As the eyes of the world turn to Australia next weekend for the start of the 2014 FIA World Championship there is one vital ingredient that was missing from the final races of 2013: uncertainty.
Everything has gone back into the melting pot after the biggest set of rule changes in the sport’s history, and after 12 days of winter testing – four in Spain and eight in Bahrain – the reality is that nobody really knows what to expect when the lights go out in Albert Park on Sunday, March 16.
On paper, Mercedes and Williams dominated the testing, chased by Ferrari and Force India, while four-time champions Red Bull endured a disastrous campaign which leaves them wondering if they can even finish the first race, let alone dominate it the way that Sebastian Vettel did so often in the final season of the 2.4-litre normally aspirated V8 formula.
Formula One racing has had big rule changes in the past, of course, such as the doubling of engine capacity from 1.5 litres to 3 litres back in 1966. But there have never been so many significant changes in one go. And it’s not just aerodynamics and engine capacity. The entire powertrain is new as the sport pushes the boundaries of hybrid technology, a move that is certain to benefit road car design and means that 2014’s F1 machines will run races on 35 percent less fuel than last season.
The change in engine design philosophy is the most profound aspect of the new formula, and will help to make the powertrain a performance differentiator just as the aerodynamics are. Teams must master the nuances of the supremely complex technology, not least how to manage the balance between mechanical power and the electrical system with its Energy Recovery Systems (ERS) and the associated batteries, which will affect both horsepower and fuel economy and thus significantly affect the face of race strategy.
The normally aspirated 90-degree 2.4-litre 18,000 rpm V8s were relatively uncomplicated, even with their KERS. But the new 90-degree 1.6-litre 15,000 rpm V6s are far more complex. The turbocharger reappears for the first time since 1988, but there are also two forms of energy harvesting, using two separate Motor Generator Units (MGU), which convert mechanical and heat energy to electrical energy and vice versa.
The MGU-K works like an uprated version of KERS, converting kinetic energy generated under braking into electricity (rather than it escaping as heat). It also acts as a motor under acceleration, returning power to the drivetrain from the Energy Store (ES). The MGU-H, meanwhile, is connected to the turbocharger and converts heat energy from exhaust gases into electrical energy. The energy can then be used to power the MGU-K (and thus the drivetrain) or be retained in the ES for subsequent use. The MGU-H also controls the speed of the turbo, speeding it up (to prevent turbo lag) or slowing it down in place of a more traditional wastegate.
The basic engine produces around 447 kW (600 bhp), but compared to 2013 KERS, the new ERS has twice the power (120 kW [160 bhp] as opposed to 60 kW [80 bhp]) for 33s a lap. That’s twice as much power for nearly five times longer than the V8’s system and a performance effect around 10 times greater. Thus the V6s, turbocharged at 3.4 bar (50 psi) will develop similar power overall to the V8s, 567 kW (760 bhp). And there will be far more torque – 425 Nm (570 lb ft) at 10,500 rpm even without the energy recovery systems, as opposed to 300 Nm (402 lb ft) at 17,500 rpm last year. The new energy systems deploy automatically according to the chosen mapping, rather than needing to be selected by the driver, and electronic fly-by-wire rear braking is allowed to cope with the altered characteristics of the brake energy harvesting.
Additionally, the teams are only allowed 100 kg (140 litres) of fuel, flowed at the rate of 100 kg/hour by FIA-mandated fuel regulators, as opposed to the 2.4s’ 160 kg or so (225 litres) flowed at around 170 kg/hour. Part of the greater efficiency is down to the use for the first time in F1 racing of Direct Injection (DI), where fuel is injected directly into the combustion chamber so that the fuel-air mixture is formed within the cylinder. The precision of this process critically influences power delivery and fuel efficiency.
Just to spice things up further, drivers are allowed only five power units per season rather than the eight in previous years, and the specification was frozen for the year by the FIA in Bahrain on February 28.
In the transmission part of the powertrain, cars now have eight rather than seven speeds, with gear ratios required by the FIA to be homologated for the season.
So that’s the powertrain rule changes. What about the aerodynamics?
The biggest change is to the exhaust. A single exhaust pipe is mandated with fixed dimensions and angle of protrusion. This means teams will no longer be able to generate downforce by directing exhaust gases to the rear diffuser.
The tip of the nose must be centred at 185 mm, which is just above the front wing, which is why there are so many unusual looking noses, and the effect not only improves safety but also compromises airflow beneath the nose and the chassis, a crucial area.
The front wing is 150 mm narrower, and while that might not seem much it places the endplates right in front of, rather than flush with, the outer edge of the front tyres. That has had a significant effect on airflow and efficiency. The rear wing is smaller, with a ban on horizontal mounting beams, but DRS remains. To compensate for the lost downforce its gap now opens up to 65 mm rather than 50 to help to reduce drag further. The minimum weight has also increased significantly, from 642 kg to 691 kg.
The new breed of cars is trickier to drive, with the reduced downforce and much greater torque generating oversteer. And though engine maps will be decided before a race, fuel conservation via careful use of the throttle will still be a key in race strategy.
The drivers will also, of course, still have to manage their tyres, particularly the rears with the extra torque. Pirelli say their 2014 rubber is more durable and creates fewer ‘marbles’, and the plan is to use compounds only one step apart at each race rather than two as last year. For Australia, they will supply their medium and soft compounds, and believe they will generate two or even three pit stops.
After initial fears that the new cars might be slow, the speeds achieved in Bahrain compared well with last year’s at the Sakhir circuit. Felipe Massa ended testing with the fastest time overall of 1m 33.258s, whereas Nico Rosberg’s pole time for the 2013 race was 1m 32.330s.
All of the new rules are complemented by changes on the driver front. At McLaren the super-exciting Kevin Magnussen heads the rookies, while Daniil Kvyat steps in at Toro Rosso and Marcus Ericsson at Caterham, where Kamui Kobayashi makes a welcome return. Kimi Raikkonen switches back to Ferrari, Felipe Massa to Williams, Daniel Ricciardo to Red Bull, Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez to Force India, Adrian Sutil to Sauber and Pastor Maldonado to Lotus.
And F1 racing is set to return to Austria and to venture to Russia for the first time, adding to its global appeal.
Will Mercedes dominate in Australia? Can Williams challenge for victory? What about Ferrari? And do Red Bull have the faintest chance?
There are so many questions that can only be answered on the track and that, allied to the prospect of some significant unreliability, makes the first race of the new era the most open in recent history.
Red Bull
Car: RB10
Power unit: Renault
Drivers: 1 Sebastian Vettel, 3 Daniel Ricciardo
Testing: 1711 km (Vettel 866, Ricciardo 845)
Back in 1989 Ferrari were in so much trouble with their new, normally aspirated 3.5-litre V12 639 that nobody gave it the faintest chance in the season opener in Brazil. Even Nigel Mansell had booked an early flight, expecting a quick retirement. He missed it because against all expectations, he won.
Sebastian Vettel is interested enough in F1 history to know that, but even the most ardent Red Bull supporters admit it will take a miracle for a similar performance from the world champions after a disastrous series of winter tests.
Lewis Hamilton says that the RB10 is a “stunning car”, and rivals have noted its aerodynamic excellence. Jenson Button says it has heaps of grip at high speed. But the problem is it has rarely reached that, struck down by all sorts of Renault problems and some of its own, including rear bodywork that is too tightly packaged around a power unit with a much greater amount of heat to dissipate than the old V8.
Based on testing, in which the team did just over a third of Mercedes’ running, they have a mountain to climb just to finish in Melbourne.
Mercedes
Car: F1 W05
Power unit: Mercedes
Drivers: 44 Lewis Hamilton, 6 Nico Rosberg
Testing: 4973 km (Rosberg 2813, Hamilton 2159)
Right from the start, once they had recovered from a front wing failure that struck down Lewis Hamilton early in Jerez, Mercedes revealed pace and reasonable reliability. And they have built on that strong start to amass the highest test running figure of 4973 km. The Mercedes PU106A V6 is already perceived to have better horsepower and torque than the Ferrari and Renault V6s, and though there were a few power unit failures, for Mercedes, McLaren, Williams and Force India, these were high mileage units doubtless being run as far as possible just to see how long it would take for them to fail.
Mercedes have done race simulations too, and know pretty much what to expect when they get to Melbourne. Arguably, they are the best prepared team – which is why both Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg have been keen to play down expectations and to deny their current favourite status. They are certainly likely to set the pace, but as was clear in the final Bahrain session, the Silver Arrows were not immune to mechanical failures and nobody within the camp is taking anything for granted.
Ferrari
Car: F14 T
Power unit: Ferrari
Drivers: 14 Fernando Alonso, 7 Kimi Raikkonen
Testing: 4489 km (Alonso 2698, Raikkonen 1790)
The feeling within Ferrari right now is that the F14 T lacks grip and isn’t yet a match for the Mercedes or maybe even the Williams, but that there is more performance to extract. After a relatively slow start, Fernando Alonso began pushing for more speed, while every time Kimi Raikkonen climbed aboard the new car – named after a poll of the Scuderia’s fans – it seemed to break on him. Thus while Alonso was desperate to see where they fit in relative to their rivals in the final Bahrain test, Raikkonen was looking for his first race simulation. Both drivers have managed this, but even allowing for the usual testing caveats regarding fuel loads – plus the new ones of turbo boost and ERS mapping – it seems that the latest Prancing Horse is close to a second off the pace of the Mercedes and around seven-tenths slower than the Williams.
That said, observers have struggled more in trying to quantify Ferrari than any other team, and while they had their share of mechanical woes in testing it would be no surprise to see either of their drivers up on the podium by the end of the Australian race.
Lotus
Car: E22
Power unit: Renault
Drivers: 8 Romain Grosjean, 13 Pastor Maldonado
Testing: 1288 km (Maldonado 796, Grosjean 492)
Lotus could hardly have had a tougher start to the new season.
In the background were last year’s well-publicised money troubles and the departure over the winter of Eric Boullier, their highly regarded team principal, now installed as McLaren’s new racing director.
Then there were the problems which prevented the neat E22 from making the Jerez test. That put the team firmly on their back foot, as it ran into all sorts of trouble in the first Bahrain test with the exhaust system and other Renault-associated problems before new signing Pastor Maldonado finally put 59 laps together on the last day. There were further problems in the second Bahrain session, centring upon the exhaust again, the gearbox and associated fires, and an engine failure. These stopped the car on too many occasions, severely limiting its already restricted running to only 1288 kms. That was the least anyone achieved by some margin.
The E22 is a neat car with some clever solutions, however, including its distinctive ‘tuning fork’ nose. But insiders freely admit that as far as Melbourne is concerned, they will need luck on their side just to finish, let alone to score points.
McLaren
Car: MP4-29
Power unit: Mercedes
Drivers: 22 Jenson Button, 20 Kevin Magnussen
Testing: 4153 km (Magnussen 2471, Button 1683)
McLaren are already a different team to the one that struggled so much with the uncompetitive MP4-28 in 2013 as no-nonsense former chief Ron Dennis is back to oversee things, in place of Martin Whitmarsh. While initiating an intensive investigation and reorganisation of every department, Dennis has made a clear promise to the staff: “We will win.”
Lead driver Jenson Button believes that the team have a good car in the MP4-29 and that they have regained their buzz, but his own year got off to a tragic start with the death of his hugely popular father, John. Meanwhile, rookie Kevin Magnussen, the reigning World Series by Renault champion, has made a confident debut and has impressed with his speed, calmness and feedback.
The early indications from Jerez, where Magnussen was fastest on the second day, were that the MP4-29 is competitive, but Button was becoming concerned that McLaren had lost ground by the end of the second test in Bahrain. Like Mercedes, they were struck several times by reliability issues, and Magnussen ended up only 11th, 2.6s down, with Button 15th another 1.1s down. Now they are pinning their hopes on a big aero upgrade for Melbourne.
Force India
Car: VJM07
Power unit: Mercedes
Drivers: 27 Nico Hulkenberg, 11 Sergio Perez
Testing: 3975 km (Hulkenberg 1840, Perez 1777, Daniel Juncadella 358)
Force India have been working on their VJM07 for a long time and that, allied to having the Mercedes engine, has enabled them to make a promising start to their 2014 campaign. The car performed reasonably well in Jerez, and started to look really good with strong performances in the two Bahrain tests. Nico Hulkenberg was fastest on day one of the first Sakhir session, while Sergio Perez was quickest on the first two days of the second.
The VJM07 handles pretty well and put its power down well, and overall reliability has been reasonably good – the team did three consecutive 100 lap days at the final test. The engine failure that brought Hulkenberg to a halt on the last day in Bahrain was down to a high mileage unit being run just too long.
With two drivers with much to prove – Hulkenberg that once and for all he deserves a seat in one of the top four teams, McLaren refugee Sergio Perez that the Woking team made a mistake in dropping him – Force India look set to make the most of their good start by fighting for a podium finish in Melbourne.
Sauber
Car: C33
Power unit: Ferrari
Drivers: 99 Adrian Sutil, 21 Esteban Gutierrez
Testing: 4039 km (Gutierrez 2122, Sutil 1917)
Sauber’s C33 is a neat and functional car, but the team had a steep learning curve in Jerez, where Adrian Sutil in particular had a tough time with the inconsistent behaviour of the new fly-by-wire rear braking system, designed to offset the effects of a more aggressive brake energy harvesting ERS. The German was pitched off the road several times as he got caught out under heavy braking. And in Bahrain a structural chassis problem caused a further loss of running time.
Both Sutil and Esteban Gutierrez shared the car on the final day in Bahrain, amassing 91 and 86 laps respectively, but though they completed the intended programme Sutil was disappointed that a major new aero package made little difference to outright speed.
Sauber demonstrated after a poor start to 2013 that it can still get the job done as late-season performances mirrored those from 2012, but the C33 is still hard to drive and there are issues that need to be redressed before that can happen in 2014.
Toro Rosso
Car: STR9
Power unit: Renault
Drivers: 25 Jean-Eric Vergne, 26 Daniel Kyvat
Testing: 2458 km (Vergne 1347, Kvyat 1111)
If you accept that, on paper, Mercedes, Williams, Ferrari and Force India were the pacesetters during winter testing, you have to note that Toro Rosso were quietly and unobtrusively within striking distance of the latter pair. The STR9 might have one of the more ungainly looking noses, but it seemed quite effective while it was running, in between the usual spate of problems that beset everyone in general and the Renault runners in particular. And with 2458 kms of run time, the team were for some time in much better shape than their sister team Red Bull.
By the end of the 12 days of testing, boss Franz Tost felt that they had made significant progress in understanding the set-up of the car and making it more driveable, and were able to conduct race simulations as well as going for quick laps. They were one of the more reliable Renault runners, albeit with a lot less mileage than Caterham. Whether these good things carry over to Melbourne remains to be seen, but as far as anyone can be, they go there feeling quietly optimistic.
Williams
Car: FW36
Power unit: Mercedes
Drivers: 19 Felipe Massa, 77 Valtteri Bottas
Testing: 4893 km (Bottas 2389, Massa 2034, Felipe Nasr 470)
So, what exactly do we make of Williams, who were the major surprise of testing with Felipe Massa fastest on aggregate and Valtteri Bottas fourth?
It’s tempting to be cynical and say that a strong performance – perhaps with minimal fuel load and high boost – has left a timely impression for potential sponsors, but with the long-expected Martini title deal and others already confirmed, such arguments hold no water.
The general consensus is that the switch to Mercedes power, allied to all manner of engineering changes wrought by the wily and highly experienced Pat Symonds have transformed the team that had such a deplorable season in 2013. Williams seem to have their mojo back, and for sure neither Massa nor Bottas have the mien of men who know that their speed is down to a little subterfuge.
Heading to Melbourne, it seems quite possible that the FW36 will be a genuine contender for the podium, and perhaps even outright victory if the Mercedes should stumble.
Marussia
Car: MR03
Power unit: Ferrari
Drivers: 17 Jules Bianchi, 4 Max Chilton
Testing: 1686 km (Bianchi 982, Chilton 704)
Like almost everyone else, Marussia had a torrid time with reliability, and were hampered by a late start when the Ferrari-engined MR03 was still being finished back at the factory in Banbury while the first test was getting underway in Jerez. But things were gradually improved after, of all things, a computer virus affected the team’s software, to the point where both Max Chilton and Jules Bianchi were able to flex its muscles now and then, as 14th and 16th fastest times respectively attested. Of course the testing caveats apply, but the signs are that Marussia could be closer to the midfield this season.
Part of that is down to the Ferrari engine, which replaces the Cosworth upon which the team have relied since 2010, and part down to a neat little package that looks good. The team feel that they have worked through all the procedural stuff that they had to get a handle on, and are relishing their chance to go racing on closer terms with their rivals than they have been able to in the first four years of their existence.
Caterham
Car: CT05
Power unit: Renault
Drivers: 10 Kamui Kobayashi, 9 Marcus Ericcson
Testing: 3313 km (Ericsson 1536, Kobayashi 1365, Robin Frijns 412)
2014 will be a crucial season for Caterham. While announcing Kamui Kobayashi and Marcus Ericsson as the race drivers at Leafield in January, Tony Fernandes firmly put everyone on notice that neither his patience nor his funding are limitless. They must perform much closer to the midfield this season.
The team struggled with Renault’s associated problems in Jerez and the first Bahrain test (where the CT05 was nevertheless faster than the Red Bull), but there were significant signs of improved reliability in the second Sakhir session. Many would describe the car as an ugly duckling and it looked a handful out on the track as the drivers battled with oversteer, but on the final day in Bahrain Kobayashi achieved 106 laps before a problem with the clutch late in the day prevented him from doing any serious performance runs. Had he have done one, team principal Cyril Abiteboul believed he would have been in the 1m 36s bracket. With 3312 km of testing under the car’s wheels, however, Caterham go to Albert Park as by far the most reliable of Renault’s runners, a major achievement and a much-needed fillip after their lacklustre 2013 season.
