Australian Grand Prix 2016: 5 Bold Predictions for Albert Park Race
After almost four months of waiting, the 2016 Formula One season will kick off at this weekend's Australian Grand Prix at Albert Park.
Having dominated for the last two years, Mercedes drivers Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg are expected to face a stern challenge from Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen in what will be the longest season in F1 history with 21 races.
As the reigning world champion, Hamilton—a winner at Albert Park in 2008 and 2015—will enter the Melbourne-based event as the favourite for both the race and this year's title, but how will the first grand prix of the season play out?
With a look at how the new qualifying format might affect proceedings, our tip for a shock podium finish, the driver(s) who might not even start the race and the local hero's prospects, here are five predictions for Australia.
Lewis Hamilton Will Dominate from Pole Position
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Let's start with the safest prediction of all, shall we?
Lewis Hamilton, the reigning drivers' champion—and Mercedes, the reigning constructors' champions—will win. Again. For the 22nd time in 39 races, in fact.
Few will be surprised if the best driver in Formula One claims another victory behind the wheel of what has been the best car in Formula One for the last two seasons. But even if Hamilton does secure his 50th pole position and 44th career win in Melbourne, it will be impressive for a number of reasons.
First, there is the new qualifying format, which has been specifically introduced to prevent the likes of Lewis from starting at the front of the grid and disappearing into the distance.
Even in a session when drivers will be eliminated at 90-second intervals, Hamilton should still have enough pace and nerve to set pole. He'll prove it will take more than a sudden rule change to knock Mercedes off the front row of the grid.
Second, there is Nico Rosberg, who finished 2015 in such strong form and looked slightly more comfortable in the new W07 in preseason testing.
Since the German's wins in Mexico, Brazil and Abu Dhabi, we've all wondered whether he has finally emerged as a serious contender, or if Lewis, with his third title in the bag, simply started his postseason holidays a month in advance.
If Hamilton stifles Rosberg's revival before it really gathers momentum, the answer will be conclusive and reminiscent of Australia 2015, when the latter had the upper hand right up until it really mattered in Q3, when Rosberg ended up on the grass and Lewis ended up on the pole—setting the tone for last season.
And third? History. Since Michael Schumacher's three consecutive victories between 2000 and 2002, only Jenson Button has taken successive wins at Albert Park.
Our prediction of a Hamilton win may not be as safe as it seems after all.
Kimi Raikkonen Will Be the 1st Big-Name Casualty of the New Qualifying Format
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Aside from his well-taken victory for Lotus in the 2013 Australian GP, Kimi Raikkonen hasn't had a great deal of luck at Albert Park since his Formula One comeback.
The 2007 world champion was eliminated from Q1 in 2012 and spun out of Q2 in 2014. On the occasion he kept his side of the bargain last year, Raikkonen was let down by his Ferrari pit crew, who left him with a loose wheel nut.
And we're expecting his misery to continue this weekend, when we see the new qualifying format for the first time.
Qualifying was arguably his biggest weakness in 2015, when his team-mate Sebastian Vettel regularly outclassed him. The new, elimination-style system is likely to demand good communication between the cockpit and the pit wall, as well as encourage drivers to fight between themselves for track position.
In other words, two elements of modern F1 that Raikkonen hates.
Although drivers will have as long as seven minutes to set a competitive time before the elimination process begins in Q1 (reduced to six in Q2), it is not too difficult to imagine Raikkonen being swarmed by his feistier, more aggressive rivals in the rush to complete a lap on a crowded circuit at the beginning of the session.
That would leave him with a lot of pressure and little time to guarantee his place in the next segment before the slowest drivers disappear at 90-second intervals, thereby increasing the chances of Raikkonen making the kinds of errors we saw throughout 2015.
At least being out of position on the grid, though, will offer him the chance to produce one of his trademark fight-back drives on Sunday.
Carlos Sainz Jr. Will Nab a Podium Finish for Toro Rosso
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As the venue of the season opener, when drivers are readjusting to racing conditions and teams are still in the process of learning about their new cars, Albert Park has a wonderful knack of producing surprise results.
Last year, Felipe Nasr claimed the best-ever debut result for a Brazilian driver by finishing fifth for Sauber, and in recent seasons Renault's Vitaly Petrov and McLaren's Kevin Magnussen have stood on the Melbourne podium on days their cars were not worthy of such lofty positions.
But can we say the same for Scuderia Toro Rosso's inventive STR11 in 2016?
Any fears that their switch from Renault to year-old Ferrari engines would severely hinder the team evaporated over the eight days of preseason testing, when only Mercedes completed more laps than Toro Rosso, per the official F1 website.
Such high mileage has left Carlos Sainz Jr. convinced that Toro Rosso are capable of "very big things" this season, per Motorsport.com, and we're backing him to sneak the team's first top-three finish since Sebastian Vettel's 2008 Italian GP victory this weekend.
When Sainz and team-mate Max Verstappen made their F1 debuts in Australia 12 months ago, the Spaniard was the slightly more impressive of the two, qualifying eighth and running as high as fifth before a slow pit stop dropped him to ninth at the chequered flag.
As noted at the time by F1 journalist Peter Windsor, the key to Sainz's success was his ability to find a "very narrow ribbon of grip" and stick with it, and there is seemingly no reason why he cannot re-establish that relationship with Albert Park in a car that is potentially good enough for a top-six finish on merit.
Admittedly, Toro Rosso might require a slice of luck to challenge the podium positions.
But the team's determination to make the most of its tried-and-tested power train in the first half of the season, before the engine manufacturers develop their 2016 spec units, could see Toro Rosso operate more adventurously than their rivals with a greater emphasis on the long game.
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Only 1 Haas Driver Will Start the Race
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As well as producing unexpected results, the Melbourne circuit has recently developed a nasty habit of creating unformed grids.
In the last six Australian grands prix, only on one occasion (2014) has a full allocation of cars started the race, with drivers frequently missing out due to injury, pre-race breakdowns and the 107 per cent rule.
F1 hit a new low at last year's season opener when 15 drivers started and just 11 finished, and the trend will continue this weekend as a brand-new team makes its first grand prix appearance.
In January, Haas team principal Gunther Steiner told Sky Sports' William Esler how the American outfit were aiming to reach Q2 and score points on their debut in Australia.
But after a woeful end to preseason testing, when the team suffered a number of reliability gremlins—Romain Grosjean caused three separate red-flag stoppages in one day—simply seeing the chequered flag should suffice.
Even with technical assistance from Ferrari, teething problems are bound to occur in the team's early days, and who would bet against a technical issue developing on one of the VF-16s shortly before the grand prix?
Either Grosjean or team-mate Esteban Gutierrez will be forced to wait a little longer before starting his first race for Haas.
The Curse of Mark Webber Will Strike Daniel Ricciardo Yet Again
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The curse of Mark Webber has been alive and well since Daniel Ricciardo joined Red Bull Racing at the beginning of 2014.
Australia's last F1 hero famously failed to finish on the podium in 12 appearances at Albert Park, despite driving five race-winning cars in his home grand prix, and the current local boy has suffered from similar misfortune over the last couple of seasons.
Ricciardo, at least, did stand on the podium in his first start for Red Bull, but he was soon disqualified from second place for exceeding the new fuel-flow restrictions. He also lost out to Felipe Nasr's Sauber in a race-long battle for fifth at the end of a thoroughly depressing 2015 weekend.
Red Bull are, to all intents and purposes, in better shape than they were at this stage 12 months ago, but Ricciardo has already admitted he is not getting his "hopes up with anything," telling Motorsport.com's Pablo Elizalde that he is more excited about returning to racing after the extended winter break than any potential results.
Those words were spoken like a man in the full grip of the curse, and it will strike again this weekend as Ricciardo will register his first retirement of the season.
With Red Bull, Williams, Force India and Toro Rosso all competing to be the best of the rest behind Mercedes and Ferrari, a first-corner collision is possible—Felipe Massa is especially prone to incidents at Albert Park—but Ricciardo's downfall, surely, is more likely to come in the form of a Renault engine issue.
Cyril Abiteboul, the Renault managing director, recently told Autosport.com's Ian Parkes that the French manufacturer's relationship with Red Bull is improving, yet it will only take a technical problem or two for the cracks to reopen once more.
Given Red Bull's engine-branding agreement with TAG Heuer, it will be interesting to see if the four-time constructors' champions can bring themselves to utter the R-word—and perhaps even issue their first quit threat of the new season—if Renault don't help them get off to a respectable start.
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