Andrew Benson blog

[maripi]

Vettel and Red Bull redefine perfection


Post categories: Formula 1

Andrew Benson | 08:53 UK time, Sunday, 9 October 2011

Sebastian Vettel climbed slowly up on to the nose of his Red Bull and, for the first time this year, raised two of those trademark index fingers in the air. That's two to indicate he is now a double world champion - the youngest in Formula 1 history.

It was appropriate, then, that the first man to congratulate him in person after the race was the driver who previously held that honour - Fernando Alonso, who finished second to McLaren's Jenson Button and ahead of Vettel in a captivating Japanese Grand Prix.

Third place was more than enough for Vettel to seal the crown with four races still to go. And if he seemed less emotional than he did after winning his first title in last year's nail-biting finale in Abu Dhabi that is almost certainly because this one has seemed inevitable since as long ago as the first qualifying session of the season in Melbourne's Albert Park seven months ago.

That was when the sheer, breathtaking pace of his Red Bull car - and the German's mastery of it - first became apparent.

What followed has been domination of the like not seen since Michael Schumacher and Ferrari in 2002 and '04 - the last time an extravagantly talented German was in a team whose resources, applied with ruthless efficiency, outstripped their rivals', and whose focus was primarily on their lead driver.

Vettel has won nine of 2011's 15 races so far, and taken 12 pole positions. His career victory total stands at 19. He could very well be on pole for and win every remaining race this season, which would raise his career wins total to 23.

That would leave only Juan Manuel Fangio, Niki Lauda, Jim Clark, Alonso, Jackie Stewart, Nigel Mansell, Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost and Michael Schumacher ahead of him. Rarefied company indeed.

Many of his victories this year have followed a simple formula - put the fastest car in the field on pole, use its pace in the early laps to build the gap required to ensure he cannot be passed by a rival at the pit stops, then ease off and maintain that advantage.

It was a strategy demanded by this year's new-look F1, for which new supplier Pirelli were asked to design deliberately delicate tyres to provoke better racing and more pit stops.

The German was praised for understanding very early on how to get the best out of those tyres. Undoubtedly he did, especially compared to team-mate Mark Webber, who also bore the brunt of the Red Bull's early-season reliability struggles with their new Kers power-boost system.

But it's impossible to judge whether Vettel was doing this better than leading drivers in other cars - and the main reason he was able to approach races in the way he generally did was that rivals McLaren and Ferrari produced cars that were not on a comparable level to the Red Bull.

How much better than its rivals was the Red Bull? That no other car has been on pole position pretty much sums it up - not even Schumacher and Ferrari managed that.

It was Vettel's running start to the season that killed his rivals - after six wins and two close second places in the first eight races, a second title already looked inevitable.

The Red Bull's advantage was often less dramatic in races than in qualifying - largely because of the tyres - and it was not always the fastest race car. He had to work for his wins in Spain and Monaco, where luck also played a major part in him beating Alonso and Button.

After that incredible early run, though, a mid-season wobble of sorts did give his rivals hope that the championship battle was not completely over.

Vettel was beaten by a rampant Alonso in Britain, following a one-off ban of a key aerodynamic technology called off-throttle blowing of the diffuser. And he produced comparatively weak performances in Germany and Hungary, although still finished fourth and second.

It was enough for Alonso, Button, Hamilton and Webber to head into the summer break still harbouring hopes of making a fight of it.

These were crushed in merciless style by consecutive victories in Belgium and Italy, perhaps Vettel's best of the season so far. After that, another win in Singapore took him to the brink, and the inevitability duly became reality at Suzuka on Sunday.

The weekend in Italy provided an illustration in microcosm of the foundations of Vettel's championship victory.

His breathtaking single-lap pace was demonstrated by qualifying on pole by a massive margin, and his sky-high confidence - founded on that speed - informed what team insiders admit was a risky decision to run a short seventh gear.

It was made in the pursuit of ultimate pace, but Vettel knew that the straight-line speed deficit it would give him could lead to a very difficult afternoon if he lost the lead from pole position - as indeed happened thanks to an electrifying start by Alonso.

Vettel then demonstrated his confidence in a very different way with a stunning overtaking move - around the outside of one of F1's toughest competitors at 200mph, with two wheels on the grass.

The Monza weekend also underlined how much Red Bull's performance this year has been rooted in a less glamorous, but no less important, requirement for F1 success - hard work.

On pole by half a second, Vettel was still at the track at 11pm the night before the race, poring over the data with his engineers, ensuring no stone was left unturned in their endeavour to win the following day.

While Red Bull had the fastest car, benefiting from chief technical officer Adrian Newey's unrivalled genius for aerodynamic design, their teamwork and work ethic were unsurpassed.

At the same time, there were a number of races - one thinks of Australia, Monaco, Canada, Belgium, Italy, Japan - where McLaren could have made life harder for Vettel only for the team or a driver (usually Hamilton) to make a mistake.

Vettel, though, rode his advantage in style to put together one of the most impressive seasons by a driver for years.

That he did so in a golden age in terms of depth of talent is all the more noteworthy. But while the combination of Vettel and Red Bull has been peerless in 2011, it would be wrong to assume the world champion is without rival as a driver.

While he is clearly out of the top drawer, it remains the case that, until he goes up against another great in an equal car, his absolute potential is hard to judge.

And an unscientific straw poll has revealed that most in F1 still believe Alonso to be the world's best driver, even if Vettel is widely thought of now as next in line.

Despite Button's superb season, Hamilton continues to be regarded as the other member of the 'big three' but his shaky season has meant his stock has fallen, and Vettel's stunning qualifying performances mean many now consider him, not the Englishman, to be the fastest man on the grid over one lap.

Put someone that good in a car as fast and reliable as this year's Red Bull, and have it run by a team as professional and slick as they have been, and the result is inevitable.

For the others, the gauntlet has been well and truly thrown down
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/...ine_p.html

[Melife1]

While he is clearly out of the top drawer, it remains the case that, until he goes up against another great in an equal car, his absolute potential is hard to judge.

And an unscientific straw poll has revealed that most in F1 still believe Alonso to be the world's best driver, even if Vettel is widely thought of now as next in line.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/...ine_p.html

Una verdad como un templo.

PD: Y por curiosidad nada más, me gustaría haber visto qué hubiese hecho Alonso con el McLaren este año.....

[maripi]

Lewis Hamilton talked about using the Korean Grand Prix to "redeem" himself after a turbulent series of races. It was a strong choice of word, reflective it seems of a man somewhat battle-weary after a long, trying season. But if redemption was what he was after, he went a long way towards achieving it in Yeongam.

Unable to keep pace with Sebastian Vettel's winning Red Bull, Hamilton drove a virtually flawless defensive race, holding off the faster car of the German's team-mate Mark Webber for the duration.

His one mistake came on the first lap, when after converting pole position into a lead at the first corner, Hamilton admitted that he "didn't position my car very well" on the run down to Turn Four. "I didn't realise there was a car-length gap on the side," he said.

It was all the invitation Vettel needed to take the lead and drive off into a race of his own, taking his 10th win of the season to keep alive the possibility of equalling Michael Schumacher's all-time record of 13 wins in a season. Red Bull's one-three sealed a constructors' title that was an inevitable as the drivers' crown Vettel won in Japan a week ago.

After a taking a superb pole position on Saturday, Hamilton had hopes of winning in Korea. But the context of Sunday afternoon suggests that he achieved that position at the front of the grid more through sheer driving bravado than any car advantage.

It was certainly a stunning lap - the car dancing on the edge, alive in Hamilton's hands, in a way it has not been in recent races.

But come race day, Vettel's Red Bull was untouchable. He drove it like he has so many others this year, using just enough of the car's pace to pull out a comfortable gap without stressing the tyres and controlling the race from there.

Just how much pace Vettel had in hand became clear on the last lap when, just for fun, he went for the fastest lap of the race. The result was a time a massive 0.854 seconds faster than the mark Hamilton had set the lap before.

As Hamilton himself said ruefully: "Either way, he was going to overtake me." The other Red Bull, though, did not.

McLaren team boss Martin Whitmarsh described Hamilton's performance as "one of his great, great drives".

"When you have a car behind you which is frankly quicker and has DRS," Whitmarsh said, "to be able to hold on and hold on like that was a truly brilliant drive."

In truth, it is unlikely to be remembered alongside some of Hamilton's true landmark performances - among which are his two wins this season. Whitmarsh, it should be remembered, is a man trying to boost the confidence of a man going through a difficult period. But it was certainly of the highest calibre.

Struggling with understeer - the handling characteristic Hamilton dislikes most - he did not put a foot wrong in defending from Webber for the entire 55 laps.

The closest it got was on lap 34, when Webber made a determined challenge into Turn Four, and the two diced it out for the remainder of the lap. Hamilton used all his peerless race craft to hang on.

Hamilton's subdued mood after qualifying caused much comment and although he was not exactly jumping around after the race, he did at least afford himself a smile.

"Especially with the amount of pressure I was being put under," he said, "it's very easy to lock up and make mistakes, to go wide but I didn't do that once so I'm very, very happy in terms of that performance.

"The last six races I've not been anywhere near that position so it feels good to be back."

It has, as has been well documented, been a difficult season for Hamilton, but the last few races have been particularly tough for him.

After his victory in Germany, hard-won in a race-long battle with Ferrari's Fernando Alonso and Webber, Hamilton again led for much of the Hungarian Grand Prix a week later, only for two incorrect tyre choices to leave him down in fourth at the flag, as his team-mate Jenson Button won.

But it was after the summer break that things really began to unravel.

In Belgium, he tangled with Williams's Pastor Maldonado in qualifying and then crashed out of the race after colliding with Sauber's Kamui Kobayashi when, in hindsight, he could have got at least a podium finish, and perhaps even won.

That led to a subdued performance in Italy, in which he spent a harrowing time trying to break Schumacher's aggressive defence after making a mistake in letting the German pass him at a restart.

Singapore was another eventful weekend, featuring contretemps with Ferrari's Felipe Massa on and off the track in both qualifying and race.

In this period, Button had driven consistently superbly, and Hamilton's team-mate left Singapore having finished second to Vettel and as the only man still in with a mathematical chance of the title.

And then came Japan. McLaren had the fastest car at Suzuka and Hamilton missed a chance to take pole when he failed to get round in time to start a second qualifying lap before the session ended and he lined up third, behind Vettel and Button.

Hamilton was quickly up to second behind Vettel on the first lap, but from there he went backwards, his race ruined by high tyre wear, and he finished fifth as Button won.

The suspicion is that this disparity between the McLaren drivers' performances in Japan is what explains Hamilton's behaviour in Korea, particularly after qualifying.

This is a man who believes strongly that he is the fastest driver in the world - and also that both he and Alonso are better than Vettel.

Already he has had to watch Vettel win two world titles in the fastest car - titles Hamilton believes he would have won had he been in that car.

Yet at Suzuka, Button, it could be said, was conclusively, out-and-out faster than Hamilton for the first time ever in a fully dry race - at arguably the world's greatest drivers' circuit. That will have taken some swallowing.

In that context, Hamilton's remarks about "redeeming myself" make more sense. And the seemingly innocuous comment after the race that he was "happy to be the one who got the most points for the team" takes on more meaning.

With the drivers' title settled, some have said, this season is effectively dead with three races still to go.

In fact, it's quite the reverse - out there on the race track, there remains an awful lot at stake.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/...ost_3.html

[maripi]

Los jefes de la Fórmula 1 han cambiado las reglas para evitar que los conductores «bloqueo» a un rival que está tratando de pasar.

La medida fue motivada por un incidente en el que Michael Schumacher y Lewis Hamilton en Italia la temporada pasada.
Análisis


La decisión de la FIA para escribir una norma que defina lo que es aceptable en términos de manejo a la defensiva era inevitable - y sensible - después de una serie de incidentes en 2011. De más alto perfil entre ellos fue el comportamiento de Schumacher en Monza, pero la decisión de Felipe Massa a su vez, en Hamilton, en la India, que causó un accidente y que el piloto de Ferrari penalizada fue, también fue relevante, ya que fue la propia conducta de Hamilton en Malasia para Fernando Alonso - que también ganó el castigo. La norma elimina la subjetividad rodean este tipo de incidentes y debe hacer más fácil para los comisarios y los pilotos para decidir lo que es - y no - en el lado derecho de la línea

La nueva norma, publicada oficialmente el miércoles, prohíbe a los conductores que se mueva de nuevo en la línea de carrera si se han mudado fuera de él para defender.

Se consagra formalmente lo que había sido previamente un acuerdo entre los conductores.

La nueva norma es el artículo 20.3 del reglamento deportivo F1 .

Dice: "Más que un cambio de dirección para defender una posición que no está permitido.

"Cualquier conductor en movimiento de nuevo hacia la línea de carrera, tras haber defendido su posición off-line, debe dejar por lo menos una anchura del coche entre su propio coche y el borde de la pista sobre el enfoque de la esquina."

Esto es lo que indignó tanto Hamilton acerca de la conducción de Schumacher en Monza - no fue un incidente entre la segunda chicane y la primera esquina de Lesmo que llevó el inglés para obtener en la radio a su equipo y decir: "Yo pensé que sólo se les permitía hacer un movimiento. "

Mercedes de Schumacher, el equipo recibió una serie de advertencias de director de carrera Charlie Whiting durante su defensa en Italia, y el jefe del equipo Ross Brawn fue a la radio para recordarle que "dejar espacio" para Hamilton cuando estaba defendiendo.

La regla anterior que prohíbe a los conductores de obligar a sus rivales fuera de la pista se mantiene.



Es el artículo 20.3 y dice: "Las maniobras que puedan obstaculizar a otros conductores, tales como el hacinamiento deliberada de un coche más allá del borde de la pista o cualquier otro cambio anormal de dirección, no están permitidos."

La nueva normativa deportiva también prohiben que los conductores ", dejando la pista sin causa justificada", un intento de evitar que tomar atajos a los boxes durante los entrenamientos y la calificación para ahorrar tiempo y combustible - como Sebastian Vettel hizo en Corea.

Y en el artículo 40.12, se echaron a las circunstancias en las que ha rodado los coches pueden unlap durante un período de coche de seguridad.

La épica de 2011 Gran Premio de Canadá, que duró cuatro horas y cuatro minutos después de dos horas a mitad de carrera parada por la lluvia torrencial, ha llevado a una nueva ley que restringe la longitud máxima de las carreras,incluyendo paros, a cuatro horas.

Y las sanciones en contra de que los equipos no son capaces de apelación se han establecido en las normas.

Estos son los drive-through o penalización impuesta por una infracción de conducción durante la carrera, un conductor de ser excluidos de la carrera sobre la base de no establecer un plazo para el 107% de los más rápidos en la primera sesión de calificación, y no tener todos las ruedas del coche tres minutos antes de la carrera.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/formula_...416932.stm

[maripi]

Ferrari have unveiled the new Formula 1 car they hope will enable them to win their first drivers' title since 2007.

Team boss Stefano Domenicali said they feel a "responsibility to win from the very beginning" of the season.

Lead driver Fernando Alonso said: "We have to be optimistic. We have to fight for the title."

The F2012 features an innovative step on the top of the chassis in response to regulations aimed at improving safety by lowering F1 cars' noses.

Domenicali admitted that the design was "not really so pretty" but Alonso said he was unfazed by the car's appearance.
Continue reading the main story

“We have to fight for this title, we have to get as many points as possible at every race”

Fernando Alonso Ferrari driver

"With the new car the first feeling has been very good from the beginning," the Spaniard said.

"I like the creative shape that we see in this new car and I think when a car surprises you from the first look it is usually a positive thing. I quite like the car, I hope it is fast."

Ferrari have made no secret of their desire to make amends for a poor 2011 in which they won only one race - the British Grand Prix with Alonso.

They have restructured the technical team, with Englishman Pat Fry replacing Italian Aldo Costa as technical director, and much is expected of the new car, dubbed the F2012.

Domenicali paid tribute to Alonso for his "incredible extraordinary season" in 2011, and pointed to the fact that the double world champion had extended his contract with Ferrari until the end of 2016.

"That is a sign of the responsibility we feel," Domenicali said, addressing Alonso directly. "We have to offer you a competitive high-performing car. I'm sure it will be winning from the very beginning."
The new Ferrari F2012

The new Ferrari features pull-rod front suspension

Alonso said: "I am going to start with the same strength, determination.

"I really want to see red cars always on the podium and always winning. We will keep working all together and I'm sure we will do great this year.

"I really believe in the skills we have here in Ferrari. We have to be optimistic. We have two months to get ready for the first race in Australia (on 18 March). We have to fight for this title, we have to get as many points as possible at every race."

The car has a number of significant features. The step on the top of the nose is there to enable it to meet regulations on the dimensions of the chassis while, Ferrari said, "raising the lower part of the chassis as much as possible for aerodynamic reasons".

The team added that the rear of the car was "much narrower and more tapered" than on last year's car, partly thanks to a new gearbox casing.

The car appears to have exhaust outlets aimed at the rear floor of the car in a bid to improve aerodynamics following the banning of last year's must-have technology, when gases were blown along the rear floor of the car, increasing downforce.
Analysis
Gary Anderson BBC Formula 1 technical analyst

The step on the top of the Ferrari chassis mystifies me. What it does allow them to do is to have the underside of the chassis higher because, unlike other cars, they do not need to mirror the concave top surface with a convex bottom surface. But a curved underside is actually more efficient in terms of airflow than a flat-bottomed one. The exhaust clearly points at the rear wheels, but they'll need a very narrow-diameter pipe to get enough gas velocity to make a difference in terms of downforce. Pull-rod front suspension does have some centre-of-gravity benefits but they are very small compared to the aggravation of the design

It finally follows the trend established in 2009 by Red Bull in adopting pull-rod rear suspension, which has a benefit in terms of weight distribution and aerodynamics over the previous standard, known as push-rod.

Interestingly, it also features an unusual pull-rod front suspension system - for the first time on an F1 car in 10 years.

Alonso's team-mate Felipe Massa said: "We still need to get used to his new nose which is very strange, but apart form the nose the car is very aggressive, very nice, and hope we are going to see a very competitive car from beginning to end."

Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo praised the team's "aggressive" design, adding: "We want to go back to the top level, we want to win. We have all the ingredients for a perfect recipe."

Di Montezemolo repeated his demand for Massa to up his game in 2012. The Brazilian's contract runs out at the end of the year and he is not expected to be retained.

"As for Massa, he knows as much as we know that he has to do something great, something better after a not-so-positive season," di Montezemolo said.

"We are offering him the best conditions to do a great job."

Massa said: "For sure the biggest pressure is coming from myself. I put a lot of pressure on myself I am really motivated. I am sure we can have a great championship from the beginning to the end."

Pre-season testing starts in Jerez, Spain, on 7 February.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/16869320

[maripi]

The annual Formula 1 phoney war was in full swing at the second pre-season test at Barcelona's Circuit de Catalunya this week.

Fernando Alonso was talking down Ferrari's form, Lewis Hamilton was talking up McLaren's - as, intriguingly, was Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel. And the unlikely combination of Kamui Kobayashi and Sauber set the fastest time of the week.

As ever, the headline lap times were a poor guide to the order of the grid that can be expected in Melbourne at the first race in just three weeks' time.

But look behind the fastest laps, and there is usually a way of gleaning at least some sense of form ahead of the season.
Fernando Alonso

Fernando Alonso's Ferrari could yet to turn out to be a dark horse. Photo: Getty

I'll preface what follows with a major caveat - this has been one of the most difficult tests to read for some time. But here goes.

Red Bull, as ever, looked especially strong. Vettel was fastest of all on the first day of the test, and throughout the four days he and team-mate Mark Webber set consistently formidable-looking times.

On Wednesday afternoon, Vettel and Hamilton set out to do race-distance runs at more or less the same time. Both did 66 laps - the length of the Spanish Grand Prix, which will be held at the track in May.

Vettel did five pit stops; Hamilton four. Discount laps on which they went in and out of the pits and they both managed 55 flying laps. Vettel completed his more than two minutes faster than Hamilton.

If that was repeated in a race, Hamilton would be lapped by the end.

And the pattern was repeated on Thursday with Mark Webber and Jenson Button, although the margin was reduced to about half a minute.

Of course, this is very far from an exact scientific comparison.

They didn't use the same tyres as each other - although they don't necessarily have to in the race either.

We don't know what they were doing with fuel loads - although it would be counter-intuitive to start putting fuel in at pit stops because it would provide the team with data that was never going to be relevant to competition.

And it's an especially confusing situation because only the day before Vettel was saying how impressed he had been with the McLaren's pace on the longer runs.

But there was more - none of it especially happy ready for those hoping for a close season.
On the Wednesday, Vettel's fastest time of all was nearly a second faster than Hamilton's on the same type of tyres. Although both were set on very short runs - suggesting a qualifying-type simulation - that's still potentially meaningless as there is no way of knowing the level of fuel on board at the time.

Nevertheless, if you then look at the lap times both were doing at the start of their race-distance runs, they were about the same margin slower than each driver's fastest laps as you would expect given a full race fuel load.

That suggests that the headline lap times of those two drivers could be a reasonably accurate indicator of form - again worrying for McLaren.

Of course, this is only testing, and teams have updates to put on their cars before the first race - as Button pointed out. And everyone expects McLaren to be a close to challenger at the front come Melbourne. Nevertheless, few are under any illusions about Red Bull's strength.

"You're old enough, Andrew," one senior insider said to me during the test, "to know that Red Bull look very strong. McLaren and Ferrari are a bit behind. Force India look like they have a quick car, too."

He might have added that the new Mercedes looks quite decent as well.

But few teams are as difficult to understand right now as Ferrari - who have not done any race simulations to compare with their main rivals.

The messages coming out of the team have all seemed pretty negative.

There has been a lot of attention put on technical director Pat Fry's remark at the first test in Jerez that Ferrari were "not happy" with their understanding of the car.

Start raking through the time sheets, though, and you begin wonder what's behind all the negativity.

On headline lap times, Alonso was less than 0.3secs behind Vettel. And on both his days he started 10-lap runs with a lap in the region of one minute 24.1 seconds.

If you take 10 laps' worth of fuel off that time, you are left with a lap in the low 1:23sec bracket - again, not far off what Vettel managed. And you can bet the Ferrari was running with more than just 10 laps of fuel anyway; most top teams routinely test with 60-80kg of fuel on board.

In other words, the Ferrari actually looks reasonably fast, and an insider did admit: "The car is not as bad as a lot of people think."

If - and it's a big if - Ferrari can start to extract that potential before the first race of the season, Red Bull might just have a serious fight on their hands. And that's without even considering what McLaren might be able to achieve.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/..._in_a.html

[Alfaster-F1]

[maripi]

Ferrari's fate the foremost of many unknowns

Andrew Benson | 13:44 UK time, Sunday, 4 March 2012

Kimi Raikkonen was to the point, as ever.

As pre-season testing wound to a close at Barcelona's Circuit de Catalunya, the man who returns to Formula 1 this season after two years in rallying was asked how he felt the teams compared.

"In two weeks we know," the Lotus driver said. "There is no point to guess here. I don't know who's going to be fastest. Nobody knows."

Up and down the pit lane, drivers from other teams were expressing more or less the same view.

"McLaren look very strong," said Red Bull's Mark Webber. "And some of the other times done by other teams were pretty handy, too."

Jenson Button, meanwhile, managed to cover all bases in three sentences.

"There's a lot of work needs to be done before we're properly competitive," the McLaren driver said. "I'm reasonably happy with what we have. I don't know where we are but the feeling is good."

That summed up the situation pretty well at the end of three pre-season tests.

The lap times have been particularly difficult to read this year but it seems some patterns have emerged.

Up and down the pit lane, the general view is that the field is a lot closer than in recent years. Red Bull are again very strong, McLaren look like running them close and Mercedes appear to have made a step forward. Lotus, Sauber and Force India have also looked pretty handy.

Mercedes team principal Ross Brawn says he is "expecting the tightest start to a season we've seen for a number of years".

People don't just invent these views - they are formed by looking through the mountains of data that each day of testing throws up.

Kimi Raikonnen returns to Formula 1 after a three year absence.

Analysing the lap times also produces some interesting numbers.

While it is not possible to know the programmes each team is running at any time, it is a reasonable assumption that over the course of winter testing all the teams will get through pretty much the same sort of work.

So, logically, an average of every lap time a driver has done over the three tests should give some indication of where each team is.

On average, over the whole of winter testing, Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel was the fastest of the drivers from last year's top two teams, by 0.3secs from Button, with Hamilton a similar margin further back and just in front of Webber.

The specific average times look like this:

Vettel one minute, 25.340 seconds
Button 1:25.664
Hamilton 1:25.937
Webber 1:25.951

It's also worth pointing out that the pattern of the last two or three years has been for Red Bull's true pace to be disguised in both winter testing and in free practice at the grands prix.

Whether they are running more fuel than their rivals, or a weaker engine map, Red Bull always seem to find more time when it matters than the others do.

Mercedes have clearly been doing a different programme from the other teams - with a far greater concentration of longer runs - so comparing their times is potentially less instructive.

But when you see that Nico Rosberg did a 1:22.932 at the start of a 13-lap run on the penultimate day of testing, you know they have a pretty decent car.

"It's still going to be the teams from last year that we need to beat," Rosberg said, sounding confident. "But I think we have a good chance to annoy them a few times early in the season."

And then there is Ferrari. Unless there is some Oscar-worthy acting going on, they are in trouble.

Ferrari have been open about the fact that they are struggling to understand the behaviour of their radical new car. Insiders tell BBC Sport that sometimes it behaves well and predictably, and sometimes it does not, and the team have no idea why.

The sense of crisis was heightened by Ferrari's decision to cancel their driver media briefings over the final weekend of testing, saying they wanted them to concentrate solely on their job.

But Fernando Alonso did speak on television at the Barcelona-Sporting football match on Saturday night, saying: "In the first races we will suffer because we are not 100%."

Ferrari put up technical director Pat Fry instead of Alonso on Sunday, and he admitted that he thought it unlikely the team would be able to finish on the podium in Melbourne.

One can only imagine the pressure Fry must be feeling right now.

A diffident man who is uncomfortable with the media, Fry is in his first year in the job following the dismissal of predecessor Aldo Costa. And he has overseen a design office that was told to take risks this season in an attempt to close the gap to Red Bull after a poor 2011.

They've taken those risks - but it does not look for now as if they have made wise choices.

And yet, and yet. If you average out Alonso's lap times over the whole of winter testing, guess what? He is the fastest of all - by 0.3secs. No wonder Webber says: "The mystery is the Ferrari."

So what's going on? The new F2012 looks like it can do a decent lap time, so it is conceivable that it will qualify pretty well in Melbourne the weekend after next.

But according to BBC F1 technical analyst Gary Anderson, who spent some time watching trackside in Barcelona, it seems to quickly drop in performance, initially losing grip on turn-in, and later on corner exits too.

It seems to use its tyres particularly aggressively. Ferrari have been afflicted these last few years by a car that raced better than it qualified because it used its tyres too gently. In seeking to fix this trait, have they now gone too far the other way?

It's not as if they can blame the drivers either. In Alonso, they have an all-time great, a gold standard who will push the car to its absolute limit on every single lap of every single race. Many consider his season in 2011 to have been better than his title-winning years with Renault in 2005-06, considering the equipment at his disposal.

This, team boss Stefano Domenicali has admitted to BBC Sport, was the point of signing the Spaniard on a lucrative contract that commits him to the team until the end of 2016. It puts pressure on the team to deliver.

Of course, all this may turn out to be an illusion. Perhaps Alonso will be a contender for victory in Melbourne, and throughout the year. But let's assume for a moment he isn't.

Back in 2007, when his relationship with McLaren was in tatters, Alonso had talks with Red Bull to discuss moving there.

Red Bull were keen but in the end Alonso opted for a move back to Renault, knowing a Ferrari seat was waiting for him a couple of years down the line.

At the time, with Ferrari contending for the title for the 10th time in 11 years and Red Bull still in the midfield, you could hardly fault the logic.

But now, in his quiet moments, or when he's watching Vettel celebrate yet another win, or looking at the beautifully intricate detail at the back of the Red Bull, or when he's wrestling his uncooperative mount into a corner, does Alonso wish he could turn back the clock?

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The Formula 1 teams arrived in Melbourne's Albert Park to be greeted by grey skies, intermittent rain and blustery wind. But not even the weather could dampen the palpable excitement and nervous tension.

The start of the new season is just a few hours away and everyone from world champions Red Bull to lowly HRT is desperate to find the answer to the question they have been asking all winter. Where will they be come Saturday and Sunday afternoons?

The F1 teams like to keep outsiders guessing before the first race by saying they don't know where they are in terms of competitiveness, but usually this is little more than kidology.

Such is their capacity to analyse data with massive super-computers that usually they have a very good idea of their position in relation to their rivals, despite the well-known difficulty of predicting form from pre-season testing.

But this year seems different; they genuinely don't seem to know - so the usual anticipation ahead of the first race of the season is magnified.

Lewis Hamilton said that judging by the data that mattered from winter testing he felt McLaren were "in the top three or four".

Ferrari's Fernando Alonso has also bigged up his team's chances for the 2012 season. Photo: Getty

Meanwhile, a senior engineer from one of the teams who will be contesting what is expected to be a congested midfield battle told me he was pretty sure Red Bull and McLaren were out front but he didn't know "whether we will be third or seventh".

Some people's anticipation is more nervous than others', though.

For teams such as Mercedes and Lotus, there is a genuine sense that they have done a good job and moved forward over the winter.

In fact there is a growing sense in the paddock that Mercedes may even be able to give McLaren and Red Bull a run for their money, something team principal Ross Brawn was quick to dismiss as "unlikely".

For others, the desire to discover the true pace of their car is tinged as much with trepidation as anticipation.

Ferrari have had what Fernando Alonso described here on Thursday as a "tough" winter, struggling with "quite a complex car in terms of set-up and understanding it".

Alonso was doing his best to talk up the team's chances, saying: "Maybe we didn't reach our targets but it doesn't mean that we are slower than the other cars. That we will not know until Saturday."

Others are keen to play down the importance of this first race of the season.

Vettel said that Australia this weekend and Malaysia next would do no more than demonstrate a "trend" for performance over the season.

And Brawn said he "preferred to look at the first four races and the range of circuits we have and see how that looks".

But the statistics belie that point of view.

Albert Park might be a unique street circuit, with a dusty, low-grip surface, and the teams may only just be beginning to work with their new cars. But actually it has proven to be a rather good arbiter of the season to come - five of the last six winners of the Australian Grand Prix have gone on to become world champion that year.

Other themes are also emerging this weekend that will have importance to one degree or another as the season develops.

F1 wouldn't be F1 without a good technical conspiracy and this year looks like being no different.

Already during pre-season testing there have been eyebrows raised at the way some teams are trying to exploit exhaust gases for aerodynamic effect.

This practice was supposed to have been ended by rule changes that have restricted the positioning and angle of the exhaust pipes and put much stricter limits on engine mapping - both an attempt to rid the sport of so-called exhaust-blown diffusers that became such important tools over the previous two seasons.

But this weekend another potential controversy has emerged over the rear wings on several cars, particularly the Red Bull and the Ferrari.

These new devices - that some believe to be on the fringes of legality - seem designed to exploit the DRS overtaking aid in ways not originally intended.

The DRS was designed as a tool to make overtaking less difficult - if a driver is within a one-second margin of a car he is trying to overtake, he can use the DRS in a specified zone on the track to give him a straight-line speed boost.

Red Bull and Ferrari, meanwhile, have what appear to be extra slots on the rear wing that can work in conjunction with the DRS to either increase straight-line speed even further, or allow the teams to run extra downforce with no drag penalty.

The most noticeable feature of the 2012 cars, though, remains the noses - and specifically the ugly 'platypus' step on all but the McLaren and Marussia.

This is a result of a rule that has lowered the nose tips of the cars to increase driver safety, but not lowered the top of the chassis.

The result is a grid full of ridiculous and ugly-looking cars, and very few are troubling to hide their frustration at the situation.

"It is unfortunate," Brawn said, "and the teams should look at themselves and blame themselves.

"[Governing body] the FIA tried to do what they could and a number of teams wouldn't agree to the changes because they said they wanted to carry over their chassis, which we all know is a load of nonsense because nobody has carried over their chassis.

"We've ended up with a very odd feature on the cars which is not very endearing and I'm sure will get fixed for 2013."

The noses, of course, will soon be forgotten if the season is close and competitive. And that will only begin to become clear as this weekend unfolds.

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Mercedes driver Michael Schumacher set the pace in a damp second practice at the Australian Grand Prix after McLaren topped the first.

The seven-time champion, whose team are tipped to challenge in 2012, pipped fellow German Nico Hulkenberg's Force India right at the end of the session.

Earlier in the day, in a drier session, Jenson Button beat McLaren team-mate Lewis Hamilton by 0.245secs.
Continue reading the main story

“The Mercedes look impressive, but I think the Red Bulls were running a lot of fuel today. They'll show their hand tomorrow”

BBC Radio 5 live analyst Jaime Alguersuari

After a day of torrential rain and sunshine, the weekend forecast is dry.

In the afternoon session, which had only 15 minutes of dry running right at the end, Sauber's Sergio Perez was third fastest, ahead of Ferrari's Fernando Alonso, who set his time on the medium tyre, which is harder and theoretically slower than the softs used by the drivers ahead of him.

The Spaniard was also fourth in the morning session, behind Button, Hamilton and Schumacher.

World champions Red Bull had a low-key day. Mark Webber was their fastest driver in the first session in fifth, with team-mate Sebastian Vettel 11th. In the afternoon, Vettel was 10th and Webber was 11th.

But BBC 5 live analyst Jaime Alguersuari, who drove for Toro Rosso from 2009-11, said he expected Red Bull to set the pace on Saturday.

"The Mercedes looks really good," he said. "They look impressive, but I think the Red Bulls were running a lot of fuel today. They'll show their hand tomorrow."

Conditions were slower in the second session than the first, after a torrential downpour soaked the track in the break.

But both sessions were affected by the changeable weather in autumnal Melbourne - the first session also started wet but dried up quicker in the warmer early afternoon weather.

The weekend timetable is moved later in Australia than at most grands prix to ensure they are as close as possible to day time in Europe, where F1's core audience is.

Despite the tricky conditions, only two drivers spun off.
ON THE BUTTON

Button and Hamilton finished one and two in second practice for the 2011 Australian Grand Prix, this time they managed the feat in P1

Ferrari's Felipe Massa lost his car at the entry to Turn Nine in the first session after putting a rear wheel on the grass while he was braking, while Perez spun out of the final corner in the closing stages of the second session.

But several drivers had trips across the grass after missing their braking points on the slippery track.

Practice is not necessarily a true indication of competitive form, but Mercedes' performance underlined the impression that they are set for a more competitive year in 2012.

The cars were quick on both a damp track and a dry one.

Equally, Alonso's performance place suggested Ferrari might not be in as much trouble as winter testing had suggested.

Nevertheless, the car continued to look difficult to drive - and Alonso rescued a massive slide on the exit of the tricky final corner at the end of the first session, which could easily have ended with the car in the wall.

Kimi Raikkonen's running on his first day at a grand prix following a two-year spell in rallying was interrupted by a problem with his car's power steering, which lost him time in the first session.

Lowly HRT had a torrid first day of the new season with their new car.

The team had only managed 40km of running before the start of the season, and Indian Narain Karthikeyan ground to a halt out on the track after just three slow laps.

Team-mate Pedro de la Rosa managed only a single 'installation' lap as his team struggled to get his car ready.