SofaF1

it could be Ferrari versus Renault with Kimi for Ferrari this time and Fisi still for Renault.

But we know what happens when these two race each other. Kimi proves once again that he is incredibly skilled with this overtaking manoeuvre.

Or was this a case of half Raikkonen skills and half Fisi letting himself be beaten?

Do you support your team or enjoy your sport? Or both.

Which is more important to you?

I’m sure we all know the example of AFC Wimbledon. Did the fans decide that the sport was more important than their club or the other way around? Some could argue that the club moved to milton keynes and the true fans accepted that and moved on but those who believe in football as a grass roots sport continued to support the team at the end of their road whoever they were which was now AFC.

But the more likely arguement was that club is more important than sport here because the supporters would rather support their club as they see it than watch another team play in the higher leagues.

This situation is happening this year in F1 as Minardi is going to reappear in one of the sports lower ranks. But nobody really seems to care.

My question is this: could you, as a football fan ever enjoy a match where your team lost. And could you ever objectively put it above other games where your team had won. Can you imagine at the end of your time when you turn in your greatest games of all time having the number one game on the list be a game where your team lost?

I don’t think the AFC situation could ever happen in motorsport or cricket really where, like F1, you are more often than not supporting the sport rather than the team or individual.

So Adrian, and any other football people, I would love to hear your answers.

And Stew it is my opinion that you, unlike your less bearded colleagues in this establishment, do tend towards more supporting one driver, one team or along national lines. And i wonder if that’s true. And do you have a problem with people being more generalist supporters? I know you don’t mind criticising Button. I wonder if that’s just because he’s rubbish or because you feel he should be doing better considering he’s been the leading Brit.

And finally Nick. Why don’t you have a beard any more? Is it because you feel that Stew has cornered the beard market with his online name?

And to Alex. Is it wise to write posts when this drunk?

[note I was drunk when I wrote this not now when I’m posting it]

So why have I been banging on about Kimi so much these last few days?

The thing is that I’ve always gone on about him right from the very begining as I have about Alonso, Sato and Massa. Sato may come right eventually but I’m including him to show it’s not a completely blinkered view of history.

I loved Michael. I admit it. I thought he was awesome and amazing. And to be honest in that situation in most sports that would mean that I should hate Kimi and Alonso because they were the barstards that pushed him out.

But actually that isn’t the way that it works in F1. I thought Michael was so good that I wanted to see somebody take him on. I wanted to see Michael pushed because if somebody could do that then that would be a sight to see.

And Kimi did it first. He did it before Alonso did it. And sure he didn’t actually beat Michael but he was the first driver to make Michael sit up and notice. Because although I will always rate Mika he won while Michael was weakened by his machinery whereas Kimi pushed Michael while he was on song.

Now Alonso has won twice and part of me would like to point out that in both cases the competition was weakened and that it was less about how good he was and more about how bad the others were doing. And while there was an element of that about 2005 and the begining of 2006 nobody can say that Alonso didn’t win those titles by sheer talent and determination. There was an element of luck and fair winds behind them both but the same could be said for more than half of Michael’s world championships too.

So I want to make it clear I don’t support one driver in Formula One. I have always supported the driver in a race who can keep the championship going until the final race of the season. But…

This year is a very important one for Kimi. He needs to prove that he hasn’t squandered his talent. And more importantly he needs to prove to me that I was right to pick him from the pack all of those years ago.

I’m not saying that I’m going to give him unfair treatment. He’ll still be pushed asunder if he threatens to dominate the season. I just hope he does well.

Oh and I genuinely think it’s going to be a good year for Sato too.

Kimi doesn’t talk a lot. I mean he’s famous for not talking a lot. And I wonder if that might be more important than ever this year. Not only because he’s going to be dealing with a set of people used to getting a lot of feedback from their driver. And that he’s probably, lets face it, got worse over his years at McLaren.

But also because of the changes to the way that Fridays will now work.

Up until last year Fridays were a day for the test drivers. The idea was to bring in a lot of fresh talent and kind of give them a go. And lo Formula One has a lot of fresh talent and the older more bankable stars are being pushed out and suddenly a stop has been put to the fresh talent. Now the race drivers will be able to drive on a Friday which has the added benefit of meaning that if you’re a punter and you go on a Friday you might actually see somebody you’ve heard of.

So what’s this got to do with Kimi? Well if he can’t explain to his engineers what he needs doing to his car. And he can’t send out another driver to test for him as they used to then maybe it will get very difficult.

Or maybe Kimi will finally become better at it because there is simply no other method for improving the car.

With all the potential excitement of the new season there may be one unfortunate thing. There may be less overtaking. Perhaps this is why we look to be getting variable tire textures?

The reason for the change this year is not just the fact that everyone will be driving on the same tires though. The other factor is the engines.

Last year with engine reliability at a premium because of the two race distance requirement the teams kept their revs limited most of the time. But in cases where they needed to pass someone they could turn the wick up. The so called push to pass.

The difference is that this year the revs will be limited by the FIA rather than by the teams. And so push to pass will be gone.

Of course you could ask the question: how important is overtaking in formula one?

I think Alex’s most recent method for distributing points works pretty well.

2 points for pole.
2 points for each race position you get right.
1 point for each race position within 1 place of what you guessed.

Although it does lack the bias toward the front of the grid. Perhaps 3 for first place? Anyway, it’s definitely the best idea. We were trying to over-complicate it I think. Maybe we should also state at the beginning how we think the championship will end and get points for that too? Who is going to administrate it?

The new Ferrari looks more like a drag car than a normal F1 car and I’m quite excited by this change. It really seems to show some serious pushes forward in the development department.

It may also be a sign of the new Ferrari design team taking a bold new and stamping their authority on Ferrari.

My only worry is this Kimi has had a long run of unreliable cars. I wanted this Ferrari to be more bulletproof than the last one just for Kimi’s sake.

But on the other hand you can’t make an car fast without stressing a few parts. And that car needs to be fast if he’s going to win.

If you’d ask most drivers what they’d want in a car they’d probably say they want a car that’s fast and reliable. And then they’d start to talk about the compromises you need to make. And how in the end reliable is probably slightly more important. If you’d ask Kimi what would he say? Maybe, “I don’t care as long as I win”.

According to reports it will be confirmed today or tomorrow that we will be having a ‘red rule’ for the tyres this year. Which is completely stupid.

The idea is that everyone has to run during the race with one set of hard tyres and one set of soft. And that the teams have to decide which one they’ll use at each point which is supposed to make things more exciting because people will be on different tyres at different points which will create more artificial overtaking. One of the sets (eg. Hard) will be Red on the side so you know what the driver is driving at any point.

Now I may be proved wrong because all of this might be very exciting. It might, and if it does then I’ll happily eat my words.

But the more likely situation is that it will end up simply confusing everyone. And it has been put in place to create tyre related drama so people keep mentioning the name Bridgestone. But if we wanted tyre related drama why didn’t we just let there continue to be two tyre manafactorers?

Grrr!

Well Super Aguri did a great job last year at even starting the first race, and by the end of the first season they really did have a bit of a team going on. Sato, always a favourite of mine, continued to do well in very difficult circumstances. He even got himself into tenth place in the last race of the season.

The Drivers

Sato has always been somebody that the other drivers are wary of. This is largely because he is so unpredicable. And although at one point he seemed on his way out of F1 I’m glad to say that he seems to have found a place where he’s going to be allowed to flourish. And I feel he is our best chance for a Jacques Villeneuve type person saying exactly what he thinks about the other drivers in the future. With a proper team mate this season he’ll be pushed a little harder which is certainly a good thing. I think he’ll have a good season.

Anthony Davidson joins F1 this year right at the back of the grid but in that most enviable of places for a rookie a team that’s going somewhere. If he shines he can take some of the credit. Anthony hasn’t ever really proved himself to be the fastest potential driver in F1 but he has shown some promise. Lets hope that he hasn’t learned the bad lessons of the permanent test driver (these guys tend to be great qualifiers but the worst overtakers) and takes this opportunity to show the grid that they shouldn’t have been ignoring him for so long.

The Team

This team has done everything together and as a team. They have been working so hard that they really deserve some reward this year.

The Problems?

That they’ll do so well that they won’t be underdogs any more.

Outside Bet?

A podium for Sato

More Likely?

They are the most improved team in terms of points.

A difficult season for MF1 last year, as the team was up for sale almost from the start. Two things seemed to be clear though, that they needed to get the team completely moved over before the start of the 2007 pre-season, and that Monteiro was a better driver than Albers. On the first point they were successful they even got Ferrari engines secured (engine packing problems aside). But on the second they screwed up royally. Spyker is Dutch, Albers is Dutch and so he stayed. Why didn’t they keep hold of Monteiro?

The Drivers

Albers is okay. He’s not terrible. But he was bested by his team mate last year and the year before, and that’s the best yardstick that we have – and is especially important in the teams at the back of the grid.

Stuil is new to Formula 1 but he comes with the personal recommendation of Lewis Hamilton. And if Hamilton is telling Albers to be scared then he might well be on to something.

The Team

The management of the team hasn’t really been sorted out yet, and it’s all a bit up in the air. I think the team will be happy to stick at the back of the grid this year and take a look next year at what they can really do. They had one team behind them last year, but that team is going places. What a strange situation it will be that this year Spyker and Torro Rosso will be challenging each other for dead last position and both with be using the current Ferrari engines (no wonder Ferrari fought so hard to stop Red Bull from switching them).

The Problems

Simply not fast enough

Outside Bet?

Stuil gets himself up into the points a couple of times.

More likely?

Suil outperforms his team mate but it’s hard to tell because nobody scores any points all year.