The Power of One

[ExtremeNinja]

RickD. I am sure he had input in the Brawn development but I will be amazed if he thought up the double diffuser. He has certainly galvanised the team around him at McLaren and this will probably continue with more pace now that Lewis is out of the way. Whether his input will lift the team or not is a different matter and we are yet to find out. The talk mid-season, in some factions, this year was about his input somewhat hampering the team. Many said they got a bit lost trying to bring the car to him and his narrow operating window for extraction of peak performance whilst Hamilton was able to move towards the car and extract the performance from whatever he was given.

 

[RickD]

FB -It would be interesting if he does turn around and win more championships. Given that he came into F1 too early and then got shafted by Flav, punting him down the grid a bit, which took him a few years to recover properly from, then finally got a car that was capable of winning a championship (which wasn't just developed for any driver, but specifically for him) and converting that into a WDC, before getting shafted again the next year due to Mercedes desire to have 2 Germans in their cars. He then took on the challenge of going to a team with a very fast young driver who had built the team around himself and managed to outlast that young driver and make the team his own. Now the next year or two will be very interesting and telling I think.

 

[RickD]

ExtremeNinja - but it not about thinking new things up, it is about getting the right people around you to do that thinking for you, surely? As for the input, if a car was designed for one driver in particular, with a certain style, it may have been too difficult to get that car working correctly for the other driver. I somehow think this will be different this year, but only time will tell..

 

[no-FIAt-please]

Personally I don't think 2009 was a by-product of Button being there. He was there for years and nothing on that level was achieved, I think it more likely that the success of Brawn was due to Honda's huge investment into the machine and the big head-start they had after the gave up on the 2008 Honda so early.

 

[RickD]

no-FIAt-please - Why do you think that? They had finally got Ross on board a year or two earlier and this would have been the first car designed with the right people in the right places. How can any of us say that Jenson was or was not key to this. It was obvious that he had been pushing as hard as he could for a long time to get the right people.

 

[no-FIAt-please]

Really? I thought Button looked quite uninterested during 2007 & 2008.

Perhaps Brawn wanted a new challenge or Honda's pockets were too deep. I'm not saying Button didn't attract Ross Brawn to Honda, but there is no evidence of the contrary, not even a quote from Brawn saying he wanted to work with Button (he has said he wanted to work with Schumacher previously).

 

[ExtremeNinja]

RickD. Sure. Although I think Brawn was definitely the big guy at Brawn and Honda were the big money. there was no indication at the beginning of the season of any leaning towards Jenson over Rubens and it was only when Rubens was looking like a longshot as a title challenger that there was a sway towards Jenson. Only from my own observation.

With regards to developing the car around one driver, I don't think that was the case at all. I don't believe that they developed the car for Lewis at the expense of Jenson. I just think that Jenson's smaller operating window meant that he suffered more in a car which was inherently inconsistent. Their challenge may actually be greater this year as they may have a smaller range of options within which to operate in terms of car development. they will need to develop to a more constrained set of parameters in which their drivers can get results. I do think Jenson has gained the full support of the team but whether that proves to be fruitful is for the future to reveal to us. I hope that Jenson has a successful year next year and that the marriage can produce some decent offspring. He will get my vote for The Power of One if this pans out over 2013.

 

[Fenderman]

In my view the two biggest ingredients in the transformation of the Honda into the Brawn were a) replacing the unreliable Honda power plant with the Mercedes engine, which at the time was the best motor on the grid and b) Ross Brawn. Jenson and Rubens added to the mix due to their qualities as development drivers. Early on in the 2009 season Brawn also had a huge advantage from their double diffuser, an advantage which enabled domination of the first half of the year. As the season rolled on their competition found more performance via their own developments and effectively wiped out the Brawn's advantage.

2013 may well be a season where the difference a driver can bring to the party will perhaps be more significant since the relatively stable regulations mean that the cars will be more or less an evolution of last year's. If a team suddenly shows a big improvement in performance with one of their new drivers that might be a clue, but we will need to see how things shape up over the first half of the season. We will need to understand the gains arising from technological developments and tweaks. What may muddy the waters slightly will be the need to assess the negative aspect of teams campaigning a season with designers and engineers having to look and work toward the 2014 season.

I suspect that when the dust has settled on this year's championship the discussion on who of this era's contenders has "The Power of One" will be as fierce as ever but we just might have more evidence on which to base our arguments. In the meantime, I think the OP's ( FB ) is a pretty fair assessment on those who've gone before and the jury is still out on the current grid-full.

 

[ramilas1]

"Does Lewis have that capacity? Next year we will find out." No pressure there then!

I think he will need, and should be allowed before any judgement, more than one year to make his mark.

Schumacher was at Ferrari for 3 'building' years before the 1999 Constructors win came along.

Of more interest in 2013, in my opinion, is the 2nd year of Kimi Räikkönen at Lotus. I think it is going to be interesting to see if his results of last year will push him and the team to another level, and if the development of Grosjean (despite mishaps) alongside him can continue.

As for Alonso, it almost appears that he is fighting a losing battle to get any improvement behind the scenes at Ferrari, and it would not surprise me if 2013 becomes another year of him getting the best out of an average car.

 

[Olivier]

In my view the two biggest ingredients in the transformation of the Honda into the Brawn were a) replacing the unreliable Honda power plant with the Mercedes engine, which at the time was the best motor on the grid and b) Ross Brawn. Jenson and Rubens added to the mix due to their qualities as development drivers. Early on in the 2009 season Brawn also had a huge advantage from their double diffuser, an advantage which enabled domination of the first half of the year. As the season rolled on their competition found more performance via their own developments and effectively wiped out the Brawn's advantage.

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The double decker diffuser concept is believed to have come from Super Aguri. So we need to add them to the equation as well ...