Formula One - 2013 season preview NEWS
Formula One returns this weekend with one of the most highly anticipated seasons in years coming up, starting with the Australian Grand Prix at Melbourne on Sunday.
Competition for this forthcoming season is expected to be tougher and more intense after Germany's Red Bull driver Sebastian Vettel won his third successive world championship in 2012.
Most of the major drivers are still with the same teams from 2012, although there is one major change with Britain's Lewis Hamilton now racing for Mercedes, after his move from boyhood team McLaren. He and new team mate Nico Rosberg have shown great pace in pre-season testing and Hamilton is hoping that the move will allow him to capture his second world championship.
Hamilton has long been acknowledged as one of the best drivers on the grid and it is thought that a better car in recent seasons would have allowed him to compete more equally with Vettel. However, his attitude in recent seasons did not endear him to his technical colleagues, and comparisons with McLaren team mate Jenson Button were not favourable in that regard.
To replace the yawning gap left by Hamilton McLaren signed Sergio Perez, but it will be another former world champion, Jenson Button , who will represent the team's best chance of taking the driver's title. Although McLaren do not appear to have improved to such a degree that they are regarded as potential favourites, Button is still an excellent driver.
Hamilton's new team have shown great performance in winter testing with many observers stating that the British driver and Rosberg could challenge for the world title - a bold claim which Mercedes, at least initially, played down. In recent interviews however, Hamilton has acknowledged that he feels it is a possibility.
Whilst Mercedes have gained ground the other favoured teams, Red Bull, Ferrari and Lotus have maintained their edge so there are four teams reckoned to be in the mix for the driver and constructor championships, with McLaren a little way behind.
In some quarters Vettel is strongly favoured to repeat his recent success and win his fourth successive championship, so dominant have he and his team been in the last three years. Should he do so he will emulate his great hero Michael Schumacher and Juan Manuel Fangio, the only drivers to achieve that feat.
Other pundits however, feel this will be a more competitive, wide-open championship with anything up to ten drivers competing for podium finishes on a regular basis.
The season kicks off in Melbourne this weekend and the initial practice sessions seem to indicate that the new season will carry on where the last ended - with Vettel, Mark Webber and their Red Bull cars dominating. Ferrari, Mercedes and Lotus were behind, but not too far with McLaren nowhere near the rest, all of which confirms the pre-season testing evidence.
Vettel was fastest, despite a small technical problem which suggests he can go even quicker, with his team mate Webber just behind.
McLaren's Jenson Button apparently looked dejected as his car struggled, and failed, to demonstrate the improvement necessary to close the gap that has opened up between them and the real contenders. Whilst Button has won in Melbourne on three occasions, including last year's Grand Prix, McLaren team sporting director admitted that his team were not where they wanted to be at this stage of the season.
'We made quite a few changes to the car over the winter, and we still believe they will be good for the course of the season' he stated. '.we still have some work to do on the car. But it's a long season' he added.
Reading into that it seems that, barring some miracles, Button will be out of the race for the driver's world championship before his car is good enough for him to compete - hence his dejection.
Former McLaren team mate Lewis Hamilton ended up off the track as did his new team Nico Rosberg, both Mercedes cars showing good performance before hitting problems.
The Lotus pair of Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean also showed good pace edging out Ferrari's Fernando Alonso, showing that there is plenty of competition ready to take advantage of any drop in performance by Vettel, Mark Webber and their Red Bulls.
Ferrari's double world champion, Alonso, has voiced his belief that the championship will be won between September and the end of the season in November, a period in which 300 points will be up for grabs. His strategy it seems will be to at least stay in contention until that point and then push hard. Whether McLaren, Button and Perez are able to do that remains to be seen, although it seems doubtful.
Alonso is far more confident that the Ferrari car will be comparatively competitive with the Red Bull 2013 version after a winter of apparent improvement. The Spaniard was a worthy adversary last year and with a better car he could be a real title contender.
Race viewers will have to add Lotus to the list of contenders in 2013 too after they made an impression last year and a good winter's preparation they seem to have overtaken McLaren in the top four.
Away from the usual names already mentioned Williams are desperate to return to those times when they regularly clocked podium finishes and Sauber will hope to at least maintain their sixth place finish from 2012. The rest of the grid is made up by the Force India, Torro Rosso, Caterham and Marussia teams who will jockey with each other not to finish last.
It's sure to be an exciting, if long season, with 19 races in 19 different countries with all the differences in climate and tracks that suggests. F1 is definitely a glamorous, global phenomenon with a massive following everywhere it pitches up. Make sure you follow the season on BritEvents.
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