And there is also Sauber BMW as an example. Brawn's success was indeed fantastic, but there was also massive reg changes going in to '09. There has been a good amount of teams that have bailed out too soon and still not come out of the gate first in the subsequent season. Personally I think that success breeds success. If you scrap a hell of a lot of work, then that has to hit you pretty hard mentally and not necessarily set you up in the best of positions.
Next years car should be just a refined version of last years car. The only reason to start early is if your going for a new radical design. Ferrari has moaned and sacked a load of people for not pushing the limits of car design so it suggests that Ferrari are going to try something radical next year. Whether their radical design pays off will not be known till next March, which is a gamble for Ferrari to say the least.
Maybe that's why all those people got relocated (sacked). They where told to go radical and their idea of radical was to name the car after a pickup truck
It's a sensible decision by Ferrari given their position in both Championships. It means that deep down, Ferrari know their 2011 title hopes are over. Alonso says he hasn't given up on the WDC, but he is a key part of the Ferrari team and they wouldn't make such a big decision without consulting him first. I also think Pirelli's decision to abandon the hard tyre will not affect Ferrari's decision to switch focus to 2012, but it will help them in the coming races. Ferrari said they'd have an extreme car for both 2010 and 2011 - both times they didn't deliver. Now, they are saying the same thing, but the difference this time is that Pat Fry is in charge and he will take risks and look to be more innovative. We can already see the improvement since Fry took over in May.
Will be interesting to see what happens if Alonso wins the next two races and Vettel has poor results, will cause a serious dilemma.
Pirelli set to not use the Hard tyre for the rest of the season. http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/93680 please log in to view this image Also there will be a new medium compound for next year, meaning the Hard will be scrapped and the current medium will be used as the Hard and there will be a new medium to sit in between the Soft and Hard Compounds. Overall this will help Ferrari as it has been known to struggle with it's warm up. Tyre Compunds for the rest of the season : Belgium (Spa-Francorchamps) - medium (prime), soft (option) Italy (Monza) - medium (prime), soft (option) Singapore (Singapore) - soft (prime), super-soft (option)
Good news for Ferrari, who I think will certainly close the gap come the end of the season. And although Vettel seems to have wrappped up the WDC, it would be nice to finish ahead of McLaren.
