Paul Humphreys rambles on....

As the first race is nearly upon us I though I would do my own team review. Below is my ranked ordering of the teams.

Ferrari have to be the favourites again. Team and driver continuity and although they are delaying their new car till later in the season I think it will not hurt them much. Reliability is fantastic and you can never bet against Schumi snr. Bridgstone also look after them very well.

McLaren I think are going to be back on form. I think the driving pairing is going to be awsome and already the team are finding Kimi is pushing harder to keep ahead of the Monster. I also think they will have settled down in their new home now and also the team are in a stable state in regard to personel.

I think Renault will take third spot. Two more excellent drivers, Fishi will keep Alonso honest and they have always managed to develop a very tidy package with good traction and their starts are always amazing. Being French ( sort of) I think they have a special relationship with Michelin.

BAR will be fourth I think. Not such a strong driver lineup , Sato a bit of a loose cannon. Loosing the good DR will not help, he really did focus the team around results and teamwork. Honda have good engines but reliability is always a question mark with them. Willis is a great technical director. His new wing could spring a few surprises. Expect it to be copied.

Williams come next. I think they have a lot of work to do. Last years aero team made a mess of things with the tusky wing and two new drivers are going to need to settle in. With Head now in the back seat and Sam Michael taking over they have a lot of ground to catch up.

Sauber have to be next with the best wind tunnel, good engines from Ferrari and a switch to Michelin which is already paying dividends. The driver pairing is the only concern I have.

Toyota will be next perhaps beating Sauber if neither Schumi jnr or Trulli throw their toys out of the pram. I think this is the year they have to make progress else the Yen may dry up, podiums are being demanded. With Gasgoine as technical director in his first 'full' year they ought to progress.

Red Bull. Having rescued Jaguar a lot of team folks have left and this will be a year to stabilise and build up for next year. The car is late, underpowered engines but DC should help guide them down the straight and narrow if they listen to him.

Jordan. Another team which has a new owner. Next year they will be using a Dallara chassis and matched to Toyota engines that should be promising. The driver lineup is very suspect.

Minardi. Stody must be hoping Jordan's current problems can help push him off the back of the grid but I think it is a tall order. Any regs changes always hurts these F1 minnows more as they have less money to spend to react to them.

So new regulations, strange qualifying born out of the events in Japan last year and several driver changes, but really everyone is just waiting to see when Schumi snr retires. That is when things will really change.

Comments:

Great review. I can't really disagree with you. Ferrari will be interesting to watch, yet again, because we've seen them in years past play the victim during winter testing and then come out kicking ass in Australia... they might just be putting us on, but we'll see. Toyota will be interesting to watch, but with Montoya at McLaren we don't have to worry much, he'll push them off track if they do well. :) Red Bull is the team I have my eyes on. Not so much for the car but the drivers. We've got a great team lined up there and I think that all of us old Orange|Arrows and Prost GP fans (gotta love the underdog) will be lining up behind the team. benr.

Posted by benr on February 24, 2005 at 11:17 AM PST #

And who can forget the time in Hungary when Hill nearly won for Arrows. I watched it in Portugal in our hotel room. I saw the last half. I had no idea how he nearly won and how his car let him down at the end. Walkingshaw as usual blamed Hill for not nursing the car home. The relationship between him and the world chamption went downhill from there. Also at the seasons end where Hill and two other drivers all qualified on the same time time - Amazing. Hill should have retired then.

Posted by Paul Humphreys on February 24, 2005 at 12:00 PM PST #