Since the end of the 2007 F1 season I’ve been wanting to take a look back at the predictions I made in March and see just how far off the mark I was. Yeah, I know the season ended over two months ago. I’ve been kind of busy. Any way, since 2007 is over in about 4 hours, I figure I had better get to it.

So, starting at the bottom of the WCC standings we have

McLaren Mercedes - 0 points

Dead last with zero points. I don’t think anyone could have predicted the train wreck that was the McLaren 2007 season. Not even me. What I predicted was a fast but fragile MP4-22, Alonso being nearly suicidal because of it yet happy not to be forced to wear the Renault clown suit, and Hamilton running his car into the ground.

Well, it turned out the McLaren possessed a very un-McLaren like synergy of speed and reliability. Apparently building the car to F2007 specs helped greatly in that aspect.

Alonso’s increasingly bizarre behaviour had nothing to do with his car breaking. It did have everything to do with his rookie teamate being more than fast enough to spank him more or less regularly.

Since the Spaniard will be reunited with KrustyCo for 2008, it may be safe to assume that he doesn’t mind the uniforms.

Hamilton, it turned out, was pretty easy on his car. He did manage to beach it in the season’s smallest gravel trap in a last ditch effort to lose the WDC so I’ll give myself credit for that one.

Spyker-Ferrari - 1 point

Well, right off the bat I thought the car would be orange. Score one for me.

I also thought people would have trouble spelling Christijan Albers. Right again. By the end of the season the press started to spell it Winklehock or Yamamoto. The purported reason for Albers’ dismissal was that his sponsors weren’t paying. I think they just didn’t want to keep paying to fix the fuel rig.

Since Sutil didn’t get fired, wreck the fuel, rig, or lead a race, people are still wondering who the heck he is. I guess if you can’t be fast you should be spectacular.

Gascoyne certainly made the season interesting since he managed to put Winklehock into the lead at the European Grand Prix. I hear you. The lead was just from proper tire selection at the start of the race. But Winklehock was on track and in the lead while turn one was a parking lot of expensive equipment.

I think I nailed this one. Sort of.

Super Aguri F1 - 4 points

Well, I figured Sato would have been his usual fast but reckless self. Honestly, I can’t remember him doing anything stupid this year so I guess I was completely wrong on that one.

Davison was quick as usual and finally got to prove himself in race trim. I’m pretty sure that sent bulletin boards all across the vast expanse of the Internet into a frenzy as the usual trolls claimed heh was on fumes and running more revs. Despite the rev limit. Some people

Honda - 6 points

I figured that kind of cool/kind of goofy decal scheme would have been Honda’s biggest problem this year. That turned out to be the least of their concerns. I don’t think any of the countries fell off the car, but everything else seemed to come off. I scored 0 on this one.

STR-Ferrari - 8 points

Let’s see what I had here.
Speed and Luizzi getting canned. Check and check. Although Luizzi did make it to the end of the season. The one bright side is not having to hear Bob Varsha call him Americanscottspeedfrommantecacalifornia anymore.
Go faster crash harder right into each other. Well, the Red Bull was technically a different car, but they seemed to handle this part OK. I don’t think anyone from STR got a Christmas card from Mark Webber this year.

Toyota - 13 points

I bravely predicted more mediocrity from the Japanese squad in 07. Went waaaay out on a limb there and wound up right.
Apparently they did figure out they were paying a whole lot of money to the wrong Schumacher as the Shoe Jr. isn’t on the 08 roster.
And, while I’m too lazy to actually look it up, I think they did make more races by Monaco than Michael Waltrip Racing had up to that point.
Quite bold and accurate predictions, no?

Red Bull-Toyota - 24 points

With a total of 24 points, Red Bull seemed to be in the points fairly regularly. Score another one for me.
No one, aside from yours truly, made the connection bewteen Red Bull being banned in France and the team running French engines. Just as well as I don’t think the team would have done nearly as well sans engine.
Webber didn’t seem to have many super qualifying sessions, so the prospect of him lining up backward on the grid never got to materialize. Too bad. That would have spiced up the show a bit.
Coulthard is still out yelling at the kids to get off his lawn. OK, maybe not.

Williams-Toyota - 33 points

OK, I disavow any knowledge of the pre season predictions about Williams. I was either possessed of demons at that moment or, more likely, possessed of beer.
Pretty much wrong on every single point.

Renault - 51 points

Somewhere a circus is missing their clown car. Although they seemed to have kept the clowns as I don’t recall seeing 48 clowns climb out of that hideous liveried-by-committee monstrosity when Fisi climbed out.
While neither driver was a threat for a championship, Heikki certainly had the upper hand on his team mate. There may be something to that 3k rule after all.
I got exactly nothing right on this one either.

BMW - 101 points

Let’s see…
Boring livery? Check.
Boring team? Check. Don’t get me wrong, they’re doing an awesome job but damn are they boring. They even managed to go the whole season without stealing any IP from another team. The only ruckus they managed to cause was in Brazil by running their fuel through the beer cooler.
Fast? Check.
Points? Enough for second.
Nailed that one. Pardon me a moment while I gloat.

OK. I’m done. So that just leave

Ferrari - 204 points

“Italian speed and reliability coupled with Finnish cybernetics will bring the constructors championship back to Maranello this year.”
It’s almost like I have a crystal ball some times. What else did I predict?
“OK, long story short (yeah I know, a bit late for that). All you need to know about the 07 F1 season is this: Ferrari, Raikkonen. That’s all.”
Sometimes I’m so right it hurts.
Thankfully you can’t see this, but I’m doing the “Oh yeah I’m the man” dance right now.

Really. Be thankful you can’t see that.

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