The biggest news going into this season has been the comeback
of the 2007 World Champion Kimi with the Lotus Renault team while Williams
which is a deep free fall into F1 obscurity has tied up with Renault in a hope
to rekindle the magic which resulted in total dominance in the early 90’s.
Apart from that there have not been any big name moments between teams.
This is the team line-up for the 2012 season:
Red Bull Renault – Vettel/Webber
McLaren Mercedes – Button/Hamilton
Ferrari – Alonso/Massa
Mercedes AMG – Schumacher/Rosberg
Lotus Renault – Kimi/Grosjean
Force India Mercedes – di Resta/Hulk
Sauber Ferrari – Kobayashi/Perez
Toro Rosso Ferrari – Ricciardo/Vergne
Williams Renault – Maldonado/B Senna
Caterham Renault – Heikki/Petrov
HRT Cosworth – de la Rosa/Narain
Maurussia Cosworth – Glock/Pic
The Lotus issue has been solved now with Renault F1 becoming
Lotus while Team Lotus has become Caterham while even Virgin has now become
Maurussia. Mercedes have also added AMG to their name.
Among the drivers, the longest servicing F1 driver Rubens
Barrichello was given the boot by Williams while fellow veteran Jarno Trulli who
was originally supposed to drive this season was replaced at the last minute by
Petrov. Sutil was also dropped by Force India while Toro Rosso went for a total
clean-up as they replaced both Sébastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari were
dropped. Others missing from the grid includes Nick Heidfeld, Vitantonio Liuzzi
& Jérôme d'Ambrosio. Atleast d'Ambrosio & Buemi have landed up reserve
driver roles.
The pre-season testing is always interesting and though this
season it looks very close when you look at the time of various drivers but Red
Bull looks like the favorites once again while McLaren could have a car which
can challenge for the title. Ferrari seems to have got it wrong and so this
could be another year where Ferrari will struggle and this time around they
could be lucky to retain the 3rd place in the constructors table. Mercedes
is looking strong and looks good to challenge for regular podium places while
if you look at pre-season pace Lotus is looking very dangerous and if they
actually have a fast car and with Kimi behind the wheels they can upset some
big teams.
The mid-field once again looks tight but early signs show
that Force India looks more likely the team which can break away from this pack
while Toro Rosso could also surprise a lot of people. Sauber looks ok but
nothing special from the team and they will actually do well to finish 7th
like last season while Williams will just feel good beating these teams are
gone are the days where you had Williams challenging for the title. Caterham
will do anything just to score a point while HRT & Maurussia just make up
for the numbers. Atleast Maurussia is trying hard; HRT is nothing but a joke.
My Predictions for 2012:
2012 World Drive’s World Champion: Sebastian Vettel
2012 World Constructor Championship: Red Bull Racing
Disappointment of the Season: Ferrari
Sure to get Fired: Massa
Sure to change Teams: Lewis Hamilton
Sure to Quit the Sport: Mark Webber
Surprise Package of the Year: Lotus/Force India
Rookie of the Year: Jean-Éric Vergne
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