Sunday 6 January 2013

Five stories to keep watch on in F1 2013

It’s only been six weeks since the end of the 2012 Formula 1 season but already launch dates are being announced, the first of the winter tests starts in less than a month, and the first race of the year is only a mere 10 weeks away.

Formula 1 is forever looking forward and you can bet that Red Bull and Sebastian Vettel are well on the way to plotting how they can hold on to their titles for a fourth consecutive year. Don’t worry though dear casual viewers, the likelihood of someone doing that again is very doubtful, in fact 2013 could be even more competitive than last year.

We’ve got no really big changes in the regulations this year. There are a few little tweaks here and there but nothing so major as to result in a revolution of design principles. All this means is that the grid should be getting ever closer with even more potential for the midfield teams to spring a surprise or two, especially at the beginning of the year.

So with that said and all the teams feverishly preparing for the off here are five things I’m looking forward to seeing in the year ahead.

New Flying Finn

Valtteri Bottas is the new Finnish superstar that Williams have chosen to replace Bruno Senna. He’s proved himself well in the junior formulae including winning the GP3 title in 2011, before becoming Williams’ reserve driver last year where he took part in the majority of first practice sessions.

So he’s had a year of experience in the background and now it’s time for him to enter the real limelight of being an F1 race driver. I think he’s an exciting talent, he seemed able to match his team mate Pastor Maldonado last year so it’ll be interesting to see how he copes with a full race weekend and how Maldonado handles this too.

Bottas is about as prepared as he can be in this age of no testing, I’ve a feeling he could be a future superstar of the sport and what with the progress Williams made last year and the hope they’ll be able to carry it over this year it’s going to be a fascinating season in the Williams garage this year.

Team Enstone ready to win

Staying on the Finnish theme for a bit longer, Kimi Raikkonen could be in for a great year. After two years away Kimi Raikkonen’s comeback with Lotus was nothing short of brilliant as he stayed in the title fight until two races from the end.

I’ve written in previous blogs how in previous incarnations the team from Enstone seem to have a cycle as to when they challenge for the title. In 1994/95 as Benetton they took Michael Schumacher to two consecutive titles, 10 years later in 2005/06 Fernando Alonso won a brace of championships.

It’s only 7 years further on from that, but after a few seasons of simmering their form last year shows they might be ready to come to the boil once again. Of course Kimi will take this in his stride, he knows what he’s doing.

How long can Alonso take not winning?

Who can forget that stare of Alonso as he climbed from the car in Brazil after losing the world title to Sebastian Vettel at the final race for the second time in three years. He hugged his mechanics and appeared justifiably jubilant after producing a near perfect season and falling short through no fault of his own.

But then he stood with his visor up, eyes seemingly not focused on anything, just staring into the distance, probably wondering what he has to do to win again. In the six years since he last won a title he could have won another three, but he hasn’t and that must get to someone like Alonso, who has many a time previously thrown his toys out the pram when things haven’t been going his way.

By contrast his time at Ferrari has seen him grow into quite a calm inspiring individual who’s prone to quoting Samurai proverbs. But what if Ferrari can’t produce a top car again? What if Felipe Massa’s increased speed and confidence at the end of 2012 carries over to 2013? What if he sees Vettel getting another title over him? What then?

This situation would test his relaxed mature demeanour to the maximum, but what if Ferrari does produce a top car? Well on the form of last year, Alonso would walk it.

McLaren and Button

When the car is to his liking Jenson Button can be the best out there. When it’s not? Well you need a driver like Lewis Hamilton to drive around the problem and still get some decent points. Unfortunately for McLaren, they no longer have Lewis.

In fact judging by the form of last year when Button and his new team mate Sergio Perez weren’t exactly prolific in qualifying they’re going to have to do some serious work with their drivers on making the car work for them on Saturday’s or they’re going to be having to focus on heroic drivers from poor grid positions to the podium rather than seeking the wins.

However, I think if they’ve managed to design a car more suited to Button like the 2011 car then we could see Jenson really move forward. He’s a full on team leader now, he won’t expect Perez to outclass him in his first year at least. This could be a brilliant opportunity for Button or a year in the doldrums for McLaren.

Lewis Hamilton’s new challenge

Lewis’ move to Mercedes was brave and some would say slightly mistimed by about a year. But then again as many have said Hamilton needs to grow and to do that he had to leave McLaren. Whatever, I’m going to write a bit more about this later in the month, but all I can say is it’s very exciting to have a top driver move teams to take on a challenge as big as this. I think he’ll win races this year, and I meant to use the plural.

Here’s a cheeky sixth

No more stepped noses, cars will look pretty again!

A little reflection

Formula 1 moves so fast it’s easy to forget some of the brilliant events of last year, so seen as this is my first blog of the year here’s a brief summary of five stories I enjoyed in 2012.

Well this one is quite prominent, Kimi Raikkonen’s comeback year. As I’ve already mentioned, it was superb.

Felipe Massa turning his season around to the extent that in the last few races he was asked to hold station behind Alonso, and particularly in the last 2 weekends was just outright quicker.

F1 needs a place in the USA and Austin was fantastic and to my mind at least produced the most tense and thrilling race of the year.

I thought Pastor Maldonado not getting a race ban while Romain Grosjean did was pretty note worthy. A lot of the incidents Grosjean had weren't his fault especially earlier in the year. Maldonado deliberately swiped his car against Sergio Perez in Monaco. However, I know this is a controversial opinion but for a supposed pay driver Pastor Maldonado is bloody quick. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him win more races this year and towards the end of 2012 he looked like he was beginning to learn his lessons. Same for Romain Grosjean, although he still got involved in too many incidents he is fast, both are sure to be mixing it up this season, hopefully for the good this time.


Finally for me, Michael Schumacher’s pole lap in Monaco. Utterly brilliant, showed that sometimes he still had it.

But that’s all over now, Formula 1 just keeps on going.

all photo's from autosport.com