Ferrari gains the greatest in a quarter of a century
Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto has described the gains the manufacturer has made with its engine as the greatest it has made in a quarter of a century. The team has bounced back following two difficult seasons to take four wins and be challenging on pace at least Red Bull for the title.
A key factor in Ferrari’s return to form has been its engine gains, which helped the team make up a big performance gap to the Mercedes, Honda and Renault-powered cars from the past couple of years. Following testing and race in Sakhir, the numbers and data suggested that Ferrari had made a big step forward – beyond anything Binotto had seen before.
Binotto told Motorsport.com, “We had some more clarity on the power unit, yes, because we knew where we were on the power unit, the regulations were consistent. On the power unit, we set big numbers in terms of objectives.”
“What I’ve seen that we have been capable of developing during last season for 2022 on the power unit, in more than twenty-five years in Maranello, I never saw that. That’s showing how much the team has been capable of delivering. So that was great on the power unit”
The step forwards cam came after it was hamstrung for engine performance through 2020 after development was frozen in reaction to the pandemic and the push to cut costs. Also, that season its performances nose-dived after Ferrari was told to stop doing something following an investigation by the FIA, details of which have not been disclosed.
Although the gains made by Ferrari on its engine have been impressive this year, the team has also struggled at times with reliability. Charles Leclerc has twice retired from races while leading due to power unit issues, while teammate Carlos Sainz suffered an engine failure when running third in Austria.
Asked if the reliability issues were a result of pushing too far on performance for 2022 due to the development freeze, Binotto replied: “I don’t know if it’s pushing it too far, because pushing on performance is never enough. Certainly, we will put priority on performance rather than reliability. What does it mean? That maybe we were short on our homologation plan.”
Binotto suggested that the reliability problems could be because of the restrictions on dyno testing, which means that teams can no longer double their dyno testing. He explained that you need to balance resolving issues with the current power unit issues and 2023.
Also, this is important as after this season power unit development will be frozen until the next set of power unit regulations are due to be introduced in 2026. Binotto felt the emergence of fresh issues at the track this season on its power unit was part of the normal process throughout a season.
He explained, “Experiencing failures at the race track that are not fully-known problems compared to the bench, but may be problems which are [arriving] simply because we are adding experience to a very green project.”
Alpha Tauri “paying the price” for inconsistencies
Pierre Gasly says that Alpha Tauri is “paying the price a bit more” for its inconsistent form due to the increased competition in the midfield this year. The Frenchman led team to their best finish in the championship with sixth in 2021, however, the team has slipped back into a more competitive midfield.
It has just twenty-seven points at the halfway stage, thirty less than at this point last year. The team has also failed to score points since Baku in mid-June leading it to drop to eighth in the constructors putting it only ahead of Aston Martin and Williams. Gasly is embracing more of a leadership role, as he tries to help bring the team forward through its struggles, particularly against the closer midfield pack this year.
Motosport.com told Gasly, “I believe that in this kind of moment, as a leader, you’ve got to unite and keep everybody united, working towards the same goal. This is not easy, because we’re all humans and people want work versus reward.
“At the moment, we are all working hard, but we are not getting the reward for that effort that we are producing. I do believe there are still chances and signs that we can get good results. But objectively, it’s clearly harder than last year, especially I would say in a more competitive midfield.”
He says there were no longer teams at the back, with fourth to tenth in the constructor’s championship being the midfield. That means that if you’re a little bit on the back foot you are paying more of a price.
Gasly fifth in Baku was the most competitive weekend of the first half of the season, pointing to the capabilities of the AT03 car when the track layout and circuit conditions play to its strengths. He described the situation like his debut season in 2018, when the team had a car which had “some very small glimpses of very amazing performance, but on very particular tracks and in specific conditions.”
Alpha Tauri was one of the teams who decided to introduce their first major updates mid-season, when they did in Le Castellet it failed to deliver a noticeable step forward, leaving both Gasly and team-mate Yuki Tsunoda still trying to understand and unlock its potential heading into the second half of the season.
Tsunoda believes he’s made a measurable improvement
Yuki Tsunoda believes he has made a measurable improvement as a driver during his second season in F1, rating his year to date as seven out of ten. In an interview at the French Grand Prix and published today by Motorsport.com, the Japanese driver rated himself higher than in his rookie season, putting the uptick down to the confidence that comes with experience.
He said, “I think I’ve been able to use the experience from last year. I think knowing what I have to do, how I should approach every race weekend, is definitely an advantage compared to last year. At the same time, I experienced pretty much everything last year, the worst things, but was able to come back from there.
“So yeah. Most situations, I’ve been able to keep calm, not like last year. That’s the main difference. Every race week, I know what I have to do. That’s the main target, the main thing.”
“Last year I didn’t really know what to do, I just thought I had to perform well. But how? To perform well in FP1, every single session, it’s like a different kind of testing. Those things I was not thinking about.”
Alpha Tauri’s technical director Jody Eggington agreed with Tsunoda’s assessment, noting the difference a year has made in terms of Tsunoda’s work with the engineering staff. Saying, “He’s developing and he’s got a good relationship with his engineers, I sit down and talk with him, and he’s forming an opinion of what he wants on the car. Which is good stuff, because it means he’s starting to click and he’s got a view on it.”
However, the inconsistent form shown by the team this season means he is eighteen points behind where he was at the halfway stage. But teammate Pierre Gasly has suffered a much sharper drop, with just sixteen points, as opposed to fifty.
Tsunoda says he is happy with what he has done when he has extracted performance out of the car. Adding, “I’m still happy with what I’ve done.”
Melbourne announces 2023 race date
Organisers of the Australian Grand Prix have announced next year’s race will take place between Thursday 30th March and Sunday 2nd April. That will make the race the third round of the championship for the second year running, possibly paired with Shanghai which is due to return following a three-year hiatus.
Melbourne has traditionally been the opening round throughout the Melbourne era, the event is now set to float in the first three rounds of each season as part of a recently-signed contract extension.
It will host the opening race in 2024 and 2025 but is unlikely to in 2026 because of the Commonwealth Games due to take place in Victoria in late March and early April, following the Winter Paralympic Games in Milan. Which could see the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix at Imola pushed to a later date in April or May.
The 2023 race, meanwhile, is shaping up as a significant one given the likelihood of there being a Melbourne-born driver on the grid for the first time. Oscar Piastri is widely expected to end up in a race seat next season with McLaren which, would make him the third Australian to compete in his home race during the Melbourne era after Mark Webber and Daniel Ricciardo, and the first from Melbourne itself.
Its already been announced the race will be added to the F2 and F3 calendar from 2023. Supercars will also hold a points-paying round at Albert Park, the event likely to be either the second or third round following the Newcastle 500 and perhaps the Tasmania SuperSprint in March.
Imola podium “still blows” Norris’s mind
Lando Norris says his third-place finish at the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix still “blows my mind” given McLaren’s pace compared to its rivals, calling it “one of my best podiums.” The Englishman took the team’s only podium in the first half of the season at Imola when he finished behind both Red Bulls.
Norris had qualified third on Friday in wet conditions, less than two-tenths off pole, and finished the Saturday sprint race fifth behind the Red Bull and Ferrari cars. Looking back on his season so far in an interview with Motorsport.com, Norris admitted that he still found it hard to believe he managed to finish third given the performance level with the McLaren MCL36 car.
He told Motorsport.com, “I still don’t know how I got a podium with the car that we had! It still blows my mind, considering how much quicker a lot of the other cars were. Like now, when I think of it, I think it’s probably one of my best podiums.
“[In] wet qualifying, it was a pretty awesome lap in quali, but when you see the speed of the Alfa Romeo, it was like, half a second a lap quicker than me in the race. If we did a race of just pure pace, I’d probably be like 15th or something! But I finished on the podium.”
Norris says that it’s good that McLaren are making improvements and are going in the right direction, giving them more motivation and hope. The result in Imola came following a nightmare in the middle east, a disrupted test in Bahrain with them leaving the race pointless, while in Jeddah he could only manage seventh.
Norris has been open about his need to adjust his driving style to accommodate the MCL36, which has also proven difficult for teammate Daniel Ricciardo to get to grips with. At the halfway stage in the season, McLaren are fifth in the constructors, four points behind Alpine.
He conceded McLaren had been “a bit up and down” so far this year, its form varying from track to track, he was impressed the team had managed to hang on in the fight against Alpine for so long.
Adding, “Early on in the season, they had a very strong car. Just a lot of people made a lot of mistakes with crashing, [Alonso] had a failure or whatever with the power steering. We’ve also done a very good job, disregarding the car. Everything else has been a good step this season, in how everyone is working, with strategy, pitstops”
