Torque Points - Germany 2012

By Jem Ruggera     

The news of Mark Webber signing with Red Bull for another year fitted a crucial piece into the jigsaw puzzle that is the 2013 driver line-up. For the Milton Keynes based team, it was the obvious move. This is Webber's sixth year with the team, he's driving as well as he ever has, and currently sits second in the drivers standings. Together with Sebastian Vettel, they have driven to all 30 of Red Bull's wins, and with the RB9 looking increasingly impressive there is no reason to think they won't add plenty more to the tally.

As far as 2013 is concerned, the most interesting part of the puzzle now lies with Ferrari. Do they keep Felipe Massa? His struggles over the past few years have been well-documented, and he has found it increasingly difficult to match his team-mate. Things just haven't been the same for him since that nasty crash in Hungary, 2009. Whether that is part of the reason for his struggles is debatable. I think it is more down to the brilliance of a certain Spaniard on the other side of the garage. No, not Jorge Lorenzo...

Alonso leaving Massa behind….again.

Massa is likely to be gone at the end of this year, despite his relative improvement over the last few rounds. But when you consider that Fernando Alonso is leading the championship in the same car with 129 points, Massa’s paltry 23 points are just not contributing enough to the team total. Despite being a driver short, Ferrari still lie second on the table, but with quite a gap to leaders Red Bull and their two handy points-scoring pilots.

Torque Points - Valencia 2012

By David Galton-Fenzi and Jem Ruggera

The Track is Rubbish

The Tilke designed Valencia circuit first burst onto the F1 calendar in 2008 amid much fanfare and expectation. Here was a street circuit that looked like an established track. The layout was nothing like existing street tracks, with a very long lap length and straights that would encourage overtaking. Proper straights!! On a street circuit... imagine that.

Fast forward four years and it’s become one of the most unloved circuits there is. Dire processional races abound with last year being a particular new low. Of the 24 cars that started the race, 24 finished which means that nothing happened. Nothing! (with apologies to Mr Vettel) DRS was meant to fix the inherent problems with the layout, but I fear this track is beyond saving, and why should we have to resort to fine tuning the artificial element of F1 just to have a decent watchable event?

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Torque Points - Canada 2012

By Jem Ruggera and David Galton-Fenzi

Canada has one of the most fascinating circuits on the calender at the moment – a lot of that is to do with the fact that it wasn't designed by Hermann Tilke. By fascinating, I mean it contains a very particular character. The bumpy surface (numerous sections of the track have been resurfaced), the narrow straights and the unforgiving walls mean that even slight mistakes can be punished severely (just ask anyone that has hit the 'Wall of Champions', the barrier on the outside of the final chicane). Turn 4 is another tricky corner where more than one driver has come to grief.

Torque Point Qualifying - Monaco 2012

By Jem Ruggera

Another qualifying session, another bunch of questions. Wasn’t Lotus supposed to be looking good around here? Wasn’t Hamilton the favourite for pole position? Wasn’t the Mercedes going to struggle around here with such limited chance to use the double-DRS?

Instead, like many Saturday afternoons, the expected form book has been shredded, set on fire and the ashes scattered into Monaco harbour. This is mainly a function of just how close the field is running these days. In Q2 the top sixteen were covered by just 0.9 of a second. This meant missing a braking point by a couple of metres, not quite clipping an apex you normally hit lap after lap, means the difference between eight and twelfth. Just ask Jenson Button.

Torque Points - Monaco 2012

By David Galton-Fenzi

If anyone says they have any idea who is going to win at Monaco they’re either a liar or a witch. For the first time since 1983 we’ve had five different winners from the first five races. There has never been a season that started with six, but when you think that this year’s victors do not include Hamilton, Webber or Raikkonen, all previous Monaco winners, then you realize there is every chance we could see history this weekend, and the most wide open championship in F1 history.

 Rosberg Snr making it five out of five at Monaco in ‘83

Torque Points - Barcelona 2012

By David Galton-Fenzi

Barcelona will be the first race this year with a double gap in Pirelli’s tyre compounds, with the hard and soft tyres allocated. The first four races of 2012 have all been run on adjoining compounds, contrasted against last year’s championship where we had the double gap in the first five races, but then only twice more throughout the season (British and Indian Grands Prix) as Pirelli adapted to their first year in the sport.

Despite the well reported recent criticism of the 2012 tyres by Michael Schumacher, Pirelli are confident their decision will result in another thrilling race, “There is a whole step in between our two nominations for the first time this year and this should allow the teams to come up with a number of different tyre strategies that could make a big difference to the final outcome.” Explained Pirelli’s motorsport director, Paul Hembery, “With many teams having expanded their knowledge of our tyre range and tested new components at Mugello, we’re expecting a closely-fought Spanish Grand Prix – and maybe even the fifth different winner in five races.”

Literally - black art