One of the jobs I do each month is to write a 400-word report on what is happening inside each team, not wasting words on the races, but keeping the readers of Japan’s Grand Prix Special up to speed on staff movement, sponsorships, engine deals and so on. I have done this since 1988 and so I have a terrific historical archive on which to rely and it keeps me up to date with all moving and shaking in the F1 Paddock. It has also taught me about the cycles of news stories in F1. Watch out because in the next few weeks we are going to start to see engineering movements as teams understand that their cars are not great and look to find better crews of designers. It is also a time when those who unhappy with the way their teams are developing can slip away and do something else, before the next design cycle begins. Thus I note that Tim Densham, the chief designer of Renault is on the move, handing his job over to Martin Tolliday. That will be announced soon, no doubt. I think we will also see changes in one or two team where there has been disappointment.
Although it looks like McLaren is not too far off the pace of Red Bull Racing, I am afraid that analysis from Malaysia is not very promising and the indications are that the RB7 has a fair bit of performance in hand over its main challengers. One telling factor is that Vettel won the race in Kuala Lumpur but did so setting only the sixth fastest lap of the race, which suggested that he was not really pushing that hard. His best lap was a full second slower than Mark Webber’s fastest lap – the fastest lap of the race – which was probably a better indication of what the Red Bull can do at true race pace.
I think it is also very significant that Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali, technical director Aldo Costa and assistant technical director and head of racetrack engineering Pat Fry all flew back to Italy between the Malaysian and Chinese GPs. I think that there is trouble coming at Mercedes GP Petronas and at Williams, where Adam Parr has been quoted as saying that “we will be looking not only at how to address the short-term issues – we will be working together to strengthen the team for 2012 and beyond. Nothing is sacred.” When teams do not work, change is needed and the current management crew at Williams has been in action for five seasons now. The team is stronger from a business point of view, but does not seem to be on top of performance. A team lives and dies on that.
I notice this month that Vijay Mallya has recently announced a plan to try to find and develop a young Indian driver for F1 in the future. I cannot say I much taken by Mallya and clearly Indian business feels the same way as the only Indian sponsors that he has are from his own companies, and Tata decided to back HRT rather than get involved with Force India, which is an interesting reflection. A colleague of mine in the Indian media feels that Mallya simply wants to use the team to establish himself as the man who brought F1 to India and that he is not really that interested beyond that. In short he is suggesting that it is just a great big ego trip. He also feels that F1 will not really take off in India. “It is like to trying to establish cricket in Italy,” he said. I don’t know if he is right or wrong, but he’s a smart guy and has a big job so I have to think that he is pretty competent.
The other point that I noticed the other day is a quote from Toro Rosso team boss Franz Tost that “if one of our race drivers does not fulfill his expectations during this season, we will put Ricciardo into the cockpit”, adding that “this puts some pressure on Buemi and Alguersuari.” Ricciardo is seen by some as the man most likely to become Sebastian Vettel’s team mate at Red Bull Racing if Mark Webber decides to retire at the end of the season, or next year. Red Bull does not always use its own drivers – and it has wasted so many of them – so it is always possible that the company might have a pitch at Lewis Hamilton. We will have to see how that one pans out… in any case. This is not the time of years for driver talks. We need a coupke of months before these will really begin.
No comments:
Post a Comment