The Race for 4th in the Constructors Championship

The current situation

4. Red Bull Racing 21

5. Toyota 17

6. Williams 15

7. Renault 9

These in my opinion are the four teams fighting for 4th sport. Honda and Torro Rosso have 8 and 7 points respectively but I don't think they will be in a fight with each other for 8th spot rather than with these teams for 4th spot. It looks like a very tight battle at the moment but as I will explain throughout this article I don’t think it will be tight come the end of the season. Putting more effort into the 2009 car (when the aero rules get a complete overhaul) as the season goes on is also likely to have an impact on how well the midfield teams will do for the rest of the season.

Red Bull

I feel Red Bull are starting to make good progress, their car is now much more reliable, last year it was chronically unreliable and now every race weekend their get at least one of their cars into the top ten. In the races they are now consistent and taking their points opportunities. Spain, Monaco and Canada are good examples where other drivers and teams have made mistakes and Red Bull have seized the opportunity. In races where everyone has run reliably so far they have picked up a point or two. This car is definitely as fast if not slightly faster than the Renault.

If it wasn't for DC's appalling season so far Red Bull may have even more points. Glock took him out of a likely 3 or 4 points in Spain. Massa's optimistic move on Oz lost DC points there. During the Spanish GP qualifying session his team gambled on tyres and he couldn't get out of Q1 on a weekend where he was looking very quick.

Renault

Renault have haven't made enough progress to leave this midfield battle and are really suffering points wise. In fact compared to last season the car is probably worse relative to where the team were last season. The car is fast enough to challenge for points but they are the opposite of Red Bull in that they haven't take all of their point scoring opportunities this season. In Spain Alonso had a chance for 3 or 4 points but the engine failed. In the wet Monaco GP Alonso made errors instead of potentially finishing in the top 4. And in Canada Alonso could have challenged for victory it wasn't for brake problems.

One of the main problems has been that whilst Renault just want Alonso to bring home points and be safe Alonso wants to take big risks for podiums or even a win and this philosophy is losing the team points rather than gaining them. The other problem is Piquet Jnr is finding it very hard to adjust to life in F1 and has scored no points so far. He has even struggled to get out of Q1 on a couple of occasions so far. Whilst he continues to struggle Renault are technically a one car team as far as points are concerned.

Williams

The beginning of the season looked very promising with really good times in testing and in Australia Rosberg's podium gave people the impression that Williams might well punch above their weight this season. Sadly that all seems to be like a false dawn now. After Melbourne the other teams around them have been able to take much bigger steps forward. So apart from that one great result getting into the points has been a struggle. Rosberg scraped into the points in Bahrain and Turkey but that is really as good as the car is at the moment. The car has performed better at slower cornered circuits but the team failed to get significant points from those two events. The team will have a few more good races this season but I can't see them improving the car enough to be able to consistently score good points on merit. Nakajima has taken opportunities to score for Williams well in 2 of the 3 crazy races of the season so far.

Toyota

Toyota completely changed their design concept for this season rather than just evolving their car like the cars around them. At the start of the season that seemed to be paying dividends. Particularly in Malaysia the Toyota was very quick. A Mclaren there was even holding up Trulli. He finished 4th and then backed that up with a 6th in Bahrain. Since then they look as if they have gone back downhill again after a surge of progress. Canada was the first time they looked promising since Bahrain but that was mainly through attrition. Although Glock in particularly looked alot stronger but Red Bull and Renault were ahead of them on the track and I think that story will continue.

In my opinion the 4th spot will be Red Bull's this season. The car is getting better with every race, its reliable and they seem to be taking their opportunities this season, hopefully DC's podium will spur him to score points regularly along with Webber to help concrete this 4th position. In terms of the development race I think Red Bull will make more progress than their rivals, now Willis and Newey have a very stable base to work on now the car will get faster quickly just like it did at the end of last season when the car finally got some reliability. This team is now one, which is going to start moving fast in my opinion. They could even get close to the top 3 come the end of the season.

Renault I feel are thinking more about 2009 now and this is the same for their star man Alonso. I think they will do well with their new upgrade in the next 2 or 3 races and then will drift away. Toyota are going to keep pushing and they will get enough points here and there to stay ahead of Renault in the championship. I don't think they are going to give up on the season straight away unlike others around them. They have as much resource as Ferrari and Mclaren so can run a few projects at the same time (albeit not with great awards at the end of it).

I think Williams will also keep pushing with their season but can’t see them getting many more strong results on merit, maybe the odd 7^th or 8^th here and there and maybe a 4^th or 5^thin a crazy wet race which we are likely to have again at some point but don’t see any further progress apart from that. If I were the Williams team I would be focusing completely on the 2009 season now, the team are too small to be running tow big projects (the 2008 car and 2009 car) at the same time. Understandably two competitive men such as Frank Willams and Patrick Head won’t want to finish so low down the table.

So in conclusion I don’t think this section of the championship table will change. The status quo from 4^th to 7^th but I wouldn’t rule out Honda maybe sneaking into 7^th spot. Red Bull I am very confident will take 4^th place, not only that but I think they will achieve it by a comfortable margin.