F1 2013 driver rankings
22. Pastor Maldonado
Abysmal this year, compared to what he showed he was capable of last year. The 2013 Williams was awful, and that certainly didn't suit his aggressive style, but he had the wrong mental approach from the moment he knew it. Beaten by Bottas in qualifying all year, and in the races by the end of it. Will do well in a good Lotus.21. Max Chilton
Unlike most, I gave him a chance coming into the year having done a good job in GP2 last year. But he failed to live up to my optimism. Historically strong in qualifying but lacklustre in races, he was almost always behind his rookie team-mate, and quite often by a big margin, despite plenty of pre-season mileage. Did well to finish all the races I guess, but if a rookie doesn't have a race-ending crash, he just isn't pushing hard enough.20. Charles Pic
Has an unfair reputation for being invisible, for he was a race winner in every year of his junior career. But this year he failed to progress at Caterham after a good performance versus Glock at Marussia last year. Once Caterham were ahead of Marussia, he led the back four but was gradually overhauled by his rookie team-mate as the season went on. Seemingly the end of the road for his F1 career, which is a shame because he had more promise than most gave him credit for.19. Giedo van der Garde
Finally made it to F1 after a ten-year stint in the junior categories and made a good impression. Despite all his experience he was all at sea in the first half of the year, typified by his collision with Webber in Canada. Dug deep and made superb progress, generally getting the upper hand on Pic by the end of the season. Came across brilliantly out of the car, and it would be a big shame if he didn't get a second season somewhere.18. Esteban Gutierrez
Was rushed into F1 before he was ready, because Sauber needed to keep the Mexican money after McLaren nabbed Perez. Looked predictably out of his depth to begin with, with a particularly embarrassing qualifying record compared to Hulkenberg. There was early promise in Barcelona, and in Singapore he made Q3 at his team-mate's expense. Then brilliantly finished not far behind in Japan, although later races were disappointing. Fundamentally a talented driver but with plenty of rough edges to polish, it would have been a travesty if he had been dropped already.17. Jules Bianchi
Single-handedly got Marussia the tenth place in the constructors with some superb drives while the team was at its best versus Caterham at the beginning of the year. That was a pretty incredible feat given the lateness of his deal. Once Marussia dropped back behind Caterham, he looked a little lacklustre compared to his early performances and let Chilton get closer to him, but that doesn't mean he wasn't still extracting the maximum. We should be thankful that he's even on the grid, but he really ought to be testing himself in the midfield next year rather than staying at the back.16. Adrian Sutil
Standard Sutil season. Competent but usually unspectacular. To his credit, did well in Monaco and had some bad luck when the car was as its quickest early on. Briefly had the upper hand on his Di Resta when the car was it's worst and his team-mate went on a crashing spree, but lost his way again at the end. Doesn't deserve to stay in F1 over Di Resta, but is admittedly the better fit for steady, Germanic midfielders Sauber.15. Jean-Eric Vergne
Had absolutely stunning weekends in Monaco and Canada. But then the Red Bull vacancy cropped up and Ricciardo stepped up to the plate and put Vergne back in his place. Certainly unlucky on more than his fair share of occasions, but also not quick enough when it mattered. Red Bull are rightly keeping faith in him, mainly off the back of his outstanding pre-F1 record. But if he gets matched by Kvyat next year, it will be game over. Which would be a shame.14. Felipe Massa
Finally ditched by Ferrari after a curious series of crashes in Monaco, Canada and the Nurburgring. In true Massa style he upped his game once he had to fight to save his career, and impressively began consistently out-qualifying Alonso. But he still failed to get anything like the most out of the car in the races. A driver dropped by a top team deserves another chance further down the order, but while I'd like to say he will do well at Williams, I reckon he might get destroyed by Bottas.13. Paul Di Resta
Like the other British drivers, he's not as good as some think he is, but much better than others give him credit for. Fourth in Bahrain was as close as a Force India has got the podium since Spa 2009. Qualified fifth in Silverstone only to be excluded for being inexplicably underweight. His complaints at the team for other poor showings were only intended to get a fast team to stop making small-team mistakes, but didn't go down well. Nor did a run of driver errors when the car was at its most difficult to drive. Still more than good enough for F1, but Force India will have two more exciting prospects next year and every lesser team has a budget deficit.12. Sergio Perez
Perez did a perfectly good job against Button this year, but was still right to be dropped. Was never really going to have world champion potential, and Whitmarsh has showed a lot of incompetence by choosing him in the first place and then wanting to retain him when his engineers threatened to quit if that happened. A good racer, but evidently lacks in other areas that world champions excel in.11. Jenson Button
Button is as good as anyone when the car is how he likes it - see Spa 2012 and Japan 2011. But he's never been great with a poor car, be it a Benetton, Honda or even the Brawn in the second half of 2009. Against Perez, it looked like he was usually getting the maximum out of the car (except some poor showings later in the year), but what could Hamilton have done with it?10. Mark Webber
Webber was made to look quite average by Vettel for much of the season, and didn't win a single race, but did save himself with some strong performances later in the season - particularly his two pole positions in Japan and Abu Dhabi. They were no mean feat given Vettel's form. But his awful starts usually meant he spent the race fighting his way up into second rather than for the lead. The right time to call it a day.9. Valtteri Bottas
Spent much of his rookie season under the radar thanks to an awful Williams car. Often had the raw talent to outqualify Maladondo but lacked the experience to push forwards in the race as much. Qualifying third in Canada was a hint at what could be to come from him, and he delivered the team's best race result of eighth in the US once they had finally found a little more speed in the car. Expecting him to shine against the slightly more reliable benchmark Massa next year.8. Daniel Ricciardo
Outrageously fast in qualifying and decent in the races too, Ricciardo earned his graduation to the senior Red Bull team. Like Webber, he ought to be able to take the fight to Vettel on Saturdays in particular. But his long-term ability there shouldn't be judged in one season - Vettel has improved massively since he joined the team and Ricciardo needs to be given a couple of years at least.7. Kimi Raikkonen
Began the year with a bang with victory in Australia, but lacked that same sparkle for the rest of the year before deciding to skip the last two races. While he was fast and moved forward in the races, he lacked qualifying pace and that was seriously shown up once Grosjean hit his stride late in the year. While Grosjean has been made to move over for him on many occasions, Kimi couldn't hack it when the boot was on the other foot in India and immaturely ran his team-mate off the road. Ferrari know what they're letting themselves in for.6. Lewis Hamilton
While he expected a difficult first year with Mercedes, the car was quicker than anticipated and once he got comfortable, Hamilton was sublime on Saturdays as he took a run of four straight poles in the middle of the year. That he only converted one into a win was largely out of his hands, but he wasn't the same man once Vettel found another gear at the end of the year. His mental state seems to have too much of a bearing on his performance, and all too often he just isn't all there. Hopefully the Lewis of old returns next year.5. Fernando Alonso
Alonso may have finished second in the championship in a Ferrari that wasn't that good, but his season wasn't as good as most have given him credit for. Certainly not compared to what he achieved last year. Wins in China and Spain were good, as was a string of second places after the summer break, but he seemed to lose motivation after that as Vettel ran away with it. Evidently didn't get the best out of the car in qualifying because he was regularly beaten by Massa, and although he raced well, he probably would have finished higher if he'd started higher.4. Nico Rosberg
Rosberg might have been outscored by Hamilton but he wasn't outclassed by him. Three straight poles from Bahrain to Monaco showed just how good he is, and it's a shame that the Mercedes' extreme tyre wear prevented him from getting good results from those first two races before a well-deserved victory in Monaco. His Silverstone win was lucky after problems for others and he then had a brief quiet spell compared to his team-mate, but he was stronger in the run-in and took podiums in India and Abu Dhabi and led in Brazil.3. Romain Grosjean
After the battering he received from most of the F1 world in 2012, Grosjean didn't look like the same driver earlier in the season and while he was keeping it clean, he wasn't very fast. He then crashed several times in Monaco when he did try to push. Something clicked shortly afterwards though, and he was second-best only to Vettel in the latter half of the year. Put Raikkonen in the shade and took the fight to the Red Bulls, leading them in Japan and then splitting them with a fine second place in the US as he kept the faster Webber behind.2. Nico Hulkenberg
It will seem rash to put the driver who finished tenth in the standings in second place here, but nobody else seemed to consistently get the most out of his car over the season as Hulkenberg did. The Sauber was awful at the start of the year and so he was fairly quiet, but once it became a car that should be in the points, he wrestled it to third on the grid and fifth in the race at Monza. Then there was the superb fourth in Korea. It takes something to have maybe been a better choice for Ferrari than Raikkonen, but Hulkenberg may well have been just that.1. Sebastian Vettel
Just superb. While his car was a factor in his previous titles, Vettel absolutely proved he was a step ahead of the rest this year. Ruthless on track but more likeable off it than any of the other top drivers, the hatred for him is irrational.Independent teams' financial struggles are nothing new
After my rant about those who complain about the rise of so-called 'pay drivers' without a feasible suggestion of how to do things differently, I actually decided to look back in time to see if F1's current situation - where seven of the teams are financially insecure - is anything new. It's not.
F1 is coming out of a boom era of money being spent on the sport. In early 2008, just before the world went bust, there were 11 teams. Five were majority owned and funded by car manufacturers. Then there was McLaren (part owned at the time by Mercedes). Another two teams were funded by Red Bull. These eight teams all had drivers who brought no sponsorship.
Force India were contesting their first season, and as well as the investment of their owner Vijay Mallya, they had a driver in Adrian Sutil who brought some sponsorship to the team. Williams had Kazuki Nakajima, who brought with him Toyota engines.
That leaves Super Aguri. For the 2007 and 2008 seasons they had Takuma Sato and Anthony Davidson as drivers, neither with any personal sponsorship as such. The team had support from Honda for running Sato, but still went bust after four races.
So, to clarify, out of ten financially secure teams, six had car manufacturers as shareholders, two were funded by Dietrich Mateschitz and two had help from drivers who brought money to the team.
In 2007, Spyker used Sutil and the sponsored Cristijan Albers, before his money ran out and they replaced him with full-blown pay driver Sakon Yamamoto. Then they sold to Mallya. Spyker themselves had bought out Midland, who in 2006 used Albers and Tiago Monteiro, both with sponsorship.
Midland had bought Jordan. Jordan had been able to use two unfunded drivers for a period (e.g. Frentzen and Trulli in 2000) thanks to cigarette sponsorship. Once this ran out, Sato appeared in 2002 with help from Honda engines. Narain Karthikeyan and Montiero were then used in 2005, their last season.
2005 was also the last season for plucky backmarkers Minardi before selling to Mateschitz. They had a history of using signing drivers based on the money they brought (e.g. Alex Yoong), even if they also had drivers like Fernando Alonso and Mark Webber when they could (just about) afford it.
The manufacturer boom started in 2002, when Toyota and Renault came in. As well as them there were Ferrari, McLaren-Mercedes, BMW-Williams and Jaguar.
Sauber seemed to manage without any sponsored drivers for a period between 2001 and 2005 (when they were bought by BMW) but they did enjoy strong sponsorship from Petronas (who badged their Ferrari engines) and Red Bull. Thanks to their cigarette company owners, BAR went without sponsored drivers from their arrival in 1999 until becoming Honda for 2006.
Jordan, as we said, had Honda-supported Sato alongside Fisichella, and Minardi had the aforementioned Yoong alongside Webber. Arrows had Red Bull-backed Enrique Bernoldi in addition to a major title sponsor in Orange, but they still went bust.
The mid-to-late 1990s tells a similar story for independent teams. Larrousse, Pacific, Simtek and Forti all came and went, despite plentiful use of proper pay drivers. Ligier became Prost, who collapsed at the end of 2001 after the loss of money brought by Peugeot and a cigarette company. Tyrrell was sold to become BAR.
In essence, in the past 20 years, no team has survived for long without the involvement of a car manufacturer, a cigarette company, Red Bull, or drivers who have brought sponsorship.
F1 is coming out of a boom era of money being spent on the sport. In early 2008, just before the world went bust, there were 11 teams. Five were majority owned and funded by car manufacturers. Then there was McLaren (part owned at the time by Mercedes). Another two teams were funded by Red Bull. These eight teams all had drivers who brought no sponsorship.
Force India were contesting their first season, and as well as the investment of their owner Vijay Mallya, they had a driver in Adrian Sutil who brought some sponsorship to the team. Williams had Kazuki Nakajima, who brought with him Toyota engines.
That leaves Super Aguri. For the 2007 and 2008 seasons they had Takuma Sato and Anthony Davidson as drivers, neither with any personal sponsorship as such. The team had support from Honda for running Sato, but still went bust after four races.
So, to clarify, out of ten financially secure teams, six had car manufacturers as shareholders, two were funded by Dietrich Mateschitz and two had help from drivers who brought money to the team.
In 2007, Spyker used Sutil and the sponsored Cristijan Albers, before his money ran out and they replaced him with full-blown pay driver Sakon Yamamoto. Then they sold to Mallya. Spyker themselves had bought out Midland, who in 2006 used Albers and Tiago Monteiro, both with sponsorship.
Midland had bought Jordan. Jordan had been able to use two unfunded drivers for a period (e.g. Frentzen and Trulli in 2000) thanks to cigarette sponsorship. Once this ran out, Sato appeared in 2002 with help from Honda engines. Narain Karthikeyan and Montiero were then used in 2005, their last season.
2005 was also the last season for plucky backmarkers Minardi before selling to Mateschitz. They had a history of using signing drivers based on the money they brought (e.g. Alex Yoong), even if they also had drivers like Fernando Alonso and Mark Webber when they could (just about) afford it.
The manufacturer boom started in 2002, when Toyota and Renault came in. As well as them there were Ferrari, McLaren-Mercedes, BMW-Williams and Jaguar.
Sauber seemed to manage without any sponsored drivers for a period between 2001 and 2005 (when they were bought by BMW) but they did enjoy strong sponsorship from Petronas (who badged their Ferrari engines) and Red Bull. Thanks to their cigarette company owners, BAR went without sponsored drivers from their arrival in 1999 until becoming Honda for 2006.
Jordan, as we said, had Honda-supported Sato alongside Fisichella, and Minardi had the aforementioned Yoong alongside Webber. Arrows had Red Bull-backed Enrique Bernoldi in addition to a major title sponsor in Orange, but they still went bust.
The mid-to-late 1990s tells a similar story for independent teams. Larrousse, Pacific, Simtek and Forti all came and went, despite plentiful use of proper pay drivers. Ligier became Prost, who collapsed at the end of 2001 after the loss of money brought by Peugeot and a cigarette company. Tyrrell was sold to become BAR.
In essence, in the past 20 years, no team has survived for long without the involvement of a car manufacturer, a cigarette company, Red Bull, or drivers who have brought sponsorship.
You do it better
The news that Sergey Sirotkin could race for Sauber next year has been met with widespread disapproval.
Having the view that he would be stepping up too soon for his own good is a very fair one. Having the view that he isn't good enough, even though you only heard about him for the first time a few hours ago, is just plain wrong. Having followed Sirotkin for the past two years, I tackled these issues earlier here.
With Sirotkin's father one of the new investors in Sauber, some have categorised them along with the Chiltons as nepotism and something unacceptable in F1.
In the case of Marussia, and fellow 'new' boys Caterham, the argument has been made before by some that F1 would be better off without them and their 'pay drivers'. Yeah, never mind all the people employed in Banbury and Leafield...
But the new Russian investment comes at Sauber, the popular, independent team. The money that helps Sirotkin into the team secures their immediate future. A team that reportedly had a budget shortfall just to see out the season.
Do the people upset at the rise of 'pay drivers' want to see Sauber fall? Williams crumble? No, of course they don't.
Yet here they are, complaining about the side-effect of the very money that secures these teams, whether it's from Russia, Mexico, Venezuela or Reigate. And the only suggestion of how they would do things differently? Have a more deserving driver.
I'd love to see a deserving driver like Robin Frijns get an F1 seat. But without his own sponsorship, there's no way of making it happen. This isn't teams being greedy, this is just the teams ensuring their safety.
Take away the Mexican brands only there because Esteban Gutierrez is, and Sauber have virtually no sponsors. And it can't be for a lack of trying. No other team from Lotus down to Marussia boasts a big-money sponsor that isn't tied to one of their drivers.
Does F1 need to look in the mirror and ask why it cannot attract sponsors in any other way? It probably does.
But in the meantime, having the likes of Sirotkin are a small price to pay for the security of the F1 teams.
So put up with it, or do it better yourself.
Having the view that he would be stepping up too soon for his own good is a very fair one. Having the view that he isn't good enough, even though you only heard about him for the first time a few hours ago, is just plain wrong. Having followed Sirotkin for the past two years, I tackled these issues earlier here.
With Sirotkin's father one of the new investors in Sauber, some have categorised them along with the Chiltons as nepotism and something unacceptable in F1.
In the case of Marussia, and fellow 'new' boys Caterham, the argument has been made before by some that F1 would be better off without them and their 'pay drivers'. Yeah, never mind all the people employed in Banbury and Leafield...
But the new Russian investment comes at Sauber, the popular, independent team. The money that helps Sirotkin into the team secures their immediate future. A team that reportedly had a budget shortfall just to see out the season.
Do the people upset at the rise of 'pay drivers' want to see Sauber fall? Williams crumble? No, of course they don't.
Yet here they are, complaining about the side-effect of the very money that secures these teams, whether it's from Russia, Mexico, Venezuela or Reigate. And the only suggestion of how they would do things differently? Have a more deserving driver.
I'd love to see a deserving driver like Robin Frijns get an F1 seat. But without his own sponsorship, there's no way of making it happen. This isn't teams being greedy, this is just the teams ensuring their safety.
Take away the Mexican brands only there because Esteban Gutierrez is, and Sauber have virtually no sponsors. And it can't be for a lack of trying. No other team from Lotus down to Marussia boasts a big-money sponsor that isn't tied to one of their drivers.
Does F1 need to look in the mirror and ask why it cannot attract sponsors in any other way? It probably does.
But in the meantime, having the likes of Sirotkin are a small price to pay for the security of the F1 teams.
So put up with it, or do it better yourself.
2013 Le Mans grid guide
I've spent more time than I should have done studying this year's Le Mans 24 Hours field, so I might as well put my thoughts in writing...
Andy Blackmore's Spotter Guide is the perfect companion for the race and has almost all the information you need.
The driver trio of Andre Lotterer, Benoit Treluyer and Marcel Fassler in the #1 have been the men to beat for the past couple of years and start as the favourites again. They've had Tom Kristensen and Allan McNish rattled, the veterans making some big errors in their attempts to keep up. Dindo Capello's retirement has opened up a space in the #2 for Loic Duval, who is just as fast as the #1 drivers and should help keep the car on the pace without having to go over the limit. Car #3 doesn't have a bad driver line-up either. Marc Gene made some mistakes last year, but Lucas Di Grassi and Oliver Jarvis are also quick - the former setting the quickest time of the Audi drivers in qualifying for his sportscar debut in Sao Paulo alongside Kristensen and McNish last year.
Toyota have two pretty evenly-matched driver line-ups. It was Nicolas Lapierre that stole the lead of last year's race from Audi. Kazuki Nakajima can go just as quickly but can be error-prone (see last year's collision with the Deltawing), while Alexander Wurz can be trusted to keep it in the right direction and is still very fast. In the second car, Stephane Sarrazin is the pole master at Le Mans, but it's not clear that the Toyota will be quick enough to let him do that. Sebastien Buemi and Anthony Davidson are of course also quick, and if the latter has any sense, he will have added some cautiousness in traffic to his game after his scary shunt last year.
As impressively quick as Rebellion's Lolas are for a privateer effort, they won't be able to keep up with the factory cars. The drivers in their lead car wouldn't look out of place in a factory squad. A1GP champion Neel Jani has been attracting interest from the manufacturers, and Nick Heidfeld was F1's nearly man. Nicolas Prost isn't slow, either. In the other car, Congfu Cheng is likely to hold back Andrea Belicchi and Mathias Beche ever so slightly, but not as much as the third privateer LMP1 challenger of Strakka Racing will be by owner-driver Nick Leventis. His task is to keep it clean and not undo the work of Danny Watts and Johnny Kane.
There are only eight cars in the top class this time around, but LMP1's loss is LMP2's gain, with 22 cars in the secondary class and most of them feature some top pro drivers. Every car requires at least one silver- or bronze-rated 'amateur' driver and the varying quality of these can be the deciding factor when weighing up the driver line-ups.
It's a surprise to see Pierre Ragues, a former single-seater driver who's done this race in a prototype every year since 2008, silver-rated, and he therefore his inclusion makes for a very strong all-French trio in the #36 Signatech Alpine. Nelson Panciatici is a Formula Renault 3.5 podium finisher and Tristan Gommendy a race winner.
The #24 Oak Racing will be a strong contender. GP2 race winner Olivier Pla is one of the most highly-rated drivers in the category, Alex Brundle has looked more at home in his short sportscar career than he ever did in a single-seater and software developer David Heinemeier Hansson is one of the quickest gentleman drivers. The sister #35 car should also be strong, featuring Indycar refugees Bertrand Baguette and Martin Plowman, while Ricardo Gonzalez is pretty good for a gentleman driver - he did the World Series by Nissan in 2003 before taking a break from racing.
Another fast gentleman driver is British entrepreneur Simon Dolan of Jota, and in Oliver Turvey and Lucas Luhr he has perhaps the fastest 'pro' pairing in the class. McLaren F1 tester Turvey has shone since his sportscar debut earlier this year, while Luhr not only has Le Mans class wins and a world title in GTs, but also ALMS prototype titles with Porsche, Audi and most recently with Muscle Milk.
Two more star pros are to be found in Level 5's HPD-Honda in the form of Marino Franchitti and Ryan Briscoe, partnering team boss Scott Tucker. The car is a proven package, winning with another American team Starworks Motorsport last year.
The two Delta-ADR cars are two more contenders. The #25 won the WEC opener at Silverstone, but with Tor Graves joined on that occasion by Antonio Pizzonia and James Walker, who might be missed. Former F1 and Champ Car driver Shinji Nakano does bring plenty of Le Mans experience, Archie Hamilton less so. Achieving his dream of starting Le Mans, 60 years after grandfather Duncan won for Jaguar, has a strong season in the International GT Open behind him but will otherwise be a little in at the deep end. On this occasion the #26, under the G-Drive banner, could be the stronger line-up. Indycar star Mike Conway is obviously fast, and so is John Martin, who put the team on LMP2 pole at Le Mans last year. Roman Rusinov might bring the money to the team, but is a perfectly competent driver.
Another Oreca-Nissan combination to be reckoned with is the Pecom Racing machine. AF Corse run the car and know what they're doing, and have two star drivers. Nicolas Minassian had two overall podiums with Peugeot and Pierre Kaffer is ex-Audi. Former WRC driver and ice cream magnate Luis Perez-Companc has been doing this race for a few years now, the car was third in class last year and won from pole at this year's Spa WEC round, so can win here too.
Brendon Hartley and Karun Chandhok are two more very rapid drivers in an Oreca-Nissan, with Murphy Prototypes. Their gentleman driver is investor Mark Patterson, an experienced sportscar campaigner who should be capable of keeping his car on the pace (though at the time of publishing he's already had two offs in the opening hour of practice).
Thiriet by TDS Racing finished second in last year's race, and are certainly worth watching again this year. Pierre Thiriet brings the money to the team from his father's frozen food company but is quick, as is TDS Blancpain driver Ludovic Badey and they are joined by Maxime Martin, rated as one of the quickest GT drivers and so must be capable in a prototype too.
Greaves Motorsport field two Zytek-Nissans, one in Caterham livery and one in Nissan colours. In the #41, Tom Kimber-Smith is going for a hat-trick of LMP2 wins, and his fourth class win in total, and Caterham F1 reserve Alexander Rossi should form a strong pairing even on his sportscar debut. Fellow American Eric Lux is certainly not to be confused with the Lotus F1 exec best known for being assaulted by Adrian Sutil but also known to do the occasional race. The #42 line-up is led by factory Nissan driver Michael Krumm, original GT Academy star Lucas Ordonez and the gamer-to-racer competition's 2011 graduate, Jann Mardenborough, making his sportscar debut having already shown his talent in F3 this year.
There are two more of the Oak-built Morgans with good drivers. At Morand Racing, Franck Mailleux is now an experienced campaigner at this level, ex-Formula BMW driver Olivier Lombard is on his third straight Le Mans start and Natacha Gachnang is decent too.
Chinese team KCMG are also debutants, but Matt Howson is a good 'amateur' as a race winner in Formula BMW UK in the middle of the last decade before his money ran dry, Alexandre Imperatori showed his speed dominating the Carrera Cup in Asia and Ho-Pin Tung is also competent with FBMW and F3 titles to his name.
Race Performance are not new to Le Mans but are on paper a more serious proposition than before. Gentleman Michel Frey remains but Ralph Meichtry has made way for promising GP3 star Patric Niederhauser, who goes particularly well in the damp. Joining them for Le Mans is Jeroen Bleekemolen, LMP2 winner in 2009 with Van Merksteijn and a winner in everything from A1 Grand Prix to Porsche Supercup.
The Colin Kolles-run Lotus operation has some strong drivers, but also a new car to the 2014 regs and seem unlikely to fight at the front this year. They're also missing ex-F1 driver Tonio Liuzzi (who has a clashing race in his Superstars Series title bid), replaced in the #31 by Christophe Bouchut. Force India tester James Rossiter is also in that car, but it is hampered by relatively inexperienced amateur Kevin Weeda. The #32 probably has the stronger overall line-up, with former LMS champion Jan Charouz alongside Dominik Kraihamer and Thomas Holzer.
Two more Coupes - in addition to the Lotus entries - come from Lola. The first is run by Status Grand Prix, with Johnny Mowlem as their lead driver. Jonathan Hirschi has a reasonable CV but was dropped by TDS for not being as fast as they expected, while Tony Burgess has plenty of experience in North America as well as a GT podium from Le Mans in 2000.
Andy Blackmore's Spotter Guide is the perfect companion for the race and has almost all the information you need.
The driver trio of Andre Lotterer, Benoit Treluyer and Marcel Fassler in the #1 have been the men to beat for the past couple of years and start as the favourites again. They've had Tom Kristensen and Allan McNish rattled, the veterans making some big errors in their attempts to keep up. Dindo Capello's retirement has opened up a space in the #2 for Loic Duval, who is just as fast as the #1 drivers and should help keep the car on the pace without having to go over the limit. Car #3 doesn't have a bad driver line-up either. Marc Gene made some mistakes last year, but Lucas Di Grassi and Oliver Jarvis are also quick - the former setting the quickest time of the Audi drivers in qualifying for his sportscar debut in Sao Paulo alongside Kristensen and McNish last year.
Toyota have two pretty evenly-matched driver line-ups. It was Nicolas Lapierre that stole the lead of last year's race from Audi. Kazuki Nakajima can go just as quickly but can be error-prone (see last year's collision with the Deltawing), while Alexander Wurz can be trusted to keep it in the right direction and is still very fast. In the second car, Stephane Sarrazin is the pole master at Le Mans, but it's not clear that the Toyota will be quick enough to let him do that. Sebastien Buemi and Anthony Davidson are of course also quick, and if the latter has any sense, he will have added some cautiousness in traffic to his game after his scary shunt last year.
As impressively quick as Rebellion's Lolas are for a privateer effort, they won't be able to keep up with the factory cars. The drivers in their lead car wouldn't look out of place in a factory squad. A1GP champion Neel Jani has been attracting interest from the manufacturers, and Nick Heidfeld was F1's nearly man. Nicolas Prost isn't slow, either. In the other car, Congfu Cheng is likely to hold back Andrea Belicchi and Mathias Beche ever so slightly, but not as much as the third privateer LMP1 challenger of Strakka Racing will be by owner-driver Nick Leventis. His task is to keep it clean and not undo the work of Danny Watts and Johnny Kane.
There are only eight cars in the top class this time around, but LMP1's loss is LMP2's gain, with 22 cars in the secondary class and most of them feature some top pro drivers. Every car requires at least one silver- or bronze-rated 'amateur' driver and the varying quality of these can be the deciding factor when weighing up the driver line-ups.
It's a surprise to see Pierre Ragues, a former single-seater driver who's done this race in a prototype every year since 2008, silver-rated, and he therefore his inclusion makes for a very strong all-French trio in the #36 Signatech Alpine. Nelson Panciatici is a Formula Renault 3.5 podium finisher and Tristan Gommendy a race winner.
The #24 Oak Racing will be a strong contender. GP2 race winner Olivier Pla is one of the most highly-rated drivers in the category, Alex Brundle has looked more at home in his short sportscar career than he ever did in a single-seater and software developer David Heinemeier Hansson is one of the quickest gentleman drivers. The sister #35 car should also be strong, featuring Indycar refugees Bertrand Baguette and Martin Plowman, while Ricardo Gonzalez is pretty good for a gentleman driver - he did the World Series by Nissan in 2003 before taking a break from racing.
Another fast gentleman driver is British entrepreneur Simon Dolan of Jota, and in Oliver Turvey and Lucas Luhr he has perhaps the fastest 'pro' pairing in the class. McLaren F1 tester Turvey has shone since his sportscar debut earlier this year, while Luhr not only has Le Mans class wins and a world title in GTs, but also ALMS prototype titles with Porsche, Audi and most recently with Muscle Milk.
Two more star pros are to be found in Level 5's HPD-Honda in the form of Marino Franchitti and Ryan Briscoe, partnering team boss Scott Tucker. The car is a proven package, winning with another American team Starworks Motorsport last year.
The two Delta-ADR cars are two more contenders. The #25 won the WEC opener at Silverstone, but with Tor Graves joined on that occasion by Antonio Pizzonia and James Walker, who might be missed. Former F1 and Champ Car driver Shinji Nakano does bring plenty of Le Mans experience, Archie Hamilton less so. Achieving his dream of starting Le Mans, 60 years after grandfather Duncan won for Jaguar, has a strong season in the International GT Open behind him but will otherwise be a little in at the deep end. On this occasion the #26, under the G-Drive banner, could be the stronger line-up. Indycar star Mike Conway is obviously fast, and so is John Martin, who put the team on LMP2 pole at Le Mans last year. Roman Rusinov might bring the money to the team, but is a perfectly competent driver.
Another Oreca-Nissan combination to be reckoned with is the Pecom Racing machine. AF Corse run the car and know what they're doing, and have two star drivers. Nicolas Minassian had two overall podiums with Peugeot and Pierre Kaffer is ex-Audi. Former WRC driver and ice cream magnate Luis Perez-Companc has been doing this race for a few years now, the car was third in class last year and won from pole at this year's Spa WEC round, so can win here too.
Brendon Hartley and Karun Chandhok are two more very rapid drivers in an Oreca-Nissan, with Murphy Prototypes. Their gentleman driver is investor Mark Patterson, an experienced sportscar campaigner who should be capable of keeping his car on the pace (though at the time of publishing he's already had two offs in the opening hour of practice).
Thiriet by TDS Racing finished second in last year's race, and are certainly worth watching again this year. Pierre Thiriet brings the money to the team from his father's frozen food company but is quick, as is TDS Blancpain driver Ludovic Badey and they are joined by Maxime Martin, rated as one of the quickest GT drivers and so must be capable in a prototype too.
Greaves Motorsport field two Zytek-Nissans, one in Caterham livery and one in Nissan colours. In the #41, Tom Kimber-Smith is going for a hat-trick of LMP2 wins, and his fourth class win in total, and Caterham F1 reserve Alexander Rossi should form a strong pairing even on his sportscar debut. Fellow American Eric Lux is certainly not to be confused with the Lotus F1 exec best known for being assaulted by Adrian Sutil but also known to do the occasional race. The #42 line-up is led by factory Nissan driver Michael Krumm, original GT Academy star Lucas Ordonez and the gamer-to-racer competition's 2011 graduate, Jann Mardenborough, making his sportscar debut having already shown his talent in F3 this year.
There are two more of the Oak-built Morgans with good drivers. At Morand Racing, Franck Mailleux is now an experienced campaigner at this level, ex-Formula BMW driver Olivier Lombard is on his third straight Le Mans start and Natacha Gachnang is decent too.
Chinese team KCMG are also debutants, but Matt Howson is a good 'amateur' as a race winner in Formula BMW UK in the middle of the last decade before his money ran dry, Alexandre Imperatori showed his speed dominating the Carrera Cup in Asia and Ho-Pin Tung is also competent with FBMW and F3 titles to his name.
Race Performance are not new to Le Mans but are on paper a more serious proposition than before. Gentleman Michel Frey remains but Ralph Meichtry has made way for promising GP3 star Patric Niederhauser, who goes particularly well in the damp. Joining them for Le Mans is Jeroen Bleekemolen, LMP2 winner in 2009 with Van Merksteijn and a winner in everything from A1 Grand Prix to Porsche Supercup.
The Colin Kolles-run Lotus operation has some strong drivers, but also a new car to the 2014 regs and seem unlikely to fight at the front this year. They're also missing ex-F1 driver Tonio Liuzzi (who has a clashing race in his Superstars Series title bid), replaced in the #31 by Christophe Bouchut. Force India tester James Rossiter is also in that car, but it is hampered by relatively inexperienced amateur Kevin Weeda. The #32 probably has the stronger overall line-up, with former LMS champion Jan Charouz alongside Dominik Kraihamer and Thomas Holzer.
Two more Coupes - in addition to the Lotus entries - come from Lola. The first is run by Status Grand Prix, with Johnny Mowlem as their lead driver. Jonathan Hirschi has a reasonable CV but was dropped by TDS for not being as fast as they expected, while Tony Burgess has plenty of experience in North America as well as a GT podium from Le Mans in 2000.
Gulf Racing Middle East are a team that have gone through plenty of struggles despite their money, often on the driving front. Team co-owner Fabien Giroix is good, having finished third in the DTM back in 1989 and fifth at Le Mans in 1995 with his own McLaren team. Keiko Ihara is a former grid girl, but the arrival of the experienced Philippe Haezebrouck in place of Giroix's friend Frederic Fatien should help them out a bit.
For all the quality in the class there are also three more entries in addition to Gulf Middle East that lack a pro driver. Oak owner Jaques Nicolet is the best-rated driver in the team's third Art-car #45 alongside bronze drivers Jean-Marc Merlin and Philippe Mondolot. DKR Engineering sport a BMW-inspired livery but while Olivier Porta had podiums in this class in 2003 and 2004 and Romain Brandela has plenty of French GT experience, Stephane Raffin has very little experience. Finally, Boutsen Ginion are a strong team, but have a particularly weak driver line-up. Thomas Dagoneau and Matt Downs have a bit of LMPC experience from last year's ELMS and ALMS respectively, but Rodin Younessi has struggled badly in the Blancpain Endurance Series this year.
Moving onto GTE Pro, which sees a battle for victory between factory teams from Ferrari, Corvette, Porsche and Aston Martin.
Giancarlo Fisichella and Gianmaria Bruni won for AF Corse last year. This year they are joined in the #51 by fellow Italian Matteo Malucelli, who isn't as big a name but is well respected in GT circles. Toni Vilander moves across to the sister #71 car, joined by Olivier Beretta, a two-time GT class winner for Viper and four-time winner for Corvette, and by Sauber F1 refugee Kamui Kobayashi.
As always, Corvette field two strong line-ups. in the #73 Jan Magnussen makes his tenth consecutive start for Corvette and is joined by fellow regular Antonio Garcia and American youngster Jordan Taylor, who made his debut in the car. The #74 has a similar mix of experience and youth. Oliver Gavin has been going to Le Mans with Corvette since 2002, and is joined by fellow Brit Richard Westbrook and American Tommy Milner.
Porsche field a factory team for the first time in a long time, and that means two strong line-ups from their large roster of factory drivers. Back from their loan with Audi, Timo Bernhard and Romain Dumas are the first two drivers signed for Porsche's 2014 LMP1 assault, and Bernhard is joined in the #91 by Jorg Bergmeister and Patrick Pilet and Dumas in the #92 by Marc Lieb and Richard Lietz. The driver line-ups could hardly be any better, but there are question marks over how good the cars are.
There are no such questions about the pace of the three Aston Martins. In the lead #97, Stefan Mucke and Darren Turner have been driving together for the marque for years, while Peter Dumbreck is an experience and fast GT driver. The #99 is a line-up that is all-new for Aston Martin, but is tantalisingly quick. Bruno Senna has impressed since his slightly surprise signing, Fred Mackowiecki has a reputation as perhaps the quickest GT driver around and Rob Bell - usually a McLaren factory driver - is no slouch either. The #98 is not quite as strong a proposition thanks to the inclusion of 47-year-old amateur Paul Dalla Lana who brings the money for the car from his NorthWest investment firm. He has a strong record though in his short career so far driving BMWs in Grand-Am alongside Bill Auberlen, who joins him here too. Pedro Lamy is as strong as any of the other Aston Martin drivers and has years of Le Mans experience.
Joining the fight this year is Viper, who have apparently shown promise with their new car but such is the strength of the opposition that they are unlikely to challenge in year one. The lead #53 has a strong line-up of Ryan Dalziel, LMP2 winner last year, Dominik Farnbacher and Marc Goosens, making his 12th start. I have to admit I'd never heard of any of the drivers of the #93 before, but Jonathan Bomarito is a regular winner in Grand-Am GTs and series runner-up in Atlantic single-seaters, Tommy Kendall a multiple champion in IMSA GT and Trans-Am in the 80s and 90s and Kuno Wittner a relatively experience GT driver too.
The final car in the class, the Dunlop-liveried JMW Ferrari, has a line-up that would be eligible for GTE Am (where it perhaps would have been the strongest) but will struggle against the all-pro cars. Multiple FIA GT champ Andrea Bertolini is as good as they come, and he is joined by two drivers from the Middle East. Saudi Arabia's Abdulaziz Al Faisal is a Porsche champion and Khaled Al Qubaisi has won the last two Dubai 24 Hours, so both are good drivers and it's good to see them representing their countries, but they're not a match for the quality in this class.
In GTE Am, Aston Martin start as the favourites too, with two cars entered under the factory banner. Every car can have no more than one gold- or silver-rated 'pro' driver, but the #95 Vantage still has a very strong trio of Danes. One of their silver-rated, Kristian Poulsen, is a WTCC Independents champion, while Christopher Nygaard is quick too. The pro, Allan Simonsen is amongst the quickest GT drivers around. The #96 is paid for by German oil man Roald Goethe (the man responsible for this impressive collection of Gulf cars) and although he will hold it back slightly, he has two quick co-drivers in his regular driving partner Stuart Hall and 2000 FIA GT champion Jamie Campbell-Walter.
Like Aston Martin, AF Corse are also represented in both GT classes, fielding three cars under their own name. The #61 has two very strong drivers in Marco Cioci - part of the team's Pro class line-up last year - and Matt Griffin, so the focus will be on amateur Jack Gerber to stay out of trouble. The Pro in the #55 is Darryl O'Young, whose full-time role might be as a World Touring Car driver but he seems to take part in as many GT races as his schedule will allow, taking in Dubai, Bathurst and Daytona earlier this year. Lorenzo Case is an experienced GT driver and so is surgeon Piergiuseppe Perazzini, unfortunately best known for being collected last year by Davidson. In the #54, Yannick Mallegol and Jean-Marc Bachelier have raced Ferraris together since 2008 and Howard Blank joined them for last year's Blancpain Endurance Series, but all three are bronze-rated gentleman drivers and Le Mans debutants and may struggle.
Another Ferrari run with AF Corse support is that of 8Star, run by Enzo Potolicchio who won LMP2 with Starworks last year. As he showed last year, he is a fast gentleman driver and he's joined by Rui Aguas, whose been driving for AF Corse since 2005 so must do a good job. The choice of Pro in V8 Supercar star Jason Bright seems to be a bit of a random one but this is an overall strong squad.
The final Ferrari in the class is that of Krohn Racing. Owner Tracey Krohn and his regular Pro driving partner Niclas Jonsson return for their eighth straight attempt at Le Mans. Maurizio Mediani is a little-known addition to the line-up, but the Italian has been a test driver for the Ferrari 458.
Larbre Competition bring two Corvettes, looking to score a third straight win in the GTE Am class. Julien Canal, who brings the support of the local McDonalds franchise his father runs, has a remarkable record of three class wins from his three Le Mans starts, all in the past three years with Larbre. Patrick Bornhauser joins him for the third straight year in the #50. Ricky Taylor, the older brother of Jordan and a Corvette factory driver back in 2011, is the pro in the car. The #70 lacks a pro-rated driver, but 20-year-old American Cooper MacNeil should be quick and is the ALMS GTC champion. Hexis Racing boss Philippe Dumas makes a return to racing to take in Le Mans with race regular Manuel Rodrigues, who previously drove in GT series for Hexis.
The rest of the cars in the class are Porsches. IMSA Performance Matmut are regular frontrunners and have two cars this year. Factory driver Wolf Henzler leads the #67 alongside Pascal Gibon, who finished second in the class in 2011 with Larbre, and fellow French gentleman Patrice Milesi, short on experience at this level. The pro in the #76 is former Indy Lights champion and Peugeot 908 reserve Jean-Karl Vernay, last year's French Carrera Cup champion. Team owner Raymond Narac is a handy gentleman driver, with Christophe Bourret - Gibon's team-mate in 2011 - completing the line-up.
Another Porsche factory driver is to be found at Prospeed Competition. Unfortunately for Emmanuel Collard, he is paired up with two bronze-rated drivers with only a handful of top-level races between them, so the car is unlikely to feature. Proton Competition are running two cars, but only one under their own banner. The #88 car lacks a Porsche factory driver, with Paolo Ruberti as its pro. Fellow Italian Gianluca Roda has a strong CV while team boss Christian Ried has plenty of experience at Le Mans. The other car Proton are supporting is the #77 car of US actor Patrick Dempsey. He is alongside his regular driving partner Joe Foster and factory driver Patrick Long, who could drive them forward into podium contention.
Giancarlo Fisichella and Gianmaria Bruni won for AF Corse last year. This year they are joined in the #51 by fellow Italian Matteo Malucelli, who isn't as big a name but is well respected in GT circles. Toni Vilander moves across to the sister #71 car, joined by Olivier Beretta, a two-time GT class winner for Viper and four-time winner for Corvette, and by Sauber F1 refugee Kamui Kobayashi.
As always, Corvette field two strong line-ups. in the #73 Jan Magnussen makes his tenth consecutive start for Corvette and is joined by fellow regular Antonio Garcia and American youngster Jordan Taylor, who made his debut in the car. The #74 has a similar mix of experience and youth. Oliver Gavin has been going to Le Mans with Corvette since 2002, and is joined by fellow Brit Richard Westbrook and American Tommy Milner.
Porsche field a factory team for the first time in a long time, and that means two strong line-ups from their large roster of factory drivers. Back from their loan with Audi, Timo Bernhard and Romain Dumas are the first two drivers signed for Porsche's 2014 LMP1 assault, and Bernhard is joined in the #91 by Jorg Bergmeister and Patrick Pilet and Dumas in the #92 by Marc Lieb and Richard Lietz. The driver line-ups could hardly be any better, but there are question marks over how good the cars are.
There are no such questions about the pace of the three Aston Martins. In the lead #97, Stefan Mucke and Darren Turner have been driving together for the marque for years, while Peter Dumbreck is an experience and fast GT driver. The #99 is a line-up that is all-new for Aston Martin, but is tantalisingly quick. Bruno Senna has impressed since his slightly surprise signing, Fred Mackowiecki has a reputation as perhaps the quickest GT driver around and Rob Bell - usually a McLaren factory driver - is no slouch either. The #98 is not quite as strong a proposition thanks to the inclusion of 47-year-old amateur Paul Dalla Lana who brings the money for the car from his NorthWest investment firm. He has a strong record though in his short career so far driving BMWs in Grand-Am alongside Bill Auberlen, who joins him here too. Pedro Lamy is as strong as any of the other Aston Martin drivers and has years of Le Mans experience.
Joining the fight this year is Viper, who have apparently shown promise with their new car but such is the strength of the opposition that they are unlikely to challenge in year one. The lead #53 has a strong line-up of Ryan Dalziel, LMP2 winner last year, Dominik Farnbacher and Marc Goosens, making his 12th start. I have to admit I'd never heard of any of the drivers of the #93 before, but Jonathan Bomarito is a regular winner in Grand-Am GTs and series runner-up in Atlantic single-seaters, Tommy Kendall a multiple champion in IMSA GT and Trans-Am in the 80s and 90s and Kuno Wittner a relatively experience GT driver too.
The final car in the class, the Dunlop-liveried JMW Ferrari, has a line-up that would be eligible for GTE Am (where it perhaps would have been the strongest) but will struggle against the all-pro cars. Multiple FIA GT champ Andrea Bertolini is as good as they come, and he is joined by two drivers from the Middle East. Saudi Arabia's Abdulaziz Al Faisal is a Porsche champion and Khaled Al Qubaisi has won the last two Dubai 24 Hours, so both are good drivers and it's good to see them representing their countries, but they're not a match for the quality in this class.
In GTE Am, Aston Martin start as the favourites too, with two cars entered under the factory banner. Every car can have no more than one gold- or silver-rated 'pro' driver, but the #95 Vantage still has a very strong trio of Danes. One of their silver-rated, Kristian Poulsen, is a WTCC Independents champion, while Christopher Nygaard is quick too. The pro, Allan Simonsen is amongst the quickest GT drivers around. The #96 is paid for by German oil man Roald Goethe (the man responsible for this impressive collection of Gulf cars) and although he will hold it back slightly, he has two quick co-drivers in his regular driving partner Stuart Hall and 2000 FIA GT champion Jamie Campbell-Walter.
Like Aston Martin, AF Corse are also represented in both GT classes, fielding three cars under their own name. The #61 has two very strong drivers in Marco Cioci - part of the team's Pro class line-up last year - and Matt Griffin, so the focus will be on amateur Jack Gerber to stay out of trouble. The Pro in the #55 is Darryl O'Young, whose full-time role might be as a World Touring Car driver but he seems to take part in as many GT races as his schedule will allow, taking in Dubai, Bathurst and Daytona earlier this year. Lorenzo Case is an experienced GT driver and so is surgeon Piergiuseppe Perazzini, unfortunately best known for being collected last year by Davidson. In the #54, Yannick Mallegol and Jean-Marc Bachelier have raced Ferraris together since 2008 and Howard Blank joined them for last year's Blancpain Endurance Series, but all three are bronze-rated gentleman drivers and Le Mans debutants and may struggle.
Another Ferrari run with AF Corse support is that of 8Star, run by Enzo Potolicchio who won LMP2 with Starworks last year. As he showed last year, he is a fast gentleman driver and he's joined by Rui Aguas, whose been driving for AF Corse since 2005 so must do a good job. The choice of Pro in V8 Supercar star Jason Bright seems to be a bit of a random one but this is an overall strong squad.
The final Ferrari in the class is that of Krohn Racing. Owner Tracey Krohn and his regular Pro driving partner Niclas Jonsson return for their eighth straight attempt at Le Mans. Maurizio Mediani is a little-known addition to the line-up, but the Italian has been a test driver for the Ferrari 458.
Larbre Competition bring two Corvettes, looking to score a third straight win in the GTE Am class. Julien Canal, who brings the support of the local McDonalds franchise his father runs, has a remarkable record of three class wins from his three Le Mans starts, all in the past three years with Larbre. Patrick Bornhauser joins him for the third straight year in the #50. Ricky Taylor, the older brother of Jordan and a Corvette factory driver back in 2011, is the pro in the car. The #70 lacks a pro-rated driver, but 20-year-old American Cooper MacNeil should be quick and is the ALMS GTC champion. Hexis Racing boss Philippe Dumas makes a return to racing to take in Le Mans with race regular Manuel Rodrigues, who previously drove in GT series for Hexis.
The rest of the cars in the class are Porsches. IMSA Performance Matmut are regular frontrunners and have two cars this year. Factory driver Wolf Henzler leads the #67 alongside Pascal Gibon, who finished second in the class in 2011 with Larbre, and fellow French gentleman Patrice Milesi, short on experience at this level. The pro in the #76 is former Indy Lights champion and Peugeot 908 reserve Jean-Karl Vernay, last year's French Carrera Cup champion. Team owner Raymond Narac is a handy gentleman driver, with Christophe Bourret - Gibon's team-mate in 2011 - completing the line-up.
Another Porsche factory driver is to be found at Prospeed Competition. Unfortunately for Emmanuel Collard, he is paired up with two bronze-rated drivers with only a handful of top-level races between them, so the car is unlikely to feature. Proton Competition are running two cars, but only one under their own banner. The #88 car lacks a Porsche factory driver, with Paolo Ruberti as its pro. Fellow Italian Gianluca Roda has a strong CV while team boss Christian Ried has plenty of experience at Le Mans. The other car Proton are supporting is the #77 car of US actor Patrick Dempsey. He is alongside his regular driving partner Joe Foster and factory driver Patrick Long, who could drive them forward into podium contention.
Grosjean's ban, driving standards and the rest.
You're probably aware that I've been a bit of a fan of Romain Grosjean since he came into F1. I was actually pretty indifferent to him in GP2, although I was a big believer that he should get another crack at F1 and I've always thought he's quite good ever since he won the F3 Euro Series title back in 2007.
When it was announced that Grosjean would be banned for a race for causing the Spa crash I was pretty shocked. Looking back, I was probably a bit offended, maybe on his behalf - Grosjean is not a dirty driver. Considering a ban hasn't been handed out for nearly 20 years, I took the decision as one that was accusing Grosjean of being more dangerous than any other driver from the past 20 years.
This he is not. I for one love his attacking style. Look at Valencia - where he started by diving cleanly down the inside of Pastor Maldonado into the tight turn two to take second, and then made a stunning move on Lewis Hamilton for second before he was robbed of a strong result by a technical failure.
Those moves were clean and exciting. Everyone points out that he's been involved in lots of first lap incidents this season, but when you look at it most of them were racing incidents and not ones he was particularly at fault for - perhaps one or two were clumsy but none of them were what I would consider to be dangerous.
I don't know however what he thought he was playing at on Sunday. He should have been penalised for a needless and dangerous manoeuvre. However, while the accident that followed was amongst the worst we have seen in F1 in recent years, his original manoeuvre was not. He should not have been punished for the set of circumstances that nearly saw a driver hit in the head by a flying car or two.
Had that clash between Grosjean and Hamilton happened later in the race with nobody around them, it would only have been their races that were ended. Would the penalty have been as harsh? No.
So what's the message? That you're not allowed to move around at all at the start? There was no need for Grosjean to try and block Hamilton like he did, but he's not the first to do that. Without spending all night looking for video evidence, I'm fairly sure that big names like Alonso, Hamilton and Vettel (in fact, with Vettel I distinctly remember him trying to force Button off track in Japan last year) have been guilty of swerving across track to make blocking manoeuvres at the start before. Where were their bans, or even penalties? How is Grosjean supposed to know that moving around at the start is bad if the sport's biggest names have been allowed to get away with it?
Moving away from Grosjean's incident specifically, there has been a lot of comments that driving standards are poor in F1 and particularly in the lower categories. In F1, I don't think that driving standards are poor at all. Yes people do occasionally crash, yes they make mistakes. But I for one enjoy seeing drivers make mistakes. It shows they're human. It shows they're pushing the limits, that what they're trying to do isn't easy. And F1 would be very boring if nobody ever made any mistakes.
And to be honest I don't think I particularly mind seeing crashes either. Now don't get me wrong - I don't get any particular enjoyment from them either. I just don't have a desire to see crashes to be eliminated from racing.
But I'm now going to contradict myself, knowing how I reacted to Robert Cregan's crash in GP3 last weekend. The crash or the original impact didn't really make me flinch beyond normal. The shocking thing was catching glimpse of one of his wheels seemingly on to of his helmet. I got up and walked to the other end of the room - I didn't want to watch. Knowing what happened to Henry Surtees at Brands Hatch in 2009, I feared the worst. And so did a lot of others judging by the immediate reaction on Twitter.
Cregan's accident was a racing incident. There was some attempts on one YouTube clip to apportion blame at the feet of David Fumanelli, but he simply was not aware that there was a third car to the right of him and Alex Brundle, so he quite rightly moved right to open up the corner a bit thinking that Brundle would be able to go right as well. The decision was quite rightly taken not to punish anyone. Arguably they shouldn't have been going three-wide into Pouhon, but still, which driver can you punish? All three? Let's not get silly.
The belief that the solution to the issue of cars nearly decapitating Fernando Alonso is to ban drivers is flawed. Not only can big crashes happen without any contact between cars taking place - take Nigel Melker's accident - but improved driving standards won't prevent contact either. Not unless you're going to teach people not to race wheel-to-wheel and take those kind of risks, in which case I'm leaving the sport right now to go and watch a bit of bowls.
I will admit that there is a lack of driving standards in lower categories. But, at least in GP2, most of these poor standards are just, for want of a better description, shit drivers. Most of the silly accidents are caused by a Cecotto or a Crestani or a Gonzalez or a De Jong actually reaching the limit of their capabilities. These kind of drivers should never get to F1 and shouldn't really be in GP2 - but sadly that's what happens when the series organiser fails to control costs and drivers need in excess of 2 million bob for a season's racing. Anyway, that's a debate for another day.
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| Cecotto in his natural habitat - arriving at La Source much quicker than anyone else and about to assault the innocent Max Chilton (Photo: Alastair Staley/GP2 Media Service) |
Essentially, a lot of the bad driving that goes on is just that - drivers who are out of their depths and hopefully won't be troubling F1 any time soon. Unfortunately it does rub off on the more talented drivers, who probably try and push their luck a bit. I think some bans probably are in order here though. It might make the less-capable drivers think twice about whether they should even be racing at that level, and remind the better drivers that that kind of thing isn't acceptable.
Going back to the Grosjean incident, and there are a couple of things I want clearing up. If Grosjean can be banned for what he did, I would expect more F1 drivers to be banned in the near future. But will that happen?
I'm generally in favour of the concept of banning drivers, particularly if you compare it to football or other sports where athletes can be forced to miss a contest because of misconduct on the field of play. Had the decision been taken before a season that sanctions were going to become tougher and that drivers could be banned for that kind of incident, I'd be fine with it. We'd know where we stand. But it appears that this has not been a move that has been widely-agreed. It just seems to be a decision taken by the four stewards in charge at Spa. Will the stewards at Monza follow the same guidlines? And Singapore and Suzuka and every remaining venue? I can't see it happening. I don't see how those four stewards can make a fundamental change like that. Surely it needs to go past Charlie Whiting or some other people at the FIA? Surely it needs to be put down in writing?
If banning is going to become regular, which I have no problem with, then I have no problem with Grosjean being banned. My problem is if this is going to be a bit of a one-off, because that would just be massively unfair on Grosjean. It would just be another case of massively inconsistent stewarding. Sort it out, FIA.
One line of the stewards decision also made for concerning reading.
"It eliminated leading championship contenders from the race."
I don't think anyone would disagree that this is just stupid, and has no irrelevance. So no need to any more. But seriously?... (To be honest, I kind of enjoyed seeing leading contenders out of the race. Allowed guys like the Force Indias and Toro Rossos to mix it. And Jenson to win easily.)
I'm going to call another stewarding/FIA decision into question now. After the race, Grosjean said he thought he was ahead of Hamilton. Now, the fact remains that he didn't need to be blocking Hamilton and you could call Grosjean a total idiot for not realising that he wasn't ahead of Hamilton. But all it shows to me is the idiocy of the rule introduced earlier in the year about defending.
It goes something along the lines of you're allowed to use the full width of the track to defend so long as no part of the car behind is alongside you in any way.
Grosjean isn't the first driver to misjduge this. It must be extremely difficult to try and judge whether or not the car behind is alongside your back wheel when you're travelling at a gazillion miles an hour, have tiny little wing mirrors that show you nothing other than your own rear wing and you're looking straight ahead of you to make sure you don't hit anything.
So the rule is a bit silly. It's made defending drivers think they can get away with dangerous moves as long as they're ahead and it's made those attacking think they're allowed to stick their nose alongside a driver whatever the situation.
Take this incident involving James Calado and Luiz Razia at the start of the GP2 sprint race at Spa. The incident was investigated after the race and no action was taken. It seems as though Calado might be to blame, but clearly he had a defence. Shortly before the kink, he can be seen looking in his mirrors, and at this point Razia is evidently behind. He therefore decides to take the racing line and move from right to left. Unfortunately as he does this, Razia begins to pull alongside and ends up on the grass and having a crash that could have had far worse consequences than it did.
Going by this new rule, you could say Calado was at fault as Razia seemed to be alongside. But it depends when you decide that Calado started the move. Clearly he was happy that when he looked in his mirrors before the kink that he was safe to make that manoeuvre. And that's probably how he escaped punishment, because it looks as though Calado had started the move by the time Razia was alongside. To be fair, he also wasn't deviating from the racing line. So in fact you could say it was a dangerous move from Razia as he should have made allowances for the fact that Calado could choose to take the racing line. But with the new rule, it places more responsibility on the leading driver and therefore the one behind can essentially place their car where they like.
I also wonder if a specific guideline needs to be put in place for that kink on the Kemmel Straight, because I've seen similar crashes at the same point in F2 and Porsche Supercup this year. Something along the lines of the leading driver being able to take the racing line and the driver behind having to be a bit more patient. And not try and pull alongside at that point.
After talking about safety of the cockpit area in single-seaters earlier on, I want to say that any argument against closed cockpits along the lines of 'it isn't an F1 car anymore' is rubbish, to me at least. I saw this picture on Twitter earlier and to me that looks like nothing other than an F1 car. I don't think having the head exposed the way it is is really a necessary risk to be taking. It's still a racing car, it's still seats one person, it still has open wheels and wings and goes fast. What more do you really need?
There are obviously concerns about drivers maybe being trapped in the case of an accident and although I'm sure there's got to be a way around that, I trust that the people in the know will properly evaluate everything before making any changes.
Finally, I'm glad that Jerome D'Ambrosio has been given the nod to replace Grosjean at Monza. Any other move would have been stupid. I must have forgotten that he tested the E20 in Mugello, but even without that he was the most qualified, given he's been working with the team since the start of the year. Also, Lopez and Boullier have both invested a lot of time and money in him before. I don't really rate him, but he's good enough to be a reserve driver and therefore good enough to stand-in for just one race.
That just about concludes my Belgian waffle. This piece was inspired by Will Buxton's pretty good piece here, which makes a lot of good points that I hadn't even thought about and brought me around to the idea of bans, and also by all the stuff I've seen on Twitter that I've other agreed with or been enraged by.
As for Grosjean, the last two drivers banned were Mika Hakkinen and Michael Schumacher - and they turned out alright.
Not the Monaco qualifying result I was looking for...
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| Things had been going well...for anyone with an eye on Schumi's seat - Photo: parepinvr4 |
I'm also in awe of the current quality on the F1 grid. I'm not talking about the six world champions malarkey. I mean the grid in general. Absolutely rammed full of talent racing drivers, all of whom could be frontrunners in the right car - as some have already had the opportunity to do in this ridiculously close season.
But as in most years, there are plenty more drivers knocking on the doors. Be it Valtteri Bottas, Jules Bianchi, Esteban Gutierrez, Davide Valsecchi, Luiz Razia, Giedo van der Garde, Max Chilton, Alexander Rossi...the list goes on.
Last year there were veterans on the F1 grid like Barrichello and Trulli, both of whom I campaigned all season long to see the back of at the end of the year in order to let other drivers have a go. Fortunately, both were finally ditched, for younger drivers with something to prove.
So recently I was looking at this year's F1 crop and pondering who could leave the sport at the end of the year in order to vacate their seats for someone new. And I was struggling.
Obviously at HRT there's De La Rosa - and you'd probably think I wouldn't be a fan of a 41-year-old trundling around at the back. Well, actually, I feel that HRT are entitled to an experienced driver (and I mean, properly experienced, been-there-been-a-tester-for-McLaren level of experience) and a Spaniard, so I have very few issues with De La Rosa on the grid. After all, I'd like to see HRT become more competitive. But they do need to get rid of Karthikeyan. Like Minardi used to, HRT should be giving chances to younger drivers. They have their experienced man - there are plenty of well-backed younger drivers out there - even if their junior careers aren't super-exciting they still deserve their place on the 2012 grid more than Karthikeyan does. Anyway, I wasn't here to moan at HRT...
Looking through the rest of the grid, I was struggling to find many dud drivers who don't deserve a place in 2013. So I had to target Schumacher.
He doesn't need to be in F1. He's achieved all he's ever going to have achieved. And he's struggling to match Rosberg. I know there's some bad luck to blame for his meagre two points versus the 41 of his teammate, but the pace hasn't really been there either. I find it incredibly annoying that Schumacher is hogging a Mercedes seat that go to a potential future world champion like Di Resta or Hulkenberg, the signing of whom would free a Force India seat up for other youngsters like Bianchi, Bird or Calado. And after Spain it genuinely looked like the pressure was on. Mercedes publicly talked about Di Resta as a potential replacement, and Schumi looked uncomfortable when asked about his future.
I was also looking to Webber as a man to make way. Comprehensively thrashed by Vettel last year, it looked as though his chances of ever winning the title were over - if the Red Bull was a title threat, Vettel was always going to be quicker than Webber. Furthermore Red Bull have invested a lot of money into young drivers and with two very promising stars at Toro Rosso, I'm sure they'd like the opportunity to give one of them a chance at the big team. I was becoming confident Webber would be making way at the end of the year.
There was one final obvious candidate. Massa. Outscored by Alonso 62 points to two up to now, there was no way Ferrari were going to retain him. And I was struggling to see how he was going to end up at another team. Sauber would be the obvious choice, but Massa has no sponsorship money and with the likes of Perez, Gutierrez, Bianchi around he was going to struggle to land a drive there.
So I had three guys I was hoping would be out of seats by the end of the year, freeing up spaces for three new rookies.
And then Monaco qualifying happens.
Schumacher fastest. Webber takes pole. And Massa's found his pace again too.
Disaster.
As many have commented, Schumacher has proven that "he's still got it".
That may be true. And as such it unfortunately means that the team are likely to hold on to him, and that he's likely to want to stay on.
But I still don't think he should be on the grid. If he was pottering around in a slow car I wouldn't mind so much, but he's preventing some top talents from driving a race-winning car. While they're stuck with the Force India (which may I add has massively disappointed me this year, as has Toro Rosso. All these teams fighting for wins and yet these two teams, with their super-epic exciting driver pairings, aren't).
On to Webber. Pole around Monaco, while Vettel scraped through into both Q2 and Q3 and didn't have confidence in his ability to get pole to even bother with a time in Q3. Proof to both himself and the team that he can beat the pesky German. If he keeps that up, I can't see either party wanting to part ways at the end of the year.
Which is a shame, because I don't see a lot of point in Toro Rosso and the Red Bull Junior Team if they're not actually going to give any of them a chance in their top team, despite their obvious talent. If it were down to me, it would be Alguersuari and not Webber in that car this season. Instead, poor Jaime's stuck in a commentary box. And for radio.
As for Massa, most of us thought he was dead and buried. To be honest it was almost painful to see a guy who as he put it "was world champion for a few seconds" in 2008, struggling so much. So good for him. But can he keep it up for the rest of the year? And can he actually start threatening Alonso a bit? If so, there might just be a chance yet that Ferrari may be loyal and stick with him for another season while they wait for his successor to emerge.
So if this past-their-peak trio can keep up their sudden form for the rest of the season, they could all end up on the grid again next year.
In which case, I'm struggling to see how any newcomers are going to get a chance. Which is a shame.
But in this unpredictable season, things could turn right back around to how they were before. Even in the race.
Last-minute F1 preview: Five things I'm excited about
So here we are. The first session of the F1 season is just around the corner, and unusually I'm staying up for it. I am THAT excited. In fact, here are five things that I'm excited about this season...
A prepared McLaren
I think most people hope that someone will stop Red Bull, and with Ferrari seemingly in a little bit of trouble that responsibility has to fall to McLaren. And I'm fairly optimistic about their chances.
Last season they recovered well after a nightmare pre-season, managing to take the fight to Red Bull on a number of occasions. This year, they're far more prepared after a straightforward pre-season. Therefore I'm optimistic that even if they're not quite on the pace of the RB8 around Albert Park, they'll have the ability to keep up with Red Bull throughout the season.
And they've certainly got the drivers for it too. Jenson is driving better than he ever has before, and as such could prove a problem for Vettel if he has the car underneath him. He proved in Suzuka last year that he can beat the German in a straight fight - even if Vettel had a title to wrap up at the time.
As for Lewis, there's no denying his speed. I for one really miss the Lewis of 2007/08, and really hope he's back to his best this year.
Mercedes at the front
After Mercedes took over the championship-winning Brawn team, you'd have been forgiven for thinking they'd have managed better than a distant fourth two years on the trot. But there's optimism that this year they've got the car to mix it right at the sharp end. I really hope that's true - the more cars we have battling for podiums the better.
It'll be great to see whether Schumi can still cut it, going up against the frontrunners of recent seasons. And it will also allow us to see whether Nico Rosberg, now entering his seventh season, can become one of the sport's top drivers and finally get a win under his belt. Again, I hope the guy can.
Lotus revival
Another team surrounded by optimism ahead of the season is Lotus. Despite slight teething troubles they've looked quick in testing - if that means anything. They may not have the resources of the big teams, but they have the know-how and they've been there before under the Renault name. Again, I would love another team to join in the fun at the front.
Last year they made a promising start with podiums at the first couple of rounds, but unfortunately a radical design meant they struggled to develop the car as the year went on. But they did show promise, and that was without a top-line driver following Kubica's injury.
Both of their 2012 drivers may be starting their first GPs since Abu Dhabi 2009 this weekend, but that doesn't mean they're no good. Kimi has come back looking more motivated than ever, while Grosjean gets a well-deserved return following an emphatic GP2 title campaign that I had the priviledge of covering last year. He has come on leaps and bounds, and he wasn't exactly useless to being with despite some people's opinions. I would love him to prove the critics wrong and I think he's capable of doing it.
Force India fight
Force India continue to improve year-on-year, and this year they could defy their size to give one or two of the big teams a run for their money if any of them struggle (no names...Ferrari). What will enable them to do this more than anything is their driver lineup. Di Resta and Hulkenberg may be lacking a little in experience, but both are talented, quick, exciting drivers.
Di Resta shone last year in what was his first season racing a single-seater since 2006, while Hulkenberg came on strong towards the end of his rookie campaign in 2010 before Williams' budget concerns saw him left off the grid. His drive to pole in Brazil still stands out as one of the moments of recent years.
And for both of them there could be a lot at steak. Both are obvious candidates for drives at Mercedes, with McLaren also no doubt keeping an eye on them too. But here's something - what about Ferrari? They may have their eyes on Perez, but what if Sauber have a quiet season while the Force India duo challenge the frontrunners. Di Resta has that Italian heritage, while Nico will no doubt be a driver the Scuderia will have been watching for years - back when he was touted as the new Schumi and managed by Willi Weber.
Red Bull's new blood
At the time I didn't really agree with the decision to drop both Alguersuari and Buemi from Toro Rosso, the former in particular. Yet that move has left us with a tantalising prospect at the Faenza team. Ricciardo and Vergne are both more highly-rated than either of their predecessors, and there's pretty much been nothing to separate them through their junior careers.
The prize at the end? A seat alongside Vettel at the world champions. No pressure boys!
A prepared McLaren
I think most people hope that someone will stop Red Bull, and with Ferrari seemingly in a little bit of trouble that responsibility has to fall to McLaren. And I'm fairly optimistic about their chances.
Last season they recovered well after a nightmare pre-season, managing to take the fight to Red Bull on a number of occasions. This year, they're far more prepared after a straightforward pre-season. Therefore I'm optimistic that even if they're not quite on the pace of the RB8 around Albert Park, they'll have the ability to keep up with Red Bull throughout the season.
And they've certainly got the drivers for it too. Jenson is driving better than he ever has before, and as such could prove a problem for Vettel if he has the car underneath him. He proved in Suzuka last year that he can beat the German in a straight fight - even if Vettel had a title to wrap up at the time.
As for Lewis, there's no denying his speed. I for one really miss the Lewis of 2007/08, and really hope he's back to his best this year.
Mercedes at the front
After Mercedes took over the championship-winning Brawn team, you'd have been forgiven for thinking they'd have managed better than a distant fourth two years on the trot. But there's optimism that this year they've got the car to mix it right at the sharp end. I really hope that's true - the more cars we have battling for podiums the better.
It'll be great to see whether Schumi can still cut it, going up against the frontrunners of recent seasons. And it will also allow us to see whether Nico Rosberg, now entering his seventh season, can become one of the sport's top drivers and finally get a win under his belt. Again, I hope the guy can.
Lotus revival
Another team surrounded by optimism ahead of the season is Lotus. Despite slight teething troubles they've looked quick in testing - if that means anything. They may not have the resources of the big teams, but they have the know-how and they've been there before under the Renault name. Again, I would love another team to join in the fun at the front.
Last year they made a promising start with podiums at the first couple of rounds, but unfortunately a radical design meant they struggled to develop the car as the year went on. But they did show promise, and that was without a top-line driver following Kubica's injury.
Both of their 2012 drivers may be starting their first GPs since Abu Dhabi 2009 this weekend, but that doesn't mean they're no good. Kimi has come back looking more motivated than ever, while Grosjean gets a well-deserved return following an emphatic GP2 title campaign that I had the priviledge of covering last year. He has come on leaps and bounds, and he wasn't exactly useless to being with despite some people's opinions. I would love him to prove the critics wrong and I think he's capable of doing it.
Force India fight
Force India continue to improve year-on-year, and this year they could defy their size to give one or two of the big teams a run for their money if any of them struggle (no names...Ferrari). What will enable them to do this more than anything is their driver lineup. Di Resta and Hulkenberg may be lacking a little in experience, but both are talented, quick, exciting drivers.
Di Resta shone last year in what was his first season racing a single-seater since 2006, while Hulkenberg came on strong towards the end of his rookie campaign in 2010 before Williams' budget concerns saw him left off the grid. His drive to pole in Brazil still stands out as one of the moments of recent years.
And for both of them there could be a lot at steak. Both are obvious candidates for drives at Mercedes, with McLaren also no doubt keeping an eye on them too. But here's something - what about Ferrari? They may have their eyes on Perez, but what if Sauber have a quiet season while the Force India duo challenge the frontrunners. Di Resta has that Italian heritage, while Nico will no doubt be a driver the Scuderia will have been watching for years - back when he was touted as the new Schumi and managed by Willi Weber.
Red Bull's new blood
At the time I didn't really agree with the decision to drop both Alguersuari and Buemi from Toro Rosso, the former in particular. Yet that move has left us with a tantalising prospect at the Faenza team. Ricciardo and Vergne are both more highly-rated than either of their predecessors, and there's pretty much been nothing to separate them through their junior careers.
The prize at the end? A seat alongside Vettel at the world champions. No pressure boys!
The Marussia-Carlin tie-up
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| Chilton/Aon on a Marussia F1 car soon? Photo: Carlin |
Firstly, this isn't the first rather confusing tie-up between an F1 team and a junior team. While Carlin and Marussia will race together in GP2, they are rivals in GP3 - where Marussia are present with the Manor team (the F1 team having been born out of John Booth's successful Manor operation).
It had been known that Manor/Virgin/Marussia/Whatever had wanted to be in GP2 to create a ladder up from Formula Renault through GP3 and onto F1. It would have been nice to see them have their own seperate GP2 squad rather than Lazarus come in, but the Carlin partnership is the next best thing.
We recently had Caterham and Arden join together in Formula Renault 3.5, even though they will continue to race against each other in GP2. Arden's GP2 team has gradually been declining though since Christian Horner stopped his day-to-day operation of the team, so I reckon me might see the two join forces in GP2 before too long - certainly come 2014 when the teams will all need to reapply for the start of a new three-year cycle. Particularly given that the company's name has actually changed from Arden Motorsport Limited to Arden Caterham Motorsport Limited.
And now the second thing to note. Marussia protege Rio Haryanto will be joining Max Chilton at Carlin, who are owned by Max's wealthy father Graeme - chief executive at insurance giants Aon and a keen petrol-head. Chilton will be entering his third season of GP2, and it's clear that he'll be looking towards making the jump to F1 very soon.
Could the Marussia-Carlin tie-up help him to get in at Marussia? They have something of a habit of signing a well-backed driver for their second seat and then dropping them at the end of the year for someone with a bit more cash. I have a feeling that, depending how he does in GP2 this year, we could see Chilton in the Marussia in 2014.
His Dad is already a minor sponsor at McLaren (with exposure only on the arms of the drivers' overalls) - and it's this that could well have got Chilton a couple of opportunities with Force India (who have strong McLaren links) at the end of last year. Don't forget now that Marussia too have a tecnical relationship with McLaren.
Interesting to note that there rumours in the media following Manor's original entry into F1 that they were in talks with Chilton Sr (who they actually referred to as Duncan Chilton) about a partial buy-out that could have seen Max racing for the team, before having even raced in GP2.
Damn 140 characters!
Chevrolet have confirmed that, as expected, they won't contest the BTCC in 2012. I didn't expect to have to blog about this, what with is being totally as I had expected, and in my opinion, no big deal. As usual, I summed up my feelings about it with a tweet:
Although I knew what I meant in my head at the time, it would appear that my tweet could be, and clearly has been, misunderstood.
I did not mean in any way to label anyone who worked for RML or Chevrolet on their two-year participation in the BTCC as lazy. Nor did I mean that the running of two ex-WTCC Chevrolet Cruzes didn't take any effort.
I used effort in a way that it often is in motorsport, for example when we say 'Ford's WRC effort', 'Toyota's new sportscar effort' or 'Chevrolet's BTCC effort'. It doesn't refer to the amount of effort put in, but is simply a way of describing a manufacturer or team's involvement in a particular championship.
And 'lazy' was just a term I used (without thinking anything of it) to describe the level of investment by Chevrolet UK, which was lower for their BTCC programme than it would have been had they needed to build and develop a car and/or engine from scratch. Which is exactly what they would have needed to do to remain competitive under the change in regulations in the BTCC.
So here is what my tweet would have looked like, without a 140 character limit:
"Chevrolet have announced on their BTCC Facebook page that they and RML won't be contesting the championship in 2012. This comes as no big surprise and had been expected. Their two-year BTCC programme had been fairly low-level, as they simply ran cars that had been built for their successful WTCC programme under the same regulations, rather than developing a new car. However, these cars had not been as competitive in 2011 with the increasing uptake of NGTC regulations in the BTCC. As a result, the team would have had to build a new car and engine for 2012, which would have required more investment from Chevrolet alongside their successful WTCC programme. Therefore, Chevrolet and RML remaining in the BTCC was unrealistic and unlikely."
As I have explained in response to questions about my tweet, Chevrolet's involvement in the BTCC with RML for the past two years was a good thing and we are grateful for it. It is a shame that the situation with regulations mean they can no longer sustain a BTCC programme.
I felt it necessary to put this down in blog form in order to stop me from looking like some ungrateful fool who didn't respect the 'effort' put in by those at Chevrolet and RML into the BTCC programme over the past two years. Because that would be untrue. Thank you to both Chevrolet and RML, and best wishes for the future!
Although I knew what I meant in my head at the time, it would appear that my tweet could be, and clearly has been, misunderstood.
I did not mean in any way to label anyone who worked for RML or Chevrolet on their two-year participation in the BTCC as lazy. Nor did I mean that the running of two ex-WTCC Chevrolet Cruzes didn't take any effort.
I used effort in a way that it often is in motorsport, for example when we say 'Ford's WRC effort', 'Toyota's new sportscar effort' or 'Chevrolet's BTCC effort'. It doesn't refer to the amount of effort put in, but is simply a way of describing a manufacturer or team's involvement in a particular championship.
And 'lazy' was just a term I used (without thinking anything of it) to describe the level of investment by Chevrolet UK, which was lower for their BTCC programme than it would have been had they needed to build and develop a car and/or engine from scratch. Which is exactly what they would have needed to do to remain competitive under the change in regulations in the BTCC.
So here is what my tweet would have looked like, without a 140 character limit:
"Chevrolet have announced on their BTCC Facebook page that they and RML won't be contesting the championship in 2012. This comes as no big surprise and had been expected. Their two-year BTCC programme had been fairly low-level, as they simply ran cars that had been built for their successful WTCC programme under the same regulations, rather than developing a new car. However, these cars had not been as competitive in 2011 with the increasing uptake of NGTC regulations in the BTCC. As a result, the team would have had to build a new car and engine for 2012, which would have required more investment from Chevrolet alongside their successful WTCC programme. Therefore, Chevrolet and RML remaining in the BTCC was unrealistic and unlikely."
As I have explained in response to questions about my tweet, Chevrolet's involvement in the BTCC with RML for the past two years was a good thing and we are grateful for it. It is a shame that the situation with regulations mean they can no longer sustain a BTCC programme.
I felt it necessary to put this down in blog form in order to stop me from looking like some ungrateful fool who didn't respect the 'effort' put in by those at Chevrolet and RML into the BTCC programme over the past two years. Because that would be untrue. Thank you to both Chevrolet and RML, and best wishes for the future!
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