Conclusions from Turkey

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A Few Conclusions From The Turkish GP
Sunday 7th June 2009 - PlanetF1.com

One Brawn driver is top class. Another may not even be second tier. The result is a chasm in which credibility will be lost...

The Schumacheresque Tag Is No Longer Meant As Flattery
On frequent occasion during previous months, Jenson has been approvingly compared to the sport's most successful driver. However, the Turkish GP may prove a tipping point: if Button's latest victory is to be described as 'Schumachersque' then it is only likely to be applied in a pejorative sense. This was a soporific procession and, in that build-them-up-to-knock-them-down way of the world, it is inevitable that Button's parade in Silverstone will be clouded by the accusation that the superiority of his driving and car is making the sport a turn-off.

After years of back-running frustration, the claim should not unduly concern Button. Yet it was notable in Istanbul that he seemed aware of the charge, arming himself in advance to the attack that will have gathered pace this weekend by the incredible size of his own pace advantage.

On Friday, he played down his chances of victory, making it sound as if a win would be an upset. On Saturday, his first answer contained the line that "it is great that we have got a lot of competition...It is not just the Red Bulls and the Brawns but also the Ferraris are quick as well and the Toyotas, so it is good." On Sunday, his victory press conference was but a minute old before he sought to remind viewers that the Red Bulls were a match for his Brawn in a couple of the previous races. Button, clearly, is aware of the mutterings that have already begun and eager to silence them.

As both he and Lewis Hamilton have learnt this year, in two very different ways, F1 is a fickle business. The probability is that the people already decrying Button's advantage are the same people who just a few months ago were celebrating the eradication of the Ferrari-McLaren duopoly of 2007 and 2008.

Button's Title Will Lack Full Credibility
Button's remarks suggest that he is both sensitive and defensive to the accusation that he is turning 2009 dull. Little wonder. It cannot be pleasant knowing that the fulfilment of a lifelong dream is likely to be tainted by sourness and claims - already made in part by Fernando Alonso and Flavio Briatore - that it was 'boring' and bereft of credibility.

Compared to previous seasons, 2009 is bound to be reviewed as a dull year - especially if any of the races are a repeat of the Turkish procession. "Sorry if it gets boring, but you need to look at the other teams," Button answered in Istanbul. The problem, though, is that it is impossible to look beyond Brawn.

Although it is a rare year indeed when the fastest car on the grid doesn't result in one of its drivers being crowned champion, the superiority of the Brawn is abnormally large. Nor can the brickbats be deflected by the claim that theirs and his is a triumph for the small guy. To quote Saturday's edition of the Daily Mail, itself the most influential newspaper in Britain, 'For all the talk of what a fabulous return this is from a team which was on the scrapheap after Honda withdrew their funding last December, it must be remembered that this is the most expensive and exhaustively developed car in Formula One history.'

The critics are sharpening their knives and the next attack, to which Button will have no defence, is bound to be that his title lacks credibility due to the absence of a competitive team-mate. Rubens Barrichello's display in Turkey was the worst of a bad 2009 lot without a single redeeming feature. Brawn have made it easy for their drivers, and Barrichello has made it easy for Button. Sorry if 2009 is turning boring, but you need to look at the inadequacies of the second Brawn driver if you're unhappy.

F1 Needs Its Main Men At The Front
It is, alas, an unfortunate consequence of the F1 world being turned upside-down that second-tier drivers are at the front and first-rate competitors are elsewhere. Hearing Fernando Alonso bluntly ignoring the command of his Renault team to back off was as amusing as it was a sad reminder of what F1 is missing this season. The novelty of races in which Alonso, Raikkonen and Hamilton are not competing properly has quickly worn off.

Red Bull Continue To Clip Their Own Wings
A lack of frontrunning experience has also been apparent in the inadequacies of Red Bull's strategy-making. The team have already erred on a number of occasions this season and it was hard to make sense of their decision not to switch Seb Vettel to a two-stop strategy once he had lost the lead of the race and doubly so when the BBC's Ted Kravitz quoted Christian Horner as describing their car as "undriveable in dirty air". Given that a three-stopping would inevitably require Vettel to catch and pass heavier-fuelled cars, and that he'd have to come through dirty air for that to happen, it was a 'strategy' that was doomed to failure.

It is, not incidentally, a point to be made by Frank Hopkinson elsewhere on the site that the sight of Vetell's Red Bull flagging behind Button's Brawn that comprehensively damned the technical commission conveyed at the bequest of the FIA to improve overtaking. They have failed.

The Brawn Still Looks Too White
Notice the lack of sponsorship and endorsements on the Brawn? It must be a concern - and, in part, vindication for Max Mosley's belief that the sport must cut costs dramatically - that the leading team of the sport is still without a title backer a full three months after they jumped to the front of the F1 queue.

The longer without, the less money received by Brawn, and the longer they delay paying up, the less exposure the sponsors will receive. And if Brawn, heading for a title success in their first year as a team, are struggling to conclude a deal, just how much of a struggle must finding new sponsors be for the rest of the field and the teams planning on joining the circus next March?

McLaren Should Be In Pole For 2010 By Doing A Honda
The absence of a title sponsor is all the more alarming given the likelihood that Brawn are already nearly halfway through the only period of dominance they'll enjoy in the near future. Who really believes that they will still be the team to beat next season?

Brawn's position at the front is a consequence of their mammoth budget being concentrated almostly exclusively on 2009 from the dawn of 2008. The boot is likely to be on the other foot next year when F1 will cease to include refuelling and its cars will be substantially revamped. At the start of the season, Martin Whitmarsh described Honda's decision to effectively ignore 2008 in order to steal a march on 2009 as a "strategy". With the MP4-24 seemingly unfixable, it would be no surprise - and arguably very sensible - if he takes McLaren on a similar route for 2010.

McLaren's Car Is Probably Now The Slowest On The Grid
And unfixable it most probably is. Lewis Hamilton described the car as a mystery in Istanbul, and the lack of understanding would account for the MP4-24 going backwards relative to McLaren's rivals since its improvement in Bahrain. The car looks to possess a fundamental flaw that no number of tweaks will disguise or solve.

Turkey was another turn for the worse, with Autosport reporting: 'The extent of McLaren's problems with the car was highlighted at Turn 8 in Turkey with qualifying analysis showing that it was the slowest car of all through there - and up to 15km/h adrift of the Force India machines.'

Even though damning, that analysis may actually flatter McLaren by not accounting for the extra MPH generated by the Mercedes-manufactured KERS device. Generally considered to be the best such device in F1, its removal would perhaps McLaren to the very back of the grid.

Pete Gill

 

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