2014 F1 season prediction

[rjbetty]

Grand Prix 2

Round 2: Malaysia
Starting Grid
1.Vettel
2.Hamilton
3.Ricciardo
4.Rosberg
5.Button
6.Raikkonen
7.Alonso
8.Maldonado
9.Hulkenberg
10.Bottas
11.Magnussen
12.Perez
13.Grosjean
14.Vergne
15.Massa
16.Sutil
17.Kvyat
18.Bianchi
19.Chilton
20.Kobayashi
21.van der Garde
22.Gutierrez

An uneventful start, though the Mercedes take the lead. Bottas and Kvyat are the first retirements, followed by Maldonado and Perez again. Rosberg is delayed down the back, while Hamilton gets a lurid spin out of turn 2 in backmarkers, colliding with Vettel. Lewis is out, but Vettel pits for a new wing. This leaves Ricciardo in front.

Vettel is very fast, but retires with a mechanical failure. Hulkenberg goes strongly challenging the Ferraris early on.

van der Garde is doing another sterling job from 21st and later on is beating at least 1 Sauber. Vergne was heavily delayed and not very fast anyway this time.

Ricciardo builds up a huge lead on the Ferraris but Rosberg eventually looks good to catch up for 2nd but retires for the second race in a row. This leaves Button on course for a fine return to 2nd and the podium, but he crashes with a few laps left in what turns out to be a race of attrition. He is not out though and despite losing much time, pits and comes out behind Hulkenberg who he massively catches and overtakes.

Before this, with little more than 10 laps to go, van der Garde is catching Sutil fast, and easily ahead of Gutierrez. Bianchi has already retired having run out of position in 15th early on. As others retire, van der Garde is on course to inherit 10th, but he himself suffers a heartbreaking oil leak before he gets into that position.

Gutierrez then takes the 10th place that van der Garde was about to come into, only to retire himself.

This leaves only 12 finishers as Ricciardo scores a hugely popular victory, miles ahead of Raikkonen and Alonso, with Button and Hulkenberg not far behind. Grosjean and Magnussen are a fairly distant 6th and 7th, with Massa putting in a slow but steady drive for 8th. Sutil is even further back and a much delayed Vergne takes 10th, absolutely nowhere. This means Kobayashi and Chilton take 11th and 12th.



Round 3: Bahrain
Starting Grid
1.Hamilton
2.Alonso
3.Vettel
4.Rosberg
5.Ricciardo
6.Raikkonen
7.Magnussen
8.Perez
9.Grosjean
10.Hulkenberg
11.Bottas
12.Sutil
13.Button
14.Maldonado
15.Massa
16.Gutierrez
17.Vergne
18.Kvyat

Hulkenberg stars early on but retires, as does his team-mate and the Toro Rossos. Rosberg is caught in an incident and needs to replace his front wing, ruining his race again. On the exact same lap, Hamilton inexplicably gets caught in backmarkers again, puts a wheel off track and his wheel ends up being ripped off. He was putting in a real challenge for victory and was leading. This lets Vettel through.

Vettel is on a 2 stop and come out behind Alonso, but soon overtakes him and builds up a big lead in the remaining laps to win, over 20sec. Ricciardo is very close behind and takes another good result in 3rd. Raikkonen manages to hold off the recovering Rosberg for 4th. Magnussen scores a good 6th ahead of Button, while Bottas and the closely matched Lotuses led by Grosjean round out the points. There are 14 finishers.



Round 4: China
Ricciardo just edges Vettel for pole at the death. Mercedes take the 2nd row just a little slower, Rosberg ahead. Ferraris take row 3, but Magnussen stars again in 7th. Gutierrez outqualifies Sutil in 14th and Vergne and Kvyat are 17th and 19th, van der Garde impressively splitting them.

Oddly, Ricciardo takes a close victory from Vettel, Hamilton and Rosberg. The Ferraris stay the same. Button, Perez, Massa and Grosjean fill out the points. There are 6 retirements.



Round 5: Spain
Top 6 on grid filled by usual suspects, though Raikkonen 3rd.

Vettel utterly dominates this one I'm afraid, by just over a minute (sigh). It's very close behind as 2nd-5th are covered by 5sec. Hamilton finishes 1sec ahead of Rosberg, the gap having stayed that way for much of the race.

Raikkonen and Ricciardo had been having a tense fight, with a small gap, then one taking the other. In the end Raikkonen just made it to another 4th. There were 6 retirements: Button, Grosjean, Perez, Massa, Kvyat (has retired from every race) and Kobayashi, who retired after a stupid collision with Raikkonen at turn 2 while he was fighting Ricciardo near the end.



Round 6: Monaco
Starting Grid
You know how at Monaco, sometimes you just can't get a time in.

1.Hamilton
2.Ricciardo+0.2
3.Rosberg+0.5
4.Raikkonen+0.9
5.Alonso+1.3 - could have gone faster
6.Button+1.7
7.Bottas+1.8
8.Grosjean+1.9
9.Vergne+1.9
10.Sutil+2.1
11.Maldonado+2.1
12.Magnussen+2.3 - could have maybe had 5th
13.Kvyat+2.4
14.Perez+2.8
15.Massa+2.9
16.Gutierrez+3.3
17.van der Garde+4.1
18.Kobayashi+4.5
19.Hulkenberg+4.6
20.Bianchi+6.6
21.Chilton+6.7
23.Vettel+7.9 - behind even Bruno Senna's Scorpion!

Ricciardo takes the lead but reitres on lap 2 - his first of the season! This delays Hamilton and Raikkonen takes his chance and leads the race. Vettel is already challenging van der Garde for 15th at the end of lap 2. Gutierrez was in for a new nose on lap 1 and Kobayashi spun at the chicane on lap 3.

By lap 7, Vettel has already caught up to the top 10 and a train of cars but can't get past Kevin Magnussen.Van der Garde retires from a promising 16th.

[jens]

Wow, rjbetty. What an elaborate preview of the season.

Interesting thoughts. Since it is a prediction, we really cannot argue ( ), but we can discuss in general about some things.

Firstly, about predictions in general. I think I have been making pre-season predictions roughly since 2004, occasionally even before, but those I can't remember properly any more. I have done either on a race-by-race basis in an Excel table, or just imagined, thought and written up next year's ranking/pecking order in general.

One thing I have noticed is that some seasons have been easier to predict than others. Of course it is impossible to make a perfect prediction, but in „easier“ cases you can avoid getting too many things wrong. I mean you can roughly anticipate the general state of games, even if details differ. For instance if in 2014 indeed the three „factory“ teams are above others, this season will be among the „easier“ ones.

In my mind 2013 was among the „easier ones“ too. McLaren was wrong, it was difficult to anticipate this, but many other things were quite close to expectation.

Also the period of 2006-2008 was relatively „logical“ to predict. By predicting I mean predictions before winter tests, before we have any markers.

Before 2006 I thought Ferrari and Renault were going to be top2 teams and Mercedes will get its V8 engine wrong. Like they had done in the past with other engines.

Before 2007 thought the title was going to be fought between Räikkönen, Alonso and also Massa. Renault was expected to drop back at least a little. Hamilton was the main spanner in the works not to be foreseen.

Before 2008 Ferrari was the favourite with McLaren expected to get hit at least slightly by 100M $ fine, but if anyone was going to take the fight to Ferrari, it was expected to be Hamilton. BMW Sauber seemed like a potential dark horse after a strong 2007.

Some seasons have a huge spanner in the works that even the experts find difficult to predict. 2005, 2009, 2012 were for me cases in point.

Based on pre-2005 winter tests I thought Schumacher, Räikkönen and Alonso were going to fight for the title. But before winter tests it was hard to see that McLaren and Renault were going to be well above others and Toyota also pretty good, because none of those three teams had been convincing in 2004. I think before winter tests my 2005 order looked like 1. M Schumacher, 2. Räikkönen, 3. Button. Ferrari/Bridgestone losing so much ground after a dominant 2004 was a surprise.

2009 of course. Rjbetty has said that he is trying to learn from insiders, but no-one saw this coming before winter tests certainly. Incredible season.

2012 was difficult to anticipate.
RBR lost a lot after their domination.
Ferrari had a difficult car, but despite that they developed so much Alonso led the WDC clearly in mid-season.
Lotus improved so much that Räikkönen was a remote title contender.
Sauber and Williams had a very fast car not just occasionally, but for most of the season.

It was very hard to foresee such a combination of things, combined with Pirelli tyres that saw 7 different winners in first 7 races.

- - -

One thing I have personally learnt from predictions is that they are often too much based on previous season. New season, new beginning has to be predicted with a new view, but taking into account the current potential (as much as we can see) of each team.

However, predictions are often too similar to previous year, because past year is our guideline and we are not aware of current developments. We do not have a guideline for the future. Let's take 2009 and Red Bull's rise. Before 2009 it was not a convincing argument that RBR should be predicted as a top team, just because they have Newey. You could say - „but RB-s were designed by Newey in 2007-08, yet they were in midfield.“ You did not have a convincing argument to have RBR as a top team, yet you had evidence that RBR was actually a midfield team with Newey on board. So there it goes.

- - -

Some rjbetty's points about 2014.
I agree that reliability is not going to be „dramatic“, even if a little worse. We could indeed have half of the cars retiring, but this would more likely be an exception rather than a rule. Certainly not a disaster like Horner claims. After all, we had only 7 finishers in 2008 Australia! But it wasn't the norm for the season.

I think Vettel could have an advantage over Mercedes' and Ferrari drivers by being a clear lead driver in the team. It could turn out to be quite important if your team-mate almost never finishes ahead of you. It was an advantage for Alonso back in 2010 in a fight against Red Bulls and McLarens.

Red Bull's general "invincibility" will be tested in 2014 though. It is possible that they will have lost a little bit of their former magic with new chassis-engine packages, also the team has lost a member of their "dream team" - Peter Prodromou. McLaren in 2012 proved Red Bull can be outraced (with proper reliability of course) if you get your package right, and this is what Mercedes will be aiming to do in 2014. Red Bull of course won't be weak, they should still be aerodynamically strong and still be pretty good particularly in the final phase of the season. But it will be hard to replicate their 2013 latter half utter dominance with new set of rules.

You are right to be concerned about Ferrari. I don't think Rory Byrne is going to be a big differentiator, because hasn't he been an "advisor" for a few years already? I think the arrival of James Allison could have more effect. But it is never that simple that a talented engineer comes from somewhere and makes a team competitive. The whole organization has to work like a clock-work. It took Newey quite a few years, before the synergy of RBR enabled them to get to the top. I am not convinced about the synergy of Ferrari under the leadership of Domenicali. Ferrari is not going to be absolutely rubbish, they are always there-or-thereabouts and they have a huge budget. But it is the matter of whether they are fighting for "regular podiums" or "regular wins". Basically it looks like the story of 2010-2013. If no-one can get a good and consistent run, Ferrari (Alonso) can stay in title contention (2010/2012). If someone does get a brilliant run (2011/2013) they won't stay.

I am not convinced of „big gaps“ yet. In 2009, despite big changes, cars were quite close to each other. Yet in 2011, after the rules had had some stability, RBR and some other teams had a breakthrough in EBD development and a few teams (with RBR spearheading it) emerged clearly above others. As we remember, in 2011 three teams were above and others didn't get a look in with the exception of Lotus getting two podiums early in the season.

However, in 1998 after rule changes the gaps were indeed significant at least early on. Also in 1994.

We remember back in the day (10-20 and more years ago) works engines had quite a significant advantage over customer ones (i.e 50 hp). The concern is valid that after time works engined cars could emerge above others. But early in the season we could get a few surprising results, especially if one engine company is above others (either generally, or in certain conditions, like wet or twisty Monaco). For instance if Mercedes is genuinely the best engine, McLaren, Force India and/or Williams could genuinely outrace Ferrari and Red Bull. Not regularly, but on some odd occasions.

But Mercedes, Renault and Ferrari are all experienced and big companies in building F1 engines, so it doesn't seem likely there will be a big gap between their powerplants even if there is a small disparity. Certainly when we are talking about „package“ Red Bull could be in contention even if they have engine deficiency. Like Benetton was in contention in 1994 despite underpowered Ford V8 engines.

When we are talking about McLaren, I think they could start out pretty well. Being a podium-challenging team seems likely. But as the season goes on, they are likely to fall back to minor points as they prepare to enter new era with Honda and co-operation with Mercedes loses importance. This gradual decline in performance was reflected in my prediction as well.

[jens]

Just one more thing for comparison. WDC points in 2010-2013. In some ways not too dissimilar. Incredibly. Four different years, but drivers are consistently scoring around the same region. Are we going to see more of the same?

Vettel     256  392  281  397
Alonso     252  257  278  242
Webber     242  258  179  199
Hamilton   240  227  190  189
Räikkönen    -    -  207  183

Basically only Vettel has gone up-and-down during those last four years, while everybody else has been scoring pretty consistently in the same region. Button was doing the same till 2013. Hamilton has stayed there despite changing teams. Räikkönen has joined them. Rosberg has obviously improved his points-tally in 2013, roughly swapping scores with Button. Will Ricciardo replicate Webber? Is there a strong argument the scores are going to be massively different? For that to happen someone's car has to be significantly better/worse than what we have seen. That's how Button/Rosberg swapped their scores.

[rjbetty]

Nice thoughts Jens,

Yes I totally agree that predictions are too much based on the previous season. We often find that things are very new in a new season.

2001 was a case in point. I expected Benetton to have their best season since 1998, even when everyone was saying they were terrible in testing. I also learned with Honda in pre-season 2007 and Jaguar 2002, even BAR 2005 and Toyota 2006 that if the widely held consensus is a team is going to struggle, they probably are. I mean even in 2009 people did predict from testing that McLaren and Renault would suck and Brawn would win early on. So although they say you can't glean much from testing, neither is it true that you can get absolutely no idea either.

In 2012, everyone was very closely matched with many setting competitive times - and that is how 2012 turned out.

Last year, through Red Bull were sandbagging, the view was that Mercedes would do well and McLaren wouldn't. Also Sauber did look ordinary and Williams nothing special. This is how it turned out.


Meanwhile
Monaco Grand Prix 2 (cont'd)
Raikkonen and Hamilton race at the front, and Hamilton gets ahead at the stops, but later on inexplicably crashes out lapping backmarkers again. This leaves Raikkonen and Alonso having their first real head-to-head, and it's for the lead.

Sadly, Raikkonen retires with about 20 laps to go. Other cars drop out, quite a bit of attrition here. This all allows Vettel to take a rather fortunate 3rd. There are 13 finishers though Kobayashi is the only back team finisher in 13th. It's payday for midfielders Vergne and Sutil in 4th and 5th.

1.Alonso - takes Ferrari's first win of the season
2.Rosberg
3.Vettel
4.Vergne
5.Sutil
6.Button
7.Grosjean
8.Hulkenberg - very good from the back of the grid
9.Perez
10.Massa


Round 7: Canada
Rosberg takes a close pole where the top 8 are quite close. Magnussen takes a close 7th, but Jenson surprises with a great 3rd on the grid. Vettel was only 6th having failed to get a clear lap. Alonso eventually jumped from 7th to 5th on the grid with Raikkonen only 8th. Massa and Gutierrez have their highest grid slots of the season so far in 12th and 13th.

In the race Rosberg retires again and it is generally much closer here, but in the end Vettel narrowly beats Ricciardo with Hamilton 3rd. Alonso retires with 3 laps to go.

1.Vettel
2.Ricciardo
3.Hamilton
4.Button
5.Raikkonen
6.Maldonado
7.Perez
8.Gutierrez
9.Vergne
10.Sutil
11.Kvyat - first finish of the season
12.van der Garde
DNF.Alonso
14.Kobayashi
15.Chilton


Round 8 - Austria (so glad to see this back) - I am going to run qualifying now then gotta go.
Hamilton takes a dominant pole from his team-mate, Vettel (who jumped from 5th at the death of quali), Raikkonen, Alonso, Ricciardo and the McLarens.

[jens]

Nice thoughts Jens,

Yes I totally agree that predictions are too much based on the previous season. We often find that things are very new in a new season.

2001 was a case in point. I expected Benetton to have their best season since 1998, even when everyone was saying they were terrible in testing. I also learned with Honda in pre-season 2007 and Jaguar 2002, even BAR 2005 and Toyota 2006 that if the widely held consensus is a team is going to struggle, they probably are. I mean even in 2009 people did predict from testing that McLaren and Renault would suck and Brawn would win early on. So although they say you can't glean much from testing, neither is it true that you can get absolutely no idea either.

In 2012, everyone was very closely matched with many setting competitive times - and that is how 2012 turned out.

Last year, through Red Bull were sandbagging, the view was that Mercedes would do well and McLaren wouldn't. Also Sauber did look ordinary and Williams nothing special. This is how it turned out.

I don't remember myself predicting anything before 2001, other than expecting Schumacher to win the title. And Häkkinen being his closest rival again.
Before 2002 I thought top 3 teams (Ferrari, Williams, McLaren) were above others with McLaren possibly losing a bit ground. But certainly expected Williams to give a good run for Ferrari's money. The new Renault team seemed likely to emerge as fourth on the back of their strong finish to the 2001 season.

I wonder, what could be the thing of 2014, which is hard to predict right now. Almost every season has at least something, even if not at the front of the field, then somewhere else.

Caterham/Marussia regularly fighting for points? 2014 is their big chance, even if neither is a particularly big team by F1 standards. Shockingly getting the car running well in the early season mess?

Anything among STR, Williams, Sauber, Force India? It is hard to see any of them completely dropping out of points into the backmarker bunch (though Williams very nearly did it), so is the flipside that any of them can threaten top teams? Can someone be the "new Lotus" (2012 rise) with new regs? None of them is financially very well off. Though at least Sauber has IMO proved the last couple of years that they have some very clever engineers in the team and are able to design a fast car even on a shoestring budget.

Lotus and McLaren are the ones, who can be relatively tricky to predict at this moment - both in a good and bad way.

And the so-called potential top 3 teams. It is hard to reach a conclusion at this time whether we could either have a close fight for the title (2010/2012) or someone running away with it (2011/2013). At the moment have been going with the 'close' one.

But nevertheless, let's see what does testing bring us. Even the early days. Though it is often said the first days don't show anything as teams are only "dialling the cars in", sometimes having an immediate advantage can be vital. Others have to catch up and they may remain doing so.

[rjbetty]

Grand Prix 2: Round 8 - Austria (cont'd)

The first retirement is Vettel, who amazingly is out due to a driver error! Kobayashi retires, then on lap 17 Lewis is out from a handsome lead - would surely have won. Toward half distance, Gutierrez retires, then interestingly, Ricciardo too! What a terrible race for Red Bull at their home track - in fact, the circuit they own! The only other retirement is Bottas from a good 8th with 3 laps to go. Rosberg was again delayed early on and his race was all about recovery after an extra stop.

All this meant that the Ferraris were clear to score an immensely popular 1-2! Raikkonen and Alonso had tried different strategies with Alonso 2 stopping and Raikkonen once. Alonso stopped from the lead with less than 20 laps to go, and hunted Raikkonen down, but his tyres couldn't last and he settled for 2nd, 13sec down. What a great win for Kimi, and Ferrari's second in 3 races. Rosberg was 6sec behind Alonso in the end. Kevin Magnussen scored a fine 4th, 52sec off Kimi, while it was noticed at the end that 1-stopping Vergne had managed to stay ahead of charging 2-stopping Button. Kvyat had also crept into a strong 10th with Bottas' late exit. He was only 1sec behind Perez in 8th! Massa was only a further 4sec behind. Van der Garde was the highest back team finisher in 14th.

Result:
1.Raikkonen 2.Alonso 3.Rosberg 4.Magnussen 5.Vergne 6.Button 7.Hulkenberg 8.Perez 9.Grosjean 10.Kvyat


Mid-season summary
Points after Round 8 of 16 (only 16 races on GP2)
1.Vettel 118pts
2.Ricciardo 111pts
3.Alonso 109pts
4.Raikkonen 97pts
5.Hamilton 73pts
6.Rosberg 70pts
7.Button 58pts
8.Vergne 39pts
9.Magnussen 29pts
10.Hulkenberg 24pts
11.Grosjean 19pts
12.Perez 16pts
13.Sutil 14pts
14.Maldonado 11pts
15.Bottas 8pts
16.Massa 7pts
17.Gutierrez 4pts
18.Kvyat 1pt

1.Red Bull-Renault 229pts
2.Ferrari 206pts
3.Mercedes 143pts
4.McLaren-Mercedes 87pts
5.Toro Rosso-Renault 40pts
6.Force India-Mercedes 40pts
7.Lotus-Renault 30pts
8.Sauber-Ferrari 18pts
9.Williams-Mercedes 15pts

Ricciardo has had an immensely consistent start to the season despite not being that fast in race trim. His qualifying has at times been top notch however. Things have all gone his way so far and more couldn't have been asked. His only faults were crashing out of the lead at Monaco on lap 1, being defeated by Hamilton in Australia and Raikkonen in Spain. He has done a Frentzen-99-like job but always seems to lose out in a scrap, except for China!

Vettel has definitely been the fastest, especially in races, but uncharacteristic errors in Australia and Austria, plus being t-boned by Hamilton in Malaysia before retiring, and starting 23rd in Monaco show that though the performance remains, the invincibility has disappeared. He is still the title favourite by a large margin though.

That's because Mercedes have been even more unfortunate. It all looked so good after Hamilton won the first race, but so much has gone wrong. Lewis has astonishingly got caught in so many strange backmarker situations. This stopped him winning Malaysia and Monaco, and possibly Bahrain. He DNFed in all 3 instead! Rosberg has been even more unlucky. The opposite of Ricciardo, the cards are falling badly for Mercedes as Nico has had problems nearly every race (despite the decent reliability I gave Mercededs that should should see each driver retire 3, maybe 4 times in the season). This leaves the drivers and team well down.

Lotus have done terribly, Grosjean usually starting just outside the top 10 with a highest grid placing of 9th. Maldonado has been more up and down, starting 7th in Spain and 16th in Austria. Grosjean is the better racer, has suffered more unreliability than Maldonado and beaten him to the flag every time both finished. Romain scored a highest of 6th in Malaysia while Maldonado did score a strong 6th in Canada.

It's been a more decent season for McLaren, with Magnussen qualifying 6th on his debut and 7th four further times. Button also started 5th in Malaysia, 6th in Monaco and 3rd in Canada. Jenson would have taken 2nd at Sepang before going off near the end. He's retired once, in Spain, but everywhere else finished either 4th, 6th or 7th. Magnussen beat Button to 6th in Bahrain and came 4th in Austria.

Force India have done a decent job, usually starting around the top 10. Perez has surprisingly defeated the Hulk 5-3 in qualifying, but much of that is because Hulk lost out badly in qualifying in Monaco and Austria in particular. Nico has been the better racer and recovered from 19th on the grid at Monaco to beat Perez home in 8th. He also defeated Sergio by 30sec in Austria having started 3 places behind. Nico scored a mighty 5th in Sepang while Perez came 7th in Canada.

Sauber have not done well, Sutil only starting in the top 10 once. Qualifying has gone 5-3 in his favour. But Sutil has managed to finish around 10th in the races, though he picked up the pieces to grab 5th in monaco. Gutierrez lost 10th in Malaysia in the closing stages, but capitalised in Canada to come 8th, 2 places ahead of Sutil. He is doing alright, but was embarrassed by van der Garde in the opening two races, alo starting 22nd at Sepang.

Williams have improved and Bottas is definitely getting stuck in with the Force Indias and Lotuses. He has often retired from good positions though, such as 5th at Monaco. Massa has not yet qualified in the top 10, but plays a Bruno Senna 2012 role in claiming useful lower points finishes, or just outside the points.

Toro Rosso have been their usual self, in qualifying anyway. However, similar to Ricciardo, Jean-Eric Vergne has been a revelation in the way he has almost unnoticed quietly racked up a huge sum of points, just by unobtrusively being there. Actually, his race pace has been very good at times. Has shown a great ability to always be there and capitalise. 6th in Australia, 7th in Spain, 4th in Monaco and 5th in Canada are amazing results, with other points finishes in Malaysia and Canada. Daniil Kvyat has yet to outqualify his team-mate but has been very competent. He has suffered terrible unreliability, retiring from the first 6 races, sometimes in good pints-scoring positions. He finally got to the flag in Canada, a close 11th before going one better to open his account in Austria.

The bottom two teams have been their usual poor selves, though Caterham seems generally ahead. Van der Garde in particular has raced extremely well and looked like finishing as high as 9th before his car gave out not far from the end, Luca Badoer Nurburgring 1999 style. Unreliability has enabled them to finish a little higher than usual, but points still elude both teams.

[jens]

They will be working closely with Renault, and understand headline power figures are not everything. The long game is more important, and Renault have tended to do very well on fuel consumption and driveability. I really don't think it's just going to be all about engines like a lot of people say; I merely think they will just be more of a factor, but things will be much the same.

I missed this quote, but I think it is a very valid comment. I believe a technical director or an engine man (was it Ferrari's?) commented on this also recently. That in the end the package matters, not just engine alone. An engine has to fit into a chassis well, and work harmoniously and reliable in the car to make it go very fast around a circuit.

But the argument is very valid that Renault engine could have some important strengths, like fuel consumption. And we know that fuel saving as it has been put, will be absolutely vital this year. In fact, it is considered to be part of drivers' skillset for 2014 in addition to tyre saving skill we have had since 2011 with Pirellis.

My personal hypothesis is that... Mercedes-powered cars go well on faster circuits like Montreal and Monza, where sheer horsepowers count more. And just like in 2010 and 2012, RBR could struggle at Monza, while in 2011/13 they were very competitive there. However, on street circuits, where drivability counts, RBR-Renault package could be the one to beat. A hypothesis. I am also wondering whether Renault-engined cars could have an advantage in the wet, where also drivability is important? Though fuel saving is not so important in the wet. And I must admit I am not aware, which circuits are more "thurstier" for engines and which less.

I think it could possibly vary from track-to-track and circuit-to-circuit, which engineor should I say package is the best. A bit like throughout the years we have often seen with cars/chassis anyway or when we had tyre war in the past. Or even further back, when we had "engine wars". I mean the same Ford V8 engine was pretty handy at twisty circuits, while Ferrari V12 was the one to have at Hockenheim. However, as all the engines are going to be 1.6l V6, the differences in performance are not going to vary as much as the performance between V8 and V12, obviously.

[rjbetty]

Re: Jens:

You're right Jens, most seasons have had unexpected form, good or bad, from certain teams.

I have been predicting a lot since 2000, even 1999 maybe. I got 2000 spectacularly wrong where I thought Jordan and Jaguar were going to create a big four with Ferrari and McLaren (sigh). BAR were only slightly off my prediction, while Williams surprised everyone by coming 3rd with an engine that turned out to have 800bhp.
I thought Prost were going to be very strong too.

But the biggest surprise was a great pleasure and unexpected: The amazing Orange Arrows. I'll never forget the first time I saw it on ITV's coverage as it sped efficiently through the lush Albert Park overgrowth, then watching them come 12th and 13th in qualifying, having been regularly beaten by Minardi just months ago. They were even stronger in the race, then even more so in Brazil. This is just about my highest F1 highlight ever.

For 2001, I thought Benetton were going to strong with Renault and Jordan would bounce back to not 1999 levels, but something better. The surprise was a bad Benetton, and a great Williams and a very impressive and strong Sauber.

For 2002 the surprises were that the gaps widened. not closed, through the field. Jaguar's poor form and Toyota's good form were unexpected.

For 2003 I didn't expect Renault to be so strong and Alonso to be SO amazing!! Nor Raikkonen to eclipse Coulthard quite so much. Especially not Button to destroy Villeneuve, or Jordan and Minardi to do so badly sadly...

For 2004, Ferrari's dominance, BAR doing SO well, Williams being a disaster (we kinda had a clue McLaren might not be good, but nowhere near the catastrophe it was)

2005: So much - Ferrari, Toyota, Red Bull & Coulthard, Sato doing badly, BAR not scoring a legitimate point till halfway through the season. Fisichella doing SO badly against Alonso (sob - I remember how painful that was). I remember doing 2005 a lot on Grand Prix 2 before the season, and everything went wrong for Fisichella and he was far down from Alonso. I was horrified but thought "phew I'm glad there's no way it could possibly happen like that!"...

2006: Massa coming 3rd in the WDC. BMW doing well.

2007: Well actually I initially thought Hamilton might be around 9th overall, but I was now becoming more experienced and realised that actually, this guy might well come 4th overall and be say +0.23sec down on Alonso. I thought that would be very impressive indeed. I had no idea.
Renault doing so badly. I had hoped that Renault would have an advantage and with Kovalainen gaining experience, Fisi having a good chance of the title. Deep down though, I could tell it was just a pipe dream. I saw the pictures of the launch, and just looking at Fisi you just knew he wasn't going to make it. But I didn't think he'd just give up when Kovalainen started coming on, and have such a shocker.

Heidfeld beating Kubica. The other teams being well behind the top 2. Super Aguri. Most of all for 2007 - HONDA


2008: don't know. In retrospect, when I finally allowed myself to look at the 2008 results around September 2009, I was utterly flabbergasted to see that Vettel had come 8th in a Toro Rosso with 35 points, and won a race. Just stupendous. I thought at the time this was more impressive than Hamilton's 2007, but Vettel subsequently being matched by Webber in 2010 gave me more perspective.
Finding out that Fisichella was still in F1.

2009: Finding out that Fisichella was still in F1. Finding out that he almost won Spa. I thought I was seeing things. Bourdais doing so badly. Red Bull doing so well. Toyota doing well. Sauber and Renault not doing well.

2010: Somehow I called this season almost 100% perfect. I have never come close again, before or since.

2011: Ferrari not being equal with Red Bull. Button finishing ahead of Hamilton (BY DEFAULT), Heidfeld being slower than Petrov, Force India not regressing, Williams doing so badly, Maldonado outqualifying Rubens, new teams not improving much.

2012: Where to start. Raikkonen coming 3rd. Michael on pole in Monaco (I think it is at least fairly certain he would have won. Michael was always better in race trim and Nico said the Merc was faster than Webber's struggling Bull on Sunday). Rosberg dominating China. Biggest shock of all - Maldonado's win. The closeness of the field in general. Caterham not scoring a point - I was almost completely certain this time. Vergne being a poor qualifier but better in races than Ricciardo - I predicted the other way round. Maldonado dominating Senna so much. Jenson being so destroyed by Hamilton.

2013: The form of Nico Rosberg and Force India. McLaren doing so badly. van der Garde being closer to Pic than expected. Williams going back to 2011. Ferrari fading so much.

What will 2014 bring?

[jens]

That's a pretty good overview on a year-by-year basis.
Actually so far we have been predicting team performances, but also driver performances surprise at times. For example, Räikkönen's 2008 and Hamilton's 2011 were not predicted. Which driver is going to impress and who is going to struggle unexpectedly in 2014?

It is hard to see Vettel getting beaten by Ricciardo. I don't think Ricciardo is that good and Vettel having such a shocker, though reliability may "equalize" things like it did in 2010. Hamilton and Alonso are more iffy though they are favourites. For Alonso this is a new match-up, for Hamilton it was a bit too close for comfort in 2013 though he came out on top. However, if you have such a marginal advantage, the tables can easily turn if you have a bad patch in form. Both Button (2010) and Massa (2007) were close to their team-mates and capitalized on the advantage next year, when their team leader went off the boil.

Button is his usual self, mostly solid, sometimes struggling with balance. Age isn't on his side any more either, but Magnussen has to be absolutely superb to topple him already this year. Hülkenberg has been more convincing than Pérez in both 2012-2013, so based on that form I see the German ahead. Grosjean is the incumbent in the Lotus team and seems more convincing now.

Between Bottas and Massa it could be a close call. Bottas though is one of my guesses for a "shock" podium this year if Mercedes is really good engine, Williams again improves closer to its 2012 level and ... Bottas in his second full season can put in some great drives like Pérez put in in his second year (2012)! On paper Sutil is favourite over Gutiérrez, but it depends, how much the Mexican improves in his second year and how well Sutil can settle in in the new team, so it could be close too...

So which driver pairing battle can surprise us?

--
Trying to recall some things too...
The main thing before 1999 I remember I was expecting the fresh dominant CART champion Alessandro Zanardi to impress. Obviously nothing came out of this and I was a kid at the time and didn't know a thing.

You have a good point about having difficulty in predicting 2000 midfield. Obviously McLaren and Ferrari seemed like favourites, but behind them it was a hard call. I don't remember if I was expecting anything from the new Williams-BMW package, or the new BAR-Honda. I remember during winter tests it was said on TV that Jordan looked good and I liked it.

As you say, Arrows turned out unbelievably fast at times (Verstappen leading UK qualifying for a moment, then Austria, Hockenheim). But Prost-Peugeot was a huge disappointment with Alesi (who I rated highly at the time) and the new fresh F3000 champion Heidfeld.

Regarding 2001... I think the new Williams-BMW package could have been expected to improve a little, but Montoya dominating already third race in Brazil on merit in dry conditions on brand new Michelin tyres as well was a proper shocker.

Regarding 2002 I am not sure if Jaguar (they had been disappointment in 2000/2001 anyway) or Toyota (in lower midfield most of the time) surprised me, but I think I was pretty disappointed in Jordan-Honda, which had been regular points contender in previous years, but now with Fisichella on board was often pretty low down the pack.

2003 big surprise was to find out that after the Brazilian GP Renault was actually ahead of Ferrari in WCC! What a weird start to the season, though weather largely contributed to it. Never expected Ferrari to get lapped in Hungary, while they looked good enough to lap everyone there in 2002! Also midfield looked surprisingly strong, Webber even qualified into top3 at times.

2004 was also a season hard to predict. 2003 saw new pretenders Montoya and Räikkönen almost beating M.Schumacher. And Michelin tyres emerging as superior to Bridgestone, who was losing clients (also BAR went to Michelin in 2004). Yet it all turned around in 2004. For me personally one of the hardest seasons to predict along with 2005. Behind 2009 obviously, which was hardest of all.

2005-2008 already discussed. Though in 2008 even though teams weren't far off, among drivers there was some disparity, because was expecting Räikkönen and Heidfeld to finish above their team-mates, especially after the ban of TC!

2010 – interesting that you mention it was easy to predict. I think I have got to agree. The main team I underrated, was Ferrari. I thought they'd struggle more and let Vettel and Hamilton to fight it out for the title. Mercedes always seemed likely to drop back on the back of Brawn's financial struggles during their 2009 title campaign.

I was unconvinced of what to expect from Kubica-Renault. Either a few podiums or getting lost in midfield. However, was expecting a lot from Force India after a strong finish to 2009 and having stability without team owner pulling out. Also was curious about the early season potential of BMW Sauber despite pullout, but doubtful about their drivers.
2011 – was certainly expecting Ferrari to fight it out for the title. After all the switch to Pirelli tyres seemed suitable for them... at least in theory!

[steveaki13]

Wow Rjbetty. I thought you said you had less time on your hands.

That was impressive. You too Jens.

I struggle to recall my predictions from years past.

I do remember like you Rj that I thought Benetton 2001 was going to be a decent car, I also remember the Prost setting a lap record in testing and thus thinking maybe they would be a top 6 team more regularly again, but both returned near the back.