McLaren ought to have been the big winners of 2012’s opening races, but instead it’s Red Bull and Fernando Alonso who are the real winners.
There have been very different objectives among the top teams in the opening races of 2012. For McLaren, who arrived in Melbourne with the best car, it was to win races to try and open up a lead in the championship.
For Ferrari it was simply a case of damage limitation to ensure they didn’t leave Bahrain cast adrift in the championship. To a certain extent the same applied to Red Bull who discovered that they weren’t on the lead pace in Melbourne.
As we head to Spain the pecking order could be set to completely change. Formula 1 has a three day test at Mugello (the only chance to test in-season) where teams will be trying major upgrades, which they plan to use at the start of the European season in Barcelona.
Traditionally the Spanish GP has always been the race where teams make huge changes to their cars. With the 2012 field so close together these upgrades could completely shuffle the field. If one team can out-develop their rivals by two or three tenths before the race it could be extremely significant.
For the likes of Lotus, Mercedes or Red Bull it would potentially move them clear of the field. If McLaren don’t deliver good enough updates it’s feasible that they could be overtaken by all three of these teams. There is no doubt we are entering one of the most, if not the most critical period of the season.
Only 1983 has seen more individual winners from different teams in the opening races (© Mercedes AMG).
The fact that we have seen four winners from the first four races has led to the championship being wide open. Nobody has taken a huge early lead as we saw with Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull at the same stage last season.
This is absolutely brilliant news for Fernando Alonso and Ferrari. Considering their dire troubles in winter testing and the start of 2012 they have come out brilliantly from these four races.
In 2011 Sebastian Vettel had already won 93 points after the first four races of the year. In 2012 he sits at the top of the table having scored just 53 points.
In a car which is currently only good enough for the midfield, Alonso is sitting only 10 points off the lead in the championship. With the same number of points this time last year he would have been 50 points off the lead (two race wins). This is thanks to the inconsistency of the front runners and a couple of giant killing drives from Fernando.
He somehow drove the car to fifth place in Melbourne and then took the small sniff of victory, which the rain provided in Malaysia to win against all odds.
Ferrari head to the Mugello test well in the championship hunt with Alonso. Ferrari have huge changes planned for their car in a bid to solve their current issues.
If these changes are good enough to get Ferrari nearer to the leading group of teams then that will be enough for Alonso to be a huge factor in races. All he needs is a car in range of the frontrunners and he has the capabilities to get himself amongst them.
A surprise win for Alonso in Malaysia has kept his title hopes alive (© Ferrari).
If he’s regularly on the podium from Spain onwards, it would probably be enough to keep him in the title hunt if the pattern of the season so far were to continue.
Fernando Alonso says: “After four races, with 100 points to win, being eight or 10 points behind the leader is completely unthinkable.”
He added: “It’s a bit like a present what we’ve had in this first four races. We appreciate it and we take it, but leaving the points aside, what worries the team is the performance of the car, and that we have to improve it right away for Barcelona.”
Red Bull haven’t been on the greatest form at the start of 2012. Rule changes have clearly affected them particularly with the banning of the exhaust blown diffuser. They have found it more difficult to get everything together compared to last year.
Despite that they have still been scoring big points consistently. Webber has had four fourth places, whilst Vettel came second in Melbourne and managed to win brilliantly last time out in Bahrain.
The first four races have represented a huge opportunity for Red Bull’s main rivals to get a head start on them in the championship, but they have failed to do that, with their inconsistency. For all the issues they have had it’s been Red Bull who have been the most consistent team.
The RB8 already has one win under its belt, but how many more can it achieve? (© Red Bull & Getty Images).
Now Red Bull have the chance to introduce big updates to the car, and knowing the talent of Adrian Newey they will probably make a significant difference.
Red Bull could go to Spain and it could well end up being business as normal (just a hunch), and their rivals may end up rueing their missed opportunity in the first part of the season.
Following Red Bull’s Bahrain GP victory Christian Horner told BBC Sport: “To predict this performance after one week ago is tricky. But we have consistently managed to be scoring pretty decent points in the first three races. That puts us in the lead of the Drivers’ and Constructors’ championships after the flyaways (long-haul races), which is certainly not what we were expecting after the first couple of races.”
He added: “So it just shows that if you maintain your focus and team-work, it can pay dividends.”
McLaren are probably under the most pressure during the next few weeks. It all started so well down under with a 1-3 finish. Since then the team have failed to get the maximum results possible from the car.
In Sepang they blew a front row lockout as they struggled to get the tyres up to temperature in the wet conditions, and Button made a rare error when trying to overtake Narain Karthikeyan.
Three poor pit-stops in four races have cost McLaren dearly so far (© McLaren).
In China a botched pit stop blew a realistic chance for Jenson Button to win the race. Two bad pit stops for Lewis cost him big points in Bahrain and he ended up only finishing eighth. A puncture meant Button didn’t finish in the points for the second time in four races.
From second and fourth on the grid McLaren certainly should have scored more than four points, even if they perhaps weren’t fast enough to win on this occasion.
Martin Whitmarsh told Autosport that the tyres were the reason for McLaren’s disappointing Bahrain performance: “You look at our pace here by comparison to long runs on Friday and we were a second slower than we were then. One second slower is 30 or 40 points of downforce and we didn’t lose that, so it’s really these tyres.
He added: “They are very, very challenging and if you get in the sweet spot, then you are in great shape, and if you are out of it then you are in for a pretty tough time.”
After the first four races of the season McLaren will be disappointed to have only won one race out of the four, and to not be leading either championship.
Looking back they certainly could have won the first three races of the year had things worked out differently.
After the first four races of 2011 Red Bull were on 148 points and 43 points clear of second place.
Not the worst start for McLaren, but it could have been so much better (© Red Bull & Getty Images).
Overall it would be fair to say McLaren have had the best car during the first four races. However instead of the position Red Bull found themselves in after four races last year, McLaren only have 92 points. Instead of leading the championship, they are nine points behind Red Bull, plus their drivers are behind Vettel in the drivers’ championship.
It’s not a disaster for McLaren as they have a fantastic development rate and will no doubt stay there or thereabouts throughout the year. Having said that, their reputation for fast development stems from seasons when they’ve started a long way off the pace.
Adding big chunks of performance to the car when you’re already one of the pacesetters is an entirely different challenge altogether. This year may well be the true test of how good the Woking squad’s development rate really is.
The business end of a championship may be when it appears a title is won or lost, but very often form in the early races can have a lot to do with the final outcome.
If Red Bull or Ferrari were to just edge the championship they may well look back at the successful damage limitation in the first four races as one of the main reasons why they won it.
If McLaren were to just lose out by a couple of points they may also look back at the first four races, and think that they threw away too many easy points.
You can never draw too many wild conclusions after just four races, but there is no doubt the top teams who have been seeking damage limitation from the flyaway races are the happiest so far.
