Matt Youson is the chief writer for the F1 paddock's daily newspaper, The Red Bulletin. He has been an ever-present in F1 for many years, travelling to every round of the F1 world championships and is a contributor to F1 Racing, Racing Line, Intersection and Race Tech magazines, as well as the websites of several F1 teams and the broadsheet press. Here he writes an exclusive column forCentral Tyre, detailing what's really going on in F1.

 

Inside F1

 

Back In The Formula One Groove.

Everyone is back in the pitlane for winter testing. The teams will run thousands of kilometres between now and the first race in Australia on March 16th, in a programme that takes them to Spain, the South of France and Bahrain. The very unlucky also go to Silverstone.

It’s a shock to the system. Two weeks after being bleached in Brazil, sub-zero, wind-battered Northamptonshire represents quite a different challenge. The mechanics and engineers who’ve just spent nine months wearing shorts and T-shirts now grab everything in the kitbag, from body-warmers and woolly hats, down to fingerless gloves and extra socks. Not so much the champagne jet-set as the Bovril boys. The drivers morosely walk the track trying to figure out a route around the standing water. It isn’t terribly glamorous.

Actually, winter testing is OK. The vibe is very different to that at a race, even though the people and the equipment are often the same. The pace is easier, stress levels are reduced. Even McLaren were running in Jerez in Santa hats, with Christmas lights strung up around the motorhome. For a journalist a test can often be more productive than a race because people have more time to talk, and are willing to do so. But it isn’t all one-way, leading to the faintly ridiculous situation of engineers and press officers nonchalantly sidling up to the scribes and asking ‘so, any idea who we’re going to sign – will you tell us when you do?’

Contracts for the coming season are usually negotiated during the summer, but this year the situation with Alonso and McLaren has affected that. Mid-summer, usually, is far enough into the season to know if a driver has lost his edge; which teams are in the ascendancy; and where relationships have been damaged beyond the point of salvage. It also coincides with lots of racing in Europe and the semi-official F1 ‘holiday’ when racing and testing are suspended for a couple of weeks. Drivers go off the radar for a while, and if some of them accidentally bump into their agents, their lawyers and a group of high-ranking officials from a rival team, what of it? Naturally it’s a time of rumour, counter-rumour, posturing, speculation and panic. Generally it’s referred to as ‘silly-season.’

This year everything was even more hysterical than usual because of the Alonso-McLaren thing. And while Alonso was obviously annoyed with McLaren, he also wasn’t sufficiently foaming to out-and-out alienate a team that might still provide him with a championship. The fall out from this is that with the first snow on the ground, half the seats for 2008 still appear to be up for grabs, regardless of contracts, which seem to be more a basis for negotiation than a binding legal document these days.

In public most team people adopt a ‘don’t know, don’t care’ attitude. Drivers come and go, it’s the nature of the sport, so it doesn’t pay to get too attached. But get into the garages and it’s a different story. Everyone wants to know. The thing with Alonso is that nobody does. At the time of writing, I’m not even sure Alonso does, though doubtless the situation will be resolved shortly.

One thing that has emerged is a definite sense of a generational change. While the younger guys might move around, it’s the drivers in their early-mid 30s who are the target of the whispering classes.  Why would that be? Obviously there is a tipping point where the body simply isn’t capable of doing the job anymore, but the likes of Giancarlo Fisichella (34), Rubens Barrichello (35), Jarno Trulli (33) and David Coulthard (37), surely aren’t there yet. Back when Nigel Mansell was winning grands prix in his 40s, anyone aged 32-35 might have been considered to be reaching their prime. Today the hot properties are ten years younger than that: Robert Kubica was 23 on December 7th: he’s a couple of months older than Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, a year older than Kazuki Nakajima and three years senior to Sebastian Vettel.

So, what changed? Well, young drivers also tend to be cheaper, grateful and more exciting for the sponsors. And then there’s the technology.  There has previously been a trade-off. The 22 year-old might have the superior reflexes and eyesight, but his older-self will have greater experience and greater physical strength. The physios will talk about ‘man-strength’, the thickening of the core muscles that a driver only develops through a decade of training and pulling high-gees on a regular basis. Maybe he doesn’t have the raw pace, but over a race distance, he won’t slow down through fatigue, and he won’t make any stupid mistakes. In the overall analysis, that should see him finish ahead of his younger rivals.

Or at least that was the case. But the cars have got easier to drive, the big, sticky slick tyres and the huge downforce-inducing wings have disappeared, but powered steering, ABS, and traction control have come in, leading David Coulthard to remark recently that the current machinery is ‘more like big F3 cars’. The older guys might still be quicker in a fair fight over two hours, but F1 isn’t decided over two hours anymore, it’s decided over the few hundredths of a second that determine grid slot. The near impossibility of overtaking makes starting position vital. Alex Wurz had fine race pace last season, but an inability to qualify well left him trailing way behind team mate Rosberg, prompting Alex’s decision to retire.

Of course there is usually an exception to every rule. In F1 his name is Michael. Schumacher is testing for Ferrari and, as usual, blowing everyone else away. It was interesting to sit above the pits at the recent test in Jerez. On Wednesday most of the photographers were camped on the pitwall outside McLaren, eager to get pictures of Hamilton – until Schumacher arrived on Thursday, when they instantly deserted their posts for a similar one outside Ferrari . The old man’s still got it.

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