Every year FIA, the sport’s governing body, changes Formula 1’s technical regulations with the purpose of leveling out the playing field. This forces designers to work within a very strict set of parameters that make gaining an advantage a great challenge.
Despite FIA’s efforts to increase competition even more, F1 is far from becoming something akin to a one-make series. Some teams always make a better job than others do, but we have to wait until each year’s first race before drawing any conclusions.
At the 2012 Australian Grand Prix, the Saturday qualifying session showed us certain things like that the McLaren is currently the fastest car out there, while Red Bull Racing seems to have lost some of its pace due to the rule changes that affected the design of the RB8.
Mercedes has upped its game, Lotus could give the establishment a few headaches and Ferrari looks to be going back to its pre-Schumacher/Brawn/Byrne/Todt years that brought it back on top after 21 years.
Passing a judgment before the chequered flag drops on Sunday though is premature.
Come Sunday, McLaren proved that, even though it bucked the stepped nose design adopted by its rivals, it does have the best (and prettiest) car so far. When the red lights went out, Jenson Button made a better start than poleman Lewis Hamilton and led the pack into turn one.
Likewise, Sebastian Vettel beat his teammate, Mark Webber, with both Red Bulls being the only cars that could seriously challenge the McLarens. They were aided by the bad start of Romain Grosjean, who had placed his Lotus in third place on the grid, and the early retirement of Michael Schumacher due to a gearbox malfunction.
Moreover, the two team’s pit stop strategy and the safety car that came out on lap 37 allowed Vettel to slot in between Button and Hamilton and claim second place on the podium.
By the team’s own admission, Fernando Alonso salvaged what was a disastrous weekend for Ferrari. Thanks to his driving and the F2012 being considerably quicker on medium tires after the pit stop, the Spaniard finished a solid fifth.
Not bad, considering that he started from 12th place, and certainly much better than Felipe Massa who retired after making contact with the Williams of Bruno Senna: “This has been a really poor weekend for me”, he said. “Yesterday I suffered because the car was badly balanced and today it was probably even worse, because after a few laps I was struggling with the tires.”
Apparently, Alonso managed to find a much better balance; or he simply was much faster than the Brazilian who was looking for excuses.
