The Return of the Pay Driver?

The year 1994, in many ways, can be considered Formula One’s annus horribilis. Besides the tragic events of the San Marino Grand Prix weekend that claimed the lives of Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton Senna, it arguably marked a particularly low ebb in terms of the level of driving talent on the grid. After that fateful third round of the championship, there were no world champions to be found on the grid save for when Nigel Mansell made a series of cameos late in the season for Williams, and the scourge of the pay driver was rife.

During the late 80s and early 90s, the cost of competing in F1 ballooned largely as a result of the pioneering of electronic driver aids such as active suspension, traction control and ABS. Between 1984 and 1993, no team other than McLaren or Williams had won the drivers’ championship, and by the early 90s the gulf between them and the rest had become particularly pronounced; it was only after the banning of electronic aids in time for 1994 that their duopoly was finally broken. In the meantime, the number of full time entries had dropped to 28 from a peak of 39 five years earlier, countless teams (including such illustrious names as Brabham and March) having closed their doors. It was the desperation for cash on the part of some of the smaller teams to avoid a similar fate that led to the rise of the pay driver.

Now, it is important to note that there are pay drivers and there are pay drivers. Mere pay drivers are those who have proven themselves to be competent, if not particularly talented, in the lower ranks, and have gotten themselves in a position to be an F1 driver by virtue of a well-heeled sponsor or two. A good example of this kind of driver would be Pedro Diniz, who despite having never achieved spectacular results in Formula 3 or Formula 3000 landed an F1 seat in 1995 courtesy of the sponsorship package put together by his father, who owned a chain of Brazilian supermarkets. In his five seasons of F1 racing, Diniz didn’t exactly disgrace himself, even measuring up to Arrows teammate Damon Hill in 1997 on some occasions.

On the other hand, pay drivers are those whose previous results indicate that they have no real right to a space on the F1 grid, and are merely there because their sponsors have paid handsomely (often on a race-by-race basis) for the privilege. 1994 was littered with this latter category of pay driver: Taki Inoue, Jean-Denis Deletraz, Jean-Marc Gounon and Philippe Adams to name some of the most dubious. Often, such drivers would be one of a number to compete for a particular team over the course of the season, as was the case at the cash-strapped Lotus, Simtek and Pacific teams, all of whom employed six different drivers apiece that year.

Just a couple of years later however, pay drivers had all but disappeared from the grid. By mid-1996, the number of cars on the grid was down to just 20 with most of the teams that relied on such drivers having fallen by the wayside. By the early 2000s, the return of manufacturers to F1 meant that money was in no short supply, and that would mean only the cream of the F3 and F3000 crop could entertain any realistic hopes of graduating to F1. The likes of Gaston Mazzacane and Alex Yoong could be regarded as the last of the bona fide pay driver breed, though even then they weren’t nearly as uncompetitive as their counterparts five or six years earlier.

However, it could be contended that we are seeing the gradual return of the pay driver, perhaps as an inevitable consequence of the recent mass exodus of the manufacturers. On the current grid, the seats of five drivers could be said to depend entirely or mostly on their sponsors – Pastor Maldonado (PDVSA), Sergio Perez (Telmex/Claro/Cuervo), Vitaly Petrov (Sibur), Charles Pic (IDEC/Lagardere) and Narain Karthikeyan (Tata) – whilst the seats of Romain Grosjean (Total) and Bruno Senna (Gilette/Embratel) could be at least partially put down to sponsorship.

Whilst the seven drivers listed above could be defined as pay drivers in the technical sense of the expression, it would be grossly unfair to put them in the same bracket as Inoue or even Diniz. All of them have proved at the very least that they merit their place on the F1 grid, and some such as Perez have marked themselves out as real talents of the future with their performances so far. More importantly, all of them (with the exception of Karthikeyan) have won races or even championships in GP2, so it should therefore come as little surprise that they have been able to acquire such sponsorship.

In this sense, a driver like Perez, who has enjoyed Telmex backing for almost his entire career, is no different than a Sebastian Vettel or Lewis Hamilton, both of whom were backed by Red Bull and McLaren throughout their respective junior careers. Though it can’t be denied that sponsorship pressures have been responsible for such talented veterans as Jarno Trulli and Rubens Barrichello losing their seats for this season, those that dismiss their replacements as no-hopers simply on the virtue of the size of their sponsorship cheque seem to misunderstand that talent and money in the vast majority of cases go hand in hand.

By the same token, that’s not to say that drivers who lack any sponsorship are for that very reason no good: last year’s GP2 runner-up Luca Filippi, who is currently trying to raise a budget to compete in IndyCar, is a case in point. It is perhaps to be expected that Italian drivers are going to have a hard time finding backing when the state of the Italian economy is so dire, but that brings me neatly to an important point to note – certain drivers are able to obtain the required sponsorship more easily depending on the country they are from, with those coming from nations with a relatively low profile in worldwide motorsport such as Mexico, Russia or India seemingly at an advantage.

Whilst in an ideal world a driver’s nationality would have no bearing on whether he makes it at the very highest level, the truth of the matter is that it does play a part, as it has done for Perez, Maldonado, Petrov and Karthikeyan in particular. You can’t however criticise that quartet of ‘pay drivers’ for seizing the opportunities available to them. That is, after all, the name of the F1 game, and history will ultimately judge whether the talent they demonstrated warranted the backing they received. This will come as little comfort to the innumerable young hopefuls whose promising careers have stalled as a result of money shortages, but the increasing profile of other championships besides F1 means that many of them could yet potentially enjoy careers as fully-paid professional racing drivers.

Bahrain Grand Prix 2012 - Report

Sebastian Vettel signaled a return to form with a first win of the season at Bahrain. The Red Bull driver converted pole position into an early lead, but was briefly challenged by Kimi Raikkonen's Lotus during the latter half of the race. The Finn however was ultimately forced to settle for second, his teammate Romain Grosjean making his maiden trip to the podium with third place.

Vettel came out on top of a tight battle with McLaren's Lewis Hamilton on Saturday, the German taking pole position by less than a tenth of a second. Mark Webber and Jenson Button lined up behind their respective teammates in third and fourth places, with Nico Rosberg managing only fifth on the grid after a making a mistake in his final timed lap. His Mercedes teammate Michael Schumacher went out in Q1 after suffering a DRS failure, falling a further five places on the grid to 22nd due to a gearbox change penalty. Raikkonen also got caught out at the very end of Q2, restricting him to eleventh place on the grid.

As the lights went out, Vettel made a good start to lead the way initially, whilst Hamilton and Webber were also able to maintain their grid slots. Button on the other hand fared less well, dropping to sixth place behind the fast-starting cars of Grosjean and Fernando Alonso, whilst Raikkonen launched four places up from his grid slot to hold seventh by the end of the opening lap.

During the opening stint, both Lotus cars were able to make rapid progress. Despite being overtaken by a seemingly resurgent Felipe Massa early on, Raikkonen was able to re-pass his former Ferrari teammate on lap 5 before moving ahead of Button and Alonso by the end of his first stint. Grosjean had also dispatched Webber and Hamilton to sit in second place behind race leader Vettel prior to his first stop.

Whereas the majority of the leaders opted for the medium compound tyre for the second stint, Raikkonen instead opted for the softs, enabling him to pass Webber to move into third position on lap 13 in an audacious move at turn 11. The Iceman proceeded to catch teammate Grosjean thereafter, who was using the medium tyre, though Raikkonen did lose precious seconds to Vettel as he navigated his way past the ostensibly slower of the Lotus cars at the first corner on lap 24.

Raikkonen made his second stop at the end of that lap to switch to medium tyres, whilst Vettel reverted to soft tyres the following lap for his third stint having run the second on mediums. It was at this stage that Raikkonen really began to hunt Vettel down as the Red Bull's tyres began to wear - the gap had been reduced to two seconds on lap 28, and to just one second on lap 33. Two laps later, Raikkonen had hauled the Lotus within striking distance of the Red Bull for a DRS-assisted assault at the first corner, but Vettel resolutely defended his position until both made their final stops simultaneously on lap 39. 

With both of the protagonists now on medium compound tyres, Vettel was able to stretch his advantage once again, and a brief period where Raikkonen began to catch the reigning champion once again proved to be a false dawn. Vettel thus cruised to a twenty-second career win, re-taking the championship lead by four points from Hamilton in the process. Raikkonen ascended the podium for the first time in three years with a fine second place finish, whilst Grosjean in third position was never threatened after being passed by Raikkonen. The result meant two Lotus cars appeared on the podium for the first time since Mario Andretti and Carlos Reutemann in 1979.

Webber took a fourth straight fourth place finish ahead of Rosberg, who attracted controversy but no penalties with his more-than-robust defence of his position at turn 4 against Hamilton in the opening stint and Alonso in the second. Hamilton was able to pass the Chinese Grand Prix winner nonetheless after being forced beyond the edge of the track, but fell back behind Rosberg as well as both Ferraris as his first two stops were beset by issues attaching the rear-left wheel to his car. The Brit re-passed Massa during a trouble-free final stop, but still had to settle for a lowly eighth place. Button meanwhile looked good for sixth place at the wheel of the other McLaren until he abruptly pitted with four laps remaining to address a puncture, before pulling into the pit garage two laps later with differential failure.

Behind Rosberg finished Paul Di Resta, who after a troubled weekend for the Force India team pulled off a two-stop strategy in order to come home sixth, narrowly ahead of Alonso. Behind Hamilton finished Massa, who took his first points of the year, and Michael Schumacher, who made steady progress from his disastrously low grid slot to take the final point of the afternoon. Sergio Perez finished in eleventh place, the Sauber seemingly lacking pace on the medium tyre, with Nico Hulkenberg next over the finish line in the second Force India.

Jean-Eric Vergne finished in thirteenth for Toro Rosso ahead of Kamui Kobayashi, who also attempted a two-stop strategy in the second Sauber but lost ground after having to make a late third stop. Daniel Ricciardo squandered a highly impressive sixth place grid slot with a lousy start, sinking to a dismal seventeenth place by the end of lap two, had his race further compounded by contact with Caterham driver Heikki Kovalainen that necessitated a change of front wing. The Australian eventually crossed the line in a disappointing fifteenth place.

Vitaly Petrov was next ahead of teammate Kovalainen, who suffered a puncture as a result of the contact with Ricciardo. Timo Glock was the only Marussia to finish, (Charles Pic falling victim to engine problems having out-qualified his more experienced teammate) with HRT duo of Pedro de la Rosa and Narain Karthikeyan as ever bringing up the rear. Besides Button and Pic, the only other non-finishers came courtesy of Williams, who after two competitive outings never looked like scoring points in the Bahrain heat. Pastor Maldonado suffered a puncture serious enough to warrant his retirement whilst running outside of the top ten just before half-distance, whilst Bruno Senna pulled into the garage from fourteenth place with two laps remaining as his car began to suffer from a vibration.

For all the controversy surrounding the event in the past week, Bahrain has produced a fourth different winner in as many races, not to mention a fourth different winning team. Few would have guessed coming into the season that it would have taken Vettel and Red Bull four attempts to take their first win, whilst even fewer would've predicted a Lotus that appears to have genuine race-winning pace. Add the prospect of a revitalised Ferrari after the upcoming in-season test at Mugello, and we potentially have a titanic scrap on our hands for what looks destined to be one of the closest fought titles in years. 

Bahrain Grand Prix 2012 - Preview

Well, here we are. After all the fracas surrounding whether or not we should be, the fact is F1 has come to Bahrain to race and nothing else. I’ve already dealt with the core of the issue in my previous preview post, putting myself on the record that I back the decision for the race to go ahead.

This morning, it was reported that a member of the Force India team had chosen to leave Bahrain following an incident on Wednesday evening whereby a Molotov cocktail exploded near a hire car being used by four of the team’s mechanics while it was stopped along the motorway due to clashes between police and protesters.  Whilst none of the personnel involved were injured, the fact remains that the teams were aware of the possible safety risks, yet chose to attend the race nonetheless. Of course, there are theoretically safety risks wherever F1 races – let’s not forget the incidents of armed robbery in Sao Paulo that affected Jenson Button and a group of Sauber engineers in the build-up to the 2010 Brazilian Grand Prix.

The entire situation is somewhat reminiscent of the 1985 South African Grand Prix, where controversy surrounded the decision to race there in the face of increasing international dismay with South Africa’s policy of apartheid. In the event, the Renault and Ligier teams were forced to withdraw from the race due to pressure from the French government, who effectively financed both (Renault was a state-owned company at the time, whilst the French state tobacco monopoly of SEITA backed Ligier via the Gitanes cigarette brand). McLaren also ran devoid of Marlboro decals as the tobacco giant was keen to avoid association with the event, and the possibility remains that a similar situation could take place this weekend at Bahrain.

The South African race however otherwise took place without incident, though it was subsequently dropped indefinitely from the calendar by FISA. That could well prove to be the case for Bahrain this year, although a return to the calendar such as that of South Africa after apartheid was abolished seems doubtful with so many other nations eyeing an F1 race at present.

Now, back to the small matter of the race itself. The tyre compounds allocated for the race are the soft and medium compounds, which considering the likely heat in Bahrain should make tyre preservation quite a challenge. This will also be the first time DRS will have been used at the circuit, and predictably it will be in use down the start/finish straight into the tight first corner. The uninspiring extra half-mile loop of track first seen at the 2010 race will thankfully not be used this time around, creating a faster and more flowing track layout.

The biggest question surrounding this weekend’s on-track action is whether Mercedes will be able to maintain the performance level they demonstrated at China. The relatively cool conditions last time out meant that the tyre wear problems that Mercedes experienced in the dry at Melbourne were less of an issue, whilst the different track layout was also instrumental in allowing the team to capitalise on the car’s inherent speed. Whilst there’s no reason to suggest that the Mercedes won’t be equally devastating in a single lap at Bahrain as it proved to be in China bearing in mind the Sahkir track’s long straights, a podium for either driver seems a long shot if the car’s race pace is compromised as it was during the opening race.

The wheels quite literally coming off Michael Schumacher’s challenge for victory last weekend was a bitter disappointment to put it mildly. Not only has Schumacher’s largely impressive speed been unfairly rewarded with just a single point so far this season, but F1 fans were also denied the first real opportunity to compare his pace to that of his teammate Nico Rosberg over an entire race distance with a fully competitive Mercedes. The seven-time champion will be even more desperate now to level the score with Rosberg, whose win at Shanghai was as convincing as any of Schumacher’s 91 wins. F1 fans can at least anticipate a mighty battle for supremacy at the Brackley-based team, even if neither Schumacher nor Rosberg are overly likely to feature in the title chase towards the end of the year.

McLaren once more have to be considered favourites to take the win at Bahrain, even if pole position eludes both Button and Lewis Hamilton as it did in China. As a master of tyre conservation, Button has a strong chance of adding to his Melbourne victory, particularly if the conditions at Bahrain prove similar. Hamilton meanwhile can never be discounted, but in both dry races so far he has reached the chequered flag behind his teammate – how he manages his tyres in the blistering desert heat will very much be the key to his finishing position.

Red Bull rebounded well from their most disappointing qualifying session in recent memory at China to claim fourth and fifth places, underlining their inherently strong race pace. Expect Mark Webber to therefore be a factor for a podium finish at the least, though Sebastian Vettel in the sister car will need to get on top of the issues he had with the latest-spec Red Bull exhaust to really be in a position to beat his teammate. The other possible contender for a visit to the rostrum is Lotus’s Kimi Raikkonen, who occupied second place at China for a number of laps before his tyres disintegrated. The Finn’s pace for much of the weekend was solid, and he could prove the first in line to benefit from some Mercedes tyre woes to sneak his way onto the podium if he qualifies clear of the Red Bulls.

Fernando Alonso, the most recent winner of the Bahrain race two years ago, will once more be in damage limitation mode in the final race before the crucial test at Mugello; a top-eight result would probably be enough to satisfy the double-champion given the pace of the car. Sauber should be in the mix for points in spite of a somewhat lacklustre outing at China, the team not helped by the cool temperatures which prevented them from exploiting their car’s knack for looking after its tyres. Williams will in the meantime be looking to bank further points following two terrific races for the Grove-based team, whilst Force India and Toro Rosso are really in need of an extra turn of speed before either of their respective drivers can entertain hopes of finding a way back into the points-paying positions.

Qualifying Prediction

1. Hamilton, 2. Rosberg, 3. Button, 4. Schumacher, 5. Raikkonen, 6. Webber, 7. Vettel, 8. Grosjean, 9. Alonso, 10. Maldonado

Race Prediction

1. Button, 2. Hamilton, 3. Raikkonen, 4. Webber, 5. Vettel, 6. Rosberg, 7. Schumacher, 8. Alonso, 9. Perez, 10. Senna

Much as I predicted in China, Button has another brilliant opportunity on his hands to take the top step of the podium, even if he doesn’t make the front row of the grid on Saturday. Hamilton will end up just behind his teammate having not looked after his tyres quite as well, with Raikkonen making his first visit to the podium in three years with a superb performance to narrowly overcome Red Bull Messrs Webber and Vettel. Rosberg will fade as the race wears on along with Schumacher, with Alonso coming home just behind in eighth place. Sergio Perez will benefit from relatively light tyre wear to claw his way into the points, with Bruno Senna continuing his run of points finishes with a clean run to tenth place.

Chinese Grand Prix 2012 - Report

Nico Rosberg took a deserved maiden win in dominant style at the Chinese Grand Prix. Starting from pole position, the young German drove without fault to claim a straightforward first victory for the Mercedes team in the modern era, the two McLaren cars of Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton claiming the remaining podium positions in a frantic multi-car battle.

Rosberg began the weekend as he meant to go on, taking his first pole position by an impressive margin of half-a-second from Hamilton, who would begin the race from seventh on the grid due to a five-place penalty applied as a result of a gearbox change. The principal beneficiary of this was Rosberg’s teammate Michael Schumacher, who lined up in second, with Kamui Kobayashi for Sauber and Kimi Raikkonen for Lotus making up a surprise second row from Button and Webber’s Red Bull. Championship leader Alonso could do no better than ninth place for Ferrari, with the second Red Bull of Sebastian Vettel proving a surprise Q2 scalp as he qualified in a disappointing eleventh position.

At the start, both Mercedes cars made good getaways to hold first and second place, whilst Kobayashi was relatively slow off the mark, dropping to sixth behind a fast-starting Button, Raikkonen and Hamilton at the first corner as well as teammate Sergio Perez a few turns later. The Japanese wasn’t the only driver to make a poor start, Vettel dropping four places to sit a lowly fifteenth come the end of the first lap.

Rosberg wasted absolutely no time in stretching his legs at the head of the field, pulling away from teammate Schumacher at a rate of roughly half a second per lap initially. Button soon began to come under pressure from the chasing pack consisting of Raikkonen, Hamilton and Perez, whilst Webber, who was stuck behind the slower cars of Kobayashi and Alonso behind, took the decision to make an early switch from soft to medium compound tyres on lap 6. Vettel, likewise mired in fourteenth position having re-passed Pastor Maldonado’s Williams, took the plunge three laps later.

Of the front-runners, Raikkonen and Hamilton were the first to pit on lap 10, Hamilton edging past Raikkonen with some marginally faster pit-work from the McLaren mechanics as the two champions travelled down the pitlane side-by-side. Button made his stop one lap later, with Schumacher and Rosberg following suit in successive laps. Both of the McLarens used the soft tyre for their second stint, whilst the remainder of the front-runners all opted for the medium compound. After the first round of stops, Rosberg continued to lead from Schumacher, but fleetingly so as the latter was forced to retire from the race as it became apparent that his front-right wheel wasn’t properly attached to his Mercedes several corners after leaving the pits.

This promoted the McLarens of Button and Hamilton into second and third places, with Webber having made his way up to fourth courtesy of his early stop ahead of Raikkonen. The Finn then lost a further place at the second round of stops as Alonso chose the softer tyre for his third stint, allowing the Spaniard to undercut the man who he replaced at Ferrari. After their second stops, Button and Hamilton found themselves held up in traffic – Button had to make his way past Maldonado, Perez and Vettel, whilst Hamilton negotiated perennial sparring partner Felipe Massa in the second Ferrari and the Force India of Paul di Resta before losing time behind Perez, who soon had Webber and Alonso joining the queue behind the Mexican driver.

Webber shortly took the opportunity to equip a new set of medium tyres on lap 34; Hamilton and Alonso pitting for their fresh primes together four laps later than the Australian. The time lost behind Perez, who locked his tyres at the hairpin on a number of occasions as he strove to keep his rivals behind him, was evident as both re-joined the circuit behind Webber after their stops. Button in the meantime had closed the gap somewhat to race leader Rosberg prior to his final stop on lap 39 whereupon any hopes of challenging the Mercedes driver went up in smoke as  the McLaren mechanics struggled to attach the rear-left wheel, costing Button valuable seconds as he sat static in his pit-box. By the time the Brit finally emerged from the pit-lane, Rosberg’s lead was up to a virtually unassailable twenty seconds, the German having by now made his second and final stop.

After Massa’s second stop on lap 41, second place fell to Raikkonen, who having made his second stop on lap 28 seemed set to try and eke out his tyres until the end of the race. Massa’s relatively slow pace had caused a large train of cars to form in the wake of the Iceman, including Vettel and Romain Grosjean, who both adopted a like strategy having stopped on laps 31 and 32 respectively, Button, Webber, the Williams duo of Bruno Senna and Maldonado, Hamilton and Alonso. Hamilton was able to pass both of the Williams drivers without incident in separate moves at turn 6 as Grosjean began to fall down the order, being passed by Button on lap 40, and then Webber, Hamilton and Senna as a consequence of running wide at turn 7 on lap 45; the Frenchman also came perilously close to making contact with Maldonado as the pair battled for position for the rest of the lap.

Next to lose out in what was becoming a titanic tussle for second position was the other Lotus of Raikkonen, whose tyres by lap 48 appeared to be ‘falling off the cliff’. Vettel lucidly demonstrated this with a masterful pass around the outside at turn 7 to snatch second position (a move Alonso had failed to pull off whilst tussling with Maldonado several laps earlier, dropping him temporarily behind Perez as the recalcitrant Ferrari sailed wide), with Button taking the opportunity to follow the German into third position as Raikkonen ran wide on the exit of the corner. This in turn caused Webber to run wide in avoidance of the Lotus, allowing Hamilton to gain a position before he then was able to overtaking the floundering Raikkonen at the hairpin on the same lap.

Behind Rosberg, all this action meant the order had become Vettel, Button, Hamilton and Webber, who too had taken advantage of Raikkonen’s woes moments after Hamilton had done so. It was now Vettel’s turn to struggle from tyre wear, and Button was able to position his McLaren as to capitalise on the speed advantage offered by DRS on lap 51 to assume second position, albeit by now twenty-five seconds adrift of Rosberg. With three laps to go, Hamilton was able to power past Vettel into third place with the aid of DRS, whilst Webber found superior traction to his teammate at the exit of the hairpin on the penultimate lap of the race to seize fourth place.

There were no such challenges to Rosberg's position however, who drove serenely on towards his first ever grand prix win at his 111^th attempt, giving him the fifth most starts prior to a first win in F1 history after Webber (130), Rubens Barrichello (123), Jarno Trulli (119) and Button (113). Button duly took second position from Hamilton (who re-takes the championship lead by two points from his teammate), Webber and Vettel. Grosjean clawed his way back up to sixth place after his earlier travails ahead of Williams drivers Senna and Maldonado, with Alonso and Kobayashi completing the point-scorers as the latter used DRS to pass teammate Perez on lap 49.

Behind the two Sauber men were Paul di Resta, whose Force India appeared to be lacking in pace in comparison to Williams and Sauber; Massa who failed to recover much ground following his second stop, the beleaguered Raikkonen who continued to haemorrhage positions all the way to the chequered flag, and the second Force India of Nico Hulkenberg. Sixteenth was Jean-Eric Vergne, who was obliged to start his Toro Rosso in the pitlane as a result of the team breaking parc fermé conditions after qualifying, finishing ahead of teammate Daniel Ricciardo in spite of this setback. Vitaly Petrov was eighteenth place ahead of the Marussias of Timo Glock and Charles Pic, with HRT drivers Pedro de la Rosa and Narain Karthikeyan along with Heikki Kovalainen bringing up the rear, the lattermost as a result of mechanical maladies suffered late in the race.

A first win had been a long time coming for Rosberg, and it was truly satisfying to see it being taken in such consummate style. Even had Button’s race not been compromised by a tardy second pit-stop, it was doubtful at best whether the man who took the title for the Brackley-based team in 2009 under its ‘Brawn GP’ guise would have had a genuine shot at victory. Either way, the almighty mêlée that ensued over the minor placings was a joy to watch, and a true testimony to the quality of the spectacle that tyre supplier Pirelli has created since its arrival at the beginning of last season. It would be a real fillip for the sport if, after all the furore surrounding the next event at Bahrain, it served up a race as fine as this one.

Chinese Grand Prix 2012 - Preview

The build-up to the Chinese Grand Prix, perhaps unsurprisingly, has been dominated by whether or not the following round of the championship at Bahrain ought to take place.

There have been calls from some quarters for the race to be cancelled; that for the race to go ahead as normal would be to project the impression that all is well in the tiny Gulf state and that F1 is on the side of the oppressive Bahraini rulers and not the people. My opinion however, for what it’s worth, is that the race should go ahead. The irony will not be lost on most that the discussions among Bernie Ecclestone and the teams as to the fate of the race is taking place in China, a country that hardly has an enviable human rights record itself. Indeed, if F1 were to stop visiting all the countries where such abuses take place, the F1 calendar would be looking distinctly empty.

Perhaps more to the point is that F1, as with all forms of sport, is a unifying force. It cannot afford to be anything but neutral in political affairs, lest it alienates those who disagree with the side it takes. It’s also difficult to see what the Bahraini people have to gain from the race being cancelled, as all the economic activity that comes as a result of the event will be lost. And if the race is cancelled for a second year in a row, there’s no guarantee it will be re-instated with countries such as France and Argentina looking for a return to the F1 calendar next year.

Anyway, back to China. The location of the DRS zone remains unchanged from last year, along the lengthy back straight on the approach to the tight hairpin of turn 14, whilst the tyres available for the race will be the medium and soft compound seen at Melbourne. With rain once more a distinct possibility however, China could prove another tough race to call.

Alonso’s win at Malaysia was as unexpected as it was brilliant, the Spaniard now in a surprise championship lead despite the obvious shortcomings of the Ferrari F2012. The in-season test at Mugello on which the Italian team is pinning its championship hopes is just two races away (or just one if Bahrain does get cancelled), meaning Alonso cannot be discounted by any means from this year’s title run-in. Even if the double champion can only finish best of the rest behind the McLarens and Red Bulls as he did in Melbourne at China and Bahrain, then even if Lewis Hamilton, who currently lies second in the standings, wins both times, Alonso will be just 25 points adrift with sixteen races still to go.

As for Sergio Perez, who drove to a superb second place last time out, rumours of a promotion to a Ferrari race seat alongside the man who he so nearly beat at Malaysia have been rife. Those that claimed Perez would be at the wheel of a scarlet car as early as this race have proven to be some way off the mark, but others have claimed more realistically that Felipe Massa has until the summer break to prove he deserves to see out the year with the team.

One thing that has been overlooked is whether Perez would actually benefit from such a move. He seems completely at home at the tightly-knit Sauber outfit, who have produced what appears to be their most competitive car as an independent constructor arguably since 2001 when Nick Heidfeld and Kimi Raikkonen took the Swiss team to fourth in the constructors’ standings. Needless to say that Ferrari has the financial muscle to vastly improve what is at the moment a poor car by their standards, but my gut feeling is that Perez has little to gain from an early switch to Ferrari. It would be better for the Mexican to complete the season with Sauber and for Ferrari to give their test driver Jules Bianchi some race experience towards the end of the year if Massa continues to disappoint.

Malaysia was a vast disappointment for McLaren, whose drivers had locked out the front row before the rain began to pour. For all their prowess in the wet, both Hamilton and Jenson Button struggled in the torrential conditions – Hamilton mysteriously couldn’t keep pace with Alonso and Perez after losing the lead even as the track dried out, whilst Button’s hopes went up in smoke as he clattered into the back of the out-of-position HRT of Narain Karthikeyan. Hamilton of course won at Shanghai last year, but a impending five-place grid penalty for a gearbox change will make a repeat performance extremely challenging. A podium thus would certainly constitute a job well done for the 2008 champion, whilst Button has to capitalise on his teammate’s misfortune whilst the McLaren is still the car to beat.

With Hamilton hobbled by his penalty, Button’s biggest challenge for the win is likely to come from Red Bull. Sebastian Vettel’s post-race exasperation with Karthikeyan made for some amusing headlines, the reigning champion dismissing the Indian driver as eine Gurke for his part in the collision that cost him fourth position at Sepang. The strong race pace of the Red Bulls means that both Vettel and Mark Webber have a good chance of at least winding up on the podium, although such an outcome hinges on their grid positions as their one-lap pace still leaves something to be desired in comparison to their rivals at McLaren and Mercedes.

The excellent qualifying pace of the Mercedes, as evidenced by Michael Schumacher lining up third on the grid at Malaysia, can be partially attributed to their clever DRS system, which stalls the front wing whenever the DRS gurney flap is open for an additional straight-line speed boost. Lotus has officially lodged a protest of the system, but the indication so far is that the FIA believes the system to be legal. Still, Mercedes has only amassed a single point so far in spite of the advantage offered by the system, largely as a result of the car’s propensity to chew up its rear tyres. Therefore, even if Schumacher and Nico Rosberg qualify strongly, a solid handful of points is about as much as they can hope for until this unfortunate issue is resolved.

Two other drivers that could rather do with getting their names on the scoreboard this weekend are Romain Grosjean and Pastor Maldonado. Both have impressed with their speed, but circumstances have conspired to prevent either from having finished inside the top ten, or indeed at all, at the first two races. At Lotus, Kimi Raikkonen has raced the Lotus as if he’d never been away, whilst Bruno Senna delivered more points than Williams scored all of last season last time out in a fantastic, if somewhat overlooked drive to sixth position. Grosjean and Maldonado no longer have the luxury of being labelled ‘rookies’ – they need to turn their potential into points sooner rather than later to avoid being overshadowed by other actors in what is a crowded upper-midfield battle this season.

Qualifying Prediction:

1. Button, 2. Rosberg, 3. Vettel, 4. Schumacher, 5. Raikkonen, 6. Hamilton (penalty), 7. Webber, 8. Alonso, 9. Grosjean, 10. Maldonado

Race Prediction

1. Button, 2. Vettel, 3. Hamilton, 4. Webber, 5. Raikkonen, 6. Alonso, 7. Grosjean, 8. Rosberg, 9. Perez, 10. Maldonado

Providing rain doesn’t strike again, Button should, all things being equal, notch up his second win of the season. Vettel and Hamilton will complete the podium, the latter having recovered well from his grid penalty while Webber will narrowly overcome Raikkonen in the battle for fourth position. Alonso and Grosjean won’t be far behind, both finishing clear of Rosberg whose grotesque tyre wear and subsequent extra stop will drop him down to eighth position. Perez will put in another assured performance to take ninth, with Maldonado rounding out the top ten as he narrowly pips the ailing Schumacher to the final point of the day.

The Red Bull Junior Team

Riddle me this: what do Sebastian Vettel and Enrique Bernoldi have in common? On the face of it, not an awful lot – the former is a double world champion who is already well on the road to becoming an all-time Formula One great, whilst the other disappeared without trace after a season-and-a-half of mediocrity at the foundering Arrows team.

The answer is that both were able to reach the highest level in motorsport with the help of Red Bull, today the most prevalent backer of young racing talent. In fact, Bernoldi was the first such beneficiary of the scheme that unofficially began back in 1999 as a Formula 3000 team ran by Helmut Marko. Bernoldi's results in F3000 were hardly spectacular, but equally not an accurate representation of his performances. If not for a brace of unfortunate mechanical failures, Bernoldi would have in all likelihood taken third in the championship ahead of such talents as Mark Webber and Fernando Alonso in the 2000 season, hence Red Bull’s desire to see the Brazilian promoted to an F1 seat for 2001.

Red Bull were title sponsors to Sauber at the time, making the Swiss équipe the obvious team at which to place Bernoldi. However, team boss Peter Sauber instead elected to sign the largely unproven Kimi Raikkonen, leading Red Bull to instead negotiate with Arrows to find a berth for Bernoldi. A deal was done, but in the year-and-a-half remaining before the collapse of the Leafield-based team, the Brazilian achieved little besides notoriety at the 2001 Monaco Grand Prix as he held up David Coulthard’s McLaren for a considerable distance after the Scot stalled on the dummy grid from pole position.

The next man to represent Red Bull in F1 would be Christian Klien in 2004, who was parachuted into a Jaguar race drive in lieu of Red Bull's F3000 drivers Vitantonio Liuzzi and Patrick Freisacher after a single season of Formula 3 Euroseries. In spite of being regularly out-performed by his teammate Webber, Klien was retained as the team was bought out by Red Bull, originally supposed to share the second car with Liuzzi alongside new signing Coulthard in 2005. The Italian however would end up competing in just four races after the Austrian press pressured Red Bull to give Klien the seat full-time.

Indeed, Klien proved a consistent performer during 2005, and his reward was his retention by the senior Red Bull team for 2006 while Liuzzi was placed at the re-branded Scuderia Toro Rosso (née Minardi) along with GP2 graduate Scott Speed, who received his Red Bull backing courtesy of the corporation’s US-based ‘Driver Search’ scheme. Klien however disappointed in 2006, and was dropped three races before the end of the year having been outscored seven-to-one by Coulthard. Test driver Robert Doornbos was given the final three rounds of the season, but he had no real chance of hanging on to his seat with Webber joining the team for 2007.

Having racked up just a solitary point between them in 2006, it was evident that neither Liuzzi nor Speed had any long-term future in the Red Bull fold, and Speed was the first of the pair to be shown the door after ten races in 2007. His replacement was the somewhat more promising Vettel, who had finished runner-up in the 2006 F3 Euroseries en route to becoming the youngest ever F1 points-scorer with a fine eighth place finish at Indianpolis as a substitute for the injured Robert Kubica at BMW. That particular performance led to Vettel being selected for the job as opposed to more senior members of the Red Bull junior team such as Neel Jani or Michael Ammermueller, a decision vindicated little under a year later as Vettel earned the title of the sport’s youngest ever race winner in the sodden conditions at Monza. Cue a well-deserved promotion for the Heppenheim native to Red Bull Racing in the place of the retiring Coulthard.

By this time, Liuzzi had been forced to follow in Klien’s footsteps and accept a test drive with a rival team as Sebastien Bourdais filled the subsequent vacancy for 2008 at Toro Rosso. Buemi meanwhile had seemingly done enough while serving his apprenticeship in GP2 to merit a promotion to the highest level in 2009, soon joined by Jaime Alguersauri after Bourdais was dismissed having struggled to adapt to F1 after his years racing in Champ Car. Alguersauri had beat teammate and fellow Red Bull protégé Brendon Hartley in 2008 to become the first of three successive Red Bull-backed British F3 champions, current Toro Rosso drivers Daniel Ricciardo and Jean-Eric Vergne being the others.

Ricciardo and Vergne were given their chance this year in place of Buemi and Alguersauri, who despite performing solidly just weren’t considered championship material in the same mould Vettel had been. In fact, Vettel remains the only driver to have been promoted from Toro Rosso to the primary Red Bull team, a proposition made all the more attractive by the latter’s fairly recent transformation into a championship-winning outfit. It seems all but certain that one of the Toro Rosso drivers will become the second man to do so; precisely which of them will naturally depend on how they both perform this year, and possibly the next if Webber chooses to hang around for an extra season.

Of course, just as easily as Ricciardo and Vergne replaced their Toro Rosso predecessors, so may they eventually be replaced if they fail to meet Marko’s high expectations – the fact that there is always a multitude of drivers rising through the ranks of the Red Bull junior scheme means that there is constant pressure to perform. Other notable drivers to have been dropped by the scheme in light of disappointing results in recent times include include Hartley, Mikhail Aleshin, Stefano Coletti and Daniel Juncadella, all of whom are still competing in various junior formula categories with varying degrees of success.

The most senior member of the Red Bull junior team currently is Britain’s Lewis Williamson, who competes in World Series by Renault this season at Arden (incidentally a team originally founded by current Red Bull team principal Christian Horner). Another potential Red Bull driver of the future is Carlos Sainz Jr., the son of the double World Rally champion of the same name. The Spaniard has progressed from Formula Renault to British F3 this season with the category’s dominant team, Carlin, and thus will be expected to emulate Alguersuari et al. in taking the title in his debut season. Meanwhile, Daniil Kyvat, Stefan Wackerbauer and Alex Albon will all be out to impress in Formula Renault this season, with Callan O’Keefe setting his sights on winning this year’s Formula BMW Talent Cup.

Not all of the aforementioned will be destined for F1, but one would have to contend that even those who have been axed by the scheme in the past are in a better position for it than they would have been otherwise. I certainly applaud Red Bull for giving so many young drivers a chance, and it seems that other top F1 teams including McLaren, Ferrari and most recently Mercedes have felt the need to launch similar programmes to nurture talents of the future. It follows that the more young driver schemes there are out there, the less likely it is that a talented driver would have to give up on his F1 dream due to a lack of funds - this therefore ought to mean that we continue to see the quality of drivers on the F1 grid improving in the future.