2009 will either turn out to be the year overtaking came back to F1 or the year of disastrous performances from drivers all and sundry. The reason being the sweeping changes introduced to the format this year. The absence of traction control brought a lot of focus back to the driver last year. We saw cars twitching into turns and skidding while driving out of it. Flat spotting tyres happened more often with drivers trying to outbrake each other into a turn. This year's regulations will bring max rev limit down to 18,000 rpm from 19,000 rpm. A driver will be allowed 8 engines for the season and 4 more for testing, any more engines will invite a 10 place penalty on the grid. Interestingly Renault has been allowed to introduce changes to it's engine to equalize performance with the others.
This years cars won't have any aerodynamic enhancements on their body work, this is to allow the cars running behind run in clean air rather than get caught in the turbulence impeding overtaking. The front wing will be seen lower and wider almost extending from end to end of the wheel of the car. Driver will be able to make adjustments to the wing from the cockpit, this has been limited to two adjustments per lap. Technically this means if a driver changed his wing to facilitate better traction on a slow curvy track, he'll have to switch to his normal position when he hit's a high speed straight. Any further change in the same lap won't be allowed though the quantum penalty he might invite is not clear yet.
KERS will see the light of the day in active racing this year. Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS) is a new optional system which allows saving a car's energy lost normally during braking and makes it available for use on demand for the driver at a later stage. This system is designed to provide as much as 80 hp power to the driver, the catch here is that the driver is not allowed to use it for more than 6.7 seconds per lap. For the one's used to seeing the 'Fast and furious' series I believe we can imagine this to be something like the 'nitro boost' the drivers are shown to have in the movie. I'm ready to stick my neck out and say not all teams will run their cars with KERS in Melbourne, KERS comes with a significant handicap in terms of weight for the flywheel and battery and it might take some time for the teams to work out the performance equation which will vote for or against using KERS.
Bridgestone remains the lone supplier of tyres for F1 and this year's regulations bring in slicks back to active racing, no more grooves. Drivers will have to use two compounds in every race like last year but how the slicks fare in wet weather conditions is going to be anybody's guess. With reduced downforce this is surely going to go the cartoon way. It will also bring in tight racing and hopefully bring up more overtaking opportunities.
There is a testing ban during the season which means teams won't be allowed to do any kind of testing after Melbourne until mid December. This is a move that is aimed at reducing costs and help prevent financially sound teams from splurging on testing while helping other teams to not worry about not having the money to conduct such testing. A hugely unpopular rule that was in force last year was about pitting when the safety car was on track. Imagine a car that was dangerously low on fuel and was on it's way to pit when a on track incident forced the safety car to come in. The pit lane would be closed and if this car enters the pit to refuel a penalty would be served (either a 10 second stop/go penalty or a drive-thru pit penalty). This year this rule has been withdrawn and the pit lane would remain open. To keep an eye on drivers who rush into the pits to take unfair advantage a new system will be employed which will calculate the time a car needs to take to get to the pits, if any driver arrives sooner he'll invite a penalty.
Some of these rules are aimed at helping F1 develop technologies that can be used on road cars but environmentalists will be disappointed that nothing has been introduced to help the sport take a greener turn. The cars look odd, last year's cars were stunningly beautiful while this year's are a little sore to see. The team line up is almost the same as last year the only change being in Honda Racing. This has been rechristened Brawn GP and the legendary Ross Brawn has invested his money to save this team after Honda withdrew from F1. Mercedes Benz has been allowed to supply engines to the Brackley outfit and it will be interesting to see Ross Brawn use his team and resources working with a Mercedes engine, using a Ferrari engine would have been a natural choice but it remains a mystery as to why he couldn't secure an engine deal with Ferrari.
Force India wasn't anything to speak about last year and during the end the termination of some high profile personnel got it in the news. Vijay Mallya knows to work the media to his advantage. With McLaren electronics & gearbox and Mercedes Benz engines this team might be the dark horse this year. Who can forget Simon Roberts and the role he played in McLaren? He's taken up the role of the COO in Force India and prior to this assignment he was Operations Director in McLaren. Simon joined McLaren in 2003 as General Manager and was responsible then for for coordinating the manufacture and assembly processes, I.T., transport and logistics, quality, vehicle technology laboratories and human resources. If only the team prinicipal can concentrate on actual racing, instead of strutting pretty women (girls) on the grid week after week, this year could be a windfall year for this team with an Indian name.
All of the team predictably are holding all their cards close to the chest and rightly so. Red Bull appears to have gotten a lot of mileage and Mark Webber's recovery is well on track. Renault have been doing very well in testing, Alonso topped the time sheets this week. BMW have been the 'let your work do your talking' type and one can be sure that they are doing very good progress. McLaren should have a lot to worry about and this year's focus would be to get both the driver's and constructor's titles back to Woking. Ron Dennis has stepped down from the role of Team Prinicipal and Martin Whitmarsh (Marty) has stepped in his place. I expect Ron to show up at all races, this man got divorced last year and it can't get any worse than that.
One can expect Norbert Haug (Head of Mercedes Benz Sporting) to hang around in Force India & Brawn Racing's garage give that engine partnership he shares with this team. Abu Dhabi makes it's presence on the F1 calendar this year, Canada is absent with which F1 does not travel to North America at all. Remember previously we had a race in Montreal and in Indianapolis which lost their places in the last two years. Everytime I start writing about F1 I try to be brief but brevity is not my forte. This season promises a lot but can it deliver? Let's see how it all pans out, over to Melbourne.
