Half way point in the F1 season, thoughts so far?

[Duke]

Here are the results for each driver so far this season:

Quite a mixed bag looking at those results.

Vettel has certainly not had an easy run and Kimi has kept him fairly honest again, although they tend to drop off development quite quickly.

Merc have been the shock of this season for me, really thought they would be getting points here and there but 3 wins was unexpected.

Force India had potential but seem all over the place now. Mclaren should out score them now but won't finish higher than 5th in the constructors championship.

Williams have been dire again and shame Caterham haven't closed the gap still.

This is Vettel's to lose really. I think if Hamilton was able to make the most of things from the word go, he'd be fairly close to Seb. As per most seasons recently, there hasn't been just one team challenging Red Bull, so they keep taking points off each other. I thought Ferrari would do that this year but it hasn't been great for them.

Your thoughts?

 

[Duke]

Maybe give the bottom half of the teams the chance to not take part in the summer break close down or another day testing in the mid season test.

 

[Duke]

Pretty much the only way he can be stopped is if he has a run of DNF through mechanical failure which is unlikely at best.

That said I can see Hamilton going on a bit of a run and getting 3 or more victories in the second half of the season.. I don't think it will be enough however.

Hit the nail on the head there. Hamilton (or whoever) would need to win several if not most of the remaining races and even then Vettel is likely to finish in 2nd or 3rd in those cases, so the points gained on him is tiny each time.

 

[Duke]

McLaren's problem is that they are playing happy families. They dont want to step on anybody's toes or be involved in any scandal.

In F1, to be quick, you must be involved in dodgy/questionably antics, which lead to scandal. RBR were constantly in the headlines with their antics, over the last 3 years, with regards to the legality of their cars. This year, they have been a bit more quiet, though I expect this to change as the year progresses.

Mercedes were terrible in races. They took an illegal tyre test, took a big risk, got involved in scandal and hey presto, 3 races on, they have race-winning pace. Last year, the moment they were made aware that Hamilton was listening to offers, they made an offer. McLaren were not happy, but then Merc are not playing happy families.

My suspicion is that after McLaren received the US$100M fine (which was ridiculously high), they brought in a whole bunch of procedures to reduce the chances of a repeat of the incident. This means that if any employee/department wants to take a risk, they have to run it by 100 people before it gets a green light. If McLaren want, they can weigh in and offer to take on Kimi. Perhaps make him the highest paid driver in F1. But will they? Nope. With their resources, they shouldnt be settling for any driver line-up unless it includes Alonso, Vettel or Hamilton. Anyone else, is tier-2, which given the money available to McLaren, begs the question, why?

McLaren's only hope is for their design and engineering department to deliver a car which is at least 0.5s/lap faster than all other cars. This is unlikely. More likely is if they get rid of the current (risk averse) management and bring in some risk takers.

Couldn't agree less with all that!

 

[Duke]

Number of illegal tests: 1

 

[Duke]

 

[Duke]

The first year of the new tyres was good as they still drove quick, then performance suddenly dropped off, so they pitted. Since then the teams now tip toe around to make them last.