The off-season is over! At 12:30 and 16:30 AEST we will have the pleasure of watching the Formula One 2012 season kick off. So who is smiling? And who is scowling?
Smiling at the front
Red Bull and McLaren have carried on from where they left off last year and will be at the front of the pack this year. All four drivers showed great speed and consistency in their practice races and it is hard to imagine a top four not populated with Vettel, Webber, Button and Hamilton. In terms of outright speed, thankfully they appear to very evenly matched. However, neither of the teams have shown their hand and it won’t be until qualifying on Saturday afternoon that we get our first reading of who has the edge in outright speed.
Smiling in the top ten
Lotus, formerly Lotus Renault (formerly just Renault) were the surprise package of the off season. It was expected that having 2007 World Champion Kimi Raikkonen would help them, but it was not expected that they would finish testing with the fastest lap of Catalunya! Expect to see both he and teammate Grosjean in the middle of the points. Joining them will be Mercedes which had a quiet off season after launching their car quite late, but should still be up there in the mix.
Scowling in the top ten
To the chagrin of the thousands of Ferrari fans who are heading to Albert Park this weekend, the noises coming out of Maranello are not positive. Indeed they are downright pessimistic. Alonso is talking about damage control, and Felipe Massa has the haunted look of a child who has just been told his mother has found the magazines he keeps under the mattress. The car has speed, but is incredibly unstable over long periods of driving. Expect to see them towards the front of the grid, only to steadily move back throughout the race.
Smiling in the midfield
Force India, Sauber and Toro Rosso will be nipping at the heels of Ferrari and the rest of the top ten. They have all produced quick, reliable cars that have been very manageable in practice. But more interestingly, they have all been driven by outstanding young talents who will be the next drivers to come to the front as the current champions move on. While there won’t be as much coverage, the inter-team battles of Kobayashi-Perez, Ricciardo-Vergne and especially di Resta-Hulkenberg will be a compelling subplot. They are all happy now, but come Sunday they will be tearing each other apart.
Scowling in the midfield
Williams has hired a new driver, got new Renault engines, new management and hired Michael Johnson to coach the pit crew for greater speed on tyre changes. So far they have produced a car that is reliable and very slow. The long sad decline of this mighty team continues, and it is difficult to imagine them turning it around any time soon.
Smiling at the back
Caterham, formerly Team Lotus is right on the pace of Williams and can expect to relegate them to the rear of the grid as the season continues. In Heikki Kovalainen they have an enormously underrated driver who will wring the neck of his car and get it much further up the field then you may expect.
Scowling at the back
Marussia, formerly Virgin and HRT will be at the back of the grid again. The Spanish team HRT had barely cleared their crash test and is bringing the chaos of Minardi back to F1. They are doing this without the chance of watching a bright talent ply his trade. Karthikeyan and de la Rosa haven’t made it so far and with respect, they won’t. Marussia have a lot of ground to make up for after ambitiously building cars designed purely with CAD and no wind tunnels, which didn’t work. Fortunately they have a fine driver in Glock to help them sort out their car.
Friday practice is a day of development and tyres. The teams will be continuing to try new things that are being developed by the engineers back in Europe, but more importantly, they will be sorting out how fast they can drive on the two-tyre compounds they have available. Expect to see each 90 minute session dominated by cars doing 10 to 15 lap stints and ending with a frantic final five minutes of everyone pushing for the fastest lap as possible.
Enjoy the weekend of speed!
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