2014 Mid-Season Analysis – Caterham

From the outset of the season, Caterham had earmarked 2014 as their do or die season. A quick glance at their championship standings and points tally reveals that the back-marker has, in a sense, died.

Apologies for extended absence

Hello everyone. I would just like to let it be known that, in spite of having gone a couple of months without a post, I am still quite alive. So I do apologise for not having given notice of my absence too, as I had seen it coming.

I have just gotten though a period of transition: a new job and a new home. As such, free time has been a scarce commodity, and internet access has been more scarce still. I should be hooked back up to the internet tomorrow though, and that will give me the ability to give you one more thing to read once again.

You can look forward to a team-by-team and driver-by-driver breakdown of the 2014 F1 season so more, and a few opinion pieces about the ongoing political and technical rows within the sport as well. There may even be a retro-gaming feature coming about for throw-back Thursdays.

Why the opinionated stuff? Because Sky and BBC cover the basic facts well enough. Why the games? Because writing strictly about Formula 1 can get a little dull.

Until then, here’s a picture of Bernie Ecclestone’s head on Godzilla’s body.

Roland Ratzenberger: the other half of Imola, part 3

San Marino 29 April 1994

Rubens Barrichello endured a horrible accident in practice that foreshadowed the rest of the weekend.

Considered by many to be the darkest weekend in the history of Formula 1, the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix at Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari began to go wrong during the Friday qualifying session.

Roland Ratzenberger: the second half of Imola, part 2

Having gained no small amount of notoriety for his achievements at Le Mans and unyielding devotion to racing over the years, Ratzenberger finally found himself with a route to Formula 1. Barbara Belhau, a sports manager from Monaco, got in touch with the Austrian and began working to help him find a place on the grid.

Roland Ratzenberger: the second half of Imola, part 1

1 May 1994, the day of the San Marino Grand Prix, saw three-time Formula 1 world champion Ayrton Senna suffer a severe crash that would claim his life a few hours later. The loss of the man widely considered to be the fastest race car driver of all time shook Formula 1 down to its core, spurring massive safety regulation changes to avoid any such tragedies again. To this day, Ayrton Senna da Silva remains the most recent casualty of a Formula 1 event.

Update: New articles

Hello everyone, and sorry for the extended absence. I have been working on several articles (and preparing to move) over the past couple of weeks, but everything I had planned to write on has been covered by other writers. Or rather, they have written them more quickly than I, and mimicry (even if coincidental) doesn’t feel right.

However, I have prepared something they have not (so far as I can tell). What is it? A brief biography on an understudied driver but genuinely nice man: Roland Ratzenberger. Come back Sunday night. It’s rather long, so it will be divided into at least two articles.

I might even place some links to the old footage used for research if you promise not to tell Bernie about the bootleg videos.

-Brian

F1 2014: All eyes on Red Bull

(It’s much later than it was meant to be, but neglecting to make an untimely assessment would be worse than actually doing it. Right? Sorry. At any rate, there will be some more timely material coming at the end of this weekend.)

Ten years ago, a fizzy drink company took over the Jaguar F1 squad and the resultant creation was instantly labelled as a wealthy man’s flight of fancy: a hobby team. The last four seasons have proven quite the contrary, as the Milton Keynes-based team has taken both the drivers’ and constructors’ championships, sometimes with unflinching dominance.
With the team’s dominance hitting a rarely seen level last season, fans of rival teams began to beg and pray for the new regulations to break the form of the team. It would seem their wishes have been granted, as Red Bull has started the year on the wrong hoof.
The evident condition of the team went from blatantly terrible in preseason testing to half-respectable in Australia—until a disqualification put any measure of their progress in question.
With high expectations, a massive gap to Mercedes and controversy swirling about the incumbent champions, their performance at Malaysia promises to be a talking point.

F1 2014: Mercedes on the attack

Even before heading into the off-season, there were rumors swirling about Mercedes already showing a spectacular affinity for the new engine formula. Many dismissed the claims as sheer nonsense, others (mainly Red Bull’s detractors) held onto a quiet modicum of hope that it would be true. How the hopeful would be rewarded.

Straight from the start of pre-season testing, the silver arrows looked to be in an entirely different league from the rest of the field. Their dominating speed was matched only by their unrivaled reliability. Though Bahrain and the Australian Grand Prix would reveal glitches in the machine of last year’s runner-up, there can be no mistaking the likelihood that Mercedes AMG Petronas are already looking likely to cart off with the championship.

F1 2014 Preview: Ferrari’s two champions

Since 2010, Ferrari had employed a strict one-rooster policy: one dominant driver and a strong number two. An idea that was also seen during the Schumacher era, this policy functions as a strategic model to boost the odds of the first driver’s championship odds. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out too well during any of those years.

The second driver of those years was Felipe Massa, who, prior to crashing, had been treated as an equal by Kimi Raikkonen. When Fernando Alonso joined the team, he brought with him the expectation that he would be given first driver status and was granted it. Obviously, this broke Massa’s will to put in his best performances, making him less useful as a strategic piece than Rubens Barrichello had been for Schumacher. As such, the team has been unable to claim a championship in either category for six years.

Last year, a falling out between Alonso and the team saw him lose that favour, and the one-rooster policy has evaporated.

F1 2014 Preview: Lotus’ struggles continue

Pound for pound, no team was better than the small Enstone squad last season. Having pulled Kimi Raikkonen out of retirement, put in the effort to transform Romain Grosjean into a driver who could drive with the best and built a superb team on a relatively small budget, the team was looking like a championship contender..

Amid the podiums and win last year, troublesome news did surface about the team: funds were so low that they were unable to pay Raikkonen. Proposed deals with the Quantum Motorsport consortium seemed to provide hope that the team would be able to pull itself together. Nothing came of it, and as a result the team lost many key personnel such as aerodynamicist James Allison, team principle Eric Boullier. Lotus is in for some chop.