james Allen

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Dennis: Whitmarsh “better than me” at managing champions
Posted on | December 21, 2010 | by | 22 Comments

I was recently sent a copy of a magazine run by an old friend and former commentator Pierre Van Vliet called F1i. Pierre used to be my opposite number on France’s TF1 coverage and in the magazine there was a feature interview with McLaren’s Ron Dennis which caught my eye.

Asked about the relationship between the two world champions, Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button he said, “Managing the co-habitation of two world champions is often a challenge. I have tried it a few times. Martin is perhaps showing himself to be better than me at that role.”


He certainly is. Aside from a tense moment at the end of the Turkish Grand Prix, where Hamilton wanted to know why Button had passed him when he had been told, effectively, that he wouldn’t, the relationship between the two champions has been very well managed by Whitmarsh. The character or Button helps in this, as he is pretty adaptable to all kinds of situations and team mates, but Whitmarsh is by nature a consensus-seeker, where Dennis is a manager who likes to control and can often be devisive. There are some legendary stories of exchanges with Kimi Raikkonen about being “a boy in a man’s body.”

Whitmarsh’s talents for consensus seeking are also proving useful in the wider picture of F1 in his role as chairman of the team’s organisation, FOTA.

Whitmarsh is considered increasingly likely to remain as FOTA chairman for another year and you can see why this is the common sense approach of the teams to take. It will be an important year for the organisation as it engages in negotiations over the new Concorde Agreement, which is due to come into force at the end of 2012. The current arrangement is what was hastily agreed in the aftermath of the FOTA breakaway threat in the summer of 2009.

Ferrari president and founding FOTA chairman Luca di Montezemolo raised the spectre of breakaway again last week by suggesting that the teams had some strong options when it comes to the negotiations and to the future. This was a piece of positioning more than anything else at this stage, but it shows that the heavy duty stuff is around the corner.

It’s in everyone’s interests to find a long term agreement between FOTA, the FIA and FOM, but Montezemolo raised the question of private equity firm CVC’s role in the sport long term,

“Theoretically speaking, we can have one of three alternatives,” he said. “One is that we renew with CVC. For how many years, we have to discuss. But I am in favour of many years because I don’t want to be back every three or four years. So assume five-to-eight years. Second, we want to ensure that Bernie will remain in a strong position. How long? I hope for a long time. It is not a new choice; it is to continue as it is.

“The next option, theoretically, is that we can find a different company [promoter] and start discussions. Third, theoretically, we can establish our own company. At this point of time we would theoretically offer to Bernie to be chairman. More than honorary chairman – a chairman.

“And put a very strong marketing-oriented mind, nothing to do with the teams, to manage it, as they did in the NBA. Only in the first case would we insist on Bernie, because I don’t want to discuss with people that I respect but who don’t know anything about Formula 1.”

The other strong candidate for FOTA chairmanship Ross Brawn, meanwhile, has said that the role “is not something that I aspire to.” He has spent two years as head of the technical working group at FOTA.

http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2010/12/de...champions/

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http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2010/12/ja...e-answers/




Happy Christmas to all readers and for those in countries where Christmas isn’t celebrated, thanks for bearing with us through the holiday period.

Hope you had fun with the Quiz over the last couple of days. Here are the answers, did you get them all? Did anyone manage it without reference books or Google? There is a clarification on the question about the only driver to win a world title without scoring a point the year before. I meant a driver who took part the year before but didn’t score…

Sebastian Vettel became the youngest world champion this year, but who held it before him?
Lewis Hamillton, 2008 world champion

How many times did the lead of the world championship change in 2010?
Nine


Who led the championship for the greatest number of races?
Webber- led points table six times

How many circuits on the 2010 calendar have been designed by Hermann Tilke?
Six – Abu Dhabi, Malaysia, Bahrain, China, Turkey and Korea

Nico Hulkenberg became the sixth youngest pole sitter in history in Brazil – name the other five who previously held the record…
Sebastian Vettel, Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso, Rubens Barrichello and Andrea de Cesaris

This season saw the latest finish to a championship schedule since the 1987 season which finished in Adelaide on November 15. Which season had the latest finale and where and when was the race held?
1963 – East London, South Africa on December 28

The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix signalled the end of Bridgestone’s involvement in Formula 1. How many races have they won during their time in the sport?
175


Only one team managed to score points in every race this season. Name that team.
McLaren

Who completed the most racing laps this season?
Fernando Alonso – 1,120 out of a possible 1,129

Which team completed the fewest racing laps this season?
Sauber

Which back of the grid driver led one lap this year?
Sebastien Buemi

Michael Schumacher failed to win a race for the first time in his career this season. When and where was his last victory?
China, 2006

The three most recent world champions were on the podium together in Abu Dhabi this year. When was the last time this happened?
Phoenix 1991; Senna, Prost, Piquet

And when was the last previous occasion when there were three world champions on the podium?
Canada 2010; Hamilton, Button, Alonso

Who is the only driver to win a world title, (having driven but) failed to score a single point the season before (apart from the first world champion in 1950)
Keke Rosberg

Belgian Jerome D’Ambrosio will line up for Virgin Racing next season. Who is the most successful Belgian driver in F1 history in terms of wins?
Jacky Ickx, 8 wins

In the last ten years only three drivers have failed to win the opening race of the season and yet still gone on to win the world championship, Name them.
Vettel 2010, Alonso 2005, Schumacher 2003

The world championship has gone down to the last race on 26 occasions in its 60 year history. Only one driver has twice come from behind on points to win the title at the last race. Who is he?

Nelson Piquet (1981 and 83)

Which country has hosted the most final race championship showdowns in F1 history?
Japan (1976, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2003)


Michael Schumcher will be 42 years old on January 3rd. How many world championships have been won by drivers older than that?

Five – Fangio (1954,55,56,57) Farina (1950)

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personal Review of the year – Red Bull Racing
Posted on | December 26, 2010 | by | 4 Comments

There are 12 days of Christmas and there are 12 F1 teams so I’m doing a brief personal look back on the season for each of them.

I’m starting with Red Bull, the champions this year.

Red Bull Racing, 9 wins, 20 Podiums 15 pole positions

Red Bull is involved in over 100 sports and currently sponsors 456 athletes, from volleyball players to freestyle motor crossers. But this year they won big in the world’s most high profile regular event, Formula 1. And they did it according to the values of owner Dietrich Mateschitz, which is that in sport Red Bull should “carry the responsibility for success and failure.” In other words they don’t want to just put their sticker on a car, they want to be intrinsically involved in the decision making, to play the game, to win.. to lose.


I find this absolutely fascinating and you have to admire the vision here. This is not something we’ve only really seen before with Benetton in the 1990s. Tobacco firm BAT started their own team in the late 1990s – BAR – but with different objectives.

But whereas Benetton was a more cynical exercise, focussed on winning at all costs, with Red Bull Mateschitz’s edict meant that the team didn’t intervene in the closing stages of the season when one of its drivers was well ahead of the other on points with a formidable rival to beat in the shape of Fernado Alonso and Ferrari. And yet it worked out the way Mateschitz wanted it to with Sebastian Vettel, the driver well behind team mate Webber on points with two races to go, coming through to win both races and take the title. Red Bull, an energy drinks company, had gone beyond sponsorship and had taken responsibility for the success or failure. Racing teams on the other hand are usually pragmatic, cynical and hard bitten. And 99% of them would have backed Webber with two races to go, as the odds of Alonso nicking the title at the time were huge.

The problem for many race fans is that these pure, Corinthian and very admirable values of Red Bull’s had been rather confused earlier in the season when the team appeared to be backing Vettel. The two flashpoints were the collision between the drivers in Turkey, where the management felt that Webber should have given Vettel an easier path to pass and Silverstone, where the front wing was taken from Webber’s car and put on Vettel’s without the driver being consulted.

The team didn’t handle these moments well and it rather spoils the story of how the team “let the drivers race” to this glorious outcome. But apart from that, it is remarkable that this group, built around designer Adrian Newey, has taken on and beat the great Ferrari and McLaren in particular. Newey has rediscoved his mojo and now he has to keep it going.

It is a well organised race team in England, under Christian Horner, but according to a quote in Der Spiegel magazine recently from Dr Helmut Marko, one of three directors of the team, “Austria decides everything.”

The RB6 was always likely to be a rocket ship, based as it was on the 2009 car. Every now and then a car comes along which is so in tune with itself, creating downforce from every surface, perfectly balanced and blindingly fast and the RB6 was one of them.


It’s a truism in F1 that when you are winning and dominating the sport, people have a pop at you, muttering darkly about illegal devices on the car, crawling around it on the grid to see the ‘naughty bits’. It’s as old as the hills and this year Red Bull were at the centre of it. At the start of the season the car had some kind of device to raise it up after after qualifying, it had flexi wings, it had an exhaust blown diffuser everyone had to copy.

Photos showed that the front wing was virtually touching the ground at speed and yet it passed all the FIA crash tests, even when they were made more strict. It was hard on the mechanics, they looked steadily more tired as the season went on, always having to work late into the night to fit new parts. They are the unsung heroes of this campaign.

The car always seemed to have an extra few tenths in the final part of qualifying, with the result that it was on pole for 15 of the 19 races. It only managed to win 9, however, and these were not all from pole, so that tells the story of how Red Bull actually made quite hard work of winning this title. I suspect that with one top driver leading the team, the title would have been wrapped up around Singapore time. But by having two drivers free to fight they blitzed the constructors’ championship and gave us some great entertainment.

Yes the winning is important, it justifies the vast sums spent. But all the talk about the team, with that soft drinks brand at the centre of it, that’s what Mateschitz was after and on that level it was a very successful year.

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http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2010/12/a-...-mercedes/



personal review of the F1 year – Mercedes
Posted on | December 27, 2010 | by | No Comments

Continuing the series of personal look backs on the season, in no particular order, as they say..

Mercedes GP Team, 0 wins, 3 podiums, 0 poles – 4th in Constructors’ Championship

I remember saying towards the end of the 2009 season, when the Brawn team was fending off McLaren and Red Bull for the championship, that in 2010 they would be the fourth place team and so it proved. It was a combination of limited resources and having to divert much of them to winning the 2009 title at the expense of the 2010 car.

The cutbacks in what was Honda during the early part of 2009 and then when Mercedes took over at the end of the year meant that the team was well set up for the Resource Restriction Agreement. They had taken the pain early, rather than follow a glidepath downwards in staff numbers, as the other top teams are now doing. This should mean Mercedes could have their moment soon. But the price they paid for that was the car was not great, well adrift of Red Bull pace and about 3-4 tenths off the McLaren as a rule.

And it stayed not great, as Ross Brawn took the decision to stop developing the car mid season. Ironically it still went faster in the closing stages of the season, but that was largely because they were learning more about how to set it up.


But it was clear that Renault’s challenge to their fourth place in the Constructor’s Championship would be limited by having Petrov in one of the cars, so Mercedes was always likely to be able to keep its nose ahead.

It was always going to be a tough task to match the 2009 double championship winning performance, but Brawn, Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher will still have hoped to challenge for podiums and race wins. Mercedes’ management will have hoped for more too as it was a pretty bold move to zig when all the other manufacturers were zagging – to pile in and buy your own team as most manufacturers were pulling out or downsizing to engine suppliers.

Brawn was open about the mistakes made in the design of the car when speaking at the end of the season. He laid the blame on the downsizing of the team numbers, the conservative approach that came from the group of engineers tasked with designing the car as a result and in particular the rear end of the car, which wasn’t state of the art aerodynamically.

Right from winter testing we were hearing from rival team engineers that the car had some weight distribution problems too. So there were echoes of the awkwardness on the design side of the car, which we used to see when the team was Honda and which were so radically different on that amazing 2009 car, which became the Brawn.

The upshot was, Silver Arrows became only the 15th team to follow up a championship winning season with a winless one while Schumacher suffered the first win-free season of his career. After three years on the sidelines, Schuey really struggled to recreate the form which saw him win 91 races as he struggled with the tyres. On a positive note, he showed some of his old self towards the end of the season and Rosberg had a far less comfortable time of it. Whatever the rights and wrongs of his actions, his move to put Barrichello into the pit wall in Hungary showed that he still means business. The worrying thing for him will be that driving around car imbalance problems was always part of his gift and he didn’t show that this year. Maybe now he’s fully match fit and with a new car fitted with Pirelli tyres, which sound like they should suit give him the firm corner turn-in he wants, he should be able to get some results.


Rosberg had a fantastic year, outdrove his more illustrious teammate, securing the team’s three podiums in Malaysia, China and Great Britain and usually managed to finish the races ahead of where he qualified. I saw him mature as a driver and as a person in 2010 and I’ll be watching him very closely in 2011 if he gets a car that can challenge. Does he have what it takes to do what Vettel has done this year and go out and dominate weekends?

I really feel the pressure is on Mercedes for 2011. Yes the global car market is improving and for companies like Mercedes the emerging markets – Brazil, India, China etc hold huge potential and yes there are few better marketing platforms than F1 for a brand like Mercedes. But the top brass will want to see some results this year. I also think Ross Brawn, having done so much over the years will surely start thinking soon about a life less pressured. I’m not sure how much he’s enjoying working with the Mercedes people and imagine he will be thinking about his succession plan soon. I’m very interested to see whom he lines up.

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http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2011/01/fe...-strategy/

Ferrari update: Dyer falls on sword, Martin head of Strategy
Posted on | January 4, 2011 | by | 41 Comments

Since I posted this morning Ferrari has announced the major changes that team boss Stefano Domenicali hinted at.

According to the team’s website, “Neil Martin takes on the role of heading up the new Operations Research department. A 38 year old Englishman, Martin previously worked for Red Bull and prior to that McLaren and he will now report directly to Technical Director, Aldo Costa.

“At the same time, Costa’s deputy, Pat Fry will, in addition to his current role, take on the job of head of race track engineering. Up until yesterday, this position was held by Chris Dyer and his role within the company will be redefined in the next few days.”

So as predicted Dyer falls on the sword for the strategy mistake in Abu Dhabi.


Meanwhile Neil Martin is an interesting appointment. He comes from the financial services field originally and wrote a programme which he realised had uses for F1 strategy. He showed it to McLaren boss Martin Whitmarsh who hired him on the strength of it.

He was headhunted by Red Bull and headed up their strategy unit until last year when he promptly left the team. Last summer there were suggestions he would be joining Ferrari but I got a categorical denial from Ferrari when I asked. On the face of it, it seems that the events of Abu Dhabi have prompted a rethink. Ferrari say this is not the case and that Martin was hired before Abu Dhabi.
Although Ferrari say that Martin’s role is not specifically to run race strategies, it is more of a strategic overview role looking at ways of improving operations across the board, his appointment will also have been at the behest of Fry with whom he worked at McLaren. It takes up part of the role Fry was due to have and has been done because Fry now puts his head in the lion’s mouth as head of track operations, making the big calls, an area where Ferrari has struggled a few times in recent years.

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http://www.itv-f1.com/Feature.aspx?Type=James_Allen&id=49862


The engrossing 2010 season means the sport has a lot to live up to this year but James Allen reckons the ingredients are already looking good for the new campaign.

Our expert columnist takes a look at how the 2010 story may well evolve, and what impact a number of intriguing technical changes and new tyre supplier will have on the racing.


I always get excited at this time of year when I look ahead to the new Formula 1 season.

The 2011 campaign will be the longest in F1 history with 20 races on the calendar, including a new one in India, which I believe will develop into a huge success.

It’s my 22nd season working in F1, and as always there are changes to keep things interesting.

We have some rule changes to consider, a few new drivers on the grid, a new tyre supplier, and another very close season of racing in prospect in my view.

Unless one of the top teams has found a magic bullet in the form of an aerodynamic device no one else has thought of, then I see the Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari battle being very close indeed once again.

Mercedes should join in with them after a season in their wake with an unadventurous car.

They stopped development early on the 2010 car to focus on 2011, but I wonder whether they can close the gap on Red Bull quite that easily. I still see them being a few tenths off the Red Bull at the start of the year.

The world champions ought to pick up where they left off in 2010 with the fastest car. It’s a very stable engineering group, which is brimming with confidence at the moment.

They will take on board the rule changes such as the adjustable rear wing and the banning of the F-duct and double diffuser.

Like all the others they’ll be looking for the magic device which gives a performance advantage – and which is built into the chassis so the opposition can’t really copy it as you can’t adapt your chassis once built.

All eyes will be on the Vettel vs Webber battle. I really hope Mark can rise to the level he did last year again, but I have a hunch that Vettel will have gone up a gear by winning the title.

He has a natural advantage over Webber by virtue of his lower weight, which means he can place ballast in the car and get better weight distribution, which is probably worth the one-tenth of a second that usually separates them in qualifying.

Ferrari have made changes to their engineering management with ex-McLaren engineer Pat Fry coming in to take up much of what Ross Brawn used to do in terms of overseeing chassis, design and development and leading the strategy team at the races.

Under him is Neil Martin, who was strategist at McLaren and then Red Bull, while they have demoted Chris Dyer, the Australian engineer who was blamed for the decision to pit Fernando Alonso early in Abu Dhabi, which cost the Spaniard the world championship.

I see Ferrari being strong this year; they had a good car last year which they developed impressively and there’s no reason for them not to be there or thereabouts.

I see Alonso picking up where he left off in 2010, but Felipe Massa has a huge job to pick himself up mentally from the drubbing he got from Alonso last season.

If he doesn’t Ferrari will drop him, simple as that – probably for Robert Kubica, who may be wondering what’s going on long-term at Renault now that the Lotus connection has opened up.

Ferrari owe Alonso one from last year and he will want to remain clear number one as he finished last season, so it leaves Massa fighting an uphill battle.

McLaren disappointed in the second half of last year, not developing their car as effectively as in previous years. It’s always been one of their greatest qualities.

They will no doubt have a good car at the start of the season, but it’s whether they rediscover their magic touch in development that counts.

I thought Jenson Button fitted in brilliantly with Lewis Hamilton and they look like the most stable driver pairing among the top teams, so they should have a shot at the constructors’ championship again.

It’s too early to make many predictions as the cars haven’t turned a wheel in testing yet.

I’ll write some more on this in February when we have a clearer picture of what’s going on.

The racing will be different from 2010 in several ways.

First we have KERS back, which means that there will be some teams who have a straight-line speed advantage – although in reality this time it will only be the smaller teams who do not use it, so it should be the same for all the quick guys.

Second, the adjustable rear wing will improve overtaking but I fear it will make it harder for fans to understand the skill level of the driver in making a pass. I think there will be a few more collisions as a result of more passes being attempted.

Third, all the cars will be on Pirelli tyres and they are likely to be more on the edge than the Bridgestones – so the race strategy department will be on its toes more and you’ll see more pit stops and more variation.

I’m pleased about that as the strategy side of grand prix racing is very important, in my view.

It’s way too early to predict a champion. I had the right instinct last year and my hunch says Vettel again this year, but until we see the cars testing it’s too early to put the neck on the line.

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http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2011/01/a-...r-ferrari/


personal review of the F1 year – Ferrari
Posted on | January 6, 2011 | by | 151 Comments

Ferrari, 5 wins, 2 poles, 3rd in Constructors’ Championship

There are so many ways to look at the story of Ferrari’s 2010 season, but let’s start with the helicopter view, the overview in other words. Ferrari hires Alonso (finally) gives him a winning car and despite a few mistakes he establishes himself as clear number one, takes the chances, wins races and then loses the title at the last round due to a bad mistake on strategy by his team.

The inescapable conclusion from this is that Alonso owed Ferrari one after his early season mistakes, but he made good. Now Ferrari very definitely owe Alonso one after the error in Abu Dhabi. And that sets the scene for 2011.


The detail is more complex and more controversial, of course; Alonso is hired as the team lets Raikkonen go. The Finn turned out to be not what the team was looking for, Alonso fitted the bill much better, he’s more in the mould of a Schumacher. After the euphoria of a debut win, there were some sticky moments early season, when he made out of character mistakes, like jumping the start in China or crashing in Monaco, but overall he got himself into a position to win the title, which is what you get when you hire Alonso.

Meanwhile the team showed great compassion towards its other driver Felipe Massa, keeping a seat open for him despite his head injury and backing him with a new contract, when he was struggling in the early summer. But the defining moment of his season – and to many fans of Ferrari’s – was the team orders episode in Germany.

Massa was moved aside by a message from his engineer Rob Smedley, who didn’t try too hard to disguise it. The TV director ran the audio clip and the world knew what it meant. The stewards said Ferrari had broken the rules and fined them, many fans and media felt the same way and called for stronger punishment. In the end the FIA couldn’t or wouldn’t do any more with the case on the basis of the evidence, but it did force the removal of the team orders rule, so now the big switcheroo can be done at will and I’m sure we will see team orders being used in 2011.

A fair minded person might say that the FIA’s lenience over Hockenheim leveled the scores a bit with the two episodes in Valencia and Silverstone where Alonso came out very much on the wrong side of the FIA and its stewards over episodes involving the safety car and lost a hatfull of points. In Valencia he lost out through no fault of his own, in Silverstone he tried to be clever passing Kubica and then got unlucky as Kubica retired so he couldn’t give the place back as the FIA asked him to.

Of course that episode in Hockenheim didn’t happen in isolation, many roads led to it. Alonso was angry in Australia to be left following Massa when he felt he had a chance to challenge Button for the win. In China he was behind Massa again and took matters into his own hands, passing the Brazilian in the pit lane. The team’s reaction to that told you everything about its attitude to the drivers’s roles; good on Alonso, driving like a champion. Massa’s mistake in Hockenheim was not staying far enough out of reach.


On the technical side Ferrari did a great job on the whole. The car was quick in testing, almost as quick as the Red Bull in the early races, but then tailed off as they lost ground trying to incorporate an F Duct. Monaco was a chance, but Alonso blew it. Turkey was the low point; an uncompetitive mess. A crude blown diffuser gave an uplift in performance from Valencia onwards, moving Ferrari ahead of the McLaren on pace and then a second more sophisticated one put them right in Red Bull’s wheeltracks, where they stayed to the end. This was enough to give Alonso a chance to fight back and he did so with three wins in four races from Monza to Korea.

As a result of Abu Dhabi Ferrari have changed the whole way they plan and execute race strategy with new people and new processes. It should make them more sure footed in key moments, certainly the background to every decision will be much more profound. The change sees two Englishmen called in to bring calm to the hot seats – an echo of the Brawn era?

Change where necessary, yes, but the fundamentals of this team remain the same; give Alonso a fast enough car and Ferrari will be in the title fight come Brazil in November. Where Massa fits in is anyone’s guess.

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http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2011/01/so...ng-starts/


The start of F1 testing is just 23 days away and most of the teams are flat out getting their first chassis built. It’s an exciting time but also a nervous one. From talking to a number of teams this last week they all share an anxiety that one of their rivals might have come up with a silver bullet, this year’s equivalent of the F Duct – a must-have aero device which gives a good few tenths of a second advantage and all must copy.


The ones they really fear are those built into the chassis, like McLaren’s F Duct scoop last year, because chassis have to be homologated and you cannot make changes after that. So you have to go about copying it in a different, less effective way.

It’s interesting that McLaren has decided to launch its car after the first test and it will be closely scrutinised for any clever new devices when it breaks cover.

Red Bull will have its new car at the first test and Ferrari will also be in Valencia with a new car Engineers at Ferrari are painfully aware that it’s been a while since they truly innovated, brought out something that everyone else had to copy.

McLaren, like Force India, have taken the option of bringing an old or interim car to Valencia on February 1, partly to get more development time in the wind tunnel, but also to use the first test to cover lots of ground with the full range of Pirelli tyres. This comes on the back of a test in Abu Dhabi where they used Gary Paffett for both the young guns test and the Pirelli test, which gave them good back to back information on the comparison of the tyres. Force India did the same with Paul di Resta.

Pirelli will be bringing a large selection of tyres to the tests, not simply four compounds. They have yet to specify the tyres for the first Grands Prix and the Bahrain specification will probably have to be made soon after the second test in Jerez in order to have the lead time to make and ship the tyres for the first race. Last year Bridgestone brought the super soft and the medium to Bahrain, Pirelli have to decide their four compounds from the range and then decide which two to bring to Bahrain. How hard should they make the super soft? Do they want to be conservative at the outset or produce a more edgy tyre, which will make the drivers and strategists work harder? To me that equals better entertainment for fans and I hope we see it. We don’t want every race to be like Montreal last year, where the tyres weren’t lasting at all, but a few races of that kind would be welcome. And from speaking to teams they’d welcome that variety too.

But it’s a tough choice for Pirelli. The choice they make will suit the characteristics of some cars more than others and, after probably two tests, they will know that when they make their choice.

The lesson from the Abu Dhabi test was that the tyre wear was high on the Pirellis and once the performance had gone off they didn’t come back, unlike the Bridgestones. The other lesson was that Yas Marina wasn’t ideal for testing because it constantly improves, so engineers don’t know how much a change is worth relative to track improvement.

The Pirellis work fine on a 2010 car so by having well sorted reliable 2010 cars out there pounding around, Force India and McLaren will get through almost thousand kilometres and learn a lot.

All the other teams will hope to do likewise in Valencia, but with a brand new car there is always the risk of lots of time spent in the garage.

The other factor for McLaren is that race drivers Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton didn’t do the Abu Dhabi test as part of a deliberate ploy. So they will want the maximum time on the tyres to get a feel for them. When I spoke to Button about this at the final race he was adamant that the tyres will have changed a lot from the November test to February 1, so he wanted to maximise his mileage in February when the data would be more relevant.

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http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2011/01/al...ady-to-go/


Alonso integrated into Ferrari and ready to go
Posted on | January 13, 2011 | by | 73 Comments

Fernando Alonso always looks determined, that’s part of his make up. Now with his Zorro moustache and beard and the intense look in his eye, he looks like he should have a cutlass in his hand, rather than a steering wheel. But you can see he is focussed on winning this year’s world championship with Ferrari and expunging the awful memories of last November.



Photo: Ferrari

To say that last year’s campaign ended badly would be an understatement; the bad pit call in Abu Dhabi turned an eight point championship lead into a heavy defeat, probably the heaviest he has suffered in his career.

“To spend one more minute thinking about it would be an advantage for our opponents,” he told the media today at the Ferrari “Wroom” event in Madonna di Campiglio.

And so it would. Changes have been made since then with a new structure on the engineering and particularly the strategy side. Former McLaren designer Pat Fry heads the operation at the race track, using a sophisticated strategy tool run from Maranello by ex Red Bull and McLaren head of strategy Neil Martin.

Alonso worked with Fry during his one year stay at the team in 2007, and I asked him on Tuesday if he had worked with Martin, but he said he had not. Nevertheless he and the team seem to set great store by this new combination and both will find that the pressure at Ferrari is different from any other team.

Alonso dominated his team mate last year and to most observers the hierachy was established in Germany when the team invoked team orders to move Massa aside to give Alonso the win. It’s hard to see how Massa can force his way back in, despite his optimism that the Pirelli tyres will allow him to express himself much better than last year’s Bridgestones. But today Alonso was careful to avoid suggestions that he is now de facto team leader.

“I feel like a leader, not the leader, he said. Time will tell on that

I’ve been saying for a while now that Sebastian Vettel is likely to step up a gear now that he has won the world title. I’d expect him to lose the impetuousness from his driving. Alonso knows the changes a driver goes through once he has realised that ambition of winning the first world title and he feels the same about Vettel,

“No doubt Sebastian will be a contender. He will have experience and will be calm in certain moments. He will drive better than last year and that makes him dangerous to us.”

Unless Red Bull has lost ground technically to the others, or is slow to adapt to the Pirelli, Vettel has to start the season as favourite, but we will know more once we get to the Barcelona test at the end of February.

However Alonso also surprised many by suggesting that his old nemesis Michael Schumacher is the favourite,

“If I had to choose the most dangerous rival I would say Schumacher. He’s a driver who has won the most, he has nothing to prove and he certainly has every capacity to be the strongest. He had a difficult season (last year) but he is still a champion. He is still super class and if the car is right he will be a contender.””

Mmmm. One wonders how much of this is putting the pressure on his old rival. There is no love lost between Alonso and Schumacher and by raising the expectations on Schumacher, knowing his words today will echo in every corner of the F1 following world, Alonso is upping the ante, making life a little more uncomfortable for the seven times champion. That’s F1, as the saying goes, you’re either taking pain or giving it.

This surely is one of the most competitive fields in F1 history. Alonso is one of five world champions in the field this year, making it a real classic year – it’s like the late 1960s all over again, when Clark, Hill, Brabham and Surtees were around.



Photo: Darren Heath

One detail point worth making is that Alonso has had a chance to make changes to the driveability and user friendliness of the car for this season. When he went to McLaren in 2007 he had signed a year in advance which mean he had plenty of input to the car and changed the wing mirrors to a place he could see them, regardless of aero penalty. He also insisted that the cooling be able to allow the car to stand at the pit exit for a minute, because he felt that would be an important advantage in getting clear track in qualifying.

There are no specifics yet of what he’s asked for on the new Ferrari, but he made it clear that he’s been at work,

“When I arrived at the team in 2010 the car was already prepared whereas this year, thanks to the reciprocal relationship between me and the engineers, we’ve been able to try to introduce everything that can be influenced by the driver. That includes the cockpit, the controls, the behaviour of the car based on driving style – that will be much more adapted to me compared with last year.”

That’s an echo of McLaren, which has an engineer whose sole job is to oversee everything the driver touches and comes into contact with. It makes a bigger difference than you might think.

It’s early days and the cars haven’t even been seen yet. There’s a chance one team will have found something special, a legal way of using an F Duct, for example, which gives them the competitive advantage, but Alonso believes that nowadays its hard for one team to dominate and if the cards are fairly evenly stacked he has a great chance of winning races and the title this year.

[maripi]

Williams strikes oil with Venezuelan sponsor deal
Posted on | January 15, 2011 | by | No Comments

The Williams team is in Venezuela at the moment and today the team announced the long-awaited tie up with PDVSA, the state owned oil company. It is a massive boost to the team, which said goodbye to important sponsors RBS and Philips at the end of last season.

Venezuela has the world’s sixth largest oil reserves and is in the top ten oil exporters. It has by far the largest oil business of any Central or South American country.



Photo: Williams

“They are a substantial partner and can make a meaningful difference to our fighting ability,” said the team’s figurehead, Frank Williams. This is very true. Williams ability to attract talented engineers and to be able to develop cars, like every other team, is dependent on resources. This deal will make a difference to its ability to fight Renault at the fringes of the top four teams, rather than in the midfield with Force India and Sauber.

The deal is very much the work of the new Williams chairman Adam Parr who has been aggressively pursuing investment in both Venezuela and Qatar in the last six months.

The arrival of Pastor Maldonado has changed the tone at Williams, which is now a very South American focussed team. Maldonado’s team mate next season is Brazilian Rubens Barrichello, starting his 19th season in F1.

Maldonado is very much flying the flag for a country in which having a sportsman on a world stage is a major deal.

PDVSA has supported Maldonado’s career through the feeder series and the substantial long-term backing undoubtedly swung the drive his way in competition with Nico Hulkenberg.

Williams is F1’s great survivor team. So many have gone by the wayside over the years, but Williams has always proven Darwin’s theory of adapting to survive in a competitive and hostile world.

The team has always been adaptable when it comes to selling the team to sponsors and has gone through many phases of sponsorship; Saudi money in the early 1980s, Japanese money in the Honda years and an ingenious BMW total buyout of the livery in the early 2000s.

There were a couple of tobacco phases, with Camel and then Rothmans, co-inciding with the team’s most successful period from 1991-97, but on the whole the team was always far less reliant on tobacco money than McLaren or Ferrari.

Yesterday Maldonado did a demonstration drive of the Williams car on a special road course in Caracas in the presence of the Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez and a crowd of thousands.

He will start testing in earnest at the start of February in Valencia.

http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2011/01/wi...nsor-deal/