Formula 1 Midseason Retrospective: The Back of the Grid

The 2011 Formula 1 season has been electrifying. The majority of the races have been hugely entertaining, with Formula 1 cars able to overtake and really race each other, wheel to wheel, lap after lap...Unless we’re in Valencia which is still, in racing terms, pretty awful.

From Melbourne to Budapest, we’ve seen some stunning action up and down the grid, and over the next few days I’m going to discuss the performance of each team. We’ll start with Virgin, Hispania, Lotus, Williams and Toro Rosso.

Virgin

Like Lotus, Virgin has failed to impress in 2011. We all hoped they would be on the coat-tails of Force India, Toro Rosso and Williams this year but it isn’t to be. Monaco was a highlight, where Timo Glock was rather rapid, getting close to the Toro Rosso’s in Q1. But it isn’t enough, and so Virgin are making big changes. There seems to be a real desire within the team to move up the grid.

The technical tie-in with McLaren will help no end, and it has already done one important job: Persuaded Glock to stay on into 2012 and beyond. Glock is a fine driver. He pushes hard and can race wheel to wheel. His employers should feel comfortable that he is getting the most from the Virgin-Cosworth.

If the McLaren deal works as well as perhaps it should, we may see Virgin fighting to get out of Q3 next year. Imagine going into qualifying not knowing which of Virgin, Lotus, Williams, Toro Rosso or Force India are going to get out of Q3? It would be quite a show as the ten drivers push themselves and their cars to the very limit. And if we had qualifying tires…

Hispania

The team has been purchased by Thesan Capital and this appears to have secured its future, at least until the end of 2011. Getting out of Q3 still looks impossible, and scoring a point is a long way off. But a couple of 13^th positions have seen the team move ahead of Virgin in the Constructors’ Championship and Liuzzi out-qualified both Virgins in Canada.

Many people rightly questioned the value of going to a back of the grid team when Liuzzi had a few fans further up pit lane. But his decision to fight with the minnows of Formula 1 isn’t necessarily looking like a bad one. Whether it actually does land him a drive with a team that can build a car properly is yet to be seen.

The lack of a permanent base has been an issue, with the technical staff communicating from their own sitting rooms via conference calls, email and telephone. But at least the grey livery has been replaced by something much more vibrant. Further investment will be of huge benefit to the team that flies the Spanish flag in Formula 1.

Lotus

The season for Lotus can only be described as disappointing. They talked the talk but have failed to walk the walk. Putting Chandhok in the car in Germany was an interesting decision, and we hope they give him another couple of races so that he can show what he can really do. He obviously had a huge amount to learn, and was at the same point that the other drivers were at in pre-season testing. He’s half a season behind them with the Pirelli tires, DRS and KERS.

Not giving him another chance would be rather unfair. If it was me I would drop Trulli, who like Nick Heidfeld, has had his day and isn’t going to suddenly start going half a second faster. Kovalainen is a racer who has a huge desire to win and to get back to the front of Grands Prix. He leads the team, so there is a strong argument to put a fast and hungry guy who has his career in front of him into the second car.

Technically the team is improving year on year, and they will have the 2012 Red Bull transmission next year rather than the 2010 version they have used this season. It’s all going in the right direction, just perhaps not quite as fast as the team would like.

Williams

There is something fundamentally wrong at Williams. They do everything right away from the track, but they just don’t have any speed in their car out on the circuit. The 1980s and '90s are merely history, and the team has undergone some strong internal restructuring this year as they try to solve whatever the problem is.

It must be deeply frustrating for the drivers. Rubens Barrichello’s experience is surely a key asset for the team at the moment. Maldonado probably thought it was a dream come true when he found out he would be driving for Williams in his debut season—until he remembered how their form has crashed over the past five years.

The FW33 features a radical year end. I tried my best to get a good look at it in Barcelona during preseason testing, but it was permanently under wraps in pit lane and, well, looking at the detail of anything that’s moving 150 mph is incredibly difficult. But the packaging there is phenomenal, and it’s a shame that it isn’t a giant leap forward in stopwatch terms.

Williams are 18 points behind Toro Rosso; Maldonado is behind Liuzzi in the Drivers’ Championship. It really is that bad.

Toro Rosso

Going into 2011, there wasn’t much to shout about at STR. Everything looked merely ‘good’. The engine is ‘good’, the driver is ‘good’. The technical package? ‘Good’. And so the results proved as the season began.

But something has changed, and over the past five races the Toro Rosso STR6 has been banging in some great results. Both drivers are qualifying well and, on occasion, racing exceptionally.

The Daniel Ricciardo question has, for 2011 at least, gone, as he is now racing for Hispania (poor lad). STRs drivers Sebastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari always said that his Friday morning presence in one of their cars wasn’t a problem, but now that he’s gone it’s certainly a pressure off their backs, and a pressure that no other driver on the grid has had to cope with in 2011.

The upturn began in Canada with an 8-10 finish. Alguersuari then repeated this himself, finishing 8th and 10th in Europe and then Britain. Buemi came on-song in Hungary, leading home another 8-10 finish.

The team is racking up the points and now has 22, compared to last season’s total of 13. It should be commended for this effort and it is also interesting to see the team throwing developments on the car almost on a race-by-race basis.

The exhaust blown diffuser was good out of the box, with the team using an interesting 1992 Ferrari-inspired double floor concept. The diffuser and exhaust area was further updated in China and again in Canada and appears to be working well. The STR6 is a car that, like the Williams, deserves a close inspection should you have the chance. The architecture of the rear end is beautifully crafted.

One expects the remainder of 2011 to provide a further clutch of points for this Italian team.

Tomorrow we’ll take a look at Force India, Sauber, Renault and Mercedes.