F1 fans are beginning to get excited about the new season that kicks off in the middle of March, and while some of the internet sites seem to think they know who is going to be winning this year, in the pit lane the story is rather different.
"No-one is massively standing out," says Jenson Button.
In Barcelona we had the odd situation in which Nico Rosberg said that Mercedes can win this year, while his team-mate Lewis Hamilton said on the same day that the team is not ready for success. Figure that out!
What is quite interesting is that in the eight days of testing that have taken place in the course of February, at the Jerez and Barcelona circuits in Spain, there have been eight different drivers who have set the fastest times each day. The only pattern is that the eight have come from four teams: McLaren, Ferrari, Lotus and Mercedes-Benz.
Red Bull Racing, which has won both F1 titles for the last three years, has not been quickest on any single day of testing, and yet the team does not seem to be in any sort of panic. If one looks at the list of drivers who have been second fastest on each of the eight days, one finds Red Bull drivers twice, Force India twice and even Sauber.
Compare this list to the finishing order in the Constructors' Championship of 2012 and you can see that the same teams ranked first to seventh in the Constructors' title: Red Bull, Ferrari, McLaren, Lotus, Mercedes, Sauber and Force India.
It is quite possible that we will find out that nothing much has changed when the F1 circus turns up in Melbourne for the Australian Grand Prix. It might even be that we have a sequence of races with different winners, as happened at the start of last year.
Stateside
Formula 1 has always been rather forgiving of circuits in countries that are needed to give the sport its global flavour. The tracks in Canada and Brazil have very poor quality facilities compared to all the fancy venues in Asia and the Middle East, but Bernie Ecclestone has not been able to strong arm the Canadians and the Brazilians into doing a better job - because they know that he needs them as much as they need him.
There was a similar problem for many years with Monaco before finally the Monégasques were bamboozled into spending some money.
With F1 now looking at a growth spurt in the Americas, both Canada and Brazil probably need to buck up their ideas. There is increasing noise from Mexico City about the revival of the F1 track there, now that there are two Mexicans in Grand Prix racing.
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I can't wait either
I think Merc won't be any better than last year, and its gonna be close at the front.
kcrally is lamenting the loss of the "spectacle" of refuelling. Ah, those were the days, hose on, pause, hose off. Now we have to sit through more overtaking, wheel to wheel action, 7 different winners on the bounce and down to the wire championships. No wonder we prefer Lycra clad Germans sliding down mountains.
Not sure if Long Beach would
Not sure if Long Beach would suit a modern F1 race. The track seems very tight, somewhere between Monaco and Valencia, and highly unforgiving concrete walls surround it.
Long Beach not doing badly...
The estimated 3-day crowd for the 2012 Long Beach IndyCar race was 170,000 spectators, so I wouldn't say that's particularly bad going. Granted, it's not in the league of Silverstone's Grand Prix 3-day attendance (297,000 in 2012), but frankly not much in the world of motor racing is these days. A lot of the current Grands Prix do much worse than Long Beach for attendance, so I'm sceptical as to how much it really needs F1 to pull in the crowds. Indeed, given the USA will soon have 2 races to pick from already I'd say the law of diminishing returns is going to kick in pretty quickly. IndyCar's biggest problem, as far as I can see, is its teams are too busy bickering with each other and their governing body to actually sort out some proper promotion. That has been American single-seater racing's Achilles heel since the USAC days, and why NASCAR has been able to capitalise so readily. Bang some heads together, sort out some decent promotion and you'd probably get improved crowds for a fraction of what Bernie charges.
Anyway...as has often been said, F1 testing is something of a phoney war and we're probably not going to know until Q3 in Melbourne who has actually hit the nail on the head. I think we'll probably see Red Bull, McLaren, Ferrari and Lotus start out strongest (not convinced about Mercedes), and who knows, out of them we may get some variety in terms of race winners. 7 different winners in the first 7 races again is probably a bit of a long shot, though. Then again, no one expected it last time around...