From Melbourne to Montreal: The Story of 2014 So Far

First of all, allow me to apologise for my lack of activity since my last post on this blog some two-and-a-half months ago. In that time, I have finished my degree and the other site for which I have been busy writing, Sportontap.com, has become non-operational for the time being – so I should have more time to devote to updating this blog for at least the next few months. Now we’re (roughly) a third of the way through the 2014 season, a review of the year so far seems as appropriate a way as any to resume my blogging career.

The defining feature of the season so far has of course been the emergence of Mercedes as a hegemonic force to rival any other seen throughout F1 history. Winning the first six races of the year in a row has given the Brackley-based team a record surpassed only by McLaren in their all-conquering 1988 season, and such was their degree of dominance at supposedly non-Mercedes friendly tracks such as Catalunya and Monaco that many had begun to predict a Silver Arrows clean sweep of wins this year. 

Alas, more or less simultaneous MGU-K failures for both cars at Montreal put paid to any such aspirations, although beating the record of 15 wins in a season remains a distinct possibility for Mercedes.

But, while Mercedes has the constructors’ championship in the bag already, calling the outcome of the drivers’ championship is a far more difficult task. Following his fourth successive triumph in Spain, it seemed as if Hamilton had gathered unstoppable momentum – but then came Monaco. 

In many ways, it was a race Rosberg really could not afford to lose, and regardless of whether you believe his incident in qualifying was a nefarious ploy to prevent Hamilton from taking the all-important pole position (for the record, I do not), the German drove an immaculate race under immense pressure to re-ignite a title challenge that had hitherto seemed in danger of wilting.

Rosberg followed this up with a dogged run to second place behind the victorious Ricciardo at Montreal two weeks later despite being hobbled by a loss of some 160 horsepower, which arguably was an even more impressive display than victory at his 'home' race.

Much like at China, where Rosberg suffered from a loss of telemetry, damage limitation became the name of the game once the energy recovery problems struck – one which he played to perfection, keeping Sergio Perez’s Force India (which, admittedly, had issues of its own) at bay lap after lap in spite of his Mercedes’ considerable power loss. 

Though Rosberg was unlikely to ever hang on to the victory once Ricciardo found a way past Perez, the 18 points the German picked up on Sunday could prove crucial when the title fight reaches its climax in November.

Just as was the case following Melbourne, Hamilton now has to win the next four races on the trot, assuming Rosberg were to come second each time, in order to wrest back the championship lead. But, this will be a considerably taller order now that Rosberg has proven he can just about match Hamilton’s pace in qualifying and that, by the time we reach the summer break, Red Bull may well have just about hauled themselves into contention for wins on merit.

It may be through no fault of his own that Hamilton finds himself in arrears of Rosberg, but, then again, were the Englishman to eventually triumph regardless, his achievement would arguably be all the greater for it.

Speaking of luck, Ricciardo’s maiden Grand Prix victory on Sunday may have been more than a little fortuitous, but it was nonetheless a just reward for what has been an utterly stellar season for the Australian so far. 

Few pundits were giving Ricciardo any hope of matching his more illustrious teammate Sebastian Vettel coming into the season, but on the four occasions this year that both Red Bull RB10s have made it as far as the chequered flag, car #3 has beaten #1 every time. In fact, if not for his disqualification at Melbourne and his mechanical maladies at Malaysia, Ricciardo would now be just 31 points of shy of Rosberg in the drivers’ standings. 

It’s always refreshing to see a driver whose talent had been masked by a lack of adequate machinery finally show the world what he’s made of, but the sense of satisfaction at seeing Ricciardo standing atop the podium in Canada was made all the larger by the 24-year-old’s warm demeanour, easy-going charm and winning smile which make him an ideal ambassador of the sport. 

Not only that, but Ricciardo has succeeded in shaking off the reputation he acquired during his time at Toro Rosso – that of being a good qualifier but an average racer – as well as confounding those who were sceptical of Red Bull’s decision to select him to replace outgoing countryman Mark Webber last autumn.

In fact, based on the evidence of this year, Ricciardo looks the more likely man to spearhead a potential Red Bull title challenge in 2015 of the Anglo-Austrian team’s two drivers. That’s bad news for Vettel, who clearly is yet to fully get to grips with the loss of the exhaust-blown diffuser that was so crucial to his dominance last season. 

With this year’s title clearly out of reach already, the four-time champion would be well advised to focus on using the remaining 12 race weekends of this year to refine his driving style to suit the nuances of the new regulations in the way that others, not least of all Ricciardo, have clearly been able to. Should he fail to do so, it may be that history comes to look upon his four world titles a little less favourably than would otherwise have been the case.

At least Vettel can take comfort in the fact that Red Bull’s star designer Adrian Newey is going nowhere fast, even if, as was recently confirmed, he plans to take something of a back seat once he has laid the foundations for the team’s 2015 challenger. 

There has even been suggestion that Newey could switch his attentions to designing a bespoke Red Bull engine to replace the Renault unit, which, while much improved compared to the start of the year, continues to lag behind its Mercedes counterpart in terms of power and the efficiency of its energy recovery systems. 

Rumours were abound that Red Bull might try to lure a new engine manufacturer such as VW into the sport, but the fact that the Hanover marque has recently re-iterated its commitment to rallying until 2019 makes an alliance with the German auto giant an unlikely prospect.

Ferrari reputedly offered Newey a salary of $30m to depart Red Bull and join the ranks of Maranello, which would have put him behind only Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton among the drivers in terms of remuneration, but even that wasn’t enough to convince the 55-year-old to leave a team whose success in which he has played a central role.

Then again, you have to question the extent to which Newey’s presence would actually help a team whose technical department can already boast such renowned names as James Allison, Pat Fry, Nicholas Tombazis and Loic Bigois. 

As Allison recently alluded to, Ferrari’s biggest problem is that their engineers are not given the breathing space they need by the management to deliver the best results. Whether this will occur under the stewardship of Marco Mattiacci, the successor to the now-departed Stefano Domenicali as Ferrari team principal, remains to be seen.

It has certainly been a testing year so far for the Scuderia, whose best result so far in 2014 has been a distant third place behind the two Mercedes drivers at China courtesy of Alonso. 

Indeed, unless the team are able to make some serious performance gains with the troublesome F14 T, Ferrari could well end the year winless for the first time in 20 years – a state of affairs that will no doubt be leaving Alonso wondering whether he can afford to wait much longer for the team to get its house in order if he is to finally take that third world title he so badly craves. 

Overtures to Mercedes were reportedly made, but there’s no room in the Brackley inn for the Spaniard in the short term; ditto at Red Bull, who are said to have taken up their option to retain Ricciardo for 2015 after his Canadian victory. 

A return to McLaren can’t be ruled out for Alonso, but their performances this season, combined with the return of Ron Dennis, make such a move a considerably less attractive prospect than it was six months ago.

Since the first race of the season, after which McLaren led the constructors’ standings thanks to Kevin Magnussen and Jenson Button finishing second and third respectively, it’s been mostly downhill for the Woking équipe, who have somehow managed to translate the vast resources at their disposal into a fundamentally flawed car for the second year in succession. 

McLaren certainly cannot afford to drop the ball for a third year running if they are to please their new engine partners Honda, although the potential early arrival of former Red Bull chief aerodynamicist Peter Prodromou (in exchange for Red Bull's Dan Fallows staying put despite supposedly having signed to join McLaren) should help to ensure that this isn’t the case. 

Securing the services of Alonso would be another huge coup for a team which would appear to lack the driving strength for a full-blown assault on the championship, with Button surely now past his prime and Magnussen ostensibly struggling to re-capture the dazzling form he displayed during his F1 debut at Melbourne. 

On race pace, McLaren have been by far the least impressive of the Mercedes-powered teams so far this year. Williams have been consistently quick, even if errors by both team and driver have served to cost them a considerable number of points – not least of all at Canada where, a slow pit-stop for Felipe Massa deprived the team of a possible win. 

Instead, the Brazilian ended his race in the barrier after a coming together with Sergio Perez’s Force India, who himself may have triumphed if not for brake failure late in the race.

It’s been an up-and-down season so far for the Mexican, who has outshone teammate Nico Hulkenberg more often than was perhaps expected but has predictably lacked the metronomic consistency of the German, who has scored points at every single race (only Rosberg and Alonso have managed likewise). Indeed, Force India have a very solid chance of gaining their best ever constructors’ placing if McLaren can’t get their act together in fairly short order.

Elsewhere, Lotus has made significant progress, going from being barely able to string 10 laps together in testing to qualifying fifth on merit at Spain courtesy of Romain Grosjean in the space of just over two months. 

Although the Frenchman has not had the machinery at his disposal needed to continue where he left off at the end of his remarkable 2013 campaign, he can take solace in the fact that the contrast between he and his older, more experienced and (on paper, at least) more illustrious teammate Pastor Maldonado could scarcely be greater. 

Such has been the frequency of the 29-year-old’s mistakes this year that you would have a hard time convincing someone new to the sport that this is Maldonado’s fourth year at this level. Should the Venezuelan state oil cash dry up, there’s no way he would retain his seat at Lotus on merit as things stand, especially when there have been so many youngsters showing great promise this year.

Chief among these is 20-year-old Toro Rosso driver Daniil Kvyat, who has been seriously impressive during the first seven races of what is already shaping up to be a long and successful career at the highest level – further evidence, were it required, that Red Bull know what they’re doing when it comes to driver choices. 

Also worthy of mention is Valtteri Bottas, who, despite not having had any more opportunities to ascend the podium since his brush with the barriers at Melbourne, has been in the points every race so far bar one. 

That race was Monaco, where another precocious talent by the name of Jules Bianchi turned in one of the performances of the year so far to record his and his Marussia team’s first ever points with a sublime ninth place finish.

Should a vacancy emerge at Ferrari next year, they could do far worse than take a chance on the young Frenchman, who is, after all, the most senior member of the Ferrari Driver Academy scheme.

Bianchi’s result puts Marussia up in a dizzying ninth place in the constructors’ standings, ahead of not only perennial rivals Caterham, who could now well end up being sold to the new Forza Rossa outfit, (thus keeping the 2015 entry at 22 cars now that Gene Haas has wisely deferred his entry into the sport to 2016), but also Sauber. 

The Swiss team have struggled with an overweight Ferrari customer power-train, which required a major overhaul of the Sauber chassis for the start of the European season to bring it closer to the minimum weight limit, and a driver line-up frankly incapable of producing the heroics seen during the last two seasons courtesy of Messrs Hulkenberg and Perez. 

Indeed, both Adrian Sutil and Esteban Gutierrez threw away the chance to finally get some points on the board at Monaco, both having appeared to have fallen into the trap of over-driving what has to be one of the worst cars (if not the worst) to have come out of Hinwil in the team’s history. And, with the team already in a desperate financial situation, Sauber’s potential lowest ever constructors’ position could hardly come at a worse time.

This weekend sees the circus return to the Red Bull Ring (née A1 Ring) for the first time in 11 years, where, barring a repeat of the problems seen last time out at Canada, the thrilling battle for supremacy between Mercedes teammates Hamilton and Rosberg looks set to recommence.

There’ll be no F1 posts for a little while as I’m off to France for a holiday next week, but look out later in the week for my thoughts on last weekend’s 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance classic, which I was fortunate enough to attend for a fifth time this year. 

Abu Dhabi Grand Prix 2013 - Report

Since Sebastian Vettel took his fourth title last weekend at India, there's been plenty of debate as to just where the 26-year-old stands relative to the other greats of Formula One. Following another crushing victory at Abu Dhabi - his seventh in a row and 11th of the year in total - one particular statistic helps to shed some light on this debate.

Now with 36 wins to his name behind the wheel of a Red Bull, Vettel has won more races with the Milton Keynes-based team than the legendary Ayrton Senna did at McLaren. That makes the Vettel-Red Bull partnership the second most successful of all-time, second only to the mighty Schumacher-Ferrari axis that produced an incredible 72 wins.

Just like during the height of the Schumacher era, Vettel's domination has not made for scintillating viewing, and Abu Dhabi must rank as one of the dullest races of the year. Whilst Singapore at least saw a great deal of intrigue in the final dozen or so laps as differing tyre strategies converged, at Abu Dhabi the first four finishers were in no real doubt from the halfway stage onwards.

As for the identity of the winner, that was more or less decided at the first corner as pole-sitter Mark Webber bogged down as the lights went out and allowed Vettel into an early lead at the first corner, Nico Rosberg also sweeping around the outside of the Aussie to grab second.

Vettel promptly proceeded to escape the rest of the field at his usual terrifying rate - by lap five, the gap to Rosberg was as many seconds. By lap 10, when Rosberg made his first pit-stop, the Red Bull driver's advantage stood at 11 seconds, and by lap 20, Vettel's lead had swelled to an unassailable 23 seconds.

Not only this, but Vettel was able to preserve his tyres far more effectively than his pursuers, dispensing of his option tyres a full four laps later than Rosberg. He duly re-joined the circuit still in the lead of the race as a result; any victory ambitions Vettel's rivals may have harboured had by now vanished just as surely as the sun did beneath the horizon at mid-distance.

Attention turned to the battle for second, as Webber, who pitted two laps sooner than Rosberg, began to reel in the Mercedes driver during the second stint. The inevitable pass came on lap 20 at turn 11, one of many DRS-assisted overtaking manoeuvres seen throughout the race.

Despite his earlier first stop, Webber also made his prime tyres last longer than Rosberg, thus ending any realistic hope the Mercedes had of preventing Red Bull from taking a second one-two in the space of three races. Indeed, in the closing stages, Rosberg had a charging Romain Grosjean to contend with.

Grosjean had passed the sister Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton at the start to take fourth, but was unable to remain in touch with Rosberg and Webber ahead. The Lotus driver did nonetheless show a handy turn of pace at the end of the race, but simply ran out of laps in which to catch Rosberg. Grosjean thus had to be content with fourth whilst the German secured a second straight podium finish.

It was a wretched evening for Hamilton, whose race was ruined during the second stint as he became stuck behind the yet-to-stop Esteban Gutierrez for some 10 laps. Once the Mexican pitted, Hamilton had lost touch with the top four and was among the first drivers to pit for a second time.

This put him behind the one-stopping Paul Di Resta, and by the time Hamilton had caught the Force India driver, he had seemingly run out of grip with which to challenge his fellow Briton. This allowed Fernando Alonso, equipped with relatively new option tyres, to close rapidly and pass both Hamilton and Di Resta in the final few laps to claim fifth place.

Ferrari initially appeared to be attempting to get both its cars home with just one pit-stop as both Alonso and Massa went for long first stints on their option tyres, pitting on laps 16 and 18 respectively, but as the second stint wore on it became clear that a second visit to the pits was needed.

At this stage, Massa was holding up Alonso, who had started three places lower than his teammate in 10th, and was in no mood to yield to the Spaniard. This prompted Ferrari to bring in the Brazilian earlier than anticipated for medium tyres, preventing him from challenging the option-shod Alonso and consigning him to eighth place behind Di Resta and Hamilton.

The point-scorers were completed by McLaren's Sergio Perez, who enjoyed a trouble-free run to ninth position, and the second Force India of Adrian Sutil, who at one stage was under scrutiny from the stewards for exceeding track limits.

During a battle with Pastor Maldonado, Sutil was forced off the road by the Williams driver and cut the chicane at turn 11/12, gaining an sizeable advantage in the process. Maldonado meanwhile veered back towards the apex of the corner despite running wide, losing a position to Perez. Sutil escaped without penalty.

Alonso also was under investigation for passing Jean-Eric Vergne by leaving the track at the fast sweeping turn 4 as he exited the pit-lane, but was cleared of any wrongdoing by the stewards after the race.

Maldonado eventually came home 11th, missing out on doubling the Williams team's points haul for the year by one position, ahead of Jenson Button who endured another miserable outing. The McLaren driver made contact with Di Resta at the start, which necessitated an early pit-stop for a new front wing; Button never really looked like hauling himself back into points-scoring contention thereafter.

13th place went to Gutierrez, who finished one place ahead of Sauber teammate Nico Hulkenberg who was denied another points finish when he received a drive-through penalty for an unsafe pit-stop release. Next up was Valtteri Bottas in the second Williams, whose unusual strategy allowed him to run in the top 10 before a late second stop dropped him down to 15th at the chequered flag.

Both Toro Rosso drivers had a race to forget, finishing down in 16th and 17th. Daniel Ricciardo had started a creditable ninth but plummeted to 16th after a dreadful start and was never in the hunt for points from then on. Vergne meanwhile attempted to pull off a one-stop strategy which he was forced to abandon after 'falling off the cliff' in the closing stages.

The four 'Class B' cars rounded off the list of finishers, Giedo van der Garde making up for his recent first-lap collisions with a fairly decisive 'win' over Caterham teammate Charles Pic. The Dutchman even survived a collision with Kimi Raikkonen, who had to start from the back after being thrown out of qualifying for a technical infringement, at the the first corner.

The Finn wasn't so fortunate however, and was forced to park his Lotus there and then. For a while, it seemed that may have been the last F1 fans would see of Raikkonen this year amid claims that he hasn't been paid by Lotus all season, but an agreement has now been reached that will see the 'Iceman' complete the final two Grands Prix of the year.

There are no such tensions in the Red Bull camp, whose relationship with Vettel looks as healthy as ever. But, rumours are abound that the team's star designer Adrian Newey could be lured away from the sport and towards yacht racing in the not-too-distant future; such a move coming to fruition would certainly come as a blow to Red Bull.

But, losing Newey would not have as large an impact as next year's sweeping rule changes will have. Whilst the Milton Keynes team are hardly likely to suffer the same dramatic fall from grace Ferrari experienced in 2005, there's a strong chance we'll see a shake-up in the competitive order.

And if Vettel can still win races in such domineering style as he did at Abu Dhabi behind the wheel of a car that's not the class of the field, nobody will be able to dispute his status as one of the greatest ever.