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[What's Burning?]

1 Mercedes
2 Williams
3 McLaren
4 Red Bull
5 Force India
6 Ferrari/Lotus too close to call
8 Sauber
9 Caterham (if they show up)
10 Marussia (if they show up)

[myownalias]

The outcome of 2015 is already locked in and known. Mercedes 2015 WCC, Hamilton 2015 WDC.

No predictions are required!

Mercedes will more than likely be dominant again, BUT I am really looking forward to seeing if Williams can step it up and take it to Mercedes for wins in 2015. Honda is still somewhat of an unknown quantity, will they be up there fighting with the Silver Arrows? Pre-season testing will certainly be interesting this season with Williams in pole position to step up to be the #2 team in 2015 and McLaren being a bit of an unknown going into pre-season.

[Hammer278]

Williams could win if both Mercs fail. In terms of pure performance, a privateer with their budget matching Merc over a season, no frigging chance.

[myownalias]

Williams could win if both Mercs fail. In terms of pure performance, a privateer with their budget matching Merc over a season, no frigging chance.

Williams do seem to be in the ascendency again and do have a year of the Merc engine under their belt, so never say never, maybe it's a bit of wishful thinking as Williams are my team of choice (driver independent), but Williams are great at making every € count... //nothing wrong with a bit of positive optimism.

[RyRy]

Well,

Theoretically Mercedes should win this year but if one of the Mercedes powered cars can pull something out the bag in terms of aero or the chassis then they could beat Mercedes, this is the biggest chance for the likes of Force India and Williams and it wouldn't take a huge amount to match Mercedes their only problem is the fact Mercedes have already had the benefit of a years worth of testing and are very good on their fuel usage however Williams can comfortably match them on fuel usage.

I highly doubt that Renault and Ferrari have made big enough improvements to their engines to challenge.

The one we have no idea about is Honda they could well turn up in testing and dominate but they could turn up and be even worse than Renault were last year. They could sandbag and secretly have a very dominant Engine. No one knows how good the Honda engine is apart from Honda and McLaren.

Without Honda potentially being in the mix I would expect the order to be Mercedes, Williams, Force India, Ferrari, Red Bull... for the top 5 teams.

[racechick]

I think Red Bull will be ahead of Ferrari, I possiboy wouldn't have said that if they still had Alonso instead of Vettel, because if it's close, Alonso can make the difference. And he's now batting for McLaren. Which has to give them a boost presuming they hit the ground running with the car and engine. And what of Lotus? Nowhere last year, but right in the mix the year before, and they now have a Merc engine.
I think I'd choose this order

Mercedes,
Williams,
McLaren ( gambling there) ........
(now it gets tricky between Lotus, Red Bull and Force India) okay , going with this..
Red Bull
Lotus
Force India
Ferrari


Ferrari are difficult to place, they've had change on change of personel, can't seem to settle on any plan and stick to it, Headless chickens come to mind. And they've lost Alonso. They have money coming out their ears but don't use it wisely and they may have to start being accountable. And they're behind with the engine. That's all very negative which is why I've placed them so low. But they are Ferrari, so they may pull something out of the bag.

is Maldonado still driving for Lotus!! I may have to downgrade them!!

[CookinFlat6]

RC, are you sure about Ferraris position? Seems a bit optimistic considering Sauber are also running the Ferrari engine, and they know where they went wrong in 2014 and know how to rectify it.

[Hammer278]

[LiamCatterson]

I think Ferrari will be a bit higher up than I've seen in these predictions. I hope so anyways. If anything, 4th will be their aim

[CookinFlat6]

I think Ferrari will be a bit higher up than I've seen in these predictions. I hope so anyways. If anything, 4th will be their aim

I would like to think so and as was said earlier everyone wants to see some more competition for Merc, but we gotta be logical here. The Merc engine teams will be starting with a bigger margin than they had at the end of last year over the others, why? because even if they dont start with an improved version they have had the stability and right process to improve their chassis/packaging and the Merc will at least be more reliable.

So even if Renault and Ferrari start with improved designs and they wont, (otherwise they waste tokens) we can safely assume that the Merc teams will all increase the margin since last year - even Lotus, as they already reported benefits from the Merc lump - namely weight power and fuel usage.

So lets look at the teams Ferrari beat last year -
McLaren - one would have to be mad to think they can do it again with Alonso there
FI - Merc engine gain + packaging
Lotus - Merc engine gain + packaging
STR - with RBR will have an engine thats better and so again probably more work done on evolving chassis and package
Ferrari - we can assume the chassis and engine packaging has seen no positive gain (if not negative) - as they have had to start again afte sacking MnM, and they have started agaibn to package an engine they hope to be rid of in a few months, so if they are smart tall energy will be going into new car

Ferrari are looking at Sauber doing them a favour to avoid being dead last by Monza

and Im not even joking here

[Jabberwocky]

Well I think the order is not going to change much on the engine side of things. I would like to think that the law of deminishing returns means that Ferrari and Renault may of closed up a bit to Mercedes.

So the big mover should be Lotus as it will now have a better engine. However, with rumours of Lotus, Sauber and Force India being on the knife edge of existence how much money has been put into developement will the relatively drop back from last year? not that Sauber has much further to fall.

The biggest unknown is Honda will they be up with the big boys or will it stumble for a year trying to catch up?

So

Mercedes
William
Redbull
Ferrari
Lotus
Force India
STR
Sauber
Manor

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[LiamCatterson]

I think Ferrari will be a bit higher up than I've seen in these predictions. I hope so anyways. If anything, 4th will be their aim

I would like to think so and as was said earlier everyone wants to see some more competition for Merc, but we gotta be logical here. The Merc engine teams will be starting with a bigger margin than they had at the end of last year over the others, why? because even if they dont start with an improved version they have had the stability and right process to improve their chassis/packaging and the Merc will at least be more reliable.

So even if Renault and Ferrari start with improved designs and they wont, (otherwise they waste tokens) we can safely assume that the Merc teams will all increase the margin since last year - even Lotus, as they already reported benefits from the Merc lump - namely weight power and fuel usage.

So lets look at the teams Ferrari beat last year -
McLaren - one would have to be mad to think they can do it again with Alonso there
FI - Merc engine gain + packaging
Lotus - Merc engine gain + packaging
STR - with RBR will have an engine thats better and so again probably more work done on evolving chassis and package
Ferrari - we can assume the chassis and engine packaging has seen no positive gain (if not negative) - as they have had to start again afte sacking MnM, and they have started agaibn to package an engine they hope to be rid of in a few months, so if they are smart tall energy will be going into new car

Ferrari are looking at Sauber doing them a favour to avoid being dead last by Monza

and Im not even joking here

That said, I still don't think the order will shake up too dramatically. It's also about the drivers too. Grosjean is more decent compared to Maldonado lol and Ferrari have two great drivers, champions if you say so. If Ferrari have sorted their problem out, this might just push them further. I am not expecting them to fight Mercedes. That is either on Red Bull's or McLaren's hands. However, I do expect them in the Top Ten. Nothing changes to be honest.

[CookinFlat6]

Nothing changes much for the other teams, however for Ferrari, they have a near new roster of staff, and they have guys in charge who have ZERO experience in gelling an F1 outfit and producing a team. Its the polar opposite to when they had success last with Todt, Brynne and Brawn. All of those came fresh off the back of a winning run in another team. They brought over an intact management and operational process that was (Ron speak) optimized around a top top driver - MS and around a 'flair' leader - Flabio - that took a couple of years to organically osmosise (ron speak) into a winning team.

This time around you got Arrivabene who knows less than sweet FA ( thats not FIA miss-spelt, or even Fer Alo either) about actually running any racing outfit (unlike Todt), with a sceptical, cynical and dramatic Sergio, who is going through the motions before he gets his hands on the free cash locked in the swoons of the tifosi, you got an able, decisive and focused Todt like rainmaker (MnM) ditched for not being political enough, replaced by a salesman whose abilities are crowned by an ability to maximise the earnings from cancer sticks despite strong political and legal opposition (the Marlboro barcode - what commercial genius ), and you have senior technical staff who have just been shipped in and promoted from places that didnt fight at all to keep them.

One thing is cristal clear, this is gonna be a much much worse testing and early season than 2014, the playacting bosses admit their aim is to overcome the deficit of starting way behind by later in the season. Note, this is 'overcome their deficit by not being prepared for 2015' - Other teams that were ahead or close in 2014 that have had no such ructures aint gonna be the competition - and to cut a long story short - these teams are FI, Mclaren, Lotus and possibly STR

This time last year we all digested the news and snippets and data and it wasnt rocket science to predict what would happen over the season (for those happy to look and see, instead of think and look) and I am watching Sergio, and the conduciveness (Ron speak) of the global appetite for his IPO(and his structured debt obligations) and the schedule of manageable PR coming from his F1 team, and I see a sh!t or bust play where the upside is Sergio exiting a ferrari before the sh!t hits the fan

Just MHO ofcourse, and it would be great to hear an alternative view of the future thats been cleverly hidden

[Jabberwocky]

Many people said the same about Flavio when he pitched up at Benetton

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