Has the 2016 Formula 1 Season Been Too Predictable?
The Russian Grand Prix was the fourth race of the 2016 Formula One season, and Nico Rosberg has won them all. With nearly one-fifth of the season now in the rearview mirror—and despite Rosberg's apparent dominance—there is a surprising lack of clarity at the top of the standings.
It seems the only thing we know about this championship is that we still don't really know anything.
Rosberg has driven well and is now on a seven-race winning streak, dating back to last year, but he has not really been challenged yet. His Mercedes team-mate, Lewis Hamilton, the preseason title favourite, has had nothing but bad luck and an unreliable car. He now trails Rosberg by 43 points.
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Meanwhile, Ferrari and Sebastian Vettel were widely expected to challenge the Silver Arrows this year after two seasons of Mercedes dominance. That has not happened so far, but car problems and Daniil Kvyat problems (real or, in the case of the Chinese Grand Prix, imagined) have also plagued Scuderia.
At the last race, in Russia, Rosberg once again ran away with the victory—but only after Hamilton had a problem with his energy recovery system (as he did in China), forcing him to start from 10th place. He eventually recovered to second and began to reel in Rosberg, who was cruising at the front. However, a water-pressure problem ended Hamilton's charge and opened the conspiracy-theory floodgates.
It is easy to say Rosberg has not yet had to fight off a full-strength challenge from Hamilton, but in the end, it won't matter. The record books do not place asterisks next to victories because this driver broke down, or that one had a first-lap collision.
Despite spending most of the Sochi race by himself, Rosberg still looked sharp at the end. On the second-to-last lap, he set the fastest lap of the race at one minute, 39.094 seconds on tyres that were 30-laps old. Williams' Felipe Massa set the next-fastest time, on the same lap, at 1:39.743.
It was almost as though Rosberg was taunting the field, showing how much speed he had in reserve.
But is this really a new Rosberg, different from the one who has been largely unable to beat Hamilton in a straight fight over the last two years? Despite his winning streak, it feels like it is just a matter of time before Hamilton goes on a streak of his own.
And if Hamilton had won the first four races this year, no matter what had happened to Rosberg, all the talk would be about how he was running away with another title. Because Rosberg doesn't have the same record of success, though, it feels like we're just waiting for Hamilton to recover and take back his place at the front of the field.
Likewise, all the pre-season talk of a Ferrari title challenge has gone unrequited, at least so far.
Yes, there has been a Ferrari on the podium at every race so far, but by this time last year, Sebastian Vettel had already won in Malaysia. And with Ferrari's three retirements this year, Mercedes have more than twice as many points, leading the constructors' championship 157 to 76.
As with Hamilton, though, it feels like Ferrari could solve their problems at any moment and fulfil some of that preseason potential.
Team principal Maurizio Arrivabene thinks his team's problems are due to human error and therefore fixable.
"We had problem with the software with Sebastian, turbo with Kimi [Raikkonen], but I don't think it's bad luck because nearby there is always a human mistake," he said recently, per ESPN F1's Laurence Edmondson. "I prefer to have this kind of problem now instead of having it in the course of the season or later on, but we need to make sure it doesn't happen again."
It is still early in a long season, but the sport needs someone to challenge Rosberg and Mercedes. If those challenges come from Ferrari, the most popular team in F1, so much the better. But the challenges need to come to keep casual viewers interested.
As Red Bull adviser Helmut Marko told the official F1 website, "The midfield racing has been sizzling. But when it came to winning the race, you knew that it would be a Mercedes driver. The Mercedes driver who comes out of the first corner in first is the race winner."
Maybe this is all wrong. Perhaps in our desire to see competitive races at the front, we are overestimating Ferrari and underestimating Rosberg. Maybe the Vettel and Arrivabene-led Ferrari resurrection is still a year away from bearing fruit, and Rosberg really is a changed man.
In that case, we might be tempted to follow Marko's lead and complain about the predictability of F1. But then, most of the predictions from just a couple of months ago—of another Hamilton title and a strong Ferrari challenge—have thus far been proved wrong.
So lack of competitiveness is a problem, but predictability? Maybe not.
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