Rodis on Tour: Pre Season F1 Rant

OK, it’s that time of year again where if you don’t give a monkey’s about F1 walk away now, because there isn’t going to be jack in this post for you.

Right, starting with the best: Williams.
A new engine supplier with Toyota, several new sponsors, a new -but experienced- driver & some good testing’s over the winter, so it’s looking on the up. The problem is I could have said exactly the same thing last year –substituting Cosworth for Toyota- & we all know how that worked out. So I’m hoping we are moving back towards the sharp end of the sport, but realise that all of the teams above us are not going to give up their places without a fight. I’m hoping we finish in 4/5^th place but to do that we will have to knock off not only Red Bull & Toyota –shouldn’t be too hard- but also Honda & maybe Renault -now that’s a challenge-. If we can do that we will be in a good position for a fight back to former glory in 2008 & 2009.
The top lads: McLaren, Ferrari, Renault, Honda & BMW.
Testing has shown many varied results with McLaren, Ferrari & BMW all taking turns at the pointy end of the time sheets. But with all the changes at Ferrari & BMW finding their feet with the big boys, the smart money would be on McLaren…at least until the circus comes back to Europe.

It will be interesting to see how Lewis Hamilton gets on this year, he seems to have the pace in testing & Ron Denis is the kind of team leader that would prepare Lewis better than anyone else in the sport but we won’t know until he’s on the race track in Melbourne. I’m hoping he can take it to that snivelling upstart Alonso later in the season; I used to be a bit of an Alonso fan until he started crying like a little girl for the entire second half of last year.

A small note about Ferrari:
I am really hoping that Massa wipes the floor with Kimi. The dirty Fin’s monotone talking still annoys the hell out of me. But I did rate him for chilling on his boat with his mates after crashing out of Monaco last year, instead of going back to the garage to debrief. Plus Massa really stepped up last year & at times took the fight to the legend, (MS) so he would be my personal fave for the title this year.

BMW: WOW!
Here’s a team that has really made everyone sit up a lot straighter this year. It will be great to see what Robert Kubica can do this year with a full season. I don’t really rate Nick Heidfeld, so can’t really see him getting much more than a few podiums unless the people in front of him fall off the track. I don’t think BMW will win the constructors but they will be up there for most of the year getting as many points as possible & benefiting from any mistakes from the top 2.

Honda: Strange, very strange.
They had a very tidy package at the end of 06, but once again seem to have dropped the ball over the winter. The question is how quickly they can pick the ball up again. I think they will be back competing within 4-5 races. Also this is a make or break year for Button; after finally getting that first win last year he really needs to start fronting & now with 3 other Britton’s on the track he will have to deliver to keep the following he has. Another thing, what’s up with the paint job? I don’t like it.

Renault: How the mighty have fallen.
Renault will have a winning car at different parts of this season; unfortunately they will not have a winning driver. If Fisichella was going to win the championship he would have shown the potential over the last 3 years, but last year he was schooled in the art to being a 2^nd driver by Massa (see above), who was always the perfect wingman to MS while Fisi often languished back in 5^th place or lower.Heikki Kovalainen looks like he’ll be a top driver down the line, but not in his rookie year.
Heading down the pack: Toyota & Red Bull

Once again it looks like Toyota will spend a shed load of money & have nothing to show for it. I blame their overly corporate race team model & for having 2 ‘close but not quite good enough’ drivers.

I’m not too sure what has happened with Red Bull. All the hype about the Adrian Newey car seems to have fallen flat, with the car sitting in the bottom of the middle of the pack for most of multi team testing. Which is a shame as I would have liked to see the elder statesman (DC) back up in the front pack where he belongs –Still loving his cape escapades last year-. On a brighter note, it means that Australian viper (Webber) could be shown up for making a stupid mistake when he left Williams last year by having 2 less experienced drivers laughing at him from the podium. Watch out for RB in the first few Euro races.
The rest: Spyker, Toro Rosso & Super Agui