F1 2008 - my pre season analysis :)

A few more days left for the first F1 GP of 2008. This year promises to be more exiting than ever (coz of the interesting new rules). Being a strong supporter of Alonso, for me personally it not the best of times. Renault has been developing the 2008 car from scratch from the starting of 2007 itself and they are no way close to Williams or BMW forget Ferrari or McLaren– probably they started the development from a bullock cart. So the official stand for me this year is “I am a supporter of the game – F1” :). This is the stand most F1 fans take when their teams/racers are not doing well – same is the case with me :P. I used to be a fan of McLaren but just can support them anymore after all the mess they created last year. I hope Ron retires sooner than latter.

Ferrari – I am great fan of the legendary Luca, but I equally hate that pig faced Jean. Probably because he was part of the Schumacher team (there were times when they won races because of their lawyers, money and cheap tricks rather than Schumacher’s racing skills). It was such a pleasure to see him loose to Alonso in 2006. And I hope Jean too retires soon.

I am hoping against hope that BMW or Williams will give a tough competition to both McLaren and Ferrari.

Anyways these are my views; everyone has the right to have theirs.

The main theme of this post is the new rules that FIA have brought in. Pretty interesting actually –

• The most important rule. Almost all electronic driver assistance has been removed – that includes traction control and electronic braking systems. All team will be using the ECU (electronic control unit) developed by Microsoft!!!! Shit I hope the engineers and drivers don’t have to see the Microsoft copyrighted BSD (the dreaded Blue Screen of Death) during the races.
• 5.5% of the fuel used should be sourced from biological sources – basically ethanol. Green is the way to go but I don’t understand the logic behind this – don’t know in what way this will help the environment. Did someone mention Carbon Credits :P.
• A new design requirement has been brought in to give additional protection to drivers’ head. A change introduced after the 2007 Australian GP accident involving Coulthard and Wurz. Coulthards car missed Wurz’s head by inches :o in that accident.
• Same gearboxes should be used for 4 races. Teams like Super Aguri will be celebrating – they will have to worry about the gearbox costs only once in 4 races.
• Qualifying has been changed to 20/15/10 minutes format. With 7 cars being eliminated in the first two segments.
• This could be tricky – cars will not be allowed to refuel from the start of the last segment – Q3 till the start of the race. A tricky change, will be interesting to see how teams adapt to this in the first few races.
• There are some restrictions on testing - 350KM i guess. – not very sure of this rule though.
• Each team can have only 2 assembled cars at any time during the race weekend.
• Also exact rules have been specified to verify fuel temperature.
  

I guess most of these rules were brought in to assist the poorer teams. The new ECU rule will have far reaching consequences. I was hoping that the slick tires too would come in this season itself, but I guess that will happen only in 2009.

There will be a good competition between Ferrari and Mclaren for the top slots and between Williams, BMW and Renault (i hope) for 3rd, 4th and 5th positions. Renault could come strong in the latter half of the season (when its too late). My predictions would be Kimi, Lewis (i hope this idiot too goes out of McLaren with Ron - dont know from whom he will copy the car setup this year) and Massa.

But everyone lives on hopes and I hope that Renault pulls of something spectacular this season to help Alonso win, if they don’t – I am supporting F1, not any specific team or driver ;)

Opps how could I forget to mention this – I hope our very own Force India F1 team with the support of 1 billion hearts makes atleast one podium finish.