The Curate's Egg

As New Year dawned twelve months ago, Formula One faced the 2007 season with justified trepidation.

The retirement of the sport's most recognised global icon, Michael Schumacher, had left a power vacuum at the head of the drivers' field. With only one F1 champion driver in the 2007 field (McLaren's Fernando Alonso), the lack of established stars threatened to hinder the sport's growth and international viability.

One remarkable Lewis Hamilton rookie season and a maiden Kimi Raikkonen championship title later, those fears have been comprehensively quelled. And, if that had been the sole focus of the year, the 2007 F1 season would have been remembered as one of the brightest and closest ever.

Alas, Formula One also made the headlines for all the wrong reasons in 2007. The series of industrial espionage scandals involving McLaren, Ferrari, Toyota and Renault first tested, then belied the old marketing truism that 'there is no such thing as bad publicity'.

That the racing world was left in limbo long after the season ended, awaiting the confirmation of the champion via the outcome of a legal appeal, encapsulated the disaster that the 2007 season had become.

2007 was a curate's egg of a season - excellent in some parts, rotten in others. If the sport has one collective goal for the 2008 season, it will be to refocus the world's attention on the quality of the racing while limiting the legal off-track wrangles.

If the sport's main role players had followed the initial plans, that goal would have been advanced handsomely during 2008. This was to have been the year for implementation of the FIA-proposed Centreline Downwash Generating (CDG) split rear wing, the focal point of the sport's efforts to promote more overtaking by shifting the balance from aerodynamic back to mechanical grip.

That, in turn, may also have promoted the switch back to traditional slick tyres, and various teams went as far as testing the experimental new slicks from Bridgestone at the end of the 2007 season.

Despite the positive response by drivers to the slicks, and the excited anticipation of millions of fans reared on slick-shod racing, disagreement between the FIA and the teams over the CDG wing has resulted in the implementation being delayed until the 2009 season.

Instead, the technical changes for 2008 are relatively minor by comparison. The centrepiece of the new regulations is the introduction of a single Microsoft-branded Electronic Control Unit (ECU) for all teams and engines, and the associated ban on traction control.

Once deemed impossible to regulate effectively, traction control was grudgingly allowed, to the chagrin of racing supporters who insisted that it diminished driver skill.

The single mandatory ECU should close the technical loopholes that were exploited by teams running proprietary engine management systems. Although the prohibition of traction control is a step in the right direction, it's unlikely to promote more overtaking or to shake up the established driver hierarchy.

While the lack of traction control theoretically punishes those who are not smooth and precise in throttle control, the sport's top drivers would consider TC a nicety rather than a necessity.

The other major technical change for the coming season - the stipulation that gearboxes must now last for four race weekends - will place even more emphasis on reliability rather than outright pace.

David Richards © LAT

But again, it's unlikely to have a dramatic effect on the racing. Pioneered by Ferrari during the Schumacher era, flawless mechanical reliability has proven such an effective approach that any serious championship contender must now aim for a zero-defect season.

Any team willing to trade a half-dozen mechanical retirements for a couple of tenths' improvement in pace will not be in the frame coming down the championship stretch.

In terms of teams and driver line-ups, 2008 will also feature only minor changes. Spyker may have become Force India, but the outfit is a known quantity that will spring no major surprises.

Meanwhile, 2008 was to have marked the debut of the new Prodrive outfit led by former BAR team chief David Richards. Alas, more off-track legal wrangling (this time over the legality of customer cars) has resulted in Prodrive delaying its arrival in F1 by at least a year.

Driver talent is the pre-season's brightest talking point. Both Schumachers may have departed, but the recent arrivals of Lewis Hamilton, Robert Kubica, Nico Rosberg, Heikki Kovalainen, Sebastien Vettel and Adrian Sutil has launched the sport into a new and promising era.

With such an embarrassment of riches already on offer, it's surprising that the field could find space for four new rookies in 2008. Two of those, Toyota's Timo Glock and Williams' Kazuki Nakajima, are returning drivers who were not given an adequate chance to show their true potential during their limited debut stints.

However, most of the attention will be on the other two 2008 rookies. Four-time Champ Car champion Sebastien Bourdais joins 'the other Sebastian' (Vettel) at Scuderia Toro Rosso. It's a pairing that will generate great interest, particularly if the team can build on its improved form during the latter part of last season.

2007 may have ended with the inevitable separation of feuding McLaren team-mates Alonso and Hamilton. However, neither driver can expect to have things all his own way in 2008.

Alonso returns to Renault, where he will be pitted against the fourth 2008 rookie, Nelson Piquet Jr. Like Hamilton, Piquet arrives with GP2 credentials and a reputation for fearless speed and talent.

Hamilton, in turn, will face a stern challenge from new McLaren team-mate Heikki Kovalainen. The Finn fared admirably against former rookie destroyer Giancarlo Fisichella at Renault last season, and will not be fazed by Hamilton's reputation.

Of the likely championship contenders, the unchanged Ferrari pairing of Raikkonen and Felipe Massa seems the most harmonious and settled. However, Massa was visibly disgruntled at having to give up victory in the 2007 season finale to Raikkonen. If the Brazilian is required to defer to Raikkonen again, the relationship could quickly turn sour.

The 2008 season will also mark another step in Formula One's evolution from its Western Euro-centric roots to becoming a truly global phenomenon.

The Singapore Grand Prix layout © Reuters

The withdrawal of the United States Grand Prix temporarily suspends the sport's tenuous relationship with the huge US market - a relationship that had already been severely damaged by the disastrous 2005 Michelin debacle.

On the plus side, the gap in the calendar has been filled by the inaugural Singapore Grand Prix, another new market that had previously only witnessed the spectacle of a Grand Prix weekend via global television coverage.

As if the unlikely combination of a street circuit designed by Hermann Tilke wasn't intriguing enough, the Singapore GP will also be the sport's first ever night race.

Although the gradual eastward shift of the calendar has also been driven by financial incentives, rather than pure altruism to represent all continents equitably, the effect has nevertheless been positive.

Even if the technical power base is still rooted in the major automotive manufacturers of Europe and Japan, at least the hosting of Grands Prix has moved towards greater regional parity.

In all, 2008 will not be a watershed year in the history of Formula One. However, after the tumultuous off-track controversies of 2007, it doesn't have to be.

Instead, a year of quiet rebuilding and restoring credibility is required. If the talking points of the 2008 season revolve around the drivers' achievements on the track, rather than industrial espionage and courtroom battles off it, Formula One will have reason to be pleased with the season's effort.