2018 Preview : Tornado Motorsport

Statistically one of the most successful teams of all time, Tornado Motorsport have established themselves as a perennial frontrunner in FF1M having won 89 races in 385 entries, nearly a 1 in 4 ratio. They hold the record for most Teams Championships with nine and jointly hold the record for most Drivers Championship, sharing seven with Gui Cramer’s outfit. No doubt team boss Tobias Wolff will want to best the Brazilian in the latter department.

Best Season: 2017

The most recent season was one of Tornado’s best seasons of all time, besting their 1990 effort where Alain Prost almost dominated the championship with Thierry Boutsen also making his mark. Heading into 2017, Tornado were the reigning teams champions after an exciting battle with Mitchell and FJR, but Sergio Perez had narrowly missed out on the Drivers Championship and Tomas Gonzalez fell off so badly that Wolff made the bold decision to replace him with 2016 FF2M champion Vaino Kimminen, a move that helped Tornado retain the Teams Championship. The Finn was retained for 2017 where he would be joined by Romain Grosjean, who had returned to the team after a successful spell in 2013. The two would immediately set the tone for a reliable partnership as they secured four podium finishes in the first three races, but none of them on the top step as Lewis Hamilton was on top form. Aragon then saw Kimminen take his maiden win while Hamilton and Grosjean crashed into each other.

After Monaco, a remarkable run of wins began with Tornado eventually obliterating Pedersen’s consecutive wins record. The previous record was five wins in a row during 2011… Tornado doubled that! The Teams Championship was comfortably secured at Portimao which saw Kimminen take his fifth consecutive win at that point and putting him on the verge of winning the Drivers Championship with four races remaining. Over the next two races, Grosjean got lucky twice as he overcame an engine fire at Sepang to win before an engine failure at Suzuka could’ve decided the championship, but a high attrition rate meant that he was still classified 8th, barely keeping the championship alive going into Interlagos. Grosjean needed two wins with Kimminen failing to finish, but a resurgent Pedersen meant that Kimminen’s first Drivers Championship was secured. At the final race, Tornado had the chance to beat Shake ‘n’ Bake’s record of most points scored in a season, but a last lap puncture for Kimminen meant that Tornado ended up matching the record.

Worst Season: 2005

When the races were run, Tornado were relatively new to FF1M but had made quite an impact with a Teams Championship in 2002. The following two seasons were inconsistent, but still had their moments with the odd podium and almost a win in the 2004 Italian Grand Prix but for an inspired Jarno Trulli. At this point, Tornado had developed a turbo for their Renault engine which gave them more power at the expense of reliability. For 2005, the range between power and reliability was increased in order to assist the disadvantaged naturally aspirated teams. Generally, the turbo teams had a challenging time of it trying balance power and reliability, but Tornado really struggled.

It seemed to be a perfect storm of running lower power in the races for more reliability, the lack of the ‘own car’ technology which FJR used to great effect in 2004, and the loss of the superior Michelin tyres that resulted in an uncompetitive season with David Coulthard in particular having a nightmare, qualifying last on seven occasions and failing to finish nine times. Jenson Button’s season wasn’t much better with three 7th places being the best he could do. The season was so bad that Wolff considered leaving FF1M altogether. With the success he would achieve in later seasons, staying was obviously the correct decision.

Present day

Being the most attentive team on the grid paid dividends in 2017 with records broken. Unsurprisingly, they have retained the TRB-16 chassis for a third season and aims for another championship would be more than reasonable. For 2018, Kimminen will be joined by Monegasque rookie Charles Leclerc, and Wolff has expressed some concern over whether he has had enough experience in the support series, but finishing runner-up in the 2017 FF2M championship stands him in good stead to showcase his talent alongside the reigning drivers champion.

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