This question is the subject of this week’s ‘Thursday Thoughts’ on Sidepodcast.

To be honest, it’s an interesting choice of subject in a week dominated by headlines of Brawn being bought out by Mercedes, Jenson being a turncoat and defecting to McLaren, and Kimi storming off in a huff from F1 because he can’t get what he wants…

No, it won’t be him!

Anyway…

To answer the question, I think nobody will be the next President of FOTA.  Why?  Because I think that FOTA has served it’s purpose and has been severely weakened by the recent manufacturers.  They couldn’t get what they wanted even with all of the teams ‘united’ and now there are signs that there will be disagreements that could undermine the stability of the organisation.  This is because the teams that have replaced the big-money manufacturer teams are small, independent teams who have relied on the FIA to gain entry into the sport, and therefore do not see the world the same way as the ‘established’ teams.

Also, you can imagine a situation where if a team gets into financial difficulty, they will have to resort from an advance from Bernie, who will probably ask them to vote against FOTA proposals as Bernie and Max are BFF’s and FOTA essentially exists to stop Max forcing through his changes.

“Hang on – But Max is not around anymore?” I hear you ask.  Yeah true, except everyone else in power is still there and Jean Todt (the new FIA president) was Max’s preferred (and some say appointed) candidate.  So I am certain that the way things run has not changed in that respect.

When you add up all of the above, you get a recipe for fracture and disharmony.  As an example of this, think back to Williams this year – it is a fact that they received an advance from Bernie and they have mysteriously voted against almost every FOTA proposal this year, even being forced to leave the organisation at one point.  One team acting in this way caused a lot of trouble, so four or five teams will end up being a significant minority.  With most motions requiring a unanimous response, you could foresee a situation where nothing could ever be decided!

This is why I think FOTA has run it’s course, because I see this happening with all the new teams who are bound to struggle.  Therefore I believe that not long after Luca steps down, the organisation will get disbanded so nobody will replace him as president.

I think what I have written here might be slightly inflammatory, so if you agree/disagree/have another view then please feel free to leave a comment below.  Just be nice please!

The question was asked on Sidepodcast as part of their new ‘Thursday Thoughts’ series.

Well, to answer the question posed by Mr. C, it’s got to be Ross Brawn, hasn’t it?

Ross Brawn looking happy at winning yet another award in 2009

Why have I picked Ross Brawn?  Well, I guess you need to think about stuff like this time last year, he didn’t even have a team as Honda mercilessly exited from the sport.  Yet he managed to convince them to fund the team to keep going, to the tune of millions of dollars!

He also convinced the other teams to give him a Mercedes engine deal and was offered a Ferrari engine too, such is his respect in the paddock.  With this last-minute deal, he led his team to redesign the car in less than six weeks, making huge compromises and taking huge risks.  Andrew Benson spoke to a senior engineer in the team, and the article has the following quote which is quite shocking:

What is less well known, though, is that the car is, in the words of my source, “a botch job”.  It was designed for a Honda engine, and it was not until December that the team knew they would be using a Mercedes. That necessitated some pretty crude changes.

“The chassis had the back six inches cut off to fit the engine in – the sort of thing you wouldn’t normally do even with a test car,” says my source. “And the gearbox was in the wrong place because the crank-centre height is different. There’s a massive amount of compromise in the cars.”

Those compromises introduced a significant performance deficit into the Brawn car, but it raced like that all year.

Amazing – quite how they did this and kept it quiet, while having a budget so tight they could only afford to build three chassis is amazing!

Also, he managed to keep both his drivers, even though they were courted by other teams and by staying, had no guarantees of a drive in 2009… and convinced them to take a pay cut!  He managed to guide his drivers through a tough year, when the car was competitive and then dropped off the pace, their second driver had a little wobbly when he thought he shouldn’t win, and the champion-elect had a big wobbly because he realised he could finally do it and suffered under all the pressure.

On top of all this, he had to cut 270 jobs and yet everybody seemed to take it in good spirits, he had to deal with all the publicity, he helped bring some sponsorship money in and used his brilliant tactical brain to win races and gain places where they shouldn’t have.  With one race to go the team had both titles sewn up and won far more races than anyone else.

Yeah, I know, you might say that they only won because of Honda money and that they had the double-diffuser before anyone else.  But even if you choose to believe that (and I don’t), that’s the genius of the man – he ensured his team made the most of what they had and got so much of an advantage the other teams couldn’t catch up.  Now Mercedes are looking at investing in the team and with the chance of building a proper car for next year, who says that this was a fluke and that they won’t be near the front again?

With Ross Brawn, anything is possible…

So what next for this blog now that we have entered the off season? Never fear, because while I have been basing a lot of my blog posts on stuff that happens over the race weekend, this does not mean I won’t have anything to write about now the season has ended.

On the contrary, in fact – I have been saving up loads of ideas for posts that simply could not have been done during the season! The most obvious I guess would be roundups of the 2009 season – which I plan to look at from the numbers perspective, of course…

Then I plan to branch out a bit into some special projects that were just too massive to attempt while the season was on – the regular posts just took up too much time to do this. And besides, I wanted to have some stuff to do during the off-season when I could really sink my teeth into it…

Other than that, if you guys have any ideas on specific stuff you would like me to look at, then please give me a shout in the comments and I’ll see what I can do – I always try and write these posts with my readers in mind, of course

So you’ll have plenty of reasons to visit ‘Making Up The Numbers’ during the off-season – and I hope that when you do, you will be pleasantly surprised by what you see here

It’s Driver Consistency for the final time in 2009 – who was the shining star under the lights in Abu Dhabi?

Race Recap

In contrast to the last race, this was dull, dull, dull

Here are some pics, which considering this was a night race, the selection was not that great today:

Sutil going so fast he’s all blurry – must be a camera effect then (PicApp.com)
Mark Webber and the hotel with the coloured lights that is in every photo (PicApp.com)
Alonso toiled for the last time in a Renault today – hoping for better things from Ferrari (PicApp.com)
Webber takes 2nd to make it a season ending 1-2 for Red Bull (PicApp.com)

I have already covered the main points in my Fantasy Racers post, and there isn’t much else to add, other than the fact that Alguersuari got confused by the similar liveries of Red Bull and Toro Rosso and drove into the Red Bull pit garage by accident on his stop, forcing him to be sent out without fuel and running out before making it back to the pits again.

Also, Hamilton retired due to brake problems in the right rear which he had been having all race.  This was a shame, because judging by his performance all weekend, he could have walked this race.  I have been told that it is his first ‘mechanical’ retirement so far, too.

But the race was awfully dull.  Yes, the venue is excellent, and it’s probably a good track (even for a Tilke-Drome), but the fact is that the Overtaking Working Group massively failed in their task to improve the racing so that cars would not be affected by the dirty air.  There was little overtaking as it was just too difficult – in fact, you will see later that Button was much faster than Webber, but just could not get past him.

And Button has been one of the best over takers this year!

But I will leave it to Lukeh to summarise the Grand Prix, which he did in this comment on Sidepodcast earlier:

“One of the highlights was when the hotel lit up in orange, a stark contrast to the dullness being produced on track… ”

Couldn’t have put it better myself, mate!

Driver Consistency

So for the last time in 2009, let’s look at the lap times to find out how consistent each driver was.  If you need more info on my calculation methods then please refer to my post on Driver Consistency Explained.

The first graph usually follows the race classification closely, with a few exceptions.  Button (third) is marginally faster than Webber (second), and Kovalainen (eleventh) was a little quicker than Kubica (tenth).  Hamilton’s pace would have put him in thirteenth place.

How about when we remove the pit stops?  Who is the fastest and most consistent now?

With just the lap times and no pit stops involved, we can see that Hamilton had the pace to finish sixth – even with the problems he had.  Button is still faster than Webber, Kobayashi drop and the other one-stoppers drop back, because the time saved by taking one less pit stop is balanced out by the penalty of carrying extra fuel per lap.

Therefore, we can see that for drivers starting higher than tenth and if the pace of the driver is decent, then it is worth taking a gamble and putting a driver on a one-stop strategy.  However, this is especially risky at Abu Dhabi, because the race started at Dusk and finished at night.  This meant that the temperature dropped significantly, which means that the track characteristics would have changed more than in other races.  To use a NASCAR analogy, when they have similar day/night races, they say the track ‘tightens up’ (which I think means that the cars understeer more) and they require constant setup changes during the race.

This means that there was a risk of being caught out with the wrong setup or the wrong tyres at some point, which may have required the driver to pit again and lose the time advantage gained by only stopping once.  However, this didn’t seem to happen in the Grand Prix, so the one-stoppers managed to jump a few places

Anyway, there will be less reason to discuss this next year as refuelling has been banned.  Tyre stops are still allowed, but these will be mega short and will not factor so much into the race strategy.  While on paper this sounds great, because drivers will be forced to overtake on the track, this may end up making the races a procession, because if the aero rules are unchanged, then the drivers will end up being stuck behind the others unable to overtake each other.  One would hope that this doesn’t end up happening this year, but after today I can’t say I am optimistic

Conclusions

What can we conclude today?  Well, as we said before the race was not very entertaining.  However. the 2009 season is now over.  We have a new world champion, we have had new winners this year, we have had loads of ups and downs, heartbreak and heart-warming stories, scandal, political intrigue and even some on-track action

It’s been a long and eventful season and to be honest, it’s good that it is over – because it will be nice to have a little break to recharge the batteries.  It has been great fun writing this blog for you guys and I hope that you have found it enjoyable and useful.

But I am not going anywhere!  To keep things going during the off-season, there will be loads of special posts covering topics that look at the season from a different angle or were too large a project to take on during the season.  So if you have any ideas on what you want me to look at, then please let me know

Otherwise, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the race today… but please keep it clean…

The start of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix (PicApp.com)

So, the final race of the season.  Sadly, although the venue was fantastic, it did not produce good racing.  Lewis had the race in the bag, but experienced serious brake problems which led to his retirement.  This meant that Vettel cruised to a win after the first pitstop when he jumped Hamilton.  There was not much action on track, although Rubens and Mark Webber were involved in a little incident at the beginning which damaged Rubens’ car (although he managed to continue without repairing it).

The only other action of note was a flurry in the last few laps for second place involving Webber and Button.  It was exciting and good clean racing, although it again highlighted a major failure in the aerodynamic regulations that Button was unable to get near or get past Webber.

So the first qualifying session at the brand new and quite spectacular Abu Dhabi circuit.  The drivers coped very well with all the changes and it was an entertaining session.  The main feature of the track seems to be how spectacular it looks – they are trying to be the ‘Arabian Monaco’.  With that in mind, I can’t resist adding a few pics

Vettel riding off into the sunset (PicApp.com) Vettel the Night Rider (PicApp.com) Hurry up Webber, we’re burning daylight (PicApp.com) Kubica racing past the hotel that changes colours, just like he will do in 2010 (PicApp.com)

Thankfully there were no crashes or bad incidents and most drivers seemed to have enjoyed the track.  Hamilton took pole by seven tenths and looked very happy about it – which means he must have a decent fuel load and the Red Bulls are running light.

Fisichella was well off the pace, qualifying last, while Alonso never made it out of Q1 and Raikkonen out of Q2.  Kovalainen had awful luck with gearbox problems in Q2, so will probably have to take a penalty.  He thought he had a good car today too (#sorryAmy).

The Brawns were also off the pace, again the issue being heat generation in the tyres.  Shame really, as people were promising Button would do really well here with no pressure.  Still time though…

So, the championships have been decided but there is still one race to go.  However, this race will not be a complete dead rubber because we are visiting a brand new and exciting circuit in a country we have never visited before.

In fact, there are plenty of firsts with this track, some of which sound good, some sounding bad, and some completely unknown.  For example, the race has been completely sold out and will start in twilight and finish in darkness under floodlights, which sounds cool.

However, the layout does look a little too much of a Tilke-template (even if the surroundings look gorgeous) and the pit lane exit is tight and underground – the drivers have to go through a tunnel to get back on the track.  This sounds dangerous to me and I think there is a high probability of seeing a red flag because of an accident blocking the track here.  We shall see…

What a fantastic race! Loads of action and overtaking, topped off with Button winning the title! It was probably the best race of the year and proved that the older circuits are still the best…

There was so much focus on the battle between Jenson, Rubens and Sebastian that nobody really noticed who was running at the front, so here is a picture of the podium:

The three podium finishers: Kubica (2nd), Webber (1st), Hamilton (3rd) – PicApp.com

It’s Driver Consistency time for the Brazilian Grand Prix – who sizzled under the Samba sunshine and who had too many caipirinha’s before the race?

Race Recap

Wow!  What a race!  The first lap was crazy, with Sutil and Trulli pushing each other off the track and then pushing and shoving each other arguing about it.  For my money, it was Trulli’s fault as Sutil had the corner… but the net result was that it brought out the safety car, which was good for a lot of drivers – Button had avoided all the carnage to move from 14th to ninth, Raikkonen had damaged his wing but limped in for a pit stop with the McLarens, who all switched to one-stop strategies.  Barrichello stood to lose out as he had a light fuel load…

But disaster struck when Heikki’s lollipop man got too excited and let him go too early – ripping the fuel hose off and spraying fuel all over Kimi – which erupted in a flash fire!  Thankfully, apart from petrol getting into his eyes and making them sore, Kimi carried on and had another decent race.  Barrichello kept the lead until his first stop, when he got stuck in traffic which ruined his strategy.  Webber took the lead while Button and Vettel charged through the field – making four very brave passes, including a duel with impressive rookie Kamui Kobayashi in the Toyota which ended in a ballsy overtake.  It was clear Button wanted to win the championship today and he drove like a man possessed!

Button dives down the inside of Kobayashi (PicApp.com)

Wow – what a qualifying session today!  We all knew what each of the championship challengers had to do – but nature intervened as the heavens opened in a downpour not dissimilar to that of Malaysia this year!

Summary

Qualifying was delayed after a torrential downpour in FP3, and when Qualifying finally started, Q1 was stopped after Fisichella spun early on in the session.

After a lengthy delay, it restarted, but conditions were so difficult it became a lottery with both McLarens and Vettel dropping out.

Vettel’s Championship chances look grim at best (PicApp.com)