2013 Formula One Discussion

[mikhailv]

So, what did Kaltenborn expect? She's saying that Kobayashi's leving is a warning to F1, but the teams made that happen so they are just as guilty.

''But we were convinced of his talent and it was, for us, the right step. He showed some great performances with us: his podium in Suzuka was such an emotional affair – he moved that whole crowd in a way I have never seen before. He was a great team player – he did so much for the team spirit – so it is surprising when such a pleasant person like him cannot get any support from such a motorsport-loving nation like Japan.”

So if thats your view on him, why get rid of him? Just more excuses really to say 'yeah we took a pay driver, but we thought Kobayashi would get another seat'. Just contraditing herself, saying we shouldnt label pay drivers and they are necessary for talent to come through, but not at the cost of talent, but we'll get rid of talent for an unknown, because pay drivers are bad for replacing good drivers and something should be done about pay drivers coming in. But we'll still take all their cash and support that notion over talent.

Come class A PR bulls** and excuses. half the field isn't as good as Kobayashi, Glock, Kova or even heidfeld. yet all this 'we dont like pay drivers kicking out talent' isn't backed up by teams' actions, just nice PR words.

[phil1993]

I see your point, the problem is the financial crisis - and increased costs next year - have forced the teams into taking the higher paying driver. It's never nice to see.

Equally, Gutierrez is very good, it isn't like they've taken a no-hoper.

[mikhailv]

I see your point, the problem is the financial crisis - and increased costs next year - have forced the teams into taking the higher paying driver. It's never nice to see.

Equally, Gutierrez is very good, it isn't like they've taken a no-hoper.

Deffinitely, Gutierrez should be solid. I mean, Its not that I dont like Razia or Van der Garde. They were good in GP2, but I just cant help but think 'theyll do nothing'. Chilton I thought was utterly shite in frank honesty. Its similar with bianchi. I've heard of him and I know he was in 3.5 and GP2 but, I dont really see THAT much in him.

I think the major problem is, the top 4 teams so just over a third of the grid, is in actual fact stable for a long while. Vettel webber? RB since 2009. Alonso Massa? Ferrari since 2010. Mercedes? Rosberg since 2010. Mclaren? Button since 2010. Mclaren have took Perez, Mercedes took Hamilton from mclaren replacing Schumacher. So at the front, nothings changed for the 4th year, still all the same drivers bar Perez.

Then you look further back and the only driver I can honestly say will be one of the future, is Hulkenberg. The rest of grid I dont see as any good to progress to the top teams. Most are average. This is the problem. We're getting rid of solid F1 drivers for new drivers, but half the new drivers are just not that good to begin with.

[phil1993]

I think another problem seems to be the lack of a midfield. Getting a 6th or 7th no longer seems that great an achievement because the midfield is so close and the current formula allows good results consistently.

I remember when you had the top 2 or 3 teams, so a single driver breaking into the top 6 was a very good achievement.

On the driver front, Bianchi is good but he isn't the star I thought he was towards the end of 2009.

It's not that Van der Garde or Chilton are hopeless. It's that there's couple of guys out there - with no F1 experience - that have better credentials. There's certainly 3 drivers I'd love to see in the sport, but not rushed and managed correctly.

My view on pay drivers is this - every driver needs money to make it. Some are fortunate in that they get picked up by driver schemes, such as McLaren's or Red Bull's. Others need to pay their way. This is fine, although there is becoming a tendency for GP2 teams to search for money and that is worrying. In F1, pay drivers will always be around. You should forget about whether they bring money or not when you watch them. If their performances are not good enough, only then can you bring up the pay driver debate. Do Fernando Alonso and Sergio Perez have commercial benefits for their teams? Yes. Pay drivers? No. Is Pastor Maldonado a pay driver? Yes. Did his performances in 2011 justify his replacement of Nico Hulkenberg? No, therefore he was still seen as a pay driver. But his performances in 2012 have justified the fact he's a pay driver. You can no longer see him as a pay driver, rather an established and quick F1 driver who also comes with financial backing.

I'd also love to see how much money certain drivers bring. Rumour has it that Maldonado brings just shy of $30m a year. I wonder how much drivers such as Giedo, Max + Luiz bring.

[mikhailv]

I think another problem seems to be the lack of a midfield. Getting a 6th or 7th no longer seems that great an achievement because the midfield is so close and the current formula allows good results consistently.

I remember when you had the top 2 or 3 teams, so a single driver breaking into the top 6 was a very good achievement.

On the driver front, Bianchi is good but he isn't the star I thought he was towards the end of 2009.

It's not that Van der Garde or Chilton are hopeless. It's that there's couple of guys out there - with no F1 experience - that have better credentials. There's certainly 3 drivers I'd love to see in the sport, but not rushed and managed correctly.

My view on pay drivers is this - every driver needs money to make it. Some are fortunate in that they get picked up by driver schemes, such as McLaren's or Red Bull's. Others need to pay their way. This is fine, although there is becoming a tendency for GP2 teams to search for money and that is worrying. In F1, pay drivers will always be around. You should forget about whether they bring money or not when you watch them. If their performances are not good enough, only then can you bring up the pay driver debate. Do Fernando Alonso and Sergio Perez have commercial benefits for their teams? Yes. Pay drivers? No. Is Pastor Maldonado a pay driver? Yes. Did his performances in 2011 justify his replacement of Nico Hulkenberg? No, therefore he was still seen as a pay driver. But his performances in 2012 have justified the fact he's a pay driver. You can no longer see him as a pay driver, rather an established and quick F1 driver who also comes with financial backing.

I'd also love to see how much money certain drivers bring. Rumour has it that Maldonado brings just shy of $30m a year. I wonder how much drivers such as Giedo, Max + Luiz bring.

Yeah, pay drivers have always existed. I think the problem is really, what do you now define as Talent? How do you spot it? There was a day when you'd think 'holy hell, Sauber got a podium! That kid has a future'. Except, its nothing special anymore. When Force India was Spyker, Wincklehock leading that race after a pulling a blinder and going against all the other tyres, only to lead the race was a sit-up and take notice moment, something unique.

But now, as Force India, theyve took 2nd place on merit, the 'midfield' consistently score points. The problem is, it used to be 10-6-4-3-2-1. Top 6 score, 4 point gap between 1st and 2nd. Then it was 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1. Now its 25-18-15-12-10-8-6-4-2-1. So from top 6 scoring, to top 10. 6th place used to be worth 1 point, now its worth 8 points. The fact that the midfield is a selection of 10 cars capable of scoring 8 points, takes away competition in a sense, because its so much easier to score points. the 5th best car used to struggle to get points, now they can combfortably get them.

The other thing, is the pay driver situation. The way i look at it, is; Would a driver get a seat on talent, or would he have to pay to even be considered. Theres nothing wrong with pay drivers if they have the talent to back it up, but increasingly, they dont.

Maldanado is a good driver, but is he more deserving than Kobayashi? Yeah he took a win. But, then does one single win overule 2 seasons of incidents, acts of using a car as a weapon? To me, no, it doesnt. Sometimes he's had ridiculous penalties like Hungary with Di resta. Just a ludicrous penalty. But the guy brings in £27million a year (there was a photo posted on facebook which was an invoice from Williams to PDSA). How could any team refuse that? Half decent driver, who brings THAT much?

This is the problem. the guy has some talent, but what incentive is their for many teams to take a better driver with no money, than a decent driver with so much money? If a team like williams, behind closed doors honestly thinks 'we arent going to catch mercedes/sauber', then whats to stop them thinking 'well lets take £27million, because in the end a better driver wont achieve anything less than a lesser one, so lets take the money, secure 7th in constructors like last year and walk away with an extra £27million as opposed to non and abit more wasted talent'.

Its a dangerous predicament.

[tderias]

It all boils down to teams no longer being able to afford the rising costs of maintaining an F1 team on their very own, without relying on a pay driver. Drivers are employees as much as the mechanics are, so by common sense, they should be paid instead of paying themselves, which is why I am totally against the pay driver process. But I can't blame the teams nor the pay drivers.

The pay drivers are not to blame here; they get to drive an F1 car and their sponsors make that possible. The teams aren't to blame either; when faced with the options of either quitting F1 or carrying on with an unknown driver that may or may not fail, the choice is easy to make.

I'd say it's the dwindling economy, but then again that could be blamed for any financial misfortune concerned with any business anywhere around the world.

The problem lies in the way F1 is run. It's all Bernie's fault imo. He clearly doesn't give two s**ts about the smaller teams in F1. His mentality of 'if you can't afford it, tough' is what's causing the pay driver problem. Why not reduce the entry fees to becoming an F1 team? Why not reduce the yearly fees of all the teams that finished below 8th in the preceding season? Why not assure them more TV coverage to attract more sponsors for these lower teams? There's a lot ways to go about it.

If F1 teams are financially able to maintain their level while having spare capital to develop further each year, then the pay driver issue is not-existant.

[mikhailv]

It all boils down to teams no longer being able to afford the rising costs of maintaining an F1 team on their very own, without relying on a pay driver. Drivers are employees as much as the mechanics are, so by common sense, they should be paid instead of paying themselves, which is why I am totally against the pay driver process. But I can't blame the teams nor the pay drivers.

The pay drivers are not to blame here; they get to drive an F1 car and their sponsors make that possible. The teams aren't to blame either; when faced with the options of either quitting F1 or carrying on with an unknown driver that may or may not fail, the choice is easy to make.

I'd say it's the dwindling economy, but then again that could be blamed for any financial misfortune concerned with any business anywhere around the world.

The problem lies in the way F1 is run. It's all Bernie's fault imo. He clearly doesn't give two s**ts about the smaller teams in F1. His mentality of 'if you can't afford it, tough' is what's causing the pay driver problem. Why not reduce the entry fees to becoming an F1 team? Why not reduce the yearly fees of all the teams that finished below 8th in the preceding season? Why not assure them more TV coverage to attract more sponsors for these lower teams? There's a lot ways to go about it.

If F1 teams are financially able to maintain their level while having spare capital to develop further each year, then the pay driver issue is not-existant.

Its always money thats the problem. We criticise how F1 is run, but you cant win with it. Say Mclaren/RB/Ferrari have a £230million budget. Force india have £100million say. What do you do? Tell the others to spend less? Then that would make the limited innovation we have in the sport diminsh almost completely.

its such a complex subject because you cant promise more TV coverage to attract sponsors, as nobody wants to really be associated with a slow team who gets more scren time as opposed to the winning Redbull which might not get all the screen time, but it gets every magazine article, web article, lauding of winning etc.

Can you honestly say that Marussia are of the same value as Redbull? Clearly not. So how could you justify giving Redbull an equal amount of money to Marussia? It would be lunacy; a team spending £50million gets £20 million back for competing, while Redbull only get £20million from their £240million spent. Yeah you can say about sponsorship/exposure etc, but its just never going to be a level playing field. Thats the cruz of the matter.

This is why a budget cap can never work. Outside sources, outside research, brother teams, companies owning other companies. Unless youve got full independant teams with no links to any other subsidaries, it would never work. i still say RB use STR as experiments for concepts, and the fact that the STR is edging ever closes to the RB8.... On the flipside, having huge budgets doesnt guarantee winning. You need to spend the mass amounts of money right.

So the real question is, how the hell do you run Formula 1? The only thing I can think of changing, is the calendar. Start at one end of the world then go along. So Australia to Japan, korea, Singapore, China, India, Abu Dhabi, throughout Europe then finish with Canada/USA/Brazil instead of going here there and everywhere. Do a point to point to save shipping costs. Organise testing on the monday after each race unless its back-to-back, if it is then go straight to the next race and have a 2-day test afterwards.

Otherwise, how else do you guys think F1 could truly cut costs? the whole CFD thing was suppose to, but now you see teams spending hundreds of millions constantly upgrading wind tunnels and computer systems, which is just as bad.

[phil1993]

I agree with you about a calendar reshuffle. Of course you have exceptions - you can't hold the British GP in November or the Austin GP in mid-June, but so many of the recent additions have joined at the end of the season. Some of them could do with shifting to the start of the season.

But logistically, it doesn't matter if you hold China after Malaysia, because everyone will be going back to the UK and then back out to China. Even holding them back-to-back can be tricky for some, not just on cost. The IT technicians start setting up on a Monday, so it means you'd have two straight weeks of working in a foreign culture. Quite demanding. The problem is that you need more races in Europe if you want to cut costs and help teams, but that's not where the money is.

[sportingcp]

Well the 2013 season is almost here, really excited, I don´t think it will be as good as 2012 but let´s see. I think that Red Bull is still in front at the moment, with McLaren, Lotus and Ferrari all very close but let´s wait for Melbourne to see what happens. It will be also very interesting to see what Hamilton and Hulkenberg can do in their new teams.

About Kobayashi, I think he will come back next year, with the money he needs and of course with the talent he already has. He could go to maybe FI, Caterham or a return to Sauber it seems that the only reason why he didn´t continue it´s because of the money so if he comes with money next time who knows. Hulk should be promoted next year probably to Ferrari and Gutierrez will, in my opinion, disappoint because he will be completely beat by Hulkenberg. Next year lineup for Sauber could be Kobayashi and Robin Frijns.

So what teams do you guys think are in better form at the moment? Will RB continue dominating? And what about McLaren and Ferrari? Can this be Lotus year? Can anyone of the midfield teams interfere for top positions?

[phil1993]

So what teams do you guys think are in better form at the moment?

Any of the top 5, but Jenson goes well in Melbourne...

Will RB continue dominating?

I don't think so. It's increasingly difficult for them to find gains.

And what about McLaren and Ferrari? Can this be Lotus year?

They'll all win races. Championship tilt? McLaren, yes. Alonso, yes. Lotus? Development is key.

Can anyone of the midfield teams interfere for top positions?

Hulkenberg will win a race. Williams should take podiums.

[mikhailv]

So what teams do you guys think are in better form at the moment?

Id hedge my bets on Jenson, Vettel, Alonso and Kimi. I think all 4 teams have a great car within a few tenths of each other. I wouldnt discount Grosjean or Webber, Or massa. Or even Perez really.

Will RB continue dominating?

Unless they get away with the exhaust trickery, I cant see how RB can find more gains, they keep adding and adding to the car where its getting to the point where theres nothing left to add. on the flipside, Ferrari and Mclaren have had previous revolutions and evolved it, RB has just constantly evolved the original idea.

And what about McLaren and Ferrari? Can this be Lotus year?

I dont believe in the Lotus management. Last year they had the best car at the start of the season, and I feel both the team and drivers didnt take advantage, and the fact Kimi only had one win was Lotus' saving grace. Arguably, Bahrain, Spain and Hungary shouldve been Lotus victories.

Can anyone of the midfield teams interfere for top positions?

Nah, Cant see anyone outside Lotus/Mclaren/Ferrari/Redbull winning. That too means Lewis. How bad testing started, and how much of a lack of evolution I believe the W04 will have.... put it this way, if they fail at their development this year, I can see them struggling to keep 5th in constructors.

Otherwise. Williams and Force India will continue to fall back, Sauber with Hulk and Gutierrez can challenge Mercedes, STR will still be there just to experiment RBR stuff and hold other rivals up/fall off track for RBR and Caterham/Marussia will be further behind.

[phil1993]

Edd Straw sums up what I've been trying to say (£)
http://plus.autosport.com/premium/featu ... ent-stars/

[kals]

We're really being spoilt by the quality of the drivers and teams at the front end of the field. Looking at 2013 we've got Vettel, Alonso, Raikkonen and Hamilton, along with Button plus Webber, Massa and Rosberg. Then on the fringes there is Perez and Hulkenburg, not forgetting Maldonado if he can temper his impetuosity.

When was the last time F1 truly had such quality all capable of challenging for wins and titles? Probably 1986 or 1987.

[mikhailv]

We're really being spoilt by the quality of the drivers and teams at the front end of the field. Looking at 2013 we've got Vettel, Alonso, Raikkonen and Hamilton, along with Button plus Webber, Massa and Rosberg. Then on the fringes there is Perez and Hulkenburg, not forgetting Maldonado if he can temper his impetuosity.

When was the last time F1 truly had such quality all capable of challenging for wins and titles? Probably 1986 or 1987.

It is something to think of. In a way, its quite boring! I mean I wouldnt mind seeing Massa and Webber replaced by Hulkenberg and Maldanado, in the name of excitement and change.

In a way, its abit boring because we know Alonso will drag anything out of the car, Vettel will dominate if the car is best, Hamilton will rag any car to the edge and sometimes over it, Button will be supreme with the perfect car but if its not perfect he will be terrible and Kimi will jump in, drive his best, jump out.

With Massa you know he is number 2 and mostly going to be behind Alonso and apart from 5 races in 3 seasons; be non-competative. Webber; as much as I really like the bloke, when you get annoyed at him being pushed into the number 2 role, he has a race where he is better followed by 2 races where you facepalm at how behind he is, which is annoying because it seems like finally he is going to do a 2010; but just does the end of 2010.

Perez although im not convinced, is an exciting prospect because it is a NEW driver in a top team, will he beat button? Could he? Will he win? What if it turns out to be a masterful signing? What if it turns out to be a mistake? It seems a hypocritical point of view wanting change in one place but bemoaning Kovy, Koba and Glock being ditched, but i think the difference to me is, your replacing drivers who arent doing anything, who dont really have anything more to offer, where as Koba/Glock/Kovy have more to offer.

But the prospect of putting Maldanado in Redbull and Hulk in Ferrari.... to me thats mouth watering because we know the established drivers and what they are capable of, and we know how sub-par the teammates truly are.

To me, Perez would be more exciting if it was Hamilton/Perez, mostly because I dont see Button as any serious WDC contender even with 2009 under his belt. But also, that leaves Williams and Sauber a seat open meaning a complete set of fresh potential talent in capable cars.

[phil1993]

I don't agree with Kobayashi, Glock and Kovalainen having more to offer.

Kobayashi had flashes of being good, but Sauber didn't elect to retain him. Glock wasn't deemed good enough for Toyota after 2009 - they didn't want to retain him even before they pulled the plug - but he's undoubtedly better for doing DTM. Kovalainen should be given credit for rebuilding himself with Caterham but he showed little in two years with a top team.

They're capable of being good drivers, but not great or legendary ones.

The ones I'd want to see in F1 is Frijns and Felix da Costa. But sadly one might not make it and the other will be ripped apart by Red Bull. Speaking of Red Bull, they have it perfectly. Webber is good enough to win races when Vettel has an off day, put pressure on Vettel yet not be good enough to challenge for the WDC.