Title Contenders in 2010

[jens]

Could start discussing about the outlooks, weaknesses and strengths of front-runners already after two races.

Ferrari is clearly in a good position and based on two races so far it can be said that especially with Alonso they have united all factors that are needed to win the crown: pace for outright wins, reliability, consistency and one more additional feature that has been missing in previous years at Ferrari: strategy. It gives quite high demands for anyone, who is willing to beat them and clinch the title. But it's also interesting to compare Alonso's performances with Räikkönen's first Ferrari season - so far 1st/4th and 1st/3rd respectively.

Massa has seemed slightly inferior to Alonso so far and his result in Oz seemed a bit of an anomaly - on podium despite struggling all weekend. But Massa is an interesting case of a driver and I seriously think that he has not yielded yet. From what I have gathered from previous years, it usually takes him a bit of time to come to grips with a new season and new rules. Let's recall the beginning of 2008, when he was completely written off. The start of 2007 was a bit clumsy too with mistakes in Malaysia before coming back strong. And he seemed constantly improving in 2009. Massa's co-operation with Smedley is often brought out and is quite a specific one - to me it looks like they haven't managed to fully adapt to the new rules yet and are currently doing damage limitation in terms of points accumulation. But once they do, we could see a lot more from Felipe.

Regarding McLaren I've to say that their situation looks promising, because for the second race in a row they have shown that their race pace is quite impressive. Something needs to be done with qualifying, because they can't keep giving advantage away there forever. Also McLaren's in-season development pace could be the best of all, at least past seasons have shown that (also in comparison with Ferrari). So they are well in the game, while after the qualifying for the Bahrain Grand Prix there could have been fears about being too far behind.

And the third front-runner Red Bull... Although there have been suspicions about their development pace, I think their car will be a front-runner in terms of pace pretty much all season, even if they are not going to be capable of leading races everywhere. In the beginning of '09 Vettel was caught with a bit of a surprise, because he surely didn't expect to be a title contender and as a result threw points away without looking, what would it mean in the long-run. By now he has studied the "all-season perspective", but unless RBR is going to be a reliable machine right from the next race onwards (in 2000 Häkkinen retired from the first two races, but after that he had to wait until US to retire again!), it could be an overwhelming task for him to catch the leaders. As well as for RBR in constructors.

[F1boat]

Very good analysis. I agree completely. My opinion is that it is between these three teams, although Mercedes and Renault may compete for a surprise win.

[ioan]

Could start discussing about the outlooks, weaknesses and strengths of front-runners already after two races.

Ferrari is clearly in a good position and based on two races so far it can be said that especially with Alonso they have united all factors that are needed to win the crown: pace for outright wins, reliability, consistency and one more additional feature that has been missing in previous years at Ferrari: strategy. It gives quite high demands for anyone, who is willing to beat them and clinch the title. But it's also interesting to compare Alonso's performances with Räikkönen's first Ferrari season - so far 1st/4th and 1st/3rd respectively.

Massa has seemed slightly inferior to Alonso so far and his result in Oz seemed a bit of an anomaly - on podium despite struggling all weekend. But Massa is an interesting case of a driver and I seriously think that he has not yielded yet. From what I have gathered from previous years, it usually takes him a bit of time to come to grips with a new season and new rules. Let's recall the beginning of 2008, when he was completely written off. The start of 2007 was a bit clumsy too with mistakes in Malaysia before coming back strong. And he seemed constantly improving in 2009. Massa's co-operation with Smedley is often brought out and is quite a specific one - to me it looks like they haven't managed to fully adapt to the new rules yet and are currently doing damage limitation in terms of points accumulation. But once they do, we could see a lot more from Felipe.

Regarding McLaren I've to say that their situation looks promising, because for the second race in a row they have shown that their race pace is quite impressive. Something needs to be done with qualifying, because they can't keep giving advantage away there forever. Also McLaren's in-season development pace could be the best of all, at least past seasons have shown that (also in comparison with Ferrari). So they are well in the game, while after the qualifying for the Bahrain Grand Prix there could have been fears about being too far behind.

And the third front-runner Red Bull... Although there have been suspicions about their development pace, I think their car will be a front-runner in terms of pace pretty much all season, even if they are not going to be capable of leading races everywhere. In the beginning of '09 Vettel was caught with a bit of a surprise, because he surely didn't expect to be a title contender and as a result threw points away without looking, what would it mean in the long-run. By now he has studied the "all-season perspective", but unless RBR is going to be a reliable machine right from the next race onwards (in 2000 Häkkinen retired from the first two races, but after that he had to wait until US to retire again!), it could be an overwhelming task for him to catch the leaders. As well as for RBR in constructors.

You could make a career in F1 journalism.

[Retro Formula 1]

Vettel will win the championship unless the McLaren pace improves.

[jens]

You could make a career in F1 journalism.

Thanks.

[Sleeper]

Judging by the first two races, I'd say it will definitely be between Vettel and the two Ferrari drivers. Vettel in the RBR is the fastest thing out there at the moment, and things ant go wrong every race can they? Ferrari might have a slight pace deficit but its at most 0.1s, so very close between them. McLaren need to find a small amunt of pace to join them for certain, and I reckon both Hamilton and Button could be in there. Webber is able to run at the kind of pace that we see from Vettel, but he doesnt look comfortable pushing himself that hard all the time, and so we see too many mistakes from him. Mercedes are too far off the pace at the moment, and though I expect they will get there, by the time they do it will be as a major headache for the title contenders, rather than contenders themselves.

[jens]

I must admit that I got that Ferrari and strategy part a bit wrong in the original post. : But Vettel must be relieved - Ferrari and McLaren have had an inconsistent start into the season as well, so everything is still wide open. Also we have Rosberg and Kubica driving consistently and scoring good points - who knows, maybe they could stay in the game for some time like Frentzen did in '99 or Kubica in '08.

[steveaki13]

It depends alot on the reliability of Red Bull.

But if you look at it Vettel could have won all 3 races. If he can continue with this pace all season he must be favourite.

[ozrevhead]

It depends alot on the reliability of Red Bull.

But if you look at it Vettel could have won all 3 races. If he can continue with this pace all season he must be favourite.

yep

If Red Bull puts their reliablity issues behind Vettel will run away with it

[Ranger]

The new points system closes everything up considerably. Can't choose a winner but Vettel looks the goods.