2012 Formula One Season

[hopeful traveller]

I actually think Abu Dhabi is harder.

[palkanetoijala31]

massa pay off to drive next season take vettel off 1st corner lol

[Root]

It's all over. Button won the race, but Vettel won the championship.

In other news, it's all over. Tubeguru won the race, but hopeful traveller won the championship.

Well done to the both of them Unless I'm mistaken, hopeful traveller didn't change his picks all season, which just goes to show... something. I suppose it shows the benefit of having a season-long set. Quite a few people missed rounds altogether this year because they didn't remember to enter and didn't have any back-up picks.

Thanks for playing, everyone! It wouldn't be any fun without you. I've already got ideas on how to make the game run more smoothly next year - the scores spreadsheet has become something of a monster towards the end of this year - and I will have a think about the scoring system to see if it can be improved. There'll also be a Facebook group so I can post all the updates in one place. I hope to see you there

[tubeguru]

Unless I'm mistaken, hopeful traveller didn't change his picks all season, which just goes to show... something.

It proves that he was lucky enough that the consistency of the real results matched his picks.

As F1 tends to go that way throughout the season, it's all down to whether you pick the teams that end up finishing in those places on average. It doesn't really show that not touching your picks all year is a good thing, as you could have chosen Mercedes to finish first and second in every race. You'd be nowhere with that set-up.

[Root]

Absolutely. This season, after an unpredictable start, settled down into a similar pattern to last year, with Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren monopolising the victories for the large part. That wasn't particularly hard to predict.

[tubeguru]

The hardest part of the prediction thing is to try to get the first few races sorted out, before everything settling down. You don't want to fall too far behind.

[tubeguru]

While I was typing up the answers to the most recent Quick F1 Quiz, I was struck by how many of our current F1 teams used to be other teams, and have been through many changes to get to where they are now. So here's a quick recap of who is who, and who WAS who*:

Red Bull Racing
Started life as Jackie Stewart's eponymous team in 1997. When the inevitable money shortage came, he sold out to the Ford Motor Company in 1999, and they re-branded the team Jaguar. This is the team Mark Webber moved to after his debut year with Minardi. After five largely useless years, Ford gave up and sold the team to the Red Bull drinks company, who did a Manchester City/Chelsea and threw money at the problem until they won something.

Ferrari
Always Ferrari, from their founding in 1929 by Enzo Ferrari.

McLaren
Another eponymous team, started by Bruce McLaren in 1963. They won their first race at the 1968 Belgian GP. They also won in Can-Am and at the Indy 500. McLaren died in a testing accident 1970, and Teddy Mayer took over as team manager, guiding the team to both F1 Championships in 1974. After Hunt's 1976 success the team went backwards. In 1980, Mayer was approached by Ron Dennis, who bought the team and merged it with his own Project Four Racing. The rest is history ...

Mercedes
Mercedes originally entered F1 under their own name back in the good old days of the '50s. Following the massive accident at Le Mans in 1955, in which driver Pierre Levegh and 80 spectators were killed, Mercedes pulled out of all forms of motorsport. Three years later, a young racer named Ken Tyrrell started his own team, racing in the lower formulae. By 1970 he was building his own cars, and by 1973 he had won the championship with Jackie Stewart. Despite occasional success in the '70s and into the '80s, the team was in decline.

Tyrrell's decision to shun the new Turbo engines meant his cars couldn't compete with the top teams. The team were banned from the 1984 championship for "fuel irregularities", costing Martin Brundle three race starts at the end of his debut season. They struggled on for years, but it was clear that their best days were behind them, and Tyrrell eventually decided to give it up, selling his team to British American Tobacco for 1999, who branded the cars as BAR.

BAR were hardly much better, relegating Jenson Button to also-ran status on many occasions. As with many large companies who invest in F1, BAT soon got bored and sold the team to Honda for 2006, who at least managed to give Button his maiden win. This was their only victory in three seasons, after which Honda decided to pull the plug. A management buyout led by Ross Brawn saved the team, and Button's bacon. After one freak season where Button swept all before him, Brawn sold the team to Mercedes and the German manufacturer came full-circle.

Lotus
This one is just a little complicated, given Caterham's involvement in F1. Suffice it to say that the original Lotus team was founded by Colin Chapman in 1954, winning multiple championships throughout the '60s and '70s. They bowed out of F1 at the end of the 1994 season. Unable to pay their massive debts, the administrators moved in and wound the company up at the start of 1995. Following this, the rights to the Lotus name were purchased by James Hunt's brother, David, who had bought the team itself towards the end of the 1994 season.

In 2009, the FIA announced that it would be inviting applications for a budget-limited championship in 2010. A company called Litespeed acquired the right to enter a team under the name "Lotus". In the end, their application was refused, and Lotus's sister company, "Lotus Cars" threatened to take legal action if the name was used. Meanwhile, the Malaysian Government had hatched a plan to back a new team under the name "Lotus". This was made possible by the fact that the Malaysian car manufacturer Proton owned the aforementioned Lotus Cars. Once again, legal action was threatened by Group Lotus (how many companies WERE there called "Lotus"?). The matter was eventually settled when, a year later in 2010, David Hunt sold the rights to the Lotus name to Tony Fernandez, allowing the name to make a return to F1.

However, to further muddy the waters, Genii Capital and Group Lotus announced their intention to enter a team under the name "Lotus Renault GP", as a successor to the Renault team. This meant there would be two teams running under the name "Lotus" for 2011. Colin Chapman's family made a statement in which they backed Group Lotus, and said that they did not want the name to return to F1 at all. The High Court had the final say, and in 2011 granted Tony Fernandez the right to use the name "Lotus" name in F1, having purchased the rights to the name from David Hunt. They were allowed to use the traditional black and gold colour scheme forever associated with Lotus. The final upshot was that in 2011 there would be two Lotus teams, with Group Lotus using the name "Lotus", and Tony Fernandez using "Team Lotus".

At the start of 2012, Lotus-Renault GP were given the rights to use the Lotus name, and were renamed Lotus GP. Tony Fernandez's team were renamed Caterham, following his purchase of Caterham Cars. The upshot of all this is that although the current Lotus team have the name and the colour scheme, the REAL Lotus team is actually the one at the back of the grid, racing in green. Make of the above what you will.

Force India
Back in 1991, Eddie Jordan (he of the stupid shirts and even stupider punditry) burst onto the scene as a constructor, scoring impressive results from the start. At one point Heinz-Harald Frentzen was in contention for the 1999 championship, but that was the high point. Spiralling costs meant the same old story, and Jordan sold the team to the Midland Group, becoming Midland Racing for 2006. The team dropped to the back of the grid, and there they stayed until they were sold on again, this time to Spyker for 2007. The high point was Markus Winklelhock leading the European GP after a rain shower. After one season as Spyker, the team was bought out by a consortium led by Vijay Mallya and renamed Force India for 2008 onwards.

Sauber
Peter Sauber started his F1 team in 1993, having previously raced in hill-climbing and sportscars. The team trundled on until 2005, when Sauber sold the team to BMW. At the end of 2009, BMW announced that they would be pulling out of F1. Sauber himself announced that he would buy his team back, on the condition that the team would be able to enter the 2010 championship. As all the slots for 2010 (minus BMW) were taken, this was dependant on another team dropping out, and Toyota duly obliged, allowing the team back into F1 under their original name.

Williams
Frank Williams's team is the only true private team on the grid, having never been sold to another company during its long existence. He started the current team with Patrick Head in 1977, after several years entering drivers in other people's cars under various names. The team's fortunes have ebbed and flowed, with 1986 to 1993 clearly their most dominant period (minus 1988 when they went from Honda turbos to Judd naturally-aspirated engines). Currently ebbing somewhat ...

Caterham
See Lotus, above, for the convoluted story of how this team came into being. Suffice it to say that most F1 fans consider this to be the REAL Lotus team. I certainly do, and hopefully they will one day rise up and destroy the French interlopers in black and gold. Just my opinion.

HRT
The only F1 team to be named after a medical process where the patient receives supplementary hormones. Those who remember F1 in the '80s may have heard of a driver called Adrian Campos, who drove for various useless teams. It was he, amongst others, who formed Campos Meta 1 (catchy, huh?) in 2010. However, even before they reached the starting grid, money was an issue and Bernie Ecclestone expressed concerns that they might not even make it. In February 2010, majority shareholder Jose Ramon Carabante announced that he had bought the team from Campos, ending his involvement. The team was renamed "Hispania Racing F1 Team". And haven't they done well since?

Marussia
Another team to enter F1 in 2010, they were originally known as "Manor Racing". The team was a joint venture between the junior racing team "Manor Motorsport" and "Wirth Research", led by Nick Wirth. Wirth was the former owner of the Simtek F1 team, former aerodynamicist at March, and former technical director at Benetton. Before long however, Richard Branson had got his sponsorship tentacles into the team, and they were re-branded "Virgin F1" for their debut season in honour of this. After two disappointing seasons, Wirth Research departed the scene and the team was purchased by Russian sports car manufacturer Marussia Motors, and renamed "Marussia" for 2012 following a successful application. Although the Virgin name had disappeared, they remained a sponsor and the stickers still appeared on the cars for 2012.

I think that more or less brings you up to date with who* the teams are, and where they came from. Most of the above came from my head, with the occasional assistance from t'internet where confusion was rife (see Lotus). I'm sure someone will spot an error somewhere.

* Or, as Andi would say, "whom is whom, and whom WAS whom"