2010 F1 SEASON PREVIEW
In some ways it seems like an age, in some ways in seems like a second. Either way, the fact is that in '08, Lewis Hamilton became F1 world champion and in '09, he handed the title to another Brit in Jenson Button. For both Brits, a multitude of targets are now in sight. There's becoming the first British double world champion since Jackie Stewart in 1971(who went on to grab a third title in '73). There's completing the first batch of three-in-a-row world championships since Jim Clark(1963), John Surtees('64) and Clark again('65). Then for Jenson there's the holy grail - Lewis's poor start to '09 means that 'still' no Brit has ever been able to succsessfully defend the world title.
Anyway starting at McLaren, well Jenson Button's transferring from what was the Brawn team to pair up with Lewis Hamilton with Heikki Kovalainen joining the new Lotus team. My two guys on the same team for the first time Damon Hill and David Coulthard at Williams in the mid 90s. Should be very cool. I can't see the pair of them butting heads at any rate no matter what other F1 netheads are claiming. One thing is for certain, both guys know how to win in F1 and this car certainly should be capable of winning races from the start. Therefore both my guys should be in the mixer for the world championship. And that will be very interesting indeed.
Well Jenson Button left Brawn, and Rubens Barrichello followed him out to join Williams.In the meantime Brawn promptly turned into Mercedes, grabbed Nico Rosberg from Williams and...brought Michael Schumacher out of retirement. That's certainly an interesting move but with all due respect to Ross Brawn, he'd have been better off keeping the former 'god' of F1 in the history books where he belongs. Let me see...reigning world champion or former 'legend'. Still, if the Mercedes car is half decent then Schumacher is probably still capable of winning a race or two but no way in hell is he in the title mixer. Rosberg might get a few podiums but that'll be as good as it gets. Definately a step backwards for Ross.
As for Red Bull, well Sebatien Vettel and Mark Webber remain teammates for the second year in a row. This makes their main strength stability and both drivers have the capability to win races. Can they challenge for the title though? Well Vettel came close in '09 and is unlikely to have lost any class but bear in mind that Red Bull caught a lot of people on the hop last time around. That will not happen again. Wins will be harder to come by for both Red Bulls drivers. Yet having come close once, can either driver really be counted out of the championship race this time around? That would be stupid. And so you have another two drivers in the championship mixer.
At Ferrari, well Kimi Raikkonen, the 2007 world champion has gone off to do the World rally championship. In comes Fernando Alonso from Renault to pair up with the back-from-injury Felipe Massa(with Luca Badoer dissapearing into nowheresville and Giancarlo Fisichella taking a testing role with the team). This will be an interesting one. Of course Alonso is a double world champion but he is also an arrogant git who likes to dominate his teams. Yet Massa himself came within a lap of winning the '08 title so Alonso surely won't get his way. Expect a replay of what happened between Alonso and Lewis in '07...up to and including both drivers being in the championship mixer.
Well with Nico Rosberg having left for Mercedes and Kasuki Nakijima...gambled and lost on very late entry Stefan GP getting their act together so he'll just be getting bored. In the meantime Rubens Barrichello has come from Brawn and German rookie Nico Hulkenburg has come in from GP2 to become Williams 2010 partnership. The veteran paired up with the rookie, that'll be an interesting combo but given that Rubens proved he still had his uses last yeah, might he be able to grab a win this time around? Possibly, but forget about the title. Hulkenburg...too much of a wildcard but will almost certainly get points of some form. This'll be a development year for him though.
Renault, now run by French engineer Eric Boullier are still standing. Of course Fernando Alonso has gone to Ferrari and Nelsinho Piquet got booted midseason(and we know the rest) and now wants to try his hand at NASCAR. He was replaced by Frenchman Romain Grosjean...who'll probably return to his day job at a Geneva bank. Replacing them are Robert Kubica from BMW and the first ever Russian F1 driver, Vitaly Petrov, coming in from GP2. This will be interesting. Kubica will clearly be the guy the team will be pinning their hopes on. Could he win a race with Renault? Quite possibly but again, not the title. Petrov will be worth keeping an eye on as well, if only out of curiousity.
Well when Giancarlo Fisichella left Force India for Ferrari mid '09, he was replaced by another Italian Antonio Liuzzi, last seen at Torro Rosso in '07. Liuzzi's stuck around for a full season this time around and has paired up with team stalwart Adrian Sutl. Well the team had been used to being the cars that got lapped but a spot on the podium last year suggests their days of uselessness may be over. Still at most we're probably talking about semi regular collection of points. Maybe Sutl is capable of more, but not with this outfit. Bottom line, do not expect Force India to make anyone's jaws drop this season but still, they won't get anhiliated too often.
Torro Ross will be a tricky one. Sebastien Bourdais got booted mid season in '09 and has now wound up in the Superleague Formula of all things. He was replaced by Spaniard Jaime Alguersuari who's stuck around for this year along with Sebastien Buemi. Well before they were bought by Red Bull, Torro Rosso were known as Minardi and they were known as the nice Italian guys that got lapped a lot. While Buemi has occasionally had his uses, you have to wonder if history will repeat itself here. The fact that they're seeing Buemi as team leader says it all. OK, so they'll be in last year's Red Bull but if driver skill counts for anything, they're going nowhere.
Now for the new teams. First up is a ghost from the past. Lotus were last racing back in '94 but really did go out with a whimper. Now they're flying the Malaysian flag with Air Asia chief Tony Fernades as the front man and Mike Gascoyne(who needs no further introduction) as the team head. In terms of drivers well they've got Jarno Trulli from Toyota and Heikki Kovalainen from McLaren. Bottom line, they're not just here for name recognition, they should certainly do a better job than they did in the dog days on the 90s with this combo. The real glory days are still a long way away but if the car is half decent, you should expect regular points finishes.
Next up is Hispania, based out of Madrid but they have Collin Kolles of all people(a Romanian legendary for having no sense of humour) as a front man. As for drivers well they have a guy called Senna...Bruno Senna, Ayrton's nephew, who missed out on an F1 drive last year by the skin of his teeth and spent '09 racing in the Le Mans series. He's paired up with Indian driver Karun Chandhok, in from GP2, the first driver from that country since Narain Karthikeyan in '05. Senna looks the more promising of the two but are this bunch really going to be competitive. If Senna gets some points before the end of the season they should be satisfied.
Now comes a...sort of new team. BMW have reverted back to being Sauber and Peter Sauber is runing the show again. Thing is, with Robert Kubica having gone to Renault and Nick Heidfeld having preferred to take the safe option of testing for Mercedes while the team's future was in the balance, Sauber needed new drivers. Cue Pedro de la Rosa(the Spaniard last seen racing for McLaren in the back end of '06) and Japanese nutcase Kamui Kobayashi(who proved his insanity while racing for Toyota at the back end of the '09 season). Another team that I don't expect to be completely useless, I just don't expect them to make the Earth move either.
Finally, Virgin. Yes Richard Branson and crew have decided to set up their own F1 team run by John Booth, off the back of his solid record of running teams in the lower formulae. Driving wise, their man man will be Timo Glock, incoming from Toyota. Backing him up will be Brazilian Lucas de Grassi, incoming from GP2. The interesting thing about Virgin is...they're attempting to design their car without a windtunnel so that'll be a curiousity. The team are complete wildcards - with Glock they could be competitive or they could be completely useless. Di Grassi's a wildcard but so is the team as a whole. It'll be worth keeping an eye on them at least.
The one team I haven't talked are Toyota...and that's purely because the suits in Toyota have decided it's not worth throwing any more cash at F1. Luckilly their drivers weren't out of work long, Jarno Trulli's gone to Lotus, Timo Glock to Virgin and Glock's late season injury replacement Kamui Kobayashi has even found a spot at Sauber. Another team has dissapeared into the pages of F1 history but at least they've done so relatively cleanly.
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