Formula 1 – Back on track?

Being a Formula 1 fan has been tough the last few years. Same team winning all the time. Tyre management. Vettel swearing at everything.

Yes, saying you’re a fan of Formula 1 often feels like you’re admitting to stealing underwear off washing lines (that wasn’t me though, honestly). People look at with a mixture of amazement, horror and sympathy. Why would you do that? Surely not for fun? You need some kind of help.

The Mercedes team have dominated for the last few years, and whilst 2016 gave us a decent battle between their two drivers, no-one else was really in with a shout.

Everyone complained endlessly about having to drive cautiously to stop their tyres wearing out too soon. Former champions were reduced to pedalling cars that were either slow and fragile (Alonso and Button’s McLarens) or dogged by poor strategy calls and a propensity to get into any accident going (Vettel & Raikkonen’s Ferraris).

2017’s season kicks off this weekend in Australia, and there are reasons to be cautiously optimistic.

Over the winter F1 was sold, finally ending Bernie Ecclestone’s throttlingly-tight grip over the sport. It’s new owners have already allowed teams to film clips of their cars in action for social media (ridiculously previously not allowed) and a top to bottom review is underway that is already addressing some of the sport’s issues.

The cars have been built to a new rulebook over the winter, and look lower, wider, meaner and more like the brute-force power monsters of years gone by. Aerodynamic changes and fatter tyres mean they go round corners as if on rails, and lap times are set to tumble. The chunkier tyres will also last without needing to be gently managed too, and delighted drivers are already saying the cars are, at last, challenging to drive again.

Winter testing also suggests that Mercedes might have a fight on their hands, with a resurgent Ferrari raising eyebrows with the speed of their red cars.

The World Champion, Nico Rosberg, dramatically decided one title was enough, right after the end of the season last year. British favourite Lewis Hamilton will no doubt be hoping his replacement, Valterri Bottas, isn’t as big a threat to his 4th title dream as the retired champ was.

Elsewhere, the Force India team will be showing up in a fetching shade of pink, whilst troubled McLaren have turned orange. Unfortunately, a colour-scheme change hasn’t helped their reliability. The team struggled to keep the car running in testing, it’s fragile Honda engine apparently rattling itself to pieces.

Even when it was working, it had about as much speed as my first Honda - a 50cc moped. At least that usually got me where I wanted to go.

Fingers crossed then. Some thrilling, flat-out racing, a close battle between different teams and drivers, and it might be OK to say you like Formula 1 again.

Otherwise, the weather looks good this weekend. People might be hanging their smalls out to dry...

This post first appeared as my "Thank grumpy it's Friday" column, in the North West Evening Mail, on the 24th of March 2017. The version used on their website was re-titled as "Revved up for F1 season", which was actually the title of my season preview from this time last year. I like a bit of recycling.

Despite being excited, I'm stuck with the fact that I'll be watching the highlights on Channel 4, as I'm not going to pay Sky oodles of cash to view. So, it's back to avoiding social media, news, the radio, TV and human contact on half the race weekends, so I don't hear anything before I tune in. If you don't want to know the score, look away now... and for half the day too.

A baffling announcement from F1's new owners, about the fact that F1 stops being on free-to-air TV in the UK after next year, contained lots of words, but pretty much no intelligible information. I work in marketing, and even I didn't understand it. You have a go...

Yup. Couldn't have said it more confusingly myself...

(CD A-Z: Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells" - but the rather splendid 2009 stereo mix. Because I'm a nerd, yes.)

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