Strategy and form guide 2013
The new F1 season is less than a week away and attention is now switching from testing to getting down to some proper racing.
Testing has raised the usual questions and intrigue. It's difficult to draw many conclusions from the testing times as each team will be running a different programme and we don't know fuel loads etc.
However, I think it's fairly safe to assume that Red Bull and Ferrari are both very quick. Ferrari will be especially happy given the slow start they had in 2012. The McLaren has shown some fantastic speed but is perhaps a little inconsistent at present. That said, if the car has good speed then McLaren will learn how to get the best from it very quickly. Lotus are again looking good and seem to have taken another step forward from their, already very good, 2012 car.
Mercedes are arguably the surprise package at the moment. Both Hamilton and Rosberg featured at the top of the timing sheets during testing but Hamilton in particular has been quick to down play expectations. As Lewis has pointed out, Mercedes were some way off the leader's pace at the end of the 2012 season and it's hard to make up that much ground between seasons. Time will tell but the new Mercedes is definitely an improvement on the 2012 car.
At the other end of the grid it looks like Marussia and Caterham haven't made much of a jump towards the other mid-field runners which is a shame. We've also had a last minute driver change at Marussia with Luis Razia being replaced by Jules Bianchi at the final test. We also welcome Adrian Sutil back into F1 as he fills the second seat at Force India. Despite Force India only confirming Sutil recently he has a wealth of experience so we'd expect him to put in some solid drives from the outset. At Williams Pastor Maldonado is joined by Valtteri Bottas and the Finn is definitely one to watch in 2013.
We've a 19 race season this year and have also lost one team (HRT) from the grid. The loss of HRT means that only six drivers will be eliminated in the first part of qualifying (as opposed to seven last season) but without the two HRT drivers it also means that the drivers further up the pecking order are at risk.
F1 currently only uses Pirelli rubber and the tyres have provided some fantastic racing recently. We've seen high levels of tyre wear during pre-season testing and although warmer temperatures at many of the Grand Prix will reduce this we have been told to expect more pit stops in 2013 than we saw in 2012.
Thankfully though, we're only a few days away from the end of all the talking and finally seeing some racing. If you haven't created your RF1 team yet then you need to do so before midnight GMT on Friday 15th March.
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