This Week in Motorsport

Formula Fun!
2015 Formula One World Championships
Round 1
Australian Grand Prix
Sunday, 15 March 2015

Most of the big changes ahead of the 2014 season were mechanical: the new chassis & engine "formula" that radically altered the balance of power within the sport. Most of the big changes ahead of this new 2015 season involved personnel. Four-time World Champion Sebastian Vettel ('10, '11, '12' & '13) left Red Bull (Renault) for the factory Ferrari stable. Toro Rosso (Renault), the Red Bull junior team, hired two rookies to pilot its cars, including Max Verstappen, the youngest driver in the history of F1 at just seventeen years-old. Double World Champion Fernando Alonso ('05 & '06) left Ferrari to return to McLaren, where he had a single, disastrous season in '07, which ended up with McLaren—then the "unofficial" factory Mercedes squad—facing a €100,000,000 fine (!) for industrial espionage. Drivers entered F1 & drivers exited F1. Jules Bianchi of the former Marussia (Ferrari) remains in a coma after his horrific crash at the Japanese Grand Prix in October '14.

Caterham (formerly Team Lotus, originally Lotus F1) went belly up, being placed in "administration (the British term for bankruptcy) & its assets auctioned off to repay its creditors. Manor (formerly Marussia, originally Virgin) was facing similar liquidation until angel investors swooped in at the eleventh hour to save the squad. Lotus (formerly the Renault factory team) switched to the dominant Mercedes engines & Caterham gave up the ghost, leaving Red Bull & Toro Rosso as the only teams continuing to suffer with the underpowered Renault power unit. Red Bull was designated the "official" Renault factory team, for whatever that's worth. McLaren ended its decades-long association with Mercedes to partner with Honda, returning to the pinnacle of motorsport as an engine supplier for the first time since it folded up its factory squad after the '08 season. The new American-based Haas F1 team remains on schedule to begin competing in 2016 as the Ferrari junior team.

Mercedes-powered
Mercedes
Williams
Force India
Lotus

Ferrari-powered
Ferrari
Sauber
(Manor)

Renault-powered
Red Bull
Toro Rosso ("Red Bull" in Italian)

Honda-powered
McLaren

"Meet the new boss, same as the old boss." Reigning double World Champion Lewis Hamilton ('08 & '14) & Nico Rosberg, both of reigning Constructors' Champions Mercedes, qualified first & second & finished the grand prix in that order, with exactly as little dramatic appeal as that would suggest. Beyond that, the Australian Grand Prix was a shambles. There are twenty cars scheduled to be on the 2015 f1 grid, but Manor had been scrambling to design, build, & test their car after being resurrected at the last minute & their cars, to be piloted by rookies Will Stevens & Robert Merhi, were not "ready for primetime" at the season opener: eighteen cars. Valtteri Bottas of Williams (Mercedes) suffered an injury during qualified; he was physically able to drive, but physically unable exit the car unaided swiftly enough to satisfy the safety protocols, so he was banned from competing. As the injury took place after the completion of all pre-race sessions, Williams's reserve driver Alex Lynn was not eligible to replace Bottas: seventeen cars. On the formation lap, the single, gentle trip round the circuit from the end of the pit lane to the starting grid, both Kevin Magnussen of McLaren (Honda) & Daniil Kvyet or Red Bull (Renault) suffered catastrophic mechanical failures: fifteen cars. (Are you kidding me? On the bloody formation lap?!) When the race started, Romain Grosjean of Lotus (Mercedes) was very slow to get off the grid; he would slowly make his way around the track & retire before the end of Lap 1. Pastor Maldonado of Lotus was caught up in a kerfuffle in the first few corners & was spun into the wall, which mangled the front right & rear left corners of his car, knocking him out of the grand prix. By the end of the first lap, the field had been reduced to thirteen cars. ('Twas only a few years ago that there were twelve Formula One teams fielding twenty-four cars per grand prix. What the hell happened?) Over the course of the grand prix, '07 World Champion Kimi Räikkönen of Ferrari & rookie Verstappen of Toro Rosso retired: eleven cars. In fairness, four in-race retirements (Grosjean, Maldonado, Räikkönen, & Verstappen) is in no way outside the norm for a grand prix, especially the first race of the year, but in league with all the other D.N.F.s this created the almost farcical spectacle of eleven cars finishing, with the top-ten finishers scoring world championship points.

The only finishing driver who didn't score was '09 World Champion Jenson Button of McLaren, though given the woeful pre-season the brand-new Honda power unit suffered, simply finishing all fifty-eight laps was a moral victory. Both Saubers (Ferrari)—piloted by Marcus Ericsson & rookie Felipe Nasr—finished in the points, a considerable turnaround from '14, when Sauber failed to score all season-long for the first time in the team's three-decade history. The third-place finisher, quadruple World Champion Vettel, now of Ferrari, crossed the finish line thirty-plus seconds behind the pair of Mercedes "Silver Arrows." Unless something radically changes, this is going to be another dull season of the only real competition being for the third step on the podium.

1st Place: Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes
2nd Place: Nico Rosberg, Mercedes
3rd Place: Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari

Next: the Malaysian Grand Prix, Sunday, 29 March 2015.