Dark horse: Expert bets on a surprise win,
Canadian Formula One expert Gerald Donaldson, author of more than 20 books on the sport and one-time editor of an F1magazine founded and published by one Bernie Ecclestone, is suggesting that Mercedes might have a fight on its hands this season and that, come December, when the smoke from 21 races has cleared, there could very well be a new world champion.
During our annual pre-season chat at a downtown Toronto restaurant called Over Easy, a.k.a. the Toronto’s Star’s “North Bureau,” Donaldson also said he thinks the new Haas F1 outfit isn’t going to be the disaster many first-year Grand Prix race teams turn out to be and that Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, despite what many people think, aren’t really enemies.
In fact, just to get that last point out of the way early, this is what he had to say about the Hamilton-Rosberg competition: “Much of what you hear about a rivalry between those two guys is manufactured. They don’t hate each other, regardless of what one or the other might say. They’re both just very competitive. And what two teammates were ever best friends? Maybe a few but . . . I can’t recall any.”
So what’s the secret? How do you keep two guys, who want to beat each other up, working together?
“I once did a long piece about that with Ron Dennis,” he said, “and Dennis said that it was a lot like being a marriage counsellor. You want to keep them together but you have to really work at it. I’m not sure that team manager Toto Wolfe can do that. He’s very articulate and presentable and he’s a good spokesman for the team but I’m not sure how skilled he is at being a heavy, hands-on, manager.
“(Jenson) Button and (Fernando) Alonso are getting along at the moment because they’re both losing. Just wait till one of them gets going.”
Talking about Jenson, I said, why does he keep getting hired?
“He’s a great team player,” Donaldson replied. “He’s a nice guy, a good PR guy, and he’s a hero in Japan — at least he was until he left his wife, Jessica Michibata. But they love him in Japan and I think that has a lot to do with why he’s still at McLarenHonda.
“He’s a very optimistic guy. As JV (Jacques Villeneuve) used to say, ‘He’s a smiley guy who looks like he should be in a boy band.’ ”
Donaldson, who wrote his first book on F1in 1977 and then went to Europe to work in the sport full-time, said if there is any animosity between teammates, it most likely would come because of the difference in pay.
“The highest-paid driver in (F1) is Sebastien Vettel,” he said, “and he gets — and this is in pounds — £32 million a year (about $60 million Canadian). Next comes Hamilton at £28.5 million while Rosberg only gets £12 million — less than half of what Lewis is making (although Hamilton has won three world championships and Rosberg has won none)
“Alonso is third highest at £27 million and Button gets £9 million. (Ni- co) Hulkenberg is paid £3 million and then, at the bottom, nobody’s making anything; they’re bringing it.”
Donaldson, who writes a blog at f1speedwriter.com, said that everyone is curious about McLaren, because it was a powerhouse for so many years but now seems to be wandering in the wilderness. He said over our plates of eggs that he doesn’t expect things to change much in 2016. “McLaren has made improvements but they had a lot of failures (during pre-season testing),” he said. “They had two big problems last year; they were unreliable and there was a lack of power.
“Some of my colleagues with slide rules and computers have determined that they’re still 100 horsepower down (to everyone else). They can only improve; in fact, they will improve.”
Starting at the top, this is pretty much what he had to say about everything:
There could be a new red threat on the horizon, because Ferrari set the fastest times in the two tests at Barcelona but there are the usual suspi- cions that Mercedes is sandbagging. But remember, Mercedes just kept going round and round and round and after the two tests it was discovered they had run the equivalent of 19 of the 21 grands prix on this year’s schedule.
So they’re usually reliable and they’ve been obviously testing reliability. And they’ve got this new super-soft tire this year and Ferrari set their times on that tire. But at least
there’s a bit of hope — unless you’re a Mercedes fan.
Reality could come crashing down but we must remember that for the last two or three years of Mercedes dominance, they really did dominate. So some of these other teams are fairly close; there’s not this huge gap we’re used to seeing — in testing, anyway.
There’s going to be a traffic jam behind Mercedes and Ferrari. A lot of teams are jostling for position and they’re very similar. But if you have to pick a third, I think it would be Red Bull Racing. They’ve got the Renault engine (although they’re calling it a TAG Heuer) and Mario Illien is back — he’s a genius, a brilliant man — and working on it, so it could turn out to be a dark horse thing.
Then there’s Force India, Williams and Renault. Sauber didn’t pay their team wages in February; they are chronically underfunded. Manor — they have Mercedes engines — have two new drivers: Pascal Wehrlein from the DTM and Rio Haryanto from the Far East, who’s never won anything in his life but he’s got lots of money.
The Haas team could be a surprise. All of the new teams in recent years have been at the tail end of the field. These guys have a good chance of being further up.
Their goals are modest: points. Not a big ask.
The new “musical chairs” qualifying is absurd. The one thing about F1that has worked for the last seven or eight years has been the qualifying. So what do they do? They tinker. It’s the bloody Formula 1 strategy committee doing all this stuff.
Every week, something changes in their frantic attempt to make it interesting. There’s a tremendous amount of dissatisfaction from everywhere, from the fans to the participants and it’s unhealthy. On the other hand, it’s one of the attractions of the world’s fastest soap opera.
Who will win?
Donaldson: I always vote for change — and I’m never right. There are five world champions on the grid and since 2006 they have won everything. We need a new face; I think it would be terrific for the sport if it was Daniel Ricciardo. There’s the possibility that Red Bull could really surprise and if that’s the case, he could do it.
McDonald: I think that Mr. Hamilton is going to win his fourth world title. He’s not going to take any crap from Nico. He knows he can intimidate him at will, or else get him so screwed up in the head that it’s painful to watch. He’s fast, he’s competent, he’s a real racer. Gerald Donaldson reports on Formula One. Google “Gerald Donaldson F1.” His Twitter handle is @f1speedreader. Norris McDonald is editor of Toronto Star Wheels and writes about motorsport at thestar.com/autos. Reach him at nmcdonald@thestar.ca.