My Past F1 Predictions

[jens]

FERRARI
Barrichello was about the best qualifier in 2003 but I didn't realise how much of it was down to low fuel. I thought Michael was losing it a little.

WILLIAMS
Can't remember why I had Ralf ahead. Perhaps anticipating a quick car, Ralf tended to step up whenever the car was good.

MCLAREN
Kimi was the favourite for the title, but then I heard McLaren were having problems. I wanted DC to bounce back from 2003.

RENAULT
Alonso to improve and more than match Trulli in qualifying, not just due to lower fuel this time.

Regarding drivers. Before every season I thought Barrichello would get beaten by Schumi, because - well - he is #2 and needless to say, inferior driver too.

Before 2002 I expected Montoya to beat Ralf. Before 2003 I thought it could be close. Before 2004 I had Montoya clearly as favourite.

In McLaren I was waiting each year, when will Kimi beat DC. In 2003 it happened, by a bigger margin than perhaps anticipated. Though I knew DC can be "fortunate" with reliability (more reliable car in both 2001 and 2002 than his team-mates) and with top8 point system it could suit him.

Needless to say, I rated Trulli highly, but considered him horrendously unlucky. Suffering from lots of reliability issues all through 2000-2002 and got outpointed by team-mates even if I had considered Trulli to perform better on average. So in predicting points and results I always sort of counted on Jarno losing a good chunk of points due to misfortune and hence team-mate getting more points. For me it was a pretty frustrating experience.

I remember Japanese GP of 2003. Jarno was fast all weekend, yet it was raining, when it was his attempt for the qualifying lap. So he started from the back and yet made his way up to 5th in the race. This sort of summed up Trulli's career at the time. I thought he can never catch a break.

Fortunately it changed in 2004. Finally Trulli had a reliable car, got consistent points and even won a race. That season was a huge relief to me.