F1 2008

[Joffrey]

Like last year a thread for F1 fans. The 2009 season starts in Australia this weekend. After all the drama from last year, here are my talking points.

1. How will McLaren bounce back after their horrendous 2007 season? They had a great car with two excellent drivers, but bad management and poor judgement by key personnel cost the team what would have been world championships (or at least the constructors).
2. Fernando Alonso - Long time Renault driver defected to McLaren but is back with Renault this year. How far can he carry the team? He has a rookie teamate that he SURELY won't have a challenge from (I suspect he has contractual #1 status). He's won two great championships with them before, what can he achieve with them this year (he's rumored to be on a one year contract)?
3. Lewis Hamilton- After embarassing Alonso (or did Alonso embarass himself?) he's obviously THE man in McLaren. How will handle leading the team? How will he handle equally [in]experienced Heikki Kovaleinen who helped send highly regarded Giancarlo Fisichella packing from Renault last season?


Other questions:
4. Williams redeemed themselves in 2007. Will they be ahead of the midfield cars or just much closer to the richer midfield teams (BMW, Renault, Red Bull). Rosberg has turned out to be a highly promising driver, but now they have a rookie driving alongside him. In testing Kazuki Nakajamia seemed to do pretty well keeping up with Nico.
5. Red Bull seems to have finally made a faster AND more reliable car, with ocasional problems cropping up during testing. They've kept their lineup of experienced and straight shooting drivers. Will Webber finally step up ahead of Coulthard, with a car that won't fail him as so many others have in the past?
6. Toyota DID dissapoint in 2007. They kept Trulli, got rid of Ralf Schumacher and picked up GP2 champion Timo Glock (who drove in Jordan a few years back, then Champ Car, before GP2). They started off slow in testing this year, looked REAL slow testing alone with Ferrari in Bahrain this February, but they managed to top the timesheets in the final testing day. Many (including Trulli) are suggesting they may be a regular fixture in the middle of the field this season. I expect another mediocre year for the team but a solid one for Timo Glock.
7. Toro Rosso has possibly the most interesting lineup. Vettel who's only 19 or 20 came out of nowhere and scored plenty of points for the little team toward the end of the 2007 season. He also managed to cost Mark Webber a possible win or podium in the Japanese Grand Prix. They also have Sebastian Bourdais who dominated Champ Car in the U.S. for many years and has finally (if a few years late) made his break into F1. I'm really curious how this turns out.
8. Honda looks bad again.
9. So do Super Aguri
10. Force India (FKA Spyker) has another interesting lineup. Short of options Fisichella was picked up by the team for his experience and to push Adrian Sutil. Most figure Sutil as a great talent who didn't have much competition in 2007 and is being tested against the still highly regarded Fisichella. They also have better backing and a pretty decent technical team running the team.
11. Apparently Speed TV is broadcasting the F1 races in HD this season. You just need the Speed HD channel which glorious Comcast doesnt carry.


This should be an interesting year. Thoughts?

 

[rdawson808]

Thanks for starting the thread Jodum.

I can't respond to all (just not knowledgable enough) but will try for a few:

1. I think McLaren will be a strong contender and I have no prediction really. I think last year will turn out to be a blip of drama. LH will perform well.

2. Alonso will not compete. That's based on nothing more than my feeling that he's lost his touch after LH beat the crap out of him last season. He would have done better had be adapted to the challenge and learned from it to become a better drive. But nope.

3. LH will thrive on the competition Kovaleinen presents.

...

5. As much as I love Couthard, I hope this is his last season. Time for new blood.

6. I can't believe how much Toyota spends on F1 just to perform so miserably. They spend more than Ferrari, don't they? S9mething like $300m US?



A new question: Haven't they changed the rules this year and gotten rid of traction control and launch control? Or did they get rid of launch control last year? I can't remember. Anyway, how will this change things?


b

 

[magnus_h]

Originally Posted by rdawson808

T
A new question: Haven't they changed the rules this year and gotten rid of traction control and launch control? Or did they get rid of launch control last year? I can't remember. Anyway, how will this change things?


b

Yes traction control is gone (and launch control with it). As for how much it will change things, Felipe Massa has complained a lot about it, so expect him to exit sideways at the first corner in Melbourne

. But overall drivers seem pretty good at driving without it. Although testing is different from racing, so hopefully we'll see some more mistakes leading to more passing.

 

[A Y]

Originally Posted by rdawson808

6. I can't believe how much Toyota spends on F1 just to perform so miserably. They spend more than Ferrari, don't they? S9mething like $300m US?

Way more than that. I've heard rumors of well over $500M. Ferrari and McLaren's budgets are supposedly also in that ballpark. BMW's is supposedly closer to $300M. I think when they were engine suppliers, they had a $100M+ bugdet.

--Andre

 

[Joffrey]

Generally the ranking is thought to be:

Toyota at way over $400MM
Ferrari and McLaren around $400MM
Honda (maybe equal with the above two?)
BMW (frugal management, took over a team known for its thriftiness)
Red Bull (if you include Torro Rosso they may be on par with Ferrari&McLaren)
Renault (Historically known to be very frugal, publically take pride in not spending much on personnel)
Williams (they get free engines from Toyota thanks to Nakajima racing now but rely solely on sponsorship)
...

When BMW was a supplier to Williams they were giving them $150-200mm a year for the Engines plus cash as a "works" team. Hence Williams major fall from grace once the relationship fell apart.

Anyway all these numbers are all speculation.

 

[UMass]

Mac will be back but not as strong as last year. Despite all the FA hate he improved Mac more so than LH. Remember LH lost the WC last year he was ahead in pts. all he had to do was finish ahead of FA and Kimi in the final two races. Last year RD would not allow FA to chose his race strategy. Imagine that, FA a two-time WC not allowed to choose his own race strategy. All last year LH was the rabbit and FA was the hare. Renault will not be able to challenge Ferrari even with FA. BMW is the real question mark as they should be able to challenge for wins. Williams should be on the same level with BMW but their drivers are not that impressive. Toyota, here is a clue on their focus- their test driver is an inexperienced Japanese driver while top teams Ferrari and Mac have vets. test drivers to give input on car development. Toyota just wants a Japanese driver piloting one of their cars. Toyota F1 program has been a joke from the start. RS and JT as drivers

Honda

Ross Brown is the best thing to say about Honda F1. Kimi and Ferrari

 

[Dragon]

The first day practice sessions are running now.

So far it seems like Ferrari is strong (as everyone already speculated). Massa and Kimi are closely matched as usual.

Mclaren is strong too with Kovalainnen giving Kimi a run for his money. Should be good dual between these two all season.

Who is the 3rd team to join the Ferrari/Mclaren dual? So far seems like Red Bull are actually pretty strong. Maybe BMW, but they don`t look THAT strong. Williams is doing better, but probably not strong enough to break into the dual.

The losers again seems to be Toyota and Honda. Toyota is doing OK, but no so strong (as usual), but Honda is in the back again.

Oh I forgot about Renault and Alsonso. I think everyone else will forget about them too as the season moves on. They will probably in the middle of the pact, getting near the top group from time to time, but nothing spectacular.

 

[Stazy]

I'm really hoping F1 has a race in Edmonton.

 

[Dragon]

By the way, I am sure you all know but this is a pretty cool tool you can get from the F1.com site. It`s the live timing monitor, which is pretty much what the teams are staring at in the pits. http://www.formula1.com/services/liv...ve_timing.html All the sector time, etc. are updated in real time, so you can try to get a good idea on what each team is trying to do during a particular session (low fuel, heavy load, long run, etc.).

[/IMG]

 

[rdawson808]

Dragon, thanks that's really cool. I'll have to check it out.

b

 

[A Y]

I'm a diehard BMW fan, but after watching practice yesterday, I think Red Bull will probably be the #3 team this year. Maybe BMW will pull something off later, but it seems like teams that aren't strong from the beginning will spend all season trying to catch up while other teams get stronger.

--Andre

 

[Dragon]

Hmmmm...interesting qualifying.

Again it`s too early to tell, but Ferrari didn`t look as strong as we all thought. Mclaren looks pretty good, and the #3 team seems to be BMW.

Red Bull looks like they are taking Renault`s place from last year, while Toyotal and Williams look a little better compared to last year.

 

[A Y]

I'm happy to eat my own words.

The big unknown is the fuel load they had for qualifying.

--Andre

 

[Dragon]

:::::::::::::::SPOILER ALERT:::::::::::::::::SPOILER ALERT:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Just finished watching...

It doesn`t seem like Ferrari is THAT quick. Neither of the Ferraris showed that they were as good as, or better than Mclaren this race.

Mclaren clearly looks like they are the top team (so far)

Although BMW (Kubica) was under a light fuel load for qualifying, they still showed enough speed during the race. Perhaps they are even better than Ferrari at this point.

It seems really close between Renault, Williams, Toyota, and Red Bull. Any of these teams can be the 4th team and cut into the top3 results depending on the usual top3.

 

[Roy Biggins]

What an amazing race.