After Race 2: Malaysia

Team orders being obeyed, team orders being disobeyed, pit-lane clashes, Lewis Hamilton driving through the McLaren pit-box, and a Marussia in the top 6, we cover it all in the second edition of F1 Power Rankings.

Discussion about #1

It is hard to think of a situation where selecting the driver to top the power rankings will be more difficult. On the one hand, you’ve got the driver who follows his instincts and does what he deems necessary in his ruthless pursuit towards victory; while on the other, you’ve got the driver who follows team orders and has victory taken from him by a disobedient teammate. Sure it’s possible Sebastian Vettel might hand back the seven points to Mark Webber at a later race this season (if the situation arises) but, by most accounts, the chances of that happening seem extremely slim.

RBR 1-2... but at what cost to future team orders?
Picture courtesy of Sky Sports

1. Mark Webber (last week: 11^th, up ten spots)

Webber did everything right in the race; good start, maximized his strategy and played fair game. What he could not account for was Vettel overtaking him against the will of the team. It is a bitter blow for Webber, who has effectively been cheated out of a victory. This almost certainly leaves Red Bull’s team orders for the rest of the season in tatters. Christian Horner, Adrian Newey and the rest of the RBR pit-wall crew will have an interesting three weeks before Shanghai, a shame given that the team had otherwise called the perfect race, nailing the tyre strategy and comfortably beating their rivals.

2. Nico Rosberg (last week: 8^th, up six spots) & 3. Lewis Hamilton (last week: 6^th, up three spots)

Both Mercedes drivers could stake a claim to the top spot, especially Nico Rosberg. The German clearly managed to drive a more even-paced race which helped his fuel consumption and was unlucky not to be on the podium, something which even Lewis Hamilton openly admitted while giving his podium interview. Rosberg said, “Remember this one” on his team radio after the race, and Ross Brawn will need to remember it, especially if he is to silence Helmut Marko and his belief that “Mercedes have a clear #1 driver”. 

A very good race from the team but they started strongly last season before fading away, so they will want to maintain this form. Hopefully, for their sake, team harmony remains intact after both drivers followed team orders, something that will probably be helped by just how badly Red Bull have been affected by a failure in the identical situation. On a side note, it would have been interesting to see what would have happened had Jenson Button not retired; you would have to think Rosberg would’ve been given the green light to pass Hamilton.

4. Sebastian Vettel (last week 4^th, no change)                                       

Vettel apologized to Webber after the race for breaking the already infamous ‘Multi 21’ team order but the damage has been done. Vettel claims he was unaware of the team orders but he knows deep down he was wrong, otherwise he would not have felt the need to apologize to Webber so many times. His actions raise the unfortunate question that rears its head in sport from time to time, just how ruthless do you need to be to win? Well, after this race, the comparisons have been highlighted between Vettel and a certain fellow German, one M. Schumacher. As Rocky said on the radio, Seb will have some explaining to do. Note: this was Vettel’s 27^th career victory, which puts him =6^th all time

5. Jenson Button (last week: =12^th, up seven spots)

JB could’ve been placed higher in the rankings but that would probably have been overly harsh on Vettel. A very good race up until his pit fiasco, where human error saw the green light go on with the front right tyre not attached cost him a shot at the podium against the two ailing Mercs. A promising race for McLaren given their pre-season and Aussie struggles and they made the most of their grid positions, squeezing  into Q3 as the rain saved them from being eliminated; just a disappointing outcome for Button.

Button was one of several drivers to suffer trouble in the pits
Picture courtesy of CNN

6. Jules Bianchi (last week: 10^th, up four spots)

An excellent 13^th-place finish in the Marussia for the young Frenchman as he overcame a difficult start to the race, which saw him fall behind the two Caterhams. He was then able to keep Maldonado at bay for several laps and again ran in a class-of-one race in the Caterham vs. Marussia battle. His qualifying performance was stunning, just 0.2secs slower than Valtteri Bottas and just over half a second shy of making Q2 which, on a track as long as Sepang, is one hell of an achievement. Bianchi is clearly outperforming the car and as Fernando Alonso and Webber have shown with Minardi in the past, you do get noticed.

7. Felipe Massa (last week: 3^rd, down four spots)

An up-and-down weekend for Felipe Massa sees his fall four spots in the rankings. He once again got the better of Fernando Alonso in qualifying but all his excellent work over one lap fell apart in the opening few corners as he was shuffled back to sixth. He was one of the first drivers to switch to dry tyres and this saw him plummet to the back of the field but he was able to recover to an eventual fifth place, aided by Button’s DNF. A very lonely drive was livened up in the closing few laps as a late pit-stop for tyres saw him having to negotiate the two Lotuses and Sergio Pérez, which he did with ease. Nonetheless, after two races, Massa has proved that he is back to his best (or at least very near it), which will please the Tifosi.

8. Romain Grosjean (last week: =12^th, up four spots)

I had initially pegged Nico Hülkenberg in this eighth spot but swapped him and Romain Grosjean around after a second watch of the race. Grosjean was a victim of the rain in Q2 and the usual advantage of starting 11^th was eliminated thanks to the intermediate-tyre conditions in both Q3 and the race start. Like Kimi Räikkönen, Grosjean fell back at the start but, in a similar way to Webber and Vettel, stayed out longer than his team-mate on the intermediate tyres as he was second-in-line, which meant he vaulted past Räikkönen through the first round of pit-stops. From there on, Grosjean drove a controlled race to P6 to pick up some solid points.

9. Jean-Eric Vergne (last week: 7^th, down two spots)

JEV holds on to his top-10 position in the rankings after recovering from being knocked out in Q1 and crashing into Charles Pic in the pit-lane to earning his first point of the season. Vergne’s 10^th-place finish is a credit to his racecraft; he was 20^th a quarter of the way into the race after getting a new nosecone, but methodically worked his way up into contention for picking up an ‘attrition point’ as cars in front suffered problems and then by out-racing Bottas and Esteban Gutiérrez. It’s fair to say 10^th would probably have been the best either Vergne or Daniel Ricciardo could have achieved today; JEV finishing fifteen seconds behind the late-stopping Pérez and over a half a minute behind Hülkenberg.

10. Nico Hülkenberg (last week: 15^th, up five spots)

Speaking of Hülkenberg, he picks up four points on his first start for Sauber after non-starting in Melbourne. A solid race from Nico, who found himself solidly in the upper-midfield battle alongside the likes of Pérez and Räikkönen – the latter of whom felt Nico was overly aggressive with some of his defensive driving. Sauber need to improve their qualifying but, nonetheless, the race was a good foundation for The Hulk to build upon.

=11. Kimi Räikkönen (last week: 1^st, down ten spots) & Valtteri Bottas (last week: 16^th, up five spots)

Just like in the race, Bottas narrowly misses out on a top-10 spot. I had initially penned him as sole owner of 11^th, before almost placing his fellow countryman above him, before eventually pegging them as equals after this race. The younger of the two Finns had a lousy qualifying session and also found himself last in the very early stages after a mistake. However, he recovered strongly and almost grabbed his maiden point. He has massively outperformed Pastor Maldonado in the opening pair of races and seems to be making the most of the relatively uncompetitive Williams.

Räikkönen, on the other hand, finds himself plummeting down the rankings. His race weekend was the exact opposite to Melbourne – he had pace on Friday but floundered in the inclement qualifying (and also picked up a grid penalty for impeding Rosberg) before a poor start and an early switch to dry tyres further complicated his Sunday afternoon’s work. It took him most of the race to get back to seventh and the former championship leader was soundly beaten by Grosjean.

13. Fernando Alonso (last week: 2^nd, down eleven spots)

Last week’s top two have both fallen outside the top-ten, with Alonso dropping eleven positions after his early exit. Again outqualified by Massa, he was simply too close to Vettel in Turn 2 as he ever so slightly outbraked himself. The call not to pit at the end of lap one was marginal, there was a strong case to be made either way so Ferrari should not dwell on the decision too long. It’s the third time in eleven races that Alonso has found himself out of the race after a first (or second) corner incident after Belgium and Japan last season.

Alonso finds himself in the unlucky 13th spot after his early exit
Picture courtesy of Getty Images

14. Adrian Sutil (last week: 5^th, down nine spots)

Early on during qualifying it looked like Adrian Sutil might challenge for the #1 ranking, such was his pace. Then the rain came, and the Force Indias faded leaving Sutil a lowly ninth on the grid (promoted to eighth with Räikkönen penalty). He was then out-raced by Paul di Resta in spite of the fact he had initially held up his team-mate when his own slow stop held up the queuing di Resta. Their bad luck was compounded as both cars retired with the same basic problem – one with their captive wheel nut system.

15. Esteban Gutiérrez (last week: 17^th, up two spots)

Two races and two solid drives from Gutiérrez, who flirted with the points in the closing stages before a late pit-stop saw him finish 12^th. Having failed to make Q1 in Melbourne, he qualified 14^th in Sepang and kept his nose clean in the race. Hülkenberg finished about half a minute ahead of him, showing the true pace of the Sauber but Gutiérrez has put in two steady, if unspectacular, drives; which provides him with a decent understanding of the car and a platform to work with for the rest of the season.

16. Sergio Pérez (last week: =12^th, down four spots)

Checo ended a barren run of seven races without points with his first top-10 finish for McLaren, picking up a token fastest lap on the final lap having pitted for tyres at the end of lap 54. Pérez spent the race battling amongst the Lotuses and Hülkenberg in the lower end of the points-scoring positions but he was well-and-truly beaten by Button. The car has already improved since Melbourne and will no doubt continue to do so, meaning that an upward trend in Pérez’s results will be expected to coincide with it.

=17. Paul di Resta (last week: 9^th, down eight spots) & Daniel Ricciardo (last week: 18^th, up one spot)

Difficult weekend for di Resta and none of it was his own fault. Again, the Force India seemed quick but di Resta found himself eliminated in Q2 after spinning off in the rain after poor strategy by the team before the aforementioned wheel nut issue saw him having to retire from the race, having been ahead of Sutil in the race. That said, it was again Sutil who grabbed more limelight from the car thanks to his early heroics in qualifying, with di Resta’s racecraft going seemingly unnoticed.

Ricciardo also fell victim to technical problems as an exhaust problem ended his race in the closing stages as he battled for a potential point. He was one of several drivers to find himself aquaplaning into the Turn 3 gravel en route to the grid which also slightly damaged his car. However, he outqualified Vergne and was generally ahead of his team-mate for most of the race before his untimely demise. JEV has gained the early upper hand in what could prove a pivotal season for the STR duo, should a seat finally open up at RBR.

19. Charles Pic (last week: 19^th, no change)

No change for Pic this week, who earned a 14^th-place finish – some 8.9secs ahead of Giedo van der Garde – despite having to replace his nosecone in the aforementioned clash with Vergne in the pit-lane. However, this race confirmed that Marussia are now quicker than Caterham and so the bare minimum Pic must do is to beat his team-mate and, on current form, Max Chilton as well.

20. Giedo van der Garde (last week: 21^st, up one spot) & 21. Max Chilton (last week: 20^th, down one spot)

The two rookies swap positions near the foot of the rankings as VDG beat Chilton in the race. Giedo was also significantly closer to his team-mate than Max was. A good battle between the two drivers, set-up thanks to the Caterhams getting ahead of the Marussias at the start, was won by the Dutchman, as the young Brit was once again unable to match his team-mate’s speed.

22. Pastor Maldonado (last week: 22^nd, no change)

His miserable start to 2013 continues: two races, two DNFs, and with two very underwhelming performances. Bottas managed to drag the car home in P11 but Maldonado’s weekend was again littered with mistakes and he seems to have regressed significantly from last season.

Maldonado found the gravel trap for the second race running
Picture courtesy of Sutton images

All views expressed in this blog are my own and no copyright infringement is intended.

After Race 1: Australia

Welcome to the first edition of F1 Power Rankings. The idea of 'Power Rankings' is nothing  new; I am a huge fan of American Football and Basketball, and several American websites run this feature whereby a columnist ranks all the teams in the league based on not just their results but overall performances through the season. Obviously, being just one race into the new F1 season, the rankings are in a very embryonic stage but you will see some names in places where you might not expect, based on either out-performing their car or having a bad race or run of form. If you have managed to find this blog in this gigantic universal cyberspace, I hope you enjoy reading it and would appreciate any feedback.

1. Kimi Räikkönen

The #1 ranked driver won’t always be the man who won the most previous race or is leading the championship but, after just once race, it is difficult not to rank Kimi Räikkönen top of the pile. The Lotus team were lurking in free practice – with Romain Grosjean topping the dry/wet FP3 – but they saw themselves shuffled back to row four in the chaotic qualifying session. However, Räikkönen turned it on in the race and drove perfectly with Lotus nailing the strategy. His fastest lap in the dying stages was the icing on the cake. His 20^th career win ties him with Mika Hakkinen (14^th all-time).

2. Fernando Alonso & 3. Felipe Massa

It was a close-call between Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa for this runner-up spot. Massa out-qualified his more illustrious teammate and seemed to have the measure of him through the first third of the race before Alonso called his strategy switch which left the Brazilian in a no-man’s land type position. Alonso was his usual imperious self and strangled the most out of the car and it will please him greatly to beat the Red Bulls. Massa almost seemed to lose confidence after the strategy change and faded in the closing stages, the 21-second gap by the end of the race gives Fernando the edge in these rankings. Their excellent fast-starts remain from 2012 and Fernando’s avoidance of Lewis Hamilton when the latter outbraked himself again demonstrated his extreme skill behind the wheel.

4. Sebastian Vettel

Ranking Vettel was difficult. On the one hand, his dominant pole position and strong Friday pace suggested that 2013 was threatening to be a walkover 2011-style but then the sparks seemed to fizzle out during the race. The car never seemed to be the quickest on the track, tailed by the Ferraris in the early stages before eventually dropping to third. Vettel again silenced any doubters about his overtaking potential and, let’s face it, while this might all sound negative, he still finished on the podium!

5. Adrian Sutil

Sutil could easily have been placed as high as fourth, especially bearing in mind how he was able to pull away from Vettel and co. during the middle of the race whilst on older tyres. Brief moments of race rustiness aside, it was an excellent performance from Sutil, who was unlucky to drop out of the top five towards the end of the race as his tyres fell apart. Vijay Mallya and his team will feel vindicated over their controversial decision to re-hire their former driver.

6. Lewis Hamilton

Fantastic weekend for Hamilton. Mercedes seemed unsure of their true potential during preseason testing but they came alive during the weather-affected qualifying session. Lewis got the crucial edge on Nico Rosberg in quali and comfortably had the better of him through the race. Perhaps most importantly, it is evident that Lewis is enjoying himself behind the wheel and he is continuing this re-invigorated form that we have seen from him since the announcement that he was leaving McLaren, and the fact he finished leap years ahead of his former team will have not escaped his attention.

7. Jean-Eric Vergne

Vergne is the main ‘winner’ in this first edition of F1 Power Rankings. His 12^th-placed finish in the Toro Rosso is rewarded with 7^th in these rankings. JEV was excellent in qualifying and missed out on Q3 by virtue of being caught out on the wrong tyres – arguably the only blemish in his weekend performance, inexperience can no longer be an excuse. Regardless, Vergne still outqualified his Aussie teammate and ran strongly in the race, always around 8^th-13^th, mixing it with the McLarens, Webber and Grosjean. A surprisingly high number of finishers kept Vergne from the points but a lead lap finish is a good foundation for 2013.

8. Nico Rosberg

It’s a whole weekend of ‘ifs-and-buts’ for Rosberg. Brilliant in the wet Q1 and also in Q2 but faded in the drier Q3 and fell behind Hamilton. Was running comfortably in the top 5 when his car failed but he will be more disgruntled at the fact he was beaten by Lewis. It is always difficult to rank a driver who doesn’t finish because you can never predict what would have happened but Rosberg earns 8^th thanks to his aforementioned wet-weather heroics and the fact that he comfortably had the measure of anyone below him in these rankings in the race.

9. Paul di Resta

Difficult to know what to make of di Resta’s weekend; quicker than Sutil in qualifying, comfortably put in the shade by the German in the race but only finished three second behind him. No doubt that Sutil’s strong pace was strategy-based thanks to qualifying outside the top ten and Di Resta says he was also held up by Jenson Button. It’s a long season but Paul simply has to beat Sutil if he is to stand any chance of earning a drive at a top team.

10. Jules Bianchi

A Marussia in the top 10?! Indeed. It is never easy to decipher how well the ‘backmarkers’ have performed but Bianchi was in a class-of-one amongst them. The French rookie thrashed his tail-end contemporaries in the wet Q1 before only finishing one lap down to Räikkönen. It is easy to see why he is part of the Ferrari academy and following the route of Alonso and Webber before him is a distinct possibility. However, keeping feet on ground, it is just one race and Bianchi will now be the target for both teammate Max Chilton and Caterham.

11. Mark Webber

Another race goes by where it seems like if there’s any bad luck going around the Red Bull garage, it falls on the #2 side of it. An early KERS issue meant Webber struggled at the start, which in turn compromised him for the rest of the race. In the end, he methodically made his way back up to sixth – not far off Hamilton. He might be seven places behind Vettel in these rankings but he is still only seven points behind his triple-World-Champ teammate, and he should be into the top-10 after Malaysia.

=12. Romain Grosjean, Jenson Button, Sergio Perez

It was simply impossible to separate this trio of drivers in the rankings, but for different reasons. Grosjean helped Lotus bookend a top-10 and was sandwiched between the McLarens. The Frenchman struggled with his set-up after he only received newer parts on Saturday, while Räikkönen had them on Friday. That said, he had a poor start, just like Webber, but was unable to gain as much ground back as the Aussie. It’s likely he would have found the one second needed to beat Button over 58 laps had he been able to set the car up properly. However, when you ponder if he would have been in Räikkönen position all things being equal, you tend to think it unlikely.

Button, meanwhile, seemed to get the most out of the McLaren, capping off an all-round disappointing opening weekend for McLaren. Not much to report for JB; didn’t make any mistakes and earned two points through reliability and a stroke of luck with Grosjean’s issues. The two McLarens were split by less than two seconds at the end of the race, which probably shows Perez had the stronger race, after starting a lowly 15^th. Button made the right call on tyres in quali to make it into Q3 while Checo had the better race tyre-strategy and that meant they ended up pretty even after 58 laps.

15. Nico Hülkenberg

The most difficult man to place in the rankings – how do you even rank a driver who didn’t start the race?! It’s a desperate case of “what might have been” for Nico: an 11^th-place qualifying effort would have seen him likely adopt the counter-strategy that worked so beautifully for Sutil. But there’s no guarantee and he could easily have found himself in the Turn 1 gravel trap instead, such is racing in Melbourne. As expected, he comfortably had the measure of his rookie teammate, Esteban Gutierrez, and will likely be the lone Sauber challenger against the Force Indias and the McLarens in the next few races at least.

16. Valtteri Bottas & 17. Esteban Gutierrez

Two men who put in solid, if quiet, drives on their debut; Bottas was the dictionary definition of mid-table mediocrity this weekend, qualified 16^th and finished 14^th, while Gutierrez went from 18^th to 13^th. Bottas outperformed his more experienced teammate Pastor Maldonado while Gutierrez recovered well from his disappointing qualifying. The Williams has not been as good as hoped and Bottas could find it difficult to keep up with the main midfield pack while Gutierrez will need to focus on his own results and avoid getting rattled by Hülkenberg. Bottas edges 16^th in the rankings as he beat his team-mate.

18. Daniel Ricciardo

A disappointing home race for Ricciardo; outqualified by Vergne and then found himself on the grass on the outside of Turn 1 and slipping to dead last before a broken exhaust ended his day prematurely. One to forget.

19. Charles Pic

Incredibly, with one season of F1 under his belt, Pic is now the elder-statesman at the rear of the field (not literally, though, only Chilton is actually younger than him out of the four). However, he was well-and-truly beaten by Bianchi and even lost out to Giedo van der Garde in qualifying. Pic was easily the lead Caterham in the race but it will be worrying for the team that they seemed to have slipped behind Marussia – despite earning the extra money for edging their arch-rivals to tenth in the constructors last season.

20. Max Chilton

The youngest Brit on the grid damaged his front wing early on but rebounded to avoid finishing last on his debut. Bianchi has a lot more experience in an F1 car so the early margin between the two drivers is perhaps not a great surprise but he will be expected to narrow the gap as the season goes on.

21. Giedo van der Garde

VDG is in a similar position to Chilton, in that it is probably expected that they will be outperformed by their teammate in the early stages of the season (at least). Caterham appear to have the slowest car at the moment and it will not be an easy season for the 27-year-old Dutchman.

22. Pastor Maldonado

Outqualified by Bottas before making a basic error in the race. Who’s the rookie in the team again?

All views expressed in this blog are my own and no copyright infringement is intended.