The new season is only a few days away now, and as always for me it could shape up to be an exciting season. Every year i say this, and to be honest it is mostly unfounded, unproven, high expectation. I remember in 2009 i described the championship as to be the most open yet! As hard as he makes it out to be, Jenson Button led the Championship from start to finish.
Regardless, this is looking like a prospectively good season.
Why is this? Well, there is the return of KERs, an energy retention system that stores energy from braking, allowing it to be reused as a boost of power in order to overtake. It featured originally in 2009, when i was all for the idea. However it did filter out of everyones good books gradually, the main problem being that for many teams, the power output was not justified by the extra weight of the system. Hopefully this time KERs will have been revised and updated in order to maximise the idea's potential.
Next, there is a new feature to the rear wings of the cars. Again brought in to try and give the cars more of an edge when trying to overtake, as with the KERs boost button. A button on the steering wheel, allows for part of the rear wing providing downforce to be rendered almost negligible in how much drag it produces. If used wisely, this will mean high grip in the corners and max speed on the straight.
Further more there has been a change in tyre supplier, from Bridgestone to Pirelli. Last year, with refuelling banned, teams often would have only one pitstop, going for long stints. The new tryes have been designed to be varied in how long they can last and how much grip they can provide. ranging from Hard to super soft the aim is to get teams pitting more and varying their strategy in order to maximise excitement: Endurance strategy or speed strategy for example. I find this idea to be a step in the right direction, however with all cars required to be fuelled until the end of the race, it seems daft that the FIA have rather made half a step into making F1 more strategical, i would like to see refuelling allowed again so teams have the choice of how much fuel they put in the car, i.e. how much weight they will carry.
What does this all mean? Well, it may be all a bit scientific, but to a Formula One fan it is a good step for the Championship. The last few years in my opinon we have seen a rise in the excitement of Formula One, with the exception of 2009 where it was something of a 2 horse race, both horses from the same breeder.
Melbourne on Sunday morning will be exciting, the circuit itself is part road, part race track which, with short run of areas, plenty of sweeping straights and tight corners, amidst the setting sun in Australia, will hopefully all add up to an electrifying first Grand Prix. I hope you'll give it a watch.
Who will win is a tough one. All the teams playing there cards a bit close to their chest at the moment. i would be surprised to see Mclaren start slow and pick up in the mid season. Red Bull are going to be the team to beat, and in all honesty at the moment they seem to be in the best position to win races.
i can see Red Bull dominating this season.
ReplyDeletethey should been more comfortable last year but they kept making mistakes.
what do you think about the 'artificial rain' idea that's being bandied about?
Not sure, like a bit of rain certainly makes things more exciting, but i think part of that excitement is because you need to change the strategies of teams, which is kinda now not the case with no refuelling.
ReplyDeleteAlso wary of what it might do to the teams in terms of preparation like how will it be an announced etc etc. Makes it kinda like batracer, if Bernie says before a race well there is a 45% the sprinklers will be turned on how do you set up?
Interesting analysis, looking forward to the race. Do think sprinklers is stupid.
ReplyDelete