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.