F1: 2006 Season Review
Well 2006 had more than it's fair share of Politics what with Flexi-wings, Mass Dampers and Driver Penalties but I'm going to try to ignore them as much as possible and concentrate on what F1 is meant to about; Racing.
The first part of the season belonged to Renault, although Honda went into the first race in Bahrain full of confidence they left it in a mess that would take them half a season to recover from. After a promising pre-season, Williams Cosworth had a good race at Bahrain with both cars finishing in the points, but soon fell back down the order (although as usual they were fast at Monaco) and into reliability problems - once again citing problems with the Aerodynamics of the car, which has pretty much been the problem since Adrian Newey left all those years ago...
The mid-season was somewhat boring, except for the multiple pile ups at Indy and McLaren's replacing of Montoya with Pedro de la Rosa after JPM announced that he would move to NASCAR in 2007. Eventually McLaren released JPM from his contract and he has competed in a few NASCAR Busch Series races, and he will take a seat in the final 2006 Nextel Cup race in Miami. McLaren are a funny team, I find it hard to like them as they are just too damn corporate, and they've hardly been reliable for the last few years, which makes you wonder if Alonso will enjoy his time there from 2007...
In August, BMW followed McLaren's lead by dropping one of their drivers - in this instance former World Champion, Jacques Villenueve - for the relatively inexperienced Robert Kubica, in a move that frankly paid off!
August also brought us Jenson Button's first Formula 1 victory in an action packed Hungarian GP, which I feel was one of the Englishman's best drives and proves that given the right strategy he is capable of great things - I'll be looking out for him in the early part of 2007...
Red Bull's two teams had interesting season's, with the Toro Rosso 'Junior' team largely perfoming comparitively better than the Red Bull 'Works' team for much of the year, although after Adrian Newey joined the ranks at Red Bull, development of the 2006 car was halted in favour of making sure next years car is up to the job. DC spent most of the season blaming other people for his being slow and even complained about the rain in China!
Ferrari were solid all season, and Schumacher put in some excellent race drives in his final year in F1. Ever since Massa went to Ferrari a few years ago as test driver I've considered him to be a talent of the future, and this season - at least the second half - he has proved that he has matured a great deal when compared to his first couple of seasons at Sauber. I think someone needs to do the same for Takuma Sato, I really think that this guy is a good and quick driver waiting for the right team to take him under their wing. He did brilliantly in the latter stages of this year in a car that was based on a four year old Arrows Chassis, even finishing in the top ten at China.
Midland managed to kill the 'Racing Romance' of Jordan Grand Prix - the team that in 1999 finished third in the Constructor's Championship despite spending most of their time in F1 struggling for money. Midland managed to turn the team into anonymous also-rans that no one cares about in double quick time. Hopefully new owners Spyker F1 can turn it around - even if it's only in Holland!
In the end, despite some dodgy decisions by the FIA and it's (independant) stewards, Fernando Alonso managed to become World Champion for the second consecutive season, with his team Renault taking the Constructor's crown, whether either will manage it next year is anyone's guess at the moment!
So we move onto 2007, and with the Engine freeze in place and almost every team having major personnel changes and manufacturer support, it could be an interesting year, and it's also the first 'Post-Schmacher' year. Look out for a preview in late December before the Teams start unleashing their new identities, liveries and, most importantly cars in January - oh, and who will get that second seat at McLaren?!
The first part of the season belonged to Renault, although Honda went into the first race in Bahrain full of confidence they left it in a mess that would take them half a season to recover from. After a promising pre-season, Williams Cosworth had a good race at Bahrain with both cars finishing in the points, but soon fell back down the order (although as usual they were fast at Monaco) and into reliability problems - once again citing problems with the Aerodynamics of the car, which has pretty much been the problem since Adrian Newey left all those years ago...
The mid-season was somewhat boring, except for the multiple pile ups at Indy and McLaren's replacing of Montoya with Pedro de la Rosa after JPM announced that he would move to NASCAR in 2007. Eventually McLaren released JPM from his contract and he has competed in a few NASCAR Busch Series races, and he will take a seat in the final 2006 Nextel Cup race in Miami. McLaren are a funny team, I find it hard to like them as they are just too damn corporate, and they've hardly been reliable for the last few years, which makes you wonder if Alonso will enjoy his time there from 2007...
In August, BMW followed McLaren's lead by dropping one of their drivers - in this instance former World Champion, Jacques Villenueve - for the relatively inexperienced Robert Kubica, in a move that frankly paid off!
August also brought us Jenson Button's first Formula 1 victory in an action packed Hungarian GP, which I feel was one of the Englishman's best drives and proves that given the right strategy he is capable of great things - I'll be looking out for him in the early part of 2007...
Red Bull's two teams had interesting season's, with the Toro Rosso 'Junior' team largely perfoming comparitively better than the Red Bull 'Works' team for much of the year, although after Adrian Newey joined the ranks at Red Bull, development of the 2006 car was halted in favour of making sure next years car is up to the job. DC spent most of the season blaming other people for his being slow and even complained about the rain in China!
Ferrari were solid all season, and Schumacher put in some excellent race drives in his final year in F1. Ever since Massa went to Ferrari a few years ago as test driver I've considered him to be a talent of the future, and this season - at least the second half - he has proved that he has matured a great deal when compared to his first couple of seasons at Sauber. I think someone needs to do the same for Takuma Sato, I really think that this guy is a good and quick driver waiting for the right team to take him under their wing. He did brilliantly in the latter stages of this year in a car that was based on a four year old Arrows Chassis, even finishing in the top ten at China.
Midland managed to kill the 'Racing Romance' of Jordan Grand Prix - the team that in 1999 finished third in the Constructor's Championship despite spending most of their time in F1 struggling for money. Midland managed to turn the team into anonymous also-rans that no one cares about in double quick time. Hopefully new owners Spyker F1 can turn it around - even if it's only in Holland!
In the end, despite some dodgy decisions by the FIA and it's (independant) stewards, Fernando Alonso managed to become World Champion for the second consecutive season, with his team Renault taking the Constructor's crown, whether either will manage it next year is anyone's guess at the moment!
So we move onto 2007, and with the Engine freeze in place and almost every team having major personnel changes and manufacturer support, it could be an interesting year, and it's also the first 'Post-Schmacher' year. Look out for a preview in late December before the Teams start unleashing their new identities, liveries and, most importantly cars in January - oh, and who will get that second seat at McLaren?!
Labels: F1
posted by Leo @ 3:11 pm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home