We continue our extensive, relentless and ultimately rather information-free season season preview here on Patronise, with a look at three of the nearly-there teams from last season. Can any of them make the leap forwards to the top tier in 2009?
Renault
Drivers: The copy-and-paste routine from the 2008 driver line ups continues. Two-time champion Fernando Alonso endured a miserable 2008 campaign, by and large, but two late-season wins put the dad-like dancing back in Fernando's step. With all manner of Alonso-to-Ferrari rumours swimming about for 2010, this year Renault need to hit the ground running if they want to keep hold of their superstar. Alongside the Spaniard, Nelson Piquet Jr stays with the team for a second season, a situation which continues to baffle top scientists given Piquet's execrable 2008 form.
Recent History: The back-to-back titles the team secured in 2005 and 2006 now seem an age away after two years of underachievement. Alonso's late-season surge last year could act as a springboard towards a return to the glory days. Or not.
Magic Moment: The aforementioned pair of drivers and constructors titles for the team would top the bill of Renault highlights. Back when they had pace, Alonso was ultra-motivated, and the car didn't look like it had been repeatedly hit in the face with an iron.
Best Not Mention: The loss of Alonso in 2007, which turned the team into a rudderless ship drifting in a sea of better teams. Now Alonso has returned, he's looking to get his hand back on the tiller and, erm, something about boats.
What's New: Not a lot, beyond the new car, but it's best not to look directly at that. The team will probably have their begging bowl out throughout the season though, with their title sponsor ING on the way out of the sport after losing a bit of money in somesuch largely-ignored financial wobble.
The Good News: The testing pace has been good enough, at least when Alonso has been at the wheel. And given that “attractiveness of car” seems to largely be inversely proportional to “pace of car” this year, Renault should be right up towards the front come Melbourne.
The Bad News: The testing pace has been pretty awful whenever Alonso has left the car alone for a bit and Piquet went out for a bash. This means very little though, seeing as Nelson Piquet Jr could probably have a bash in Thrust SSC and still go at speeds slightly slower than an elderly lady with cataracts wrestling her mobility scooter down to the corner shop.
Where They Will Cut Costs: Could save a significant amount of their budget by putting Nelson Piquet Jr on a performance-related contract.
Commentary Cliché: Martin Brundle will probably continue to grunt sly little put-downs into the microphone every time Alonso is on camera, as part of his pact to ensure that a xenophobic British lynch mob batters him at Silverstone for failing to bend over and think of England when the Spaniard was paired with Hamilton at McLaren.
Will They Use KERS In Oz? Yes, yes they will.
Best Bet: A single, half-decent performance by Piquet to produce staggering, unnecessary series of features, interviews and general slavering from the global media - 16/1
If they were....Breakfast: A mix and match affair. Half the meal will be a delicious, much needed pick-me-up, while the other half will be cold, dry, and probably busy setting the toaster on fire.
Toyota
Drivers: No change here either. Yawn, yawn. Jarno Trulli has been with the team for so many years he's nearly in line for a testimonial, while quiet yet efficient German Timo Glock does little to shatter the illusion that Germany is full of quiet, efficient menfolk by driving quietly and efficiently.
Recent History: The team that have managed virtually nothing of note since arriving in F1 some eight seasons hence showed glimpses of forward progress. Glock's fine podium in Hungary, and Trulli's similar run at Magny-Cours were particularly bright spots.
Magic Moment: The 2005 season was a high point for the team. Five podiums was a success, especially with Ralf Schumacher in one of their cars.
Best Not Mention: The fact that still, after seven years, 123 races and countless billions of pounds of investment, they still haven't actually won a race.
What's New: Absolutely nothing, as you'd expect. The Toyota livery design team were sacked in early 2002 after their work was deemed “good enough for as long as we're planning to stay around for” by the team's CEO.
The Good News: Unsurprisingly, the team has been solid but unspectacular in pre-season testing. The driver pairing is talented enough, and with the backwards slide of McLaren, there may be a chance that Toyota can lift their results by simply staying around about where they were last year.
The Bad News: Daddy Toyota has recently admitted that the team budget took a knock in the wake of Honda's withdrawal. So long as that cut is felt in the “overblown corporate hospitality” department, and less in the “make car go fast now” department, they may weather the financial storm. Alternatively, they may have another season of anonymous midfield tedium and bugger off out of the sport come winter 2009.
Where They Will Cut Costs: They'll have to think of something. Daddy Toyota has announced a sweeping budget cut for this season on the back of Honda's withdrawal, so the famous party boys of the pit lane will have to tone it down a bit in 2009. Yes, bedtime may well be brought back to 9pm.
Commentary Cliché: “The car in front is a Toyota” thus far only used once by James Allen during Silverstone 2002. And, cringingly, once by Patty last year.
Will They Use KERS In Oz? No idea. Don't really care. Almost certainly not.
Best Bet: Timo Glock to use relative anonymity to send a doppelgänger into the newly required driver autograph sessions - 25/1
If they were....Breakfast: Weetabix. Been around for a while without ever really changing, and tend to make up for a complete lack of quality with quantity.
Toro Rosso - Ferrari
Drivers: Something actually changes on the driver front for this team in 2009. With Sebastian Vettel buggering off to the main Red Bull outfit, Swiss dullard Sebastien Buemi becomes the only rookie to grace the 2009 grid. Alongside him, Sebastien Bourdais held off the challenge of crash-prone Japanese man Takuma Sato in a pre-season testing shoot-out to keep his place on the grid, eliciting cries of joy from France, and from Specsavers. Sato gained brownie points by being quicker than Bourdais in just about every test, but lost brownie points for not being called Sebastien.
Recent History: After a couple of seasons of barely even making up the numbers, Toro Rosso hit the big time in 2008, by actually employing a half-decent driver, and were rewarded with a debut win in the Italian Grand Prix.
Magic Moment: See above. In the brief history of Toro Rosso, the 2008 Monza weekend stands out like a dirty weekend locked in a hotel room with Jessica Alba and a tub of Haagen Dazs against a backdrop of three years of fruitless onanistic torment.
Best Not Mention: The fact that it took the team 28 races to work out that Tonio Liuzzi and Scott Speed were a bit cack.
What's New: The new chassis was delivered to them from Red Bull HQ a couple of weeks before the start of the season, so plenty will be new to the engineers and drivers.
The Good News: The Red Bull chassis has looked tidy enough in testing, and the Ferrari engine is probably a better unit than the Renault engine used by the sister squad. QED.
The Bad News: The driver line-up looks a bit questionable. Bourdais hardly set the world alight in his debut season, while Buemi didn't even look that quick in GP2. Team boss Franz Tost has been quick to bring down expectations for the team after 2008's one-off success.
Where They Will Cut Costs: As ever, by not really doing anything for themselves. Chassis from Red Bull, engine from Ferrari, drivers from Red Bull's development ladder and possibly a coffee machine in the garage that they nicked from BMW.
Commentary Cliché: As soon as the team secures a modicum of success, expect the commentators to bring up the tenuous fact that the team used to be everyone's favourite underdog Minardi. A fact conveniently lost as soon as the team reverts back to Minardi-like performances.
Will They Use KERS In Oz? No, they won't. Not until Red Bull let them know how to plug it in.
Best Bet: Either of the drivers to be dropped when STR discover a quicker driver called “Sebastien”. - 16/1
If they were....Breakfast: A desperate, end-of-the-tether swig on someone else's abandoned cup of coffee on a train station platform.
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