Klein on F1

A message to my readers

2015-04-01T23:03:00.000+01:00

For those of you not already aware, I have an exciting announcement to make - as of today, I have finally achieved my long-standing goal of becoming a fully professional motorsport journalist after being invited to join the fast-growing team of writers at motorsport.com as UK Editor.

My appointment at motorsport.com is the culmination of a long, pain-staking process that begun in earnest just over five years ago, when I published my first post to this blog. I may only have had a relatively modest amount of hits since - about 23,500 as of the time of writing, which equates only to just over 100 hits per article - but the purpose of this blog was never to rack up of tens of thousands of hits, but to provide a vehicle to express my opinions and to hone my writing style. I like to think that I've achieved both of those aims; you need only to look back at some of my early work to see just how far I have progressed!

For some time now I haven't been able to update this blog as regularly as I'd have liked, but of course the demands of my new role mean that I will now have virtually no time to devote to it at all. As a result, I intend to turn it into something of a travel blog, documenting some of my adventures watching motor racing around the world in between dedicating myself to my new employers.

The events that I am attending this year and that I hope to cover in this way are:

- 24 Hours of Le Mans (13-14 June)
- Formula E at Battersea Park (27-28 June)
- DTM at Zandvoort (11-12 July)
- Belgian Grand Prix (22-23 August)
- IndyCar at Sonoma (29-30 August)

So, all that remains for me to say a very warm thank you for looking at this blog - I suppose everyone who's read anything of mine has, in a small way, helped me to get where I am today, and for that I am extremely grateful. Of course, I will be generating plenty of material this year over at motorsport.com, including reporting full-time on both the BTCC and British GT championships, so I encourage you to check the site out regularly for all your Formula 1 and motor racing news.

A 2015 F1 Season Preview (of sorts)

2015-03-07T15:09:00.002+00:00

Anyone who watched last night's F1 Show on Sky Sports may have noticed an oddly familiar face lurking in the studio audience behind Simon Lazenby, Natalie Pinkham and co. That's because I was fortunate enough to attend the first recording of the new series at the Sky Studios in Brentford alongside my good friend Dougie Wilson, as evidenced by the below picture (I'm to the left of the fellow in the Lotus top, for the avoidance of doubt):

I should confess at this stage that I am in fact not a regular F1 Show viewer - I would describe it as perfectly decent, but hardly essential viewing for the motor racing fan, particularly later in the year when there are fewer obvious topics for discussion and when there is a tendency to rely more heavily on special guests and rather esoteric feature pieces.

But, being the first show of the year, there was happily much to discuss on this occasion, ranging from which teams shone in winter testing to the mystery surrounding Fernando Alonso's enforced lay-off from the season-opening Australian Grand Prix in a week's time and the recent resurrection of the Manor (née Marussia) squad. More on all that later, though.

For a regular viewer of Sky's F1 coverage, watching on as the presenters did their thing was something of a surreal experience, similar to that of watching Grand Prix cars in the flesh for the first time. It's a reminder that, for all the glitz and glamour of the F1 paddock, those fronting the coverage are really just ordinary human beings like you or I.

Not only that, but they are genuinely pleasant people, perhaps unsurprisingly given the nature of their work. Lazenby and Pinkham, along with the affable Johnny Herbert, made a real effort to interact with the audience both before and after the show, as well as during the ad breaks and VTs, making the whole business of standing up for an hour in a television studio a strangely enjoyable experience.

Indeed, after the show, I got to have a brief chat with Pinkham - I asked who her favourite drivers to interview were; Daniel Ricciardo, Valtteri Bottas and Jenson Button were the three names I got in return. When I asked whether there were any she was less keen on speaking to, she said there weren't, and that extracting a response from the famously laconic Kimi Raikkonen was a fun challenge!

Regrettably, the picture I had taken with her has to rank among the worst there's ever been of me - eyes shut, mouth agog and double chin in full view. A similar fate befell me when I bumped into Martin Brundle in the Monza pitlane last September, so perhaps I have some sort of allergy to Sky Sports presenters.

Moving swiftly on, Alonso's testing crash and its aftermath have understandably dominated the motor racing headlines in recent days. Though next weekend's curtain-raiser will be all the poorer without the Spaniard making his hotly anticipated McLaren-Honda bow, missing the race is unquestionably the right course of action, given the well documented risks associated with sustaining a second concussion so soon after the first.

That said, I still can't help but get the feeling that there's something amiss about the whole saga. Question marks remain over whether Alonso was indeed conscious at the time of his impact with the barriers at the Circuit de Catalunya, and it's not hard to see why McLaren would be keen to ensure Honda is spared the mortifying embarrassment of having to admit fault for the accident that has benched the team's multi-million dollar star signing.

Either way, McLaren's handling of the situation has been poor, much like its protracted dithering over finalising its 2015 drivers over the winter, with the Woking outfit seemingly contradicting their own press statements regarding Alonso's condition. Here's hoping that the FIA's investigation into the incident is able to shed some light where McLaren is seemingly unwilling to.

There's a certain irony in the fact that the team will be running the same line-up in Melbourne as last year, as Kevin Magnussen fills the breach alongside Button. For the Dane, it's an invaluable chance to show McLaren what they will be missing this season, assuming Alonso returns for Malaysia as expected, and perhaps to showcase himself to other potential suitors for 2016, given that Alonso and Button are both under contract for next season.

The other big story of the past couple of weeks has been the revival of the Manor team, a rare piece of good news that ensures that there will be 20, rather than just 18, cars on the grid in Australia. The man F1 fans have to thank for this is energy mogul and self-confessed petrolhead Stephen Fitzpatrick, who has reportedly invested £30m into the team known last year as Marussia to get the operation back on its feet.

The team's chief executive Graeme Lowdon - a true racer if ever there was one - and its only confirmed driver as of the time of writing, Will Stevens, were both present at the F1 Show recording, and I managed to share a word with the latter after the show. At least the picture I had with him wasn't quite as repulsive as my snap with Pinkham.

Stevens has spent the last three seasons in Formula Renault 3.5, in which his record would be best described as solid rather than spectacular, but proved on his one-off appearance for Caterham last year at Abu Dhabi that he's a perfectly competent operator behind the wheel of an F1 car. Asked how he found the transition from FR3.5, he remarked that the step up in power was the main difference, and that the cornering speeds were similar given the Caterham's woeful aerodynamic package.

The 23-year-old wouldn't be drawn on the identity of his Manor team-mate, although one name I mooted to him was former GP2 champion Fabio Leimer, who had been due to race in the Japanese-based Super Formula this season before splitting with his team yesterday. Stevens, who admitted that 2015 is likely to be largely a learning year, struck me as quite an intense and single-minded character, traits that will serve him well in the F1 paddock.

While Manor is likely to languish at the bottom of this year's constructors' table, running a modified version of last year's Marussia to begin with, winter testing suggests that Mercedes will almost certainly be the runaway victor once more this season. Nico Rosberg's best time at Catalunya was three tenths quicker than the nearest non-Mercedes, Bottas, despite being set on soft compound tyres and not the faster super-soft compound like the Williams driver.

That means fans are most probably in for another head-to-head battle between defending champion Lewis Hamilton and Rosberg as far as the drivers' crown is concerned. At 4/6, the Brit begins the season as heavy favourite to take a third title, but Sky Deutschland's Tanja Bauer advised the F1 Show audience not to write off the hopes of Rosberg, who, as she pointed out, should be stronger now with the experience of a title battle under his belt.

Testing suggests that the teams most likely to begin the year as best of the rest are Williams and Ferrari, whose James Allison-penned contender already looks to be a major step forward. Sebastian Vettel seems at home with his new employers, having regained his trademark boyish charm that he lacked during a subdued 2014, while Raikkonen, who struggled badly last year with a car lacking in front-end grip, also appears happier with his mount and will no doubt be eager to silence his critics.

Red Bull meanwhile still seem to be lagging somewhat, in no small part because of the travails of engine supplier Renault, but it should be remembered that Red Bull still bagged a (later disallowed) second-place finish following a dismal winter this time a year ago. What's more, Adrian Newey may no longer be involved with the Milton Keynes-based team on a day-to-day basis, but the RB11 still bears his hallmarks, and the design guru will doubtless have a bearing on its development.

Some pundits reckon there's plenty of potential locked away inside the aggressive Peter Prodromou-influenced McLaren, but it will be up to Honda to catch up with its rivals if the chassis' latent speed is to be realised. Winter testing will have come as a major wake-up call for a team that was talking up its chances of challenging Mercedes for Grand Prix wins off the bat, as well as a sober reminder that this is a long-term project and that both constructor and engine supplier will need to be patient.

As for the rest, the new Mercedes-powered Lotus looks solid, and should be a regular points contender, while the respective offerings from Toro Rosso and Sauber also both appear stronger than their predecessors. The team that could struggle most initially is Force India, which, owing to financial problems, only managed to complete two-and-a-half days of running with its 2015 car over the winter, but its Mercedes powerplant should help to mitigate their competitive slide to a degree.

Bearing in mind all of the above, here are my predictions for the top 10 in Melbourne, as well as for this year's championship:

Melbourne predictions: 1. Hamilton, 2. Rosberg, 3. Bottas, 4. Vettel, 5. Ricciardo, 6. Massa, 7. Raikkonen, 8. Grosjean, 9. Kvyat, 10. Verstappen

Season predictions: 1. Hamilton, 2. Rosberg, 3. Ricciardo, 4. Vettel, 5. Bottas, 6. Raikkonen, 7. Alonso, 8. Massa, 9. Kvyat, 10. Grosjean

As much as I would like to think that this season will prove at least as competitive as last year's titanic tussle between the Mercedes duo, I suspect Hamilton may just be too strong for Rosberg this year, especially if he is able to improve the qualifying form that appeared to desert him at times last season.

Ricciardo's undoubted class allied to an improving Red Bull will be enough for the Aussie to overhaul Vettel for third place, while Williams will lose ground towards the end of the year, limiting Bottas to fifth ahead of compatriot Raikkonen, who will be closer to his team-mate's pace than he was last year.

After a slow start to the year, Alonso will gradually work his way up to seventh in the final standings, with a couple of podium finishes to his credit, pipping Massa and Kvyat. Grosjean will round out the top 10 just ahead of Button, the Brit finding the task of matching his fellow McLaren driver tougher than expected.

Five sporting rule changes to boost Formula 1

2015-02-20T13:21:00.001+00:00

In recent months, there has been plenty of debate within the Formula 1 fraternity regarding the direction the sport should take. While there appears to be a consensus forming regarding such proposals as returning to 1,000-horsepower-plus engines and wider tyres, addressing F1’s ills by altering the technical regulations is only part of the story.

Little has been suggested as to how to the sporting rules might be moulded to improve F1, which seems like something of an oversight considering how much easier and quicker it would be to implement such changes than reimagining what a Grand Prix car should be.

That’s why I’ve devised a list of five relatively radical changes to the sporting regulations, all of which could theoretically be implemented no later than next season. Some would have a knock-on effect on how teams would have to design their cars, but none of them are technical rule changes per se.

I’ve also avoided the thorny issue of how prize money ought to be distributed – as much of an impediment to a truly competitive championship as the present arrangement is – as well as the way the sport is governed in the Strategy Group era. Those are arguments for another article.

The following changes also don’t include any provisions explicitly aimed at boosting grid numbers from their current low ebb, though their indirect effect may well be to improve the spectacle to a point where more would-be sponsors and team owners decide they want to be involved.

1. Replace qualifying with a reverse grid sprint race

Rules heralding a dramatic reduction in aerodynamics are often mooted to generate more passing, but the very nature of modern F1 would make it impossible to reintroduce all the variables that made Grand Prix racing of yore so unpredictable. Instead, it’s time to consider something more radical – something that forces teams to produce cars able to overtake one another more easily.

Traditionalists may baulk at the thought of reverse grids, but there’s no doubting that forcing faster cars to overtake slower ones on a routine basis is a sure-fire way of generating the wheel-to-wheel action fans crave. The non-points paying sprint race format helps to moderate the random effect that reverse grids could have on the championship if used in the actual Grands Prix themselves.

Grid order for the sprint races would be determined by simply reversing the order of the championship as it stands before each race, meaning the fastest cars would generally be at the back and the slowest at the front, also providing some sorely needed TV coverage for the minnows. For the first race, the grid would be determined by the previous year’s final standings.

The sprints would be approximately 45 minutes in length, with no pitstops permitted (except to repair damage), and each driver would use a single set of prime tyres; DRS would have to be scrapped to prevent the quickest cars scything their way through the order too rapidly. The finishing order would then determine the grid for the main event, with any retirees starting at the back.

Over the course of the season, the best car-driver combination would still prevail, but with more emphasis on the driver given the premium that reverse-grid sprints would place on the ability to pass – something even the purists can surely agree would be a good thing for the sport.

2. Overhaul tyre compound rules

Another way to spice up Grands Prix would be the creation of more strategic variables, meaning a rethink of the rules surrounding tyre usage is in order. As much as this writer would love to see a return to a tyre war (for the same reasons there would never be standardised engines, or even chassis, in F1), there’s still plenty that can be done in the context of a sole tyre supplier.

Pirelli has said in the past that they would be willing to expand their range of dry tyre compounds from the present level of four, if that’s what teams wanted – it’s the time for that offer to be taken up, with each team given the ability to choose their own ‘prime’ and ‘option’ for each race weekend, barring any compounds Pirelli deems unsafe for a particular track.

Thus, teams could opt to gamble on using softer tyres than normal in order to gain competitive advantage during the race, introducing a new layer of intrigue and providing more opportunity for smaller teams to overcome their bigger rivals through sheer tactical guile alone. The need to use both tyre compounds in a race to promote strategic variation would also no longer exist.

This new set of tyre rules could work both with the new sprint-race proposal outlined above, or with the existing qualifying format. In the latter case, there would be nothing to stop teams using softer tyre compounds to claw their way up the grid, but at the expense of being able to run lengthy stints in the races, providing a suitable risk-to-reward ratio.

3. Reserve FP1 for third and reserve drivers

Most observers agree that F1 needs to do more to give its stars of the future more track time, but little meaningful change has been effected in recent years to that end. The end-of-season young driver test was a (small) step in the right direction, but even that’s been effectively replaced by a return to limited in-season testing, in which teams are not obliged to run young drivers.

Proposals to create new test sessions specifically for rookies tend to be shot down because of cost concerns, and understandably so given the current financial climate in the sport, and introducing third cars to be raced by inexperienced drivers opens up a whole new can of worms that is, on balance, probably best avoided entirely.

The solution? Simply mandate that teams must use their third driver during FP1 at every Grand Prix weekend. Immediately, young drivers gain hours of valuable track time at no extra expense to the teams, while the designation of reserve driver would become meaningful once again as each team would have a driver totally familiar with the car and ready to step in if needed.

Some teams already reward their third drivers with the odd practice session, and in almost all cases they do a perfectly competent job of setting up the car, ready for the regular driver to take the reins once again in FP2. There would be an incentive for teams to employ truly capable reserves, but the rise of young driver schemes means that there’s no shortage of those.

4. Apply engine token system to chassis upgrades

Since the introduction of the new engine formula last year, a compromise ‘token’ system has been in place, allowing manufacturers to develop their power-units to a degree without the associated costs of a full-on engine war.

Despite disagreements over the precise amount of tokens manufacturers should be permitted to spend, and a brief controversy over how homologation rules should apply to new boy Honda, there seems to be a broad consensus that the token system itself is fundamentally one that works – so why not apply it to chassis development too?

Teams would still produce new cars for each season, but they wouldn’t be free to develop them as they saw fit beyond a certain homologation date; as with engines, each component would be assigned a token value depending on its effect on performance, with a limited number to spend throughout the year.

This would level the playing field to a certain extent, effectively preventing the biggest outfits from spending their way out of trouble and allowing smaller teams to maintain any early advantage gained for longer. In essence, teams would be forced to deploy their available resources more carefully, arguably the next best thing after a utopian budget cap.

5. Make ‘blue riband’ events more significant

Only four circuits on the current calendar featured in F1’s inaugural season back in 1950 – Monaco, Silverstone, Spa and Monza. This quartet, which all boast the atmosphere, heritage and soul that no amount of Middle Eastern oil wealth can buy, could be seen as the closest equivalent that the sport has to the ‘major tournaments’ of golf and tennis.

Perhaps, then, F1 should make more of these ‘blue riband’ events by making them more significant milestones in the Grand Prix season. While offering double points at Abu Dhabi was rightly derided by fans and insiders alike, there could be some merit in awarding extra points at extended versions of the four ‘major’ races at the four classic tracks listed above.

The four ‘blue riband’ races could be easily be made around a third longer without unduly compromising the schedule, also solving the issue of races at Monza and Spa regularly lasting less than 90 minutes. Naturally, fuel tanks would need to be made larger to accommodate the extra fuel needed, a change that could easily be implemented in time for the start of 2016.

The other implication of conferring a special status on Monaco, Silverstone, Spa and Monza would be to help ensure they remain on the calendar indefinitely. While feathers would no doubt be ruffled at FOM, fans would surely welcome an FIA intervention to prevent the four above Grands Prix from suffering the same fate that the German Grand Prix appears to be heading towards.

A Guide to the Le Mans Entry List

2015-02-06T14:30:00.000+00:00

The day that the Automobile Club de l'Ouest take the wraps off the entry list for the 24 Hours of Le Mans is the one that really marks the start of the European sportscar racing season.

Despite the rise in prestige of the World Endurance Championship of which Le Mans is part, the French endurance classic remains the dominant feature of the sportscar racing landscape, and securing one of the 56 starting slots can be make-or-break for many of the sport's smaller concerns.

It's also traditionally the time that the driver line-ups, particularly at the sharp end of the grid, take further shape, and this year was no exception, with Porsche and newcomer Nissan both making driver announcements (more on those later) to coincide with the entry list reveal.

The latter's launch of its radical, front-engined, front-wheel drive GT-R LM Nismo is a perfect illustration of the rude health sportscar racing finds itself in currently. The rulebook allows each manufacturer to take its own approach that matches its own needs - ensuring that racing programmes remain an asset, rather than a liability, to their parent companies even if results aren't as hoped.

The variety that's seen in the LMP1 category of sportscar racing is a far cry from that seen in Formula One, where the need to prevent costs from spiralling out of control has led to an extremely prescriptive set of regulations that has made Grand Prix racing a much less attractive destination for auto-makers than was the case some 15 years ago.

The current strength of the prototype category is reflected by the fact that there will be 14 entries in the top division at Le Mans, including three privateers, the most there have been since 2011. They are supplemented by no fewer than 20 LMP2 cars - more cars are set to race in that class alone than in F1 this season - and 22 GTE cars split across the 'Pro' and 'Am' divisions.

Of these 56 starters, 35 are set to contest the full WEC season - 11 in LMP1, 10 in LMP2 and 14 across the two GTE categories, representing a 25 percent increase from last season, the ACO deciding to break its self-imposed limit of 32 entries in the face of such heightened demand to be part of one of motorsport's fastest growing championships.

LMP1

There were few surprises when it came to the unveiling of the Le Mans entry list in the highest division, with Audi, Porsche and Nissan all entering three cars, Toyota and Rebellion Racing two apiece and ByKolles (née Lotus) fielding a single car. What remains to be seen is whether Toyota will regret not entering a third car, as all three of its rivals have done, in the WEC's showpiece event.

Furthermore, on the driver front, Toyota appears to be putting its eggs largely in one basket as Kazuki Nakajima moves across to join defending WEC champions Anthony Davidson and Sébastien Buemi in the #1 car in place of the departed Nicolas Lapierre, meaning that the team's strongest three drivers from 2014 will all be concentrated in one line-up.

Meanwhile, Mike Conway, who contested three WEC races last year when Nakajima had clashing commitments in Japan, steps up to join Alex Wurz and Stéphane Sarrazin in the #2 car - a strong trio, no doubt, but on the evidence of last year not as formidable as that of the sister machine. A recent tweak to the rulebook regarding weight penalties for heavier drivers could help close the gap, though.

As a result of Toyota's WEC success last year, Audi will be using the less familiar numbers of #7, #8 and #9 at this year's Le Mans. Last year's winners André Lotterer, Benoît Tréluyer and Marcel Fässler remain a unit, and must be considered the German outfit's best chance of victory, particularly now that nine-time race winner Tom Kristensen has called time on his long and illustrious career.

Stepping up to replace the Dane is Oliver Jarvis, who joins Lucas di Grassi and Loïc Duval in the second full-season entry, standout Audi GT driver René Rast taking the Briton's place in the third car alongside Filipe Albuquerque and Marco Bonanomi. There's no doubting Jarvis' quality, but it will take time for him to gel with his new team-mates and for the #8 trio to be as strong as the #7.

Porsche are running the same full-season drivers as last year, Timo Bernhard, Brendon Hartley and F1 convert Mark Webber in the #17, and Romain Dumas, Neel Jani and Marc Lieb in the #18. The latter was conclusively the stronger line-up last year, Jani in particular establishing himself as a member of the WEC's elite crop - expect the Swiss to spearhead Porsche's challenge this time around.

As for the team's third car, the question of who would join Force India F1 star Nico Hulkenberg has finally been answered. Nick Tandy's promotion from Porsche's GT stable to the prototype ranks was no less than expected, but Earl Bamber's surprise leap from the Porsche Supercup ranks will no doubt prompt some jealous glances from some of the Stuttgart firm's long-time GTE class drivers.

Then there's Nissan, who had confirmed Audi defector Marc Gené as one of its drivers at the launch of its car before announcing Olivier Pla and Harry Tincknell as full-season drivers. For both, their involvement comes as a well-deserved reward for their efforts in Nissan-powered LMP2 machinery, the latter helping the Jota team take a class victory last year in his maiden season in sportscars.

In addition, Super GT champion Tsugio Matsuda was named as one of the drivers for Nissan's third entry. Also expected to be confirmed as Nissan drivers in due course are GT Academy graduate Jann Mardenborough, another man to have excelled in the LMP2 class last year, Japanese veteran Satoshi Motoyama and Lapierre, who was "rested" by Toyota mid-way through last season.

The scrapping of the LMP-L sub-category means Rebellion Racing and ByKolles will have to play with the big boys in 2015. Rebellion have confirmed Nicolas Prost and Mathias Beche as drivers for its pair of R-Ones, which will be powered by AER rather than Toyota this year, while ByKolles will have GP2 driver Simon Trummer behind the wheel of its revised AER-engined CLM P1/01.

LMP2

Though there was plenty of strength in depth in the secondary class at Le Mans last year, perhaps the most there has ever been, there were only four LMP2 cars signed up for the entire WEC - leading to the bizarre anomaly of Sergey Zlobin being crowned LMP2 champion last year purely on the basis of being behind the wheel of the only WEC-registered car to make it home at Le Mans.

That's been rectified this year, with 10 of the 20 LMP2 cars set to be present at Le Mans committed to the WEC in 2015. What has made the class so successful in the last few years is the imposition of a cost-cap, as well as the stipulation of having to have one 'silver'-rated amateur driver in each car, which has helped to make constructing cars for the class lucrative business indeed.

The Ligier JS P2 coupé, unveiled last year and immediately on the pace, was the first example of a new generation of closed-top baby prototypes of which there will be many more on the grid at Le Mans this year. The fact that BR Engineering, HPD, Dome and Oreca are all bringing new P2s to La Sarthe this year to join the Ligier shows just what rude health the class is in right now.

Not only that, LMP2 has become something of a 'go-to' destination for drivers unable climb the single-seater ladder any further and wishing to attract the attention of the P1 works teams - as the likes of Conway, Hartley and more recently Tincknell can attest. There will be plenty of others looking to do likewise this year in a class packed with recent open-wheel converts.

Among them, perhaps the one to keep the closest eye on is Sam Bird, who replaces the Nissan-bound Pla in the leading G-Drive Ligier. Of the other Onroak-built cars, the two entered by OAK Racing, which was in the thick of the LMP2 fight in 2014, are also sure to be there or thereabouts, particularly if Alex Brundle, who impressed with his speed and composure last year, returns to the fray.

Of the other new-generation cars, the only other to have raced is HPD's ARX-04b, which debuted last month at the Daytona 24 Hours, showing a decent turn of pace. The team entrusted with the Japanese cars, Extreme Speed Motorsports, may never have raced at Le Mans before, but the experience of former class winner Ryan Dalziel and David Heinemeier-Hansson should smooth the learning curve.

Also likely to be at the forefront is Strakka Racing's new Dome S103, which was due to debut last season but suffered a series of delays, particularly if Danny Watts and Jonny Kane return to partner team boss Nick Leventis as in 2013. Oreca's new 05 is also unproven at this stage, but the Thiriet by TDS and KCMG teams have both proven capable of running at the sharp end of the field.

That's not to say that the older, open-top prototypes should be discounted, however; defending class winners Jota Sport will be back in the Gibson (née Zytek) 015S, although their hopes could rest on the quality of the drivers they can attract to join team owner Simon Dolan. 2011 class winners Greaves Motorsport will also be fielding a Gibson with veteran Brit Johnny Mowlem at the helm.

Signatech's Alpine A450b, whose line-up is headed by single-seater convert Nelson Panciatici, is another entry to watch out for, while the newly-merged Team SARD-Morand, which will be running a pair of Morgan LMP2 Evos, is an outside victory shot, boasting ex-F1 driver Christian Klien and former F3 and World Series by Renault driver Oliver Webb on its driving strength.

Rounding out the 20 entries are SMP Racing's two all-new BR01 prototypes, which have suffered delays due to economic sanctions against Russia, Pegasus Racing's Morgan, Krohn Racing's Ligier, and the older Oreca 03 cars run by Ibañez Racing and Murphy Prototypes. Perhaps as many as eight or 10 of the 20 cars in the hotly-contested P2 class could be considered bona fide victory contenders.

GTE

The entry list for 'Pro' division of the GTE class has a rather familiar feel to it, featuring nine works entries from Ferrari, Corvette, Porsche and Aston Martin, who have expanded to a three-car assault for this year. It's virtually impossible to pick a potential winner from their number, for all four manufacturers over the past two or three years have displayed winning credentials at various stages.

Perhaps the de facto favourite is the lead Ferrari of Gianmaria Bruni and Toni Vilander, who are likely to be joined once again by former Grand Prix star Giancarlo Fisichella, largely because of Bruni and Vilander's status as reigning GTE-class WEC champions. Davide Rigon and James Calado can't be discarded in the second works 458 Italia, but both lack the experience of their team-mates.

Corvette Racing have tweaked their driver line-ups from last year slightly, with IndyCar driver Ryan Briscoe joining Jan Magnussen and Antonio Garcia in one entry and Jordan Taylor moving across to replace Richard Westbrook alongside Oliver Gavin and Tommy Milner. With the striking C7.R now in its second year of competition, neither line-up can be discounted from the victory chase.

The promotion of Nick Tandy to Porsche's prototype ranks has prompted a reshuffle of its GT roster. Richard Lietz is joined by Jörg Bergmeister and rookie Michael Christensen, who steps up from the marque's USC programme, while Patrick Pilet lines up alongside Frédéric Makowiecki and Wolf Henzler in what can be regarded as (marginally) the stronger car, Marco Holzer having been dropped.

Finally, Aston Martin have recruited Marco Sørensen to join the all-Danish line-up, which won the 'Am' division last year but has now been upgraded to a 'Pro' entry, along with Nicki Thiim and Christopher Nygaard. In the other two cars, only Darren Turner and Fernando Rees have been confirmed, although Stefan Mucke is virtually certain to return in the lead Vantage with Turner.

While at least five or six of those nine entries contain the required quality to mount a challenge for the class victory, Aston Martin have to be considered clear favourites in the 'Am' class, which requires each line-up to feature at least one 'bronze' rated driver and another rated no higher than 'silver', in order to prevent the class being filled with factory pilots.

Another former F1 driver, in the form of Pedro Lamy, spearheads the British manufacturer's 'Am' class assault, joined by Mathias Lauda (the son of Grand Prix legend Niki) and amateur racer Paul Dalla Lana. That line-up will be a tough one to beat, although the AF Corse Ferrari trio of Emmanuel Collard, Rui Águas and François Perrodo isn't too far behind in terms of quality.

They are the only two fully confirmed line-ups in the class so far, with Aston Martin fielding a second Vantage, AF Corse a further two Ferraris and JMW Motorsport, SMP Racing and American outfit Scuderia Corsa running an additional 458 Italia each, Proton Racing fielding a pair of 991-shape Porsche 911s and the mysterious Taiwanese Team AAI entering two older 997-shape Porsches.

The most intriguing entry in the class undoubtedly is Larbre Compétition's Corvette C7.R, to be driven by Gianluca Roda and Paolo Ruberti, plus one yet-to-be announced driver. The French concern dabbled unsuccessfully in LMP2 last year, but is back, albeit with a relatively unproven car, in a class it has won on multiple occasions, so expect the team to be towards the business end of the class.

There's a strong chance it may not be the only American machine in the class either - at the head of the seven-strong reserve list is a Riley Motorsports-run Dodge Viper, with Jeroen Bleekemolen earmarked for driving duties, meaning if any entry (in any class) pulls out between now and June, fans will get to enjoy the return of a car last seen in works 'SRT' guise at La Sarthe back in 2013.

Predictions

Predicting the winner for each class is, it's probably fair to say, something of a fool's errand at this stage, and certainly a clearer picture of the competitive order will only begin to emerge once the WEC gets underway at Silverstone in April. Nonetheless, here are my tentative predicted winners for each class, based on little other than personal hunches:

LMP1 - Toyota Racing #1 (Toyota TS040 Hybrid) - Buemi/Davidson/Nakajima
LMP2 - G-Drive Racing #26 (Ligier JS P2-Nissan) - Rusinov/Canal/Bird
GTE-Pro - Corvette Racing #64 (Corvette C7.R) - Gavin/Milner/Taylor
GTE-Am - Aston Martin Racing #98 (Aston Martin Vantage GTE) - Dalla Lana/Lamy/Lauda

While it's practically impossible to predict with any real confidence what will happen when the 56-strong field gets underway in June, what is more certain is that this year's race, with 11 factory prototypes poised to do battle up front, not to mention extremely strong fields in the LMP2 and GTE classes behind, is set to be a classic.

To see the official 2015 Le Mans entry list in full, click here.

Concluding thoughts on the 2014 season

2014-12-31T17:39:00.001+00:00

They say that hindsight is a wonderful thing, but, looking back, it seems obvious that 2014 was always going to be the year of the Silver Arrows. It may only have been last winter when the rumours materialised that Mercedes had stolen a march on fellow engine manufacturers Ferrari and Renault, but in reality the German marque's advantage was sealed a long time before that.

The introduction of a new generation of turbocharged hybrid power-units represented an opportunity for Mercedes, one that they had spotted long before anybody else. Under the stewardship of Ross Brawn, preparations for F1's new era were being made even before the new rules were announced, the team's technical department bolstered by the arrival of Bob Bell (who has since jumped ship to Ferrari), Aldo Costa and Geoff Willis in 2011.

Niki Lauda was brought on board the following year to lend the squad some political clout, helping to secure the team a better deal in Concorde Agreement negotiations and playing an instrumental role in convincing Lewis Hamilton to desert McLaren in favour of the three-pointed star. Paddy Lowe was the final piece of the puzzle, slotting alongside Toto Wolff as one of two 'executive directors' and effectively replacing Brawn, who was unable to continue in a role he found acceptable.

Combined with the vast resources at Mercedes' disposal - which dwarf those of the sport's other top teams when the headcount and budget of the High Performance Powertrains facility at Brixworth is taken into account - the inevitable result was a power-unit that was easily the class of the field, complemented by an equally capable chassis that was able to fully utilise its potency. What was more surprising than Mercedes' dominance was the way that its rivals dropped the ball.

From the outset, it was clear that the Adrian Newey-designed Red Bull RB10 was unlikely to carry Sebastian Vettel to a fifth consecutive title, but what wasn't so apparent was the extent to which Daniel Ricciardo would blossom in the environs of Milton Keynes following his two-year apprenticeship at Toro Rosso. Indeed, so accomplished were the Australian's performances - culminating in three victories, the only ones of the year that slipped through Mercedes' fingers - that he was acclaimed by many, including this writer, as the driver of the year.

Vettel's struggles to adapt to the new generation of car were seized upon by his critics as evidence that he isn't the driver his superlative record suggests. Being beaten by Ricciardo two years on the trot was simply not an option for the German, which was what led to him jumping ship to Ferrari to replace the McLaren-bound Fernando Alonso, safe in the knowledge that failure will likely be blamed upon the team rather than the driver. In any case, his new team-mate Kimi Raikkonen is unlikely to pose a great threat on the evidence of this year.

Like his compatriot Michael Schumacher before him, Vettel has the opportunity to mould the Scuderia around him, his arrival at Maranello co-inciding with a major upheaval within the team. Forming a close relationship with James Allison, whose grip over the technical department has been solidified by the departure of Pat Fry and Nicholas Tombazis, and Maurizio Arrivabene, the team's third team principal in nine months, will be key to future success for the four-time champion.

For a team that used to pride itself upon its engine-building prowess, 2014 was an embarrassment for Ferrari, the result being that long-time president Luca di Montezemelo finally fell on his sword. With Fiat-Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne now at the helm, the team must be patient and allow its new personnel to gel. It took Jean Todt four years to turn Ferrari into a championship-contending team in the 1990s, and a similar waiting period could well lie ahead under the new regime.

McLaren meanwhile may have had the choice power-unit, but for the second year in succession, the chassis produced by Woking wasn't up to the job. Alonso's gamble therefore is two-fold - not only will the Spaniard be praying for Honda's power-units to be of similar quality to their late 1980s offerings, but also that McLaren will rediscover how to construct a world-beating chassis. It's certainly not for want of resources or brainpower that the team has fallen short in that department.

Ron Dennis' return at the start of the year, with Eric Boullier drafted as his main lieutenant, promised to rectify the situation, with the return of Peter Prodromou from Red Bull aimed at bolstering a technical department that had leaked several big names to rival teams in recent years. But, if the way McLaren dithered over its choice to partner Jenson Button with Alonso is reflective of the speed that other key decisions are reached, it's doesn't bode well for a swift return to competitiveness.

Indeed, it appears that the two 'grandee' teams have been eclipsed by the leaner, more efficient operations of Red Bull and Brawn/Mercedes since the sport's previous major regulation change in 2009. Further evidence of this is the way that both McLaren and Ferrari were outflanked this year by Williams, who bounced back in spectacular style from their dismal 2013 with the help of Mercedes engines, Martini sponsorship, and the arrival of Felipe Massa alongside rising star Valtteri Bottas.

Third place in the constructors' standings is a remarkable achievement any way you cut it, but it says a lot about how quickly the team have progressed that Williams can feel aggrieved at not being closer to runner-up Red Bull. The FW36, the first to bear Pat Symonds' influence, was often the second-quickest car, but numerous points were squandered through simple operational and strategic errors of the sort the team's better-heeled rivals tend not to make.

While Williams' revival was one of the feel-good stories of the year, the battle between Mercedes team-mates Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg will be how the season is primarily remembered. An additional layer of intrigue to proceedings was provided by the duo's pre-existing friendship, which was stretched to the limit at Monaco after two fierce but ultimately good-natured wheel-to-wheel battles at Bahrain and Spain, both of which were won by Hamilton.

Rosberg's treachery or luck, depending on your viewpoint, at Monaco effectively brought down the curtain on the first 'act' of the season, in which Hamilton had the upper hand. The Brit could seemingly do nothing right for the next few races, only taking one (somewhat fortuitous) win at Silverstone during a mid-season purple patch for Rosberg. That came to an end in Belgium as the Mercedes pair made contact at Les Combes, which, in retrospect, was where Rosberg lost the title.

While he left Spa with an extra 18 points in his pocket over Hamilton, the ensuing recriminations within the team appeared to severely dent Rosberg's confidence, leading to his critical errors at Monza and Sochi as well as his lapse in the heat of battle at Austin. This handed the impetus back to Lewis, who is at his brilliant best in the role of the hunter rather than the hunted, Nico's fate sealed even without those costly car failures at Singapore and at the double-points Abu Dhabi finale.

The paddock must have sighed a collective breath of relief after the latter event, as the sport avoided the massive PR own-goal that would have been Rosberg taking the title on double points. The German himself surely would not have wanted that particular asterisk to taint his success in any case - far better to come back stronger next year now that the rule has thankfully been consigned to the scrapheap, along with the frankly ludicrous proposal to introduce standing restarts at the end of every safety car period.

That was just one talking point in one of the most politically eventful seasons in recent memory. At the centre of much of the controversy was, as ever, Bernie Ecclestone - from his criticism of the sound of the new power-units at the start of the year to the questionable way his Bavarian court case was resolved; from cosying up to Vladimir Putin at Sochi to claiming that the sport doesn't need to worry about attracting young fans, the 84-year-old was rarely out of the headlines all year.

All of that made it a rather surprising revelation when Ecclestone accepted blame for F1's financial problems - a perfect storm of ever-rising costs and an extremely inequitable distribution of the sport's income. This admission came after the two smallest outfits, Caterham and Marussia, both went into administration, finally buckling under the immense strain of competing at the highest level with so few resources. The latter had even managed to score two points at Monaco thanks to the exploits of Jules Bianchi, whose tragic accident at Suzuka left a black mark against the entire season.

The result was that only 18 cars took to the starting grid at Austin, the lowest number since early 2005. While the diminished field did little to undermine the spectacle, it meant that Sauber, who along with fellow cash-strapped outfits Force India and Lotus threatened to boycott the race, found itself at the very rear of the grid. While losing two relatively new and unsuccessful teams could be described as a shame rather than a disaster, shedding a team with a race-winning pedigree would be inexcusable for a sport that generates almost $2bn annually.

A cost cap was mooted by FIA President Jean Todt at the start of the year, but lacked the crucial support of Ecclestone and the top teams, and when Caterham and Marussia disappeared (the former successfully crowd-funding what is likely to prove a one-off return at Abu Dhabi), the spectre of the biggest teams fielding third cars loomed - the answer to a question that virtually nobody was asking, least of all the teams who would be hard-pressed to score any points at all if they were introduced.

When this suggestion was put to bed by Todt, the debate shifted to the wisdom of introducing such complex and costly new engines at a time when many teams were already struggling financially, and it's now thought that Bernie is pushing for a return to a simpler, cheaper and louder formula for 2016. This would inevitably put him on a collision course with Mercedes, who will argue that the true intention of such a change of direction is to prevent the Silver Arrows dominating for years to come.

The fact of the matter is however that, for all of the complaining and behind-the-scenes politicking, the new regulations have proved a hit, providing excellent racing at all but a small handful of Grands Prix, even if one team has done a much better job than anybody else. The question F1 must ask itself is whether such excellence should be penalised in the name of 'the show' - and if the answer is yes, there are surely more transparent ways of doing so than messing with what has so far proven a successful formula and risk driving out one of the sport's most prestigious names.

Even if the regulations could be amended in a way that Mercedes found acceptable in the name of cost reduction, it wouldn't address the fundamental problem that the top teams receive such exorbitant sums from the commercial rights holder. With the bigger operations understandably unwilling to shell out on shoring up the minnows, and the governing body powerless to overrule the will of the majority, the onus is on the CRH to sacrifice a small portion of its immediate profits in the interest of the sport - or risk that its precious cash cow stops producing milk altogether.

While F1 threatened to tear itself apart, other forms of motorsport quietly made steady progress in 2014. The World Endurance Championship went from strength to strength, with returnee Porsche winning the final race of a season that largely belonged to Toyota. Securing both the drivers' and manufacturers' crowns courtesy of Anthony Davidson and Sebastien Buemi, the only prize the Japanese auto giant missed out on was the big one: victory at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Instead, Audi scooped a 13th triumph at the French endurance classic, on virtue of reliability rather than outright pace, but enjoyed little success elsewhere - and the competition is only going to get tougher in 2015 as Nissan makes it a four-way fight in the top division. Rumours of the Ingolstadt marque throwing its hat into the F1 ring were rife in the autumn; the tougher the going gets in the WEC, the more attractive a proposal that could seem, particularly if Porsche takes over as the VW-Audi Group's standard-bearer at Le Mans.

Interest in the WEC was boosted by Porsche's return, its driver line-up spearheaded by F1 convert Mark Webber. Next year, Nico Hulkenberg will race for the team at Le Mans alongside his Force India commitments, and it will be fascinating to see how many other Grand Prix regulars attempt a similar balancing act in years to come. Alonso, who conspicuously visited the WEC paddock at Bahrain, has made little attempt to disguise his desire to race at Le Mans in the not-too-distant future, a move that would surely send interest in endurance racing through the roof.

Across the pond, IndyCar was bolstered by the return of Juan Pablo Montoya after a largely fruitless seven-year spell in NASCAR, but it was the Colombian's Penske team-mates Will Power and Helio Castroneves who were the main stars of the show - the former taking an overdue maiden title and the latter narrowly missing out on a fourth Indy 500 victory to Ryan Hunter-Reay in a thrilling climax. The introduction of aero kits next year to differentiate the spec Dallara cars that make up the field is the series' next step on its long and arduous road to recovery.

NASCAR meanwhile courted controversy with the introduction of an all-new Chase for the Cup format, which sought to place a greater emphasis on winning races. How ironic it was, then, that Ryan Newman, who failed to win all year, came perilously close to making a mockery of the entire season at the Homestead finale - luckily, the rightful champion by any metric, Kevin Harvick, was not to be denied that day. While not universally popular, the revamped Chase certainly injected some vigour into a series that has been struggling to captivate a new audience in recent years.

Speaking of new audiences, Formula E enjoyed an auspicious start at Beijing, where a last-lap, last-corner clash between Nico Prost and Nick Heidfeld ensured that the all-electric championship's first race made the headlines the next day. The two subsequent rounds may not have been as dramatic, but it seems the championship has done as well as could be hoped in capturing the imagination of the public. Whether it can become a genuine rival to F1 in the future is another question altogether, though.

Indeed, for all of its ongoing political strife, F1 remains the focal point of motorsport, boasting as it does the world's best known drivers and teams - which is precisely the point of those contentious bonus payments to the biggest outfits. What Ecclestone and his paymasters seemingly fail to grasp is that the mid-size and smaller concerns are equally crucial to the sport's health, a lesson they may end up learning the hard way if 2015 doesn't herald a radical change of direction.

My Top 50 Drivers of 2014

2014-12-15T23:39:00.000+00:00

Regular readers of this blog will likely be aware that I produce a list of my top 10 Formula One drivers at the end of each season, but this year I have opted to do things a little differently.

As well as providing an authoritative take on the top 10 drivers of the F1 season, AUTOSPORT magazine also offers a list of the 50 best drivers across all of motorsport at the end of each year - my own version of which can be seen below.

The list incorporates drivers from F1, rallying, endurance racing, touring cars, US Racing and the junior formulae, taking into account not only the drivers' performances but also the quality of machinery at their disposal and the stiffness of the opposition they encountered in their particular championship.

For those wanting to know my F1 top ten, fear not - they can all be found below among their lesser-celebrated counterparts from elsewhere in motorsport. I have deliberately chosen not to include Jules Bianchi, who remains in a serious condition in hospital as of the time of writing, but suffice it to say that the young Frenchman definitely would have featured had he completed the season.

50. Joao Paulo de Oliveira (BR, 2nd in Super Formula)

The Japanese-based Super Formula series is one of the best kept secrets in motorsport, and Brazil's de Oliveira has been one of its leading protagonists for some years now. He finished runner-up to Kazuki Nakajima in this year's standings with three victories to his name, although it could have been a very different story had he not spun away a commanding lead in difficult conditions at Fuji.

49. Robert Wickens (CDN, 12th in DTM)
Wickens' third DTM campaign wasn't particularly impressive on paper, but the stats belie the fact that the Canadian was often the quickest of the Mercedes contingent, something that his poles at the Norisring and the Red Bull Ring stand testament to. He won at the former, and would have also triumphed at the latter without his rather contentious disqualification for an unsafe pitstop release.

48. Pierre Gasly (F, 2nd in Formula Renault 3.5)
Although he failed to win a race in his maiden year in Formula Renault 3.5, Red Bull junior Gasly proved a remarkably consistent performer, making no less than eight trips to the podium across the year. That he was considered a contender for the Toro Rosso seat alongside Max Verstappen despite his inexperience shows the high regard in which the young Frenchman is held by his paymasters.

47. Nico Hulkenberg (D, 9th in F1)
Unfortunate to miss out on a Ferrari drive to Kimi Raikkonen last year, it would be fair to say that Hulkenberg's stock has dipped slightly following a season best described as solid but unspectacular. At his best early in the year, scoring in all but four races was a laudable achievement by the German, but there were days when his lesser heralded team-mate Sergio Perez held a decisive edge over him.

46. Ryan Hunter-Reay (US, 6th in IndyCar and Indy 500 winner)

2014 was hardly the strongest campaign ever strung together by Hunter-Reay, but no-one else besides series champion Will Power could match his tally of three wins. But, while his victories at Barber and Iowa were impressive, it was the way he that he held off the challenge of Helio Castroneves to join the illustrious ranks of Indy 500 winners that earns the American a place on this list.

45. Kris Meeke (GB, 7th in World Rally)
Signing Meeke to a full-time works drive was undoubtedly a risk on Citroen's part, and the Ulsterman certainly suffered more accidents than he or his employers would have liked. But he was often the only non-Volkswagen driver to trouble the German cars on pure pace, his points tally failing to do justice to the way he outshone team-mate Mads Ostberg in the latter half of the year.

44. Colin Turkington (GB, British Touring Car Champion)
He may have had the best car, but Turkington used his West Surrey Racing BMW to devastating effect, with double wins at Oulton Park, Croft and Rockingham helping to propel him to a thoroughly deserved second BTCC title. It would be fascinating to see how the 32-year-old would fare against tougher opposition overseas if WSR are unable to hang on to him for 2015.

43. Romain Grosjean (F, 14th in F1)
After getting used to standing on the podium regularly late last season, Lotus's fall from grace must have been a bitter pill for Grosjean to swallow. Despite letting his frustration get the better of him on occasion, the Frenchman deserves credit for the way he dominated team-mate Pastor Maldonado, his performance at Barcelona, where he qualified fifth and finished eighth, standing out in particular.

42. Alex Lynn (GB, GP3 Champion)
While his predecessor as GP3 champion, fellow Red Bull youngster Daniil Kvyat, came on strong towards the end of the year after a limp start to secure last year's crown, Lynn was imperious early on before fading somewhat as the season progressed. Perhaps that explains why the Brit was passed up for a Toro Rosso F1 seat, but 2014 remains a season that Lynn can look back on with satisfaction.

41. Gianmaria Bruni (I, World Endurance GTE Pro Champion)

A stellar performance at the 24 Hours of Le Mans was the bedrock of another consistent campaign by Bruni, who has established himself as one of the world's leading GT drivers with his exploits behind the wheel of the factory Ferrari 458. Four WEC wins and as many poles for the Italian and his co-driver Toni Vilander was a record no other driver pairing in the class could touch.

40. Dean Stoneman (GB, 2nd in GP3)
It might seem odd to place him two places higher than series champion Lynn, but the way Stoneman performed in the closing stages of the year once he switched to the Koiranen GP team served to take some of the sheen off his compatriot's achievements. The fact the 23-year-old was fighting testicular cancer only two years ago makes his feats all the more impressive.

39. Scott McLaughlin (NZ, 5th in V8 Supercars)
In only his second year of V8 Supercars competition, McLaughlin has firmly marked himself out as the category's next superstar with his searing pace in the all-new Garry Rogers-run Volvo contender. Four wins, including a double at Phillip Island, is pretty good going by any standards, but it was in qualifying where the young Kiwi really shone, taking no fewer than 10 pole positions.

38. Oliver Rowland (GB, 4th in Formula Renault 3.5)
His title assault may have been stymied by technical gremlins of various kinds during the year, but there was no denying Rowland's obvious class in his first season of Formula Renault 3.5. Two dominant victories at Aragon and Jerez stand as the main evidence of this, while three pole positions also helped to identify the RSF-backed driver as a potential star of the future.

37. Kazuki Nakajima (J, 8th in World Endurance and Super Formula Champion)

Nakajima's third year in the Toyota WEC stable was his strongest yet, the Japanese taking the #7 car to poles at Silverstone and Le Mans and making a strong contribution to the car's commanding position at the latter before electrical failure denied the team a likely win. He also showed he can still hack it in single-seaters by clinching a second Super Formula crown in the wet at Suzuka.

36. Thierry Neuville (B, 6th in World Rally)
Three trips to the podium, include a maiden victory in Germany - albeit in somewhat fortuitous circumstances - represents a solid return for Neuville in his first season as a factory Hyundai driver, which was blighted somewhat by numerous mechanical mishaps. The Belgian did enough to suggest he can be a threat to the Volkswagen drivers if the Korean manufacturer can raise its game next year.

35. Yvan Muller (F, 2nd in World Touring Cars)
Hitherto the benchmark driver in the series, Muller struggled to adapt to the new, more powerful and aerodynamic breed of WTCC machine. Arguably, the dye was cast at the very first round in Marrakesh, won by his Citroen team-mate Jose Maria Lopez, and though Muller went on to take four wins, he simply couldn't keep up with the Argentine in the latter half of the year.

34. Mike Conway (GB, Race winner in IndyCar and World Endurance)
IndyCar victories at Long Beach and Toronto enhanced further Conway's reputation for being something of a street circuit specialist, but 2014 showed that its in sportscars where the Brit's future really lies. He distinguished himself in his three appearances for Toyota, particularly at Bahrain, where he, Alex Wurz and Stephane Sarrazin took the #7 TS040 Hybrid's sole victory of the year.

33. Daniil Kvyat (RU, 15th in F1)
Eyebrows were raised when a then-teenage Kvyat was chosen for a Toro Rosso seat, but the Russian's performances this season have more than vindicated Red Bull's decision. He may have been outscored comfortably by team-mate Jean-Eric Vergne, but frequent mechanical woes were largely to blame for that, his speed demonstrated by his 12-7 qualifying record against the Frenchman.

32. Mattias Ekstrom (S, 2nd in DTM)

After being shaded by Audi stablemate Mike Rockenfeller last year, Ekstrom emerged as the standard-bearer for the Ingolstadt marque in this year's DTM series with wins in the final two races of the year at Zandvoort and Hockenheim. Three other podiums also marked out the Swede as the most consistent driver in the series with the exception of runaway champion Marco Wittmann.

31. Scott Dixon (NZ, 3rd in IndyCar)
Never out of the top three in the IndyCar points since 2007, Dixon is unquestionably one of the championship's class acts, but the New Zealander was a victim of his Chip Ganassi team dropping the ball in the first half of the year. Crashing in the Indy 500 was the nadir of his season, but he made amends with a superb charge from last to win at Mid Ohio, followed up by a second win at Sonoma.

30. Carlos Sainz Jr. (E, Formula Renault 3.5 Champion)
The quality of the competition in Formula Renault 3.5 wasn't quite as high as last year, but that shouldn't detract from what has been Sainz's best ever season in a single-seater. After being hammered in GP3 by team-mate Kvyat last year, the young Spaniard had a point to prove - and he did so in fine style, seven victories carrying him to title glory and an F1 shot with Toro Rosso.

29. Neel Jani (CH, 3rd in World Endurance)
Though Mark Webber monopolised media attention concerning Porsche's return to top-level endurance racing, Jani was often the quickest man of the Stuttgart marque's line-up. The Swiss took the #14 919 Hybrid to two poles at Shanghai and Bahrain, and was confident that he would have held on to take Porsche's first comeback win at Sao Paulo even before the sister car's shunt sealed the deal.

28. Brad Keselowski (US, 5th in NASCAR)

Six wins and a very strong final third of the year made Keselowski one of the year's star performers, and the 30-year-old would surely have been in title contention at the Homestead showdown if not for his transmission failure at Martinsville. Still, he'd have featured higher up this list had he not been involved in not one, but two post-race fights at Charlotte and Texas following contact at both races.

27. Jolyon Palmer (GB, GP2 Champion)
Dominating the early part of the campaign with five podiums in the first five races, it's hard to begrudge Palmer his GP2 title success. But, he was outclassed by Stoffel Vandoorne later in the year, and anything less than championship success with the all-conquering DAMS team would arguably have constituted failure bearing in mind his considerable experience at this level.

26. Sebastian Vettel (D, 5th in F1)
While Vettel's struggles with loss of the exhaust-blown diffuser meant he couldn't extract the most from the Red Bull RB10, the phenomenal success of Daniel Ricciardo in the other side of the garage makes the four-time champion's season look worse than it was in reality. Podiums at Malaysia, Singapore and Japan were the highlights of a year the German will otherwise want to forget.

25. Juan Pablo Montoya (COL, 4th in IndyCar)
Returning to single-seaters after a lengthy spell in NASCAR is no easy task, especially at 38 years of age. But Montoya handled the transition better than most observers predicted, frequently giving his Penske team-mates a decent run for their money. His win at the double-points Pocono race flatters his championship position a little, though he was unfortunate to miss out on victory at Houston.

24. Max Verstappen (NL, 3rd in European Formula 3)

Having two leading F1 teams squabbling over your signature when you're only 16 years old, and in your first season of car racing, is clear evidence you're doing something right. Some early errors and technical problems may have ended Verstappen's Euro F3 title challenge before it got going, but six wins on the trot at Spa and the Norisring were enough for him to land a Toro Rosso F1 seat.

23. Joey Logano (US, 4th in NASCAR)
Despite the botched pitstop that ruined his title shot at Homestead, it's telling that Logano would have been crowned NASCAR champion in 2014 using the previous points system. That's largely down to the fact that the 24-year-old finished in the top six in seven of the nine Chase races prior to the finale, victories at New Hampshire and Kansas taking his tally for the year to an impressive five.

22. Stoffel Vandoorne (B, 2nd in GP2 Series)
The nature of GP2 makes it hard for rookies to make an impact, but Vandoorne was able to prove his star quality with four victories - including one on his series debut at Bahrain - and as many pole positions, securing the best points finish for a newcomer since Nico Hulkenberg won in 2009. The only trouble now for the Belgian is that, next year, he'll be expected not only to win, but dominate.

21. Felipe Massa (BR, 7th in F1)

After five seasons spent in the shadow of Fernando Alonso at Ferrari, 2014 saw Massa back to his best form since his accident at Hungary back in 2009. While he was outpaced more often than not by Williams team-mate Valtteri Bottas, it was the Brazilian who took the Grove-based team's only pole of the year at Austria and came closest to victory, first at Canada and then at the Abu Dhabi finale.

20. Simon Pagenaud (F, 5th in IndyCar)
For the second year in a row, Pagenaud managed to notch up two race victories for the Schmidt Peterson outfit, only dropping out of the championship top three because of the double points on offer at the Fontana finale. It was hard not to feel that a driver of the Frenchman's calibre was rather too good for such a small operation - his promotion to Penske for 2015 is a just reward for his efforts.

19. Esteban Ocon (F, European Formula 3 Champion)
Though this year of F3 will be primarily remembered for Verstappen bursting onto the car racing scene, the achievements of series champion Ocon, who is equally deserving of an F1 shot, shouldn't be overlooked. The Frenchman was barely off the podium for the first half of the year, winning five of the first 12 races before effectively sealing the crown with an emphatic triple win at Moscow.

18. Jamie Whincup (AU, V8 Supercars Champion)
Simply put, over the course of the year, nobody else in the V8 Supercars series could touch Whincup, whose staggering tally of 14 wins (nobody else won more than four) duly delivered him a sixth title. That elevates him ahead of such greats as Mark Skaife and Dick Johnson as the championship's most successful ever driver - and who would bet against the 31-year-old winning more in years to come?

17. Jari-Matti Latvala (FIN, 2nd in World Rally)

Having won just one rally in 2013, this season was a much improved one for Latvala, who ran champion Volkswagen team-mate Sebastien Ogier far harder this time around. Beating the Frenchman in a straight fight on home turf in Finland was the highlight, and while his Germany crash halted his title charge, his late season form will give him great confidence heading into 2015.

16. Jose Maria Lopez (RA, World Touring Car Champion)
Alongside team-mates Muller and Sebastien Loeb, Lopez looked very much like the third driver in Citroen's WTCC line-up at the start of the 2014 - until the Argentine won first time out at Marrakesh. Muller fought back at first, but by the time of Lopez's double win at his home event, it was clear nobody was going to stop the 31-year-old taking a well-earned title in his first full season.

15. Jeff Gordon (US, 6th in NASCAR)
Gordon's been racing in NASCAR's top tier for as long as this writer's been alive, and the 43-year-old has lost none of the speed that carried him to four Cup titles. He was unlucky to miss out on a fifth championship, coming painstakingly close to making the final four for the Homestead shootout - a race he looked like winning for much of the distance before a late strategic miscue.

14. Jenson Button (GB, 8th in F1)

After two so-so years, it almost seemed as if the challenge of prolonging his F1 career helped to rejuvenate Button, who had the clear measure of his rookie team-mate Kevin Magnussen. Honours between the McLaren pair were roughly even in qualifying, but it was on Sundays that the Brit's experience told, squeezing over double the number of points out of a substandard car than the Dane.

13. Helio Castroneves (BR, 2nd in IndyCar)
You can't give Castroneves enough credit for the way he handled himself in the aftermath of defeat - not only at the Indy 500, after losing to Ryan Hunter-Reay by less than a tenth, but also after a succession of late season misfortunes denied him the chance to fight team-mate Will Power for the title. What's more, even at 39, you sense the jovial Brazilian has a few more good years in him yet.

12. Anthony Davidson (GB, World Endurance Champion)
Armed with what was demonstrably the quickest car in the LMP1 field, Davidson's determination to seize his chance of world championship glory was in clear evidence after the disappointment of missing out on a shot at winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Though narrowly eclipsed by co-driver Sebastien Buemi, the plucky Brit's pace and tenacity makes him a thoroughly deserving champion.

11. Marco Wittmann (D, DTM Champion)

It's not uncommon for those who excel in DTM to reach F1, and his dominance this year would make Wittmann a worthy candidate for a shot at the highest level. A maiden win at Hockenheim was followed by two poles and a second triumph at Hungary, and the 25-year-old was never lower than sixth thereafter - duly becoming the series' third-youngest ever champion with two rounds to spare.

10. Valtteri Bottas (FIN, 4th in F1)
We saw glimpses of his potential last year, but with a vastly better Williams underneath him in 2014, Bottas was able to show what he's really made of. Often the quickest non-Mercedes driver, he out-gunned his much more experienced team-mate Felipe Massa 13-6 in qualifying and was on the podium twice as often. Fending off Lewis Hamilton for second in Germany was his finest hour.

9. Sebastien Buemi (CH, World Endurance Champion)
There was little to separate him from fellow champion Davidson, but Buemi gets the nod for having more stand-out moments during the year. Chief among these was his mesmerising opening stint at Austin, team-mate Nicolas Lapierre undoing all of the Swiss driver's efforts with a spin once the heavens opened, while his early fightback from last to first at Shanghai was equally awe-inspiring.

8. Kevin Harvick (US, NASCAR Champion)
Say what you will about the controversial new NASCAR Chase format, but there's no doubt it produced a worthy champion in Harvick, whose win tally of five fails to do justice to the speed he demonstrated all season. Eight poles made the Stewart-Haas driver the benchmark in qualifying, the Californian also leading the most laps by a country mile - 2137 to Brad Keselowski's 1540.

7. Will Power (AU, IndyCar Champion)
Having missed out on the IndyCar title at the final round for three in years in a row from 2010 to 2012, it was refreshing to see Power finally clinch the prize this year after a season during which he just had the edge over Penske team-mate Helio Castroneves. Milwaukee was the most impressive of his three wins, the Aussie proving he's now a match for anyone on ovals as well as road courses.

6. Andre Lotterer (D, 2nd in World Endurance and Le Mans 24 Hours winner)

Outpacing Marcus Ericsson in qualifying at Spa by a whole second in a one-off outing for Caterham supplied yet more evidence that Lotterer is the quickest circuit racer outside of F1. An incredible late quintuple stint helped ensure a third Le Mans triumph for he and his Audi team-mates, while two victories in Super Formula further underlined just what a complete and versatile performer he is.

5. Nico Rosberg (D, 2nd in F1)
Many pundits' pre-season tip for the title, Rosberg managed to surprise and disappoint in equal measure behind the wheel of the dominant Mercedes. Few would have predicted the sheer one-lap prowess the German demonstrated, but all too often he had no answer to the race pace of his team-mate and title rival Lewis Hamilton, particularly after their contentious coming together at Spa.

4. Sebastien Ogier (F, World Rally Champion)
His second title may not have been quite as straightforward as his first last year, but there remains no other rally driver on earth able to consistently challenge Ogier. The Volkswagen driver scooped another nine victories this season, seeing off the threat of team-mate Jari-Matti Latvala, and it could have been more if not for a rare error in Germany and electrical problems at home in France.

3. Fernando Alonso (E, 6th in F1)
Alonso's exploits in the least competitive car Ferrari have produced since joining forces with the Spaniard will have done little to dissuade the many observers who believe him to still be the sport's finest driver. Utterly trouncing stablemate Kimi Raikkonen, Alonso often dragged the troublesome F14 T to positions it had no right to be in, not least of which his stellar drive to second at Hungary.

2. Lewis Hamilton (GB, F1 Champion)
While Hamilton taking an overdue second title was by no means a surprise given the pace advantage of the Mercedes, the way the 29-year-old overcame team-mate Rosberg was far from expected. His success owed less to his out-and-out speed than to a mastery of the new regulations as well as the late-season psychological advantage over the German that he skilfully crafted himself.

1. Daniel Ricciardo (AU, 3rd in F1)

It's no accident that the only non-Mercedes driver to win a Grand Prix this season was Ricciardo, who can now consider himself part of F1's elite after putting his more illustrious Red Bull team-mate Sebastian Vettel to shame. His pace was blistering all year, making hardly any errors of note, while some of the wide-grinning Aussie's overtaking moves can only be described as poetry in motion.

Alonso and the Silly Season That Keeps On Giving

2014-09-24T18:35:00.003+01:00

In all the 15 years I've been following Formula One, I cannot remember the driver market being as unsettled as it is currently at such a late stage of the season.

By this time last year, we knew that Kimi Raikkonen was on his way to Ferrari; the previous year, the world was aware by late September of the news that Lewis Hamilton had turned his back on McLaren in favour of Mercedes.

There seems to be a growing feeling in the paddock that there may yet be a silly season bombshell of comparable magnitude this year too, despite noises being made by the 'big four' teams to the contrary in recent weeks.

The key man is Fernando Alonso, whose future has been subject to all kinds of speculation for quite some time now despite the Spaniard having a contract to remain at Ferrari until the end of 2016.

Such lengthy deals always tend to have get-out clauses, and it appears that the Scuderia's lacklustre showing this year has triggered a performance clause that has led Alonso to start playing hardball with the newly-installed Ferrari management.

It has been said that Alonso wants a bonus payment for every point earned, not dissimilar to the ertswhile arrangement between Raikkonen and Lotus that almost bankrupted the Enstone outfit.

While Ferrari could undoubtedly afford such a deal, the Italian team is renowned for its dislike of drivers who see themselves as bigger than the collective - and the scent given by Alonso's negotiating tactics is hardly one of being a team player dedicated to the Maranello cause.

Still considered the sport's finest operator by many, Alonso has other options should Ferrari refuse to bow to their star driver's demands. McLaren have been making behind-the-scenes moves to try and lure the 33-year-old for getting on for a year now - so if Alonso's brinksmanship fails, he can be safe in the knowledge that Woking would welcome him back with open arms.

But, moving to McLaren in the first year of its new partnership with Honda - whose engines, it is easily forgotten, were far from the class of the field during the Japanese marque's most recent foray into F1 - would be a big risk, especially when 2015 will be the first full season for Ferrari's promising new regime headed by Sergio Marchionne, Marco Mattiacci and James Allison.

A switch to McLaren may not be Alonso's only option however. The big rumour doing the rounds in Singapore was that Alonso could be on the cusp of switching seats with Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel, an accusation denied by both.

But, that was before the full story of Alonso's negotiations with his team had come to light, and Vettel has long been believed to be at the top of Ferrari's shopping list in the event of Maranello needing a new lead driver.

The way he's been outperformed by new team-mate Daniel Ricciardo must have made the thought of dissolving what is currently the longest-standing team/driver partnership on the grid cross Vettel's mind, especially since his favoured race engineer Guillaume Rocquelin, who has steered the German to four world titles, will no longer be by his side next year. And that's before you consider Adrian Newey taking more of a hands-off role once he's laid the foundations for next year's Red Bull.

But, the prospect of joining a McLaren team seemingly incapable of manufacturing a winning chassis will have hardly tempted Vettel to fly the Red Bull nest. A seat at Ferrari may be a different matter, though - if nothing else, the German would conclude he would easily have the measure of Kimi Raikkonen as a team-mate, whereas being beaten by Danny Ric two years on the trot simply isn't an option.

Even if Vettel were to conclude that his interests are best served by staying put, there's always a chance that Ferrari could orchestrate a swap between Alonso and Ricciardo.

Deserting the team that gave him his big break might seem inadvisable for the Australian, but you can hardly underestimate the potential lure of being drafted in by Ferrari to lead a new era in the team's history. Such a move didn't work out too badly for a certain M. Schumacher, after all.

Then there's Mercedes, which would probably be the team Alonso (along with just about every other driver on the grid) would opt to join if he had free choice.

But, with Nico Rosberg having signed a two-year extension to his contract earlier this year, the only route to Brackley for Alonso would be, as has been suggested in some quarters, if the Spaniard were to exchange seats with Lewis Hamilton, who still has a year to run on his contract.

Such a scenario taking place means Hamilton would have to lose the title to Rosberg in particularly acrimonious style - far from impossible to imagine, but an unlikely prospect now that the Brit has taken the lead of the championship following a seventh victory of the season at Singapore last weekend.

An unlikelier prospect still, however, is the latest story to emerge from the rumour mill turning into reality - that Alonso is bound for the cash-strapped Lotus team.

The disgraced former boss of the Enstone outfit, Flavio Briatore, is said to be trying to broker a deal for Canadian billionaire Lawrence Stroll (who has also been linked to purchasing Sauber and Marussia in recent weeks) to buy the team and pay for the services of Alonso, as well as the Mercedes engines that the team are ostensibly unable to afford under the current ownership.

Of all the options Alonso may or may not have, surely this one can be written off immediately. Finding a buyer would not miraculously transform Lotus's fortunes overnight; it would be a long-term project nurturing the team back to full competitiveness, probably at least three years - by which point, Alonso would be 36 years old and perhaps a little beyond his prime.

If joining McLaren would be a gamble, plumping for Lotus would be tantamount to re-mortgaging your house, flying out to Vegas and sticking the entire sum on zero at the roulette table.

So, where does all of that leave Alonso? Much depends on the outcome of the negotiations with Ferrari. A move to Mercedes (at least in 2015) looks to be a non-starter; perhaps it's not a surprise that those particular rumblings emerged from the Spanish press, who would no doubt love to see their darling cruise to a long overdue third world championship with a dominant car beneath him.

Of the remaining three options, Red Bull would be the only one worth deserting Ferrari in favour of at this stage. That would require one of the two incumbents at Milton Keynes to move in the opposite direction - a possibility, but only if a swap was arranged by the Scuderia.

Mattiacci's slightly cryptic response to the latest questions about Alonso's future at Singapore is telling. What it indicates is that Ferrari are no longer willing to bend over backwards to accommodate Alonso's every whim - after all, for a team that so famously values loyalty, what is a contract that allows the Spaniard to leave at the first sign of a vacancy emerging at a rival team really worth?

Of course, it's quite possible that Alonso and Ferrari will settle their differences and agree to continue for at least one more year, giving Maranello one final chance to finally rise to the challenge of producing the world-beating car its resources are capable of delivering after five seasons of falling short.

But, such a deal would almost certainly have to be written to allow Alonso to jump ship for 2016 if certain performance-related conditions are not met.

And, if Ferrari fails to come up with the goods again next year, we'll be left with more or less exactly the same scenario - except that Alonso will be one year closer to retirement, perhaps a little more desperate to find a way out of his long-term deal, and that a move to Mercedes or Red Bull may be a more viable prospect than it is currently.

Wherever Alonso moves next - if he does choose to depart Ferrari - is likely to be the place he sees out his F1 career; his decision consequently could well come to define his legacy.

Three titles have already slipped through his fingers, and no doubt several more will too if his choice, whatever it may be, turns out to be the wrong one.

Highlights from a trip to Monza

2014-09-18T16:28:00.000+01:00

It's been just over a week since I returned from my trip to the Italian Grand Prix, and I can safely say that, of the three visits I've made to Formula 1 races in recent years, it was, for a number of reasons, much more enjoyable than my trips to Silverstone in 2012 or the Hungaroring last year.

Perhaps that doesn't come as a major surprise that both of the above events were characterised by extreme weather - torrential rain (except for, when it would have been most welcome, during the race itself) and baking heat respectively - although there are a number of other factors which would make me recommend a pilgrimage to Monza to any F1 fan.

Chief among these is that, unlike at Silverstone and the Hungaroring, where fans are pushed to the outside of the circuit away from the action, the layout of Monza is such as that you feel far closer to what's going on. The only area in which you can't roam freely around is the paddock, but you can walk the entire interior of the track all the way from Parabolica (where I was seated for Saturday and Sunday) up to the Lesmos.

Indeed, the pathway leading down from the Lesmo entrance - handily served by its own railway station on the Milan-Lecco line - allows you to walk under the old banking. That certainly helps to convey a sense of history about the venue that somewhere like Silverstone cannot; wherever you walk within the circuit grounds, there's a very special atmosphere that surpasses even that of Le Mans during the legendary 24 Hours.

Perhaps the best aspect of this freedom however is the number of big names you happen across during your travels. All weekend, there was a throng of fans massed at the entrance to the paddock waiting for someone of note to emerge, and I managed to take a cheeky snap of four-time champion and tifosi favourite Alain Prost as he was signing autographs.

He wasn't the only big name I encountered during my travels, though. Across the weekend, I was able to catch a glimpse of (in no particular order): Nico Hulkenberg, Felipe Nasr, Stoffel Vandoorne, Dani Juncadella, Eric Boullier, Graeme Lowdon, Rob Smedley and - best of all - Martin Brundle, who I happened to bump into during the pitlane walk on Thursday afternoon. The Sky Sports commentator and F1/Le Mans star of yesteryear was kind enough to sign his autograph and pose for a picture with me (in which, sadly, I look like an utter goon, but there we are).

The pitlane walk, and not just because of my chance meeting with Brundle, was a particular highlight of the weekend, helping to remind me that this sport I obsess over and plan to dedicate my career to is in fact a real thing, providing thousands of real people with their livelihoods, and not just some fantasy-land that exists only on my TV screen as it can often seem!

Another of the weekend's memorable moments was when I tried my luck in the 'Gamezone', which allowed those to have purchased some official F1 merchandise (for the record, I purchased a Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull hat, as modeled in the below image) a go on a simulator. I was pitched against seven opponents and scored the second fastest lap time, enabling me to have another go. My second attempt was less successful, setting only the third best time.

But, the person with the third fastest time was given an attempt at the Batak challenge, used by professional athletes to hone their reflexes (to get an idea of what this entails, click here to watch Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button have a go). To my astonishment, I set the high score for that day with 75, meaning I was invited back to a final showdown against Riccardo, an Italian, and Neil, an Irishman, who had also set the highest scores on their respective days.

I managed to up my score to 79 on my second attempt, but sadly it wasn't enough as Neil mustered 80 and Riccardo 82, the latter scooping the prize of a pair of grandstand seats for next year's race - at least he had the least far to travel of the three of us!

Moving on to the on-track action, one aspect of the weekend I was particularly anticipating was hearing the much-maligned new engine note of the new generation of F1 cars with my own ears. I was not among those who slated the new sound at the start of the year - in fact, I enjoyed being able to hear things like lock-ups and screeching tyres, which were previously drowned out by the high-pitch scream of the old V8s.

My opinion hasn't changed having now heard the cars trackside; I don't even think they need to be made louder, as has often been suggested. If you listened carefully, you could even tell which car ran which engine as it passed, all three manufacturers' power-units exhibiting subtly different tones that were a joy to differentiate for an anorak like me.

What F1 fans ought to remember is that the noise produced by engines made in any particular era was ultimately just a byproduct of the pursuit of performance. There were no artificial methods for making the engines sound better; that's just how they sounded anyway - the association with heroic feats on-track is what made the old noise so emotive. As this new era of F1 progresses, so fans will eventually learn to love its soundtrack.

The race itself hardly ranked among the most thrilling of the year, and it was a big shame that Rosberg's error (don't be fooled by the conspiracy theorists - if Mercedes really wanted Hamilton to win, there are many more fool-proof and less obvious methods of fixing a result that a team could deploy) denied us the latest installment in the brewing rivalry between the title protagonists.

Still, there was no shortage of wheel-banging further down the order to keep me gripped for the whole 53 laps of action. The race, as is often the case at Monza, felt like it was over very quickly - in 79 minutes in fact, as opposed to 102 at Hungary last year. Perhaps it's time that the FIA established a minimum length for Grands Prix as well as a maximum one.

A lack of success for Ferrari didn't appear to dampen the atmosphere too much in my grandstand, which unexpectedly featured a mammoth Danish contingent who whooped with joy when their hero Kevin Magnussen snatched fifth on the grid in the dying moments of qualifying. When they realised that the McLaren driver had made his way up to second at the start of the race, the grandstand virtually erupted!

The travelling Danes would have felt very aggrieved at Magnussen's penalty for forcing Valtteri Bottas off the road at the first chicane, and rightly so. The incident mirrored that of Hamilton and Rosberg at Spa, with Bottas cast in the role of the latter. That the Finn decided to straight-line the chicane instead of risk a collision with the car he was trying to pass - as Rosberg did two weeks beforehand - should not have earned Magnussen a penalty.

Nevertheless, that was the only real sour note of the weekend, which culminated in getting to walk the track from the start/finish straight up to the Roggia chicane after the legendary track invasion had died down. Again, actually being able to walk the very tarmac on which the F1 drivers had been battling half an hour beforehand was an incredible sensory experience.

Anything not nailed down got pinched by the tifosi, including all the bollards at the first chicane that Rosberg had to negotiate when he relinquished the lead of the race to Hamilton, many of the Rolex and Santander advertising hoardings, and - most hilariously of all - the enormous polystyrene marker at the start of the DRS zone, which was being manhandled by a Ferrari fan at Porta Garibaldi station!

It was a fitting end to a hugely enjoyable weekend at Monza, a track to which I certainly hope to return in the near future. If you're contemplating going abroad to watch a Grand Prix next year, it's one I would urge you to consider visiting.

2014 MotoGP rider numbers explained

2014-08-28T20:29:00.000+01:00

How and why this each of this year's crop of F1 drivers chose their new-for-2014 personalised race numbers has been well documented, but, with the tradition having been established in MotoGP for over a decade now, some of the stories behind the race numbers are harder to discover.

After much trawling across the web to find the reasons behind each of this year's riders' number choices, I have been able to find detailed descriptions for some, while others remain a mystery. If you have any more information on any of the rider numbers for which I haven't been able to find a satisfactory explanation, please don't hesitate to leave a comment!

Andrea Dovizioso - 4

Dovizioso originally used number 34 in his early career as a tribute to his childhood hero Kevin Schwantz, but with the number having been retired in the premier class in respect of the legendary American, 'Dovi' simply decided to ditch the first digit when he reached MotoGP.

Colin Edwards - 5

Upon joining MotoGP fresh from winning the World Superbike championship for a second time, Edwards ran the number 45, which dated back to his days in the AMA series. But, after finishing fifth in the 2004 championship, 'The Texas Tornado' decided to change to 5, which he'd previously carried in World Superbikes in 1999, in the hope it would bring him more luck.

Stefan Bradl - 6

Bradl adopted the number 65 when he joined the ranks in Moto2 in deference to a sponsor, having used 17 during most of his 125cc career. But, with 65 retired in MotoGP respect of Loris Capirossi, Bradl - like Dovizioso - got around the problem by dropping a digit. If you look closely, you can just about make out a '5' inside the black '6' formed by a series of thin red and yellow lines.

Hiroshi Aoyama - 7

Another rider to change his number upon entering MotoGP, Aoyama had used number 4 (assigned to him after finishing fourth in the 250cc standings in 2005), but with that already taken by Dovizioso, he switched to 7. The Japanese claims it's in memory of his late compatriot Daijiro Kato, who ran 74, a number which has also been retired. at the time of his fatal crash at Suzuka in 2003,

Hector Barbera - 8

Barbera claims to have always liked number 8, but used number 80 for much of his early career as the number was taken by other riders. His MotoGP debut was made using 40, again at the behest of a sponsor (Maverick Vinales currently bears the same number in Moto2 in the same style), but in 2011 Barbera was able to finally begin using the number he wanted all along.

Danilo Petrucci - 9

Having used number 9 throughout his time in World Superstock, Petrucci continued with the number when he moved to MotoGP in 2012.

Karel Abraham - 17

Abraham switched to 17 when he entered the 250cc class in 2007, having used 44 prior to that, and chose to keep it upon graduating to MotoGP in 2011.

Alvaro Bautista - 19

19 has been the number used by Bautista ever since he made his full-time Grand Prix debut in the 125cc class back in 2003. For a trio of one-off appearances in the lightweight class the previous year, he used 51.

Broc Parkes - 23

Parkes has carried number 23 since making his debut in World Supersport in 2003, keeping it for his MotoGP debut this year. During his two-year stint in World Superbikes in 2001-2, he used numbers 36 and 12.

Dani Pedrosa - 26

The ubiquitous 26 is a legacy of Pedrosa being one of the first three riders (the others being Toni Elias and Joan Olive) taken under the wing of former MotoGP rider Alberto Puig, who devoted his efforts to unearthing new talent after his own career came to an end.

Puig had assigned numbers 24, 25 and 26 to his trio of young charges in the 2001 125cc class, Pedrosa getting 26 - and the Spaniard has stuck with it since, except for a two-year period in 2008-09 where he used number 2 and 3 to reflect his championship placing of the previous year.

NB: Casey Stoner, famous for using 27 throughout most of his career, was another rider picked up by Puig, who simply continued the sequence started in 2001 when he assigned the Australian rider a number to use on his 250cc debut in 2002.

Andrea Iannone - 29

Iannone began his career bearing number 9 (the date of his birthday), but decided to add the 2 used by his brother Angelo when he stopped racing to form 29, which the Italian has used throughout his MotoGP career.

Cal Crutchlow - 35

35 has been the number worn by Crutchlow since his British Supersport debut a decade ago, the Briton having stuck with it through British Superbikes, World Supersport, World Superbikes and his four years of MotoGP. He began his career using 5, but when that wasn't available he simply decided to attach a 3 to it to form the now-familiar 35.

Bradley Smith - 38

Smith has used the number 38 throughout his MotoGP career, starting with his maiden 125cc campaign in 2006, although he frequently used the similar-looking 88 in his early career.

Aleix Espargaro - 41

The elder of the Espargaro brothers idolised sometime 125cc rider Youichi Ui, who ran with the number 41. Aleix has always used 41 for that very reason since making his full-time 125cc debut in 2005, although he was forced to change to 42 (as 41 was in use) during his part-time 250cc campaign in 2006 and to 40 in Moto2 in deference to the same sponsor that forced Barbera (see above) to change.

Pol Espargaro - 44

Espargaro the younger has used 44 since he joined the 125cc class full-time in 2007, but for the same reason as his brother, Pol was forced to ditch it in favour of 40 for a two-year stint in Moto2 with the Pons team.

Scott Redding - 45

Since making his 125cc debut in 2008, Redding has never veered from his favoured number 45, wearing it throughout his time in Moto2 and in his debut MotoGP season.

Valentino Rossi - 46

The most famous of all the MotoGP numbers, Rossi began his career in the 125cc class in 1996 with the number 46 used by his father Graziano when he took his three Grand Prix wins in 1979. In fact, it was Rossi who really sparked the trend of riders keeping a particular number for their whole careers.

In 2001, the first five riders from the previous year's standings - besides Rossi, who finished second but stuck resolutely to his lucky number 46 - used numbers 1 to 5 according to traditional methodology. The following year, Rossi eschewed the coveted #1 plate that he had earned the right to use, becoming the first champion to do since Barry Sheene in 1978.

Meanwhile, virtually every other rider in 2002 stuck to their number from the previous season. Since then, on only sporadic occasions have riders in MotoGP taken the number of their championship finish from the previous year, with the #1 plate having become something of a rare find in any form of motorcycle racing.

It would be a great surprise if 46 didn't join Schwantz's 34, Capirossi's 65 and Kato's 74 on the FIM's list of retired numbers when Rossi decides to hang up his leathers.

Mike di Meglio - 63

Di Meglio hasn't wavered from the number 63 he used on his Grand Prix debut in 2003 in the 125cc class, carrying it all the way up to MotoGP for his debut season in 2014.

Yonny Hernandez - 68

Hernandez is a relative newcomer to the MotoGP paddock, having only made his debut in 2010 in the Moto2 class, and has used number 68 throughout his fledgling career.

Nicky Hayden - 69

Like Rossi, Hayden has opted to use the same number used by his father for most of his career. His Earl Hayden is said to have used 69 because it looked the same upside down - handy for whenever he crashed - and Nicky adopted it for his career, wearing it for his two seasons of AMA Superbikes and maintaining it for his MotoGP debut in 2003.

The 'Kentucky Kid' has used it every season since, except for when he exercised his right to use the #1 plate in 2007 as reigning champion - incidentally, the first appearance for the #1 since 2001 as a result of Rossi's refusal to use it in the intervening years.

Michael Laverty - 70

During his final three years in British Superbikes from 2010 to 2012, Laverty had made the number 7 his own, having used 33, 2, 4 and 8 in previous seasons in various classes. With 7 already belonging to Aoyama when Laverty made his MotoGP bow in 2013, he adopted the next best thing, 70, although some provisional entry lists for that season have the Ulsterman listed as number 33, his original BSB number.

Marc Marquez - 93

The reasoning behind Marquez's 93, which he has used since his Spanish 125cc days, is quite simple - much like this writer, he was born in the year 1993. He could have used the #1 plate in 2014, but like his spiritual predecessor Rossi he chose not to - meaning it could be a while before the #1 next returns to use...

Jorge Lorenzo - 99

Lorenzo started out in the 125cc class in 2002 using number 48, which is the number his then-manager Dani Amatriain had used during his career. He switched to #1 in 2007 after winning the 250cc title the preceding year, reverting to 48 when he graduated to the premier class in 2008 after winning the intermediate class title a second time.

By 2009, Lorenzo had split with Amatriain, and decided to hold a vote for his fans to decide whether he should continue to use 48 or switch to a new number. 23, 87 and 99 were the alternatives the Mallorcan proposed, with 99 getting the nod. He switched to #1 (using a neat design incorporating his initials) in 2011 as per his right as reigning champion, but interestingly chose to stick with 99 after winning his second MotoGP title in 2012.

This article will be updated should any fresh information comes to light.

F1 Mid-season Driver Ratings 2014

2014-08-16T12:08:00.001+01:00

With the F1 fraternity enjoying the last week of its summer break before returning to action at Spa-Francorchamps next weekend, it's time to reveal my mid-season driver ratings in what has so far been a spectacular season of racing:

Lewis Hamilton (GB, Mercedes) 2nd in Championship, 5 wins, 4 poles, 191pts
Rating: A-

Had this post been written just after the Spanish Grand Prix, where Hamilton took a fourth successive win after another tight battle with Nico Rosberg, it would be hard to award the Briton anything other than full marks. But, since that infamous qualifying session in Monaco, it's the German who has gained the upper hand between the two Mercedes team-mates.

One particularly illuminating stat is that every time Hamilton hasn't been on pole, he has been outqualified by Rosberg - a poor reflection on a driver whose single lap pace is often regarded as his strongest suit. Admittedly, car troubles at Hockenheim and the Hungaroring have played their part, but then again so have crucial errors at the Red Bull Ring and Silverstone.

Hamilton was fortunate that gearbox failure for Rosberg at Silverstone allowed him to claw back precious ground in the championship, but his recovery drives at the following two races were both masterclasses in damage limitation. Beating his title adversary at Hungary despite his pitlane start in particular will have given the 2008 champion a vital psychological boost going into the latter half of the year.

Nico Rosberg (D, Mercedes) 1st in Championship, 4 wins, 6 poles, 202 pts
Rating: A

After the Spanish Grand Prix, where Rosberg was beaten by Hamilton for a fourth time in succession, many were beginning to question whether the destiny of the title was already decided; whether the German could possibly mount a fight-back from such a position of weakness. But, since then, Rosberg has lived up to the title favourite billing with which many observers had assigned him pre-season.

Whatever your thoughts on the events of qualifying at Monaco, it was Rosberg who had set the quicker first run in Q3 - going on to outqualify Hamilton in the next three races. The points leader was also unfortunate to lose potential victories in both Canada and Britain to mechanical woes, while the timing of the safety car in Hungary was also unfortunate, though that doesn't fully excuse Rosberg from ultimately finishing behind his team-mate.

It's unlikely that Rosberg is going to have a better opportunity to win the title than the one he has this season, and so far he has proven he has both the speed and the mental fortitude to get the job done. Unreliability has had a part in tilting the scales in Nico's favour, but his sheer consistency and coolness in the face of adversity have played an equally important role.

Sebastian Vettel (D, Red Bull) 6th in Championship, 2 podiums, 88pts
Rating: B

A combination of Mercedes supremacy and the loss of the exhaust-blown diffuser meant that Vettel was always going to be in for a harder time in 2014 than he had become accustomed to in his championship years. But, few could have predicted the struggle the four-time champion has endured in his bid to get on top of the new regulations, as well as his ultra-quick new team-mate Daniel Ricciardo.

Indeed, on just one occasion when both Red Bull cars have finished has Vettel beaten Ricciardo, on home turf at Hockenheim, where the latter lost time avoiding the Massa-Magnussen collision, while the German has been soundly beaten in qualifying 7-4. That's not to say that Vettel has driven poorly, but he has clearly failed to extract the most from the RB10 this year.

Daniel Ricciardo (AU, Red Bull) 3rd in Championship, 2 wins, 131pts
Rating: A+

The only man not blessed with a Mercedes to have tasted victory this season, Ricciardo has started to deliver on the promise shown in his junior career and his two years at Toro Rosso, becoming a bona fide part of the sport's elite crop of drivers. In fact, he's been the revelation of the season, making his far more illustrious team-mate Vettel look rather average by comparison.

Finishing second in front of his home fans prior to his disqualification at Melbourne set the tone for a season that has been full of great drives, Ricciardo shaking off his previous reputation of being a strong qualifier but a mediocre racer. Both of his wins in Canada and Hungary may have owed something to good fortune, but on each occasion the Aussie made the most of the golden opportunity presented to him.

Fernando Alonso (E, Ferrari) 4th in Championship, 2 podiums, 115pts
Rating: A+

Despite the enormous frustration of Ferrari being yet again unable to provide him with a title contending car in 2014, Alonso has done nothing to dissuade his supporters of their view that he remains the best driver in the business. Indeed, while team-mate Kimi Raikkonen has finished inside the top six just once, the Spaniard has managed to finish in at least that position at every race bar one - at Bahrain, where he sarcastically celebrated a ninth place finish at a track where the F14 T's deficiencies were ruthlessly exposed.

The highlight undoubtedly came in Hungary, where a gamble on tyre strategy very nearly yielded the unlikeliest of victories. It was nevertheless refreshing to see Alonso back in the spotlight having finished a superb second, after so many races where similar heroics have gone rather unnoticed amid a backdrop of Mercedes domination.

Kimi Raikkonen (FIN, Ferrari) 12th in Championship, 27pts
Rating: D

Unquestionably the disappointment of the season, Raikkonen has for much of 2014 seemed a shadow of his former self, struggling to adapt to the handling characteristics of this year's new breed of machinery. Beating Alonso was always going to be a tall order, but nobody was expecting the Finn to be trounced quite so soundly by the two-time champion heading into the season.

The statistics in this regard speak for themselves: just twice this season has Raikkonen out-qualified Alonso in 11 races, while the Finn hasn't finished ahead once. The fact he was denied a likely podium by a collision with backmarker Max Chilton at Monaco - the one circuit where Raikkonen looked to truly have the measure of Alonso - just about summed up his year so far. Will it be his last in the sport?

Jenson Button (GB, McLaren) 8th in Championship, 1 podium, 60pts
Rating: B+

Casual observers would be forgiven for thinking that, considering all the speculation surrounding his future, Button has suffered a rather mediocre season thus far. But, the reality is that the Brit has performed consistently well given the limitations of his machinery, responding positively to the threat of new team-mate Kevin Magnussen after the shock of being beaten first time out at Melbourne.

The qualifying battle between the pair stands at 6-5 in Button's favour, fourth places at Montreal and Silverstone ranking as the 34-year-old's best performances of the season. But, while he has had the measure of Magnussen at the vast majority of races this year, anything less would have been considered disastrous - you still can't help but wonder whether Button is the right man to lead McLaren going forward.

Kevin Magnussen (DK, McLaren) 10th in Championship, 1 podium, 37pts
Rating: B

Hopes were already high for Magnussen when he arrived as the sport's new kid on the block at Melbourne, and after a phenomenal drive to second at the curtain-raiser, comparisons with Hamilton, the last rookie McLaren took a chance on, were being bandied about with eyebrow-raising frequency. That pressure might explain why Magnussen's subsequent performances were slightly more fraught, notwithstanding his machinery's competitive slump.

That he has the speed to challenge team-mate Button isn't in doubt; but his inexperience at stringing together complete race weekends had been evident. More recently however, Magnussen has begun to mature into a more consistent performer, his seventh place finish at Austria standing out as his most impressive post-Australia result. Expect him to give \Button a harder time from now until the end of the year.

Felipe Massa (BR, Williams) 9th in Championship, 1 pole, 40pts
Rating: B-

If Massa knew deep down during his time at Ferrari that matching the standard set by Alonso would be nigh-on impossible, he must have arrived at Williams this season confident of putting upstart team-mate Valtteri Bottas in his place. But, far from stamping his authority over the far less experienced Finn, the veteran Brazilian has been outscored by a ratio of two-to-one and outqualified 7-4.

True enough, plenty of points have gone begging thanks to incidents that weren't his fault and team blunders early in the year, but Massa hasn't made enough of the pace of the Williams when things have gone his way - Austria, where he took pole but lost out to Bottas to come home fourth, being a prime example. His self-inflicted retirement at Hockenheim was also inexcusable for a driver of Massa's experience.

Valtteri Bottas (FIN, Williams) 5th in Championship, 3 podiums, 95pts
Rating: A

If Ricciardo has been the stand-out young driver of 2014 so far, then Bottas has to come a close second, spearheading this year's Williams renaissance and convincingly shading stablemate Massa. The only major error the Finn has made all season was at Melbourne, where he threw away a likely second place, but he has atoned for that more recently with three consecutive podium visits.

The first of these came at Austria, Bottas beating polesitting teammate Massa in a straight fight to clinch the final podium spot behind the two Mercedes. His charge from 14th on the grid to second at Silverstone was one of the drives of the season, while holding off Hamilton to repeat the result two weeks later at Hockenheim was another measured performance by a driver who seems destined for big things.

Nico Hulkenberg (D, Force India), 7th in Championship, 69pts
Rating: B+

Returning to Force India after a season at Sauber, Hulkenberg has proven solid rather than spectacular this year so far. Where team-mate Sergio Perez took the team's most eye-catching result with third at Bahrain, Hulkenberg hasn't finished higher than fifth - though he has done so on four occasions, scoring the lion's share of Force India's constructors' points as a result.

The German has also outqualified his younger team-mate 9-2, and, prior to the Hungarian Grand Prix, he shared the honour with Alonso of being the only driver to have scored points in every race. His ill-judged overtaking move on Perez nonetheless left the Ferrari driver in a class of one in that respect, but that has been the sole blot on an otherwise very neat copybook.

Sergio Perez (MEX, Force India), 11th in Championship, 1 podium, 29pts
Rating: B-

While Perez was massively unlucky to join McLaren last season at the team's lowest ebb in over 30 years, the Mexican has equally proved fortunate to have arrived at Force India just as the Silverstone-based team has got itself in a position to fight for its best ever constructors' finish. Indeed, a superb podium finish at Bahrain by Perez immediately bettered his best finish of fifth achieved last season.

But, since then, things have been decidedly up-and-down for the 24-year-old. He cost himself potential strong finishes at both Monaco and Canada, where, in hindsight, Perez should have been more circumspect defending from Massa given his car's brake problems. A storming drive to sixth at Austria followed, but Perez needs to find more consistency if he's ever to put himself back in contention for a top-line drive.

The Rest

It would be fair to say that Jean-Eric Vergne (B) faced an impossible task this season this season having missed out on the promotion to Red Bull to Ricciardo, but it's one he has performed admirably in spite of Toro Rosso's poor reliability, picking up four points finishes and out-qualifying his team-mate 6-5.

Vergne's only problem is that his team-mate is Daniil Kvyat (B+), who became the sport's youngest ever points-scorer at Melbourne and has belied his inexperience with his consistent pace since. The Russian is already shaping up nicely as Red Bull's next star to slot alongside Ricciardo when Vettel decides to leave, leaving Vergne in a rather tricky situation.

Romain Grosjean (B) has had to endure a trying season with Lotus after his heroics in the second half of 2013, squeezing just eight points out of what has been the worst car to come out of Enstone in more than a decade. Qualifying fifth at Spain was a particular highlight for the Frenchman, who has done more than enough to warrant better machinery for next year.

Indeed, Grosjean has hammered team-mate Pastor Maldonado (E), who despite now being in his fourth season in F1 continues to make errors that would be barely excusable for a novice. Worse still, he's been outqualified 10-1 by Grosjean - and qualifying is meant to be the Venezuelan's forté. He must be breathing a sigh of relief that his PDVSA backing has bought him at least one more season with Lotus.

Adrian Sutil (C) is hardly one to outperform the machinery at his disposal, so it shouldn't come as any real surprise that he's yet to get on the scoreboard in this year's dismal Sauber, a pair of 11th places standing as the German's best results. Whether he keeps his seat for next year will largely depend on money, though this year has arguably proved that the 31-year-old is past his sell-by date at this level.

The fate of Esteban Gutierrez (D) will also be determined primarily by what cash is available, but on merit the young Mexican has done little to suggest he deserves a third season at Sauber. He has outqualified Sutil 6-5, but his race performances have largely been scrappy, with his mistake at Monaco costing the Hinwil-based team its only realistic shot at points this season so far.

Jules Bianchi (A-) on the other hand was superb at Monaco, his reward being the first two points of his career and Marussia's existence. The Frenchman, who has also made two Q2 visits in the least three races, has predictably had the measure of team-mate Max Chilton (C-) and is surely set for greener pastures next year while the Brit's F1 career looks to be heading nowhere fast.

It's been a difficult return to the sport for Caterham's Kamui Kobayashi (C+), who has done about as well as could be expected, even making Q2 in Melbourne, but is nonetheless far from certain to see out the year. Marcus Ericsson (D) meanwhile has been singularly unspectacular, never qualifying higher than 20th; the Swede needs to do more relative to his team-mate if he ever wants to shake off his 'pay driver' tag.

MotoGP Mid-season Rider Ratings

2014-07-29T17:21:00.001+01:00

With nine races down and nine still to go in this year's MotoGP season, it's time to take stock and grade each of the riders on the grid for their performances so far. There are no prizes for guessing who has earned the best rating, but further down the order it's been a mixed bag. Read on for my verdicts:

Marc Marquez (E, Repsol Honda) - 1st in Championship, 9 wins, 7 poles, 225pts
Rating: A+

What more is there to say about this Spanish sensation that hasn't already been said? Other riders have achieved similar dominance in the sport's history - John Surtees, Mike Hailwood, Giacomo Agostini, Mick Doohan and Valentino Rossi, to name a few - but none of them have done so in the face of such stiff opposition as that encountered by Marquez.

Two-time champion Jorge Lorenzo, Repsol Honda teammate Dani Pedrosa and a resurgent Rossi have all been made to look average this season by the 21-year-old, whose ability to carve his way through the field when out of position and to defend from the sternest of attacks has been utterly peerless this year.

With nine successive wins now under his belt, the only remaining question mark surrounding Marquez's season is just how long he can keep up this incredible streak; that bookmakers are offering odds as low as 9/2 for him to win each of the remaining races tells you all you need to know about the magnitude of his talent.

Dani Pedrosa (E, Repsol Honda) - 2nd in Championship, 7 podiums, 1 pole, 148pts
Rating: B+

With Marquez running rampant in the other side of the Repsol Honda garage, it's impossible not to feel some pity for Pedrosa. Arguably, the 28-year-old has missed his best chances of shaking off the tag of being the greatest rider in MotoGP history without a premier-class title to his name - especially now he has committed himself to Honda for a further two seasons alongside Marquez.

That said, there has been some cause for optimism in recent races: after two particularly subdued outings at Le Mans and Mugello, Catalunya saw Pedrosa only narrowly lose out to Marquez in a close duel for supremacy, whilst Dani kept his younger teammate honest at the Sachsenring despite never getting quite close enough to mount a veritable challenge.

The title is of course now out of the question, but if Pedrosa can continue to make life as hard for Marquez as he has managed to in recent rounds, the chances are that he'll be able to best the reigning champion on at least one occasion before the year is out. Doing so will be vital to rebuilding the confidence needed to mount a renewed title assault next year.

Jorge Lorenzo (Movistar Yamaha) - 5th in Championship, 3 podiums, 97pts
Rating: B-

Having lost out to Marquez in last year's title race by such a narrow margin, it seemed that 2014 could well have proved to be the second chapter in a compelling rivalry between he and Lorenzo for supremacy. But, some crucial errors combined with a failure to adapt to the new generation of Bridgestone tyres has left Lorenzo lagging badly behind his main rivals in the points standings.

An early fall from the lead at Qatar and a jump start at Austin marked a downright dreadful start to the year for the Mallorcan, though the nadir of his year was unquestionably his tentative ride to 13th in the wet at Assen, the scene of his collarbone-breaking incident last year.

That said, Lorenzo's nail-biting dice with Marquez at Mugello served as a timely reminder of just what the two-time champion is capable of when he's fully in sync with his bike, whilst his third place last time out in Germany ahead of teammate Rossi will come as a much-needed confidence booster heading into the latter half of the year. He'll certainly need to build some momentum heading into 2015 if he is to have any chance of halting the Marquez juggernaut.

Valentino Rossi (I, Movistar Yamaha) - 3rd in Championship, 5 podiums, 141pts
Rating: A

Coming into the season, aged 35 and having made the unpopular decision of jettisoning long-time crew chief Jerry Burgess at the end of 2013, Rossi was in last-chance saloon. His contract was up for renewal at the end of the year, the Italian giving himself just six races to decide whether or not to call it a day at the end of the year.

But, if the story of 2014 so far has been Marquez's domination, then Rossi's rejuvenation has to rank as the main subplot. Losing out to the Spaniard by the narrowest margins at Qatar set the tone, the Yamaha rider backing this result up with further second places at Jerez, Le Mans and Catalunya, as well as a spirited recovery to fifth at Assen from a pit-lane start in the sort of conditions in which 'The Doctor' so often revels.

Indeed, Rossi has more often than not had the measure of his teammate Lorenzo, his reward being a contract extension that will see him remain in the sport for a further two years - which is excellent news for all MotoGP fans. You'd be brave to bet against the seven-time champion adding to his already incredible haul of 80 premier class victories in that time.

Andrea Dovizioso (I, Ducati Team) - 4th in Championship, 2 podiums, 99pts
Rating: A

Transcending the limits of your bike is always the mark of a great rider, and that's precisely what Dovizioso has done so far this season in his second year aboard the recalcitrant Ducati. And while it's unfortunate that the talented 28-year-old doesn't have a faster bike with which to ply his trade, at least the Italian manufacturer, now under the stewardship of Gigi Dall'Igna, looks to be making tangible progress.

After a year devoid of podium finishes in 2013, Dovizioso has already made two visits to the rostrum this season, finishing a strong third at Austin behind the two Repsol Honda riders before making a return visit in Assen in the wet - always an ideal opportunity to show what you're truly made of. In between, the Italian has maximised his points-scoring opportunities at just about every race to lie fourth in the standings heading into the summer break.

Having been fairly evenly matched with teammate Nicky Hayden last year, Dovizioso has firmly stamped his authority on new arrival Cal Crutchlow, with whom he was paired at Tech 3 in 2012. The benefit of a year's experience of the Ducati modus operandi has helped, but then so has the fact that 'Dovi' is riding as well as any previous stage in his career right now - or indeed as well as anyone else on the grid bar Marquez.

Cal Crutchlow (GB, Ducati Team) - 14th in Championship, 28pts
Rating: C-

History shows that, unless your name is Casey Stoner, your first season with Ducati tends to be a fairly bruising experience. And, in Crutchlow's case, such has been the case quite literally, the popular Coventry rider having had to miss the third round of the year in Argentina after injuring his hand in a crash during the previous race in Austin.

The year started well enough with a solid ride to sixth place at Qatar (albeit a full 16 seconds shy of teammate Dovizioso) on an evening when many of his rivals contrived to throw their bikes into the scenery, but thereafter Crutchlow has garnered a rather meagre 18 points - thanks partially to unreliability at Jerez and Catalunya, but also to his alleged struggles to adapt to the riding position of his Ducati mount.

Such has been the degree of the Brit's struggles that he's been eclipsed not only by Dovizioso but also by Pramac rider Andrea Iannone, who would surely have been promoted to the factory team if not for the fact that Crutchlow is contracted to remain at Ducati for one more year. Let's hope, then, as has been the case for Dovizioso, Cal's second season with the Bologna marque is a far happier one.

Stefan Bradl (D, LCR Honda) - 9th in Championship, 56pts
Rating: B-

Now in his third season at MotoGP level, it seems Bradl is in danger of being eclipsed by a new generation of young riders. After an explosive start to the season at Qatar, where the LCR Honda man led before undoing all his hard work with a crash at one-third distance, Bradl has struggled to be a regular fixture at the very sharp end of the grid.

He finished a strong fourth at Austin, and banked top-five finishes at Argentina and Catalunya, but has been anonymous elsewhere. He of course led the opening laps of his home race at the Sachsenring as every other factory rider opted for a pit-lane start, but was on a hiding to nothing with a bike set up for the wet on a rapidly drying track, plummeting down the order before eventually trailing home 16th.

It was a shame the gamble squandered his first front-row grid slot since Austin, especially at a time when his future hangs in the balance. Team boss Lucio Cecchinello is said to be keen on retaining Bradl, but rumour has it that HRC wants Moto3 points leader Jack Miller to take over the seat. Whether or not LCR is able to expand to a two-bike line-up is therefore likely to be key to the former Moto2 champion's fate.

Alvaro Bautista (E, Gresini Honda) - 10th in Championship, 1 podium, 50pts
Rating: C+

You could say that Bautista's season has been fairly similar to that of his fellow satellite Honda rider Bradl, only with higher peaks and deeper troughs. Where the German's best result of the year thus far has been fourth place, Bautista was able to clinch an impressive third place at Le Mans; equally, while Bradl has made just one trip to the gravel that could be described as his fault, the Spaniard has had three.

That's an unacceptable number of points squandered for a rider of Bautista's experience, and rather a surprise after a remarkably consistent latter half of 2013. There have been times when he's had the clear measure of Bradl, notably at Jerez and Le Mans, but direct comparisons between the pair are misleading given that the Gresini man is the sole factory rider in the field using Showa suspension and Nissin brakes.

It seems all but certain Bautista will have to make way for Open class teammate Scott Redding next season, which means that the 29-year-old will be relying on Aprilia to push forward their planned MotoGP return by one year if he's to remain aboard factory machinery. Otherwise, there could be an opening at Aspar, which may not be a bad place to be next year ahead of standard ECUs being introduced across the board in 2016.

Bradley Smith (GB, Tech 3 Yamaha) - 11th in Championship, 48pts
Rating: C

"I have to give them no option," Smith said coming into the season, referring to his mission to secure a factory seat in 2015. But, such has been the mediocrity of his sophomore campaign so far, it appears he is giving his current Tech 3 squad little option but to leave the young Oxfordshire rider in search of alternative employment next year.

It all started so promisingly for Smith at Qatar, taking his best-ever grid slot with third place and sticking with the lead bunch until a late fall cost him the chance of a top-five finish. He redeemed himself with a feisty ride to fifth at Austin, but has failed to crack the top half-dozen since, having been soundly outpaced by rookie teammate Pol Espargaro at just about every race since his team's home round at Le Mans.

Consistency was perhaps Smith's biggest virtue last season, but even that seems to have deserted the 23-year-old, who has crashed three times in nine races in his desperation to impress the factory teams. Now the most coveted rides look to be locked down for another two seasons, Smith can shift his focus to convincing Tech 3 to keep him for a third season, though he'll need to up his game considerably to do so.

Pol Espargaro (E, Tech 3 Yamaha) - 7th in Championship, 67pts
Rating: B

Of all the riders in MotoGP currently, Espargaro is arguably under the most under pressure of all. Why? Because, with Rossi in the twilight of his career and Lorenzo struggling to recapture his best form, Yamaha need an answer to the phenomenon that is Marquez, and the reigning Moto2 champion may well prove to be the best response they have in the medium-term.

Bearing that in mind, it's perhaps understandable that the first few rounds for the younger of the two Espargaro brothers were somewhat low-key, but glimpses of his future potential have started to show. The turning point was at Le Mans, where, after qualifying second, he was tantalisingly close to his maiden podium finish before being pipped at the last by Bautista - on a day where teammate Smith struggled home to 10th.

Since then, it's not been much of a contest between the Tech 3 riders, with Espargaro seemingly first in line for a promotion to the works Yamaha squad when Lorenzo departs. That's highly unlikely to happen next year, with all the other factory seats ostensibly decided (bar Aprilia, who may or may not be present), but seeing Pol take the fight to Marquez on a works bike in 2016 is far from beyond the realms of possibility.

Andrea Iannone (I, Pramac Ducati) - 8th in Championship, 62pts
Rating: A-

After a fairly quiet debut season aboard the Pramac Ducati last year, Iannone has started to come of age as a MotoGP rider in 2014, establishing himself as one of the brightest future prospects in the series with a series of eye-catching rides. The first of these came at the second round in Austin, where he incredibly ran third, ahead of Dovizioso's factory-spec machine, for around two thirds of the race.

But his best performance of all was on home soil at Mugello. Having qualified an outstanding second, less than two tenths adrift of pole-sitter Marquez, he led briefly and ran inside the top five for the majority of the race before slumping to seventh in the closing laps. There have been one or two blots on his copybook, such as his clash with Nicky Hayden at Le Mans, but that's to be expected for a rider of his level of experience.

Iannone had been angling for a promotion to the full works squad, which seemed inevitable before Ducati announced it would be retaining its existing line-up. Rather than take the risk of signing with series returnees Suzuki, the 24-year-old will now remain at Pramac next year, albeit with the same specification bike as the factory boys - don't be surprised if the rider they call 'Crazy Joe' proves quicker than either in 2015.

Aleix Espargaro (E, Forward Racing) - 6th in Championship, 1 pole, 77pts
Rating: A

If Espargaro's decision to spurn Aspar in favour of Forward Racing ahead of this season was regarded as something of a risk by the MotoGP fraternity, it's one that has certainly paid dividends for the rider who has consistently proven the outstanding rider of the Open (née CRT) class since its inception in 2012.

This year's Forward machine may amount to little more than a two-year-old Yamaha M1 with standard electronics, but Espargaro has made considerably better use of such machinery than his struggling teammate Colin Edwards, having been the first Open class rider across the line at every race bar Argentina. An outright pole position achieved in the wet of Assen served to further underline the 24-year-old's sheer class.

Such heroics make one wonder what Espargaro might be capable of with a more competitive bike at his disposal. There was talk of Aleix heading to Tech 3 to join brother Pol, but it now appears that the elder of the Espargaro brothers is Suzuki-bound for 2015. Having done more than enough to deserve a shot on a winning bike, he'll be hoping the Japanese manufacturer can supply exactly that in the next couple of seasons.

The Rest:

The lack of the Honda RCV1000R's competitiveness this season will have come as a disappointment to Scott Redding (B+), but the Gresini rider has been the first of the Open Honda quartet home on four of a possible nine occasions despite his class rookie status - with a promotion to the factory machine next season in place of Bautista looking very likely.

The Gloucestershire rider's main opposition has come in the form of Aspar's Nicky Hayden (B), who has struggled somewhat with wrist pain since his crash at Le Mans; fingers crossed that the surgery the 2006 champion recently underwent will allow him to return to peak form in time for his next home race at Indianapolis.

Hiroshi Aoyama (C), aboard the second Aspar bike, has only beat his teammate twice when they've both finished and needs to be doing more in order to be sure of retaining his seat, while Karel Abraham (C) has largely been similarly unspectacular aboard the Cardion Honda - although his ride is decidedly more secure.

Yonny Hernandez (B-) seems to have tamed his wild streak of 2013 somewhat, having finished every race, but as the sole Open class Ducati representative it is very difficult to pass accurate judgement on the Colombian, who is hoping to be given the latest-spec machinery by the Italian manufacturer next season.

The same cannot be said for the elder statesman of the grid, Colin Edwards (D-), who has scored just eight points all year while his Forward Racing teammate Aleix Espargaro has regularly mixed it with the factory bikes - it's a crying shame that the popular Texan's career is set to come to a close in such ignominious fashion.

Hector Barbera (B) has done well to squeeze two points out of a hopelessly uncompetitive Avintia-Kawasaki, and will be hoping that the team's switch to Open class Ducati machinery heralds a rise up the pecking order next year. The Spaniard has easily had the measure of teammate and class rookie Mike Di Meglio (C-).

Ioda Racing's Danilo Petrucci (B-) has performed admirably in spite of missing four races due to wrist injury, while Broc Parkes (C) earns a superior grade to teammate Michael Laverty (C-) solely for the best underdog ride of the year yet which yielded an 11th place at Assen aboard the unfancied PBM machine.

The 2014 Silly Season Gets Underway

2014-07-10T11:17:00.002+01:00

Speculation over which drivers are heading where for the following season seems to begin earlier and earlier each year in Formula One, and this year's silly season now appears to have kicked off in earnest following comments from McLaren boss Ron Dennis in the run-up to last weekend's British Grand Prix that Jenson Button needs to "try harder".

The Briton responded to this jibe in the best possible way at Silverstone, taking his best result since the season opener at Melbourne and coming within a second of breaking his podium duck at his home circuit, but it appears to be accepted wisdom that McLaren have been knocking on the door of potential replacements for Button in the form of both Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton.

While it would take a peculiar set of circumstances indeed to compel the latter to re-join the very team he spurned at the end of 2014 to join the now-dominant Mercedes outfit, a return to McLaren for Alonso is a somewhat more viable prospect, albeit not the near-certainty it seemed six months ago prior to Dennis' return to prominence at Woking.

Prior to his dismissal as McLaren team principal, Martin Whitmarsh is understood to have been angling for Alonso to return, travelling to Madrid late last year in a bid to arrange a pre-agreement of sorts with the Spaniard - who himself told the media last year that any lingering resentments towards the team over his tempestuous 2007 season were because of "one man", in whose absence he would have no problem returning.

The man to which Alonso was referring is of course Dennis, but if the two-time champion was to arrive at the conclusion that McLaren and Honda are more likely to provide him with a title-winning car than Ferrari, any personal disagreements would surely be cast aside; equally, it's difficult to see Dennis taking issue to welcoming back to his team the man that many still rate as the very best on the grid.

With Alonso staring down the barrel of his first win-free season since he joined Ferrari, the possibility of jumping ship at the end of the year must surely have crossed his mind on more than one occasion - but with Mercedes and Red Bull all but certain to retain their existing driver line-ups, returning to McLaren is the only other viable option besides staying put at the Scuderia.

But, it's a risky choice: Honda's past success is by no means a guarantee that the Japanese firm's 2015 engine will be of similar quality to their offerings of the late 1980s, while McLaren, despite the vast resources at their disposal, as of late seem to have forgotten how to produce a chassis worthy of contending for the title.

It may thus be a case of better the devil you know for Alonso, who would be well-advised to give Ferrari, now under the stewardship of Marco Mattiacci, one final chance to deliver the goods next season whilst simultaneously keeping a close eye on the progress of the renewed McLaren-Honda alliance as well investigating the possibilities of any vacancies arising at either Mercedes or Red Bull.

Such a scenario gives Button one final chance to end his career on a high note after two seasons saddled with substandard machinery. Coming into this season, it seemed conceivable that this season may have proven the last in the sport for the 34-year-old, but the way he has responded to the challenge of fending off young Kevin Magnussen in the other side of the garage has been admirable.

But, if the second most senior driver on the grid looks to have done enough to prolong his career, things look a great deal less certain for the elder statesman. Kimi Raikkonen has endured an utterly torrid season, having been out-qualified 7-2 by teammate Alonso so far this year and having finished no higher than seventh place. The Finn languishes down in 12th in the drivers' standings on 19 points, versus 87 for the Spaniard.

On only two occasions this year has Raikkonen appeared even vaguely like the driver who won Ferrari's last drivers' title back in 2007 - at Spain, where he out-qualified Alonso and kept the home favourite at bay until the dying stages of the race, and at Monaco, where a likely podium finish went begging after Max Chilton contrived to give him a puncture during a Safety Car period.

Clearly, this isn't what Ferrari had in mind when they selected Raikkonen to replace Felipe Massa, much less when they agreed to remunerate the Iceman to the tune of a reputed $14m per year. Raikkonen's return to Ferrari was supposed to serve as a reminder to Alonso that no one man is bigger than the team; if he can't regularly challenge the Spaniard, what purpose does his presence at the team serve?

Then there's the question of motivation. Only Kimi himself knows exactly how motivated he is at this late stage in his career, though the fact he has recently gone on record to say that he will probably retire from the sport at the end of his existing contract with Ferrari, which expires at the end of 2015, is hardly the sign of somebody desperate to add a second world title to his resumé.

So, is history destined to repeat itself? Will Raikkonen and Ferrari once again agree to part ways with a year still to run on their contract? The reason the Finn was forced out of the picture last time around in 2010 was because of Ferrari's eagerness to begin their partnership with Alonso, but there appears to be no equivalent on the scene this time around as long as Mercedes and Red Bull maintain their current line-ups.

#450938480 / gettyimages.com

The likes of Nico Hulkenberg and Romain Grosjean would be available; both are ready to step up to a top team and would probably push Alonso harder than an out-of-sorts Raikkonen. But the real question is whether Ferrari are sufficiently desperate to get a younger, hungrier driver in their second car to atone for the embarrassment of effectively announcing that they were wrong to re-sign Kimi in the first place.

Assuming Raikkonen wishes to continue for one more year, therefore, there is likely to be a place for him at Ferrari, all the more so because the team have a ready-made replacement in the form of Ferrari Academy member Jules Bianchi ready to fill the breach in 2016 - who could be stationed at a midfield outfit next year to serve the final year of his apprenticeship after two assured seasons at Marussia.

In the event Raikkonen does decide to hang up his helmet come November, Ferrari could decide to fast-track Bianchi to the seat alongside Alonso next year, which would have the benefit of providing continuity heading into 2016 should Fernando indeed opt to depart Maranello at that stage. Alternatively, the Scuderia could sign either Hulkenberg or Grosjean on a one-year deal before re-assessing their options for 2016.

Elsewhere, Williams and Force India are likely to retain their existing line-ups, although Bianchi, the team's third driver in 2012, would be the obvious option to fill the void at the latter team left by Hulkenberg were the German to be given the call-up by Ferrari. Bianchi could also end up at Lotus in place of compatriot Grosjean if the Franco-Swiss was selected to replace Raikkonen.

Grosjean has expressed his desire to step up to a regular race-winning outfit next year, but Ferrari isn't the only potential destination in that regard. Eric Boullier's appointment by McLaren at the start of the year sparked rumours that Grosjean could be destined for a drive at Woking in 2015, and such a move remains a possibility. But, of the team's existing drivers, it would probably be Magnussen who would have to make way.

That may seem harsh given that the young Dane has done a solid job in a less-than-competitive car this year, but having such an inexperienced driver on board has clearly hindered development of the recalcitrant MP4-29. Loaning Magnussen out to a rival outfit before bringing him back to the fold a couple of years down the line, when the team has returned to winning ways, is an option, much as Williams did with Button in spite of a strong debut season back in 2000.

Either way, it looks as if Grosjean's time at Lotus is coming to an end now that the Enstone outfit have announced a switch to Mercedes power for 2015, which is almost certain to herald the departure of fuel company Total, Grosjean's main backer. Should no vacancies emerge at either Ferrari or McLaren, Force India may be able to offer refuge to the 28-year-old.

Pastor Maldonado, meanwhile, seems certain to remain on board at Lotus as long as his PDVSA cash doesn't dry up - although the Venezuelan state oil concern, in this writer's opinion, should look carefully at the possibility of switching their backing to promising GP2 racer Johnny Cecotto Jr. in the wake of what has been an unacceptably scrappy first half of the season for Maldonado.

One driver set to make his F1 debut next season is Carlos Sainz Jr., championship leader in Formula Renault 3.5, who would replace Jean-Eric Vergne alongside Daniil Kvyat at Toro Rosso. The Russian now has to be regarded as odds-on favourite to ultimately step up to Red Bull ahead of Vergne, which leaves no place for the Frenchman at a team whose raison d'être is to prepare young talents for the senior squad; a third driver role at Red Bull for Vergne could beckon.

Things are looking more fluid over at the cash-strapped Sauber team. The Swiss outfit will be reluctant to drop Adrian Sutil after a single season, but key to the German's fate - along with the somewhat underwhelming Esteban Gutierrez - will be money. Ex-Caterham driver Giedo van der Garde, the team's third driver, could well make his race return next year at Hinwil on that basis, while Sergey Sirotkin and Simona de Silvestro are also options for the team, albeit much riskier ones.

It's a similar story at Marussia, where there is set to be at least one seat up for grabs as Bianchi moves up the pecking order. Chilton could yet remain for a third season depending on the state of his finances, with last year's GP2 champion Fabio Leimer a prime contender to join the Banbury outfit. Jolyon Palmer, who currently leads the points in the official feeder series, could also be in contention if the requisite money can be found.

It's unclear whether Caterham will be on the grid next year, let alone who will be driving for the team recently sold by a disillusioned Tony Fernandes. Colin Kolles' involvement in the beleaguered squad's sale to a group of Arab investors has also raised questions of whether the squad will be merged with the Romanian-backed Forza Rossa outfit, which has been granted an entry by the FIA for 2015.

Assuming there is an 11th team, Marcus Ericsson is likely to stick around, although he could take his cash to Marussia if the Leafield-based team don't resurface next year. On the other hand, Kamui Kobayashi surely doesn't have the money to remain on board for a second year and would probably be replaced by a well-funded GP2 racer; Julian Leal and Rio Haryanto have driven for the team in testing, while Nathanael Berthon has recently been announced as a junior driver for the squad.

Musings on Le Mans 2014

2014-06-22T21:56:00.002+01:00

Today’s Austrian Grand Prix may not have been quite as explosive an affair as the one we witnessed at Montreal, but the result was another crucial one for the title challenge of Nico Rosberg. The German’s third win of the season ahead of teammate Lewis Hamilton puts him 29 points clear in the drivers’ standings, with the pressure now well and truly on for Hamilton to respond on home turf at Silverstone in two weeks’ time.

But, despite the title of this blog, this post focuses on the events of the preceding weekend, during which the 82^nd running of the legendary 24 Hours of Le Mans took place. It was a race that Toyota should have won, Porsche could have won and Audi – for the 13^th time in 16 attempts – did win.

It was a classic race of attrition, and the victorious trio of André Lotterer, Marcel Fässler and Benoît Tréluyer would be the first ones to admit that their third triumph around the legendary Circuit de la Sarthe owed much to the superior reliability of their #2 Audi R18 e-tron quattro as well a fair dose of good fortune.

Not for the first time in recent history, Audi did not have the fastest car in the field at Le Mans – as evidenced by the German marque’s trio of turbodiesel machines lining up in fifth, sixth and seventh places on the starting grid behind all four of their petrol-powered adversaries in the LMP1-H class.

That plaudit belonged to Toyota, who, on the back of two WEC race victories from two at Silverstone and Spa, were understandably being billed as pre-race favourites. But, having the quickest car is no guarantee of success at Le Mans, much as Toyota themselves found out in the late 1990s with their ultra-fast but somewhat fragile GT-One contender.

And so it proved again around 14 hours into this year’s event, when the #7 TS040 Hybrid of Alexander Wurz, Stephane Sarrazin and Kazuki Nakajima – which had started from pole position and led virtually the entire distance up to that point – ground to a halt along the Mulsanne Straight after a wiring loom melted having established a cushion of over two minutes out front.

With the sister car of Anthony Davidson, Nicolas Lapierre and Sebastien Buemi already out of the running for victory following a shunt along the Mulsanne in the torrential conditions that arrived in the second hour of the race (which also eliminated Marco Bonanomi’s #3 Audi on the spot), that was it as far as Toyota’s victory hopes were concerned.

The fact the #8 car, which ultimately finished in third place and five laps down on the #2 Audi, ran pretty much trouble-free thereafter and thus could have won race without its early incident will come as scant consolation to Toyota, whose search for their elusive first Le Mans victory goes on for at least one more year.

If Toyota are to finally break their Le Mans duck, they would be well-advised to enter three cars in 2015, thus maximising the chances of at least one car getting through the whole race unscathed. Audi lost a car at the same time of the #8 Toyota’s accident, but the Ingolstadt marque still had two chances left to win, while Toyota had just one – which was ultimately squandered.

The #2 Audi assumed control of proceedings after the demise of the #7 Toyota, but a 23-minute stint in the pits to replace a turbocharger around two hours later saw Lotterer, Fässler and Tréluyer relinquish the lead to the sister #1 car of Tom Kristensen, Marc Gené and Lucas Di Grassi.

It seemed at this stage that the trio were on course for a fairytale victory; the ultimate comeback after the #1 car was decimated in a terrifying accident at the Porsche Curves during first qualifying on Wednesday which saw Loïc Duval hospitalised. Indeed, Gené, originally scheduled to drive for the Jota team in LMP2, was a last minute call-up to Audi to replace the Frenchman.

Not only that, it would have been the 10^th Le Mans victory for Kristensen, as well as the first ever win for a Brazilian driver – but it was not to be, as the #1 machine suffered a more or less identical problem to that of the #2 with less than four hours to go, demoting it to an eventual second place at the finish, three laps down.

It was at this stage when the #20 Porsche took the lead, but the car shared by Timo Bernhard, Brendon Hartley and F1 convert Mark Webber was suffering from a handling imbalance that was allowing Lotterer in the #2 Audi to close the one minute advantage that Porsche held with three hours to go by around five seconds a lap.

Still, without that issue, it’s not inconceivable that Porsche could have taken their first outright Le Mans win since they last fought for overall honours back in 1998. Second place, which would have been a remarkable comeback result, was certainly assured before an engine problem that eventually forced Webber to retire the #20 car with less than three hours to run manifested itself.

The #14 car of Marc Lieb, Romain Dumas and Neel Jani was never in contention, losing time in the first hour of the race in the pits solving a fuel pressure problem and suffering from brake problems en route to an eventual 11^th place finish overall, 31 laps down on the #2 Audi.

Nonetheless, Porsche’s return has to be regarded as a qualified success in spite of the lofty expectations with which some observers saddled the team, with the 919 Hybrid showing some handy pace in qualifying trim (lining up second and fourth on the grid) even if reliability clearly proved an issue.

Indeed, many are already regarding Porsche as hot favourites to triumph in 2015, though the pressure that comes with such a tag will only make chasing a 17^th outright Le Mans victory that much tougher.

The all-new Rebellion R-One finished a commendable fourth place in only its second race outing, but was massively off the pace of the hybrid-powered factory machines, the #12 car of Nick Heidfeld, Nico Prost and Mathias Beche ending up 19 laps adrift of the winners in spite of enjoying a relatively trouble-free run.

Such a result has to throw into question the point of the LMP1-L class (L stands for light), ostensibly designed to allow private teams such as Rebellion Racing, who cannot afford to develop complex hybrid systems, to at least be in a position to pick up the pieces when the works-entered cars run into trouble – as they all did to varying extents.

What’s more, seeing Heidfeld, Prost and Beche stood alone on during the LMP1-L podium ceremony was an odd sight to behold. The only other entry in the class, the #13 Rebellion, was an early casualty after engine trouble, although a third entry in the form of the Lotus-backed Kodewa team was due to compete before withdrawing due to delays in completing their new chassis.

The LMP2 class was a rather more keenly contested affair, class honours ultimately going to the #38 Jota-run Zytek of Simon Dolan, Harry Tincknell and Oliver Turvey (a late replacement for the Audi-bound Gené) after the pace-setting #35 OAK Racing Ligier developed a spark plug problem late in the race which cost it straight line speed.

It was a bitter pill to swallow for the exceptional trio comprised of GT Academy graduates Jann Mardenborough and Mark Shulzhitskiy as well as Alex Brundle, who would have been fitting class winners; instead, the trio had to be content with finishing fifth in class, but all three can take solace in the fact that they established themselves as endurance racing stars in the making.

In fact, the LMP2 class right now is full of bright young talents who have found their paths on the single-seater racing ladder blocked: Tincknell, who showed some impressive pace on his first visit to Le Mans; Jon Lancaster, another debutant to catch the eye behind the wheel of the #34 Race Performance Oreca; and Oliver Webb, who co-piloted the #36 Signatech Alpine to third in class, to name a few.

It’s good to see that the secondary prototype class is enjoying such strength in depth at the moment, with plenty of ELMS entries bolstering the meagre contingent of WEC cars. And, with Zytek, Dome and HPD in the processing of developing new cars to join the new-for-2014 Ligier, the class looks to set to continue providing a gripping sub-plot to the main event at Le Mans for years to come.

The GTE classes had their fair share of drama too, with the #51 AF Corse Ferrari of Gianmaria Bruni, Toni Vilander and Giancarlo Fisichella taking a comfortable victory in the Pro division after the challenge of its closest rival, the #97 Aston Martin of Darren Turner, Stefan Mücke and Bruno Senna, faltered late in the race with a power steering failure.

The British marque could however celebrate victory in the Am class with victory for the all-Danish #95 crew of Nicki Thiim, David Heinemeier Hansson and Kristian Poulsen – a fitting tribute to the late Allan Simonsen, who was tragically killed at the start of last year’s event in a crash at Tertre Rouge driving for the team.

The future at the moment is looking very bright for Le Mans, as well as sports car racing more generally. Porsche’s return meant that the 2014 race saw three manufacturers in true contention for the overall win for the first time since 1999 (the petrol-powered Aston Martins of 2009-11 couldn't touch their diesel-propelled rivals for pace), and that number looks set to swell in the coming years.

Nissan have already confirmed their comeback to the LMP1 class next year, following on from their ‘Garage 56’ entry this year – which, while failing to complete more than five laps during the race, succeeded in its primary aim of completing a lap of La Sarthe under pure electric power – and are bullish about their prospects with their GT-R LM NISMO contender, which begins testing this autumn.

Then there’s Ferrari. Fernando Alonso, present at Le Mans to wave the tricolore to officially start the race, gave the strongest hint yet that the Scuderia have set their sights upon an LMP1 assault. Rumour has it BMW are also weighing up whether to have another crack at the endurance classic and attempting to give marketplace rivals Audi and Porsche a run for their money.

The beauty of the LMP1 regulations as they currently stand is that they allow each and every manufacturer to approach the category in any way they see fit. Audi, Toyota and Porsche all use completely different engine configurations and methods for deploying their hybrid power, and Nissan claim that they are going to employ a new approach on at least one of those counts next year.

That makes it a far more attractive prospect for prospective new entrants than, say, F1, where the regulations are much more restrictive. Even if a manufacturer isn’t winning, they can at least enjoy the R&D benefits of a trying out a particular technology on the race track that has direct relevance to how they wish to evolve their road cars, making it a far easier task to keep the board happy.

The increasing popularity of the race among the manufacturers was reflected by the number of spectators present. The ACO claimed 263,300 made the trip to Le Mans this year, up by 18,000 from the previous year’s figure, no doubt boosted by the presence of Porsche and Webber – which will have made some that were hitherto on the fence choose to finally make the pilgrimage.

Were Ferrari and Alonso to join the party, it’s more than possible that figure could begin to nudge towards the 300,000 mark, which would give Bernie Ecclestone and the F1 fraternity some real food for thought. It seems endurance racing is on the brink of another golden age to rival any other seen throughout its history so far.

From Melbourne to Montreal: The Story of 2014 So Far

2014-06-18T15:16:00.000+01:00

First of all, allow me to apologise for my lack of activity since my last post on this blog some two-and-a-half months ago. In that time, I have finished my degree and the other site for which I have been busy writing, Sportontap.com, has become non-operational for the time being – so I should have more time to devote to updating this blog for at least the next few months. Now we’re (roughly) a third of the way through the 2014 season, a review of the year so far seems as appropriate a way as any to resume my blogging career.

The defining feature of the season so far has of course been the emergence of Mercedes as a hegemonic force to rival any other seen throughout F1 history. Winning the first six races of the year in a row has given the Brackley-based team a record surpassed only by McLaren in their all-conquering 1988 season, and such was their degree of dominance at supposedly non-Mercedes friendly tracks such as Catalunya and Monaco that many had begun to predict a Silver Arrows clean sweep of wins this year.

Alas, more or less simultaneous MGU-K failures for both cars at Montreal put paid to any such aspirations, although beating the record of 15 wins in a season remains a distinct possibility for Mercedes.

But, while Mercedes has the constructors’ championship in the bag already, calling the outcome of the drivers’ championship is a far more difficult task. Following his fourth successive triumph in Spain, it seemed as if Hamilton had gathered unstoppable momentum – but then came Monaco.

In many ways, it was a race Rosberg really could not afford to lose, and regardless of whether you believe his incident in qualifying was a nefarious ploy to prevent Hamilton from taking the all-important pole position (for the record, I do not), the German drove an immaculate race under immense pressure to re-ignite a title challenge that had hitherto seemed in danger of wilting.

Rosberg followed this up with a dogged run to second place behind the victorious Ricciardo at Montreal two weeks later despite being hobbled by a loss of some 160 horsepower, which arguably was an even more impressive display than victory at his 'home' race.

Much like at China, where Rosberg suffered from a loss of telemetry, damage limitation became the name of the game once the energy recovery problems struck – one which he played to perfection, keeping Sergio Perez’s Force India (which, admittedly, had issues of its own) at bay lap after lap in spite of his Mercedes’ considerable power loss.

Though Rosberg was unlikely to ever hang on to the victory once Ricciardo found a way past Perez, the 18 points the German picked up on Sunday could prove crucial when the title fight reaches its climax in November.

Just as was the case following Melbourne, Hamilton now has to win the next four races on the trot, assuming Rosberg were to come second each time, in order to wrest back the championship lead. But, this will be a considerably taller order now that Rosberg has proven he can just about match Hamilton’s pace in qualifying and that, by the time we reach the summer break, Red Bull may well have just about hauled themselves into contention for wins on merit.

It may be through no fault of his own that Hamilton finds himself in arrears of Rosberg, but, then again, were the Englishman to eventually triumph regardless, his achievement would arguably be all the greater for it.

Speaking of luck, Ricciardo’s maiden Grand Prix victory on Sunday may have been more than a little fortuitous, but it was nonetheless a just reward for what has been an utterly stellar season for the Australian so far.

Few pundits were giving Ricciardo any hope of matching his more illustrious teammate Sebastian Vettel coming into the season, but on the four occasions this year that both Red Bull RB10s have made it as far as the chequered flag, car #3 has beaten #1 every time. In fact, if not for his disqualification at Melbourne and his mechanical maladies at Malaysia, Ricciardo would now be just 31 points of shy of Rosberg in the drivers’ standings.

It’s always refreshing to see a driver whose talent had been masked by a lack of adequate machinery finally show the world what he’s made of, but the sense of satisfaction at seeing Ricciardo standing atop the podium in Canada was made all the larger by the 24-year-old’s warm demeanour, easy-going charm and winning smile which make him an ideal ambassador of the sport.

Not only that, but Ricciardo has succeeded in shaking off the reputation he acquired during his time at Toro Rosso – that of being a good qualifier but an average racer – as well as confounding those who were sceptical of Red Bull’s decision to select him to replace outgoing countryman Mark Webber last autumn.

In fact, based on the evidence of this year, Ricciardo looks the more likely man to spearhead a potential Red Bull title challenge in 2015 of the Anglo-Austrian team’s two drivers. That’s bad news for Vettel, who clearly is yet to fully get to grips with the loss of the exhaust-blown diffuser that was so crucial to his dominance last season.

With this year’s title clearly out of reach already, the four-time champion would be well advised to focus on using the remaining 12 race weekends of this year to refine his driving style to suit the nuances of the new regulations in the way that others, not least of all Ricciardo, have clearly been able to. Should he fail to do so, it may be that history comes to look upon his four world titles a little less favourably than would otherwise have been the case.

At least Vettel can take comfort in the fact that Red Bull’s star designer Adrian Newey is going nowhere fast, even if, as was recently confirmed, he plans to take something of a back seat once he has laid the foundations for the team’s 2015 challenger.

There has even been suggestion that Newey could switch his attentions to designing a bespoke Red Bull engine to replace the Renault unit, which, while much improved compared to the start of the year, continues to lag behind its Mercedes counterpart in terms of power and the efficiency of its energy recovery systems.

Rumours were abound that Red Bull might try to lure a new engine manufacturer such as VW into the sport, but the fact that the Hanover marque has recently re-iterated its commitment to rallying until 2019 makes an alliance with the German auto giant an unlikely prospect.

Ferrari reputedly offered Newey a salary of $30m to depart Red Bull and join the ranks of Maranello, which would have put him behind only Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton among the drivers in terms of remuneration, but even that wasn’t enough to convince the 55-year-old to leave a team whose success in which he has played a central role.

Then again, you have to question the extent to which Newey’s presence would actually help a team whose technical department can already boast such renowned names as James Allison, Pat Fry, Nicholas Tombazis and Loic Bigois.

As Allison recently alluded to, Ferrari’s biggest problem is that their engineers are not given the breathing space they need by the management to deliver the best results. Whether this will occur under the stewardship of Marco Mattiacci, the successor to the now-departed Stefano Domenicali as Ferrari team principal, remains to be seen.

It has certainly been a testing year so far for the Scuderia, whose best result so far in 2014 has been a distant third place behind the two Mercedes drivers at China courtesy of Alonso.

Indeed, unless the team are able to make some serious performance gains with the troublesome F14 T, Ferrari could well end the year winless for the first time in 20 years – a state of affairs that will no doubt be leaving Alonso wondering whether he can afford to wait much longer for the team to get its house in order if he is to finally take that third world title he so badly craves.

Overtures to Mercedes were reportedly made, but there’s no room in the Brackley inn for the Spaniard in the short term; ditto at Red Bull, who are said to have taken up their option to retain Ricciardo for 2015 after his Canadian victory.

A return to McLaren can’t be ruled out for Alonso, but their performances this season, combined with the return of Ron Dennis, make such a move a considerably less attractive prospect than it was six months ago.

Since the first race of the season, after which McLaren led the constructors’ standings thanks to Kevin Magnussen and Jenson Button finishing second and third respectively, it’s been mostly downhill for the Woking équipe, who have somehow managed to translate the vast resources at their disposal into a fundamentally flawed car for the second year in succession.

McLaren certainly cannot afford to drop the ball for a third year running if they are to please their new engine partners Honda, although the potential early arrival of former Red Bull chief aerodynamicist Peter Prodromou (in exchange for Red Bull's Dan Fallows staying put despite supposedly having signed to join McLaren) should help to ensure that this isn’t the case.

Securing the services of Alonso would be another huge coup for a team which would appear to lack the driving strength for a full-blown assault on the championship, with Button surely now past his prime and Magnussen ostensibly struggling to re-capture the dazzling form he displayed during his F1 debut at Melbourne.

On race pace, McLaren have been by far the least impressive of the Mercedes-powered teams so far this year. Williams have been consistently quick, even if errors by both team and driver have served to cost them a considerable number of points – not least of all at Canada where, a slow pit-stop for Felipe Massa deprived the team of a possible win.

Instead, the Brazilian ended his race in the barrier after a coming together with Sergio Perez’s Force India, who himself may have triumphed if not for brake failure late in the race.

It’s been an up-and-down season so far for the Mexican, who has outshone teammate Nico Hulkenberg more often than was perhaps expected but has predictably lacked the metronomic consistency of the German, who has scored points at every single race (only Rosberg and Alonso have managed likewise). Indeed, Force India have a very solid chance of gaining their best ever constructors’ placing if McLaren can’t get their act together in fairly short order.

Elsewhere, Lotus has made significant progress, going from being barely able to string 10 laps together in testing to qualifying fifth on merit at Spain courtesy of Romain Grosjean in the space of just over two months.

Although the Frenchman has not had the machinery at his disposal needed to continue where he left off at the end of his remarkable 2013 campaign, he can take solace in the fact that the contrast between he and his older, more experienced and (on paper, at least) more illustrious teammate Pastor Maldonado could scarcely be greater.

Such has been the frequency of the 29-year-old’s mistakes this year that you would have a hard time convincing someone new to the sport that this is Maldonado’s fourth year at this level. Should the Venezuelan state oil cash dry up, there’s no way he would retain his seat at Lotus on merit as things stand, especially when there have been so many youngsters showing great promise this year.

Chief among these is 20-year-old Toro Rosso driver Daniil Kvyat, who has been seriously impressive during the first seven races of what is already shaping up to be a long and successful career at the highest level – further evidence, were it required, that Red Bull know what they’re doing when it comes to driver choices.

Also worthy of mention is Valtteri Bottas, who, despite not having had any more opportunities to ascend the podium since his brush with the barriers at Melbourne, has been in the points every race so far bar one.

That race was Monaco, where another precocious talent by the name of Jules Bianchi turned in one of the performances of the year so far to record his and his Marussia team’s first ever points with a sublime ninth place finish.

Should a vacancy emerge at Ferrari next year, they could do far worse than take a chance on the young Frenchman, who is, after all, the most senior member of the Ferrari Driver Academy scheme.

Bianchi’s result puts Marussia up in a dizzying ninth place in the constructors’ standings, ahead of not only perennial rivals Caterham, who could now well end up being sold to the new Forza Rossa outfit, (thus keeping the 2015 entry at 22 cars now that Gene Haas has wisely deferred his entry into the sport to 2016), but also Sauber.

The Swiss team have struggled with an overweight Ferrari customer power-train, which required a major overhaul of the Sauber chassis for the start of the European season to bring it closer to the minimum weight limit, and a driver line-up frankly incapable of producing the heroics seen during the last two seasons courtesy of Messrs Hulkenberg and Perez.

Indeed, both Adrian Sutil and Esteban Gutierrez threw away the chance to finally get some points on the board at Monaco, both having appeared to have fallen into the trap of over-driving what has to be one of the worst cars (if not the worst) to have come out of Hinwil in the team’s history. And, with the team already in a desperate financial situation, Sauber’s potential lowest ever constructors’ position could hardly come at a worse time.

This weekend sees the circus return to the Red Bull Ring (née A1 Ring) for the first time in 11 years, where, barring a repeat of the problems seen last time out at Canada, the thrilling battle for supremacy between Mercedes teammates Hamilton and Rosberg looks set to recommence.

There’ll be no F1 posts for a little while as I’m off to France for a holiday next week, but look out later in the week for my thoughts on last weekend’s 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance classic, which I was fortunate enough to attend for a fifth time this year.

Reflections on Melbourne

2014-03-23T10:55:00.000+00:00

Firstly, I'd like to apologise for a distinct lack of posts on this blog up until now - allow me to take this opportunity to forewarn you that, from now on, there'll be fewer updates on here than you may have become accustomed to in the four seasons that have passed since I started this blog as a fresh-faced 17-year-old A-level student.

Now, I'm in my final term as a university student, with a dissertation lurking in the shadows, and last weekend I completed my first paid stint as a web contributor with Autosport magazine. On top of that, as some of you will already know, I'm also writing for a new sports website called Sport On Tap, which is now the main place you'll be able to read my scribblings on all things Formula 1.

With that out of the way, let's look back upon what was an intriguing and highly eventful first round of the new season in Australia.

Going into this season, many pundits had a certain feeling that this could be Nico Rosberg's year, and events at Melbourne certainly will have done little to dissuade them of their viewpoint. The German's victory was effectively sealed when Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton suffered his early engine problem, such was the margin of dominance that the Silver Arrows enjoyed over the rest of the field.

The fact that Rosberg set the fastest lap of the race on lap 19 - still carrying two thirds of a tank of fuel - suggests Mercedes have extra pace up their sleeve too. That means the next few races, certainly until the start of the European season at Catalunya, are likely to be between Rosberg and Hamilton, although the latter's retirement is a reminder that nothing can be taken for granted at this stage.

Sebastian Vettel's Red Bull was another early casualty, the reigning champion also falling victim to engine problems, but an assured performance from hometown hero Daniel Ricciardo in both a wet qualifying and the race ensured that the reigning constructors' champions still enjoyed representation on the podium - at least until the young Australian was stripped of a well-earned second place for exceeding the permitted fuel flow consumption rate.

Red Bull have cast doubt over the reliability of the sensors used by the FIA, choosing instead to rely on their own fuel data, but for the governing body to turn a blind eye to this would be to open a can of worms that could compromise the integrity of the sport. No-one likes having to wait four hours after a chequered flag for a result to be finalised, but equally Ricciardo's exclusion is far from the PR blunder some have chosen to portray it as.

The appeal will be heard on 14 April, after the Bahrain Grand Prix; let's hope for the sake of the sport - and this is coming from a big Ricciardo fan - that the FIA holds firm and that the appeal is unsuccessful.

But, exclusion or not, it's clear that Red Bull are already getting back up to speed after a troubled winter. The cooling issues that dogged the RB10 during testing appear to be behind them, while the Renault power-unit, whilst not totally reliable, looked more convincing down under than at any previous stage. Race wins are still beyond the team, but Red Bull do at least look to be firmly within the battle for best of the rest status behind Mercedes.

Another team in that group is McLaren, who ended up with both of their cars in the top three after Ricciardo was excluded - a terrific result for a team which appeared to lag behind Williams, Force India and Ferrari in testing. Even more impressive than the team's progress however was the performance of debutant Kevin Magnussen, who looked every inch as seasoned as his teammate Jenson Button en route to what would become second place.

The Safety Car proved instrumental in Button's rise from 10th on the grid to fourth at the chequered flag, and the Brit will have every reason to be concerned about just how quickly Magnussen appears to be adapting to life as a McLaren driver. After all, beating his rookie teammate over the course of the year must surely be the minimum requirement for Button to retain his seat for 2015 and reap the rewards of Honda's impending return to the sport.

If the first race of the season came as a pleasant surprise for McLaren, it will have come as something of a wake-up call for Ferrari, who lacked pace not only in comparison to Mercedes but also McLaren and Red Bull, as evidenced by both Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen getting stuck behind slower cars in the form of Nico Hulkenberg and Jean-Eric Vergne respectively for much of the race.

At least the Scuderia, unlike Mercedes and Red Bull, can take solace in the fact it was able to bring both of its cars home, but to do so in fourth and sixth places is hardly much to write home about. It's not time to panic just yet, but big steps will have be taken by Ferrari if they don't want to be left behind - particularly in the engine department, where it seemed the scarlet cars were most lacking in Melbourne.

The team which look like the biggest rivals to Mercedes at this point in time are in fact Williams, even if events in Australia conspired to restrict the Grove-based team to a haul of just 10 points for Valtteri Bottas's fifth place finish. If not for a rare moment of over-exuberance by the normally unflappable Finn which caused his Williams to brush the barriers at turn 10, the pace was there for Bottas to claim second behind runaway winner Rosberg.

The important thing is that Bottas learns from his error - after all, he'd never been so high up the order in a Grand Prix before - if he wants to beat teammate Felipe Massa this season. It was a shame that Kamui Kobayashi's brake failure prevented us from getting a clearer picture of where the two Williams drivers stand relative to each other, but both have to be regarded as serious podium contenders next time out at Malaysia.

Driver of the Race: It's close to call between Magnussen and Ricciardo, but we knew the former was capable of beating Button - that's why McLaren signed him. Ricciardo on the other hand had his doubters coming into the season, but the 24-year-old's performance in both qualifying and the race showed lucidly why Red Bull were right to sign him and not Raikkonen.

Overtake of the Race: Bottas was responsible for the bulk of the race's overtaking moves, but his best one came on lap eight, when he surged up the inside of compatriot Raikkonen at turn three before sweeping around the outside at the next corner to snatch sixth place.

Surprise of the Race: Toro Rosso, who were the only Renault-powered team to have either car classified after Ricciardo's exclusion. Daniil Kvyat in particular did a sterling job on his maiden race weekend, deservedly becoming the sport's youngest ever points-scorer.

Disappointment of the Race: Ferrari. I was convinced in the early stages that Alonso in particular was hanging back to save fuel and would launch a full-on podium assault in the latter half of the race, but I was proved wrong.

Malaysian Grand Prix Prediction: It's impossible to look past the Mercedes drivers for now, and I quite fancy Rosberg to take another victory - although, as long as Hamilton's car remains reliable, it will be fascinating to see how he responds to the challenge of saving fuel whilst simultaneously battling it out hammer and tongs for the win.

Concluding thoughts on 2013

2013-12-21T10:46:00.001+00:00

If I were to sum up the 2013 Formula One season in one word, it would probably be "disappointing". Off the back of 2012, most fans were expecting another ultra-close contest, but, in the event, however, nobody could truly compete with the irresistible combination of Sebastian Vettel and the Adrian Newey-designed Red Bull RB9.

It took until Pirelli's mid-season revision of its tyres, prompted by the spectacular series of tyre failures that threatened to reduce the British Grand Prix to a level of farce comparable to the 2005 United States Grand Prix, before the Red Bull could truly stretch its legs. The fact the tyres were made more durable allowed Vettel to fully express the superiority of the package beneath him which had previously been disguised to a degree by the rapid tyre degradation that characterised many of the early races.

The key to Red Bull's success was their relentless rate of development. Every modification they brought to the track made a tangible difference to their car's pace, whilst certain other teams - notably Ferrari - struggled to consistently make forward steps. The Italian team's technical director Pat Fry admitted that the title began to slip from Fernando Alonso's grasp around the time of the Canadian Grand Prix, when a major update package failed to deliver the expected progress.

The tyre changes didn't help either, rendering moot the Ferrari's best characteristic, its tendency to preserve its rubber during the race. But, even by the time the revised tyres were introduced in earnest in Hungary, Alonso was already all but out of the running for the title. The fact he still managed to finish a clear second in the championship despite having only the fourth best car by season's end is testament to the Spaniard's uncanny ability to maximise his (often limited) scoring opportunities at virtually every race.

The debate as to whether Vettel or Alonso is the better driver rages on, the 2013 season doing little to provide a conclusive judgement one way or the other. Whilst I rated the former as the best driver of the season in my recent top 10, that largely boils down to his ostensibly unrivaled ability to adapt his driving technique to the rigours of the Coanda-assisted cars. Put the pair in a midfield car, and I would expect Alonso to perhaps squeeze out a couple more points than Vettel over the course of a season.

The contention that Vettel must prove himself with a team other than Red Bull in order to cement his place among the greats is nonetheless a somewhat churlish one. After all, Ayrton Senna's failure to win titles for any team besides McLaren is not counted against him, whilst had Michael Schumacher won all seven of his titles at Ferrari, it's doubtful, looking back, fans would think any the less of him for it. Jim Clark, meanwhile, never even drove for any team besides Lotus, let alone win titles for a rival outfit.

That said, sooner or later, Vettel will have to accept not having the best car in the field at his disposal - perhaps as soon as next year if the widespread prediction that Mercedes have produced the best power-train proves correct. But, chances are, should Red Bull experience a fall from grace, it won't take long for Vettel to re-align himself with whichever team are setting the standard. Schumacher's record of seven titles, it must be said, looks vulnerable at this stage.

The realisation that Vettel won't be around forever is what informed Red Bull's decision to recruit Daniel Ricciardo as Mark Webber's replacement off the back of an assured second season at Toro Rosso. Whilst the wide-smiling Aussie is hardly likely to deprive his new teammate of much sleep next season, he has the chance to establish himself as the team's main hope if and when Vettel decides the time is right to forsake the organisation that has helped him to so much success.

When that day arrives, my money would be firmly on Daniil Kvyat, who will be making his F1 debut in place of Ricciardo at Toro Rosso next season, making the step up to the senior Red Bull team. Whilst the young Russian could probably have used a season of Friday test sessions, his rate of improvement in GP3 - of which he was the undisputed king for the final three race weekends - suggests he should be able to find his feet at the highest level quickly. Jean-Eric Vergne best have his wits about him next season.

In a year of disappointments, Mercedes' performance this season was one of the few positive surprises. Vaulting from fifth in the constructors' standings in 2012 to second this year, the W04 was the only car over a single lap that could hold a candle to the Red Bull. Though it almost invariably chewed its tyres during the races, three race wins and eight pole positions is a level of achievement few would have foreseen the Silver Arrows reaching before the start of the year after three largely average seasons beforehand.

Indeed, for what was supposed to be an interim season, Lewis Hamilton must be delighted with his decision to jump ship from McLaren this year, especially after the extent of his former team's troubles became clear. Nico Rosberg also gave his teammate a harder time than many had anticipated, to the extent that many are now tipping the German as next year's title favourite ahead of Hamilton. Whether he can live up to this new-found level of expectation remains to be seen, however.

As for McLaren, nothing could have prepared them for the catastrophe they endured in 2013, the first season during which the Woking-based team failed to secure a podium since 1980. That was the final year of the ancien regime led by Teddy Mayer at McLaren before Ron Dennis took over at the behest of sponsors Marlboro, and there have been reports lately that Dennis could be looking to make a comeback as team principal in the wake of their dreadful performances this year.

Martin Whitmarsh meanwhile has made a bold decision indeed by signing young Danish talent Kevin Magnussen, who will be making his F1 bow next year alongside Jenson Button. The decision to drop Sergio Perez after a single, solid - if not spectacular - season was undeniably harsh, but it indicates no shortage of faith in Magnussen's talent, McLaren being unable to find the young Dane a suitable apprenticeship further down the grid. Perhaps, though, it was Button who should have made way.

This may seem an odd contention, but bear with me. 2014 will be an interim season for McLaren before they join forces once more with Honda the following year, and Whitmarsh has made little secret of his desire to lure Alonso into the fold in 2015 - even going so far as to travelling to the opening of the Spaniard's personal museum in Madrid a few weeks ago. Assuming such a move comes off, next year could have acted as a shootout between two, hungry young guns to partner Alonso at the dawn of McLaren's new era.

Instead, Button doesn't just have to prove himself against Magnussen, he has to prove to McLaren that he can still spearhead future title assaults - but the fact that Whitmarsh is so hungry to have Alonso on board suggests that the 33-year-old has a lot of work ahead to prove that is the case. What's more, if Magnussen comes out of the blocks and beats his teammate in year one, it would be fair to assume that would bring down the curtain on the Brit's long and distinguished F1 career.

Whilst things look as if they can only get better for McLaren, Lotus is one team who could be set for something of a slump when you consider their precarious financial situation. The long-running saga of the elusive investment deal from Quantum Motorsports ultimately failed to come to fruition, leaving the team little choice other than to accept the millions on offer from Pastor Maldonado and his native Venezuela's state oil concern PDVSA to fill the cockpit vacated by the Ferrari-bound Kimi Raikkonen.

2013 proved the "Iceman" can still compete with the best of them when the car beneath him is working well and he is fully committed to the cause, but, as was the case during his Ferrari days, his performances wane at an alarming rate if the above criteria are not satisfied. This was the case after the summer break, as the Lotus dropped further behind the Red Bull and speculation over Raikkonen's future intensified. Missing the final two races was arguably nothing short of expected given the circumstances.

Raikkonen's tendency to go off the boil was what allowed Romain Grosjean to build his confidence and assert himself as Vettel's most consistent rival in the latter half of the year. The Frenchman was unlucky to miss out on a maiden win at Germany, but that first trip to the top step of the podium will come in due course. Whether it's with Lotus is another matter; perhaps Grosjean will need to one day leave the comfortable surroundings of Enstone in order to fully thrive as a Grand Prix driver.

The question is now whether Lotus can do to Maldonado what they did with Grosjean - turn a fast driver with a propensity to make frequent errors into a consistently convincing performer. That win at Catalunya last year offered a glimpse into what the erratic Venezuelan can do when everything's going his way, but a final season with Williams marked by over-driving and petulance suggests Maldonado may struggle if Lotus do indeed take a backwards step.

Considering the two teams behind them in this year's constructors' battle, McLaren and Force India, will be using the seemingly favoured Mercedes engine next year, as well as the fact that Lotus have effectively had to almost bankrupt themselves in order to be a front-running outfit for the past two seasons, it's more than possible that the black-and-gold cars could frequently be mired in the midfield ruck next season - hardly conditions in which Maldonado is likely to thrive.

While the consensus in the paddock was that Nico Hulkenberg deserved the vacant seat at Lotus, it could be that Force India transpires to be the better bet in 2014 thanks to its Mercedes powerplant; based on his sparkling form in the Sauber this season, early season podiums for the lanky German next year are a distinct possibility. Having been turned down by Ferrari this year, one would expect Hulkenberg to be in pole position to slot into any vacancy that may have arisen at Maranello this time next year.

Similarly, landing a Force India seat is about the best outcome Perez may have hoped for once it became clear that McLaren would be dispensing of his services, but beating Hulkenberg over the course of a season will be extremely tough. That is precisely what the Mexican will have to do if he harbours ambitions of returning to a top-line drive, however, whilst competition from the likes of Valtteri Bottas and Jules Bianchi for such seats in the coming seasons will be stern.

At the end of 1997, predictions that McLaren would start the following year, which saw a whole raft of technical rule changes, as the pace-setters proved bang on the money, whilst the dominant force of the past few seasons, Williams, suffered a nose-dive in form. It doesn't require too much imagination to foresee a similar scenario unfolding next year, with Mercedes coming out of the traps fastest and Red Bull being demoted a couple of positions in the competitive pecking order.

In fact, the first half of next year could well see the performances of the teams fluctuating wildly as they learn how to get the best from their all-new packages at differing rates, whilst unreliability is likely to prove a decisive factor early in the season. This unpredictability is precisely what F1 needs after an exceptionally dull second half of last year, when viewers knew well in advance that, barring catastrophe, they would be hearing the Deutschlandlied and seeing that famous index finger at the end of each race.

This will be my last blog post until my 2014 season preview in March, so all that remains for me to do is to extend my gratitude to everyone who has read my scribblings this year. I will of course be back to cover all of next year's on-track and off-track action next year, but in the meantime, you can keep up to date with all the F1 news that matters by following @KleinonF1 on Twitter and by reading my ramblings on the soon-to-launch sports website sportontap.com. Until then, have a great Christmas and see you in the new year!

The Top 10 Drivers of 2013

2013-12-02T11:00:00.000+00:00

Now the 2013 season has come to a close, it's time to cast our eyes back over the events of the past eight months and pick out the ten most outstanding Formula One drivers of the year.

The 2013 season may have been dominated by a certain German driver behind the wheel of a blue and purple car, but many other drivers have caught the eye at various stages throughout the year. It was extremely difficult to pick an order, especially for the lower half, but after much careful consideration, this is the list I have come up with:

10. Jenson Button
Vodafone McLaren Mercedes, 9th in Championship (0 wins, 0 poles, 73pts) - Down 5

With Hamilton moving on from what was a highly competitive McLaren at the back end of 2012 to Mercedes for the 2013 season, Button would have had every reason to be feeling confident back in March. But, it didn't take long before it became obvious that the Woking outfit's design gamble was not going to pay dividends, Button becoming increasingly resigned to scrapping for the minor positions. A solid drive to fifth place in China stood as the Briton's best result until the end of the season at Brazil, where Button stormed his way from 14th on the grid to take fourth, making amends for a string of poor results in the preceding three races.

Whilst Button is hardly renowned for being a one-lap specialist, he will have been disappointed at losing out to teammate Perez in the qualifying stakes, and perhaps, considering his world champion status, that there wasn't more daylight between he and the Mexican in terms of race pace. That said, Button was the more consistent across the course of the year of the two McLaren drivers; the fact he failed to score only five times all year in a car often flirting with the fringes of the top 10 is certainly no mean feat. If the team are able to bounce back in 2014, there's still time for Button to add to his tally of 15 race victories yet.

9. Daniel Ricciardo
Scuderia Toro Rosso, 14th in Championship (0 wins, 0 poles, 20pts) - New Entry

Webber's advancing years meant that there was an awful lot at stake in 2013 for Ricciardo and his teammate Jean-Eric Vergne, both of whom stood a strong chance of promotion to Red Bull if they managed establish superiority over the other at Toro Rosso. Though there was one stage at which it appeared the latter may have been starting to get the better of Ricciardo, the gregarious Aussie upped the ante at precisely the right time, booking his seat at Red Bull with a series of convincing qualifying and race performances as Vergne faded into anonymity in the latter half of the year.

Indeed, Ricciardo was out-qualified by Vergne only four times all year, and made seven appearances in the points versus just three for the Frenchman - including a pair of superb seventh place finishes at China and Italy. However, street circuits proved something of an Achilles' heel for the 24-year-old, retiring from both Monaco (where he was thoroughly eclipsed by Vergne before being rear-ended by Grosjean) and Singapore, whilst poor starts, like his fellow countryman Webber, also occasionally served to undo his hard work during qualifying. These are weaknesses he'll have to eradicate to have any hope of matching up to Vettel at Red Bull next season.

8. Mark Webber
Infiniti Red Bull Racing, 3rd in Championship (0 wins, 2 poles, 199pts) - Down 2

Regrettably for Webber, his final season in F1 has inevitably been defined by events at Malaysia, where Vettel ignored the instruction issued by Red Bull to remain behind his teammate, instead snatching away what most perceived to be Webber's rightful victory. Even more disappointing was the fact that the Australian thereafter failed to register a win all year, whilst his German teammate proceeded to sweep all before him. Two late pole positions demonstrated the one-lap pace was still there, but Webber's apparent inability to adapt his driving style to the demands of the modern breed of Coanda effect-assisted cars proved his undoing.

Nevertheless, there were some fine drivers by Webber over the course of the year, such as at Silverstone, where he lost out on what would have been a fitting retribution for "Multi 21" by the narrowest of a margins to Rosberg. The Red Bull driver was also plagued by bad luck throughout the year, most notably at India, where an alternator problem denied him what would have been a straightforward second place; without such misfortune, he would probably have clinched the runner-up spot in the championship his machinery warranted. Webber's final year in F1 hasn't been his best by a long shot, but nonetheless marks a solid end to a distinguished career at the highest level.

7. Nico Hulkenberg
Sauber F1 Team, 10th in Championship (0 wins, 0 poles, 51pts) - Up 1

During the first half of the season, prior to Pirelli's decision to make its tyres more durable after the fiasco that was the British Grand Prix, it looked as if Hulkenberg had made the wrong decision to jump ship from Force India to Sauber, having racked up only half a dozen points by that stage versus 36 for his former teammate Paul Di Resta. But, as the Force India suffered a competitive nosedive in the advent of the revised tyres, Sauber's improving fortunes allowed Hulkenberg to really begin to shine and cement his reputation as a star of the future.

Monza, where Hulkenberg made full use of the Sauber's strong straight-line speed to qualify a superb third, was the start of this late season flourish, more than doubling his points tally for the year at a stroke by finishing in fifth. After that, the mild-mannered German was never out of the points, save for two occasions when he was not at fault; his drive to fourth at Korea, where he held off the advances of Hamilton for a significant chunk of the race, stood out in particular. Hulkenberg may have been unfortunate to lose out on a seat at the cash-strapped Lotus team for next season, but, with Mercedes engines, it could be that Force India, where he is set to return in 2014, could turn out to be a better bet regardless.

6. Nico Rosberg
Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team, 6th in Championship (2 wins, 3 poles, 171pts) - Re-Entry

It may have been the first time that Rosberg has been out-scored by a teammate in F1 since his maiden season in 2006, but it's also been the first time the German has been partnered with a teammate as well regarded as Hamilton. And, few would have anticipated back in March that Rosberg would end the season quite so close to the former champion in the drivers' standings, with just 18 points separating the pair when the dust settled on the season. Out-qualifying Hamilton, regarded by some as the best qualifier in the business, eight times over the course of the year, including taking a hat-trick of pole positions, is another achievement by Rosberg that few would have foreseen.

Whilst Rosberg was able to rack up two race victories at Monaco and Silverstone this year to Hamilton's sole triumph at Hungary, it's worth remembering that the second of those wins was somewhat fortuitous, the 28-year-old benefiting from a puncture for Hamilton and a gearbox failure for Vettel. And, whilst Rosberg's only non-appearances in the points can be pinned on mechanical maladies of one sort or another, there were perhaps a couple too many occasions where he was simply out-raced by Hamilton - a man he will have to overcome more regularly to put himself in genuine contention for the title next year, as some have tipped him to.

5. Kimi Raikkonen
Lotus F1 Team, 5th in Championship (1 win, 0 poles, 183pts) - Down 1

It's fair to say that Raikkonen's second season of his comeback for Lotus peaked rather too soon - at the very first race, where he took a convincing victory at Melbourne, in fact. The car was undoubtedly capable of more, remaining competitive even after the mid-season revision of the Pirelli tyres, and there were quite a few subsequent near misses for "The Iceman" in his quest to add to his Australian win. Indeed, Raikkonen featured on the second step of the podium more often than anyone else all year, with Bahrain and Hungary standing out as occasions where a lacklustre qualifying performances held the Finn back.

As the second half of the year progressed, and the severity of Lotus's financial woes became clear, Raikkonen's performances appeared to decline accordingly as teammate Grosjean increasingly took over from Kimi as the team's "go-to guy". From Spa onwards, he was out-done by the Franco-Swiss at every race (the Safety Car played an instrumental role in allowing Raikkonen to beat Grosjean at Korea), but perhaps his motivation to perform was flagging once his move to Ferrari for next season was sealed. If this was the case, he'll need to show a far sterner resolve if he's going to get on terms with Alonso at the political hot-house that is the Scuderia.

4. Lewis Hamilton
Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team, 4th in Championship (1 win, 5 poles, 189pts) - Down 2

Considering McLaren's woes this season, it didn't take long for Hamilton to convince the doubters that his move to Mercedes was the right one. Up to the summer break, with the sole exception of an inexplicably poor showing in Spain, the Brit was a constant presence in the top five, and was unfortunate to lose a potential victory at Silverstone to tyre failure. A first win with his new employers finally came with an imperious drive in the sweltering heat of Hungary, after which many observers believed Hamilton may have been on the cusp of launching some kind of title challenge.

This was not to be however, and Hamilton losing out to Vettel along the Kemmel Straight at Spa on the first lap perfectly symbolised the point at which the hopes of everyone else were dashed. Hamilton was not quite as convincing from the next race at Monza onwards - though how much of this was down to cracks in the former champion's chassis, which weren't spotted until after the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, isn't clear. But, five pole positions and as many trips to the podium certainly constitutes a record Hamilton can look back upon with satisfaction as he readies himself for what ought to be his best shot at the title since he made history back in 2008.

3. Romain Grosjean
Lotus F1 Team, 7th in Championship (0 wins, 0 poles, 132pts) - New Entry

From "first-lap nutcase" to one of the undoubted class acts of the season, the last 12 months have seen quite a turnaround for Grosjean. Warned that his drive may be at risk following a dismal weekend at Monaco, where he briefly reverted to type after taking out Ricciardo mid-race, you can't give the Frenchman enough credit for the way he knuckled down and found a way to cut out the errors that had so far held back his career. Whether it was down to the change in mentality that comes with being a father, or simply overcoming a set-up hurdle in optimising his brake balance, something undoubtedly clicked for Grosjean in the summer.

Germany, where a Safety Car cost him a very realistic shot at a maiden victory, proved the springboard to a phenomenal second half of the year during which Grosjean was often Vettel's strongest adversary, and as Raikkonen progressively went off the boil as speculation over his future intensified, the man from Geneva was always in the podium mix once the second flyaway leg of the calendar got underway. Leading the first stint at Suzuka and his defence of second from a hard-charging Webber at Austin were both feats worthy of the champion-in-waiting status that some pundits have now begun to attribute to Grosjean; only time will tell if he can live up to this new tag.

2. Fernando Alonso
Scuderia Ferrari, 2nd in Championship (2 wins, 0 poles, 242pts) - Down 1

If there was a nagging feeling that, perhaps, the wrong person came out on top of last year's championship battle, Alonso's heroics behind the wheel of a largely recalcitrant Ferrari have done nothing to alter a perception which exists among many F1 fans that the two-time champion remains the cream of the crop. Five podiums, including two convincing victories in the first eight races before Pirelli revamped their tyres, laid what appeared to be a solid foundation for another title tilt, even if numerous points went begging for reasons both within and outside of Alonso's control. In the second half of the year however, with Ferrari one of the worst affected teams by the tyre changes, Alonso's performances became all the more impressive.

In particular, three successive second place finishes at Spa, Monza and Singapore kept the title fight alive longer than otherwise would have been the case, and, though the Spaniard was out-qualified by Massa eight times, there was only one occasion all year, India, where Alonso failed to finish ahead of his team-mate, excluding his retirement at Malaysia. In fact, the Brazilian was the only driver among the top five teams to score less than half of his teammate's points, reflecting the overwhelming degree to which Alonso was able to out-perform his car once again. Ferrari owe their star driver nothing less than the near-perfection he has delivered for the past four seasons in 2014.

1. Sebastian Vettel
Infiniti Red Bull Racing, World Champion (13 wins, 9 poles, 397pts) - Up 2

Even if Vettel's record-matching achievements this year have failed to convince you that he is the best driver in the field, this year proved beyond doubt that he is head and shoulders above the rest when it comes to getting the most out of the modern breed of Formula One car. Save for when he didn't run in Q3 at China, the German was never out of the top three in qualifying, and was rarely off the podium in races - only missing out after a gearbox failure robbed him of victory at Silverstone and during two of the early season tyre wear bonanzas at China and Spain (incidentally, both races Alonso won). And, unlike the case for all of his rivals, there wasn't a single event all year you could describe as an "off-race" for the irrepressible Vettel.

His actions at Malaysia, whilst perhaps questionable from a standpoint of sporting ethics, unveiled the same ruthless streak and sheer determination to win that have elevated Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher to such legendary status, and now that Vettel has sealed a fourth title on the trot, it seems hard to believe that he won't be held in similar esteem by the time he decides to hang up his helmet in eight or 10 years' time. The only solace for the 26-year-old's competitors is the promise of a major shuffle in the competitive order that's likely to come with next year's regulation changes - but if Vettel remains on top, then expect the few remaining records he is yet to clinch to tumble sooner or later.

Honourable Mentions

Sergio Perez's season may look fairly lacklustre on paper, but the decision on the part of McLaren to drop him after a single season is extremely harsh. Though errors were certainly more common for the Mexican than for his vastly more experienced teammate Button, Perez was a broad match for the Brit's pace during the races - his drive to fifth place at India and to sixth at Brazil standing out as particular highlights - and out-qualified Button more often than not. Kevin Magnussen has a tough job on his hands if he is to avoid the same fate as Perez, particularly as McLaren continue to court Alonso for 2015.

Valtteri Bottas did a fine job carving out a reputation for himself in his debut season at the wheel of a dreadful Williams car, often shading teammate Pastor Maldonado, whose frustration with the team at failing to build on the progress of 2012 led to far too many cases of over-driving by the fiery Venezuelan. Meanwhile, Bottas kept his head, and when the opportunities to impress came along, namely at Canada in qualifying and at Austin in the race, he seized them perfectly. Ironically, it will be his new teammate Felipe Massa who will have to prove himself against Bottas next year, not vice versa.

Jules Bianchi was the other outstanding rookie of the year, his 13th place at the Malaysian Grand Prix proving sufficient for Marussia to overhaul arch-rivals Caterham in the constructors' standings in the final reckoning. Despite having far less time to acclimatise himself to the car during pre-season testing, Bianchi was rarely troubled by fellow debutant and teammate Max Chilton in both qualifying and the races, and, despite the limitations of the Marussia, successfully translated the potential he has shown in the junior formulae into some solid promise for a bright future in F1. It's just a shame that he won't be able to ply his trade with a more competitive car next year.

To see my list from last season, click here.

Brazilian Grand Prix 2013 - Report

2013-11-26T14:54:00.000+00:00

If Sunday's Brazilian Grand Prix can be summarised in one word, it would be 'anti-climax'. The combination of an 'old-school' venue and the threat of rain seemed to offer the greatest prospect of a winner other than the all-conquering Sebastian Vettel for quite some time, but, in the event, nobody else was strong enough to deny the quadruple world champion an incredible 13th race victory of the season and a ninth in succession.

It's been the story of the entire year. As late as July's Hungarian Grand Prix, the last time somebody other than Vettel won a race, the majority of pundits (including myself) were still predicting a close title battle. But, just as the rain failed to fall on Sunday, at the right time at least, Red Bull's rivals have failed to make a contest of the latter half of the year and thus have left the way clear for Vettel to equal the historic achievements of Michael Schumacher and Alberto Ascari.

At least the first few laps of the grand finale were entertaining as Nico Rosberg, who shared the front row with pole-sitter Vettel, managed to vault into the lead at the first corner. Meanwhile, the second Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton managed to move up into third place ahead of a fast-starting Fernando Alonso, who found his path blocked by an uncharacteristically tardy Vettel.

Rosberg's reign at the front of the field was to be short-lived, however, as Vettel managed to get a far better exit from the final corner on the first lap and had already edged ahead of his compatriot by the time the pair had crossed the start/finish line. Rosberg was forced to concede the position as they headed into the Senna 'S', and, by the time Vettel completed the second lap, he was already 1.4 seconds clear.

After another lap, Rosberg had dropped a further 1.2 seconds to Vettel and now had Alonso, who dispatched Hamilton at the same point at which Vettel grabbed the lead, looming large in his mirrors. By this stage, Mark Webber had already relieved Hamilton of fourth place with a bold manoeuvre around the outside of the Ferradura corner.

Rosberg, whose car was ostensibly set up for the wet of qualifying rather than the dry conditions prevailing on Sunday, then began to quickly fall backwards - Alonso charged past the ailing Mercedes driver into second place at the Descida do Lago corner on lap four, followed by Webber at the start of lap seven, Hamilton on lap 11 and Felipe Massa on lap 15.

Once clear of Rosberg, Webber wasted no time whatsoever cruising towards Alonso, who had no answer to the pace of the Australian and found himself demoted to third place at the start of lap 13. At the first round of pit-stops, however, Alonso managed to get second place back, forcing the Red Bull driver to repeat his earlier pass on lap 26 before pulling away and securing another Red Bull one-two.

By this stage, Vettel had already made his first stop and was a little over 10 seconds clear of his teammate. With no rain forthcoming, that was essentially it as far as the battle for the lead was concerned, although a slow second stop for Vettel, caused by the Red Bull mechanics not having his tyres ready when he arrived at his pit box, did erode his advantage to a degree.

Team principal Christian Horner later explained that the mix-up was due to Vettel stopping earlier than planned to cover himself in the event of an appearance by the Safety Car. This was a genuine concern after a rather strange collision between Lewis Hamilton and a lapped Valtteri Bottas on lap 47 at the Descida do Lago corner, the pair clashing under braking as the latter tried to un-lap himself.

The net result was instant retirement for Bottas and a puncture for Hamilton, who had been running comfortably in fourth place. The Briton managed to return to the pits with relatively little damage, but was later handed a drive-through penalty for being deemed to have caused the incident, costing him even more time and dropping him outside of the points.

Another man to experience the wrath of the stewards was Felipe Massa, who had been battling Hamilton hard for fourth during the second stint prior to serving a drive-through penalty on lap 34. The Brazilian had repeatedly crossed a white line at the final, flat-out corner marking the pit-lane entry, something which the drivers had reportedly been warned against doing prior to the race.

Without the penalty, Massa would have stood on the podium at his home Grand Prix as Alonso admitted after the race that he would have pulled over to let his teammate taste the champagne for the final time as a Ferrari driver had he been in a position to do so. What's more, Ferrari would have snatched the runner-up spot in the constructors' standings, but in the event Mercedes hung on by six points.

These mishaps allowed Jenson Button to come through and take an unlikely fourth place, a superb effort from an unpromising grid slot of 14th. The McLaren driver had already climbed up to seventh by the time of his first pit-stop, at which stage he was able to leapfrog a struggling Rosberg before capitalising on the misfortunes of Hamilton and Massa to secure McLaren's best finishing position of what has proven to be an embarrassingly poor season for the Woking-based team.

Rosberg wasn't far behind the Brit at the finish in fifth place, ahead of Sergio Perez, who came home an excellent sixth place in his last outing for McLaren. The Mexican had started all the way down in 19th after a shunt in qualifying, but made up no fewer than 13 positions during the race in another drive that leads one to question whether McLaren were right to drop him for next year.

An irate Massa was next up in seventh place after his penalty, ahead of Sauber's Nico Hulkenberg, who had a fairly uneventful run to eighth place, and a recovering Hamilton. Daniel Ricciardo took the final point of the season in his final race with Toro Rosso before stepping up to join Vettel at Red Bull, staving off a marauding pack consisting of Paul Di Resta, in what may be his last F1 race, Esteban Gutierrez and Adrian Sutil.

In a decidedly sub-par showing, Heikki Kovalainen finished only 14th in his second appearance for Lotus as a stand-in for the absent Kimi Raikkonen. The fact Kovalainen failed to make any contribution whatsoever to the Enstone-based team's points tally must be a bitter pill to swallow for Lotus reserve Davide Valsecchi, who was spurned precisely because the team wanted an experienced hand to help them in the crucial battle for constructors' points.

Ultimately, any hopes of Lotus overhauling Ferrari or even Mercedes in the constructors' standings went up in smoke along with Romain Grosjean's engine at the end of the third lap, a disappointing end to what has been an extraordinary season for the Frenchman.

Further back, Pastor Maldonado spun after making contact with Jean-Eric Vergne in the closing stages, the Frenchman taking 15th place ahead of the Venezuelan in his final outing for Williams before a widely anticipated move to Lotus. Rounding off the finishers were Jules Bianchi, Giedo van der Garde and Max Chilton, who holds the distinction of being the only driver to finish every single race this year, whilst Charles Pic, who suffered a late suspension failure, was the only other retirement of the race.

Without the assistance of the weather, neither Pic nor van der Garde had any realistic hope of taking the pivotal 13th place that would have seen Caterham surpass rivals Marussia, who are set to receive a welcome cash bonus for finishing in the top 10 constructors' standings for the first time in their history thanks to Bianchi's 13th place finish all the way back in Malaysia.

Sunday's race was undoubtedly a race of 'lasts': it was the last race for Webber as an F1 driver before he moves on to Porsche's endurance racing programme; for Massa as a Ferrari driver before he joins Williams; for Vodafone as a major sponsor, for Cosworth as an engine supplier (again), and, of course, for the current breed of 2.4 litre normally aspirated V8 engines.

The end of the V8 era that commenced back in 2006 also marks the close of an era where aerodynamic efficiency has been the main determinant of a team's competitiveness. Next year, engine performance, much as it was during the V10 era, will be a far more significant differentiating factor - not even Adrian Newey's design genius will rescue Red Bull if Renault's power-train isn't up to scratch.

Unreliability, which has played very little part in F1 in recent years, could influence proceedings far more often next year, too, whilst the fact next year's cars are said to be tougher to drive could also help to shake things up. In short, 2014 is very much a step into the unknown, and a shuffling of the competitive order would come as a huge breath of fresh air to the many fans who have grown weary of Vettel re-writing the record books this year.

Brazilian Grand Prix 2013 - Preview

2013-11-22T13:02:00.005+00:00

This weekend's race at the legendary Interlagos circuit in the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo will bring down the curtain on what has been a memorable, if not always thrilling season of Grand Prix racing.

After a string of fairly tame races in which Sebastian Vettel has utterly crushed his adversaries, Formula One fans will be looking to Interlagos, which has a history of throwing up unpredictable results, to provide a sorely needed dramatic finale to the 2013 season.

Many a title has been decided at Interlagos - not least of all last year, when Vettel fought his way through the pack to secure the points needed for his third title crown after an early spin. Jenson Button, Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso also know what it's like to win titles in Brazil, as does Felipe Massa - even if it was only for 30 seconds for the undoubted home crowd hero at that unforgettable finale five years ago.

The track itself is a far cry from the series of 'Tilkedromes' F1 has visited in recent months, featuring fast, flowing corners and myriad overtaking opportunities. Despite having been shortened from eight to 4.3 kilometres, Interlagos remains one of the most physically demanding circuits for the drivers; its bumpy nature and high altitude also make it one of the more testing races on the calendar for the cars.

Pirelli have opted for the same tyre allocation seen a week ago in Texas - the medium and hard compounds - as well as some experimental rubber for next year to be used in practice. However, the weather forecast firmly suggests that the intermediate and wet tyres will be getting a fair bit of mileage this weekend, and a long overdue first wet race of the year would certainly do much to spice up the action.

After all, it's probably only the weather that will be able to stand between Vettel and a ninth consecutive win that would see him match Alberto Ascari's 60-year-old record and Michael Schumacher's benchmark of 13 wins in a season, set in 2004. Vettel was just untouchable at Austin, and although the Interlagos circuit is quite a different kettle of fish, the Red Bull's degree of superiority over the rest will undoubtedly tell in dry conditions.

In the wet, however, all bets would be off - and there is no shortage of drivers who will have their eye on the top step of the podium should the heavens open on Sunday morning. Chief among them will be a certain Mark Webber, who will be participating in his 215th and final Grand Prix on Sunday.

His career started with a fairytale result at Melbourne in 2002, when he finished an improbable fifth place for Minardi in a race of extreme attrition, so why can't it end with a fairytale victory too? A 10th and final victory would be a fitting tribute to the career to perhaps the most popular man in the paddock in recent years - his honesty, dry sense of humour and integrity will be sorely missed.

Equally fitting would be for Romain Grosjean to take the first win of his career, which would be the icing on the cake of what has been a superb latter half of the season for the Frenchman. This time a year ago, Grosjean's future was looking decidedly uncertain, but after some tremendous performances, most notably his flawless run to second place a week ago, he is rightly being hailed as a likely future world champion.

Fernando Alonso won't have a prayer of winning the race without the help of the weather gods, but if the rain does indeed arrive he'll be eager to erase the memories of a fairly dismal run of form, equally laying down a marker for incoming teammate Kimi Raikkonen. Lewis Hamilton meanwhile, having won only the one race at Hungary to Nico Rosberg's two, will be determined to deploy his wet weather skills to even the score at Mercedes.

Not only that, but positions in both the drivers' and constructors' tables are still up for grabs. Just six points separate Hamilton and Webber in the battle for third place behind Vettel and Alonso, who is now safe in second, whilst the runner-up spot in the constructors' - and all the cash that comes with it - is still just about within reach for Ferrari, who lie 15 points adrift of Mercedes, as well as Lotus, who are a further 18 points down.

Looking further down the order, there are several men in the midfield fighting for their careers as the driver market continues to take shape. With the Quantum money still not forthcoming at Lotus, it appears the well-heeled Pastor Maldonado is destined for the vacant seat alongside Grosjean at Enstone next season instead of Nico Hulkenberg, who is now believed to be closing on a deal to return to Force India.

With Adrian Sutil dropping a particularly unsubtle hint that he has already signed a fresh deal to remain at Force India next season, that could leave Paul Di Resta in the cold. The Scot has been linked with an IndyCar drive, particularly as cousin and four-time series champion Dario Franchitti has recently been forced to retire from injury, but nonetheless insists his main focus is on remaining in F1.

If Force India do indeed plump for an all-German line up of Hulkenberg and Sutil, that will leave little option for Sergio Perez, who was recently dumped by McLaren in favour of newcomer Kevin Magnussen, but to return to Sauber. His team-mate, depending on all sorts of financial complexities, would either be fellow Mexican Esteban Gutierrez, who looks to have done enough to warrant a second year subject to funding, or Russian novice Sergey Sirotkin - though paddock gossip suggests this deal may have now fallen through.

Brazil is also the last chance for Caterham to wrest back 10th place in the constructors' from arch-rivals Marussia, just as they did this time last year in a drama-filled wet finale at Interlagos. To do so, either Charles Pic or Giedo van der Garde must finish in 13th place, which would be virtually impossible without some major assistance from the weather.

Were either to manage the feat, however, it would do their chances of staying with the team next year no end of good, particularly as Heikki Kovalainen continues to advertise his services at the wheel of the second Lotus this weekend. Over at Marussia, the signs are pointing to an unchanged line-up now that, Magnussen, who had been thought of as a potential replacement for Max Chilton, has been given the nod at McLaren.

Qualifying Predictions
1. Vettel, 2. Webber, 3. Grosjean, 4. Hamilton, 5. Rosberg, 6. Hulkenberg, 7. Massa, 8. Alonso, 9. Kovalainen, 10. Bottas

Race Predictions
1. Grosjean, 2. Alonso, 3. Hamilton, 4. Hulkenberg, 5. Massa, 6. Kovalainen, 7. Button, 8. Sutil, 9. Bottas, 10. Vergne

After weeks of boring predictions, I've decided that, this weekend, rain is going to wreak carnage, hence my rather left-field prediction. After both Red Bulls collide with each other whilst dicing for the lead, Grosjean will come through to take a popular first win, with Alonso and Hamilton joining the Frenchman on the podium. Hulkenberg will star once again, just missing out on his first podium finish, with Massa coming home fifth in his final outing for Ferrari.

Kovalainen will bank a very handy 8 points for Lotus to go with Grosjean's bumper haul of 25, with Jenson Button rounding off a miserable season with an steady run to seventh. The remaining points finishers will be made up of Sutil, Bottas and Vergne, with numerous other casualties during the race including Rosberg, Perez, Maldonado, Di Resta and Gutierrez. Well, I can hope, can't I?

United States Grand Prix 2013 - Report

2013-11-18T18:08:00.000+00:00

After taking an eighth successive Grand Prix victory at Austin yesterday, Sebastian Vettel uttered some very poignant words to his team via his in-car radio.

Just before doing his now customary celebration of a post-race doughnut, Vettel appeared to get somewhat emotional on the team radio after taking the chequered flag, saying: "We have to remember these days; we have to enjoy them while they last."

Those words indicate that the 26-year-old is not taking any of his phenomenal recent success for granted. For him, every victory is to be savoured, as if it could well be his last; his lack of complacency is incredible for somebody who has become so used to standing atop the podium.

A winning margin of just over six seconds may seem meagre by his recent standards, but Vettel was just as in control of proceedings at the Circuit of the Americas he had been at Abu Dhabi, where he won by a crushing 30 seconds, two weeks earlier. With just about every team aiming for a one-stop strategy, tyre preservation limited the rate at which Vettel was at liberty to gallop into the distance.

Vettel managed to eke 27 laps out of the set of medium tyres on which he qualified on pole position on Saturday and escaped from nearest pursuer Romain Grosjean to the tune of eight seconds during the first stint. The Frenchman, from third on the grid, surged around the outside of front row starter Mark Webber at the first corner, but was powerless to keep Vettel in check.

Lewis Hamilton, from fifth on the grid, also managed to jump Webber at the start, but it soon became clear that the Brit was holding up the second Red Bull. Webber seized third position back from Hamilton with a bold outside pass at turn 12 and proceeded to catch up with second place man Grosjean.

The Lotus driver however was in no mood to relinquish what would be his best finish of the season, having been denied the runner-up spot behind Vettel at Germany, Japan and Korea. Webber piled on the pressure on Grosjean after his one and only pit-stop on lap 28, Grosjean coming in the following lap, but after several laps of frustration he decided to drop back to cool his tyres.

With around 10 laps remaining, Webber renewed his assault on Grosjean in a bid to snatch Red Bull's third one-two finish in four races, but some sublime defending by Grosjean meant that Webber would have to be content with third place in his penultimate race as an F1 driver.

It was the latest in a long line of impressive drives by Grosjean, who has scored more points than anyone in the last five races besides Vettel. Lotus team principal Eric Boullier was full of praise for his charge after the race, and on recent evidence it's difficult to argue with his claim that Grosjean is now among the sport's top three or four drivers.

Hamilton was never in the frame for a podium finish after being demoted by Webber, but a new chassis for this weekend undoubtedly came as a boost after two lacklustre showings at India and Abu Dhabi. The Brit came under some pressure from Fernando Alonso in the closing stages, but hung on to claim fourth place and consolidate second in the constructors' standings for Mercedes.

Alonso had his best qualifying effort for some time with sixth on the grid, but lost time behind Sergio Perez, who vaulted ahead at the first corner, during the first stint. The Spaniard managed to leapfrog the McLaren driver at the pit-stops, before catching up with Nico Hulkenberg, who had started fourth but dropped behind Hamilton at the start, late in the race.

The inevitable pass came on lap 45 at the first corner, but after Alonso dropped back from the tail of Hamilton, Hulkenberg closed in once more on the two-time champion. At the start of the final lap, Hulkenberg made an opportunistic lunge on Alonso at the first corner, but the move failed to come off and he had to settle for sixth place.

In seventh was Perez after an assured performance from the Mexican which will inevitably raise the question of whether McLaren were somewhat rash in their decision to drop him for next year in favour of rookie Kevin Magnussen. Behind him came Williams driver Valterri Bottas, who was one of the stars of the weekend after qualifying and finishing in the top ten to score the first F1 points of his career.

Rounding out the top ten were two drivers who, on this occasion, were out-classed by their teammates - Nico Rosberg and Jenson Button. Both surprisingly failed to make it into Q3, starting 12th and 15th respectively (the latter after a three place grid penalty for overtaking under red flags during a practice session), but succeeded in battling their way up to ninth and tenth places.

Button however only secured the final points-paying position on the penultimate lap of the race as he passed Daniel Ricciardo at the first corner, the Australian coming home 11th. The sister Toro Rosso of Jean-Eric Vergne finished 12th on the road, but was docked 20 seconds for causing a late collision with Esteban Gutierrez, dropping the Frenchman to 16th.

That handed 12th place to Felipe Massa, one of the few drivers to make two pit-stops during the race; the Brazilian was another driver to qualify outside of the top ten and appeared rather out of sorts for much of the race. Next up at the finish was Gutierrez, and Lotus substitute Heikki Kovalainen, who had an eventful time in his first race since last year's season-closing Brazilian Grand Prix.

The weekend got off to an auspicious start for the 32-year-old as he made the Q3 cut and qualified a respectable eighth, but things went downhill thereafter. Kovalainen made a poor start, dropping to 12th at the end of the first lap, before clawing back some of the lost ground with an earlier pit stop. He slumped back to 14th at the finish line, however, after having to make a second stop for a fresh nose due to an unspecified problem that was costing him downforce.

Paul Di Resta had a difficult race, having to stop twice en route to a subdued 15th place, though he fared better than teammate Adrian Sutil, who became the first (and only) casualty of the race after first lap contact with Pastor Maldonado put the German, who was unequivocal about who was to blame, in the barriers.

Maldonado, who accused his Williams team of sabotaging his car after qualifying down in 17th, had to pit soon after to replace his damaged nose when shown the black-and-orange flag. The Venezuelan finished where he started, a lap down, ahead of the four 'Class B' cars, who were led home on this occasion by Marussia's Jules Bianchi.

Unfortunately, the second ever F1 race at the Circuit of the Americas was not a terribly exciting affair. The race day attendance reportedly was over 110,000, a robust figure by any standards, but that comes after a thrilling contest between Vettel and Hamilton last year. What's more, some 40 percent of the fans were Mexican, no doubt encouraged to make the trip across the border by the presence of Messrs Perez and Gutierrez.

The lack of action can mostly be put down to the conservative tyre choice made by Pirelli - not because it allowed the drivers to go flat out, but because it meant that the drivers were managing their rubber virtually throughout to achieve the holy grail of a one-stop strategy. Whilst there were a few good battles for position, in most cases the driver that made the pass simply drove into the distance.

There seems to be a fear in the paddock that next year's new technical regulations will create more scenarios like we saw at Austin, as the drivers will be forced to manage their engines throughout. Let's hope, then, that the teams and governing body are able to find a solution to ensure that races of the kind seen yesterday do not become the norm.

United States Grand Prix 2013 - Preview

2013-11-15T11:01:00.000+00:00

This weekend’s United States Grand Prix, Formula One’s second visit to the state-of-the-art Circuit of the Americas facility, marks the penultimate round of this year’s championship.

Though the widespread consensus is that the inaugural trip to the Texan city of Austin last year was a success, the F1 fraternity is under no illusions that cracking the US market is anything other than a long-term project. The commercial benefits of doing so are obvious, but the acid test will be whether the same enthusiasm for the sport we saw in 2012 exists five or 10 years down the line.

The circuit itself was also given rave reviews by drivers and fans alike. The flowing first sector, ultra-long back straight and technical final sector make it one of the most varied circuits on the calendar, as well as one of the most demanding on the cars, while the steep approach to the first corner makes the venue immediately recognisable, unlike some of the other ‘Tilkedromes’ on the F1 calendar.

Tyre wear is unlikely to be too great a concern as Pirelli have chosen to bring their two hardest tyre compounds, the medium and hard, whilst the presence of two DRS zones – one along the back straight and the other along the start/finish straight – should ensure overtaking doesn’t prove too difficult either.

This week has been a roller-coaster ride of driver market speculation and announcements for both this year and next. The most shocking news, revealed on Monday evening and confirmed by the team on Thursday, was that Kevin Magnussen will be making his F1 debut next season alongside Jenson Button at McLaren, with Sergio Perez being ditched after just a single season at Woking.

It’s been a difficult year for Perez, but I can’t help feel dispensing of his services after such little opportunity to show what he’s made of is a tad unfair. While he hasn’t beaten Button as regularly as he would have liked, the Mexican has turned in some rather impressive performances this year – most notably at India, where he battled his way up to fifth.

I wrote a couple of weeks ago for The Sideline Agenda on why I felt the beleaguered Perez should be given another season to prove his worth, but clearly McLaren believe Magnussen to be a better long-term prospect. With next year likely to be a transitional year for the team before they re-join forces with engine suppliers Honda in 2015, they clearly feel the time is right to give the Dane some mileage.

It will nevertheless be a baptism of fire for Magnussen, this year’s Formula Renault 3.5 champion and a member of McLaren’s young driver programme. With McLaren eyeing up Fernando Alonso for 2015, there’s every chance Magnussen could find himself out of favour this time next year if the results aren’t up to scratch. Proving himself at a lower team may have been a more sensible option, but you can hardly blame him for accepting the offer he’s been made.

Perez meanwhile stands a good chance of remaining on the grid for next season thanks to his Telmex backing; his options include a return to Sauber, Force India and Lotus, who are still yet to confirm who will be driving alongside Romain Grosjean next season. The fact that Kimi Raikkonen has opted to miss the final two races of the year to undergo back surgery is the latest twist in this long-running saga.

It had been thought, after the previous race at Abu Dhabi, that an agreement between Raikkonen and incoming investors Quantum Motorsports had been struck that would pay the Finn the salary he was owed and guarantee his attendance at the final two races. You could therefore infer that, as Raikkonen has opted to have surgery now rather than after the end of the season, the promised money never showed.

That in turn would suggest that the Quantum deal that would put Nico Hulkenberg in the second Lotus next year is still far from a foregone conclusion. In fact, the German turned down the opportunity to replace Raikkonen for the last two races as he felt that, without a guarantee of a 2014 race seat, leaving Sauber early was too big a risk to take.

Instead, Lotus have recruited Heikki Kovalainen as Raikkonen’s stand-in, though only after Michael Schumacher turned down an offer from the team to temporarily come out retirement. This means Kovalainen gets his first race outing since being dropped by Caterham, for whom he has done several Friday practice sessions this year, at the end of last season.

This comes a major snub for Lotus reserve Davide Valsecchi, who would have the chance to set the record straight about being the only GP2 champion (besides the recently crowned Fabio Leimer) to have never started an F1 race. Lotus justified their choice by saying they needed somebody experienced to help the team during a crucial battle for constructors’ points, but it does rather throw into question the point of bothering to have a reserve driver.

The other news from the week was the confirmation of what had already been suspected by the F1 paddock for some time – that Felipe Massa is going to Williams to replace Pastor Maldonado. It’s a move that makes sense for both parties: Williams has the biggest potential of the smaller teams to allow Massa to land some big results, whilst the Grove-based outfit need an experienced hand to help them claw their way back up the field next year.

Understandably, little attention has been paid in the build-up to this weekend’s race to what actually might happen on-track, but Sebastian Vettel has to be regarded as favourite to make it eight wins in a row. It’s also worth noting that Austin is one of the few circuits at which he has not yet won a race (Lewis Hamilton beat him in a straight contest last year), something the German will be eager to put right.

As for the fight for the remaining steps on the podium, expect Mark Webber to be right in the mix, as well as de facto Lotus number one Grosjean and one or both of the Mercedes drivers. Hamilton has been rather outgunned by teammate Nico Rosberg at the last two races, but it emerged yesterday that the Brit’s chassis had cracks in it, which undoubtedly will have hindered his performance. It will be interesting to see if he can regain the initiative with a fresh chassis this weekend.

Ferrari have failed to take a podium since Fernando Alonso finished a distant second to Vettel at Singapore, and the chances of them doing so this weekend appear slim unless several of their competitors hit trouble. The team’s main focus is likely to be on holding rivals Lotus at bay in the fight for third place in the constructors’ standings, though they remain within shouting distance of Mercedes, who currently hold second place.

In light of the recent deluge of driver market news, several men arrive at Austin with something of a point to prove, not least of all Perez at what is in essence his home race. Others under pressure include Perez’s countryman Esteban Gutierrez and both Force India drivers, with not one but two well-funded Latin Americans now linked to a drive at Silverstone next year.

Kovalainen meanwhile will be keen to take advantage of this rare opportunity in the limelight and put himself in contention for a full-time return to Caterham next year; both Charles Pic and Giedo van der Garde will be feeling the heat if the Finn is able to exceed expectations this weekend and at the season finale at Interlagos a week later.

Qualifying Prediction

1. Vettel, 2. Webber, 3. Hamilton, 4. Grosjean, 5. Rosberg, 6. Massa, 7. Hulkenberg, 8. Alonso, 9. Kovalainen, 10. Perez

Race Prediction

1. Vettel, 2. Grosjean, 3. Webber, 4. Hamilton, 5. Alonso, 6. Hulkenberg, 7. Massa, 8. Kovalainen, 9. Perez, 10. Sutil

I know, I know, I’ve put Vettel for the win yet again – but can you really blame me? He has been doing rather a lot of winning lately, after all. Joining #DerFinger (as the Mercedes official Twitter account refers to him) on the podium will be Grosjean and Webber, with Hamilton having his best result for a while thanks to his new chassis but still missing out on his first visit to the rostrum since Spa. Alonso meanwhile will come home in fifth place, once again being out-qualified by teammate Massa but making up for it in the race, Hulkenberg separating the pair at the finish.

Kovalainen will give Lotus four valuable points for finishing a solid eighth in his first outing for Enstone since 2007, with the out-of-favour Perez and the dependable Sutil rounding out the point-scorers. No sign of Rosberg, who is due some bad luck after two consecutive podiums, while Button will have another first-lap altercation with one his competitors which will prevent him from scoring points.

Abu Dhabi Grand Prix 2013 - Report

2013-11-04T12:56:00.002+00:00

Since Sebastian Vettel took his fourth title last weekend at India, there's been plenty of debate as to just where the 26-year-old stands relative to the other greats of Formula One. Following another crushing victory at Abu Dhabi - his seventh in a row and 11th of the year in total - one particular statistic helps to shed some light on this debate.

Now with 36 wins to his name behind the wheel of a Red Bull, Vettel has won more races with the Milton Keynes-based team than the legendary Ayrton Senna did at McLaren. That makes the Vettel-Red Bull partnership the second most successful of all-time, second only to the mighty Schumacher-Ferrari axis that produced an incredible 72 wins.

Just like during the height of the Schumacher era, Vettel's domination has not made for scintillating viewing, and Abu Dhabi must rank as one of the dullest races of the year. Whilst Singapore at least saw a great deal of intrigue in the final dozen or so laps as differing tyre strategies converged, at Abu Dhabi the first four finishers were in no real doubt from the halfway stage onwards.

As for the identity of the winner, that was more or less decided at the first corner as pole-sitter Mark Webber bogged down as the lights went out and allowed Vettel into an early lead at the first corner, Nico Rosberg also sweeping around the outside of the Aussie to grab second.

Vettel promptly proceeded to escape the rest of the field at his usual terrifying rate - by lap five, the gap to Rosberg was as many seconds. By lap 10, when Rosberg made his first pit-stop, the Red Bull driver's advantage stood at 11 seconds, and by lap 20, Vettel's lead had swelled to an unassailable 23 seconds.

Not only this, but Vettel was able to preserve his tyres far more effectively than his pursuers, dispensing of his option tyres a full four laps later than Rosberg. He duly re-joined the circuit still in the lead of the race as a result; any victory ambitions Vettel's rivals may have harboured had by now vanished just as surely as the sun did beneath the horizon at mid-distance.

Attention turned to the battle for second, as Webber, who pitted two laps sooner than Rosberg, began to reel in the Mercedes driver during the second stint. The inevitable pass came on lap 20 at turn 11, one of many DRS-assisted overtaking manoeuvres seen throughout the race.

Despite his earlier first stop, Webber also made his prime tyres last longer than Rosberg, thus ending any realistic hope the Mercedes had of preventing Red Bull from taking a second one-two in the space of three races. Indeed, in the closing stages, Rosberg had a charging Romain Grosjean to contend with.

Grosjean had passed the sister Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton at the start to take fourth, but was unable to remain in touch with Rosberg and Webber ahead. The Lotus driver did nonetheless show a handy turn of pace at the end of the race, but simply ran out of laps in which to catch Rosberg. Grosjean thus had to be content with fourth whilst the German secured a second straight podium finish.

It was a wretched evening for Hamilton, whose race was ruined during the second stint as he became stuck behind the yet-to-stop Esteban Gutierrez for some 10 laps. Once the Mexican pitted, Hamilton had lost touch with the top four and was among the first drivers to pit for a second time.

This put him behind the one-stopping Paul Di Resta, and by the time Hamilton had caught the Force India driver, he had seemingly run out of grip with which to challenge his fellow Briton. This allowed Fernando Alonso, equipped with relatively new option tyres, to close rapidly and pass both Hamilton and Di Resta in the final few laps to claim fifth place.

Ferrari initially appeared to be attempting to get both its cars home with just one pit-stop as both Alonso and Massa went for long first stints on their option tyres, pitting on laps 16 and 18 respectively, but as the second stint wore on it became clear that a second visit to the pits was needed.

At this stage, Massa was holding up Alonso, who had started three places lower than his teammate in 10th, and was in no mood to yield to the Spaniard. This prompted Ferrari to bring in the Brazilian earlier than anticipated for medium tyres, preventing him from challenging the option-shod Alonso and consigning him to eighth place behind Di Resta and Hamilton.

The point-scorers were completed by McLaren's Sergio Perez, who enjoyed a trouble-free run to ninth position, and the second Force India of Adrian Sutil, who at one stage was under scrutiny from the stewards for exceeding track limits.

During a battle with Pastor Maldonado, Sutil was forced off the road by the Williams driver and cut the chicane at turn 11/12, gaining an sizeable advantage in the process. Maldonado meanwhile veered back towards the apex of the corner despite running wide, losing a position to Perez. Sutil escaped without penalty.

Alonso also was under investigation for passing Jean-Eric Vergne by leaving the track at the fast sweeping turn 4 as he exited the pit-lane, but was cleared of any wrongdoing by the stewards after the race.

Maldonado eventually came home 11th, missing out on doubling the Williams team's points haul for the year by one position, ahead of Jenson Button who endured another miserable outing. The McLaren driver made contact with Di Resta at the start, which necessitated an early pit-stop for a new front wing; Button never really looked like hauling himself back into points-scoring contention thereafter.

13th place went to Gutierrez, who finished one place ahead of Sauber teammate Nico Hulkenberg who was denied another points finish when he received a drive-through penalty for an unsafe pit-stop release. Next up was Valtteri Bottas in the second Williams, whose unusual strategy allowed him to run in the top 10 before a late second stop dropped him down to 15th at the chequered flag.

Both Toro Rosso drivers had a race to forget, finishing down in 16th and 17th. Daniel Ricciardo had started a creditable ninth but plummeted to 16th after a dreadful start and was never in the hunt for points from then on. Vergne meanwhile attempted to pull off a one-stop strategy which he was forced to abandon after 'falling off the cliff' in the closing stages.

The four 'Class B' cars rounded off the list of finishers, Giedo van der Garde making up for his recent first-lap collisions with a fairly decisive 'win' over Caterham teammate Charles Pic. The Dutchman even survived a collision with Kimi Raikkonen, who had to start from the back after being thrown out of qualifying for a technical infringement, at the the first corner.

The Finn wasn't so fortunate however, and was forced to park his Lotus there and then. For a while, it seemed that may have been the last F1 fans would see of Raikkonen this year amid claims that he hasn't been paid by Lotus all season, but an agreement has now been reached that will see the 'Iceman' complete the final two Grands Prix of the year.

There are no such tensions in the Red Bull camp, whose relationship with Vettel looks as healthy as ever. But, rumours are abound that the team's star designer Adrian Newey could be lured away from the sport and towards yacht racing in the not-too-distant future; such a move coming to fruition would certainly come as a blow to Red Bull.

But, losing Newey would not have as large an impact as next year's sweeping rule changes will have. Whilst the Milton Keynes team are hardly likely to suffer the same dramatic fall from grace Ferrari experienced in 2005, there's a strong chance we'll see a shake-up in the competitive order.

And if Vettel can still win races in such domineering style as he did at Abu Dhabi behind the wheel of a car that's not the class of the field, nobody will be able to dispute his status as one of the greatest ever.

Abu Dhabi Grand Prix 2013 - Preview

2013-11-01T12:33:00.002+00:00

Sebastian Vettel may have wrapped up his fourth successive world title with three races to spare, but there's still plenty at stake for teams and drivers alike as this year's Formula One campaign nears its conclusion.

This weekend's race takes place at the Yas Marina circuit in Abu Dhabi, yet another of Hermann Tilke's creations. Though it's fair to say that the track layout has hardly inspired the drivers, its spectacular backdrop, eclipsed only by Monaco, and unique status as a 'twilight' Grand Prix lends the place a certain aura absent from the majority of the sport's Eastern venues.

Not only that, Abu Dhabi has thrown up some memorable races in its relatively brief history since it hosted its first Grand Prix back in 2009. Chief among those is that unforgettable evening that saw Vettel clinch his first title - which seems far longer ago than three years - and last year's first post-comeback race win for a certain Kimi Raikkonen.

The circuit itself demands strong top speed, featuring two mammoth straights, and good traction out of the many slow and medium-speed corners the drivers are faced with. Two DRS zones along the aforementioned straights make overtaking straightforward at Abu Dhabi, whilst the medium and soft compound tyres seen at India will be making their return with wear expected to be less of an issue this weekend given the lower temperatures of an evening race.

Sebastian Vettel may now have put the championship out of reach of his rivals, but anybody hoping that this means the German will lift his foot from the throttle pedal will be severely disappointed. The Red Bull driver is an aficionado for statistics, and will match two important records if he's able to win the remaining three races of the year.

The first would be to match his compatriot Michael Schumacher's amazing record of winning 13 Grands Prix in a season. Admittedly, the Ferrari driver had one less race during the 2004 season in which to achieve this, but matching it would nonetheless be symbolic of Vettel's relentless ascendancy in the F1 record books.

The second would be to match a far older record, that of Alberto Ascari's nine successive Grand Prix victories set back in 1953. Vettel currently stands on six wins on the trot, enough to put him joint third in the list alongside the great Jim Clark and one behind Schumacher, who won seven in a row in 2004.

Given how dominant the Red Bull has become in this latter half of the season, you'd have to be brave indeed to bet against Vettel winning the final three races and matching both of the above.

On the evidence of the Indian Grand Prix, the man most likely to stop Vettel is his own teammate Mark Webber, who is still in search of that elusive first victory of the year. Qualifying fourth on prime tyres at India seemed to put Webber in a strong position to challenge for honours, but a poor start compromised his strategy before alternator failure denied him what would have been second place.

Seeing the Australian stand atop an F1 podium one more time before he switches to endurance racing would surely be something nearly every fan would love to see, but you get the feeling Vettel would have to hit some kind of misfortune between now and the chequered flag at Interlagos in order for it to happen.

As for the rest, chasing victory is hardly likely to be on their minds, with the battle for second in the constructors' standings paramount.

Following a strong second place for Nico Rosberg and sixth for Lewis Hamilton at India, Mercedes have surpassed Ferrari and look to have a good chance of consolidating their position this weekend despite the distraction of speculation over team principal Ross Brawn's future. Hamilton tends to go well at Abu Dhabi, having won in 2011 and retiring from the lead in both 2009 and 2012, whilst the character of the circuit ought to suit the Silver Arrows better than most venues.

Ferrari meanwhile are on the back foot after a bruising race for Fernando Alonso at India, Felipe Massa's fourth place preventing them from losing too much ground to Mercedes. Given that the team have not looked like finishing on the podium in the last three races, the Scuderia will need a hefty dose of luck to get them back ahead of their rivals at Brackley this weekend.

Lotus have also had their fair share of the headlines in recent days as the team's relationship with the outgoing Raikkonen deteriorated following events at India, where the Finn was sworn at for not letting faster teammate Romain Grosjean by. Having missed the media day on Thursday, Raikkonen did turn up on Friday to compete in practice, but his presence at the final two Grands Prix is hardly guaranteed.

Grosjean, who topped first practice this morning, will doubtless be eyeing up a fourth straight podium finish after somehow pulling third place out of the bag at India having started way down in 17th (the largest position gain for any driver all year), whilst Raikkonen will be looking to put another disappointing weekend behind him and get himself back on terms with the ascending star that is his teammate.

Sergio Perez did much to silence his critics with a fine drive to fifth at India, and given that McLaren are now comfortable top-ten contenders, the Mexican will be aiming for another decent haul of points to try and secure his drive at the Woking-based team for next year.

Someone else whose future is still undecided is Nico Hulkenberg, who is still without a drive for next year despite the miraculous run of form he has enjoyed since Monza. The latest reports suggest that, with the investment funds from the Quantum Motorsports group not forthcoming, 'Hulk' could be set to lose out to Pastor Maldonado in his bid to bag a Lotus drive.

The rest of the driver market looks to be on hold until Lotus finally reach a decision over who will partner Grosjean next season, with Force India, Sauber and Williams as well as Caterham and Marussia all ostensibly waiting to see who will be available before finalising their respective line-ups.

The latest rumours point towards Max Chilton potentially moving to Force India alongside Adrian Sutil, with Formula Renault 3.5 champion Kevin Magnussen slotting in the Brit's place at Marussia. This would leave Paul Di Resta in the cold, meaning the Scot has to prove to his team that his talent is sufficient to outweigh the lure of Chilton's cash.

Qualifying Prediction
1. Vettel, 2. Hamilton, 3. Webber, 4. Grosjean, 5. Rosberg, 6. Alonso, 7. Raikkonen, 8. Hulkenberg, 9. Massa, 10. Perez

Race Prediction
1. Vettel, 2. Webber, 3. Grosjean, 4. Hamilton, 5. Rosberg, 6. Alonso, 7. Hulkenberg, 8. Perez, 9. Button, 10. Sutil

Another prediction, another Vettel victory - don't give me that look! Webber will be a (not so) close second, with Grosjean making another appearance on the podium and replicating the top three of Suzuka. Hamilton will be in the mix but ultimately unable to fend off the Lotus, Rosberg making it two Mercedes cars in the top five.

Alonso will manage no more than sixth, Ferrari losing further ground in the battle with Mercedes, with Hulkenberg taking the result he ought to have at India before he was sidelined by mechanical failure. Perez will beat teammate Button once more, the ever-dependable Adrian Sutil rounding out the points-scorers in tenth place.

Indian Grand Prix 2013 - Report

2013-10-27T18:58:00.001+00:00

Sealing a fourth consecutive title this weekend at India was never going to be a particularly tall order for Sebastian Vettel given the enormous 90 point advantage he possessed heading into the weekend.

In order for the title chase to have continued to Abu Dhabi, two things had to happen. Firstly, Fernando Alonso, Vettel's only remaining theoretical rival, had to finish in the top two, which he hasn't even looked close to doing at the last two races.

Secondly, Vettel himself had to finish outside the top five, which he hasn't done all year barring the one race at Silverstone where he retired from the lead with gearbox trouble.

Nevertheless, Vettel was in absolutely no mood to play the percentages. He hadn't celebrated a title victory with a race win since that surreal evening at Abu Dhabi three years ago and clearly wanted to make that right this weekend. Taking pole position by a mammoth seven tenths of a second on Saturday was the first step towards achieving this.

The second step was working out the optimum strategy on a weekend where the option tyre was expected to fall apart in just a handful of laps, potentially handing those who qualified on primes - including a certain Mark Webber - a tactical advantage.

Having got away cleanly from pole position, Red Bull defied expectation by bringing in Vettel at the end of the second lap of the race. This decision initially seemed rather left-field, even an unnecessary risk, but it soon transpired to be a tactical masterstroke.

Though Vettel re-joined the track down in 17th, he was in relatively clean air with all those that also started on options, who made up the vast majority of the cars ahead, due to pit within a few laps.

What's more, Webber had made a relatively poor start, dropping from fourth on the grid to sixth and crucially losing time behind slower rivals and thus squandering his advantage.

Webber moved into first place at the end of lap eight as interim leader Felipe Massa - who had passed the Red Bull as well as both Mercedes drivers in a storming first few corners - dived for the pits.

By this stage, Vettel was already back up into sixth place, which became third by lap 13 after passes on the yet-to-stop cars of Adrian Sutil, Romain Grosjean and Daniel Ricciardo.

Just 14 seconds now separated Webber and Vettel - nowhere near enough for the Australian to remain in the lead after a pit-stop. The race was therefore already in the bag for the champion-elect even at this early stage.

Having passed another driver yet to make their first stop, Sergio Perez, on lap 21, Vettel was now up into second place and less than 12 seconds adrift of Webber. The Australian finally made his first stop on lap 28, opting for a short second stint on option tyres, Vettel consequently re-taking the lead.

Both Red Bull drivers made their second stops on consecutive laps - Vettel from the lead for a fresh set of prime tyres on lap 31 and then Webber the following lap for another set of primes after his brief flirtation with the options. The German now held an advantage of 12 seconds over his teammate.

A second Red Bull one-two in a row was however derailed by an alternator failure for the perennially unlucky Webber, who was forced to park his stricken car on lap 40.

This immediately caused concern on the pit-wall that Vettel's car may not go the distance, but in the event the 26-year-old was able to reel off the remaining 20 laps without drama.

A tenth victory of the season, and a sixth in a row were plenty sufficient to guarantee Vettel a richly-deserved fourth championship crown that puts him level with the legendary Alain Prost and only three away from compatriot Michael Schumacher - whose record of seven titles now seems far from untouchable.

The battle for the remaining podium places behind Vettel was an intriguing one, with various drivers on differing tyre strategies crossing paths as the race approached its climax.

At the point at which Webber was forced to retire, Kimi Raikkonen's Lotus was running in second place but seemingly on the verge of making a second pit-stop having previously pitted on lap seven.

But, as the lap counter ticked down, it became clear that Lotus were aiming to try and get the 'Iceman' to the end of the race without making any further stops.

Just behind was Sutil, who had started on medium tyres and hadn't pitted all race. When he finally pitted to make the mandatory switch to options on lap 41, Nico Rosberg, who had started the race alongside Vettel on the front row, moved up to third behind Raikkonen.

Next up was Romain Grosjean, up to fourth from 17th on the grid having made his sole stop on lap 13, erstwhile leader Massa, who dropped back behind Rosberg at the second phase of pit-stops, the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton and Perez, who by now had come into the pits for a second time.

All of these drivers were catching Raikkonen, who would evidently struggle to go the distance on his severely worn tyres. Rosberg was able to close down a 10 second deficit to the Finn in as many laps, making the inevitable pass on lap 52 at turn 4 and going to claim a well-earned second place, his first podium finish since his Silverstone victory.

After another couple of laps, Grosjean had caught up to his struggling teammate, but Raikkonen seemed reluctant to let the Frenchman by. The pair almost made contact as Grosjean attempted a move around the outside at turn 4 on lap 56, Raikkonen finally conceding the position at the end of that lap following a somewhat blunt radio message from Alan Permane.

While Grosjean made it a hat-trick of podium finishes with third, Massa swiftly made his way past his former Ferrari teammate Raikkonen to take a creditable fourth place.

Perez then killed two birds with one stone as he slipstreamed his way past both Hamilton, who was also struggling with rear tyre wear, and Raikkonen to move into fifth - the best finish of his McLaren career so far and equal to the team's best result of the year.

Hamilton came home sixth in a disappointing outing for the Brit that saw him outclassed by teammate Rosberg, with Raikkonen making a late pit-stop and having to settle for seventh. Completing the points-scorers were Paul Di Resta, his Force India teammate Sutil and Daniel Ricciardo's Toro Rosso.

The latter was forced to defend in the closing stages from Alonso, who suffered a nightmare race. Poised for a good result starting on prime tyres, the Ferrari driver made contact first with Webber and then Jenson Button on the first lap, which caused the Spaniard to pit for a change of front wing.

Alonso never really recovered from this setback, struggling to an eventual 11th place finish with a damaged car. Behind him finished Pastor Maldonado's Williams, Jean-Eric Vergne in the second Toro Rosso and Button, who similarly failed to claw back much ground after the first lap contact with Alonso, which gave him a puncture, in a dismal afternoon.

Next up were Esteban Gutierrez, who was brought back to earth with a drive-through penalty for jumping the start after his breakthrough first points finish at Suzuka, Valtteri Bottas and the Marussia duo of Max Chilton and Jules Bianchi.

Nico Hulkenberg was a late retirement with brake failure having been on course for eighth place, whilst Giedo van der Garde was eliminated after first corner contact with Chilton and teammate Pic, who retired some laps later with a hydraulic failure.

After the race, it was refreshing to see Vettel receive the adulation he deserves from the passionate Indian crowd after several unsavoury episodes of booing earlier in the year. Despite continued doubts from some quarters, Vettel has quite simply done a sterling job of maximising the machinery at his disposal this season - he can't be blamed for doing what every driver in the field ultimately aims to do.

As brilliant as it would be to see his talents given a more stern test by inferior machinery or a teammate of the calibre of Alonso or Hamilton, all we can do is watch and admire for the time being as he continues to reel off the victories. Whether Vettel can be considered an all-time great is no longer in doubt; time will only tell his place among the sport's other legends.

Indian Grand Prix 2013 - Preview

2013-10-25T12:56:00.000+01:00

What looks likely to be the last Indian Grand Prix for the forseeable future is poised to hold the distinction of setting the scene for Sebastian Vettel claiming his fourth successive Formula One title.

It's fair to say that, despite a promising start when the Buddh International circuit hosted India's inaugural in 2011, that F1 has failed to establish a foothold in the subcontinent. Attendances have been in decline, and the Indian government's apparent indifference towards the Grand Prix has perhaps come as a shock to a sport accustomed to being welcomed with open arms in other parts of the globe.

Despite the official reasons stated for India's omission from next year's calendar, it's obvious that the Indian government's classification of F1 as 'entertainment' rather than 'sport', and the ensuing tax ramifications, is at the heart of why the race has been axed. The race is supposedly set to re-appear in 2015, but this appears doubtful unless the Indian government's attitude towards F1 changes.

Indeed, there had been some uncertainty as to whether this weekend's race was going to go ahead at all amid a backdrop of a legal challenge over unpaid taxes on the part of the race promoter. Whilst a delay to this hearing has averted any threat of the race being cancelled, the uncertainty epitomised the uneasy relationship between India and F1.

The track itself is another of Hermann Tilke's creations, and is notable for its very long back straight, unique wide hairpin bends and its meandering middle sector which overwhelmingly favours the characteristics of the Red Bull. It's little co-incidence, therefore, that Vettel has taken two pole positions and two wins from two visits to the circuit, and that the odds of him making it a hat-trick are as short as 1/4 at the time of writing.

Should the German do exactly that, the title will be his - Vettel has a lead of 90 points heading into this weekend's encounter, meaning he needs to only finish fifth or higher to seal the deal regardless of what any of his competitors do.

When you bear in mind that Vettel has failed to finish lower than fourth all season (with the exception of his retirement at the British Grand Prix due to a rare gearbox failure), it would take something very much out of the ordinary to keep the title fight alive beyond this weekend.

Red Bull are also within touching distance of the constructors' crown, but the fight for second is hotting up nicely in light of the Lotus team's recent competitive upswing.

Just 33 points now separate Ferrari, Mercedes and Lotus in the standings; considering the Enstone-based have had at least one car on the podium at the last three races, their chances of overhauling their better-funded rivals seem strong, especially when you bear in mind that development of this year's cars has all but ceased.

That in turn means that this weekend's race is likely to follow a broadly similar pattern to the previous couple in terms of the competitive order, making Lotus the only team capable of challenging Red Bull hegemony this weekend.

Romain Grosjean's race pace may not have been good enough to realistically challenge for victory despite his scintillating start at Suzuka, but the fact that tyre wear is likely to play a greater role this time around - with the soft compound tyre in use this weekend alongside the medium - could give the Frenchman a better chance of overcoming the all-conquering RB9s than in previous races.

Kimi Raikkonen can also not be ruled out of contention either, but his lacklustre performances in qualifying in recent races have constrained his ability to fight at the front. It's worth noting also that Lotus have been recently forced to deny rumours of the Finn being de-motivated during the closing part of this season in light of Vettel's domination.

Elsewhere, the chances are that the Mercedes drivers meanwhile will qualify well only to fade during the race, whilst Fernando Alonso will make his customarily incisive progress through the field having started disappointingly low down the order. Watch out for Nico Hulkenberg to take another solid haul of points as well, which could prove instrumental in Sauber's quest to overhaul Force India in the constructors' standings before the year is out.

Understandably, most people have turned their attentions towards next season, and the midfield driver market is looking very fluid indeed. Recent speculation points strongly towards Felipe Massa landing a seat at Williams next year alongside Valtteri Bottas and the disillusioned Pastor Maldonado leaving the Grove-based outfit and taking his PDVSA cash elsewhere, possibly to Force India if Nico Hulkenberg is confirmed at Lotus as expected.

That in turn would mean one of Paul Di Resta or Adrian Sutil would be forced out, though the latter has been linked to a seat with Sauber alongside Russian youngster Sergey Sirotkin. It emerged yesterday however that Vitaly Petrov has now amassed 30 million euros worth of backing from Gazprom, and also been in talks with Sauber. There have also been suggestions that Esteban Gutierrez could yet remain at the Swiss team, too.

One team that has settled its line-up on the other hand is Toro Rosso, who shocked the paddock by announcing that GP3 driver Daniil Kvyat is to step up to the team to join Jean-Eric Vergne. The 19-year-old Russian was considered to be more promising than fellow Red Bull juniors Antonio Felix da Costa and Carlos Sainz Jr., both of whom are more experienced.

It will nonetheless be an incredibly tough learning curve for Kvyat, who like compatriot Sirotkin, would surely have benefitted enormously from a season of Friday practice sessions combined with another year's competition in the junior formulae. Let's just hope that Red Bull's decision to fast-track Kvyat into F1 at such an early age doesn't result in his potential being squandered.

Qualifying Prediction
1. Vettel, 2. Webber, 3. Hamilton, 4. Grosjean, 5. Rosberg, 6. Raikkonen, 7. Alonso, 8. Massa, 9. Button, 10. Hulkenberg

Race Prediction
1. Vettel, 2. Grosjean, 3. Webber, 4. Raikkonen, 5. Alonso, 6. Hamilton, 7. Hulkenberg, 8. Massa, 9. Button, 10. Ricciardo

Unfortunately, it's hard to see how Vettel will be thwarted this weekend, though Grosjean will provide some respite by getting his Lotus cat among the Red Bull pigeons with another standout drive. Raikkonen will be outclassed by his teammate once more due to a sub-par qualifying, with Alonso and Hamilton rounding out the top half-dozen.

Hulkenberg will make it five points-scoring finishes in a row with seventh place, with Massa, Button and Ricciardo rounding out the points in what I predict to be largely a rather dull race. After qualifying up in fifth, Rosberg will be on the receiving end of some misfortune this weekend that will prevent him scoring.