2014 - half-time overview

[jens]

So half of 2014 has basically passed and perhaps it is time for a review. As in 2009, but to a slightly lesser extent, the season has seen some pretty drastic changes in the pecking order with some teams moving way up or down through the field. Also driver performances have shifted with some of the champions struggling and some of the young guns unexpectedly moving well up to the front - obviously helped by very good cars, but nonetheless.

Your top6 drivers of the season so far?
Your 6 least impressive/worst drivers of the season so far?
Best/most interesting race so far?
Worst race so far?
How well do you like the new rules by now?
Biggest shock/surprise of the season for you?
Who will win the Drivers' title in the end? Who will finish 3rd?


Some questions regarding future.
Is 2014 the sign for the future period? Like 2009 marked the rise of Red Bull to the top and the likes of Ferrari and McLaren losing ground and not winning championships any more. Those two legendary teams won no titles in 09-13 though they won it all in 07-08. It could get pretty boring if Mercedes-Benz dominates for many years to come. Hamilton and Rosberg would be happy to have repeated shots at titles, while others wouldn't be that happy.

Some more specific questions.
Does 2014 mark the return of Williams? 2012 they also had a very good car, but that was a false dawn. Can Williams remain a consistent force for years to come?

How many more years does it take for Ferrari or McLaren to finally start winning anything? Remember, Ferrari had a 21-year Drivers Championship drought in 79-00. Both Ferrari and McLaren started out badly for the 2009 regulations. They have done it again for 2014. How much longer will the agony last? Though the Williams example shows it can be possible to come out of it, but it could take a long time.

Is the Red Bull era finally over? They won it all in 2010-2013. Now they have an inferior power unit and while the chassis is still good, Newey is about to move aside from F1 activities soon.

[Big Ben]

Half-time? and I'm yet to watch a full race. All this watching the tires, watching the engine, watching the fuel BS it's a turn off for me. Add to that the DRS, the ugly noses, engine freeze, double points and... well I think I might just pass on the second half too. My interest in F1 can be easily satisfied by a few articles I can read online.

[rjbetty]

A belated reply to this.

TOP 6 DRIVERS
The first few are easy, the next few are very hard to separate.

1.Lewis Hamilton - Maybe I'm just biased. On pure pace he gets it. Much has gone wrong for him this season compared to his team-mate, but he's lost his rag a few times too. Season fell apart when Rosberg underhandedly got into his head in Monaco. Moral champ imo.

2.Fernando Alonso - What more could you possibly ask? What? I still feel he's lost a tiny amount of performance from his peak, which is why he's only an extremely close 2nd.

3.Nico Rosberg - Will win the WDC I think, since it's determined by who has the most points. Rosberg can afford to finish 2nd behind Hamilton a lot and bank the pts, and still be regarded as the better driver. Yet if Lewis just once settles for a 2nd behind Nico, he is decryed as the worst driver overall!! Huh?! This is one reason I feel why Lewis doesn't have as much pts, he's not really "allowed" to go the consistent route. Nico has still done a top job though, very much Lauda 84 like, though still with very good speed. Makes you re-evaluate the 43yr old Schumacher in 2012 doesn't it?

4.Daniel Ricciardo - Still hard to quantify how good he actually is. All the evidence is though he's at least a match for Vettel, issues or not. Let's no get too excited yet, since Webber also matched and beat Vettel when EBD wasn't a factor.

5 and 6.Now it gets tougher. Nico Hulkenberg probably 5th. Vettel in there somewhere as without problems he is still at a pretty high level - not so tough without your exhaust blown diffuser though are we? It's telling that Alonso or Hamilton never seemed as ordinary when driving inferior/unsuited cars, but anyway... Bottas definitely up there, but in truth, Massa was slightly quicker up till recently. Bottas has a ton more pts though, and no it's not all down to luck. He has enough capacity to bring the car home too and not get involved in crashes a lot of the time. Too many times that's happened to Felipe to just be bad luck.

Other mentions go to Button who's still at a pretty good level, Grosjean, Perez, and maybe Massa.



6 WORST DRIVERS
22.Ericsson - Slow and crashy.
21.Chilton - Much improved but I still think maybe 20 or so other drivers are doing better.
20.Gutierrez - Outqualified Sutil a lot, though I very much feel his much lighter weight gives an unfair advantage - around 4 tenths maybe!
19.Maldonado - Has had terrible fortune, but still is basically fast, and he should be able to put a good weekend together sooner or later.
18.Sutil - Just not impressive, but massively held back by being heavy. Same is true for Hulkenberg though...
17.Kobayashi - Done ok, but I still don't see all the hype to fast-track him into a top team. Needs a standout performance - the kind you'd expect if he's really that good.



THE NEW RULES
Yes I like them! I haven't been hearing much about the noses and noises recently which is telling. I love the sound, gave me shivers in my spine hearing it the first time. Really futuristic and exciting and tells me "the future of F1 has arrived!"

I like how Joe Saward is excited about the new F1, especially since he's a bit older, so you might have expected someone from his generation to be more stuck in the mud, a fuddy duddy. I agree it's crazy how the new F1 revolution hasn't been promoted at all.

I personally am fascinated that the technology exists to harvest energy and store it to be used later. To me, that is astounding and akin to turning metal into gold. Ok that's going a bit too far, but I still fin this stuff amazing.

[dj_bytedisaster]

Your reviews are normally good but your bitchiness about Vettel gets a bit tiresome. Surely not even you can be that bitter...

5 and 6.Now it gets tougher. Nico Hulkenberg probably 5th. Vettel in there somewhere as without problems he is still at a pretty high level - not so tough without your exhaust blown diffuser though are we? It's telling that Alonso or Hamilton never seemed as ordinary when driving inferior/unsuited cars, but anyway...

Rewatch the 2011 season and you'll see Hamilton at his most ordinary, he was quite hopeless that year. And even Alonso had his phases. He was quite ordinary in 2012 from Monza onwards and was even beaten by Massa occasionally or had to be kept ahead by way of team order (Austin). Watch last years Monaco GP - Alonso was shockingly invisible.
Vettels "ordinariness" comes more from the fact that Danny is much better than expected and that he had only 4 out 10 troublefree weekends so far (Malysia, Barcelona, Canada, Hungary). And in Canada his race was ruined by the team. In Hungary it was ruined by the SC and later himself by overdoing it in his attempt to catch up the time the SC had put into him. So if you claim mitigating circumstances for Lewis because everything goes against him, what should Vettel say? 8 out of 10 races were ruined by the team, mechanical failures, and the safety car in HUN. With that sort of bad luck, even Webber might start to pity him soon.

[rjbetty]

Your reviews are normally good but your bitchiness about Vettel gets a bit tiresome. Surely not even you can be that bitter...

Oh come on I was just ribbing when I said he wasn't so tough now. I think I've given Vettel plenty of praise in the past.

Rewatch the 2011 season and you'll see Hamilton at his most ordinary, he was quite hopeless that year.

Hamilton might have had a meltdown over 2011 but he was still easily quicker than Jenson who was having his best year. Qualifying went 13-6 iirc. He didn't come too far behind in pts even though he threw a ton away with the Massa clashes. And those clashes can't all be Lewis' fault: Look at this season and who's the one being involved in clashes in almost half the races (blaming the other driver each time)? If 2011 was Hamilton at his worst, Lord have mercy when he's at his best.

And even Alonso had his phases. He was quite ordinary in 2012 from Monza onwards and was even beaten by Massa occasionally or had to be kept ahead by way of team order (Austin). Watch last years Monaco GP - Alonso was shockingly invisible.

Alonso has slogged tirelessly for the past 4 years relentlessly and "outdriven" his machinery to almost a title in 2012 with a resilience I suspect someone like Vettel can only dream of. Fernando has suffered relatively great hardship compared to the ease of the Red Bull machine. He achieved this by driving his guts out looking to better days ahead, which never came as things only got worse. I for one do not blame him at all for finally, finally starting to show the first signs of tiredness and strain., which I believe is the cause of these showings where he appeared to wilt somewhat.

Vettels "ordinariness" comes more from the fact that Danny is much better than expected and that he had only 4 out 10 troublefree weekends so far (Malysia, Barcelona, Canada, Hungary). And in Canada his race was ruined by the team. In Hungary it was ruined by the SC and later himself by overdoing it in his attempt to catch up the time the SC had put into him.

I meant that Seb has seemed more ordinary and mortal compared to last year, not that he is ordinary. I agree that Dan has done better than expected as he didn't seem able to produce that srt of performance consistently at Toro Rosso. I think I acknowledged that Vettel hasn't had the rub of the green this year.

Interestingly, as I like Hamilton, I feel that he too has had the same amount of genuinely trouble-free weekends in 2014, and those were the 4 he won on the bounce. In a way, it could be argued that Seb is still outrageously lucky to finally get his "bad year" in a year when it doesn't matter anyway, while Hamilton is getting his higher than usual misfortune in the one crucial season.

So if you claim mitigating circumstances for Lewis because everything goes against him, what should Vettel say? 8 out of 10 races were ruined by the team, mechanical failures, and the safety car in HUN. With that sort of bad luck, even Webber might start to pity him soon.

Ok that's fair. I don't deny Lewis messed up at Austria and Silverstone qualy (where unlike a certain driver he didn't benefit from those mistakes), but pretty much everywhere else Lewis has suffered pretty close to the same as Seb maybe, despite having a better car. Inidentally, Lewis must be the only driver who would be blamed so much for the brake failure in Canada. I don't really see many others being treated so harshly.

I know that Seb has issues that prevented him getting better results, but I feel like most he still needs to prove he's clearly the best driver in the world.

[Doc Austin]

I am especially disappointed with Vettel. If the car really sucked that would explain things completely, but the remaining mystery would be why Ricciardo has been so good with it. I would love to see Vettel run off a string of wins, but he's just too lost right now. Maybe the summer break will really help him out.

[dj_bytedisaster]

Fernando has suffered relatively great hardship compared to the ease of the Red Bull machine.

See, that's where people get it wrong, IMHO. The RB of yesterday was NOT an easy machine. Just ask Mark Webber. It required a counter-intuitive driving style that Vettel spent five years perfecting. And now he pays a very high price for that, as after 'unlearning' natural instincts to lift in a corner, but press the loud pedal instead, he has to 'relearn' the normal way. His four titles come at a price and the price is that he now finds himself being a master at a driving style that doesn't work anymore with this years cars. He has to re-learn the conventional way. And that he does was visible over the season. He was good at Barcelona 15->5, Canada which he would have won if it wasn't for the team suddenly forgetting how to read a GPS display, Malysia and Hungary until he binned it by being too agressive.

[Malbec]

I am especially disappointed with Vettel. If the car really sucked that would explain things completely, but the remaining mystery would be why Ricciardo has been so good with it. I would love to see Vettel run off a string of wins, but he's just too lost right now. Maybe the summer break will really help him out.

As am I. Had his downswing been for the first few races while he got his head around the new cars then I'd have understood but he still isn't really on Riccardo's pace after half a season. For his paycheque I'd want him nailing the new regs pretty quickly. To put it bluntly I don't think Alonso would ever find himself in the same situation, he'd sort himself out sharpish.

For similar reasons Kimi has disappointed. The pace frequently simply isn't there. Alonso's preseason putdowns that Massa was a quicker teammate seem more like statements of fact rather than mind games, that isn't something I was expecting. Again I expect his paycheque to be quite significant and he isn't performing to the level his salary would suggest.

[Malbec]

17.Kobayashi - Done ok, but I still don't see all the hype to fast-track him into a top team. Needs a standout performance - the kind you'd expect if he's really that good.

Bizarre choice.

Almost always out qualifies his teammate and outpaces him in races though that is to be expected due to his experience. Ericsson is showing few signs of closing the gap though. He is behind in points mainly out of reliability issues. Your obsession with Kobayashi is frankly bizarre, I think he is doing the best anyone could in the same situation with a woefully underfunded team running a car that hasn't been updated since preseason. The fact that he is able to hang onto Bianchi's coattails for a while in races is impressive, but I presume you expect him to win races in the same car.

I do agree with the rest of your bottom six but I put it to you that Kimi's performance this season is woeful and certainly worse than Kobayashi's.

[Malbec]

Some questions regarding future.
Is 2014 the sign for the future period? Like 2009 marked the rise of Red Bull to the top and the likes of Ferrari and McLaren losing ground and not winning championships any more. Those two legendary teams won no titles in 09-13 though they won it all in 07-08. It could get pretty boring if Mercedes-Benz dominates for many years to come. Hamilton and Rosberg would be happy to have repeated shots at titles, while others wouldn't be that happy.

Some more specific questions.
Does 2014 mark the return of Williams? 2012 they also had a very good car, but that was a false dawn. Can Williams remain a consistent force for years to come?

How many more years does it take for Ferrari or McLaren to finally start winning anything? Remember, Ferrari had a 21-year Drivers Championship drought in 79-00. Both Ferrari and McLaren started out badly for the 2009 regulations. They have done it again for 2014. How much longer will the agony last? Though the Williams example shows it can be possible to come out of it, but it could take a long time.

Is the Red Bull era finally over? They won it all in 2010-2013. Now they have an inferior power unit and while the chassis is still good, Newey is about to move aside from F1 activities soon.

The regs changes have shaken things up a bit but next year and onwards things will settle down and performance will mainly be a product of funding x good management. I expect Renault to be much stronger next year, hopefully Ferrari too. The best funded and run teams i.e. Mercedes and RBR will rise to the top while the less well funded teams will form a clear tier below like Williams (though that depends on whether they can improve their sponsorship status) and McLaren. I expect Ferrari to be in this tier too despite their budget due to continued poor management.

It will be interesting to see where FI and Lotus end up, also whether Sauber can recover. Also how good will the Honda be? I hope that the amount of money Honda are pumping into the team this year will allow McLaren to recover for next season but who knows...