F1-Blog

2008

So we now know that we really do have a new British world champion. Ferrari have not appealed about any part of the Brazilian GP, and that leaves Lewis Hamilton to take the Drivers Championship by one point.

It’s been an interesting season, for a variety of reasons. But what we need to take away from the 2008 F1 World Championship is that it had some great racing, and a tight ending where both drivers actually deserved to be the eventual Winner.

I think it turned out OK in the end though. Ferrari took the Manufacturers title, and McLaren the drivers, and at the end of the day the cars (and drivers) were quite evenly matched all season.

The Japanese race had it’s moments, where both drivers and teams thought they had won the Drivers championship, Lewis was lucky that it rained as heavy as it did, as he was struggling to keep up with the STR in front of him, and would probably not have been able to pass Vettel before the line, even with the performance that the McLarens had up the hill and down the pit straight. McLaren certainly made mistakes running as conservatively as they did in the middle stint of the race brought Lewis into the predicament in the first place, the McLarens had the pace all weekend to be able to run much closer to the front.

Toyota, Timo and Jarno were brave to not pit for wet weather ‘intermediate’ tyres, and it paid off for Timo, even if he did loose places at the final corner. Before the pit stops he was seventh, and managed to finish sixth, so they made a place by tip toeing around on the dry tyres, and Timo and Jarno should both be applauded for not throwing the car into a wall during those last two laps.

We must also say a fond farewell to David ‘DC’ Coulthard. He has had a long career, and most people will not remember that he very nearly walked away with the drivers title, instead he will be remembered as the staple McLaren number 2 to some of the best drivers in F1 of their time. Let’s hope the rumours of him joining the BBC commentary team are true, as he is a charismatic, knowledgeable driver and would add to the experience, especially if Brundle (his manager after all) joins him.

If you look back on the 2008 season, you will see that it has been a good one, there have been a few lacklustre races this year, but they have been outweighed by the excitement at the rest of the on and off track tangling.

I wont go into all of the politics that made the last race so important, but suffice to say it was.

So what can we look forward too in 2009?

I believe we have seen nothing yet, next year brings one of the biggest years of technical change in the sports history. We have the KERS devices coming to the sport, how much ‘greener’ this will make F1 I have my doubts, but it could bring a lot of innovation to the sport. Teams are looking at both mechanical and electrical systems for their recovery systems, and some of the larger teams, Ferrari specifically are struggling to make them work. Both Toyota and Honda obviously have an advantage here as well, so we could see them getting stronger next year, and with Honda having the Brain of Brawn on the team now they should give Jenson a competitive car, as I still rate him highly as a driver, but who will join him? Barrichello? Alonso? or will it be one of the new breed in the form of Bruno Senna?

Renault have proved that making changes to Aero and engine upgrades (how ever small they were is to be debated) and having a double world champion can improve an underperforming car considerably through the season. The question at Renault is how much did they sacrifice on the 2008 car in terms of work on the 2009 challenger?

Toro Rosso have shown that with a well designed Adrian Newey chassis and a decent Ferrari engine they are a team to take seriously. Adrian Newey will again design a good car for 2009, and Ferrari will not be struggling with the KERS for too long, so they could be trouble next year. Will Vettel really want to switch to Red Bull, as STR outperformed the bigger sister team for a good chunk of the season, and will next years Renault power plant suit the car better?

McLaren are going to be strong again, they will use the win this year to invigorate the work force, and produce another good car, talk is that the KERS system they are using is performing OK in testing, and is obviously good enough, because Force India are trying to come to a deal with the Woking crew to switch from Ferrari over to the Mercedes system, so they could elevate themselves up from the back of the grid with help from McLaren. Talk is that they will take a customer car if the rules allow it.

Added to the power plant changes we have the new aero packages. This includes taller rear wings, movable aero parts and the banning of the ‘wing appendages’ we have become used to seeing sprout out of the cars. This will obviously lead to bringing teams with good designers up the grid. Think Red Bull/STR, Honda and Force India here, with Renault probably benefiting as well. We should also not forget BMW Sauber here as they are usually quite good on the Aero side of things, and have a decent power package as well, even if testing of the KERS has had it’s setbacks.

We are also going back to proper racing tyres in the form of slicks, so we have some mechanical grip back on the cars, this should allow closer racing into corners, and hopefully along with the aero changes it should bring closer racing.

So a good year gone, and a better year to look forward too. Bring on 2009!