Spanish GP The unprecedented 4 week mid-season break will have allowed a lot of development work to be carried out by all the teams and all of them should have made ‘a big step forward’, a phrase you will become heartily sick of before Sundays race. Some teams will have made more progress than others and in effect, the Spanish GP is really the start of a new season. Since the end of last weeks Barcelona test, all the talk has been about the heavily revised Ferrari and now happy Raikkonen is with its development. Gone is the under steer he hates and he will now be able to fully attack. Ferrari estimates that the improvements add up to around 0.5 seconds a lap, but it may be more for Raikkonen now that he can drive in his preferred style. This could be the moment that the Finn finally starts to dominate Massa. Much was made of Massa’s win in Bahrain, but it didn’t strike me as anything special. He had the quickest car, qualified on pole and kept the lead. A fairly normal course of events in F1. He was helped by the fact that Raikkonen was still not 100% happy with his car, that Alonso could not find a good balance under braking and that Hamilton did not beat him to the first corner. If he had, would Massa still have won? Perhaps, but I am not convinced. The Ferrari does seem to be the quickest car but it does have an Achilles Heel, it hates being behind another car. It affects cooling and badly affects the handling. This feature will play a key part on who wins the Spanish GP. Barcelona has a history of very dull, processional races and the advantage of being on pole position is huge. Nine of the last ten winners have started from pole position and the one that lost was due to two messy pit stops. Needless to say the car that did win started from 2nd. History more than suggests that to win at Barcelona, you must start from pole, or 2nd at the very worst. This race will be decided on Saturday afternoon. Qualifying is the key. Ferrari have scored pole in the first three races and with their ‘big step forward’ they must be favourite to do so again. The only problem is that McLaren will also have been making ‘a big step forward’ and will be very aware that their best chance of beating Ferrari is to get at least one of their cars in front at the start. Qualifying will be like a game of chicken. Who will go lowest on fuel, without completely compromising race strategy? Will anyone even consider a three stop race? With the new pit lane entrance and slower final corner, the time taken for a pit stop is less than in years gone by, so it is a possibility. This is still a battle McLaren could win, even with a slower car, but I get the feeling that Raikkonen is about to give one of his better performances and disappoint the home fans. Alonso has a good record on his home track, but he finished behind Trulli in 2004 and struggled to beat Fisichella in 2005 and 2006. So, on a track he knows better than any, Hamilton looks well placed to put more pressure on his team mate. However, this is Spain and perhaps the fact that Hamilton played no part in last weeks test suggests that McLaren would prefer the media spotlight was on Alonso, rather than Hamilton for a change. Perhaps the Spaniard will be the chosen one this weekend. All things considered, Raikkonen looks the most likely winner and with this races very strong link between pole position and race win, SportingBet’s offer of 7/2 for pole and win looks tempting. 3 points Raikkonen Pole and GP win @ 7/2 with SportingBet lost 3 points Of all the teams testing last week, perhaps Red Bull has the potential to make the biggest ‘step forward’. Last weeks Barcelona test saw Webber 2nd fastest on Wednesday and Coulthard setting the fastest time on the final day. This in itself means very little. There is no doubt that those times were set on low fuel and there is no chance that Red Bull are suddenly going to be up there fighting for a podium, but may be a sign that they are ready to break out of the very competitive midfield group that includes Renault, Williams and Toyota. Red Bull where expected to be one of the teams most likely to real progress this season, the first Newey designed RB, championship winning Renault power, two very experienced drivers and a hand picked team of the finest engineers and aero people back at the factory. The problem was that their new wind tunnel wasn’t ready in time to get the car’s aero package fined tuned and the cars said to be 6 weeks behind schedule. This long break has allowed the team to bring on planned developments, one of the most import is the new quick shift gearbox. Red Bull were one of just two teams who started the season without the advantage of this gearbox technology, said to be worth 0.2 – 0.3 seconds a lap, and in this very close midfield group, picking up that sort improvement really is a ‘big step forward’. Add to this any aero gains and we could see Red Bull improving by around 0.5 seconds. Of course the others will have improved as well, but they will be hard pushed to match that sort of improvement. Williams have proved to be frustrating and inconsistent. Their Barcelona test was a disaster, two big crashes resulted in the team returning to England early to rebuild the tub. Renault say they have made progress, but not to expect any ‘leap forward’, that sounds like they still haven’t solved the puzzle of why the car is still slow. Toyota will have improvements but I remain unconvinced about this team’s ability to really move things on quickly. There is very much a ‘design by committee’ philosophy at Toyota and committee’s are never a fast way of getting anything done. Some of the trackside observers at the Barcelona test were very impressed by Red Bull’s times, believing that even when taking the low fuel into account, that they were getting close to the pace of the BMW Sauber. In Bahrain, Coulthard split the Renaults in terms of fastest laps and was the 9th fastest driver on the day. If these apparent improvements do turn out to be l, then he is well placed to get into the top 8. As usual he needs to improve his qualifying, but even from outside the top 10, he looks value at 9/4. 2 points Coulthard to finish in the points @ 9/4 with SportingBet won 4.5 points
Webber has qualified in the top 10 in all three
races so far, and with the new developments he
really should have no problem repeating that once
more. His problem has been his race pace, but he has
had excuses in Melbourne and Bahrain with the fuel
flap opening and fowling the aerodynamics. lost 2 points These two bets would have been much stronger, but for the very poor reliability of the Red Bull in the opening three races. They have had a lot of problems, the most unreliable car on the grid, perhaps a result of the car being very sophisticated, but also a bit half baked. Hopefully the 4 week break and a new quality control program implemented recently will have allowed the bugs to be sorted and they can get at least one car home in the points. Red Bull shouldn’t have reliability worries in qualifying and Webber looks a good bet to out qualify Rosberg in the Williams. He is 2-1 up from the first three races and with the car much improved for this race, I would make him a strong favourite to out qualify the inconsistent Williams. Webber is a master of the quick qualifying lap and the team did do a lot of work on improving their qualifying pace in last weeks test. 5 points Webber to out qualify Rosberg @ 1.85 with Unibet. lost 5 points |
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