SofaF1

McLaren have always been about the persuit of perfection. They have always strived to go for the ultimate in speed and technology even at the expense of reliability. Mark Hughes in Autosport this week even manages to eek an admission to this out of the team. That all changed last year with a car that was fast and reliable. A car that was reliable first and fast second.

But the problem came last year in the driver department. Who could have known that Lewis would be so good?

But the question is this. If McLaren listened to Alonso about the reliability and cooling as has been suggested why didn’t they listen to him about holding back Lewis? If they had listened Alonso would have won the title. As it was Kimi won.

On the car side they learned from the begining of the season what a compromise on speed can bring you: reliability.

On the driver side they didn’t learn the lesson and they lost.

Alonso copied Schumacher’s game and beat him at it. McLaren were unable to do it because they ignored one of the fundamental rules – only one driver can win the title.

It might not be very fair to Lewis – but what’s fair got to do with it?

McLaren isn’t a charity – as far as I know – they were there to win.

The problem was that Lewis was just too good.

Last week’s poll:

Makes it look like Nakajima is the man to watch for 2008.

And this week’s poll is all about Honda and Ross Brawn. We want to know how quickly we’ll see Ross work his magic at Honda.

Ron Dennis has been at the helm of McLaren for a seriously long time.
In all but name the connection to Bruce McLaren’s team is nil. It is Ron’s team through and through. So why are people trying to get rid of him?

Well obviously McLaren had a difficult year last year politically and internally he had a bit of a fight on his hands but McLaren almost won.

It seems the pressure for him to retire early is completely external.
You have the British press on the one hand who were slighted by being refused access to Lewis. And the Spanish press who feel Denis betrayed Alonso.

And mainly you have Max. Max claimed last week that he actually liked Ron but that he hated the way Ron treated the sport. (I wonder if Max knows what people think about the way he treats the sport?) But he may have a point. Ron only has self interest at heart, he can’t imagine what Frank Williams feels like at the back of the grid – fighting for survival. When Ron fights all of the cost cutting measures he does it because he isn’t humble. That’s what Max seems to be saying.

If only, Max seemed to be saying, we could show Ron what it is like at the wrong end of the paddock. What it’s like to have an external constraint on your car design. But Max doesn’t have to dream it’s happening.

Max doesn’t want rid of Ron yet. He wants to teach him a lesson first.

Robert Kubica has admitted that his greatest sporting hero is none other than Britain’s Ronnie “the Rocket” O’Sullivan.

I think this is a smart move from a PR point of view. Usually drivers admire other drivers and that’s tricky. The press always draw you into making slighly queasy comparisons with your hero – from last year Lewis talking about Senna comes to mind.

But it’s probably just true. Just because you like racing doesn’t make you like watching racing. And this information makes me like Kubida even more.

There’s been a bit of a debate amongst the drivers about the removal of traction control. Usually the drivers all want things made safer – but the racers in them know that if they’re any good they might be able I gain an advantage. Massa said that he thought it would be unsafe and Kimi basically called him a wuss (although he didn’t specifically name names).

Personally in safety matters I usually listen to DC. He seems to strike a good balance. He’s happy about traction control and concerned about non-heated tires (which were slated for next year).

Traction control exemplifies the problems of running modern F1. Some people think F1 should employ the absolute pinnacle of car technology of at the very least the stuff you can get in road cars (a lot of road cars have traction control) and they want the technology almost to the point of negating the drivers input. Others at the other extreme think everyone should be driving around in the same car so the driver is everything.

The reality is that F1 is somewhere in between and always has been.

Overall though the most important thing is that I want my racing to be good racing which is entertaining. And part of entertaining me is not killing any of the drivers.

Alonso and Lewis decide to start new team together

Super Aguri win first race

Beards outlawed – Couthard unable to race

Ralf wins world championship – Michael takes what he said back

Mosley makes sensible suggestion

What are your suggestions?

Also, while we’re here I’ve finally changed the poll!

Which driver will be the revelation of the season? Ie. Who will we be saying “an amazing season from so and so? I haven’t got space for all the drivers. I’ll move some around if you request it in the comments but Lewis, Alonso and Kimi are out of this because that would be continuing form.

There is an advert for ING which they keep showing on MSNBC (well I work at a bank and we have the TV on – with the sound dipped – all the time).

On it they show how their sponsorship of F1 team Renault has helped them “work as a team”, and to show how much of a team they are they show Renault team memebers like Pat Symonds and Heikki Kovalainen.

Whoops – as we know Heikki is already “working as a team” over at McLaren.

One of the key contributing factors to McLaren’s sucess last year was their cars ability to idle for long periods of time without stalling or overheating (expect a lot of teams to be getting better at this – Ferrari were pretty much there by the end of the season).

But this year it will be even more important. The main time such an advantage was used was while the cars were sitting at the end of the pit straight waiting for the final session of qualifying to begin.
This year this will be even more crucial for McLaren because they have been relegated to the wrong end of the pit lane due to the spy scandal.

Last year there was a lot of back and forth between McLaren and Ferrari whenever Lewis got ready they’d try and get one of their cars out ahead of Alonso who was coming next. By the end of the season they managed it a couple of times. But they were very close to each other last year. Now they’ll have a pretty long warning that Lewis is on his way. It will be pretty easy for Ferrari to nip in possibly even ahead of Lewis.

So there are only one option for McLaren they need to make their ability to sit idlely so long that Ferrari can’t go out when McLaren do.

Or… I hear rumours that there have been proposals from one team to change the qualifying procedure. Hmmm.

So is Jenson any good or not?

After slating him for many years he actually seemed to have a pretty good season last year. He grew a beard, bought a camper van and seemed to have confronted a number of his demons. He actually went quite a bit quicker than his car at times.

All of this seemed to be a good starting point for 2008. Especially as his famed smooth style will probably work well now that there won’t be traction control.

I was starting to think better things about Jenson and then during the off season something happened. I watched Lewis Hamilton on Top Gear.

Lewis, with an oily and wet track, went as fast as Jenson had in the dry.

I know it isn’t the same as driving an F1 car but surely it’s a sign.

No budget constraints just pick:

Two drivers
One car
One race team (engineers etc)
One team principal
One car design (colour, decals etc)

I’m not planning on running this through the season, just thought it would be interesting to see what everyone thought.