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As the winter championship continues whilst the formula 1 teams are testing in Bahrain, Portimao and Jerez - we are starting to see some indications of who the front runners will be in terms of which teams have stolen a march in their car designs in response to the regulation changes and have adapted the best.

Renault appeared slow at first however in recent tests Alonso was only a few hundredths of a second behind Lewis Hamiton of McLaren.  Renault have a very interesting design where the chassis body is well contoured in the way it directs the air towards the rear of the car. Could we see an Alonso vs Hamilton title battle?  I’m not so sure.  I think Alonso may win some races, with his car development skills and the creative genius of the Enstone team, however the experiments with illegal solutions on the nose cone simply mean the team are definitely behind with their default design and it means the car is a dog from the word go.

Toyota and Williams could be the dark horses predicted by Ron Dennis.  Both have potentially illegal diffuser designs that teams all agree have stolen a march on the rest of the grid.  It can only mean two things either the protests launched in Melbourne succeed and they will be slow for the remainder of the season or the protests fail and the rest of the grid replicates their designs (which could be done quite easily) levelling the playing field from a diffuser point of view.  Either way, their advantages won’t last for long.

Ferrari have one of the best looking cars on the grid, and recent tests have shown it to be faster than BMW (hence BMW not even getting their own paragraph!) and Toyota.  Other than cost I have never understood why teams apart from Ferrari and now BMW have never tested in Bahrain given the likely operating windows of the cars during the season which is surely optimal for chassis set up and development.  In terms of car design, Ferrari appear to have stolen a march on their competitors as they have cut back on the sidepod area which was against the spirit of the rules but not illegal, and pretty hard to replicate by the other teams. What’s the advantage?  Ferrari have shortened the sidepod front as much as possible to allow more vanes to be added.

As this area still needs to contain the side impact protection, a curious extension to the upper front of the sidepod has been added. Nick Tombazis said this was for aerodynamic reasons rather than for a side impact structure.  Ferrari also appear to on schedule if not ahead on their KERS system despite pre season noises about lack of KERS preparation.

I actually think this is sandbagging and Ferrari are actually on schedule and are very well prepared for the 2009 season so I expect Kimi Raikkonen to be a title contender and a multiple race winner over Felipe Massa.  Why?  Well he’s much better at adapting to newer regulations than Massa.  Massa had is chance and he lost it, whilst Kimi will not allow himself to be in that position again and Ferrari will certainly pay more attention to Raikkonen’s development comments this year as reflected in the recent staff changes.

McLaren Mercedes have been confident from the word go with McLaren being so advanced with their 2009 project, the launch car was the second chassis to be built up, as the first chassis was already testing in Portugal. The testing results have also been positive with Hamilton frequently finishing top of the 2009 runners.  Lewis Hamilton will have supreme confidence as reigning F1 World Champion which will go a long way in the 2009 season and he will only improve.  Lewis will certainly be in a position to defend his title if not the new FIA F1’s youngest Double World Champion in history (deposing Fernando Alonso). 

Vettel and Red Bull I think will be the biggest surprise and a regular front runner.  I would also like to say they will be the new world champions but I’d have to concede that to be unlikely.  Sebastian Vettel will  be a multiple race winner and regular front runner I think thanks to his particular brand of racing nous and Newey’s RB5.  I can already hear DC saying how he could be the new World Champion if he were allowed to stay at Red Bull.  Red Bull’s latest car is not only the best looking but has already proved fast in testing.  The unique design advantage that is near impossible to replicate is the Pull Rod suspension which has minimum cross section throughout the car, emphasising the importance of a good flow over the reduced diffuser and lastly lowered the centre of gravity where possible.  The combination of the complex front wing, smaller sidepods and longer nose cone  appear to be the hallmakrs of a more developed design compared to other launched cars.  I think being a smaller team however, Red Bull will find it hard to match the might of Ferrari and Mclaren in terms of reliability and development despite the restricted areas and opportunities for in season testing and development.  Red Bull will probably surge strongly initially but fade towards the end of the season.

My F1 2009 champion prediction  as a result of the above analysis is for Lewis Hamilton to retain the driver’s championship crown with Kimi Raikkonen as runner up and Sebastien Vettel in 3rd. Ferrari will probably win the constructor’s crown again and Sebastian will be announced as the surprise signing for Ferrari.