Ah, the Formula 1 midfield runners. Persevering without a hope of any significant glory, this plucky bunch of privateer teams keep plugging away against the manufacturers in the face of adversity, with only the odd sniff of a points finish as a reward for their endeavours.
At least during any ‘normal’ season they do – the sight of Pastor Maldonado happily spraying champagne from atop the podium in Barcelona should tell you that this season is far from a normal one. Still, the usual suspects do occupy positions six to nine in the Constructor’s standings – Sauber, Williams, Force India and Toro Rosso.
The best placed team of the bunch, Sauber, are actually knocking on the door of fifth place, which is some achievement for the relatively-underfunded Swiss team but not unprecedented. They produced competitive cars on a few occasions in the pre-BMW years (2001 springs to mind) and, like then, the team are currently reliant on a nascent driver line-up.
Sergio Perez has been one of the drivers of the season thus far, and quite why he’s not a shoe-in to take Felipe Massa’s seat is a question best directed to Ferrari’s management. The Mexican should have won in Malaysia, but instead had to settle for second after a quick off and some typically Swiss, typically Sauber radio messages urging caution as he hunted down Fernando Alonso for the lead. His dry weather podium in Canada was in many ways even more impressive.
His performances have left Kamui Kobayashi, normally one of the most prominent drivers on the grid, in the shade. The Japanese driver has still put in good drives on occasion, such as his fourth place in Germany, but has generally been outclassed. That said, he remains a combative racer and deserves to keep his drive despite rumours linking Heikki Kovalainen with his seat for 2013.
The fact that a race-winning driver (admittedly from a tail-end outfit) is being linked with the team shows just how strong the C31 car is, and if the Mercedes team’s slump in form continues it’s not inconceivable that Sauber could leapfrog the Anglo-German team. Whatever happens during the rest of the season, Sauber have already made a brave and impressive attempt to rid themselves of their ‘perennial midfielder’ tag.
Unlike Sauber, Williams haven’t always been a midfield team. Also unlike Sauber, they actually looked like more of a backmarker at times last season, and it’s hard to believe they only picked up five points. They are my choice for the most improved outfit of the year among a host of contenders, and the main reason is of course Maldonado’s staggering drive in Spain where he simply drove away from the opposition.
That he hasn’t scored a point since is sadly almost entirely down to his own recklessness. He was a tad unfortunate in Valencia, where third place was on (in isolation still an incredible feat) before he collided with Lewis Hamilton in an incident which was largely, but not entirely, his fault. Some of his other incidents have simply been a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time (collisions with Perez in Britain and Paul di Resta in Germany for example) although one wonders how he manages to get it so wrong, so often.
As for Bruno Senna, he has continued to make regular excuses as he did last year – the most recent one appears to be that he'll go better in the second half of the year having not driven a competitive F1 car at the early-season races before. The fact that he has to excuse his performance suggests it hasn’t always been up to scratch, which is pretty much true – in terms of raw pace, he’s generally a little way off Maldonado. But he has been more consistent than the Venezuelan and put in his best performance so far in Hungary, scene of his 2011 Renault free practice debut. Perhaps he has a point about knowing the tracks after all… He certainly has a good car this season and cannot use his equipment as a defence against mediocrity.
Over at Force India they could do with a few excuses of their own, languishing as they do in 8th in the championship. It’s hard to pinpoint what, if anything has gone wrong for the team, but the general trend is for them to qualify well and then slip back in the races – the opposite of Sauber in many respects. The car is a more consistent performer than some others around it, but this also means that the team aren’t capable of achieving the occasional big points finishes of some of its rivals (at least thus far).
Paul di Resta continues to perform well, although he generally looks more good than great. If it wasn’t for his passport I do wonder whether the British media would be tipping him quite so heavily for a grander seat, particularly in the wake of excellent performances from the similarly inexperienced Perez and Grosjean. Nevertheless, he has performed consistently and was an excellent sixth in Bahrain.
Meanwhile Nico Hulkenberg, after a slow start, has started to outpace his Scottish team mate in recent races. His drive to fifth in Valencia was most impressive and he also looked particularly good in the wet at Silverstone in qualifying, harking back to his Brazilian GP pole of a couple of years ago. If Hulkenberg can continue to push di Resta, then the combined efforts of both drivers could allow the Silverstone squad to overtake Williams in the standings which is their current stated aim. Sauber look to be out of reach for the time being though, which given Force India’s excellent 2011 season and the strength of the Mercedes engine must rank as a disappointment.
One traditional midfield runner that has at least maintained the status quo is Toro Rosso. In fact, the Italian team has made a considerable and not unexpected step backwards so far this year. Their relative performance is actually quite reasonable – they are only around a second and a half off the fastest runners in qualifying, which is similar to most of last year. But the closeness of the 2012 field means that this is only good enough to scrape into Q2, rather than Q3, this year. The drop-off in performance is not unexpected because the team has stuck to its raison d’etre and employed two near-rookies (despite Jaime Alguersuari in particular showing good pace last year).
Of the two, Daniel Riccardo has generally looked the more complete package – not surprising given his half-season with HRT in 2011. His 6th place on the grid in Bahrain was outstanding, but his confounding plummet down to 15th in the race was not the best way to build on it. Like Senna, it will be interesting to see how he goes in the second half of the season on tracks which he knows.
If I were a Red Bull bigwig, I would probably consider Vergne the better prospect at this stage though. The Frenchman has struggled in qualifying but had a few standout drives, most notably in Malaysia when he kept his car on track on intermediate tyres in the monsoon to wind up a fine 8th. Notably the prominent performances mentioned above (and indeed all the team’s points) came from the first few races, which tells you all you need to know about car development and the merits of employing two inexperienced drivers. The current uncertainty surrounding the team suggests that things aren’t likely to get better any time soon.
Check back later this week for a rundown of the frontrunners...
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