F1: 2006 Primer, Part Deux

Since the 2nd half of this primer involves describing the likely frontrunner teams and drivers for the championship, it'll also involve a bit of recap of 2005. I decided to talk about Suzuka in the next post.

The 2005 Championship Race

In short, after years of Ferrari dominance, Renault and Fernando Alonso broke Ferrari's streak by taking both Constructor's and Driver's championships, which are separately awarded from sums of points won from each race.

Renault had the best car in the initial races, and had two of the best drivers who weren't Michael Schumacher (driving for Ferrari). They were Fernando Alonso, and Giancarlo Fisichella. Both were highly acclaimed by journalists, and were basically underdogs given a chance to shine at a major manufacturer's team (in the lingo, a 'works team').

Alonso took a huge early lead, but by mid-season McLaren started to catch up. Ferrari got onto the podium with a few 3rd places by Schumacher, but the McLaren car, along with its roughly 950hp Mercedes V10 (F1 cars weigh a bit more than 600kg ~ 1300lbs) started to become alarmingly aerodynamic.

By the end of the season, McLaren's technical lead was simply absurd, sometimes 2 seconds or more a lap (an eternity in F1). Due to technical or driver accidents in qualifying, McLaren drivers Kimi Raikonnen or Juan Pablo Montoya might find themselves at the back of the 20-car grid. However, the vast majority of the time, by the end of the race they would be contending for 2nd or 1st.

McLaren's two drivers were also two of the best, but proven winners. Both had been at different times runners-up to Michael Schumacher's numerous Ferrari-driven World Championships.

Furthermore, of the six drivers (2 per team) at Renault, McLaren, and Ferrari, only Ferrari had a driver change for 2006. Rubens Barrichello left for Honda, with Felipe Massa joining from Sauber. Massa's seat, however, will be for the second Ferrari car, or IOW, the "bitch seat." At many teams, the first car typically gets more attention and better tuning. Nonetheless, these three teams, having suffered little ownership upheaval nor significant driver changes, are likely to be at the front of the 2006 grid.

In 2006, new regulations mandate a move from 3.0 liter V10's to 2.4 liter V8's. There are some interesting technical ramifications of this move. However, as far as the competition is concerned, this means that the question of who has the best car is up for grabs. The different engine package means different size constraints, which means different aerodynamics. Whoever is able to find an optimal solution to all of these changes first will take a significant points lead, as Renault did last season.

My personal theory is that Ferrari, with its ridiculous budget resources, held back last season in order to develop this year's car. They will very possibly return to form. With Schumacher, it's definitely possible. But all the new manufacturers in F1 means that it will be harder to leap ahead of the field in technical competence, and so it will be down to the drivers to prove themselves. But it will take the entire field as well as F1 administrators to make the sport as enthralling and entertaining as it can be.

F1: Primer for the 2006 Season, Part One

The first race of 2006 isn't for about six weeks, in Bahrain. Below is a primer for this season.

For all the changes that happened in 2005, the upcoming season will likely have more. Half of the teams underwent significant metamorphoses during the interim. Many of these changes consist of ownership buyouts, others involve new or different drivers at many teams.

To start, Honda bought out the BAR team after several years of partial ownership and infrequent success. This marks Honda's return to F1 as a full factory team after about two decades. It also marks the arrival of a 2nd major Japanese team, the other being Toyota. This brings promise of intense rivalry over national pride, probably entertaining hordes of Japanese fans, thereby definitely entertaining the rest of us. It makes me wonder what shit-talking sounds like in Japanese.

2006 will also mark the return of an American to F1, driving for Squadra Toro Rosso. Speed (what are the odds his name is real?) basically beat out almost every other American in a Red Bull-sponsored competition, and did well enough in lower racing leagues to earn his seat at STR. Some of those competitions, by the way, were at XPlex, the Vegas outdoor kart track where you guys went. Some of the greatest drivers in F1 have been Americans, but that hasn't been since the 60's. Since then, the lack of US auto companies and teams entering F1, as well as probably NASCAR and local open-wheel racing leagues meant that there is no money for an American driver, and so no chance for one to prove himself.

Another development is BMW moving up the ranks from engine supplier to full factory team, after buying out Sauber. Though unlikely to make waves in its first year, it does offer the chance for 1997 World Champion Jacques Villesneuve to prove himself after almost a decade of exorbitant salary, poor results, getting fired, getting rehired, and general mediocrity. In his defense, his poor results cannot be easily separated from having slow and unreliable cars. So as with many of the new teams, having the backing of a major manufacturer's resources might allow JV to prove himself once again. The son of a celebrated F1 World Champion, Jacques won in 1997 after winning both IRL and the Indy 500, so the skill is probably there.

Apparently the only activity he does more than racing is play video games. He also lives in Switzerland or Monaco, and probably dates French Canadian hotties, in sum earning my perpetual envy.

In Part 2, I'll finish up this primer, and probably talk about the single greatest pass of 2005, and probably the 21st century, by Fernando Alonso.

Update

Haven't updated in a while. A new semester started. Not much to say about that. No poker here in Houston either(that I know of), and so no interesting hands to discuss.

Instead I think I'm going to talk about Formula One, in the hopes of getting some of you interested in one of the great sports of our day. I dare to say it is the greatest, and I'll justify this shortly, as if I needed to.

Hemingway is often quoted as saying that the only activities that qualify as sports are bullfighting, mountain climbing, and automobile racing. "The rest are just games," as the saying goes. The defining characteristic of sport then is risk of death, since Hemingway was obviously just a little bit more hardcore than the rest of his generation.

He also probably didn't say that quote. I've never been able to find an actual citation.

Mountain climbing's alright, but it's a little slow. Next!

I'll go on the record and say that I like bullfighting, despite the sheer cruelty. But in my admittedly superficial understanding of the sport, at the very least the bulls have a chance. I would guess that every now and then, a bull is born with strength, speed, and ingenuity enough to gore a bullfighter right in the junk after being poked near to death. And then the bull would win his freedom, be 'forced' to stud all over the world, and have Lamborghinis named after him. So as rare as that happens, at least there's a chance for glory. So bullfighting in Hemingway-logic isn't that cruel.

But bullfighting has some disadvantages too, and so takes second to F1. My problem with bullfighting isn't so much the bright colors, or the tight clothing. Maybe it's a combination of that with the arrogance and "gracefulness" of the bullfighters. Anyway something about it is off-putting. Maybe if they trained and put someone like Eva Longoria or the cast of the O.C. in the ring, then I'd watch. Maybe Lucy Lawless. Maybe Lucy Lawless and ninjas. Eh, ninjas are so early 2001.

But until then, I'll stick with F1. It hasn't been since 1994 that a driver has died from a major accident, but the risk is still there. The technology has been around for decades to build cars that are faster than humans can safely drive, but regulations exist to keep cars right on that level. Within these constraints, teams compete to build cars with better technology and basically give them to people my age who are better than anyone in the world at making use of these cars. Teams pay drivers tens of millions of dollars to drive these things, just because they may be 100 milliseconds faster per lap than someone else. Think about that.

So there's risk, which brings a certain visceral thrill. There's competition on a vast array of levels. And there's an absurd amount of money involved. All of which should make for good spectacle, which is really what matters for a modern sport. You would think the overseers of Formula One would realize that, but spectacle is exactly what F1 has been lacking in the past half-decade. That and marketing.

This is because the last half-decade saw an absurd regulations oversight which allowed basically a spending war, which was more like a thermonuclear war by a single power and so having a single victor. This victor was Ferrari, which outspent every other team on the best driver, best mechanicals and best aerodynamics. They had an insanely beautiful car each year, both aesthetically and technically, and took both driver and constructor championships 5 years in a row. And they destroyed Formula One viewership in the process.

This was because the F1 rulemakers neglected to level the playing field. There was no contest, and so no spectacle. There's nothing interesting in watching a season of races, when by the first race experts and fans alike knew that Ferrari was literally 1-2 years ahead in both aerodynamic technology and on the timesheets. It didn't matter how competitive or well made the car was.

It wasn't until this last season that people figured it out, changed the rules, and people started watching F1 again. New teams and new drivers overtook the old leaders, and the cars were faster and better than they have ever been in the last century.

But even then, F1 still isn't immediately, all-envelopingly appealing. Part of its spectacle is subtle, for a number of reasons. Since I've ranted for long enough, I'll explain F1's appeal in other posts. I hope you've found this one worthwhile.

I'll end this rant with a link to David Coulthard's Very Sexy Thing, in his words.