F1 | Not just high rankings, in 2018 the "fight for salvation" is hotter than ever...

Who will be saved? As much as we talk about Mercedes, Ferrari, Red Bull and co. we often completely forget about the other side of the coin, “the dark side of the moon“, the quicksand of mid-field, the fascinating and chaotic fight to avoid the shame of last place in the Constructors' standings.

In recent years the role of Cinderella of the Circus has fallen to Manor which, out of the game, left the unenviable legacy to the Ferrari-powered Sauber. With the engines off, it is easy to imagine a 2018 world championship that is much more leveled towards the bottom, without a real "mobile chicane” separated from the rest of the group, condemned to the desolation of the last row.

For 2018, in a purely theoretical way obviously, it seems possible to limit the "fight for salvation" to just three teams; from the last positions we exclude a priori the first six teams of 2017 (Mercedes, Ferrari, Red Bull, Force India, Williams, Renault in order of ranking) which should be placed alongside, with a hypothetical judgment based on potential, tradition and marriage with Renault, McLaren. They stay Toro Rosso, Haas e Alfa Romeo Sauber. Three "small" realities, yet well structured and with excellent arguments to appear in the good areas of the ranking, perhaps getting into trouble with one of the teams mentioned above.

Jap bet. According to some, the Italian Toro Rosso could end up at the bottom of the world championship. It's the fault of the new Honda engine engineer, who doesn't give any guarantee of performance and reliability, but also of a singular line-up, in which, unlike previous years, a clear and sunny talent seems to be missing. Honda has already dragged McLaren into the abyss and Toro Rosso is coming off a chaotic year, in which it took a nosedive: from the excellent performances with Sainz to the anonymity of the last few races.

Pierre Gasly, very young, born in 1996, for now he is an unknown. The Frenchman, the latest product of a very rich academy, seems to have been placed there for reasons of coherence with the young driver development programme. Gasly will have to be good at proving the skeptics wrong, demonstrating that he has no less than his other peers, those Verstappen and Ocon on the launching pad. The second Toro Rosso will instead be entrusted to Brendon Hartley, a twenty-eight-year-old WEC champion from New Zealand catapulted from the last races of 2017 into a dream he no longer believed in. Hartley brings professionalism and experience and a fair amount of speed to the table, but as confirmed by Franz Tost himself, the current driver pairing for now is not yet as good as the one formed by Sainz and Kvyat.

But Red Bull's younger sister also has a good chance of smashing it and surprising everyone. Helmut Marko, "transversal" manager of both Red Bull-branded teams, reiterated that he remained surprised by the potential of the Japanese giant, studied with interest also from a Milton Keynes perspective: “Honda sis doing an excellent job and we are convinced that in 2018 the performance situation will be significantly different. They will be the surprise of the season" the Austrian commented. Furthermore, it seems that the relationship between Faenza and Sakura started off on the right foot, much more collaborative and relaxed than that between Honda and McLaren. Toro Rosso also always has James Key on its side, a technical director who over the years has demonstrated his ability to design more than valid single-seaters.

Four-leaf clover and hopes. Another serious candidate for the last position remains Sauber, since 2018 Alfa Romeo Sauber. Hinwill comes from one of the most difficult seasons in its now long history. There partnership with Alfa Romeo, updated Ferrari engines (no longer those of the previous season), and the hiring of a highly promising driver like Charles Leclerc these are three excellent reasons to bet on a relaunch of the Swiss team, which could return to its rightful positions, namely those of mid-table. If anything, the doubts are about the potential of the single-seater; Will the name Alfa Romeo, fresh engines and a talent like Leclerc be enough to reverse a trend that has been worrying in the last two years? According to Marcus Ericsson, the team's other driver, yes. The Swede said he was convinced that Sauber paid too much for the power unit deficit in 2017. We will see.

Stars, stripes, trains. The American dream, that of Gene Haas, is creaking. Indecipherable and fluctuating, Haas has alternated important performances with worrying failures in this two-year period. A good race alternating with too many anonymous races. The eighth place in 2017 sounds like a warning: improve so as not to collapse. The pilot couple is reliable, even if prone to nervousness (Grosjean) and excesses (Magnussen). But they are two experienced riders with interesting speed peaks. The structure is there, Haas is a solid team. What is missing, if anything, is a certain horizon, a defined project. Haas looked set to become Ferrari's satellite team, but in this role they were overtaken with great fanfare by (Alfa Romeo) Sauber. Without a fast track with Maranello, the risk of finding themselves last is not so great. To exorcise the nightmare, Americans will have to learn to develop the single-seater during construction, the real Achilles' heel in the first two years, and above all they will have to know how to jostle to find their space among the sharks of the Circus. Woe betide you if you get depressed, the decline in enthusiasm in these cases represents the antechamber of disengagement and collapse.

Antonino Rendina

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