No prob, glad you enjoyed it, was a good bit of fun.

As for Vauxhall F1 Team, we may be going for a radical approach again with a completely new line-up (gotta get itright sometime).

Meanwhile,

Sauber F1 - Ferrari season preview
Well, this is one of the more difficult teams to predict fortunes for: On one hand, they have great infrastructure and capabilities; on the other, they are short of cash to use them. I can see Sauber as one of the teams that might get it wrong this year. Someone recently spoke about some teams being ready for 2014 while others will be comparatively totally unprepared. I have been wondering which teams fall into which group, though everyone is positive at this time of year.

You don't have to be Adrian Newey to figure out that Red Bull will be in the former group. As for those who don't have a clue, Lotus spring to mind. But maybe Sauber are another one; for if they didn't have a clue how to make a 2013 car (for much of the season), how much more might they struggle to nail these new tougher regs down. Generally, I find it easier to envisage Sauber struggling than being a great success - especially with the fairly uninspiring drier line-up.

On that front, Adrian Sutil is a decent choice, and I like him, but there are better drivers out there. At least he has wet weather skills, though sadly this will not be put to use as F1 doesn't run in the wet anymore. He doesn't seem like someone who will inspire and lead the team through hard times, given that he moaned about Force India last year. In that light, he can count himself fortunate to still have a drive.

Esteban Gutierrez struggled most of the time last year. It was a little unfair a he himself said he wasn't ready for F1 just yet. He was shoehorned in by the team to please the sponsors. I remember my second ever copy of Autosport; it wa the 1998 season review edition. In it, Martin Brundle ranked all 23 (including Jos) drivers (and he did it in his usual style - basically whoever won or was at the front got the highest places while those further back got lower places, seemingly without much thought that some drivers had much worse cars - though he did rank Takagi 12th!) Anyway, he said for Esteban Tuero "someone did this kid a great dis-service"... by putting him in an F1 car too early.

That's how I felt about Gutierrez. So perhaps it is very fair that he now gets a second chance. I for one, think he could mildly surprise and be quite a lot closer to Sutil than expected. I predict 0.4sec, but am hoping for 0.3, which it needs to be really if he is to progress.

Interestingly, sifting well between the lines shows that Esteban actually often showed very good pace compared to Hulkenberg last year, which implies a talent there, though it may also raise some questions about Hulkenberg. For example, when Nico scored that great 3rd place in qualifying at Monza, Gutierrez was about 0.5sec IIRC in Q1, yet started 17th from where he was in traffic, making it difficult to progress.

On the surface, all we saw was crashes (though he did so much less than some) and Q1 knockouts. But under that, there is enough to say he deserves another go. He should be a stronger this year, and certainly display more consistency, though if the car isn't good, outwardly results may not change. There were also two top 10 qualifying appearances, along with several points near-misses in the races - and don't forget, he has a fastest lap!

We also don't know how reliable Sauber wil be. They could even end up 9th in the WCC if they don't capitalise on enough opportunities.




Toro Rosso - Renault
The switch to Renault power could be an inspired choice for the Red Bull Jr team. Though the talk is of Mercedes having a power advantage, it could all turn out to be much more about driveability, fuel consumption, and reliability. We have not hear so much about these factors. It could possibly turn out that despite lacking pure grunt to Mercedes, Renault could actually be the best, or even dominant(?) overall engine in 2014.

I do not though, think that this guarantees that Toro Rosso are going to make a huge step. They do seem a lot more independent from the senior team than some might think, for in 2012, Ricciardo qualified, on average for all 20 2012 races, about +1.3sec behind Vettel.

In 2013, despite Ricciardo having more experience, the gap was probably a little larger to Vettel, more like 1.6 sec (I'm not totally sure). So it might not necessarily be that Toro Rosso are still effectively running a Red Bull clone, as I don't feel the junior drivers are really that much slower.

The gap opened out between Toro Rosso and Red Bull in 2013, so there's no reason for it not to a little again in 2014. Sadly, I don't see any reason to expect a huge leap, and therefore expect the same old to some extent, which is a shame since it makes it harder to get behind the team, though I do like them.

Jean-Eric Vergne is a driver under great pressure. Sebastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari know that Helmut Marko wants to see performance after 3 years - not just sufficient performance, but something remarkable and special. Vergne is now in year 3. And boy has that gone quickly. Simply put, he must deliver.

The good news is that he can do it. He really wowed with his Canada performance last year, having been abject there in 2012. He qualified 7th and finished 6th in the dry, and he did destroy Ricciardo on that occasion. I honestly thought it would be he who got the Red Bull drive, and I felt he showed more than Ricciardo, in that there was an extra spark.

So it was most disappointing to see his bad reaction when he failed to get the drive at Red Bull. He scored no more points, and hardly outqualified Ricciardo again, and actually ended up with less points than in 2012. This is a great concern, and JEV really needs to re-invent himself this winter. He really has to have a season like in my Grand Prix 2 one, scoring 4 top 6 finishes and banking lots of points. The pressure is totally on - if he does merely a good job, nothing better, he WILL be out at the end of the year, and who would take him on them? Time to mean business JEV.

As for Daniil Kvyat (I have spelt his name right I think), I don't know enough about him, but he seems handy, though I expect inconsistency with hopefully some promising performances, which he has to have really as this programme is brutal. I am not necessarily against his signing over Antonio Felix da Costa, since what the team is looking for is not someone who's necessarily ready, but someone who simply has raw talent and potential. This is actually fine with me, and I wish Kvyat the best (I like Russian drivers for some reason).



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