Saturday, March 15, 2008 Slater: It’s down to two teams again By STEVE SLATER Special Contributor
There is no doubt in my mind that it is going to be scarlet versus silver again at the head of the field this season. So will it be a Ferrari or a McLaren driver who will win the 2008 Formula One World Championship?
Coming up ahead of us are 18 Grand Prix motor races that will take us from Australia this weekend to the season finale in Brazil in November. There are two new street circuits too—at Valencia in Spain and most notably Formula One’s first ever night race in Singapore in September.
And now I’m going to take a deep breath and predict that it will be Lewis Hamilton’s turn to grab the title at the end of the year. The reason? It will once again all be down to the battles between teammates.
At McLaren, Lewis Hamilton is on a roll after an amazing debut season. His new teammate Heikki Kovalainen will be quick enough to run him close, but I think he’ll settle for a closely matched number two position. This year at least!
It is also sign of the strength of the McLaren team that despite all of the spying scandals and effectively losing their chief designer halfway through last season, the singeing $150 million fine and losing the championship by a single point, the team has never lost its focus and the 2008 car looks good.
For Ferrari, the Prancing Horse arrives in Melbourne as the clear favorites. The car has been consistently quick in pre-season testing. The team is on that roll of confidence that comes from winning last year’s World Championship and Kimi Raikkonen, likewise, will simply aim to continue where he left off.
Ferrari though, could have similar issues developing between their two drivers that McLaren suffered last year. While Raikkonen is the reigning world champion, Felipe Massa feels the title could equally have been his. There’s a real risk that if they start in-fighting, then McLaren would grab the title.
So that’s two teams out of the way, but for me there is an even bigger battle developing between four teams, who will be fighting for podium places and maybe even race wins. Pre-season testing had shown that it will be incredibly closely-fought between Renault, BMW, Williams and Red Bull.
You can certainly expect to see Renault and Fernando Alonso at the front of the pack, in some races at least. How often depends on how good the Renault R28 will be. Frankly, in comparison with Renault’s dominant car of 2005 and 2006, last year’s car was rubbish. It took some pretty heroic efforts by Giancarlo Fisichella and Kovalainen for Renault to get any kind of results.
Alonso certainly isn’t lacking in talent, but after his dysfunctional year at McLaren, his character is under scrutiny. And bad for news Fernando, it won’t be comfortable ride.
His teammate Nelson Piquet Junior is one of the most ambitious hustlers ever to hit a starting grid. The Brazilian rookie is the son of a three-time world champion.
My other driver to watch is Williams’ team leader Nico Rosberg. Another son of a former world champion, I rate Nico as every bit as good as Lewis Hamilton and maybe this year, Williams, the best of the non-car maker, independent teams, might give him a car, which will let him run at the front. I think that might change this season.
The Williams and some impressive laps by David Coulthard and Mark Webber in the Red Bull car have humbled some factory teams in testing. BMW drivers Nick Heidfeld and Robert Kubica had found out that their new car had lacked consistency, particularly on long runs as the tires wear down. I suspect that Kubica had been having fun with its skittish handling, but the engineers have a lot of work to do.
Toyota and Honda are both trying hard to reverse the disastrous 2007 season. That Toyota’s car seems like a big step forward is good news for both Jarno Trulli and Timo Glock, but at Honda, even the arrival of ex-Ferrari guru Ross Brawn hasn’t turned things around yet. Things can only get better for Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello.
Down at the tail end of the field, it will be interesting to see how Formula 1’s newest team will fare. Force India F1 had been created by Indian billionaire Vijay Mallya’s acquisition of the former Spyker team and it is, I think, an astute purchase by Mallya, who after all, had never failed to win in any industry with which he becomes involved in. His target is to pull Force India from the back ranks of Formula One into the middle of the grid. If he can achieve this by the end of 2008, then the next step would be podium finishes in 2009.
So there it is. A season which proves that while Formula One is about technology and raw speed, it is equally about the people. A driver that can win ‘mind games’ has a massive advantage. I hope that we at ESPN STAR Sports can give you as much of an insight as possible, into not just the action, but the people behind the action.
(Steve Slater is the expert half of the popular F1 commentary duo on Star Sports. Slater will be contributing articles on F1 races for Sun.Star from time to time)
