It is a long wait from the end of one Formula One Season to the start of the next. It’s been over 110 days since the flag fell in Brazil and Sebastian Vettel claimed his third successive title. Fans of the most exciting sport in the world have since taken up all manner of other activities to bide the time leading up to the Aussie GP and that time is now. No more watching extreme bowls, cheese rolling or shuffle board, the wait is finally over.
In the past few weeks the die-hards have been scouring the media for times from the official practice sessions. Real fans know that the (Northern hemisphere) Winter World Championship – which awards no points nor crowns a champ – means very little. Teams use the valuable time to try out parts and run race strategies planning for the year ahead.
Testing times… behind
As a result, the times set during the winter testing means very little. That little fact was highlighted by less than sterling performances by the Red Bull pairing, at some points up to 2,5 seconds slower than the main rivals. Rumour has it that the team never ran the cars with less than 60 kg of fuel on board, emulating a race scenario – a perfect case of sand (fuel?) bagging.
The sandbagging is over
The sand-bagging had to stop at some point and the order has, to some extent, been restored. As of a few hours ago the 2013 Formula season officially kicked off in Melbourne, Australia. It could not have been a major surprise that Red Bulls boys, Vettel and Webber, lead the timesheets. Their pace is already impressive although it’s fair to assume that they still haven’t played all their cards.
Interestingly, the Mercedes pair was quick but both drivers seemed to suffer some form of mechanical malady, which reflects what happened in testing. The car was fast but fragile, too. The dark horse pick for the year is the Lotus. Laconic Finn Kimi Räikkönen drove the consistent black and gold car to third place in the championship. That result said more about the Iceman’s driving talent rather than the car, which was at least the fourth fastest among the front-running teams. He even managed a popular win later in the season. Hopefully his hunger to win will have grown and he will add to his win tally this year, if only to hear him curse during the podium interviews!
Ferrari had a lacklustre 2012 season, and that’s an understatement. Only thanks to Alonso’s expert wheel-twirling did the team perform as well as it did. The driving pair, which includes Felipe Massa, were very complimentary about their new steeds for 2013, which probably isn’t that difficult considering the low comparison base. Somehow it’s hard to see the Red Cars being as quick as the die-hard Tifosi hope.
An all new car, bad choice?
It’s interesting to see that McLaren is the only team that chose to design a fresh car from the ground up for 2013; all other teams revised their 2012 machines as the rules change quite dramatically for 2014. Ironically, Jenson Button and new signing Sergio “Checo”Perez found themselves down the pecking order in 11th and 13th respectively. Many may think that the boys from Woking are struggling for pace, but it wouldn’t necessarily pay to make any calls to your bookie until after qualifying.
The only real surprise, or not really, during FP2 was Adrian Sutil dragging Force India into 9th spot. Perhaps the team has some real pace, but his occupation of the single digit spot may well be short-lived when the real pace is witnessed tomorrow (afternoon Aussie time) morning.
The Sauber outfit is a safe pick to be the best of the rest. The Swiss team will have to fend off Force India, which now has two strong drivers. Nico Hulkenberg can really get on it when the occasion arises – remember his pole position at Brazil a few years ago?
Pireally good?
Aside from all the gamesmanship between teams leading up to the qualifying session tomorrow, the one true unknown factor is how the new Pirelli rubber will behave. Reports from FP2, where some of the front runners used the supersoft option, indicate a high degree of graining after just a handful of laps. Pirelli chose to supply the medium and supersoft option to the teams for this weekend, so strategy will be key.
At any rate, tyres that degrade quickly and force teams to make snap decisions on declining laps times always makes for great viewing.
First lap nutcase
If Kimi’s team-mate Grosjean can make it through the first corner without removing half the field in the process then the mid-field guys are going to be fighting over the remaining points. Everybody else will just be keen to make it to the end.
Roll on Sunday morning for the start of the most exciting Formula One season ever…
