Red Bull: Drivers: Sebastian Vettel and Daniel Riccardo

This year marks a change for the reigning champions with Mark Webber leaving the team after six years. His replacement was another Australian the young Daniel Riccardo who came from the sister team Toro Rosso. Most people would say that this role would be the worst job in motorsport being Vettel’s teammate. Testing hasn’t gone well with the car hardly getting to 50 laps and stopping on track. The main problem seems to be the battery system and cooling unit. This was first a problem with Renault (the team’s engine supplier) but still the team have problem. It seems that Red Bull might not do well in the first few races, however, with Adrian Newey as chief designer the team will be expected to turn around there problems. Hopefully, get a few wins this year but most people will hope they don’t.

Mercedes: Drivers: Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg

With the tams improvements last year winning three races and achieving second in the constructer’s championship. The silver arrows struggled with pace at the end of last year but did enough to take second. The loss of Ross Brawn hasn’t seemed to have an effect with Paddy Lowe and Toto Wolf now running the team. The Brackley based team have produced a fast package and were the fastest team in testing. With both drivers setting the pace it will be a case of who wants it more between the two drivers. This could be the year that the silver arrows win again in terms of drivers and constructer’s tiles. We will see what happens.

Ferrari: Drivers: Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen

Ferrari, by many people’s views, underperformed last year and seemed out of the pace a lot of the time. At one point, rumours where swirling that Alonso would leave the team when President Luca Di Montizemilo publicly addressed the situation. Alonso calmed down but the team continued to be off pace compared to Red Bull, Mercedes and sometimes Lotus which ended up with them finishing third in the championship.

In September the prancing horse stunned the F1 world when they announced that former driver and last Ferrari champion, Kimi Raikkonen, would re-join the team replacing Felipe Massa. It was the first time that Ferrari would employ two top drivers who couldn’t be more different from each other. Testing wise, Ferrari have been quite unusual. They’ve been in the top 5 but haven’t done any long laps which will make people wonder when they reach Melbourne how fast the prancing horse will be. Only time will tell but with these two drivers we shall expect fireworks on and off the track.

Lotus: Drivers: Romain Grosjean and Pastor Maldonado

Last year was hell for Enstone based outfit. Even though the team achieved one win and several podiums and fighting for second in the constructer’s race. The team was dogged by money issues of the track with their main driver Kimi Raikkonen leaving the team because he hadn’t been paid. The team’s technical director, James Allison, left the team for Ferrari and Raikkonen went the the same way. In the shadow of that, Grosjean emerged as the practical team leader by challenging the Red Bull’s like Kimi himself.

When the season ended there was more hell for Lotus as team owner Gerard Lopez tried to secure the backing of the Arab-American backed Quantum Motorsports which didn’t come to fruition. This meant they couldn’t get their main target Nico Hulkenburg from Sauber. In the end he had to settle for Pastor Maldonado from Williams who brought a lot of sponsorship money from oil giant PDVSA

Testing proved hard with team Principal, Eric Boullier, leaving for McLaren and in testing, the team showed signs that they were the best. Renault was showing signs of speed. The hope will be that they can get through the woes of last year and prove to be fast on the grid as well as off the grid.

McLaren: Drivers: Jenson Button and Kevin Magnusson

McLaren endured their worst ever season since 1980 with no podiums, no poles and a car that didn’t perform to what people expected. New driver,Sergio Perez, who replaced Lewis Hamilton was expected to be McLaren’s next young star but he underperformed against Button in qualifying and in the race. News didn’t get better for the Woking based team with main tile sponsor Vodafone announcing that they would end their partnership after seven years. It was also announced that long time engine supplier Mercedes would not work with them after 2014. A few weeks later it was announced that Honda would return to the sport to supply McLaren’s engine, reuniting a partnership that made the team win every title from 1988 to 1991. Things didn’t improve on the track with the team abandoning efforts on the current car and focusing on the 2014 car.

As the season went on, speculation was rife that neither driver would be kept on for next year. This was later denied by team Principal Martin Whitmarsh. As the season went on McLaren climbed to fifth and would stay there in the table. In the latter half of the season, rumours once again began to swirl that Perez would be losing his drive. In November, it was confirmed that he would not be driving for the team in 2014. He would be replaced by test driver and rookie Kevin Magnusson, son of former driver Jan Magnusson, who was chosen after it was put to vote by the engineers who they wanted in the car for next year.

As 2014 started it was announced that former Team Principal Ron Dennis had reclaimed control of the team and was appointed CEO of the McLaren group. Within a week, the team announced the appointment of Eric Boullier from Lotus as racing director with the role of being in charge of the team on race weekend. With all of this happening, we would hope that this team will be up the front of the grid but time will tell.

Force India: Drivers: Nico Hulkenburg and Sergio Perez

One of the teams to change their entire driver line up Force India had a good start to last season. For a while, they were fifth in the table but after the tyre blew out during the British grand prix at Silverstone every team reverted back to the old tyre package. This really effected there drivers Paul Di Resta and Adrian Sutil. Di Resta scored the team’s best finish in Bahrain with forth but after Hungary, results started to dwindle and he didn’t finish the next five races. His teammate didn’t do much better.

Team owner Vijay Mallaya publicly admitted that the team had been working on the 2014 car from last summer. As the season came to a close, rumours where swirling that the team where looking to bring back their 2012 driver Hulkenburg. As the season began to close rumours were flying that Sergio Perez would join after being dumped by McLaren.

After the season ended in Brazil it was confirmed by the team that Hulkenburg had signed to return to the team. Two weeks later Perez was also confirmed during testing, along with their Mercedes package Force.

India were one of the top teams with Hulkenburg setting one fast time to top the leader board. This year could finally be the year Force India finally deliver it just a case of consistency and development but in F1 anything can happen.

Williams: Drivers: Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas

2013 for Williams was diabolical. The team that dominated the sport twenty years previously could only manage five points. All year long rumours began to swirl that there driver Pastor Maldonado wanted out and went even close to say that the team had tampered with his car.

During the half point of the season, the team announced that they would be switching from Renault engines to Mercedes which was received with optimism as the season went on. Rumours kept swirling that Maldonado would leave. More rumours began to come to light that the team were talking to Felipe Massa who was leaving Ferrari and needed a team. During the week of the American Grand Prix, it was announced that Massa had signed for the team and that Maldonado would indeed be leaving. During testing Williams surprised a lot of people by posting fast times and looking really on it. This could finally be the year the Gove based team finally return to the front of the grid. If there engine works all year they just might do that.

Other Teams

The rest of grid are not much to fuss about but Toro Rosso will hand a debut season to the Russian Danill Kivyat and keep Jean Eric Verne. Whilst Marussia are one two teams to keep their driver line up as they retain Jules Bianchi and Max Chilton. Whilst there rivals Caterham have changed their line up with the returning Kamui Kobayashi and give a debut to Swedish driver Marcus Ericson.

This Year promises to be big and as a fan of fourteen years I can’t wait to watch. As most fans will hope to see the end of the Vettel reign, I’m hoping that too, so all I can say is GO GO GO.