driven since the start of his career, with the possibility of occupying vacancies at either Williams, where he would partner Pastor Maldonado, or Renault, where he would have the far sterner challenge of lining up alongside returning former champion Kimi Raikkonen. At twenty-eight years of age, this next career move has the potential to make or break Sutil’s up-to-now promising career.

6. Mark Webber                    Red Bull Racing, 3^rd, 258 points, 1 win

In a sport where equipment is so paramount to success, it’s a given that any F1 driver will be compared to their teammate. After all, ten podium finishes in a season is pretty good by most people’s standards, but when compared to the imperious form of Sebastian Vettel at the wheel of the sister car, Webber’s achievements of one win and three pole positions are rendered rather negligible. Perhaps the most damning indictment of the Australian’s season was the way he was often racing the McLarens and Ferraris whilst Vettel was in a league of his own out front; clearly, Mark was not getting the best out the vehicle at his disposal. The comparisons with Nigel Mansell’s Williams teammate during his dominant 1992 season, Riccardo Patrese, are irresistible – Webber’s failure to get to grips with the new Pirelli tyres this season is very much reminiscent of Patrese’s struggles to accustom himself with active suspension, in stark contrast in both cases to their respective teammates. Though his end-of-season triumph in Interlagos may have only come courtesy of gearbox gremlins for Vettel, it will have hopefully given Webber the lift he needs to get back on terms with his teammate in 2012.

5. Nico Rosberg                    Mercedes GP Petronas F1 Team, 7^th, 89 points

Since he departed Williams for the then-new Mercedes team at the start of last season, we have become precious little the wiser as to the extent of Rosberg’s potential. The fact that Mercedes has slipped away from the pace has hardly helped matters in this respect, with Rosberg having been unable to emulate the three podium finishes he bagged last year. Schumacher’s upturn in form has complicated the picture still further, but two conclusions can nonetheless be drawn. The first is that Rosberg has been the better qualifier of the two, evidenced by his out-qualification of Schumacher sixteen times out of a possible nineteen. The second is that he’s generally been the more consistent of the Silver Arrows drivers with a run of points finishes stretching all the way from Valencia to the end of the season, only interrupted by being taken out by the first-corner chaos at Monza. Rosberg is putting great faith in the Mercedes team by extending his contract for another two years; let’s hope the Brackley-based team is able to repay it with a race-winning car next year with which Rosberg can finally break his duck.

4. Lewis Hamilton                Vodafone McLaren Mercedes, 5^th, 227 points, 3 wins

As ever, it’s been a year of ups and downs for Hamilton in 2011. There have been times when he was impeccable, when there was simply no equal for his raw speed and amazing ability to overtake. On the other hand, there have equally been too many times when his aggression and petulance have gotten the better of him, usually at his own or one of his fellow competitor’s expense. The fellow competitor on no fewer than five occasions happened to be a certain Mr. Felipe Massa, but this so-called ‘feud’ was in reality somewhat overblown by the British press. It’s still fair to say however that his mistakes at Canada, Hungary, Belgium, Singapore and India all cost him a considerable amount of points, whilst his wins at China, the Nurburgring and Abu Dhabi merely made the spectating experience all the more frustrating as he showed what kind of performances he is truly capable of. It has been this maddening inconsistency that has allowed his teammate Jenson Button to gain a definite edge over him this year, a trend he will have to reverse if he is to add to his solitary world title he won three years ago.

3. Fernando Alonso               Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro, 4^th, 257 points, 1 win

Though this year’s Ferrari car was from the outset never going to be a likely title winner, Alonso debatably drove better during 2011 than at any other point in his F1 career. The Spaniard demonstrated, in terms of sheer points scored, the biggest margin of superiority over his teammate of all the drivers on the grid, Massa becoming the first full-time Ferrari driver to fail to reach the podium all year since Ivan Capelli’s disastrous 1992 season. By contrast, Alonso managed to finish in the top three ten times, his sole win at Silverstone standing out as a particularly commanding drive which neatly commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of Ferrari’s first ever F1 win. His starts at Catalunya and Monza were also dazzling, incidentally both executed to the delight of his adoring home fans and the ever-passionate tifosi respectively. It was of course disappointing to see Alonso not involved in the title fight after coming so close to glory last year, but the combination of a re-arranging of the technical department and an early switch of focus to next year’s car should yield palpable results when it comes to Maranello’s 2012 challenger. One thing is for certain – Alonso is more than capable of delivering a third world title.

2. Jenson Button                   Vodafone McLaren Mercedes, 2^nd, 270 points, 3 wins

If Button surprised the majority of onlookers last year by coming as close to teammate Hamilton as he did, then he must have caused even more astonishment this season by outscoring him by a margin of forty-three points. This gap may have materialised largely as a result of Hamilton’s own blunders, but whichever way you look at things, 2011 was a blistering season for Button. His three wins at Canada, Hungary and Japan were all testament to his outstanding ability to deal with adverse weather conditions and master the nuances of the new Pirelli tyres. Furthermore, he visited the podium twice as often as Hamilton, twelve times to six, and in the final nine races, the tally was eight to two in favour of the Frome Flyer. His qualifying record may have been less impressive than Hamilton’s, but the harsh reality is that points are awarded on Sundays, not Saturdays. On the strength of this season, one would have to say that, if the McLaren is up to the challenge of competing for the title in 2012, Button is the more likely of the McLaren duo to capture a second title.

1. Sebastian Vettel               Red Bull Racing, World Champion, 392 points, 11 wins

Accuse me of being unadventurous if you wish, but when it comes down to it, who else is there that can really stake a valid claim to the top spot? The numbers speak for themselves – eleven wins, fifteen pole positions, seventeen podiums, eighteen front row starts, 392 of a possible 475 points, 739 laps led of a possible 1139. Did he have the best car? Yes. Did he make the best use of the best car? Absolutely – just look at Webber’s performance in the other Adrian Newey-designed car on the grid. In fact, if you omitted Vettel from all this season’s race results, Webber would have lost the title to Button by thirteen points. From this perspective, Webber’s performance could be reasonably interpreted as the ‘true’ performance level of the Red Bull RB7, with Vettel’s genius transforming it from a regular front-running contender to the dominant package of the 2011 season. In 2001, Schumacher secured his second title for Ferrari in far more dominant style than the first before going on to lock away three more titles. Could Vettel be about to do likewise ten years on?