This Week – 15/01/2023
Hello, this week has been about looking at and assessing the lessons from last year as well as getting the right people in place. Team principal vacancies have started to be filled, the format of race weekends and race directors announced. Car launches are getting nearer several have been confirmed in roughly mid-February
General News
FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem has suggested that F1 will keep having multiple race directors in the future, following the change of approach for 2022. Following the controversy in Abu Dhabi in 2021, then race director Michael Masi was sacked.
Masi was replaced for most of 2022 by two race directors Niels Wittich and Eduardo Freitas, but that proved unpopular with concerns about consistency. Including the GPDA, with director George Russell saying his members believe that having the rotation isn’t the best thing for a sport, for that consistency. We’ve never had a steward from a previous event at the following race to talk about any certain decisions, I believe.”
But rather than go back to a system of installing a single race director, Ben Sulayem thinks it is essential for the governing body to have multiple people involved to ensure there is a smooth transition should a problem occur with the incumbent. I can see both sides of the argument, but we know fatigue with the ever-growing calendar.
Organisers of the British Grand Prix say they want to extend the weekend into a four-day event to give fans more track action. The Silverstone weekend is one of the most popular races for both drivers and fans, attracting record crowds in recent years except for 2020 due to Covid restrictions.
Last year’s weekend attendance was 400,000 over the three days of track action and over 100,000 for race day. In a bid to grow the event further and give the fans more track action, managing director Stuart Pringle is now looking to extend the British Grand Prix to four days of on-track action.
In recent years the business model of Silverstone has changed, a museum has been built along with hotels, holiday lets as well as growing the off-track entertainment with music events. Last year, Eurovision runner-up Sam Ryder performed the national anthem and headlined the post-race concert.
Mercedes
George Russell says the increasing weight of the cars could become a potential safety issue as an impact “is like crashing with a bus compared to a Smart Car”. Last years. Regulation changes introduced the heaviest cars in the sports history, up three kilograms from the previous regulations.
He said added “The big one [issue] is the weight. The weight is extraordinary. At the moment, the low-speed performance is not great. We keep making these cars safer and safer, but obviously the heavier you make them when you have an impact it’s like crashing with a bus compared to a Smart Car.”
This was a common complaint last year following the regulation changes, he says there are also concerns about the high and seemingly ever-rising weight figure could soon become problematic. Safety has always got to be the priority and weight saving, but at what cost?
Mercedes says it has no plans for a direct replacement for James Vowels after some of his roles were already being handed over last year. Vowels will join Williams replacing team principal Jost Capito.
While the team has long benefited from his involvement in terms of strategy, it was clear from mid-2022 that he was shifting away from a hands-on role. He was handed him fresh responsibilities in areas like the young driver programme and contracts. That meant most races were being run without his input, though he was still attending briefings.
I think looking at the last two years Mercedes has been in a quiet transition phase, looking towards the future but have retained a lot of that championship-winning mentally. Vowels wasn’t attending every race.
CEO and team principal Toto Wolff said in a media briefing “There is no gap left behind because for many years we have discussed the succession planning in this area. We’ve been very reliant on James’ visibility, and we put an emphasis a few years ago on how that would continue if he one day would decide to do something else, whether within Mercedes or outside.”
“We have an extremely talented team of strategists. We have nine people, some very senior, that are not always on the front line, and some that have grown within the organisation.”
Mercedes has also announced they will launch the 2023 car the W14 Wednesday 15th of February at Silverstone. The team as things currently stand could be the penultimate team to launch its new car.
A Mercedes statement said: “The team’s 2023 season will burst into life on Wednesday 15 February. The Mercedes-AMG F1 W14 E PERFORMANCE, forged from the challenges of the testing 2022 campaign, will break cover at a special digital launch event broadcast live from Silverstone.”
Red Bull
Max Verstappen has further outlined the early frustrations he had with last year’s Red Bull, saying “a car cannot be fast with understeer.” While he took is second title last year in the first four races the team s struggled with the heavy car and handling issues in slow-speed corners. This was on top of the handling issues from the new tyre construction which in the slow-speed corners where ground-effects cars do not perform at their best.
The issues meant that Verstappen was unable to have the front end he wanted, he likes the car to be extremely pointy and nimble front end he prefers.
Verstappen said, “Well, now it was just related to the weight of the car. Being really overweight created an understeering balance and once we started to get rid of that, it started to be more agile again. Not just twitchy but more agile. You could really use the front end. At the end of the day, that’s also how you really drive a fast car.
Red Bull was the eighth team to announce the cars launch date, the RB19 will be launched on Friday 3rd February in New York.
Ferrari
Antonio Giovinazzi and Robert Shwartzman are set to share the role of Ferrari’s reserve driver role this year. After missing out on an F1 return for this year, Giovinazzi was announced as part of Ferrari’s driver line-up in the Hypercar class of the World Endurance Championship on Tuesday.
Alpine
The team’s parent company Renault is expecting that the FIA will get tougher with engine manufactures do not use upgrades for reliability to boost performance. This year is the second year of a freeze on power units which restricts what elements can be changed.
Hardware tweaks solely aimed at delivering a boost in power are not allowed, but the FIA is able to approve changes aimed at solving genuine reliability problems. This was or could be controversial if teams start making ‘big gains’ in performance but if they resolve these issues it will be good for the sport.
Alpine team principal Otmar Szafnauer says it’s better to have an “overlap” of management duties within a team. After trying a non-conventional management structure in 2021, last year the teams CEO Laurent Rossi changed the structure to a more traditional structure.
The structure that the team had in its first few years shared the duties of team principal between different people, this seemed like a odd structure in terms of line of command within the team. Rossi noted in September that Szafnauer was one of the hires that he was “most proud of,” and the latter says that the division of responsibilities within Alpine is clear.
Szafnauner has also warned that the top teams are looking to “exploit” the cap by moving staff around from projects. The Romanian told Motorsport.com, “I think when everyone’s the right size, you lose that little bit. I think what some of the other teams are now doing, the bigger teams, is they’re looking to exploit or have a better understanding of where there’s some loopholes or some organisational changes you can make to actually stuff more people under that budget cap.”
I always think this is part of the DNA of the sport, pushing it to the limits and we know that last year some teams went for an underspend as not to exceed the budget cap. But as time goes on you can rightly expect teams to close up.
Williams
Alex Albon believes that Williams could have been “much quicker” last year if they had resolved the balance issues that “tied in” to certain circuits. His best results came early on in the season but both the teams driver were complaining about the car’s balance issues.
Albon told Motorsport.com, “It’s a tricky one, because the car can be much quicker with the right balance to it. It feels like at the minute, we’re quite restricted on performance just because of how we’re tied in at some places. Certain tracks really expose us, like Brazil or Mexico.”
The team this week also announced that Franco Colaponto has joined the teams development drivers. Last year in F3, he took pole on his debut at the Bahrain Grand Prix and winning sprint races at Imola and Monza. He finished ninth in the driver’s championship, after three further podiums to his name.
According to Williams, Colapinto will be “immersed with the team both trackside and at the factory in Grove” as well as undertaking simulator work to assist his own development and that of the team’s F1 car.
Colapinto added, “It’s a real honour to join Williams Racing Team as an Academy Driver. They are one of the most successful teams in Formula 1 history and I am looking forward to following in the footsteps of my fellow countryman Carlos Reutemann.”
Williams have announce it 2023 launch plans, the team will launch online at 14:00GMT on Monday 6th February via its website, social media and app. The announcement made no mention of the team’s new car being presented at the launch, with the first proper look at the FW45 due to come at a later date.
It also this week they have appointed James Vowels as Jost Capito’s replacement after he resigned. He joins the team after four years as Mercedes strategy director where he has been a key part of the teams success. Vowels will start his new job at the Sakhir test in just over a months time, becoming the second new team principal and the fourth team principal change of the winter break, with Ferrari, McLaren and Sauber/Alfa Romeo changing their team principals.
He added, “The team is an icon of our sport, one I greatly respect, and I am very much looking forward to the challenge. Mercedes have been hugely supportive on my journey, and we part on excellent terms after over 20 years of working in Brackley.”
Vowels is a great appointment he has been at Brackley since it was BAR in the early 2000s and has worked himself up to this role and has ten constructors championships to his name. I think that engineering and strategy mix is perfect for the role of team principal, he should be able to help the team move forwards