Team-mate battles of 2010

[jens]

Not all line-ups have been confirmed so far, but before testing it's the right time to start debating about this matter. It's quite a significant topic for 2010, because with the exception of Red Bull all teams have changed at least one driver in their line-ups. If we include the end of 2009, one could add Force India and maybe STR as well. One more battle may keep going, namely Kubica v Heidfeld if the latter is going to be signed, but in different colours. From this perspective 2010 is very different from 2009, when only two teams - RBR and STR - made any changes to their line-ups at all.

So who is going to end up on top in each battle and by how much? Which are going to be the most exciting and which the most one-sided battles? :p :

[N. Jones]

Lineup battles.... I just want to know who is going to fill the six open drivers spots !

Sauber
Renault
STR
Campos
USF1 - 2

:)

[F1boat]

Not all line-ups have been confirmed so far, but before testing it's the right time to start debating about this matter. It's quite a significant topic for 2010, because with the exception of Red Bull all teams have changed at least one driver in their line-ups. If we include the end of 2009, one could add Force India and maybe STR as well. One more battle may keep going, namely Kubica v Heidfeld if the latter is going to be signed, but in different colours. From this perspective 2010 is very different from 2009, when only two teams - RBR and STR - made any changes to their line-ups at all.

So who is going to end up on top in each battle and by how much? Which are going to be the most exciting and which the most one-sided battles? :p :
Great topic. In my opinion 2010 will show very interesting team-battles. I think that between Jenson and Lewis in McLaren and between Fernando and Felipe in Ferrari it will be very close. I can not say who will come on top, I hope that Jenson will be able to beat Lewis. In Mercedes I believe that Michael will dominate Nico and Seb will extend his advantage over Webber in Red Bull. Rubens will likely beat Hulk in Williams. I am not sure or I don't care about the others ;)

[keysersoze]

Qualifying:

Hamilton over Button, 13-6
Schumacher over Rosberg, 11-8 (but Rosberg has an early lead)
Vettel over Webber, 15-4
Alonso over Massa, 12-7
Trulli over Kovalainen, 12-7
Sutil over Liuzzi, 11-8
Kubica over Whoever, 18-1
Barrichello over Hulkenberg, 13-6
Buemi over Alguesuari, 14-5
Glock over di Grassi, 11-8

[Sonic]

Fascinating.

The magic eight ball tells me that;

Massa will beat Alonso in quali, but Fred will score more points.

Rubens will have his hands full with a fired up little Nico.

Schumacher and Nico will be closer than some expect.

My magic eight ball also says; answers unclear. Try again later.

[SGWilko]

Fred will get beaten, will be seething inside, but won't say a dickie bird otherwise everyone will realise what a cum splat he really is.

Queen of the Prima Donnas.

[gloomyDAY]

Lineup battles.... I just want to know who is going to fill the six open drivers spots !

Sauber
Renault
STR
Campos
USF1 - 2

:) Wise ...! :D

[jens]

Well, I've decided to add my thoughts too. :)

In each of the Top4 teams one driver is generally regarded as the superior one - Alonso, Hamilton, Schumacher, Vettel. Even if they seem bigger favourites on paper, team-mate battles have offered interesting twists almost each year and not all of them may end in the "expected way". I consider Massa and Rosberg as the biggest possibilities of an upset.

Massa has shown each year his ability to improve and I once wrote that I consider the 2009 race (!) performances as his best ever, which possessed more consistency than ever before. And after all, the fact that he managed to deal so well with a fast driver like Räikkönen so well, is quite telling for me. And I don't think Räikkönen is "slower" than Alonso as such, when we are talking about this driver trait (raw pace).

Rosberg is a bit unknown. The main substance of criticism have been his sloppy performances against Webber in 2006. But as we have seen, in 2007 and 2009 Nico has been much more consistent than he seemed in 2006, when he managed to upset Webber a few times during the season, but not on a consistent basis. Rosberg's wet pace has been average, but the debate about his dry pace is still in the air - exactly how fast has he been? Has he shown top-notch pace? After all, Ross Brawn seemed to think Rosberg is good enough for his team to sign a deal with him without much hesitance, he was signed first and only after that Ross took a look at Jenson, Michael, etc drivers. The tricky part of the battle is that Schumacher is an unknown quantity as well and his form is the biggest questionmark among the so-called top drivers. If MS is still as good as he was in 2006 for instance (which wasn't quite his best-ever season by his standards either), I think he would come out on top, but is he?

The Vettel v Webber battle will end in a similar way as the 2009 one, I assume. Vettel seemed faster than Webber most of the season in '09, even if he was making a bit more mistakes. However, Hamilton v Button has the danger of being one of the most onesided battles of the season. Hamilton's raw pace may simply be too much (and for almost anyone on the grid, for that matter) and we do not need to look too far behind for the justification of this - Abu Dhabi qualifying, where Lewis obliterated the whole field by 0.6-0.7secs - one of the best qualifying-performances I have seen, really, especially considering how tight the field is nowadays.

Looking behind them, unlike some others I predict Hülkenberg to beat Barrichello. Of course 'Hulk' is an unknown quantity, but I hunch him to be the real deal - his pre-F1 career has been quite similar to Hamilton and if he can also replicate Hamilton's F1 debut season by managing to match Alonso, then surely this means that he is capable of beating a driver in the calibre of Barrichello almost from the get-go. Also I have a suspicion the Barrichello-Williams combination may not work out that well (we have seen loads of co-operations in the past that do not fit together), besides this Rubens may initially struggle to adapt after joining a new team like he did at Honda in 2006.

Sutil v Liuzzi. Hm... Liuzzi's comeback was a bit weird last year. He was impressive at Monza, but quite nowhere for the rest of the season, mostly long behing Sutil. I guess Liuzzi's form will have improved for 2010, but I still expect Sutil to come out on top. However, the F1 career of the loser of this battle will have come to an end by the end of 2010, making room for di Resta.

Unsurprisingly the Lotus battle is what really interests me personally quite a lot. But it is a bit difficult to predict it, because Kovalainen has been such an enigma that it's really hard to guess, how he might perform next year. Some phases of his career have indicated that he might have some serious pace hidden inside him (pre-F1 career, Renault, the first half of 2008, when he seemed quite close to Hamilton and actually outdrove him in Malaysia!). Maybe Lotus can unveil his potential. Also co-operation with Gascoyne should suit Trulli, so in the end both drivers might leave a positive impression after having been trashed to oblivion after 2009, and it may end up as a close battle as well.

Glock v di Grassi. Funnily enough it's a repeat of their 2007 GP2 title battle, albeit it took place in different teams back then. The impression I have always got of di Grassi is that he is an "inferior version of Nick Heidfeld" - solid, consistent, invisible. He has hauled a good amount of points in the last three seasons in GP2, but has rarely managed to win a race and in 2007, quite frankly, Glock seemed faster than di Grassi all season. I think Lucas was quite lucky to stay in the title battle that long with the help of Glock's numerous misfortunes. So I expect Glock to turn out to be the faster of the two once again.

--

Feel free to disagree. :D Will give a view on other battles too, when more driver line-ups get confirmed.

[Mia 01]

I think the main ones to watch are Jenson and Lewis and Fernando and Felipe. Jenson and Lewis are both characters which demand success but have different temperaments. The Ferrari pairing will be the most watched in terms of how the drivers will handle the equal status scenario. Fernando is used to being number one and forming a team around himself, much like Schumacher. He's going into an environment where Felipe knows the team very well and is very committed in terms of learning the car. They have similar work ethics, but I feel we'll see a clash or two as the season wears on. Jarno Trulli made a comment about his experience with Fernando:



I'm pretty sure Ferrari will handle the situation better than Mclaren did in 2007, but its definately one battle to watch IMO.. :)

Agreed

[jens]

After more line-ups have been confirmed, here is my take:

Buemi > Alguersuari (but by a smaller gap than in '09)
Kobayashi > de la Rosa (if Kamui is as good as he seemed in late-09)
Kubica >> Petrov (the most one-sided battle of the season).

[F1boat]

I think that Pedro might surprise and who knows about Petrov?

[woody2goody]

I think it will be (in terms of points):

Hamilton > Button
Alonso > Massa
Schumacher > Rosberg
Trulli > Kovalainen
Webber > Vettel
Buemi > Alguersuari
Kubica > Petrov
Glock > di Grassi
de la Rosa > Kobayashi
Barrichello > Hulkenberg
Liuzzi > Sutil

[Garry Walker]

The losers of the year will be Alonso, Rosberg, Button, Petrov, Liuzzi (but nevermind, people will still hype him), Kovalainen, Barrichello, Webber (Vettel is Red Bulls golden boy) and de la Rosa

[Hawkmoon]

If we are deciding the winner based on who finishes higher in the WDC then my picks are:

Alonso over Massa
Hamilton over Button
Schumacher over Rosberg
Vettel over Webber
Barrichello over Hulkenberg
Kubica over Petrov
Kovalainen over Trulli
Sutil over Liuzzi
Glock over di Grassi
De La Rosa over Kobayashi
Buemi over Algersuari

[Storm]

Here is what I think may happen,

Massa beats Alonso in Quallies but Alonso finishes higher in the races

Hamilton will beat Button
Schumacher will beat Rosberg (may take a few races)
Vettel will beat Webber (not by a huge margin)
Rubens > Hulkenberg
Trulli > Kovalainen
Sutil > Liuzzi

[DexDexter]

The Lotus situation is very interesting since they would appear to have two very good qualifiers in the team. So if the car is reasonable, we could well see the two Lotus guys relatively high up in quali. Maybe we'll talk about a Lotus-train this year ;)