So that’s it. F1’s greatest talent will not win the 2006 World Drivers Championship (WDC). Michael Schumacher admitted as much after last week’s Japanese GP, when engine failure sidelined his car and his hopes of an eighth title. “One cannot always win and things do not always go as planned.” Although Schuey threw in the proverbial towel, there is a way he could snatch victory from the jaws of defeat: if he wins the final race of the season and Renault pilot Fernando Alonso fails to score a single point. It’s not likely. But one thing is for sure: next year’s F1 will be the sport’s new dawn.
Ferrari and Renault remain heavy favorites for the 2007 constructor’s championship, though they should face significant pressure from teams lower down in the pecking order. Red Bull Racing will bring the brand new Adrian Newey-designed RB3 to the track. Given Newey's reputation at McLaren, the RB3 could emerge as a strong contender for the checkered flag– although the McLaren cars' rep for unreliability could mean that Red Bull is unlikely to remain competitive with the top teams for the duration of the season. Toyota’s impressive late-season performance has hinted at the team’s potential. With a blank slate and a blank check, we may well see Toyota challenging for the constructors' title– provided they can motivate the two stiffs they employ as drivers (Ralf Schumacher and Jarno Trulli).
In terms of the World Drivers' Championship, common wisdom holds Kimi Raikkonen as the front runner for next year’s title. Though universally acclaimed as a phenomenal driver, Raikkonen’s championship aspirations have been thwarted by the aforementioned mechanical "issues" over at McLaren. The Iceman’s move to the Ferrari team will finally provide F1 fans a chance to see how good the young Finn really is. Over the last few years, the Scuderia has shown itself peerless in race car design, quality and execution. Aside from the Ferrari team's mechanical prowess, their corporate culture will give the young Finn the backup he needs to concentrate on the job at hand.
Combined with Raikkonen’s well-deserved reputation for relying on his “attachments” (thank you David Hobbs), Kimi should set a blazing pace straight out of the box. In Hobbs’ immortal words, “that Kimi’s a brave boy." In other words, Raikkonen's a Ferrari ace in the classic mold. Back when Enzo Ferrari stalked the halls of Maranello, the Scuderia was known for bringing in young, reckless, extremely quick drivers; many of whom didn’t live out their time in scarlet (see Derrick “Death” Daley’s The Cruel Sport for a fascinating look at the period). Kimi should fit in well with the prevailing ethos, and provide the team with another guiding spirit.
Next season will also go down as first “Year of the Manufacturers.” Manufacturer teams will compromise more of the field in 2007 than ever before. There will be only a handful on privateers on the grid, as many of the independent teams have become little more than adjuncts of the manufacturer teams that supply their engines. This is a trend that is sure to continue in the years to come; whether for good or ill remains to be seen.
The freeze on engine development instituted by the FIA could well be the most significant change for '07. The engines that teams ran over the last two weekends of this season will be homologated for use through the 2010 season. Given the political volatility surrounding F1, it's highly unlikely that the strict, [ostensibly] long-term regulations will remain as they are now. But they signal a significant shift in the sport’s technological development paradigm for the foreseeable future. “Free” from the need to spend significant funds on engine development, aerodynamic development will become paramount.
This development is good news for some teams, particularly Red Bull Racing. When RBR “recruited” Adrian Newey from McLaren this year, they secured one of F1’s premier aerodynamicists. While Newey arrived too late to make a significant impact on the current RB2 racecar, its successor, the RB3, will be a clean sheet Newey design. While untested, it should provide a huge performance leap for the team. In the off-season, we should also see some clever aerodynamic solutions from the rest of the teams vying for pole position.
In short, the 2007 F1 season will be like none before. Despite the much-lamented FIA rule changes, new story lines will arise to breathe new life into both the drivers’ and the constructors’ championships. Raikkonen in scarlet, the consolidation of manufacturer power and Schumi’s absence should all provide ample entertainment and a highly competitive championship. For the first time in years, F1 is wide-open.
Always nice to read these F1 articles, to me F1 still is the pinnacle of motorsports by a long way, and I think that it’s quite strange that it’s so unpopular in the US. Some comments though:
The new rules from the FIA were intended to lower the manufacturer teams’ supremacy. The biggest struggle privateer teams faced in the recent past was getting their hands on a competitive engine. Of course most of the time they couldn’t match the aerodynamic development of the constructor teams either, but that is just due to lack of funds.
Because of the engine freeze, an independent team with the right backing like for instance Red Bull Racing or Williams should in theory be able to be as fast as the constructor teams, since they now have the same homologated engines as their respective constructor suppliers (Renault and Toyota respectively next year). In the past the engines that the constructors would provide to independent teams were famously less powerfull than the ones they used themselves (especially Ferrari with Sauber), and often there were other strings attached (vote in my favour, go out of the way when in front of me etc).
Personally I think the likelihood of RBR winning next year is quite small. Newey could hit a hole in one straight away but usually in F1, still being the most advanced racing series around, succes only comes after years and years of trying. You can see that with Toyota, even the most succesfull carmakers of today with the biggest budgets can’t “buy” succes. After 5 years they still painfully haven’t won a race.
We have to note that Bridgestone tires do much better in the dry (where Michelin have an advantage in the wet). If you note over Suzaka’s race Toyota’s fell by the wayside as their tires or setup couldn’t last the race distance (their fastest lap was lap 2) and we all know that Trulli is a great qualifier but a poor finisher. Toyota has the $$ but they don’t have the passion. In F1 money is not the sole deciding factor (recall Toyota hired over a top Ferrari engineer who took confidential engineering documents that Toyota used to unfairly catch up) and they still were slow. The lawsuit is still in the courts.
Toyota also often gets caught cheating (think WRC and their permanent ban). Think F1 and the aforementioned stolen Ferrari documentation, the demise of CART was in part to Toyota’s political pressure (remember 1/2 the cars in the field where Toyota powered, Toyota was he official sponsor and provided marketing funds and vehicles) on CART (and their pitiful weak will) to break their own engine change rules (moving to a 3.5 liter IRL spec v8 for the next year while in mid season – who had been working on the exact same engine configuration for the last 2 years – Toyota!). If anyone recalls Toyota after they bought out the Ganasty team (Chipper will sell his mother’s own soul for a win or $$) Toyota freely took a CART car to the autoshows in the Ganasty paintjob and had listed the 4 mgfr’s championships and 5 driver’s titles as a Ganasty/Toyota domination. Honda’s CEO had to be restrained as he wanted to throttle the CEO of Toyota.
Toyota may make good cars but they compete unfairly against the other teams in order to win. Toyota races to market their cars rather than to learn and apply those lessons to their products (like Ferrari, Lotus, Porsche and even Honda).
Why are those cars so ugly? Do they have to be that ugly?
Why are those cars so ugly? Do they have to be that ugly?
Their shape is determined by endless testing in 24h a day operating wind tunnels. If you’d look closer to the individual cars from different teams however not 1 part will be exactly the same, because they’re all designed as complete package, which means a McLaren front wing wont work well on a Renault and vice versa.
Also, the shape of the wings/winglets/gurneys/bodywork etc etc changes with every race, for every circuit. This as opposed to IRL or ChampCars which are pretty much the same all the time, since forever (OK, new car in ChampCar next year, but still). In fact, I think the IRL/ChampCars rather look like F1 cars from around 1985. Moreover, the Penske cars still use the exact same livery that McLaren used until 1995.
I think this relentless development makes the F1 cars beautiful, because they are almost insanely perfected within the rules (or not) for the purpose they are built for.
What I foresee for 2007.
Felipe Massa wins the championship. He has greatly matured since he first came on the scene, where he was throwing cars off the track with embarrassing frequency. He showed natural speed then and now, with the best car and team in the business, he’s finally putting it together.
Kimi Raikkonen will give Massa a good fight, but with the exception of a pole here and there hasn’t been able to pull McLaren out of its plummet from the top. If Ferrari lets Massa and Raikkonen compete on an equal basis this will be a good show.
Renault will be the defending champ, but that’s it. Fisichella just isn’t an elite driver.
Ferrari will enjoy some advantage given its intimate relationship with Bridgestone, but with the tyre (British spelling) wars over, the rubber will become less aggressive, which might prove to be a good thing.
I still think freezing engines is a bad thing, but what’s done is done. The above commentary is right that aero will become even more important. I hope Max Mosley notes that Schumi shattered the Interlagos lap record even with a less powerful engine. The engineers will already be a step ahead of the bureaucrats.
It’s one thing to have Adrian Newey as your chief designer, it’s another thing to to develop the package. Williams started ’06 with a respectable car, but couldn’t move up to the next level, lacking resources. Red Bull has the money, but does it have the technical know-how? And, as someone mentioned, recall that he designed those somewhat unreliable McLarens of the very recent past.
My sleeper team? BMW. I predict they finish third in the constructor standings after Ferrari and McLaren. Honda will improve, if they can lick their engine-reliability problems. Toyota will start to wonder exactly what they are getting for their billion-dollar investment.
I think the current crop of F1 cars look great =]. But then, this was my first full year of F1 fandom and I’m happy to be a part of it now. And I’ve read everything I can get my hands on in an effort to catch up… I’m another Spanish Alonso bandwagon fan but I’ve been sucked in for good. I suppose it was inevitable; my grandfather has followed F1 for decades and I never saw anything in it, until I began to understand it recently.
I like watching manufacturers that I know compete against each other, but it’s sad to see the independents all but dead. Those rules haven’t helped them at all… but it looks like they are reducing the differences between the big and little teams. In today’s race, Sato’s Super Aguri came in 10th! I kinda like what they’ve done, and if they manage to retain some independence from Honda I’ll be rooting for them in years to come.
Farewell Schumacher.
Farewell Cosworth.
Farewell Michelin.
Oh and I hope we get some more differentiated liveries next season.
Couldn’t you have at least bought a stock photo of this year’s McLaren to use when talking about 2007? ;-)
jaje, why don’t you just flat out come out and say you hate Toyota?
You are greatly exaggerating Toyota’s fairness and sportsmanship in motorsports. First off, Toyota is NOT permanently banned. They were banned for one year due to a unique re-routing system they put on their turbos in the WRC Celicas.
An average person reading your post would conclude that Toyota is evil, and completely unfair, while others like Ferrari are total angels. Give me a break. Ferrari has been caught cheating in motorsports before, and they caused several controversies this year in F1 with parts of their car that some thought broke the rules.
Or how about Renault? Their mass damper system was *banned*, and some people said that Renault was almost cheating in a way by using the system.
Toyota is Suzuka finished the way they did because Trulli had some problems, and was holding up Ralf Schumacher, who was clearly faster. Even the team itself told Trulli over the radio to move over for Ralf, but he didn’t.
To say Toyota doesn’t have passion is ridiculous. In basically every single motorsport Toyota has competed in, they have been either dominant, or extremely competitive.
Let’s start with World Rally Championship. Toyota is a legend in WRC, with a huge amount of wins. While Toyota is not in WRC currently, they compete in other rallies right now. There is the Dakar Rally, also where Toyota has many wins.
There is the 24 Hours of Lemans, where although Toyota has never won there, they have scored a 2nd place finish. There is also off-road racing, where Toyota holds numerous wins.
Nascar Truck Series, Toyota is currently leading with the most wins.
F1, Toyota last year scored a 2nd place finish, and numerous podium finishes. Toyota is still a very young team. Teams like Red Bull, BMW Sauber, or Torro Rosso are actually not new, far from it, they are remains of older teams like Jaguar and Minardi. Super Aguri is the youngest team on the grid, and understandably they have scored zero points this year. Toyota in their first year in F1, in 2002, at least scored some points. Besides, Toyota is full constructor team, that is also providing engines to Williams next year. How about McLaren-Mercedes. They have been in F1 for DECADES, and they did not score ONE win this season. I think that’s a bigger dissapointment than Toyota. or how about Honda, they too have been in F1 for decades, yet they had a horrible season last year, and a great deal of problems this year. I can also mention Williams, who did worse than Toyota this year, despite also being in Formula 1 for decades, along with Cosworth.
It’s impossible for Toyota to have achieved all this by simply competing unfairly and not having passion.
EDIT: Ferrari and Lotus are almost exclusively making road-going versions of race cars, or focusing purely on sports cars. You cannot expect the same of Honda or Toyota. Ferrari’s image completely relies on F1. If not for F1, Ferrari would be significantly different than what it is today. It has taken a long time for Honda to incorporate improvements from F1 into its production cars. Toyota though, already is incorporating F1 knowledge into their cars. The Camry SE uses an F1 derived underbody brace. The new Lexus 4.6L V8 was built with some F1 principles and technologies in hand.
As much as I hate to say it, “MushMouth” Raikkonen in a walk next season.
Massa will have flashes of brilliance, but he’s not mentally tough enough for the championship. He may be one day, but not now.
I’ll call it:
1) Raikkonen
2) Alonso
3) Button
4) Massa
5) Kubica
Why? I’ve covered Raikkonen. He has guts and is unafraid to go wheel-to-wheel, as he did with Schumi Sunday in Brazil.
Alonso, because McLaren has all the resources of Mercedes-Benz behind them, and they will improve.
Button: Honda is comitted to F1 like no other company. I like Jensen, but I don’t think he’s got the stuff of champions.
Massa: Covered. Good, but not great.
Kubica: Masssively fast, and BMW will now have a clean sheet racecar and we all know they can build killer engines.
Let’s not forget the Toyoduh-engineered debacle at Indy last year. And the “suprise” move by Toyoduh from Michelin to Bridgestone, while Bridgestone still supplies Ferrari. Who knows what secrets they are stealing there for Toyoduh.
Johnson – You are right about the ban in WRC (I was given a bad source when I read that information). To note Toyota treated this as a permanent ban b/c it upset the management to no end.
But you seem to ignore the fact that Toyota took a Target Ganassi car to the auto show circuit (post Ganassi buyout) and listed the mfgrs and drivers championships won when Honda was the engine provider? To me that is the most underhanded and dishonest thing a company can do (take credit for other’s success)!
Now why is it that CART broke their own engine change rules to switch to a 3.5 n/a v8 (ala IRL) only one company had a clear advantage with this move and it was Toyota? Now, what happened to CART – spec Ford series and a shadow of what it was (Honda broke of off finding that Toyota was again exerting it’s pressure). IRL benefitted greatly as they had Toyota $$s and Honda joined to compete only to rack up the most impressive beating of it’s competition in recent memory. Going gets tough – Toyota quit the IRL too.
As for F1: Toyota spends more on F1 than almost all other mfgrs – the point was that $$ didn’t buy you a win (and neither does their political pressures). How many wins did Toyota get last year in 2005? (zero!). Honda won it’s first race in a long time this year. Fact is Ferrari is the class of the field and Renault is now coming into its own so wins are hard to come by. In fact Honda has won many championships and crowns in F1 (look at the late 80’s to mid 90’s). Honda sticks with it even when the going gets tough – they are not quitters. In fact here’s Hondas more recent history just in F1.
2006 Honda (4th) 86 / Toyota (6th) 35
2005 Toyota (45th) 88 / Honda (6h) 38
2004 BAR Honda (2nd) 119 / Toyota (8th) 9
2003 BAR Honda (5th) 26 / Toyota (8th) 16
2002 Jordan Honda (6th) 9 / BAR Honda (8th) 7 / Toyota (10th) 2
2001 Jordan Honda (5th) 19 / BAR Honda (6th) 17
2000 BAR Honda (5th) 20 / Jorden Mugen (6th) 17
1999 Jordan Mugen (3rd) 61
1998 Jordan Mugen (4th) 34
1997 Prost Mugen (6th) 21
1996 Ligier Mugen (6th) 15
1995 Ligier Mugen (5th) 24
1994 (no Honda) – Financial trouble
1993 Footwork Mugen (9th) 4
1992 McLaren Honda (2nd) 99 / Footwork Mugen (7th) 6
1991 McLaren Honda (1st) 139 / Tyrrell Honda (6th) 12
1990 McLaren Honda (1st) 121
1989 McLaren Honda (1st) 141
1988 McLaren Honda (1st) 199 / Lotus Honda (4th) 23
1987 Williams Honda (1st) 127 / Lotus Honda (3rd) 64
1986 Williams Honda (1st) 141
1985 Williams Honda (3rd) 71
1984 Williams Honda (6th) 26
1983 Williams Honda (11th) 2
Go Back into the 60’s when Honda was a small company and competing in F1 and Isle of Mann TT. In fact Honda has 100’s of other championships and wins from cars (F1, CART, IRL, GT2 Win at the 24hrs of LeMans, to motorcycles and at times dominated each series they compete in
As for technology…Toyota finally get some racing inspired designs in new Lexus! By the way did you know that Honda’s economy cars got variations of the suspension design from F1, or Variable valve time technology (Toyota’s only true VTEC copy came by Yamaha built 1.8 engines engines in the defunct Celica GTS and now the Elise).
Super Aguri took a 3 year old defunct BAR Honda chassis literally from a display case and started racing it just before the season started (it was a last minute decision in the F1 world). Over the entire year their performance and reliability improved substantially. In fact in Brazil Sato finished in 10th just outside the points over the Midlands Toyota, Cosworth, RB Ferrari and he was catching up to Kubica in the BMW Sauber.
In fact you’re a little out of touch with Honda’s passion for motorsports from its founder. Go to these two websites to read about their focus, dedication and committment.
http://racing.honda.com/about/heritage.aspx
http://world.honda.com/timeline/motorsports/