Ollie White of BlogF1 has written a post that may well be a significant indicator of true form of the teams over the off season. Titled Pre-Season Testing Comparison: 2008 vs. 2009, the article looks at the best times of each team at the Barcelona tests in 2008 and 2009. Statistics are as fickle a guide as testing itself, but Ollie's list contains so much interesting information that I just have to unpack it a little.
Nico Rosberg in the Williams FW31
For a start, it is immediately apparent that the 2009 cars are already faster than last year's. That is the opposite of what we saw in the early tests of the off season and shows how much every team has honed and improved their cars in a very short time. One has to sympathize a little with the FIA in its constant quest to slow the cars.
It should be no surprise to us now that Honda/Brawn was the team to make the biggest improvement - a whopping 3.733 seconds is a huge chunk of time in F1. This must surely be yet more evidence that the BGP 001 really is as good as it has seemed in testing and could well be the car to beat in Melbourne. Note that I am still hedging my bets, however; I am not going to predict the constructors' championship for the team. Even with the extensive facilities of the Brackley base, it is hard to believe that Brawn GP can maintain their advantage over a full season against the likes of Ferrari and McLaren. BMW has similar facilities but flagged in the development stakes last year.
I find it interesting that BMW is the next team up, with a healthy 2.085 second improvement. They were half a second behind the Ferrari at the 2008 test and went on to be just short of Ferrari pace through the season. But BMW's gain in the improvement stakes has wiped out the Italian team's edge so that their times in 2009 are almost identical. With Domenicali worrying about reliability and the BMW as solid as a rock, this may be a sign that the Beemer could win the struggle this time around.
Ferrari gained 1.554 seconds over the year to be third in Ollie's list and immediately behind them is the Williams team (1.519 secs). That should augur well for Sir Frank's outfit but memories of how they faded last year curb my optimism. The team's weakness does seem to be in staying up with the development pace of the top teams and I have to conclude that they will have another year of patchy performances.
Toro Rosso (1.452 secs) is the next team on the list but their figures are affected by not having the latest Newey design in the 2008 test. Had they been running the STR3 that early, one would have expected their improvement to be similar to Red Bull's of 0.682 seconds. In contrast, Force India's 1.188 seconds is entirely in keeping with their improvement this year.
Next up are Renault and Toyota, surely the great disappointments of the comparison at 0.779 and 0.710 seconds respectively. Renault went on to be midfield runners in 2008 until their late season surge and it looks as though they will have a similar season this year. But it is Toyota that surprise me most; they have looked good in testing so far and it can only be that I have forgotten how strong they seemed at this time last year. We all know how the team failed to live up to expectations in 2008 so it may be wishful thinking that sees them challenging for wins this time. I will give them the benefit of the doubt, however, and believe that they can put up a strong performance in 2009. It has to happen sooner or later, surely...
Red Bull too have gained little ground (0.682 secs) over the year and this confirms my doubt that Newey's clever design gives any advantage over the other teams. I have seen some very optimistic predictions for RBR and STR this season but Ollie's figures would indicate otherwise.
And so to McLaren, uncharacteristically bringing up the rear (0.440 secs). I suppose that being one of the fastest one year means that any drop in performance will mean a smaller increment in the next. It is shocking to see the team at the bottom of the list even so. McLaren fans must just hope that the team make major gains at Jerez next week and arrive in Melbourne ready to give a strong account of themselves.
We should be wary of reading too much into the comparison; it is about testing, after all, and we have no idea of the settings and fuel load used for each team's fastest laps. Ollie's post is wonderful fuel for speculation, however, and I propose it become a regular event in future off seasons. Good one, Ollie - the idea was sheer brilliance!