The Bottom Five Teams in Formula One (Part 2 of Team Reports)

If you haven’t read the first part of my team reports, including the top five teams, then follow this link.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/38267-the-top-five-teams-in-formula-one-part-1-of-team-reports

Renault

It doesn’t take a lot of time for things to drastically change in Formula 1, and Renault are proof of that. At this point in 2006, Renault had already won six races. So far in 2008, Renault have registered just six points finishes. That’s a huge dip in performance. So why has this happened?

I would trace it all the way back to the German GP in 2006, when Mass Dampers were banned. Renault relied on this system more than any other team at the time. When they were banned, Renault really suffered, and lost a chunk of performance.

Also, since F1 has moved back to a single tyre supplier, Renault have gone onto the back foot even more, as their car was made for the Michelin tyres (the sole tyre supplier is Bridgestone).

Perhaps another reason why Renault won titles in 2005 and 2006 was because of slip-ups from their rivals. Ferrari weren’t on the ball in 2005, and McLaren were unreliable. In 2006, McLaren didn’t produce a winning car. Ferrari were quick, but mistakes and unreliability struck at the wrong time. Renault still did brilliantly well to win these two championships, but there were certainly other factors that helped them.

Onto this season’s story, basically Renault just haven’t been able to make up enough ground from last season to compete with McLaren and Ferrari. If anything, they have slipped back even further.

In 2007, Renault were the clear fourth best team. At the moment, they have been sucked in even more by the midfield pack and find themselves in a lowly seventh position.

Alonso has worked hard to make the team competitive again, but a driver as good as him isn’t God-like and can’t perform miracles with an uncompetitive car. No driver can.

Having said that, Alonso has maybe pushed a bit too hard for results that aren’t possible. Instead of just getting those valuable points that the team needs to be in a reasonable position, he has tried to get a podium or win and this has resulted in the team earning fewer points.

For example, in Monte Carlo Alonso was scruffy and made a couple of silly errors. In Montreal, Alonso made an error whilst following Heidfeld. These were two opportunities for big points that Renault missed out on.

Renault could have earnt themselves a better result at Silverstone but made the mistake of staying out on inters before the heavy mid-race shower. So that makes three races where big points were lost.

There are not many seasons where that many points for the midfield teams present themselves this early on. Renault could be higher in the table by now because in normal race circumstances they only have the pace for one or two points maximum.

Another big problem has been Piquet Jr.’s difficult start to F1. He has struggled to adapt spectacularly and has been lacking confidence. He has rarely been a feature in the top 10 shootout in qualifying and has only scored two points. This poor form means that Renault have effectively been a one-car team every weekend.

On the bright side, there does seem to some speed in the car. Renault got nowhere near a front-row starting slot last season, yet Alonso achieved that in Barcelona. Unfortunately, he suffered a reliability failure which again was another opportunity missed by Renault.

The car is definitely fast enough for points when the team and drivers put their minds to it. In the second half of the season, they need to be realistic and just score solid points so they don’t end up embarrassing themselves in the second half of the season.

The other factor to consider like all the teams in these reviews is the 2009 regulation changes. This could be the opportunity for Renault to get back in the ball game and put recent errors and missed opportunities behind them. They definitely have the right people.

Will Renault ever make it back to championship challengers again? I have my doubts about it.

Summary: Renault have slipped off form dramatically in the past 18 months for a number of reasons. They need to regroup and do a damage limitations job in the second half of the season to halt the alarming slide going into 2009.

Williams

During the pre-season, things looked very promising for Williams. After a much more promising 2007 campaign where they finished fourth in the championship ahead of big teams such as Toyota, Red Bull and Honda, there was much promise going into this season that they could improve further.

The Williams team seemed rather bullish about their prospects and were even targeting the top 3 in the championship.

As pre-season testing started, these targets were actually starting to look realistic. Although McLaren and Ferrari were dominating all the tests, most experts had Williams down as the third fastest car going into the season.

Going into Australia it looked like Williams might fulfill this prediction. Nico Rosberg qualified seventh, and in the race, he drove brilliantly to third place. Not only that, but their race pace was only 0.5 off the winning car.

In the upcoming races, Melbourne proved to be a false dawn. In Malaysia, the car struggled terribly and the team struggled again in Spain. Since Melbourne, points have either come through races of attrition, tough conditions such as Monaco or Silverstone, or by just taking the last point, which Rosberg did well to achieve in Bahrain and Turkey.

The harsh reality is that Williams lack the firepower of the teams around them. McLaren and Ferrari just have far better resources and finance. The grid is now full of manufacturers, meaning that even the midfield teams are very powerful, ambitious and difficult to beat.

Over the first half of the season, the teams around them have simply had the resources to develop their cars quicker. Renault, Red Bull and Toyota have all overtaken Williams in terms of raw speed. Williams are now at the back of the midfield train.

Occasionally, Williams have upset the odds, such as Rosberg qualifying fifth in Canada, but unfortunately the opportunity wasn’t taken on that occasion.

Nakajima’s signing was criticized by many in F1, the main motivation behind his signing was for sponsorship. So it was effectively a pay driver arrangement which goes further to demonstrate the lean times Williams are now going through.

At times he has been a knight in shining armour for the team. In races, he has been surprisingly competitive and has taken every opportunity there has been for points. This along, with Rosberg’s podium in Melbourne, are the only two reasons why Williams aren’t next to bottom in the championship table.

Williams didn’t do that brilliantly in the first half of 2007. It was the second half of the season where they scored the majority of their points. If they are going to get something out of this season, they are going to have to do that again.

They want to concentrate mainly on 2009, and that is the right thing for them to be doing, but they won’t want to be embarrassed this season.

In my personal opinion, I think Frank Williams and Patrick Head should have let BMW buy a bigger stake in the team rather than staying completely independent. Having a lot of support from a big manufacturer is the only way an independent is going to have a chance in F1 in this current climate.

I think Frank and Patrick still want to run the team like it is the 1980s, but we are in the 2000s now and a lot has changed. BMW have done a great job at Sauber, so Williams may regret the decision.

All those championships that Williams used to win seem like a lifetime ago.

Summary: Williams looked as if they had made a big leap forward but have started to sink again almost immediately. Williams should be regretting not letting BMW have a further stake in the team. That chance has passed now, so they must focus as much as they can on 2009 without suffering an embarrassing final position in 2008. These are very tough times for Williams indeed.

Honda

Last season was a complete disaster for Honda. The car was a complete nightmare to drive and hated by their drivers. It was a huge step backwards for the team.

In 2006, Honda were making progress, and then the Japanese board sacked their most talented engineer (Geoff Willis, who is now alongside Newey at Red Bull). They then completely started from scratch in 2007 and lost all the time and progress they gained on the 2006 car. In 2007, Honda scored only six points in comparison to 86 points in 2006.

Something had to be done for 2008 to stop the rot. So what has Honda done exactly? First, they brought in star technical director Ross Brawn as team boss, along with other technical appointments throughout the aero department. This is a wise move, considering that 80 percent of F1 development is aero related.

Ex-Honda boss Nick Fry is still joint owner of the team but now just works on the commercial side, where his expertise lies. Ross Brawn is in charged of everything relating to the car and the racing.

He takes a much more hands-on approach than most F1 team bosses these days, who tend to spend all their time doing paperwork in their offices away from where the car is being designed and built. Nothing like the Colin Chapman days. Ross knows exactly what is going on in his team (the same can’t be said of Ron Dennis last season, can it).

So what improvement have these changes brought to the team? Ross Brawn came into the team too late to have too much say on the current car. In its first test the car looked dreadful but over the winter with Brawn’s help, the team found more than a second’s worth of aero performance.

The car is now a lot more stable and doesn’t apply downforce as aggressively as the last car. More importantly, it was far more drivable. In Australia, Rubens and Jenson were 10th and 12th on the grid, compared to 14^th and 16^th in 2007. It was already clear that a huge improvement had already been made under the Brawn era.

The fact that Ross Brawn wants to concentrate almost solely on 2009, and I am reliably informed they have up to four wind tunnels working on next season’s car, hasn’t stopped this season from being an improvement.

Honda have scored 14 points so far this season. That’s six more than double the whole of last season. Honda even got a podium at Silverstone with Barrichello, with a stroke of tactical genius in the wet race from the man on the pit wall. Where were we used to seeing that every race?

Despite the improvements, it is still a long way off where Honda should be but whilst mainly focusing on 2009 (the right thing for them to do) and how far behind they were last season they are right to be upbeat. This will end up being another disappointing season, but if they can go on a run of successful seasons from 2009 onwards then the team won’t mind.

After the mistakes and slip-ups in the past couple of seasons, Honda now find themselves with a very bright future. That in itself is a good achievement for the team as long the Japanese directors let the men they have hired wave their magic without interference.

Summary: Honda have admitted errors and have gone about correcting them in the best possible by bringing in the right people and changing the staff structure. They realize now success won’t be instant, but improvements have already been made.

Torro Rosso

The Torro Rosso team currently faces an uncertain future as they have been put up for sale by big Red Bull boss Dietrich Mateschitz and due to the customer car rules, as the team use Red Bull’s cars. The main difference being that the design of the car is slightly different in order to accommodate a Ferrari engine rather than a Renault engine.

Overall this season, they are doing a decent job. Up to the Monaco GP, they decided to stick with last season’s challenger, as it was a car which they knew back to front and could setup easily. This seemed to work in their favour early on as Vettel qualified in the top 10 in the first race in Australia. The car seemed to match those of their sister team in terms of raw pace.

As the races started coming thick and fast, the team with their old car started slipping back very quickly and struggling to get out of the first qualifying session.

The team were hoping to launch the new car in time for the Spanish or Turkish GP, but a crash during the big test in Spain meant that the launch was delayed due to a lack of spare parts.

Since the car was launched for the Monaco GP, they have pushed on and made good progress. Vettel made the most of it in Monaco and finished in a brilliant fifth position. He added to that with eighth in Montreal. Their one-lap pace is also now improving.

In the last race at Silverstone, Bourdais qualified 13^th, and Vettel qualified in the top 10 for the first time since Melbourne. The team are are very close to their sister team and maybe even being a little bit faster at times even in Vettel’s hands.

So far this season they have seven points, almost matching the points tally from the whole of last season. So in a very competitive season, Torro Rosso have fared quite well; but I have to admit I am very conscious of giving this team too much praise due to the fact that they are effectively a customer team and not building their own car.

On the other hand, I can praise Vettel for how good a job he is doing this season and proving that he could be a potential star in the future. Bourdais hasn’t done as good a job but hasn’t been as far off Vettel’s pace, as many suggested he would be. There is only a matter of tenths between them.

I predict more points finishes for this team in the second half of the season.

Summary: Torro Rosso have shown some impressive speed at times this season and are getting faster race by race. More points finishes are likely, but the achievement will be somewhat undermined by the fact that they are effectively a customer team.

Force India

It was very sad to lose the Jordan name a few years ago and even sadder to see the bad jobs that Midland and Spyker made of the team before promptly selling up.

However, there is renewed hope for the team under the name of Force India and charismatic and very ambitious boss Vijay Mallya. You can tell he is much more serious about making a success of the team, as opposed to the bosses under the previous two names.

The team now have some high-profile names amongst their staff including experienced technical director Mike Gascoyne (who incidentally worked at Jordan in the 90s) and Mark Smith from Red Bull. The team have now extended their facilities, including a brand new aero lab facility.

Has this new-look team brought more success? In terms of performance, there has definitely been a noticeable difference. When you look at times alone, Force India have actually made a bigger leap in performance than anybody else on the grid.

Last season, the team were on average 2.0 to 2.5 seconds off pole position. Currently, they are around 1.3 to 1.5 seconds off pole position. So that is an improvement of around 1.2 seconds. That is extremely impressive.

Unfortunately, because F1 is so fiercely competitive in this modern era, that still isn’t enough to remove them from the back of the grid despite their best efforts. They have also failed to get out of the first stage of qualifying all season long.

In Monaco, they had a huge chance of picking up a very solid haul of points in the rain. Adrian Sutil drove from the back of the grid and was up to fourthplace until he was cruelly taken away thanks to Kimi Raikkonen, who lost control of his car coming out of the tunnel.

So overall, things are looking a lot more positive for the ex-Jordan squad and despite the fact this hasn’t brought them more points the improvements are there to be seen.

If they can continue to improve at the rate they have been since the end of last season they could well string a couple of results towards the end of the season and surprise in 2009. The whole of India is behind the team, that is certain.

Summary: This team is finally in a stable condition and in the right hands. Fast progress is being made and the team have the potential to improve further.