Austrian Forecast

Apparently there’s some Football tournament going on at the moment that has the distinct possibility of grabbing a lot of attention. That’s all well and good, but don’t let it get in the way of the next instalment of the fight to be Formula 1 world champion. It’s been an intense season so far in terms of the title battle which Nico Rosberg currently leads by 22 points from his Mercedes team mate Lewis Hamilton.

The all powerful Mercedes team struck problems though last time out in Canada allowing Red Bull to get in on the winning action and claim their first victory of the season. Don’t let that result lull you into thinking Mercedes are under threat; they were well clear of the field before both cars suffered a loss of power from their energy recovery systems with Hamilton retiring and Rosberg managing to keep the car on the podium with second. There’s still a long way to go before any team will be able to truly race them wheel to wheel but Red Bull look to be the team pushing the hardest to get back on terms.

So round eight sees the Formula 1 circus return to Austria and the now renamed Red Bull Ring for the first time since 2003. I always remember it producing a pretty decent race, with lots of straights into slow corners encouraging overtaking. In a way it doesn’t need any DRS zones for the easier push to pass scenario’s that we have now but still it’s got a couple of zones anyway. Hopefully it won’t be made too easy.

Pirelli are bringing the super-soft and soft compound of tyres. Expect a super-soft opening stint followed by two soft compound stints. With such a short lap time of only around a minute and ten seconds, minimising pit stop time might be an idea so it might not be a surprise to see a team like Force India repeat what they did in Canada and try a one stop strategy and get in the way of two stoppers.

The weather is currently looking nice and warm for Saturday and Sunday but rain is forecast for Friday practice at the time of writing which might make setting the cars up for dry conditions a bit tricky what with no past experience of the track for 11 years although I’m sure simulators will give them a ball park. It’s a shame rain isn’t around for Sunday, it’s been a long time since we had a good wet race, not at all this year so far or last. Although the British Grand Prix comes after Austria so you never know.

The Austria track is a similar layout to Canada, lots of full throttle and slow corners so you have to wonder if the problems that struck the Mercedes team might be repeated this weekend? As much as other teams might like another opportunity to taste glory this year I think Mercedes will have gone in-depth on that particular problem and have rectified it as best they can, which means very well indeed.

I think this race will be back to the Silver Arrows at the front and another head to head confrontation between Rosberg and Hamilton. Lewis needs to get back to the front after being out done in Monaco by Rosberg and out qualified in Canada on a track he usually owns. Admittedly he had managed to get in front of Rosberg before the power problems and his brake failure left him with his second retirement of the season while Rosberg has none. Rosberg believes he holds the psychological edge by being nearly a race victory up in points and Lewis is prone to sometimes letting his head get the better of him.

But tensions cooled over Canada after the Monaco furore and I think Lewis is in a good place right now. He knows reliability tends to even itself out over the course of the season and he also knows that more often than not he is the quicker of the two drivers. He’s just got to hope that if he goes on a run of victories Rosberg isn’t finishing second all the time again, otherwise it’s going to take four races to be back in the championship lead. I think we’re going to see a demonstration by Lewis of how to dominate a Grand Prix weekend.

Red Bull will continue to be the second best team in my opinion even if it is another power circuit that their Renault engine won’t be able let them keep up with the Mercedes top speeds. However they have such a good car they will still be up there.

Sebastian Vettel is showing signs of returning to form, he could just have easily won the last race but Ricciardo’s debut win is likely to give him a further push in confidence so how easy it will be for Vettel to start beating his Australian team mate is hard to say especially when he makes no secret he has not come to terms with these regulations just yet, or perhaps with not having a regular winning car for the first time since 2008.  Vettel is all smiles and happy for the team at the moment with Ricciardo’s performances but there has to come a time when a four time world champion will unleash his frustration with being out done, if it continues to happen.

Williams missed out again in Canada. Felipe Massa really could have won that race but yet again the opportunity got away from them; with this being a fairly similar track, look to Williams to show strongly again with both drivers, definite podium contenders.

Ferrari and McLaren both looked out of sorts last time out, although both teams had both cars in the points it was only because of a late race accident wiping out two cars that allowed them to have respectable results although Button’s charge to an eventual fourth was pretty impressive. Fernando Alonso isn’t happy but at least he can drive the car while Kimi Raikkonen is still struggling to come to terms with it. I think Alonso wants out of the team unless there’s significant improvement but I think Ferrari will probably be thinking the same about Kimi too.

Force India could be dark horses again, Sergio Perez looked like the winner in Canada at one point while their Mercedes engines will ensure that Nico Hulkenberg continues to pick up decent points. He’ll be wanting to be the one fighting for the podiums this time out though.

Toro Rosso weren’t great in Canada and I don’t think they’ll be much better this weekend although Daniil Kvyat says this is his type of circuit. Lotus and Sauber will continue their struggle this weekend while Marussia aren’t quite there yet to genuinely challenge for a Q2 place. Caterham are lagging behind their main rivals this year.

Also on the agenda is talk of how to make Formula 1 more relevant to younger viewers and how to stop a decline in viewing figures. One way to embrace younger fans is to make the sport more accessible on social media sites, something Bernie Ecclestone seems to think is pretty irrelevant. Another thing regarding viewing figures is perhaps keep it free to air instead of transferring it to pay TV and that statistic might stop and sponsors will get more for their money. Ecclestone has been brilliant for the sport but right now he seems to be losing his way a bit which I’ll write about another time.

For now though it’s the Austrian Grand Prix this weekend and it promises to be another thrilling spectacle which might just take your mind off the World Cup for a couple of hours.

all photo's taken from autosport.com