Ricciardo hoping for home points
Daniel Ricciardo is hoping that McLaren’s improved form in Jeddah has given him hope that he can aim for points at this weekend’s Australian Grand Prix. Ricciardo and teammate Lando Norris have struggled in the opening two races of 2022 as McLaren was caught off the pace of the frontrunners.
After finishing in the top four in the last two years, McLaren had a painful weekend in Sakhir with Ricciardo and Norris finishing in fourteenth and fifteenth after unlapping themselves under the safety car. But Jeddah appeared more promising, as both drivers just missed out on Q3, and Norris fought hard for seventh to secure the team’s first points of the season.
While Ricciardo retired from the race with mechanical trouble, he said Norris’ result was encouraging ahead of the Australian’s home race in Melbourne. This weekend marks the first race in Melbourne following the abandoned 2020 race as the pandemic took hold of the world, making him eager to give his home fans something to cheer about on F1’s return.
He told Motorsport.com, “Looking at Australia, it’s going to be flowing and quite fast again, especially the changes they made. So perhaps that comes to us again and maybe we could fight for points.”
“I know that’s not aiming very high but that’s really all we can aim for, for now. Until we get some big updates, I think anything inside the top 10 we’ll take as a little victory for now.”
Ricciardo’s relative optimism for his home race is based on the belief that the huge swing in McLaren’s performance so far has been track specific, and he hopes Bahrain was a “bogey situation” for the team.
Ferrari is in better place to fight for titles – Binotto
Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto believes that the team is in a much better place to fight for the championship compared to when it lost grip on the 2018 season. After two difficult years, the Italian manufacturer has fought its way back to the top and is enjoying its most competitive starts to a season in years.
It took a 1-2 win with Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz in Bahrain, followed by another podium for both drivers in Saudi Arabia. In 2018, Sebastian Vettel put in a strong first half of the season, before both his championship challenge and career at Ferrari started to unravel when he crashed out while leading in the wet at Hockenheim.
Following that season’s summer break, Mercedes managed to win the arms race between both teams and out developed its Italian rival. Hamilton sealed the drivers’ title with two rounds to spare, with Mercedes comfortably clinching its fifth consecutive constructors’ championship.
The same thing also happened in 2017, following minor changes compared to this season regulations, Vettel lead the first half leading into the summer break only for Lewis Hamilton to dominate the second half of the season. However, Binotto believes the team is now in a better place than four years ago, and that it has all the right tools to keep up its development rate throughout the season.
He told Motorsport.com, “I think that keeping up the level of development through a season is always a challenge not only for us but for all the team. But it’s true that our competitors are very strong in that, and they proved to be very strong while as Ferrari, with the last two opportunities we had in ’17 and ’18, we lost a bit of ground for development.”
“I think as of today, we are much better prepared compared to the past to do the proper job as well in development.” Binotto acknowledges that the budget cap now means that teams cannot afford to explore any developments they please and will now need to take a more focused approach in chasing the right upgrades to get them to the end of 2022.
He says this will be a key in influencing development, but his concern remains whether the sport has the right policing in place.
Binotto added that it will therefore take several races for Ferrari to bring the first batch of significant updates to its F1-75 challenger. Saying “I think it’s not only a matter of when we’ll be ready, but the matter, as I said before, of budget caps, to try to make sure that we’re not spending all that we got in the first races .”
Alpine believes rivals have gained massively
Alpine thinks that its rival teams gained “massively” from the FIA’s pre-season concession in allowing floor stays to help alleviate porpoising problems. The move to ground effect cars has triggered headaches for the teams, some more than others with the way the cars bounce along the straights.
Several teams found that the problems were exacerbated at high speed by their floors flexing down at the edges, which better sealed airflow under the car but led to a sudden increase in downforce. Some teams say by strengthening the edges of the floor is a way to stop this movement, while a rule change was agreed that allowed their use in Grands Prix weekends as well.
Alpine says that the concession to allow stays did not help its own cause though, because it had deliberately created a strong enough floor that would not flex in the first place. But that means the teams will need to accept that its car would be heavier, than teams who went for a less sturdy flexible solution that suffered subsequent problems.
chief technical officer Pat Fry, says that the addition of stays meant other teams who had gone for the lightweight floors, therefore, gained more when they were allowed to run the stays.
Asked by Motorsport.com about how on top of porpoising and floor flexing Alpine was, Fry said, “I wouldn’t say we’ve been clever and designed around porpoising or whatever. We designed our car for maximum performance, but accepting that it was going to be slightly heavier and slightly overweight.”
“We put a lot of stiffness in the floor and our wide top body also allows you a stiffer installation. So that’s helped us out, to be honest. But it was a bit of a cop-out when a stay was added. But what can I say? That was a bit frustrating.”
He says they are already stiff enough, and he thinks it is all part of the game. Alpine is expected to bring a raft of upgrades for Imola, but Fry suggested the floor stay situation meant it would now have to look at weight saving as well as pure performance gains.
He says that they have upgrades coming over the next three races, the challenge for Alpine is juggling the weight of components with potential reliability issues in making things too fragile.
Miami organiser wants people to think it’s different
Miami Grand Prix organiser Tom Garfinkel says he wants people attending May’s first race of the ten year deal to think “this is different.” Organisers today have released rendered video highlighting the multiple high-end hospitality zones and grandstands around the circuit, including a trackside ‘yacht club’ and a temporary beach with swimming pools.
A Monaco-style marina is being constructed, complete with a dozen or so dry-docked yachts, that will be positioned on the infield of the long left-handers of Turns Six to Eight of the 5.4-kilometre track. Garfield who is the managing partner of the event and the Miami Dolphins and Hard Rock Stadium CEO, in a promotional video. “To bring the glamour and elegance of Formula 1 and the technology of F1 racing to a dynamic, growing city like Miami right now is fantastic.”
“The idea was how do you create a race for people that are used to going to races to think ‘this is different, this is fun, this is exciting’. I think, first of all, it’s about Miami. Miami Gardens, and really the whole south of Florida, it’s become a curator of culture when you talk about fashion and art, music, food and sports. It’s a very attractive place.”
He says from the racing view, they are introducing the best racing, technology, cars and drivers in the world to a large group of people who have not been around or seen the sport before. Garfinkel believes it “can have a large impact on peoples’ lives.”
Despite the expensive ticket prices, the event sold out in just forty minutes, with resale sites now offering grandstand seats at well over $1000. The circuit has some ambitious plans for the Paddock Club, with a secondary area on the inside of Turn One, where McLaren, Red Bull and Mercedes have their zones.
To reflect Miami’s coastline location, a beach will be created at the circuit by the Hard Rock Club, which promises a 24,000 square-foot zone featuring resort-style pools and two levels of luxury cabanas featuring musical performances near Turns Eleven to Thirteen.
Red Bull who is a event partner, will have their zone at Turn Eleven with a Red Bull Energy Station in a ‘Miami-themed environment’ on the opposite side of the track
