Do you ever get out of bed in the morning, look in your closet, and say, "damn, I wish I could wear light blue, yellow, orange, and white today?" Yeah, me neither. Unfortunately for us F1 fans, however, we are going to be subjected to a season of this vomitorious color scheme courtesy of Renault F1's new livery. They picked up ING, a Dutch bank, as their title sponsor, but were apparently unwilling to part with their traditional blue/yellow color scheme. So instead we are left with a Frankenstein car that is like ING branding fused on to last year's Renault. And lions. I'm not sure if its the whiskey coming up the back of my throat, but I'm feeling a little nauseous just thinking about this at the moment.
Anyways, on the to the really important things. Renault won the drivers championship last year behind the sublime talent of one Fernando Alonso, who has moved over to uncle Ronnie's grey house of boring for this season. They are left with the talented, if inconsistent, Giancarlo Fisichella, as their #1 driver, and new boy Heikki Kovalainen as the newest flying Finn. Quite frankly, of any of the top teams, this is by far the most underwhelming driver combo. I mean we all remember during the Aussie GP last year when the team was ripping on Fisi over the radio telling him that Alonso was like 5 tenths faster and he needed to pick up his game. And now he is the #1 driver. Crazy. He will have his best chance ever this year to win a championship, but one suspects that the car might not be up to it.
Key technical staff remain, including Pat Symonds, but years of underinvestment by corporate parent Renault may finally show this season. Renault won last year without the biggest budget, but they do not have a super talented driver this year to cover up the technical shortcomings of the car. Combine that with the switch to Japanese rubber, and we could see a bit of an off key year from the boys from Enstone. Expect Flavio to sweat through his shirts even more than usual. Hopefully three per race is in the budget for this year. At some point, Reggie CEO Carlos Ghosn needs to either man up and fund the team properly, or kill it, because purgatory is just painful, and not great PR either.
Prediction: 3rd in the constructors behind Mac and Ferrari. Fisi takes a couple of good wins, but finishes 4th in the drivers championship.
Wow, Sean and I were thinking its was pretty sweet last night. And I personally feel that they are odds on favorites to win the first race of the season. And by they I mean Heikkkki Kovaiiiliooonaoonennennn
Posted by: matb | 25 January 2007 at 12:32 AM
The colors have sorta grown on me. But it is just too abrasive at first
Posted by: alex | 25 January 2007 at 12:32 PM