- 21 Mar 16, 18:44#439633
Here is an article I made for WordPress.com:
Not bad... not bad at all... not brilliant either but definitely not bad!
That sums up my feelings about the season opener in Australia. It wasn`t a classic, it had its negative points, but in general it gave a lot more optimistic feeling towards the season ahead than the previous two season openers. Mainly because almost all teams displayed some promise judging by their respective preseason prospects. With that said, let`s look at the main talking points of the season opener.
Fernando Alonso is OK and the sport displayes its human side
Before talking about the actual race weekend and the performance of the teams and drivers ( and the nonperformance of the new qualifying format ), we must remember that it is just a sport, a game essentially and there are more important things in life. Be it the sight of Gutierrez running towards Alonso to make sure that he is OK ( as pictured above) or Alonso comments that the first thing he thought about after his horror crash was to get out of the car as soon as possible to make sure that his mother knew he was OK, I can`t help but to feel that the fact that Alonso was able to walk out of this crash completely fine, that it brought out a human side of the sport, that it displayed amazing advances in the safety of modern racing and a reminder that it`s important to stay vigilant where the safety is concerned, are the main things to take form the weekend. Also, that corner is really one for big shunts since Martin Brundle`s crash in 1996 and Jacques Villeneuve`s and Ralf Schumacher`s crash at the same corner come to mind.
Mercedes vs Ferrari, Hamilton vs Vettel vs Rosberg vs Raikkonen - it actually could happen this year!
Lets emphasize on the term "could", since Mercedes still seems to have some advantage. However Scuderia was in the fight with them on a track that was probably one of their weaker ones judging by last two seasons.
Lets put it that way: Ferrari messed up, Ferrari "lost the race"... that was a refreshing thing to say, since mostly it has been "Mercedes won the race" in recent years. We know that Ferrari prefers softer tyres and on harder compounds there still seems to be considerable advantage for Mercedes,but if not for the red flag, decision to go for supersoft tyres at the restart and not ironing out technological gremlins that made Raikkonen retire, Ferrari was looking fairly good for a double podium. Maybe even one-two. Ferrari is looking strong and at the first race for the sake of the championship, that is brilliant and more important than the fact that Mercedes performed better as a team.
Although, in Austria 2014 Williams lost a potential victory to Mercedes due to having too conservative strategy. This time around Ferrari lost potential victory to Mercedes by having unnecessarily aggressive strategy. It means that if they really want to beat the silver arrows this season, they better make sure that a small pace deficit in qualifying is their only weakness. Make no mistake - Mercs are still mighty and Ferrari must play it to perfection. They seem to have the tools to beat Mercs on merit but only if they get it all working flawlessly and even then it`s not a quaranteed bet.
As of the drivers, they all performed. That is simply great. Hamilton was mighty in the qualifying and minus the poor star brilliant in the race. Rosberg had a bit more troubled weekend, but he pulled it together when it mattered. Vettel was at his best whole weekend minus mistake at the end of the race. Raikkonen competent although not impressive in qualifying, displayed that his upward trend in form seems to continue, since he was right in the mix looking sharp the whole race. So we have Hamilton looking mighty and chasing for his fourth title, Rosberg seemingly having retained his late 2015 form, Vettel still a perfect match with Ferrari in every way and on mighty form and Raikkonen acutally seeming to be in the mix with the three of them for the title, showing there is still plenty of punch in a very talented driver who some consider to be way past his prime.
So... much... potential
Red Bull seems to out-drive its own engine thanks to rest of the car being brilliant, Toro Rosso is probably looking to capitalize on their early season form, that is amazing (maybe event best of the rest amazing), better than in Australia where Verstappen boiled over a bit and strategy was a bit off.
Force India and Williams being a bit pale but still clearly having retained their strong midfield status at least. But both seem to be at least close enough to have a strong race on a track that suits them better. These four teams are clearly good enough to pick up the pieces when Merc or Ferrari would happen to plunder and its four of them which means eight drivers. Simply great.
Then we have Mclaren, Haas and Renault. Although still a long way to go but to put it mildly, you really don`t have to dig deep to find the huge potential that each of them diplays. And indeed Grosjean dispalyed it on the track as well. Sure he was lucky, but he never let that lucky advantage go away.
Haas and Austin`s track are really building up the good will towards F1 in Amercia and vica versa. I am not going "Amercia, f*** yeah!" but F1 is a world championship and Amercia deserves to play a bigger role in it. So far Haas is showing good prospects to do it.
Renault. Finishing 11th is not quiet impressive, but they look competent. And with the talent and resources at their side ( including Palmer apparently who proved himself this race), they can only go up.
Mclaren is finally giving Alonso and Button hope that their good will towards the team will pay off hugely. Mclaren started a mess in 2015 so if ex world champion team has reached the midfield, it seems to be not much for celebrating, but they are getting better and better. And with the talent and resources they have, it doesnt seem to stop. Perhaps they can actually get close to and even ovetake the "best of the rest" group behind the Ferrari`s and Merc`s by the end of the season.
Unfortunately Sauber and Manor just.... they just... there is nothing much to say. Hopefully they are able to pull a rabbit out of the hat in their car development. Both rookies at Manor displayed some potential though.
If its broken but you can`t fix it... fix something anyway, at least you look like you are doing something
Ok, so as Niki Lauda revealed, the failed knock-out quali format was born out of a compromise to stop mr. Eccelstone from establishing reversed grids. Oh boy - the problem is to have more exciting racing. Call me a purist, but if the excitement is artificial, its.... well not excitement. Therefore we need to have a situation where there are smaller gaps between teams on pure pace and cars that have aero which enables more overtaking .
Right, easier said than done, but messing with qualifying like that or making reversed grids: that is the equivalent of cleaning your room by throwing all of the mess into your closet and hope it fits in there. Yes, your room might look better, but it is still a mess and one day you still have to open the closet and sort all of that mess out porperly...OK that was a horrible comparisson, but rest assured, I had even worse ones up my sleeve. So at least the most idiotic ones didn`t make it into this article, much like the case with qualifying format where it apparently could have been an even more outlandish screw-up.
To be fair I actually quiet like the idea of making Q1 and Q2 under the new system and Q3 under the old system. Mainly because Q1 was quiet good under the new format and it would be a nice compromise between the purist take of "just let them drive around for one hour and see who is the fastest with unlimited tyres and fuel and the take of a person who wishes to be more entertained by Saturdays action. As many form the paddock pointed out: we tried something new, it did not work, we had good intentions, lets`s just admit it and move on and keep thinking about the best way of how to go about it... maybe think a bit more this time around
So there it is. It`s go go go for the 2016 F1 season and it actually looks quiet good. Cool, bring on Bahrain!
Not bad... not bad at all... not brilliant either but definitely not bad!
That sums up my feelings about the season opener in Australia. It wasn`t a classic, it had its negative points, but in general it gave a lot more optimistic feeling towards the season ahead than the previous two season openers. Mainly because almost all teams displayed some promise judging by their respective preseason prospects. With that said, let`s look at the main talking points of the season opener.
Fernando Alonso is OK and the sport displayes its human side
Before talking about the actual race weekend and the performance of the teams and drivers ( and the nonperformance of the new qualifying format ), we must remember that it is just a sport, a game essentially and there are more important things in life. Be it the sight of Gutierrez running towards Alonso to make sure that he is OK ( as pictured above) or Alonso comments that the first thing he thought about after his horror crash was to get out of the car as soon as possible to make sure that his mother knew he was OK, I can`t help but to feel that the fact that Alonso was able to walk out of this crash completely fine, that it brought out a human side of the sport, that it displayed amazing advances in the safety of modern racing and a reminder that it`s important to stay vigilant where the safety is concerned, are the main things to take form the weekend. Also, that corner is really one for big shunts since Martin Brundle`s crash in 1996 and Jacques Villeneuve`s and Ralf Schumacher`s crash at the same corner come to mind.
Mercedes vs Ferrari, Hamilton vs Vettel vs Rosberg vs Raikkonen - it actually could happen this year!
Lets emphasize on the term "could", since Mercedes still seems to have some advantage. However Scuderia was in the fight with them on a track that was probably one of their weaker ones judging by last two seasons.
Lets put it that way: Ferrari messed up, Ferrari "lost the race"... that was a refreshing thing to say, since mostly it has been "Mercedes won the race" in recent years. We know that Ferrari prefers softer tyres and on harder compounds there still seems to be considerable advantage for Mercedes,but if not for the red flag, decision to go for supersoft tyres at the restart and not ironing out technological gremlins that made Raikkonen retire, Ferrari was looking fairly good for a double podium. Maybe even one-two. Ferrari is looking strong and at the first race for the sake of the championship, that is brilliant and more important than the fact that Mercedes performed better as a team.
Although, in Austria 2014 Williams lost a potential victory to Mercedes due to having too conservative strategy. This time around Ferrari lost potential victory to Mercedes by having unnecessarily aggressive strategy. It means that if they really want to beat the silver arrows this season, they better make sure that a small pace deficit in qualifying is their only weakness. Make no mistake - Mercs are still mighty and Ferrari must play it to perfection. They seem to have the tools to beat Mercs on merit but only if they get it all working flawlessly and even then it`s not a quaranteed bet.
As of the drivers, they all performed. That is simply great. Hamilton was mighty in the qualifying and minus the poor star brilliant in the race. Rosberg had a bit more troubled weekend, but he pulled it together when it mattered. Vettel was at his best whole weekend minus mistake at the end of the race. Raikkonen competent although not impressive in qualifying, displayed that his upward trend in form seems to continue, since he was right in the mix looking sharp the whole race. So we have Hamilton looking mighty and chasing for his fourth title, Rosberg seemingly having retained his late 2015 form, Vettel still a perfect match with Ferrari in every way and on mighty form and Raikkonen acutally seeming to be in the mix with the three of them for the title, showing there is still plenty of punch in a very talented driver who some consider to be way past his prime.
So... much... potential
Red Bull seems to out-drive its own engine thanks to rest of the car being brilliant, Toro Rosso is probably looking to capitalize on their early season form, that is amazing (maybe event best of the rest amazing), better than in Australia where Verstappen boiled over a bit and strategy was a bit off.
Force India and Williams being a bit pale but still clearly having retained their strong midfield status at least. But both seem to be at least close enough to have a strong race on a track that suits them better. These four teams are clearly good enough to pick up the pieces when Merc or Ferrari would happen to plunder and its four of them which means eight drivers. Simply great.
Then we have Mclaren, Haas and Renault. Although still a long way to go but to put it mildly, you really don`t have to dig deep to find the huge potential that each of them diplays. And indeed Grosjean dispalyed it on the track as well. Sure he was lucky, but he never let that lucky advantage go away.
Haas and Austin`s track are really building up the good will towards F1 in Amercia and vica versa. I am not going "Amercia, f*** yeah!" but F1 is a world championship and Amercia deserves to play a bigger role in it. So far Haas is showing good prospects to do it.
Renault. Finishing 11th is not quiet impressive, but they look competent. And with the talent and resources at their side ( including Palmer apparently who proved himself this race), they can only go up.
Mclaren is finally giving Alonso and Button hope that their good will towards the team will pay off hugely. Mclaren started a mess in 2015 so if ex world champion team has reached the midfield, it seems to be not much for celebrating, but they are getting better and better. And with the talent and resources they have, it doesnt seem to stop. Perhaps they can actually get close to and even ovetake the "best of the rest" group behind the Ferrari`s and Merc`s by the end of the season.
Unfortunately Sauber and Manor just.... they just... there is nothing much to say. Hopefully they are able to pull a rabbit out of the hat in their car development. Both rookies at Manor displayed some potential though.
If its broken but you can`t fix it... fix something anyway, at least you look like you are doing something
Ok, so as Niki Lauda revealed, the failed knock-out quali format was born out of a compromise to stop mr. Eccelstone from establishing reversed grids. Oh boy - the problem is to have more exciting racing. Call me a purist, but if the excitement is artificial, its.... well not excitement. Therefore we need to have a situation where there are smaller gaps between teams on pure pace and cars that have aero which enables more overtaking .
Right, easier said than done, but messing with qualifying like that or making reversed grids: that is the equivalent of cleaning your room by throwing all of the mess into your closet and hope it fits in there. Yes, your room might look better, but it is still a mess and one day you still have to open the closet and sort all of that mess out porperly...OK that was a horrible comparisson, but rest assured, I had even worse ones up my sleeve. So at least the most idiotic ones didn`t make it into this article, much like the case with qualifying format where it apparently could have been an even more outlandish screw-up.
To be fair I actually quiet like the idea of making Q1 and Q2 under the new system and Q3 under the old system. Mainly because Q1 was quiet good under the new format and it would be a nice compromise between the purist take of "just let them drive around for one hour and see who is the fastest with unlimited tyres and fuel and the take of a person who wishes to be more entertained by Saturdays action. As many form the paddock pointed out: we tried something new, it did not work, we had good intentions, lets`s just admit it and move on and keep thinking about the best way of how to go about it... maybe think a bit more this time around
So there it is. It`s go go go for the 2016 F1 season and it actually looks quiet good. Cool, bring on Bahrain!
