Bleacher Report - Articles by Carl Baker

Formula One: Could Felipe Massa Win The World Championship?

Carl Baker — Thu, 29 May 2008 01:25:34 -0400

It's a result hardly anybody has yet predicted in 2008, and it's easy to see why.

Massa's start to the season was erratic, with retirements in Australia and Malaysia. He's taken far longer to get to grips with the new Ferrari than his teammate, Kimi Räikkönen.

But on recent form, Massa looks to have the measure of his champion teammate. It remains to be seen whether the Brazilian can keep this form up for the whole season.

If he can, then don't be surprised to see him emerging at the top of the standings after his home race in São Paulo at the end of the season.

Don't forget, it was largely bad luck that put Massa out of contention for the 2007 title. This is not to take anything away from Räikkönen—his consistency towards the end of the season was immense, and he thoroughly deserves his title as world champion.

But how quickly we have forgotten that Kimi was behind Massa in the standings for almost half of the year. Without Massa's unlucky qualifying incident at Hungary, his suspension failure in Italy, and his pitlane disqualification in Canada, he could have been right up there with Alonso, Räikkönen and Hamilton.

Now, after six races of 2008, he finds himself just one point behind his teammate and with the upper hand in terms of form. We know that the Ferrari is faster relative to the McLaren this year, so there's good reason to think that the Ferrari drivers are best placed to win the world title.

Massa has silenced his critics lately with excellent drives. Everyone was surprised to see him on pole last weekend at Monte Carlo. His Monaco run was soured only by a small off at turn one.

But given that all but two drivers made some such error, and the huge margin by which he beat his teammate, that should be forgiven.

If Massa keeps surprising people by putting his car at the front of the grid, and driving the excellent races that we know he's capable of, then there's no reason why he shouldn't be the first Brazilian world champion since Ayrton Senna.

Formula One: Which Driver Will Go Where In 2009?

Carl Baker — Fri, 16 May 2008 04:17:08 -0400

Both Ferrari and Renault have enquired about the status of BMW's hotshot Robert Kubica for 2009. Having beheld his exceptional performances in the opening races of 2008, it's only natural that these high-flying teams should want to sign up the young Pole for future years.

Of course, it's ridiculously early to be starting "silly season" discussions like these. But since the rumours have already started, it's only fair of us to join in by speculating wildly about who might end up where in 2009! Here are my predictions about who the top eight teams might sign up for next year...

Ferrari

Räikkönen will most likely stay put, for 2009 at least. However, there are rumours that he'll retire after next year. As for Massa, his future at Ferrari was in doubt two or three races ago—the F1 world has little patience these days, and if you underperform in two consecutive races, then rumours will fly about the instability of your job.

Nevertheless, Massa has won two of the last three races, and if he keeps that up it's hard to see Ferrari wanting to replace him. Nevertheless, as we've already noted, the Scuderia seem to have their eye on Kubica. And what about Alonso?

McLaren

Hamilton will likely be at McLaren for several decades yet. As for Heikki—if he keeps up his Turkish qualifying pace, I can't see why McLaren would look elsewhere. But don't forget the Finn was McLaren's third choice after Rosberg and Sutil last winter—if Ron Dennis can get his hands on Rosberg, then don't be surprised to see Heikki leaving.

BMW

As we've seen, Kubica is a popular young driver—but BMW will surely want to hold onto him if they can. Heidfeld has proved himself to be solid, but has been underperforming relative to the Pole recently. It's rumoured that the Hinwil outfit have a long-term option on Sebastian Vettel, so perhaps they will exercise that and sign him for 2009.

On the other hand, if Mark Webber keeps up his excellent recent form, perhaps BMW will be knocking on his door. Or perhaps BMW will spring a surprise and sign former champion Fernando Alonso?

Renault

Unless Alonso goes to Ferrari or BMW, he's likely to stay at Renault for 2009. Nelson Piquet Jr. needs to up his game in order to keep his seat for next year, but given his talent in GP2, there's every reason to believe that he will do just that.

If not, young talent Romain Grosjean will be waiting in the wings to replace him. But if Piquet doesn't become better, Renault should be wary of fielding an unexperienced rookie for the third year in a row. Takuma Sato is also testing for Renault soon - if he impresses, he could be in the frame for a 2009 seat.

Williams

If Frank Williams can hold onto Nico Rosberg, then he will - it's as simple as that. As things stand, Kazuki Nakajima is doing a relatively good job in the second seat - better than some of his fellow rookies, at least - but should Williams fancy a change, they have the highly-rated young German Nico Hulkenberg ready and waiting for a 2009 seat.

Red Bull

Mark Webber wants to stay at Red Bull next year, and with their car looking quick and reliable, it's easy to see why. I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that Coulthard will retire at the end of this year. Red Bull have a host of Sebastians to choose from for this seat. They could try and nab Vettel or Bourdais from Toro Rosso, or perhaps they will give young Swiss driver Sebastian Buemi a seat.

Toyota

Jarno Trulli still looks fast, and recently his race pace has been matching his almost unmatched qualifying pace. Don't be surprised to see him stick around in 2009. My hunch is that Toyota will stick with Glock too, so long as he delivers some good results in the remainder of this year. If not, Toyota might try to sign Nakajima - after all, having a Japanese driver would go down well with the bosses of Toyota.

Honda

Jenson Button has shown admirable loyalty to Honda, and it looks like he'll still be there in 2009 hoping that they finally deliver a fast car. Barrichello should retire at the end of this year, so who will replace him? Difficult to say.

I've already mentioned more names than there are seats, and I'd guess that whoever doesn't get a seat in the above seven teams will be in contention for a drive at Honda. Ex-Super Aguri racers Sato and Davidson will be in prime position, since they've both had close links with Honda in the past.

That's quite enough "Silly Season" for the time being. What do you think? Do you agree? Or will there be more shocks and surprises in the 2009 lineup?

Why We Should be Patient with F1's Underperforming Rookies

Carl Baker — Wed, 14 May 2008 06:30:28 -0400

By all accounts, several of F1's young guns have had a distinctly average start to the season. Nelsinho Piquet at Renault, Timo Glock at Toyota, and Adrian Sutil at Force India have all come under some pressure to up their game recently.

However, we seem to have unreasonable expectations of our rookies to provide immediate results. This is understandable, I suppose, when you consider that just 14 months ago, Lewis Hamilton jumped straight into a McLaren-Mercedes and finished on the podium in his first nine races. But Hamilton is, by any measure, a special case—and we should hardly expect all of F1's newcomers to live up to his standard.

In fact, it's not at all surprising that many newcomers have an average start to their careers. It's no condemnation of Glock and Piquet that they are taking some time to settle into their new roles as Formula One drivers (Glock drove a couple of races in 2004, of course, but the cars are quite different now).

In their first year of F1, drivers should be provided with security enough to make mistakes and take time to settle in.

You hear some people talking about the possibility of Renault, Toyota, and Force India replacing their young drivers—but this is preposterous. At this time last year, Heikki Kovalainen was yet to deliver any impressive results at Renault—but by the end of the season he recorded a second place finish. Now he's matching Lewis Hamilton on pace (officials at McLaren said he was well-placed to win Sunday's Turkish Grand Prix).

Plenty of other highly-regarded F1 drivers have had nightmare debuts, too. Heidfeld's first season—in the uncompetitive 2000 Prost—was unspectacular. Both Sato and Massa showed speed in 2002, in which they both debuted, but both looked too erratic to every develop into well-rounded racing drivers.

All of this shows that we should give Glock and Piquet several more races, at least, before we start talking about them losing their seats. Both have shown in GP2 that they have huge racing talent—and we should give them plenty of opportunity to display that in F1 before we start criticizing them too hard.

Sutil is a slightly different case. This is, of course, his second year in F1. Both, however, have been in the uncompetitive Spyker/Force India car. It's very difficult to judge a driver's talent when they're in such cars. The worry for Sutil at the moment is that Fisichella is beating him. But Fisi has much more experience of driving poor cars, as I noted in a previous article.

Given that Sutil is highly-regarded—don't forget that McLaren tried to sign him over the winter—we should give him the benefit of the doubt for the time being.

Let's reserve judgment on the F1 talent of these drivers for the time being. Their average starts to the 2008 season need not condemn them to the scrapheap.

Jenson Button As Fast As Lewis Hamilton?: Why We Can't Be Sure

Carl Baker — Thu, 08 May 2008 05:18:43 -0400

Everyone knows that if Jenson Button or Mark Webber were driving a McLaren or a Ferrari they'd be able to match the pace of Hamilton and Raikkonen, right?

People make these kinds of claims all the time, often with great confidence. But, evidence suggests that we should be a little more cautious about this kind of prediction.

Do you remember what we used to think of Giancarlo Fisichella?

Prior to 2005, Giancarlo had to put up with driving all sorts of horrendous cars (recall the 2001 Benetton and the 2003 Jordan). Yet his incredible performances in this sub-standard machinery led many to tout him as the "second-best driver in Formula One" (no prizes for guessing who was number one).

In 2005, when he won a seat with the up-and-coming Renault team, many expected him to mount a serious championship challenge and to put his fast but erratic teammate, Fernando Alonso, in his place. But, as we know, things went very differently.

Over the two years that Fisichella and Alonso spent together at Renault, Fisi rarely looked quicker than Fernando, and was indeed regularly half-a-second per lap slower.

Yet, now that Giancarlo is back driving sub-standard machinery, he's impressing us all over again with his drives—which punch above the weight of the Force India car.

Let this be a cautionary tale to all of us who would claim that since a driver seems to be fast in his midfield car, he would definitely be a championship challenger if placed in a fast car.

It may well be that if Mark Webber had received Kovalainen's McLaren seat this year, he would be challenging Hamilton for the status of number one driver. I like to think that is the case.

But the fact is that unless we put each driver in the same car, we have very little idea who is the quickest and who are the also-rans.

Sure, we have a pretty good idea that the likes of Raikkonen and Alonso are special, but do we really know how Sutil would fare against Rosberg? Or whether Vettel can be as fast as Massa?

No—and by now, we should know better than to claim that we do.