Anybody who thinks that Formula One is on a long break is very seriously mistaken.
True there isn’t a race before May 13, but activity in research and development is nothing short of feverish.
Three races into the championship, the series so far has thrown up the tightest of contests between McLaren and Ferrari at the front and a fierce battle in mid-field. Perhaps the surprises thus far have been the fall from grace of champions Renault, who suddenly find themselves fighting it out with Toyota and Red Bull, whose engines they supply. Another disappointment has been Honda who have, on occasion, been upstaged by Super Aguri, who use their engines, and, some say, even last year’s Honda chassis!
At the front, Ferrari followed up on their dominant Bahrain tests immediately before the season with a strong pace in Melbourne, where the race was a stroll in the park for pole-sitter Kimi Raikkonen. Team mate Felipe Massa was unlucky not to make the podium, but gearbox gremlins and an engine change relegated him to the back to the grid, from where he impressively carved his way up to fifth.
That race gave McLaren a rather unexpected double podium, but they immediately acknowledged their old rivals’ superior pace and managed, within a span of three weeks, to substantially narrow the gap, as evidenced in the second race, in Sepang, where the Silver Arrows scored a 1-2 triumph.
But even more impressive than the Woking squad’s rapid development has been the performance of rookie Briton Lewis Hamilton, who after three races finds himself joint leader of the table with champion team-mate Fernando Alonso and Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen, although he still has to win a race. Hamilton has cashed in on its experience as GP2 champion and is showing himself to be an intelligent driver who can stand the pressure from his far more experienced rivals.
Both Ferrari and McLaren will be testing new aerodynamic solutions when testing resumes in a couple of weeks, as will do most other teams.
McLaren chief Ron Dennis said this week that his team would be "a lot quicker" at Catalunya, and Kimi Raikkonen seemed to be replying to his former boss when he warned of strong improvement in the pipeline for Ferrari as well. "I think we are going to get more parts for the next test and I’m pretty positive that it’s going to change things quite a lot," the Finn said.
Both teams have already lost points this year to a surging BMW Sauber, whose Nick Heidfeld came fourth in all three races. He kept Massa behind him in Australia and overtook Alonso in Bahrain. Substantial investment by the squad in new facilities, particularly a new wind tunnel, is certainly paying dividends. The BMWs have suffered some reliability worries but Bahrain showed that their race pace is getting close to the leaders.
"For the first time (in Bahrain) we were able to meet the speed of the top teams over the entire distance of the race," team chief Mario Theissen said.
This week the team said it had identified and solved a problem in its gearbox. Podiums are becoming a probability, rather than a possibility for BMW and the prospect of race wins this year is also becoming increasingly realistic.
The current gap between races cannot have come a moment too soon for Renault, with a fifth being the best result either of their drivers could produce so far. The team is fourth in the championship with nine points, compared to 44 for leaders McLaren.
Team Manager Flavio Briatore had said in the summer that he expected the team to stay at the top while McLaren and Ferrari suffered departures in their technical line-ups, yet the newly-liveried French squad seems to have suffered the most difficult transition from Michelin to Bridgestone tyres. Briatore has also admitted that development of the 2007 car started late as the team focused all of its energies last year on retaining the championships, ahead of a charging Ferrari. Newcomer Heikki Kovalainen had a race to forget in Melbourne and although he has since improved, he only has one point to his name. Having said that, more fancied drivers have also seen their points tally suffer, for various reasons. Ralph Schumacher also has one point, to team mate Jarno Trulli’s four and his position is coming under increasing scrutiny, but Toyota have produced a car which is inconsistent at best.
Yet Toyota’s problems are nowhere as serious as those of rivals Honda, where nothing short of a B-car can bring about a change of fortunes. Bahrain was a demonstration of expired Honda engines – the two Super Aguris stopped on race day and Jenson Button’s on Friday – but the real issues are over the chassis. Rubens Barrichello could only start from 15th on Sunday and advanced only to thirteenth. "Well I finished the race at least but that's very little consolation," he reflected. "The track conditions were so blustery and the car driveability was terrible, so it was a really tough race, especially knowing that we couldn't be competitive. "Now we have to put a disappointing few races behind us and look to what we can do to improve the car. There is a great deal of hard work ahead of us."
Another former race winner still out of the points, David Coulthard, had to start from the back of the grid after gearbox problems on Sunday but managed to climb to seventh before new problems on his Red Bull ended his race. Still Red Bull say their Adrian Newey-designed car is now the fourth fastest in pitlane and the potential is clearly there. Mark Webber was in the top 10 in all three qualifying session. The team is planning to introduce a seamless-shift gearbox in Spain.
Toyota-powered Williams have improved pace on last year but are ruing their decision not to test in Bahrain before the current season’s start. Their lack of tyre knowledge on that circuit is thought to have been the main reason why they did not score last Sunday. Like so many other teams, the Grove-based squad will test a new aero package later this month, in what will be the second upgrade to the FW29 since its launch. Dutch squad Spyker will race an F-16 this month, but they have a lot of work to do before they can really race with the big boys in formula one. Latest news is that they will debut a new Mike Gascoyne design in July. But the end of April tests come first, and they promise to be very interesting indeed.
Three races into the championship, the series so far has thrown up the tightest of contests between McLaren and Ferrari at the front and a fierce battle in mid-field. Perhaps the surprises thus far have been the fall from grace of champions Renault, who suddenly find themselves fighting it out with Toyota and Red Bull, whose engines they supply. Another disappointment has been Honda who have, on occasion, been upstaged by Super Aguri, who use their engines, and, some say, even last year’s Honda chassis!
At the front, Ferrari followed up on their dominant Bahrain tests immediately before the season with a strong pace in Melbourne, where the race was a stroll in the park for pole-sitter Kimi Raikkonen. Team mate Felipe Massa was unlucky not to make the podium, but gearbox gremlins and an engine change relegated him to the back to the grid, from where he impressively carved his way up to fifth.
That race gave McLaren a rather unexpected double podium, but they immediately acknowledged their old rivals’ superior pace and managed, within a span of three weeks, to substantially narrow the gap, as evidenced in the second race, in Sepang, where the Silver Arrows scored a 1-2 triumph.
But even more impressive than the Woking squad’s rapid development has been the performance of rookie Briton Lewis Hamilton, who after three races finds himself joint leader of the table with champion team-mate Fernando Alonso and Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen, although he still has to win a race. Hamilton has cashed in on its experience as GP2 champion and is showing himself to be an intelligent driver who can stand the pressure from his far more experienced rivals.
Both Ferrari and McLaren will be testing new aerodynamic solutions when testing resumes in a couple of weeks, as will do most other teams.
McLaren chief Ron Dennis said this week that his team would be "a lot quicker" at Catalunya, and Kimi Raikkonen seemed to be replying to his former boss when he warned of strong improvement in the pipeline for Ferrari as well. "I think we are going to get more parts for the next test and I’m pretty positive that it’s going to change things quite a lot," the Finn said.
Both teams have already lost points this year to a surging BMW Sauber, whose Nick Heidfeld came fourth in all three races. He kept Massa behind him in Australia and overtook Alonso in Bahrain. Substantial investment by the squad in new facilities, particularly a new wind tunnel, is certainly paying dividends. The BMWs have suffered some reliability worries but Bahrain showed that their race pace is getting close to the leaders.
"For the first time (in Bahrain) we were able to meet the speed of the top teams over the entire distance of the race," team chief Mario Theissen said.
This week the team said it had identified and solved a problem in its gearbox. Podiums are becoming a probability, rather than a possibility for BMW and the prospect of race wins this year is also becoming increasingly realistic.
The current gap between races cannot have come a moment too soon for Renault, with a fifth being the best result either of their drivers could produce so far. The team is fourth in the championship with nine points, compared to 44 for leaders McLaren.
Team Manager Flavio Briatore had said in the summer that he expected the team to stay at the top while McLaren and Ferrari suffered departures in their technical line-ups, yet the newly-liveried French squad seems to have suffered the most difficult transition from Michelin to Bridgestone tyres. Briatore has also admitted that development of the 2007 car started late as the team focused all of its energies last year on retaining the championships, ahead of a charging Ferrari. Newcomer Heikki Kovalainen had a race to forget in Melbourne and although he has since improved, he only has one point to his name. Having said that, more fancied drivers have also seen their points tally suffer, for various reasons. Ralph Schumacher also has one point, to team mate Jarno Trulli’s four and his position is coming under increasing scrutiny, but Toyota have produced a car which is inconsistent at best.
Yet Toyota’s problems are nowhere as serious as those of rivals Honda, where nothing short of a B-car can bring about a change of fortunes. Bahrain was a demonstration of expired Honda engines – the two Super Aguris stopped on race day and Jenson Button’s on Friday – but the real issues are over the chassis. Rubens Barrichello could only start from 15th on Sunday and advanced only to thirteenth. "Well I finished the race at least but that's very little consolation," he reflected. "The track conditions were so blustery and the car driveability was terrible, so it was a really tough race, especially knowing that we couldn't be competitive. "Now we have to put a disappointing few races behind us and look to what we can do to improve the car. There is a great deal of hard work ahead of us."
Another former race winner still out of the points, David Coulthard, had to start from the back of the grid after gearbox problems on Sunday but managed to climb to seventh before new problems on his Red Bull ended his race. Still Red Bull say their Adrian Newey-designed car is now the fourth fastest in pitlane and the potential is clearly there. Mark Webber was in the top 10 in all three qualifying session. The team is planning to introduce a seamless-shift gearbox in Spain.
Toyota-powered Williams have improved pace on last year but are ruing their decision not to test in Bahrain before the current season’s start. Their lack of tyre knowledge on that circuit is thought to have been the main reason why they did not score last Sunday. Like so many other teams, the Grove-based squad will test a new aero package later this month, in what will be the second upgrade to the FW29 since its launch. Dutch squad Spyker will race an F-16 this month, but they have a lot of work to do before they can really race with the big boys in formula one. Latest news is that they will debut a new Mike Gascoyne design in July. But the end of April tests come first, and they promise to be very interesting indeed.