A general consensus has emerged about the likely pecking-order this weekend in Australia.
Based on winter testing, this year’s longest-ever F1 season looks set to be very closely contested, but experts, pundits and insiders fairly agree about the rough shape of Saturday’s Melbourne grid.

“From what I saw in the tests, Red Bull and McLaren seem to be at a similar pace,” Francesco Nenci, Kamui Kobayashi’s race engineer at Sauber, told O Estado de S.Paulo newspaper.

“Then comes Mercedes and then our team along with Lotus and Ferrari. But we’ll only really find out here,” he told Brazilian correspondent Livio Oricchio in Melbourne.

Steve Nielsen, Caterham’s sporting director, roughly agrees.

“Red Bull and McLaren are the best, Mercedes is a little bit behind and then it’s Lotus, Ferrari, Sauber and Force India,” he said.

And given that the top three teams will presumably dominate the first six positions in Q3, the last part of qualifying “should be exciting”, Nielsen smiled.

But so will the fight at the front, with McLaren’s Jenson Button desperate to end Red Bull’s two-year run of dominance.

“With quite a big change in the regulations in terms of the blown diffuser, now is the interesting time to see whether Red Bull can hang onto the advantage they have had,” said the Briton.

“If they can, it is going to be very difficult to beat them over the next few years.”

Steve Nielsen, who left Renault in June, has re-emerged at Team Lotus.
Team boss Tony Fernandes revealed that he offered Nielsen, Renault’s long-serving sporting director, the same role at Team Lotus a year ago.

“I first met Steve in Singapore 2010 and offered him a job which he turned down, so I am delighted he has finally taken up the chance to join us,” he revealed.

Nielsen, who has worked with Mike Gascoyne at Tyrrell and Renault, will start his new job in December, replacing Dieter Gass who is returning to Germany ahead of Team Lotus’ rebirth as Caterham in 2012.

“Off track all the pieces are falling into place and we have now taken full control of our own destiny,” said Fernandes. “I think we can guarantee that we have a very bright future.”

After McLaren and Ferrari fielded cars with winning pace in July, Red Bull could be challenged even more once this month’s summer break ends.
That is the view of Mercedes’ Ross Brawn, who thinks the championship is likely to heat up at Spa-Francorchamps and beyond.

“It’s impossible to predict what will happen from Spa,” he is quoted by Brazil’s O Estado de S.Paulo, “but I think that as we saw Ferrari and McLaren managing to make their cars faster over the last three races, they are likely to improve even more.”

Agreed Renault’s sporting director Steve Nielsen: “Because Ferrari and McLaren are developing the aerodynamic exhaust later than Red Bull, they have more potential to improve it.”

Toro Rosso’s veteran technical chief Giorgio Ascanelli, however, disagrees, and HRT’s Geoff Willis explains: “I know Adrian (Newey) well from Williams and how he works when the opposition gets tougher.

“I predict they (Red Bull) will come back to dominating the races, although not like early in the season because the competitors have come to understand some of their solutions.”

While McLaren’s drivers won the last two grands prix, Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso would have won the championship by three points over Sebastian Vettel if the season consisted only of Valencia, Silverstone, the Nurburgring and Hungary.

Red Bull, meanwhile, might struggle on the high speed sections at Spa and then Monza.

“That’s right, those two tracks are not exactly our best ones,” Mark Webber told laola1.at in Austria this week.

“So we need to limit the damage and then attack again when we can,” added the Australian.

Despite Lewis Hamilton no longer thinking the 2011 title fight is effectively over, not everyone in the F1 paddock agrees with him.

Renault’s departing team manager Steve Nielsen told Brazilian O Estado de S.Paulo correspondent Livio Oricchio that he thinks Sebastian Vettel will wrap up his second championship long before the 2011 season has ended.

“I believe the points gap will grow and that will Vettel will do it by Suzuka,” he said, referring to the Japanese grand prix in October.

After Suzuka, there are still four grands prix left to run, and Telegraph correspondent Tom Cary admits he is also worried.

“We are entering dangerous territory here; slow death by asphyxiation,” he wrote after Valencia. “Not since Michael Schumacher bored everyone into submission in 2004 have fans been forced to contemplate hegemony on this scale.”

F1 chief executive Bernie Ecclestone said before leaving Valencia last Sunday that Vettel is “sure to be champion” in 2011.

Former Renault team boss Flavio Briatore told Radio Monte Carlo that he reckons Vettel will have won by Monza, two races before Suzuka, but Rubens Barrichello thinks that is unlikely.

“To win at Suzuka he needs to increase his gap to 100 points, which at this rate is very possible,” said the Brazilian.

Ferrari boss Stefano Domenicali is reserving his judgement until after Silverstone, where the off-throttle blown exhaust clampdown takes effect.

“There may be a change in what we have seen so far, even if I recognise that Sebastian has a considerable advantage.”

Returning to Renault in 2008 was a mistake for Fernando Alonso, according to the team’s sporting director Steve Nielsen.

At the end of his tumultuous single season with McLaren in 2007, the Spaniard broke his contract to return to the scene of his championship wins.

But while Alonso battled for the 2007 title, the same season was a difficult one for the French team, and the next two years were similarly barren for Renault until he switched again to Ferrari.

“We know what happened (at McLaren), and he came back,” Nielsen is quoted by eurosport.fr.

“I actually think it was probably a mistake — I don’t know if he agrees with me but he knows I love him,” said the Briton.

“If I had been his manager at the time, I would have told him ‘Listen, you have to stay and beat this guy (Lewis Hamilton)’.

“‘Firstly because you have the best car now, secondly because your best chance to be champion next year is to stay at McLaren’,” Nielsen added.

(GMM)

Monte Carlo’s famous glamour was yet to arrive in the formula one paddock on Wednesday.

It is just two days since the chequered flag waved at the Circuit de Catalunya, meaning that it has been the shortest turnaround between back-to-back races in the sport’s history.

Mercedes and Red Bull sent old motor homes to Spain so that their real facilities were ready for Wednesday, the unofficial first day of the Monaco event given that Thursday will see the initial 180 hours of practice.

It was a different story elsewhere in pitlane.

Renault is this year operating the departed Toyota’s 2009 motor home, and construction was not complete early on Wednesday due to the team still learning the ropes about how to dismantle and erect it.

“It was a bit of a breakneck 24 hours to get the team and equipment to Monaco, but everybody is now working hard to make sure we’re ready to go in first practice on Thursday morning,” said team manager Steve Nielsen.

Ferrari and Williams were also working on their paddock facilities on Wednesday, amid the insalubrious backdrop of cranes, ladders, hammers and drills.

McLaren’s impressive roundhouse motor home was ‘naked’ because the glass panels were not yet all in place, and Virgin was a long way from having its new facility ready to accommodate walls, let alone any guests or team members.

Meanwhile, it is reported that the chance of rain for Saturday and Sunday’s crucial running at Monaco has now subsided to just 30 per cent on both days.

(GMM)