Fast Show Hits Road

The latest news from Melbourne indicates that ticket sales for the Australian Grand Prix on 2 April are down by 10 per cent. The reason given is the counter attraction of the Commonwealth Games in the same city during the preceding weeks. For ex-pats in Victoria and the British audience at home, the organizers ought to use Jenson Button in their sales pitch since the Englishman must finally win the F1 equivalent of a gold medal in 2006 or have his reputation cast for ever among the also-rans.

Button faces a tough task for reasons that go beyond the immediate ability of his Honda team to provide a competitive car. With the engine rules having been rewritten, all 11 teams are starting from scratch, making it impossible to provide any reasonable prediction other than to say the competition will be extremely close.

Honda appear to have dealt better than most with the change from a 3-litre V10 to a 2.4-litre V8, as proved by day after day of relentless running as the Hondas of Button and Rubens Barrichello ran like clockwork in testing.

Button racked up a colossal 5,429 miles, which is worth a season-and-a-half of racing and 725 miles more than anyone else since testing began in November.

On the basis that the championship will probably be decided by whichever engine manufacturer - BMW, Cosworth, Ferrari, Honda, Mercedes, Renault and Toyota are all dealing with the fundamental change in formula - makes the most reliable rather than the most powerful V8 Honda appear to be ready to take advantage, particularly during the first three races as the teams operate far from home.

The same can be said for Renault as the reigning champions rely on the technical excellence of Rob White and his engine team in Paris. Reliability played a significant part in their campaign in 2005 and will continue to do so into another year of a rule requiring each engine to last for two races.

If an unscheduled engine change is necessary, the driver loses 10 places on the grid. While penalizing the driver rather than the team, this controversial rule did as much damage to Kimi Raikkonen’s championship last year as the mechanical mayhem caused by his fast but fragile McLaren-Mercedes. And the problem for the Finn is that he might suffer the same frustration this year if the first attempt by Mercedes to produce a powerful and bulletproof V8 is anything to go by. Revisions to the engine appear to have improved matters during a recent test, but no one knows how the McLaren will manage in race conditions.

This being Formula One, suspicion and innuendo continue to bubble beneath the surface, a contentious issue possibly erupting if Scuderia Toro Rosso are unexpectedly swift. In the absence of a suitable V8 engine, the revamped Minardi team has chosen to use a detuned V10 from 2005. If the equivalency formula proves inadequate and in STR’s favor, then expect complaints, particularly from those in the new team’s wake. This may come to nothing because the perennial problem of deciphering off-season performances has been clouded by unknowns such as the amount of fuel on board and the tyres in use. Predictions have been complicated further by Ferrari avoiding last week’s test in Barcelona in favor of running in the heat of Bahrain, scene of the opening race next weekend. Ferrari’s work has focused on tire development with Bridgestone, an area that let down the former champions last year.

Bridgestone had difficulty making a single set of tires last for the entire race, but another important rule change for 2006 ought to favor the Japanese company now that tire changing is permitted again during races.

This will also affect Williams and Toyota, two teams that have switched from Michelin but off-the-record mutterings suggest Bridgestone might have some way to go to match the performance of the French firm who dominated 2005 and intend to see out their final year in F1 with similar success.

Sunday’s race will mark the start of a hectic and crowded season, relieved slightly by the late cancellation of the Belgian Grand Prix in September. The signs are that the championship will run until the final long-haul races in the Far East and Brazil and the current betting suggests it will be fought between Renault, Honda and, if they have sorted their engine, McLaren. But never underestimate Ferrari and the remarkable enthusiasm of Michael Schumacher as the seven-times champion enters his fifteenth full season of F1.

The rapid strides in F1 technical development are easily seen when comparing the Jordan with which Schumacher made his F1 debut in 1993 and the Ferrari that will carry him towards his 250th grand prix.

The Jordan, arguably one of the most beautiful F1 cars thanks to its elegant simplicity, had a manual gearbox and an absence of electronic controls. Today’s F1 cars use onboard computers aided by more than 200 sensors to assist seamless gearshifts carried out in 20 milliseconds and instigated by the driver flicking a paddle at the back of the steering wheel.

The body shape and aerodynamics of the Jordan were largely done by the intuition of its designer, Gary Anderson, working on logic derived from more than 20 years working in F1 and driven by the adage that if it looks right then it is right. Conversely, every nip, tuck and curve on Schumacher’s Ferrari will have been crafted in a wind tunnel running seven days a week.

Of more immediate interest to Schumacher and his colleagues is the introduction of yet another qualifying system in a bid to make the establishment of grid positions more equitable and less boring than in recent years when each driver took his turn to run a single flying lap. The revised qualifying may seem complicated at first glance, but it promises to fill the hour’s running with action from start to finish.

All 22 cars will take to the track at the outset, the slowest six being eliminated at the end of the first 15 minutes. The process will be repeated with the remaining 16 drivers during the second 15-minute sector, leaving 10 drivers to shoot it out for positions on the front five rows of the grid.

To add further spice to the final 20 minutes, the 10 cars must run with the fuel on board intended for the first phase of the race whereas, in the first two sectors, drivers can run with as little fuel as they dare. In all cases, the cars are refueled before the start. The final 10 drivers are faced with the dilemma of deciding whether it is worth running light in qualifying and gaining a good grid position, only to have to stop early in the race.

Strategy will, therefore, be even more vital than before, something that will suit the master tacticians, Renault and Ferrari.

If Ferrari and Bridgestone have done their homework, Button’s gold medal in the shape of a first win may not be threatened but Schumacher could easily be on course for his eighth - and probably final - championship.

Despite such a dreadful season in 2005, Schumacher is joint favorite with Raikkonen. But Alonso’s odds of 2-1 are a sure sign that the 24-year-old has every chance of becoming the eighth driver to claim back-to-back titles since the start of the championship in 1950.

F1 Race Calender

12 MarchBahrainSakhir

19 March MalaysiaSepang

2 April AustraliaMelbourne

23 April San MarinoImola

7 May EuropeNurburgring

14 May SpainBarcelona

28 May MonacoMonte Carlo

11 June BritainSilverstone

25 June CanadaMontreal

2 July USAIndianapolis

16 July FranceMagny-Cours

30 July GermanyHockenheim

6 August HungaryBudapest

27 August TurkeyIstanbul

10 September ItalyMonza

1 October ChinaShanghai

8 October Japan Suzuka

22 OctoberBrazil Interlagos