2006 Motorsports Report Cards

[G.Irish]

Every major motorsport has ended for 2006 and what a season it has been. In some series it's been status quo, in others, straight up knife fights down to the last race. All in all this has probably been one of the most entertaining season to watch since I've really started watching racing.

So it's time for report cards. How did each team do in their respective championships? What were the standout performances and best races? Who came up big, who dissappointed, and who did we laugh at? Let's start with F1.

Formula 1
This season the favorites were McLaren and Renault. In 2005 the two battled it out all year with Renault taking the crown mostly because the McLaren was fast but had a lot of mechancial DNF's. At the beginning of the year McLaren, Renault, and Honda looked like they would be the main contestants in the championship but Ferrari came back with a vengeance to challenge Renault right down to the end.

Fernando Alonso would take the driver's title and secure his second consecutive championship, while Michael Schumacher made a valiant last effort but was not able to win an 8th WDC to end his career.

***Speed Channel's Schumacher Farewell and 2006 Roundup (Video)***
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Best Performance
Schumacher at Brazil dead last to 4th
Button at Hungary (in the wet) 14th to 1st for his maiden win.

Biggest Dissapointment
Toyota

Stupidest Victory Celebrations
Fernando Alonso


Best/Worst Crash - Indianapolis - 1st Lap Pileup, Montoya's fault
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This chain reaction crash that got set off by Montoya rear ending his teammate Kimi Raikkonen also set off the chain reaction which would result in Montoya leaving McLaren before the end of the season.

Best Career Move - Kimi Raikkonen to Ferrari
Kimi Raikkonen finally got the dream seat at Ferrari, now that Schumacher has retired. Kimi would easily have at least one world title to his name if not for McLaren's dismal reliability for the past few seasons. Now Kimi may finally have a car that he can win the championship with.

Best Pass
Schumacher on Raikkonen at Interlagos

Shocker!
*Juan Pablo Montoya and Jacques Villeneuve to NASCAR
2 former CART champions, both given the boot before the end of the season by their respective teams, and both going to NASCAR. Will these F1 ex-pats show the good ole boys what's up or will the NASCAR fraternity spank 'em like freshman pledges? 2007 will tell.
*Super Aguri recording a top ten in the final race of the season

Worst Screw ups
Rascassegate
Button - lollipop to the face (see Speed video above)
Montoya smashing Kimi in T1
Alonso's wheel falling off at Hungary

Renault: A

Renault hardly set a foot wrong all season. Even after the B.S. qualifying penalty Alonso received in Monza (see first post for video and explanation) and losing the mass damper system, Renault persevered and took both the constructor's and driver's titles.

Unfortunately Alonso has jumped ship leaving Fisi to lead the team, partnered with promising young Finn Heikki Kovalainen.

Ferrari: B+

After a really slow start they clawed their way all the way back to fighting it out for the title. Losing the constructor's and driver's titles dropped them from a sure A down to a B+. Really it came down to two critical mistakes by Michael Schumacher.

One was Rascasse-gate where Schumacher parked his car in the final corner of the Monaco circuit in an attempt to ruin Alonso's qualifying lap, the other was running up on the curbs in a vain attempt to block a McLaren in the closing stages of the wet and wild Hungarian GP. His desperate antics resulted in a DNF when he easily could've brought the car home in the points.

Michael Schumacher's retirement marks the end of a Formula 1 era. Several key people in the Ferrari F1 team are purportedly retiring, one has to wonder if Ferrari's success in the last few years will be retiring with them.

McLaren: B-

^^^McLaren was spraying fire extinguishers way more than champagne this year ^^^
McLaren started out the season strong but steadily slid backwards with numerous mechanical DNF's that robbed Kimi of several chances for race wins. Furthermore, problem with Juan Pablo Montoya led to his dismissal from the team before his contract was even up. To be fair, it was probably mostly due to JPM announcing he was moving to NASCAR in 2007.

For the first time in about 10 years McLaren has finished the season without a win, which is quite a dissapoint for such a perennial power. Because of their poor reliability Kimi Raikonnen has left the team to join Ferrari. But in his stead they get defending champion Fernando Alonso and all signs point to the other seat being filled by GP2 phenom Lewis Hamilton.

So while McLaren had a bad year they still finished in third place and they managed to line up two strong drivers for next season so overall they get a decent grade for the season.

Honda: B

Promising preseason test results, decent early season performance, mediocre mid-season performance, strong end of year performance. In their first year as a full factory team (meaning they build both the engine and car) in over 30 years Honda has achieved their goal of winning a race but they experienced some rough times in there with several catastrophic engine failures.

Button actually scored more points than any other driver in the last races of the season following his maiden win. Barrichello has been good on occasion, but overall not quite living up expectations.

Until this year they were the only major team to not have the benefit of a full-scale wind tunnel. They completed their wind tunnel ahead of schedule and saw some of the benefits of it for the end of the season. Next year will determine whether they can close the gap in aerodynamic performance with the 3 teams that finished ahead of them this season.

BMW Sauber: B
In 2005 BMW was partnered with Williams and had a terrible year that devolved into both sides of the partnership pointing at the other for the lack of results. BMW decided to leave and begin anew with Sauber. '06 started slow for BMW Sauber but they steadily improved and were able to get on the podium twice. BMW will definitely be racing at the front of the pack next season if they continue their march forward.

Scuderia Toro Rosso: C+
For the team formerly known as Minardi this was a banner year.
Minardi was always the last team who typically never saw another car until they got lapped but this year Toro Rosso finished ahead of both Midland F1 and Super Aguri in the championship and even finished ahead of Red Bull, BMW, Williams and Toyota drivers on occassion. Both drivers have performed well, if a bit inconsistently, but by most accounts American Scott Speed had a respectable rookie season.

Super Aguri Honda: C+
The Super Aguri Honda team was a last minute entry this season, gaining their slot on the grid at the last hour in the offseason. As such, they didn't have time to engineer a proper chassis from scratch. To get out and race they were forced to modify an old 2002 Arrows chassis. Their original plan was to just use an old BAR-Honda chassis but the FIA flat out denied them. Under those circumstances their year had disaster written all over it.

Having thrown together a tardy effort the Super Aguris had terrible pace at beginning of season, lapping at around 6 seconds off the leaders. They also ended up getting into a few first lap accidents (usually Takuma Sato's fault). Over the course of the season they steadily closed the speed gap with the other back marker teams (namely Midland and STR).

At the German GP they quietly introduced a brand new chassis (which resulted in a double DNF) that used some of the old BAR Honda's concepts and miraculously at the last race of the season they finished with a top ten and 7th and 9th fastest laps of the race. Nothing short of a miracle. Standout Honda F1 test driver Anthony Davidson should be replacing Yamamoto next season.

Midland F1: D+
Midland F1 (which used tobe Jordan F1) is actually now Spyker F1 after having been purchased by the Dutch boutique sportscar manufacturer. Midland didn't do much worse than last season this year but they haven't done any better. At the rate the other teams are improving they will certainly be in danger of being in last place next year.

Red Bull: D
Started strong, but has been beaten several times by the B-Team (Toro Rosso). Never really advanced all year. Sacked Klien. Lots of potential needs to capitalize on the skills of Adrian Newey (chief designer at McLaren) and newly signed pilot, Mark Webber. They were able to secure Renault engines for next year. Lots of potential but needs to deliver.

Toyota: F
For several years now Toyota has had the biggest budget in F1, with the least to show for it. This season they were last place among full factory teams. They were able to score one podium but that's little consolation for the Japanese juggernaut of the auto industry.

Toyota F1 has fired several drivers after having them onboard for only one season but it has become painfully clear that the drivers are not the problem. One has to wonder how long they can keep spending this amount of money for these types of results.

Williams Cosworth: F


Williams started off the season as the dark horse. In preseason testing they showed a few flashes of brilliance and in the first race of the year they even recorded the fastest lap of the race. By the end of the season they suffered a whopping 20 DNF's, mostly due to mechanical failures.

The first instinct would be to blame their engine supplier, Cosworth. But furhter analysis from the F1 punditosphere revealed that the Williams cars suffered a lot of failures because of their decision to use all rigid couplings in the car which, while lighter, are more prone to failure than flexible fittings.

Obviously the weight saved with rigid fittings wasn't worth it as Williams never even got in the top 5 this year. Goes to show that BMW was right to point the finger at Williams for their lack of success in 05.