Russia: Even Closelier

With Sochi over, we only have three races left and the winner of the WCC has been decided! Well I suppose that's not too much of a surprise. Mercedes have dominated all season so we all saw their victory far down the road. There is still potential for change below 1st place though!

I was really hoping for a stronger finish from Williams, but while Bottas did deliver a great result, Massa failed to score even a single point. From here, something very unusual would need to happen for Williams to take 2nd place away from RBR. Worse still, Ferrari continues to nip at their ankles with just 38 points separating the two. There is no room for error at Williams, so they cannot afford to choose another weak tire strategy that cost Massa valuable places.

At this point Williams will also be looking towards next year. If they maintain 3rd, they will receive a handy sum of money and potentially increased sponsorship/endorsement as well. This additional money would seriously increase their chances of having an even more competitive car next year. they just need to make sure to keep those red cars behind them at all times.

Talking of Ferrari, here is a team whose performance has been wholly underwhelming throughout the season. The mid season updates have propelled them sideways, and they have really been struggling to compete with the power of the Mercedes-engined cars. They have a lot of work to do before next season if they are going to be competitive. Perhaps a new driver would help them out?

McLaren and Force-India are also keeping each other close. McLaren seem to have found a better aero setup and have begun to perform with much more strength than before the mid-season break. Jenson Button has increased his finishing position from Monza onwards (excluding his DNF in Singapore). McLaren  outperformed Force India by a wide margin at Sochi, so look for Force India to react to the charge mounted by McLaren as the gap gets smaller.

The WDC has gotten so much closer! Bottas, Alonso, and Vettel are all separated by 2 points. Ricciardo is a bit farther ahead, but his lack of performance at Sochi is indicative of the low power of the Renault engine in his Red Bull. With another high speed track on the way in Austin (similar average speed as Sochi), we may see RBR continue to struggle against the likes of Williams, McLaren, Force-India, just about anyone with a Mercedes engine. It may be a stretch, but it is still possible for Bottas to claim 3rd in the WDC. Not bad for his second year in Formula 1.

Looking at the table for the WDC, 8 of the top 11 cars have Mercedes engines, and everyone below 11th has a Ferrari or Renault engine. I'm really looking forward to the re-entry of Honda and hoping it will mix things up.

COTA is three weeks away, so teams have plenty of time to reflect on Sochi and learn from mistakes.

The State of Racing

Jules Bianchi's recent injury has sparked discussion across the internet about the important issue of safety in Formula 1. Some suggestions to improve safety related to this incident include closing the cockpits with canopies, adjusting regulations governing how crashes are handled, and even changing the method of removing beached cars from the run-off areas. While these are all good ideas, I am quite sure that none of them will be implemented. Heck, I'll go even further and say that absolutely nothing will change following the events at Suzuka. One of the biggest reasons that nothing will change is because this was a very unlucky and rare accident. In this way, last weekend's crash is very similar to what happened to Felipe Massa back in 2009.

Back in 2009, a Suspension spring fell off of the Brawn being driven by Rubens Barichello. Felipe Massa was stuck in the face by this spring and very nearly lost his life. The chances of that happening were so slim to begin with, that nobody really gave it any serious thought. Luckily a preventative measure was as easy as installing a Zylon strip into the visor on the drivers' helmets. In the case of Jules Bianchi's accident, however, a solution is not so easy. In fact, there is no practicable 'solution'. This was a freak accident. Evidence that Formula 1 will always be dangerous, and that is part of what makes it so exciting!

Formula 1 has already made great strides in the field of safety. As Gary Hartstein pointed out in a great article written by the former F1 doctor himself, "...the things that used to kill and maim drivers have almost been engineered out of the system."  Consider that Spa used to have no Armco or run off areas, the drivers used to go belt-less, and they apparently thought that a leather cap did something for safety. There was no Hans device, no carbon fiber monocoques, no roll hoops even. If you crashed, you were most likely going to be killed or seriously injured. Contrast that to currently watching drivers have a 160mph-into-a-tire-wall shunt and walk away.

One of the more prominent solutions being proposed is the introduction of canopies to enclose the cockpit. A cockpit canopy sounds pretty nice but in reality, it probably wouldn't have helped Jules at all. Bianchi ran into the solid ballast weight of what is essentially a digger, with the side of his helmet being the first major point of contact. I cannot see a canopy being light enough for Formula 1 and also strong enough to withstand an impact with so much force and inertia behind it. Furthermore, a canopy brings along a few other concerns. Obviously there is the issue of egress taking longer, and also a potential for the release mechanism to be damaged during an accident resulting in the driver being trapped. Another huge issue that is easily overlooked is the impact that a closed cockpit would have on the image of Formula 1. It is very hard to quantify something like this, but I think it would distance the fans from the Formula 1 experience. Think of it as the difference between watching a football game live as it is normally versus with a pane of glass between you and the players (assuming the sound is unaffected). That would be a different experience for sure. Adding canopies to F1 would be very bad for the image, and the few safety benefits are not enough to justify the change.

So no changes to safety within the cars then, but what about regulation changes? Well, every professional racing driver knows that when double yellows are being waved, it means that you need to not only slow down, but be prepared to stop (as pointed out in Hartstein's article). This means more in the wet than it does in the dry. If Bianchi was going fast enough to skid off the track with enough speed to lift a digger into the air, then he was going way too fast to guarantee the safety of the marshals and himself. Bianchi was breaching a regulation so will he be penalized then, right? Probably not. He has already taken enough damage (far too much IMO. A broken front wing and a drive through penalty would have sufficed.)Furthermore, the FIA will not enforce a more serious punishment for breaching that particular regulation, because the consequences of doing so have, unfortunately, been demonstrated here.

Finally, there is concern surrounding the current method of retrieving stranded or damaged cars off of the track. Suggestions were made about using stationary cranes, but this is just not possible at some tracks. I suppose there could be a redesign of the cranes, but that would require the compliance of the manufacturers, who probably couldn't give a hoot about all of this. You can see where this is going; nowhere. I have taken a ruthlessly pragmatic approach, but there just isn't anything anybody could have done to prevent what happened except Bianchi. Even at that, every driver makes mistakes from time to time. I wish him a speedy recovery and sincerely hope to see him behind the wheel of an F1 car again soon.

Maximum Tension has Been Achieved.

60 laps of racing at Singapore was the perfect recipe to bring tensions to a peak in the WDC. The high demands of racing at Singapore punished many drivers and teams. With drinks bottles overheating, brakes being managed, electrical gremlins, and strategies being pushed to and beyond the limit, the last half of the race was fantastic.

Ferrari proved today that although they now have two confident drivers, their cars are still unable to deliver the performance required. They looked promising at first, but after the safety car retreated they were unable to bring their tires back to life in time to take advantage. It is such a shame as well, as Raikkonen was very close to 5^th place for several laps and Alonso seemed to be within arm's reach of the podium.

Williams pushed their strategy one lap too far for Bottas, and thus their lead over Ferrari in the WCC remains a scant 9 points after Bottas was overtaken by 5 cars in quick succession. Now that Ferrari are finally starting to find the optimum setup, Williams will need to cover every contingency to maintain 3^rd place in the WCC.

Mclaren had a fantastic opportunity in Singapore, but unfortunately they were unable to maintain 5^th in the WCC, with Force India thriving in the harsh conditions of Singapore despite the contact between Perez and Sutil. Had Button remained in the race, he would have been one of the five to capitalize on Williams' overshooting their tire strategy and may have picked up a few additional points for his team.

Reliability problems hit home with a sledgehammer for many teams. Sauber unfortunately suffered from a double retirement following a clumsy incident from Sutil, Rosberg barely even started the race and retired during an all too optimistic pit stop, and Kobayashi was unable to make it to the grid. 

Rosberg had much less to lose than Hamilton, but clearly Mercedes need to take a serious look into their reliability. They have been plagued with issues that have swung the WDC to and fro when we all want to see the WDC decided purely by driver skill, not reliability. That aside, Hamilton's drive after the safety car was one of his best of the entire season. Creating a pit stop sized gap between himself and Daniel Ricciardo was simply incredible, and on withering tires no less. Mercedes, despite being on what seemed at first to be the wrong strategy after the safety car was deployed, still made the best of the situation.

Japan will be a properly exciting race with just 3 points separating Hamilton and Rosberg. Hopefully the reliability issues are ironed out so we can see some WDC deciding moments through the esses at Suzuka.

The Championship on Singapore's Terms

With Quali over, the next race marks the beginning of the end for this season. We are about 3/4 of the way through the WDC/WCC, and while it is quite clear that Mercedes will win the WCC, the WDC is still up for grabs. Singapore marks one of the most physically demanding races on the calendar and as it is one of only three street-races on the calendar, it will show some seldom-seen strengths and weaknesses of not just the teams, but the drivers as well.

The big surprise of Quali was not Hamilton's Bond-esque pole position, but Raikkonen's outstanding performance in Q1. Out of nowhere he rose to the top in Q1, showing that he still has what it takes to be at the front of the pack and hasn't forgotten how he won the WDC in 2007. It is a shame that his car let him down, but it is definitely great to hear that he is finally comfortable in the Ferrari. Hopefully we can see him performing similar to Alonso. He is still driving a car with a wet noodle for a front end, but it seems the engineers have finally managed to tweak the handling to his liking. Furthermore, the new radio regulations should allow him the freedom to do what he does best without the interference of his team with info about trivial things like 'tire wear' and 'fuel saving.'  We should see his performance increase from here on out now that he is more confident in the car. This is something that I am looking forward to, as he has proven to be a formidable opponent.

The star of the season so far is Daniel Ricciardo without a doubt. With wins at Canada, Belgium, and Spa, he is the the only driver that has won a race this season that does NOT drive for Mercedes. You can bet that he will not be far behind the Mercedes'. Ricciardo is also the only driver with a remote chance of challenging either Rosberg or Hamilton for the WDC. I cannot wait to see his smile taking up most of the screen during the podium interviews. He will definitely be taking the fight straight to Mercedes as this season comes to a close.

The Merc battle is reaching a climax. With just 22 points separating Hamilton from Rosberg, tensions reached a head with the British driver qualifying a mere .007 seconds ahead of his German rival. Hopefully both Mercedes don't have any further issues, as we are all looking forward to more action between the two. Now that car setup messages are banned from the pit wall on a turn-by-turn basis, the skill of the two drivers will become paramount, Rosberg has shown a tendency to go deep into chicanes like T1 at Monza, and he made the same mistake in Q1. Luckily Hamilton uses a more rear biased setup that Rosberg, and so he tends to avoid overheating his front brakes. However, in these hot and humid conditions the drivers are doing a great deal of heavy braking with little opportunity to cool the brakes until the start/finish straight or just before memorial corner. Long braking sequences in turns 14-21 could be too much for the Silver Arrows, so look for braking issues similar to Monza. While the team will certainly be running with larger brake ducts, we may see some cooling issues return here.

Williams have been stealing the spotlight beginning with their powerful performance at Austria. They certainly have found a balance between top speed and downforce which nearly makes up for their lack of power. From Austria we have seen Bottas achieve multiple podiums with Massa chasing close behind. While the WCC is mostly decided at this point, Williams stands a chance of knocking RBR out of 2nd place -- especially with double points being awarded at Abu Dhabi.

For one of the few times this season, Mercedes do not have a tremendous pace advantage. Ferrari, Williams, and Red Bull are all trailing within just .506 seconds to Hamilton. The race could be decided by a slow pitstop or a single mistake and with thunderstorms predicted for the race, rain may play a large factor as well.