When 15th is Like First

The trip back home from Bahrain will be a raucous party for the lads with Lotus F1. While hardly a competitive threat for the podium on Sunday, the entire organization will still view the result as nothing short of a victory. The cars of both Heikki Kovalainen and Jarno Trulli finished the full race distance of 49 laps, the only finishers from the new entries on the F1 grid.
“It was a good race for our team,” a happy Kovalainen said. “To get both cars to the finish is a great achievement. My car didn't have a single problem. I know Jarno did, and managed to nurse his car to the end, but the primary goal was to get both cars to the end and we achieved that."

The Lotus crew worked nearly around the clock the entire weekend to get both cars prepared for the race. They were rewarded with an invaluable 98 combined laps of race testing, producing reams of information that will help them more fully develop the car. The sky-high level of morale was evident in the paddock after the race, despite the long days and nights prior to the race start.
There is simply no way to overstate the enormous effort it takes to compete in the modern era of Formula One. Budgets run into the hundreds of millions of dollars, and the quest for top engineering and mechanical talent pushes budgets even higher. Lotus Chief Technical Officer Mike Gascoyne has put together solid foundation for F1’s only Malaysian team. By mid-season, look for Lotus F1 to challenge Force India, Renault, and BMW Sauber Ferrari for bragging rights in F1’s middle tier of teams. Who knows, maybe even Williams will be in sight by the end of the year.

Well done, boys! Enjoy the flight home. You have two weeks until you have to do it again.

follow me on Twitter @RayHartjen

For the Love of Tires (or Tyres, as the case may be)

The Formula One season begins this week in Bahrain, the middle eastern tax haven "home" to a surprisingly large number of Formula One pilots.  They don't actually live there, like they often do in places like Monte Carlo.  But, plop down a few mil for a residence and tax haven, he we come.

Racing for luxury townhomes is one thing, racing on the track entirely different.  This season shapes up as the most anticipated in recent history.  The stories are too many to count:

1. Combacks - Schumy is back, albeit with Mercedes; Felipe Massa is back in the Ferrari
2. Driver transfers - World Champion Jensen Button (can't believe I just typed that!) has moved from Brawn to McLaren; Reubeniho is in the Williams; Rosberg is in the Mercedes; Fernando Alonso looks superb in Ferrari livery
3. World Champions - Schumacher, Alonso, Hamilton, and Button (4!) are in the field.  I could have probably added Felipe Massa's name to that list and not come up with too much of an argument due to his near miss two years ago. 
4. Constructors - Brawn is now Mercedes; BMW is now BMW Sauber Ferrari; Toyota has left, perhaps in the nick of time to deal with its burdened consumer brand; and Renault is sorta still Renault, sort of Lada
5. New constructors - Lotus, Virgin, and HRT.  No USF1 - ugh!  Of course, these teams will struggle.  But, keep the lookout for Lotus F1.  They have experience in management, engineers, crew, and maybe most important, drivers.  They'll have the quickest pace of the newcomers and will be the first to get points. 
6. New drivers a-plenty.  Have deep pockets?  You might be a F1 pilot next year!
7. New rules - the usual tweaks of the technical regulations, with one big one - no more mid-race refueling.

It's the ban on mid-race refueling that will play out over and over again throughout the season (in addition to the struggles of the newcomers).  The new fuel rules have a "trickle" affect.  First, cars have to accomodate the extra fuel - over 300 pounds or over 20% more again of the car's total weight.  That extra weight is going to play havoc on two areas of the car - the undertray (boring, but a potential source of disqualifications this year) and tires, or as the Brits so lovingly spell, t-y-r-e-s.  Those Brits are so cute.  Precious, indeed.

Tire management will be THE deciding factor in the races this year, compounded by the fact that teams must start the race on the tires they qualified on.  Up front, that will be the "super soft" tires, which, while fast, will be going off after just a few laps of race pace.  Early in the season, look for some strong results from mid-field qualifers on the harder compound tires.  They'll be able to go longer on their first tire stints.  Moreover, they'll be able to save their super soft tires for later in the race, when the tracks are rubbered in, and more importantly, their cars are hundreds of pounds lighter.

On Sundays, the races will be won by the swift, for sure.  But, the early season wager might be best played on the mid-field qualifer, where "swift" is better defined over the course of the entire race on Sunday as opposed to a single lap on Saturday.  For the first race, look for Adrian Sutil of Force India, sitting surprisingly racy on the tenth spot on the grid.

Of course, on the tenth spot of the grid, the entire race might be done by the first corner.  That's a story for Monday.