Welcome to the midseason break, where almost nothing happens in the Formula One world due to forced factory closures.
But such pauses are made for reflection, and in the final part of this column’s midseason review, the harsh light of reality is reflected directly on those teams performing poorly.
Ferrari
It was a championship battle prospect that had Formula One fans salivating: Ferrari versus Mercedes, Sebastian Vettel versus Lewis Hamilton – a titanic struggle between two giants of the racetrack.
It was to be the battle of a generation, but the promise soon fizzled out. Ferrari wasn’t a genuine contender, and Mercedes has been left unchallenged for a third successive year.
The signs were positive early – Ferrari should have won in Australia and Canada, and it had form elsewhere on the calendar, but the team, so ruthless in its theft of three victories last season, fumbled over its execution each time.
The resources at Ferrari’s disposal makes anything less than victory contention unacceptable, but its response, which has included a technical reshuffle in the wake of technical director James Allison’s sudden departure just months before an all-new car is due to start testing, has left many worried the Scuderia is locking itself into years of cycling rebuilding.
But this is the Ferrari we should expect, and the super-consistent team of people at Red Bull Racing have already turned around its disappointing 2015 campaign to take one win this season, with at last one more likely in the second half of the year.
What was billed as a critical season for the new-look Scuderia will undoubtedly go down as an anticlimax.
Williams
It’s difficult to believe that the Williams of 2014, which so confidently finished third in the constructors championship, is the same Williams likely to finish fifth in the standings now.
In the third year of the hybrid era it is simply untenable to continue favourably comparing the current Grove-based outfit to its dispiriting fall from grace from 2004–13, not least because it unashamedly set its sights on a full-blown title tilt in 2015 or 2016 from the outset.
New regulations in 2017 give the team another opportunity to jump back to the head of the grid, but after two seasons of gradual slippage culminating in a deeply disappointing first half of 2016, a reassessment of whether the team is sufficiently mature to race at the front is necessary.
Toro Rosso
Toro Rosso’s disappointing form, it must be admitted, is not really of the Faenza team’s own doing, because STR has been burdened this season more by politics than poor decision-making.
When Red Bull Racing threw its toys from the pram last season after Renault delivered a worse-performing power unit than its 2014-spec engine, Toro Rosso became a pawn in Red Bull’s power play.
Part of the game was for the energy drink company to tear up its Renault supply contracts, but when no alternatives presented themselves, Toro Rosso had to scramble for any power unit, eventually concluding on a year-old Ferrari engine.
The Italian power plant isn’t being developed at all this season, and though Toro Rosso expected to slip back over 21 rounds, the rate of development for other power units has been far more significant than anticipated.
The situation is a great shame for Toro Rosso, both because its competitive James Key-designed chassis is being wasted and because Carlos Sainz’s opportunity to stamp his authority on the Red Bull driver programme has been watered down.
Ultimately, however, STR is a Red Bull vehicle, so it is on a management decision that 2016 has become a write-off as early as the midseason break.
Dishonourable Mention: Sauber
The 2016 season is bittersweet for Sauber. On the one hand it teetered dangerously on the brink of collapse in the opening rounds, while on the other it signed a deal with the comically-titled Longbow Finance to buy the team and save it from destruction.
What is sad is that Sauber, one of the sport’s iconic teams, should find itself in such a position in the first place. But as the momentum post-BMW fizzled out, the team’s new management, headed by Monisha Kaltenborn, found the only viable option was a total sale and what amounts to almost a fresh start.
Though the midseason splash of cash has unlocked some new parts the team previously couldn’t afford to make, Sauber sits dead last with no points in the championship behind both Manor and Renault.
If it stays there by the end of the year, it would not only represent its worst ever championship result but also put in jeopardy what little prize money it still earns, dealing the team a further blow in its bid to rebuild.
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