It’s been a long winter of waiting, but it’s finally time to start the 2013 Formula One campaign. It all starts this weekend in Melbourne, Australia and there’s a lot of anticipation for another tight championship race. 

It’s an exciting time for Formula One with more parity than ever before. Last year’s season began with seven different winners – which in Formula One terms was unthinkable. Long gone are the years of Ferrari, well I guess I mean Michael Schumacher and McLaren domination which put into question the overall excitement of the sport.  

With all this parity you would think the big question would be who would win the championship? But that’s only secondary to how Lewis Hamilton will fare with his new Mercedes team. All eyes will be on the Brit who surprisingly jumped ship from McLaren-Mercedes to see how he can turn a two second slower car into a contender.  Mercedes were tremendous in the final preseason tests in Barcelona and Hamilton hopes the team can turn that into a strong showing to start the year. Realistically, it might take a few years before we can tell if Hamilton’s move was justified. 

Red Bull Racing’s Sebastian Vettel is once again the driver to beat after winning the last three championships as well as helping his team win three straight constructors’ championships along with teammate Mark Webber. In pre-season testing, Vettel has not been at the top, but consistently in the top tier of drivers and without many changes to the Red Bull car, Vettel should continue his mastery at least in the early going of the season. 

The challenge for Vettel will mostly come from two veterans, Ferrari’s risk-taker Fernando Alonso and McLaren-Mercedes’ Jenson Button. Last year, Alonso came close to remarkably capturing the championship after a sluggish start. With a more advanced and consistent Ferrari, Alonso’s driving skills might be the difference. On the other hand, Button campaign should be more challenging as McLaren has overhauled their car for the new MP4-28 to be more reliable and therefore competitive in all 19 races. 

Other notables in the field are two potential championship contenders in the above mentioned Hamilton and Lotus-Renault driver Kimi Räikkönen. The more talented drivers who can pull out a few wins here and there are Red Bull Racing’s Mark Webber, Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg, Ferrari’s Felipe Massa, Button’s new teammate Sergio Perez formerly of Sauber, and Räikkönen’s Lotus teammate Romain Grosjean. 

One major change that every team will have to deal with are the new Pirelli tires. For Australia, Pirelli are using P Zero White medium and P Zero Red supersoft compound tires that will be generally softer and faster than their predecessors. The new tires will allow for at least two pit stops for each race creating a bit more drama for the fans. 

“The performance gaps between the compounds are also larger, which means that teams have a greater opportunity to use strategy to their advantage by exploiting the consequent speed differentials,” says Pirelli’s Motorsport Directory Paul Hembery.

 

 

The 2013 season is shaping up to be an equal battle for supremacy between Red Bull Racing, Ferrari and McLaren-Mercedes. But with the relentless attack of Räikkönen at Lotus and the addition of Hamilton at Mercedes we could be seeing a five-horse race in the constructors championship for years to come. At least let’s hope so.