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The season so far has been interesting. We've seen the resurgence of Williams, the fall of Lotus, the woes of Red Bull and the success of Mercedes.
We've also seen some surprises amongst the drivers; Bottas has shown he can rub shoulders with the best, Ricciardo is showing up four-time champion Vettel and Raikkonen is being shown up by double-champion Alonso.
We're going to take a brief look at each team, and see just how they're doing as we take a breather a little over half-way into the season.
Mercedes are of course the class act of the field this year; they've obviously managed to find a combination of innovations that have worked wonders, with many people having attributed their success to the FRIC (Front-Rear Interconnected Suspension) system, as well as their ability to integrate the engine more tightly into the chassis; something that the customer teams would struggle to do.
When the German Grand Prix of Hockenheim rolled around, the FRIC system was banned with immediate effect, with many hoping that this was the end of the Mercedes team's domination of the season thus far, but alas it wasn't to be, with the removal of the system seemingly slowing them only fractionally.
So with the car still dominant, the title is proving to be a two horse race between two childhood competitors, Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton.
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| Hamilton and Rosberg's Bahrain battle |
Let's start from the bottom - Hamilton has enjoyed less by way of reliability, having retired due to mechanical mishaps twice, with his team-mate only succumbing to failure once. This luck has also been prevalent in qualifying sessions, with Hamilton not only enjoying a brake failure in Hockenheim, dropping him out of the session in Q1, but also having to watch his car burn to a crisp in Hungary.
The upshot of this for Hamilton is that with the parts having failed, they have since been replaced, meaning that we boldly predict that Rosberg will be on the receiving end of failures more than Hamilton, unless it's due to lacklustre workmanship on Lewis' side of the garage.
Moving up, we can see on the infographic that when Lewis has finished, he has finished nowhere else but on the podium, and moreso on the top step than his team-mate. While Rosberg has had the edge on reliability, when Hamilton's car stays running he seems to be able to push it harder and faster. You can also see from the points battle that Hamilton is remaining on terms with Rosberg.
Dare we predict based on this, providing Hamilton's mechanical gremlins subside, Lewis is odds-on to be our champion for this year...
Red Bull are finally remembering what it is to play catch-up; the faltering Renault power unit with a 70bhp deficit seems to be almost entirely responsible for their woes, with only the aerodynamic genius of Newey keeping them somewhere near the front.
Despite their successes in recent years with Renault, team principle Christian Horner has been vocal in respect of their frustration with Renault, who promised improvements. So far, the only improvements seem to be in respect of cooling and reliability, with little progress made to increase power.
All this in combination with the ban on blown diffusers, as well as the comprehensive changes in aerodynamics for the year, Red Bull are getting acquainted with the upper-mid-field again.
Well... perhaps one of them is.
Let's again start with the bad news; Vettel has been under a lot of pressure to show that his four titles weren't just a case of being in the right car at the right time, and to be frank, he's not managed to silence his critics. If anything, he's learning what it was like to be Mark Webber during his Red Bull years. There's little beating about the bush - Ricciardo is comprehensively out-performing Vettel, both in qualifying and races. Vettel is also getting more than his fair share of bad luck (akin to Webber), with three-quarters of the team's reliability woes happening to him alone.
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| Ricciardo leads Vettel in the championship |
It's not been entirely negative for Vettel - he's not finished out of the points once, and has contributed fairly healthily to the team's total. Without him, the team wouldn't be sitting in 2nd place in the constructors' battle.
Speaking of points, the points bar along the bottom of the infographic show that Vettel really has some work to do in order to get back on terms with Ricciardo, with the Australian best of the rest behind the Mercs, and Vettel a further three places behind.
Imagine throwing a lump of potassium into a bowl of water. That's the kind of thing that was expected. If you don't know what happens, YouTube has the answer.
Anyway, the team have undergone some fairly significant restructuring, with perhaps the most notable being the departure of Stefano Domenicali, supposedly on mutual terms. He has since of course been replaced with Marco Mattiacci, which many felt was a bemusing decision; not the decision to sack Domenicali, but the decision to appoint Mattiacci.
The Ferrari is one of only two cars to resemble the Mercedes aerodynamically, so it would appear atleast aesthetically that they are on the right path, but the statistics tell a different story.
It's predicted that the Ferrari power lump produces approximately the same horsepower as the Renault, both with and without an ERS boost. With the similar aesthetics, It would be expected therefore that the results it can achieve would be on par with Red Bull, but only one of the two drivers seems to have adapted to 2014's changes well enough to get it even close.
Everyone thought the employment of two former champions would be a partnership of epic proportions, but it has been a bewilderingly different story. Talking frankly, Raikkonen is struggling - whether it be technically or motivationally, it's clear that Alonso is getting more out of the car than he is. Alonso has managed to get the car home every single race, but furthermore, he's getting it home in positions that pay the bills. Raikkonen on the other hand hasn't scored in four of the eleven races, and when he has scored, his highest points position was 6th, which came in Hungary. Some sighted this as a potential return to form for the Finn, but only time will tell.
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| Alonso has pretty much been on his own this year |
To excuse Raikkonen, he's in an alien team with alien regulations - it's to be expected that it may take a little time to settle in while Alonso has been part of the developmental process at Ferrari for the last 5 years. However Raikkonen is an old hand and should really be doing better; the team points distribution speaks volumes of this, with Raikkonen languishing in 12th while his team-mate is in the fight for 'best of the rest' in 4th.
Alonso's frustration in recent years has lead to speculation that he's flirting with Ron Dennis for a possible Mclaren seat in future, and while his contract is fairly tight for at least the next year, a team performance clause that essentially nullifies the contract between them should the team finish lower than third in the constructors' championship could play a part in how things progress for the Spaniard, so if Williams keep their act up and put the prancing horse under pressure, this could be something to watch.
Williams are the team with possibly the largest scale restructuring of all, with most notable changes coming in the power train department, as well as the recruitment of experienced Brazilian Felipe Massa and his race engineer Rob Smedley, in place of accident-prone Maldonado.
These efforts are finally paying dividends. Williams are currently laying fourth in the constructors' title, their highest position for seven years. A lot of this is thanks to the Mercedes power unit, providing them with a notable grunt advantage over their Renault/Ferrari rivals, with another chunk of their success due to their aerodynamic package, which isn't as sticky in the corners as the Mercedes/Red Bull machines, but provides them with a superior top speed, which heading into the second half of the season could offer them a considerable advantage at places like Spa and Monza.
As for the drivers, the statistics aren't terribly favourable towards Massa. Whilst Massa has finished in the points nearly half the time, his team-mate has only failed to score once, and that's when he suffered a power unit failure around the streets of Monaco, running in the points in eighth at the time.
What's perhaps worse is that all of Felipe Massa's non-finishes were due to first-lap incidents, although only one of them was his fault; he had Kobayashi smash into the back of him in Australia, Raikkonen suffer a massive accident in his path at Silverstone, and failed to check over his shoulder/in his mirrors at the start of the German Grand Prix, where he ended up rolling over as a consequence.
Williams are chasing third in the constructors hard, and it's certainly not beyond their ability. If Massa keeps his nose clean, and Bottas keeps doing what he's doing, there's little doubt in my mind that they can do it, particularly if Raikkonen continues to under-perform. Look out for these two when it comes to Spa and Monza - we are expecting potentially great things from the team; moreso Bottas than Massa.
Force India are continuing to run well. The re-hiring of Nico Hulkenberg is probably the best move that both Force India and Nico Hulkenberg could have made looking back on 2013. They of course also have Sergio Perez, who greatly impressed when he entered the sport, but his impact seems to have plateaued somewhat, delivering erratic results ranging from crashes to podiums.
Rumours about the team's financial position have been rumbling on for a while now, with no-one able to offer a definitive answer on what's going on, but whatever the story the team are performing well with their Mercedes power unit in the back and some fairly good aerodynamics. The car was signed off by technical director Andrew Green, a man known more and more for delivering solid machines on a limited budget, and in the hands of Nico Hulkenberg, a solid driver, you have a solid pairing almost guaranteed to bring home at least some bacon.
And so this proves to be; Hulkenberg's statistics tell a boring but pleasing story - of his eleven starts this season, he's raked in points in ten of them, with his only retirement coming in Hungary when he collided with team-mate Perez in an uncharacteristic error entering the final turn. According to Hulkenberg, he simply misread the situation - on the previous lap, Perez had taken a wide entry to the final turn, so assuming Perez would do the same, Hulkenberg made a move for the inside, but with Perez taking a tighter line, this miscalculation caused Hulkenberg to make contact and spin off into retirement. Regardless, Hulkenberg is still causing people to ask the question "why will no-one give him a top seat?"
Perez, as forementioned, has been erratic. He reached the dizzy heights of a podium in an action-packed Bahrain Grand Prix, but descended into the depths of unforced retirement at both Hungary and Monaco, where he simply spun on the first lap on the exit of Mirabeau having applied the throttle too enthusiastically on cold tyres. Perez has proved on a few occasions that underneath his somewhat inflated ego and occasional over-enthusiasm, there is a good, able driver, and in order for Force India to pull away from Mclaren, who are one point behind, Perez needs to pull it together and deliver more consistently.
The good news for Force India is that Mclaren have turned most of their attention to 2015, but we'll go into that in more detail shortly.
Rumours about the team's financial position have been rumbling on for a while now, with no-one able to offer a definitive answer on what's going on, but whatever the story the team are performing well with their Mercedes power unit in the back and some fairly good aerodynamics. The car was signed off by technical director Andrew Green, a man known more and more for delivering solid machines on a limited budget, and in the hands of Nico Hulkenberg, a solid driver, you have a solid pairing almost guaranteed to bring home at least some bacon.
And so this proves to be; Hulkenberg's statistics tell a boring but pleasing story - of his eleven starts this season, he's raked in points in ten of them, with his only retirement coming in Hungary when he collided with team-mate Perez in an uncharacteristic error entering the final turn. According to Hulkenberg, he simply misread the situation - on the previous lap, Perez had taken a wide entry to the final turn, so assuming Perez would do the same, Hulkenberg made a move for the inside, but with Perez taking a tighter line, this miscalculation caused Hulkenberg to make contact and spin off into retirement. Regardless, Hulkenberg is still causing people to ask the question "why will no-one give him a top seat?"
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| Hulkenberg continues to put in some good results |
The good news for Force India is that Mclaren have turned most of their attention to 2015, but we'll go into that in more detail shortly.
Let's be honest - Mclaren are in trouble. They haven't sat this low in the constructors' championship table since 1981. Even last year they managed to pull it together enough to finish 5th, which other than equalling their finishing position of 2004, was their worst since 1983. To compound the pain, they failed to score a podium in 2013; a feat that the team hadn't repeated since 1980.
Something must be done, and Mclaren know it. They've reinstated Ron Dennis as the head honcho of the Mclaren Formula 1 operation, replacing Martin Whitmarsh, who was then replaced again by Eric Boullier as race director, putting Whitmarsh pretty much out of a job. Mclaren have remained silent on the situation concerning Whitmarsh's position within the company, with some reports suggesting he'd been offered a healthy seven-figure payout to leave the team.
The reason for Whitmarsh's ousting was pretty much headed by the lack of returns on his somewhat unconventional development path through the winter of 2012 and the course of 2013. Opting for pullrod suspension without adapting the chassis/aerodynamics sufficiently to accommodate the changes was the primary reason for this; they chose to follow Ferrari's 2012 example, but while Ferrari stuck with it and have managed to yield some returns, Mclaren's abandonment of the system at the end of 2013, in conjunction with the loss of technical director Paddy Lowe, has meant that they are effectively a year behind in this department, with a lot of catching up still to do.
To make matters worse for the team, their failure to secure a big-name title sponsor has also caused people to ask some questions.
However, it's not all been doom and gloom. The team went out in Melbourne and surprised people by scoring not just one, but two podiums on their first outing. It was hoped that this would mark a return to form for the outfit, but similar results have failed to materialise, with the team lurking largely at the head of the mid-field teams.
The statistics also paint an interesting picture; It's largely believed that Magnussen is outperforming his veteran team-mate, but this is simply not so - While Magnussen secured a second place in his first outing (bettering his father's entire career in a single race), his performance since has actually been largely lacklustre, with Button consistently outscoring him. As can be seen by the team's points bar along the bottom of the infographic, the larger share of the team's points haul is held by Button, with the Briton sitting two places up from his Mclaren counterpart.
Regardless, they're not doing as well as they ought to be. It's not really set to get much better either; they have the challenge of keeping the car as competitive as possible for the rest of the year (despite having written off the season already), at the same time as focussing on next year, where of course Honda will re-enter the frame. The chassis they have now was designed and built around the Mercedes lump, and it's going to be hard work to make sure that the developments they make will be transferable/relevant to the Honda unit they'll be putting in the back of their cars next year.
Only time will tell.
Something must be done, and Mclaren know it. They've reinstated Ron Dennis as the head honcho of the Mclaren Formula 1 operation, replacing Martin Whitmarsh, who was then replaced again by Eric Boullier as race director, putting Whitmarsh pretty much out of a job. Mclaren have remained silent on the situation concerning Whitmarsh's position within the company, with some reports suggesting he'd been offered a healthy seven-figure payout to leave the team.
The reason for Whitmarsh's ousting was pretty much headed by the lack of returns on his somewhat unconventional development path through the winter of 2012 and the course of 2013. Opting for pullrod suspension without adapting the chassis/aerodynamics sufficiently to accommodate the changes was the primary reason for this; they chose to follow Ferrari's 2012 example, but while Ferrari stuck with it and have managed to yield some returns, Mclaren's abandonment of the system at the end of 2013, in conjunction with the loss of technical director Paddy Lowe, has meant that they are effectively a year behind in this department, with a lot of catching up still to do.
To make matters worse for the team, their failure to secure a big-name title sponsor has also caused people to ask some questions.
However, it's not all been doom and gloom. The team went out in Melbourne and surprised people by scoring not just one, but two podiums on their first outing. It was hoped that this would mark a return to form for the outfit, but similar results have failed to materialise, with the team lurking largely at the head of the mid-field teams.
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| A picture that sums up Mclaren's situation |
Regardless, they're not doing as well as they ought to be. It's not really set to get much better either; they have the challenge of keeping the car as competitive as possible for the rest of the year (despite having written off the season already), at the same time as focussing on next year, where of course Honda will re-enter the frame. The chassis they have now was designed and built around the Mercedes lump, and it's going to be hard work to make sure that the developments they make will be transferable/relevant to the Honda unit they'll be putting in the back of their cars next year.
Only time will tell.
Toro Rosso have had a fairly chequered year; Newcomer Daniil Kvyat has impressed so far, while Vergne has seemingly been a little pale in comparison. However it's not as black and white as that, as I will explain later.
Their car has by far the most extreme ant-eater nose, which has lead to Anne Summers making some comments on Twitter (you can probably guess what the nature of the comments were), and is the first car designed under the leadership of technical director James Key, who was in charge of Sauber's aerodynamic development during their fairly successful 2012 season.
Speaking of aerodynamics, this had been one of the team's weaker points in previous years. While their designs were somewhat aesthetically innocuous and 'looked' fast, the cars failed to live up to this expectation. The hiring of James Key seems to have been a good move, with the team recording some good results so far this season, when they actually finish...
One move that they may be regretting was the move to Renault engines. It was seen as logical that they try to emulate the successes of their big sister Red Bull, who have enjoyed nothing but for the last four years with the famous diamond-badged lump under the skin, But their engine switch couldn't really have happened at a worse time, with the Renault power unit under-powered and over-heating. What's worse, the 'package everything tightly' approach that worked for their big sister doesn't seem to be the leading philosophy as it has been in previous years, and it certainly hasn't served them well, causing their cars to retire over a third of the time, as shown in the graphic.
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| Toro Rosso have had a mixed season... |
However, when the car works, it's a capable little machine, with Vergne and Kvyat scoring points on eight occasions, putting them under Mclaren on the constructors' table, although admittedly some way behind.
Now - onto the drivers - what's interesting is that we're seeing a repeat of the same situation that we're witnessing at Mclaren; people are raving somewhat about new boy Kvyat and his performance, but don't seem to be taking note of what really matters - the scores, where Vergne has nearly double the points of his rookie team-mate in his pocket. It's difficult to say as to whether this is a true representation of performance, as their retirements have of course potentially denied them both of some more, but so far this year, when they do finish, the pendulum is swinging in Vergne's favour.
With the car down on power using the same engine as close rivals Lotus, only aerodynamics can really keep them ahead in the constructors. With some high-speed circuits coming up, we'll see if the developments in these areas are enough.
Lotus are enjoying perhaps their worst season since their reincarnation. The car seems to be all wrong, their finances are wrong and the team has lost some key personnel as a direct result.
The second half of 2013 is when the problem really came to a head; Raikkonen revealed he hadn't been paid 'a cent' for his driving that year up until Abu Dhabi, which was the last race where we had seen him in action (albeit for less than a minute after making a half-baked overtake attempt in the first corner, breaking his suspension) before he went off for back surgery, missing the last two races, with some speculating that he had been paid by Ferrari to do so in order for them to climb above Lotus in the constructors' table.
Earlier this year, Lotus F1 chairman Gerard Lopez admitted to the racing outfit having something in the region of £114m of debt, of which £80m was actually borrowed from his other company, Genii, the title sponsor. It's clear that the monetary side of things is a bit of a mess. This situation was instrumental of Raikkonen's decision to leave, as well as Lotus' decision to hire the controversial Maldonado, who carries fairly healthy sponsorship from his home nation of Venezuela. It also lead to Lotus replacing Raikkonen with fellow Finn Kovalainen, going over the head of test driver Davide Valsecci, who had shown he was worthy of an opportunity. This lead to Valsecci leaving the team on less than favourable terms.
However, 2014 is another year, and Lotus' radical solution to the 2014 technical regulations are not only odd, but aren't working. The 'tusk' approach, a completely unique design solution, was hoped to be a clever way of keeping the central under-car airway clear, so the diffuser could be put to work at the back, but this seems not to have worked, and if anything could possibly have backfired, creating two large obstructions in airflow whereas the 'ant-eater' solution only presents one.
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| Lotus are struggling in 2014... |
Interestingly, only one driver has had an accident this year, and it's not the one you'd think; Pastor Maldonado has kept his nose pretty clean so far this year, but he's still not really showing that he's worthy of his seat, with team-mate Romain Grosjean having bagged all the team's points so far. In reality, it's been a really disappointing season for the team, and we don't really see it getting any better. Our advice would be to limit development for this year, focus on getting the money right and looking to next year. We hope we continue to see these guys on the grid in future - if this were not to be the case, it'd be a sad indictment of the situation in F1 today.
Marussia are on the move. They've managed to break away somewhat from Caterham, who seemed to have the upper hand in recent years, and are now nipping at the heels of the mid-field. They've got a couple of solid drivers, a new powerplant from Ferrari, as well as the Energy Recovery System (ERS), full transmission and all related ancillary systems, not to mention some assistance from Mclaren Applied Technologies, who allowed them use of their windtunnel on a couple of occasions.
It looks as though they have all the right ingredients to really make some progress over the next couple of years. This year they've made a leap forward, and while I don't expect development to continue at this pace, I feel that they may have just done enough to 'fit in' with the rest of the field.
Instrumental to this surge forward was the withdrawal of Cosworth, who had been powering them since their inception as Virgin Racing in 2010. Cosworth announced at the end of 2013 that it wasn't planning on making a V6 in line with the regulations for 2014, so Marussia needed to find someone else. Thanks to the fact they had Ferrari protégé Jules Bianchi on board, they struck a deal with Ferrari for pretty much their entire running gear, and it seems to be a winner; whilst the engine is down on power compared to the Mercs, it shows more promising reliability than the Renault, which seemed like an obvious choice of supplier if you wanted to succeed based on evidence of recent years.
The Cosworth engine's primary problem was it required a more substantial cooling system than its rivals, and the Ferrari engine provided them with a solid backbone on which to build the MR03. Dodging the Renault reliability bullet is part of what allowed them to climb up to 9th place in Monaco this year in the hands of Jules Bianchi, scoring not just the team's first point, but first points, and not just for the team, but for himself too. The list of retirements for that race amounted to eight drivers, half of which were due to Renault engine failures.
They currently sit 9th in the constructors, two places above the bottom, which doesn't sound that good, but if they stay there for the rest of 2014, an incredibly welcome cash injection would really allow them the chance to mix it with the bigger boys next year. Now onto the drivers - It looks fairly clear-cut on the surface; Jules Bianchi is obviously a better driver than Max Chilton, however when we look at the stats, out of the eleven starts they've made, Chilton has started and finished ahead of Bianchi on four occasions - a little over a third of the time. Apart from the occasion in Canada this year where they tripped over eachother, Chilton also is the more reliable driver - the safer bet for a finish out of the two.
But when Bianchi has the chance, his one-lap pace is quicker, and overall he is the faster driver. This year he's driven well (not quite at the same level of robotic repetitiveness as Chilton), but has had three mechanical failures, which had hurt his 2014 campaign. If Marussia fix their gremlins, I think they'll be able to hold back the Caterhams and the Saubers, and retain their 9th in the constructors.
Sauber are enduring their worst season since they began in 1993. It's not really clear as to why they've lost their edge, but it would seem to be something to do with losing technical director James Kay, who designed some fairly successful cars over the last few years, including their 2012 machine; Sauber's most successful car to date.
Sauber were known through those years for their ability to develop their car over the year, with the team seeing a surge through the second half, however with the loss of Key, I suspect sadly that we won't see much of an improvement from them.
Sauber have also famously been in some financial issues. With the media mentioning links to no less than three Russian companies, an investment deal was eventually struck, which has led to the placing of Sergey Sirotkin in the team’s reserve driver roster. That he has not – as originally suggested – become part of their race driver line-up is probably for the best. For while Sirotkin has shown some promise in the junior categories a promotion to an F1 race seat looked premature.
They stuck with Ferrari for 2014, but their decision not to have a technical director, and instead segment their team into three groups (aerodynamics, performance and operations) seems to have caused a communication rift, with the aerodynamics failing to provide adequate cooling to the internals. But aerodynamics aside, the biggest issue Sauber seem to be facing is weight.
The weight of the car has presented the engineers at Sauber with a major challenge, as the 49 kg higher minimum weight only partly cancels out the weight added predominantly by the power unit and its ancillaries. But not only is the weight itself a challenge, but weight distribution is also crucial when it comes to making optimum use of the tyres. This added weight comes from the of the power unit that sees a threefold increase in the number of electronics boxes alone compared to the Sauber C32-Ferrari. This means 40 such components had to be packaged into the car, more than 30 of which require cooling, which the current packaging solution has failed to provide, resulting in four failures between the two drivers.
The driver line-up suggests that the team know what kind of trouble they're in; the retention of Esteban Gutierrez brings some much-needed sponsorship from his home country of Mexico, while the hiring of Adrian Sutil was just the logical choice following the departure of Nico Hulkenberg - Sutil was someone who could deliver some results - nothing spectacular, just bring home a few points. The pair were a prime example of Sauber 'playing it safe'.
However, it's not worked. The drivers have only finished twelve out of the twenty-two starts they've made, and not once have they scored a point. Interestingly, the disparity of the drivers in terms of experience seems to have counted for nothing, with both of them finishing six times each, crashing three times each and retiring two times each for mechanical reasons.
This run of form isn't good news for Sutil, who was hired to take the role as number one within the team, and was expected to bring home at least a rasher of bacon. Admittedly he's come the closest with an eleventh place finish in Australia and Hungary, but he needs to just get a place higher and we might see a challenge for a much-needed cash boost from 9th in the constructors. As for Gutierrez, his seat is fairly safe considering the sponsorship he brings, but could we possibly see Sutil sacked and replaced by Sirotkin for 2015? Watch this space.
Sauber were known through those years for their ability to develop their car over the year, with the team seeing a surge through the second half, however with the loss of Key, I suspect sadly that we won't see much of an improvement from them.
Sauber have also famously been in some financial issues. With the media mentioning links to no less than three Russian companies, an investment deal was eventually struck, which has led to the placing of Sergey Sirotkin in the team’s reserve driver roster. That he has not – as originally suggested – become part of their race driver line-up is probably for the best. For while Sirotkin has shown some promise in the junior categories a promotion to an F1 race seat looked premature.
They stuck with Ferrari for 2014, but their decision not to have a technical director, and instead segment their team into three groups (aerodynamics, performance and operations) seems to have caused a communication rift, with the aerodynamics failing to provide adequate cooling to the internals. But aerodynamics aside, the biggest issue Sauber seem to be facing is weight.
The weight of the car has presented the engineers at Sauber with a major challenge, as the 49 kg higher minimum weight only partly cancels out the weight added predominantly by the power unit and its ancillaries. But not only is the weight itself a challenge, but weight distribution is also crucial when it comes to making optimum use of the tyres. This added weight comes from the of the power unit that sees a threefold increase in the number of electronics boxes alone compared to the Sauber C32-Ferrari. This means 40 such components had to be packaged into the car, more than 30 of which require cooling, which the current packaging solution has failed to provide, resulting in four failures between the two drivers.
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| Sauber's future is uncertain... |
However, it's not worked. The drivers have only finished twelve out of the twenty-two starts they've made, and not once have they scored a point. Interestingly, the disparity of the drivers in terms of experience seems to have counted for nothing, with both of them finishing six times each, crashing three times each and retiring two times each for mechanical reasons.
This run of form isn't good news for Sutil, who was hired to take the role as number one within the team, and was expected to bring home at least a rasher of bacon. Admittedly he's come the closest with an eleventh place finish in Australia and Hungary, but he needs to just get a place higher and we might see a challenge for a much-needed cash boost from 9th in the constructors. As for Gutierrez, his seat is fairly safe considering the sponsorship he brings, but could we possibly see Sutil sacked and replaced by Sirotkin for 2015? Watch this space.
Caterham are another team in trouble. They seemed to be the better of the two back-markers since their inception, consistently out-qualifying Marussia, and often out-performing them in races too. However something has gone drastically wrong, with the team in financial and management trouble, and a seemingly drunk aerodynamics division, they need to do something, else they may be the first team to duck out of F1 since Toyota at the end of 2009.
They really are on the brink - Tony Fernandez essentially got fed up with the lack of progress the team were making within the sport, forgetting that F1 isn't something you can just throw money at and expect results, and threatened to quit as a consequence at the beginning of the year.
In July, as it became evident that the car was uncompetitive, he stuck to his guns and sold the team to a consortium of Swiss and Middle-Eastern businessmen. One of the first things the new owners did was a major staff reshuffle, which resulted in the loss of no less than forty team members.
To make matters worse, the ex-employees announced later in the month that they were seeking compensation against the team for alleged wrongful dismissal and unpaid wages. Caterham then announced legal action of their own against a number of former employees, citing a 'gross misrepresentation of the facts' in the claim against the team. The situation continues to get messier and messier as the legal battle rumbles on.
While the legal scuffle continues in the background, things in the garage aren't looking a lot better; the car was the first in the team's history to be completely designed and built at Caterham's Leafield-based technical centre. In a statement at the beginning of the year, the team said "In Renault Sport F1 and Red Bull Technology, we have technical partners that have powered the World Championship-winning team for the last four years and, while we are realistic enough to know we are very unlikely to be competing at the front of the grid, there is no reason why we should not be fighting higher than we have done since we came into the sport in 2010..." - this could not be further from the reality.
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| Caterham are in a real mess at the moment |
Speaking of the drivers, they chose to change their driver line-up from the previous year and hired the cheap but experienced (and often exciting) Kamui Kobayashi, who has managed to yield more consistent results from the car, but they've been consistently lacklustre, with the better finishing positions having been attained by the less experienced Ericsson, who has the honour of achieving the team's highest finish of the year. However none of this distracts from the fact that their reliability is in dire need of addressing, else the results will not come. To finish first, first you have to finish, and such a quip has never been more pertinent.
So what does the second half of the year hold?
An excellent question. I'd say it was no question that Mercedes have the title in the bag (both drivers' and constructors'). However it's unclear as to which driver will take the honours. Given Hamilton's ability to overcome his technical gremlins to remain on par with team-mate Rosberg, we are expecting Hamilton to take the crown, but double points in Abu Dhabi may pose a cruel blow on any technical or driving errors.
Ricciardo is in good form, and we don't see this dipping as we see out the year. We expect Vettel to improve, but it's clear Ricciardo is comfortable in the car, and will probably remain the more competitive of the two. As for Ferrari, we do hope that Raikkonen picks up the ball and gets some good results. He showed promise in Hungary, and we hope this is a sign of things to come. Alonso will continue doing what he does best and will likely score in every race remaining this year. Williams will continue to breath down Ferrari's neck, and with a couple of high-speed circuits coming up, we wouldn't be surprised if they overtook Ferrari in the constructors' championship.
The Mclaren/Force India battle will continue to rage on, and with it being so close, it could go either way. With Mclaren's focus having shifted to 2015 already, we might see Force India pip them to the post, which would be a sad state of affairs for the Woking squad, who have endured nothing but misery for two years running. It'd of course be great news for the Silverstone-based Force India, and well deserved it would be.
Toro Rosso will hopefully use the break to sort out their cooling. I expect they'll manage it, as they have a good technical team behind them. Once they've done so, They should be able to pull away from Lotus in the title hunt, securing their current seventh place. Given Lotus' internal issues, I expect that a lot of attention has turned away from this year, with most of the team focussing on getting to the grid in 2015, and working on how to turn their fortunes around.
The final points-scoring team Marussia will mostly be focussing on keeping their place in the constructors'. With the only immediate threat being Sauber, this may be a challenging order. Whilst Sauber are down this year, they are by no means out, and all it would take is a seventh-place finish to restore a little pride and push Marussia down a spot. It's possible we may see some tactics from Marussia come to fruition to try and prevent this from happening.
And then there's Caterham. It's difficult to say what will happen to these guys. We need to see just what kind of changes they make to the nose/wing assembly (if any) and what effect it has on their performance. I expect them to remain last in the constructors', but Marussia may have more than just Sauber on their hands as the year draws to a close.
Either way, it's going to be fascinating.
Article by Chris Kinsman
MyF1World Journalist
