Round 1 – Australia – 29 March 2009 (Preview)

Location: Albert Park Circuit, Melbourne, Australia
Race Distance: 58 laps (307.574km)
Lap Record: Michael Schumacher (2004) – 1.24.125
Winner 2008: Lewis Hamilton (McLaren-Mercedes)
Pole 2008: Lewis Hamilton (McLaren-Mercedes)

The 2009 Formula 1 Championship starts in traditional fashion in Melbourne as the ten constructors head to the heat and relaxed atmosphere of Albert Park once again.

With Brawn GP the only new team in the field, and only one novice driver set to start on the grid, teams and drivers alike know what to expect and the strategies needed to compete on the simple and straightforward circuit.
However, all of those previous strategies and tactics are useless in the current season – with the new regulations in place, the teams and drivers are starting from a level playing field with clean slates.

Gold Medal system binned – for now

Just days after the FIA announced the ‘Gold Medal’ system would be used to declare the FIA Formula 1 Champion of 2009, they have now decided to defer the system for a further 12-months, due to the lack of approval from the Formula 1 teams.

Neither teams nor fans seemingly approved of the new system, first proposed by Formula 1 rights owner Bernie Ecclestone several months ago. The new system would have seen Felipe Massa – not Lewis Hamilton – win last year’s championship.

No doubt the FIA and the team principals will sit and at some point before the 2010 championship to discuss and iron out the issues with the new system before anything is announced and confirmed.

Bernie’s Plan Gets the Go Ahead

In a bizarre twist in Paris today, the FIA have decided to opt in favour of Bernie Ecclestone’s “Gold Medal” championship scoring system, as opposed to the current points-per-position format, in deciding the 2009 FIA Formula 1 World Champion.

Bernie’s proposition, made public earlier this year, will see the driver with the most wins made champion, rather than the current system which sees the driver with most points made champion. The decision – had it been enforced last season – would’ve seen Felipe Massa and not Lewis Hamilton, win the 2008 Championship.
Not one team  in FOTA had been in favour of the move, with Bernie claiming the new system would see teams and drivers being forced to overtake and challenge for victory, rather than conserving their engines and tyres in the final stages of the race.

One does have to question the logic behind such a decision.

Alonso ends Brawn dominance as Button suffers failure

Fernando Alonso’s Renault was quickest on Monday in Jerez, as the final testing for 2009 draws to a close. With only four teams present, it was left to the Spaniard to end the domination shown by Barrichello and Button in the Brawn GP car. McLaren’s World Champion Lewis Hamilton could only finish fourth quickest, with the German Nico Rosberg in the Williams setting the fifth – and slowest – time of the day.

As the teams begin concentrating on the final details prior to next weekend’s opening race in Melbourne, a gearbox failure for Button in the afternoon showed that the British team has weak points after early domination on the testing time sheets.

Willliams seemed to focus on the fine-tuning of set up during the day, setting a fastest time of 1:19.783 during his 123 laps, a time that was a full one and a half seconds slower than Alonso’s fastest. Lewis Hamilton, in the McLaren, could only muster two tenths of a second faster than Rosberg, setting a time of 1:19.513 in 82 laps. And, despite previous statements from the McLaren team about their lack of worries about being off the pace, they concentrated their efforts on aerodynamic modifications, including a series of lengthy runs to evaluate tyre degradation caused by the new modifications.

Barrichello took the reigns of the BGP001 in the morning session, as he completed 60-odd laps evaluating set-up and tyres as he set the second fastest time of the day – just five hundredths of a second slower than the Renault – at 1:18.398, a full half second quicker than his own previous best time in the BGP001. Briton Jenson Button completed the testing for BGP in the afternoon, but only mastered 12 laps before gearbox failure – believed to be during a race simulation. Whether this shows potential failures for the team in the race season remains to be seen, and will no doubt be tested again during Tuesday’s test session. The problem saw Button set a fastest lap of just 1:18.892, half a second slower than his teammate but still quicker than he had achieved previously.

Alonso completed his fastest lap in 1:18.343, breaking the 79-second barrier that only Brawn had achieved so far, as he completed over 100 laps – a target Renault had aimed for on the final day of testing. Despite the quick time, Fernando will leave Tuesday’s testing to Nelson Piquet Jr, allowing the youngster the chance to get to grips with the new car.

Brawn ahead in Spain

As we head into the final week of testing, it’s Rubens Barrichello and Brawn GP that once again head the field in Spain.

It would appear that the engineers and designers at the former Honda team have been working tirelessly over the winter months under the guidance of former Ferrari technical guru Ross Brawn, putting together a machine capable of beating current World Champion Lewis Hamilton by nearly two seconds! Even Fernando Alonso has stated how impressed he is with the BGP001 chassis.

With less than a week remaining before testing ends and the teams head to Melbourne for the opening grand prix of the season, it appears many of the teams are playing catch up. It is, of course, equally possible that the McLaren team are sand-bagging, with Brawn running a qualifying setup to evaluate how the car handles and performs. The question that raises, of course, is who is using the right approach, considering the blanket testing ban beginning this weekend?

Honda Confirms Brawn Buy-Out

It was with great interest that I read on Formula1.com this morning that Ross Brawn has taken over the reigns of control at Brackley, following the announcement earlier this year that Honda would no longer be operating a team in the F1 2009 championship.

Whilst the economic downturn has obviously had a massive impact in motorsport – Subaru and Suzuki pulling out of the World Rally Championship, for example – only Honda have made it publicly known that their funding would be pulled from the pinnacle of circuit-based motorsport. In Formula 1, only Williams immediately spring to mind as a team who may struggle financially, following the recent ‘collapse’ of the RBS Group here in the UK.

It is with curiosity and interest then, that Ross Brawn has managed to secure the funding for such a grand adventure.

Just where has this money come from, surely his Ferrari pension isn’t sufficient enough to cover any operating losses? Or, is the Brawn Grand Prix team a Ferrari Junior Team? One can only presume not, considering BGP’s engines will come from the Mercedes-Benz badge.

Undoubtedly, time will tell. What is immediately apparent though, is that Ross Brawn has by no means been treading water during Honda’s search for a buyer for their 2009 F1 license. Indeed, the BGP001 car was unveiled just hours after the creation of the BGP team was announced, with Jenson Button having taken the car for a few shakedown laps around Silverstone this morning.

So, Here We Are…

We have finally reached March 2009, and it seems like a decade ago since the 2008 Formula 1 World Championship was won by an Englishman on the final corner of the final lap of the final race of 2008.

In reality, it’s only been five months. Time has moved on since then – and more importantly, so has the World.

The days of multi-national companies pouring their PR budgets with careless abandon into motorsport have long gone. For now, we are in a global recession; the outcome of years of reckless spending and forever putting off todays bills until tomorrow. Budgets have been slashed, companies have been declared bankrupt.

And race teams have been put up for sale.

The worst hit have been the Japanese manufacturers; Subaru and Suzuki have pulled out of the World Rally Championship, Honda have pulled their funding for Formula 1 and placed the team firmly up for sale. The European manufacturers – Renault, Mercedes-Benz, Ferrari – seem to be getting away with minimal damage at the moment; sound financial management, or pure good fortune?

There are a little over three weeks left before the F1 teams go head-to-head in Australia, and this blog is going to keep you up-to-date with the latest news in Formula 1. Rather than just a “news and results” service, we’re going to provide you with technical insights into the sport, discussions of events and – maybe – a little light-hearted banter thrown in for good measure.

Ready for the new season?
You better hold on tight..!