More Rule Changes

The World Motor Sport Council met yesterday (23rd January) to discuss the implementation of the new 2014 rules, and to outline new rules for 2015. The outcome of this meeting (from the FIA website) is quoted as follows.

All Change at McLaren

For a team that target both championships at the start of every season to finish 5th and without a single podium all year, 2013 certainly was not a year to remember for the McLaren team and its fans. The ambitious choice to start again with the car design rather than evolve what had ended the 2012 season as the fastest car backfired immensely, causing the team to instead focus its efforts on 2014 early. It was a gamble, and not every gamble goes well so even a team of McLaren's calibre can be forgiven for having 1 bad year. Think back only to 2009 when Lewis hamilton could only extract a pair of wins from the MP4-24, having won the drivers championship the year before, and coming close to doing so again the year after in 2010.

Victories in Hungary and Singapore were highlights in an otherwise fruitless 2009 season

First Post of the New Year!

Happy New Year to you all! I hope everyone had an amazing Christmas break. I'll begin 2014 with... 2013. I missed a lot of the main talking points surrounding Formula 1 in December, so I begin the new year by closing the last.

Driver Market Update

With the 2013 season over, focus will now shift to the evolving driver market and any news that the teams feed out about their 2014 challengers or sponsorship deals. As covered in my previous blog posts, changes at the top have filtered down through the lower teams, triggered by Mark Webber's retirement and Ferrari signing Kimi Raikkonen to replace Felipe Massa. Here is a look at each teams 2014 line up, and the rumours for the 6 spots currently vacant...

2013 Season Close

The 2013 season came to a close on Sunday in spectacular fashion and a record breaking result for Sebastian Vettel, Heikki Kovalainen and Max Chilton. For Vettel, 9 wins in a row really demonstrated the strangle hold that both he and the Red Bull team had over the current regulation package. The change of regulations next year could not have been timed better for this reason, and the action will certainly be closer throughout 2014 as teams adjust and adapt. There is a chance that the viewers may also have some adapting of their own, with some rather unsightly nose concepts emerging. 

Raikkonen and Lotus

News emerged on Sunday that Kimi Raikkonen would be ending the 2013 season prematurely, in order to carry out surgery on a back issue that nearly sidelined him at Singapore. It comes just 1 week after threatening to walk away from the season over a financial dispute, and will have left Eric Boullier with quite the headache having believed the pay issue was sorted. As far as Kimi Raikkonen sees it, the season has been over for a while with Sebastian Vettel dominating the later half of the season and comfortably sealing his 4th World Championship. Lotus are however still locked in a scrap with Mercedes and Ferrari for the runner up spot, which would see a great financial reward for the team if they were able to perform well in the United States and Brazil. Lotus are currently 26 points adrift of Ferrari in third and a further 11 points behind Mercedes, and were therefore relying on their star driver to score big in the final 2 races, along with current team mate Romain Grosjean.

Daniil Kvyat

Within the Formula 1 paddock, 2014 is going to look substantially different to how it does today. The regulations have had one of the largest changes from year to year in the history of the sport, and Mark Webber's move away from the Red Bull Racing team to Le Mans has prompted many changes in driver lineups also. Daniel Ricciardo's promotion to Webber's vacant seat left at least one space at the Toro Rosso team, and it was believed that seat would be taken by Antonio Felix Da Costa, the most senior of the Red Bull development drivers. The news instead broke that relatively unknown driver (though still part of the Red Bull development program) Daniil Kvyat has instead landed the promotion.