2015 has been depressingly short on true excitement for F1 races. Mercedes continue to dominate the sport the same way as last year and no-one seems to be able to really challenge them. We’ve had eight podium finishing racers but only three winners and only one race where neither of the Mercedes drivers have finished on podium. With rotten luck robbing points from Vettel and seemingly nothing to slow down Mercedes, the championship seems to be in the bag and we’re barely halfway through the season.
So why has it turned out this way? Well, inevitability is probably a big reason. Mercedes had the best start to the season because they had the best finish. The team adapted best to the rule changes that came into force in 2014 and nothing hugely different was introduced at the start of this season. You can see this in the fact that teams that were struggling last season (Red Bull, Sauber) are still struggling and the teams which were doing well (Williams) are still doing well, but not as well as Mercedes.
Also, reliability has been a big issue for Red Bull this season, probably even more so than last year where they struggled with pace but Daniel Ricciardo was still on the podium semi-regularly (as opposed to his one podium this whole season). This means that the only teams that have even had a shot at challenging the Mercedes cars have been Williams and Ferrari who are the only ones to have improved notably from last season (even though Alonso was driving solid races last year too). But as opposed to a team like Williams who is fairly fast in qualifyings and then mucks up everything in the race, Mercedes remains strong in all aspects of the weekend. That’s why neither Bottas nor Massa are a championship contender this year. And Vettel can work miracles come race-time, but on the single-lap qualifying, the Ferrari is no match for Mercedes.
In other words, there’s few teams to really cheer on when you know they won’t be able to match Mercedes’ pace. In 2010, there were four teams vying for the championship: Ferrari, McLaren, Red Bull and Mercedes. Of course, after Vettel’s first championship there was a rather dull follow-up when Red Bull dominated, leading to a rather one-sided 2011 and 2013 seasons, but in the middle of it all, the 2012 season was still a tight battle between Vettel and Alonso. Williams and Ferrari are the only ones putting up the fight now with the decline of teams like Lotus (due to monetary problems) and McLaren (due to switching to a new engine supplier), and that makes following races difficult when there’s never really a dark horse candidate to win a race.
Then there’s the fact that even traditionally excellent race venues like Australia, Canada and Spa have all been very unexciting this year. Drivers have been more than a little cautious, especially following Bianchi’s fatal accident last year. We are seeing perhaps less risk-taking on tracks where people still recall big crashes from last season. Also, the grid is shorter this season with 20 cars total. Caterham is no longer complimenting the F1 roster and even with Manor and McLaren constantly bringing up the rear, the amount of traffic is significantly smaller than previous years (accounting for the obligatory 2-3 retirements each race). This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it just shows there’s a lot less holding back the race-leading drivers who don’t need to navigate past as many lapped cars as previous years.
Then there’s the rookie situation which I will confess isn’t their own fault. However, even with a significant amount of new drivers it’s hard to really cheer them on since we don’t know yet which of them are going to have long, healthy careers and who will probably not be back next year. Roberto Merhi and Will Stevens (I’m counting him as a rookie despite him running one race last year) have it hard enough driving for the single slowest team on the grid – but Felipe Nasr, Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz Jr have all yet to have shown their true skill. At the same time, there’s not much of a risk for any of them since being rookies (and especially for the latter two, part of Red Bull’s driver programme) their future for next year is already secured. Then we have the near-rookies, Marcus Ericsson and Daniil Kvyat – both of whom have gotten a huge promotion from last year into driving in highly respected teams. For Kvyat, he can be happy about his first podium finish but he’s not been able to challenge Mercedes either (having switched teams at the season’s start) and Ericsson is still struggling with an under-powered car (though one that is vastly superior to the one he drove last year). Therefore, save for one podium, we haven’t seen any new bright stars this season either.
I’m not suggesting here that we need more crashes – but definitely more risk-taking and maybe a few more race-winners. I would want Vettel to hang on to the championship fight right to the season’s end, but it’s hard to remain optimistic. I still would hope for at least five entertaining races where maybe some of the underdogs (Sauber, McLaren) would succeed and some of the new faces would make some daring drives and give the veterans a run for their money. If we can’t have an exciting championship race, I at least would want to see more action at the back.
Hande's Blog 