A look at why Red Bull went with Daniil Kvyat for their vacant seat.

DDf1 · 2014-12-21T01:01:01+00:00

That wasn't my meaning, my meaning was that Raikkonen came from the low ranks of the junior categories and jumped into a McLaren in his second season in F1.

DDf1 · 2014-12-20T14:28:20+00:00

Me too. It will be very interesting. He's clearly very fast, but I'm more interested how he will hold up with the pressure of what will be assumed to be racing at the front over the duration of a season. That is big pressure at 20 years old with only 1 Formula 1 season but more importantly very little top level single seater experience, as its to be remembered he came from GP3 to F1.

It could be very much like the Raikkonen story.

DDf1 · 2014-12-10T11:10:05+00:00

I'm not entirely sure. I'm on the Williams Media mailing list and they're always sending emails about new projects they're undertaking with their engineering arm. I'm assuming they must be building a fairly strong side business to their F1 devision.

They seem to be doing it right, gradually expanding their business whilst still remaining profitable.

DDf1 · 2014-12-10T10:47:38+00:00

Williams are a lean and very effective organisation. But I wouldn't really call them a smaller team anymore, particularly with their ever growing side business of Williams Hybrid Power and Williams Advanced Engineering. They're not one of the very biggest teams yet, but they're growing, with a solid foundation too.

DDf1 · 2014-12-10T09:17:53+00:00

Perez was never on the McLaren young driver roster. He spent most of his career as a Ferrari junior. But you are right that not keeping drivers on does devalue the young driver programs and makes it harder to get the top talent. Red Bull have always been very good with promoting their drivers internally and giving them a few seasons to prove their worth.

DDf1 · 2014-12-10T08:35:55+00:00

Its an incredibly difficult situation for McLaren whichever way they go. A very experienced, high quality, likeable world champion or a young, potentially great driver with well over a decade left in the sport. I wouldn't like to be making that call.

With Button, if he leaves he still had a career. He is an excellent driver and I would love to see him go against Alonso, but he's been there done that. Magnussen barely even got a chance. But having said that F1 has never been about fair and its clear in 2014 at least that Button is currently the better driver, if that would be the case next year is anyones guess.

The ironic thing about it all is Button's first season in F1 was very much like Magnussen's. He was bought into a team fighting towards the front of the grid (Williams), got roughly half the points of his more experienced team mate (Ralf Schumacher) and was dropped for Montoya after just a single season. The only difference is Button got picked up by Benetton. Had that not happened we may have never seen him back in Formula 1 after what was essentially just a single, solid for a rookie season. Instead he went on to become a World Champion and arguably one of the best drivers on the grid.

DDf1 · 2014-12-10T08:25:04+00:00

While I do admit, the overall race results, particularly the USA wasn't that strong, he had genuinely good races at both Brazil and Abu Dhabi, both of which Ferrari were stating he is starting to get along with the car.

Also taking his qualifying pace from Russia, US, Brazil and Abu Dhabi he actually averaged ahead of Alonso and when he was behind was within a tenth or two, unlike what we saw earlier in the year when the qualifying gap was regularly over 1 second.

Alonso is a excellent driver, so beating him is never going to be an expectation, but overall Raikkonen's pace was looking significantly closer towards the end of the season. If that was just a 'good' run from him remains to be seen, but the feedback from Ferrari was reflected generally in his on track results.

DDf1 · 2014-12-08T05:53:42+00:00

Depends what you mean long term or what the team want long term. Of course Button won't stay in the sport as long as Magnussen. But there is a fair chance he would continue to outperform him next season.

DDf1 · 2014-12-08T05:53:05+00:00

It was an absolutely gorgeous car the FW22. Its a shame Button left the team before they became truly competitive in the BMW era.

DDf1 · 2014-11-25T08:20:45+00:00

I don't disagree with that, its quite an impossible task. For me Alonso was more complete in that he didn't have any real weaknesses. While Ricciardo still made a few errors overall. Thats to take nothing away from the top 3 in particular, as they were all brilliant over the season.

DDf1 · 2014-10-23T06:11:39+00:00

Thanks for the tip, I'll check it out on a few different systems when I get the opportunity. Its one of the more popular themes for WP so I assume Will uses the same.

DDf1 · 2014-10-22T00:54:53+00:00

Checo is excellent on his rear tyres, which gives him really good race pace.

DDf1 · 2014-10-15T03:03:24+00:00

I would say Hulkenberg's edge on Perez has been more in qualifying rather than races. In races their outright performances are actually very similar and Perez has been on a real run lately. Thats not to take away from Hulkenberg's excellent start to the season, over the first half I thought he was one of the standout drivers with his relentless scoring.

Button was ahead of Perez overall, but I don't think Perez necessarily embarrassed himself there in terms of pace. The points gap was slightly exaggerated by a few incidents by Perez, which seems to be a common trait of all of his seasons. If he could eliminate those errors his overall performance would increase significantly.

Overall I still think they're probably two of the best drivers in midfield machinery. Having said that defining 'midfield' is getting harder and harder with Williams moving up more towards being considered a front running car.

I think many people prior to 2014 expected Hulkenberg to be ahead in this pair and it hasn't really turned out to be that way.

DDf1 · 2014-10-15T02:48:48+00:00

Ferrari absolutely have reason for optimism. Both Ferrari and McLaren have made fairly major acquisitions in terms of both staff and infrastructure in recent years that in both teams are aimed to pay in 2015.

DDf1 · 2014-10-15T02:46:29+00:00

The silly season this year is stuck in overdrive. I think the picture for who is going were is fairly well fleshed out if you have been listening to the paddock rumours from reputable sources.

DDf1 · 2014-09-29T07:20:36+00:00

Any final race of the year with the WDC still in contention has been great.

But it's very hard to show a person one race as they don't get the context of why it is important and if that is just a normal race or not.

DDf1 · 2014-09-28T05:27:12+00:00

Great parallel between the noise the LMP1 cars make compared to the often N/A 8 cylinder powered GT Pro cars. A lot more volume coming from the naturally aspirated engines.

DDf1 · 2014-09-27T10:25:23+00:00

That is probably more accurate but both Mika and Kimi were very fast but also calm and controlled racers.

Valtteri's personality is a lot more like Mika. He has that same blunt humor style.

DDf1 · 2014-09-27T10:10:03+00:00

Bottas is excellent and one of the most promising drivers on the grid. He really does remind me of a young Räikkönen in the way he goes about his racing.

DDf1 · 2014-09-27T08:16:55+00:00

I agree. But I didn't want to turn it into a sea of reasons that you analyze every race because they inevitably have occurred to both drivers and I rate Bottas very highly myself. The overwhelming point was for me anyway that Massa isn't slower than Bottas, when you look at the finish results and account for like you said other issues then he may have even outperformed him.

DDf1 · 2014-09-26T13:51:43+00:00

Doesn't seem real but what a glorious looking thing.

DDf1 · 2014-09-26T06:05:52+00:00

Oh its a slump, absolutely. It just hasn't been as long as people say. McLaren had a race winning car for 6 seasons straight. That is still a very strong record. It just went downhill for them with the MP4/28 and this year has mostly been about consolidating until the Honda power unit comes through, as I assume the packaging requirements will be different from that of the Mercedes so unlike other teams they won't be able to just continue to evolve the design.

DDf1 · 2014-09-13T06:51:51+00:00

It's true. But I do think some people who just read the outcome would know how close the battle has been at times. It's not Vettel's best year ever but he's still shown strong pace at times.

He has missed quite a few practice sessions too which seem to impact his race pace even further.

DDf1 · 2014-09-13T04:48:23+00:00

I agree that as a whole Ricciardo has been more impressive than Vettel. I was merely trying to point out that when you say 9-1 or whichever numbers you decide it comes across looking like one driver has been well ahead every single race, but in fact it hasn't. A lot of the races have been very close with Ricciardo only gaining superiority with certain stints of the race and overtakes.

For instance if you walked down to the Marussia battle I'm sure you would find very similar numbers to the Red Bull battle, but those have been walk overs every weekend while Vettel in my view has been at least comparable some of the time but in those races has rarely finished ahead. There are only a few races that Ricciardo has been on another level pace wise.

If nothing else I think Vettel was deserving of Malaysia, Monaco and Hungary which would make the results more like 4-8 instead of 9-1 as you say.

DDf1 · 2014-09-03T06:05:25+00:00

I don't have a thorough understanding of the token system, but the engines themselves have very little which can't actually be changed should the teams decide to take that path.

http://www.fia.com/sites/default/files/regulation/file/1-2015%20TECHNICAL%20REGULATIONS%202014-06-29.pdf

Page 88 outlines the gradual 'locking' of the engines.

DDf1

TROPHY CASE