Hello welcome back to This Week, the main story of the week has been once again the turnover of another team principal Gunther Steiner with only Christian Horner and Toto Wolff as the two longest-serving CEOs & team principals. Often with a month to go until testing the road to the new season is well underway and that question, can anyone beat Red Bull? That question as well as the future of our sport, investment and planning ahead of 2026 now two years away, that challenge is one which is going to creep up…
General News
Monza has begun work on the key improvements to its track and infrastructure that it hopes will help secure its long-term F1 future. Monza and neighbouring Imola’s contract expire next year but there have been questions about whether Italy should have two races, last year F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali said improving Monza’s facilities was critical if the venue was to have any chance of earning a contract extension.
he said, “The historical value of Monza is beyond question, but we also need to keep up with the times in terms of services, which must be in line with the prices paid by those who come to the racetrack. Within the next year, we will have clear ideas about the future.” Today a hundred and fourty day redevelopment was started.
The work includes a complete track resurfacing, the construction of a new underpass (plus the expansion of the three current ones), improved pit building facilities as well as a series of grandstand improvements.
Speaking about the changes, Sticchi Damiani said: “Our main goal is to bring the Autodromo back up to speed. We can no longer afford to have problems with the flow of fans, and we must offer greater comfort to those who come to the circuit. We have set ourselves three goals to best meet the requests made to us, and of these the first is the underpasses.”
“The second goal is related to the grandstands. We still have several temporary structures, so we will build more solid structures that will provide all the amenities in line with what a spectator expects today. Each grandstand will be an island with all the necessary services inside, so that the public will not have to move around.”’
“Finally, a permanent type of roofing will be built over the pit building (it is currently a tensile structure). The support pillars will be reinforced because the structure will grow in height.”
The improvements to the pit building are of importance to F1 in particular as they should help improve its corporate hospitality offerings in the Paddock Club. Speaking via video conference at the event on Monday, Domenicali said: “For us, this is an important goal. We need to be able to receive our guests in a proper structure and no longer under a tent, as it was until last year.”
Red Bull
Red Bull’s technical director Pierre Wache says the sport must not treat active aerodynamics as a quick “patch” for bigger problems with the proposed 2026 car concept. The power unit regulations for 2026 s increase the reliance on the electrified part of the hybrid powertrain – it will produce 50% of total power – while the expensive Motor Generator Unit–Heat has been ditched.
There has been fears from the data of ‘Frankenstein cars’, with Max Verstappen claiming he was downshifting on straights in simulator runs to compensate for massive power drop-offs. This could lead to the regulations being adjusted to add active front and rear wings for the chassis technical regulations in a bid to reduce drag.
But Wache warns that these quick fixes, with the engine framework dictating car design, must not distract the championship from addressing the deeper-rooted issues.
Speaking exclusively to Motorsport.com about the straight-line capabilities of the next-generation cars, he said: “The speed is going down and the feeling is not so nice. The FIA works with the teams on how this energy will be deployed to make it less annoying for the driver and to have a better speed profile throughout the lap.”
“Plus, they also work on the car characteristics to have less drag and less downforce. By having less downforce, you recover more energy because you spend more time in the corners and in the braking zones, and then you spend less time on straights.”
These kinds of debates are going to be ongoing I think in the next year to finalise the regulations, but there are also warnings that the adding of more aerodynamic devices could hurt the closer racing that we want in F1. As ever the solution will be found one solution has been suggested to split to increase the emphasis on the 1.6-litre turbocharged internal combustion engine equally.
However the FIA has no plans to pursue this and would face backlash from engine manufacturers who are already spending on research and development. We know that engine development takes longer and a change of concept two years before introduction could be a big headache to do.
The team believe that rivals just copying their concept will not be enough to allow them to close the gap this season. Red Bull is likely to be copied because of the dominance they have had since the beginning of the ground affect era in 2022, it is expected that over the next few years rivals will converge on similar designs. However visually similar cars don’t necessarily lead to the same on-track performance, but it should see teams getting closer
That point was made by technical director Pierre Wache thinks that other teams will need to go further than just trying to repeat what his squad has done. He suggests that more important to unlocking speed is getting to the bottom of why it has done things the way it has.
he told Motorsport.com, “I think it’s possible to copy, but in every business in the world, when it’s technical, the ‘how’ is one aspect. The most important aspect is ‘why’. If you don’t know ‘why’, you can copy whatever you want, but it’s better to stay with what you understand.”
Wache said that copying other teams’ ideas was commonplace in F1 and something his squad did from time to time. Last week his Alpine counterpart Matt Harman said, “The important thing is to look beyond the cars you see around you. If we turn up with a car that people see now, by the time we get to 2025, it’s going to be very out of date. It’s really important to be inspired by what you see. But we need to be aiming well past that, to give us that two-year horizon.”
The important thing is you can’t bolt on for example aa Red Bull frontwing, Ferrari engine cover and Mercedes rear wing and expect it to see a big step, the car has to work as one package but that doesn’t lead to success on track. But that doesn’t mean you can’t use it as an inspiration for your own car.
Wache also thinks that it’s wrong to label last year’s RB19 as the perfect car, as he said there were elements to it that needed to be improved.
While it won 21 out of the 22 races over the course of the season, he is clear that performance in F1 is relative to others. he said, “You can have the same car and the others do a better job than you. We put everything together. The car has some weaknesses, but not a big one. [It’s] quite efficient in terms of downforce versus drag. That’s clearly a key and also [it’s] quite gentle on tyres for the race pace.
Mercedes
technical director James Allison feels the super-stiff low ride height demands of the current ground effect cars is ‘not great’ for the sport. The aim of these ground effect regulations was to improve overtaking by allowing the cars to follow more closely but as we’ve analysed before has worked in the midfield but the championship fight while Red Bull has dominated.
This has left teams boxed into a corner with hard-to-manage set-ups and means drivers are left racing cars that are not much fun. Speaking about the difference between the old rules set and this one, Allison said: “You guys [the media] used to carry on endlessly about high-rake, low-rake cars as if that was the beginning, end, and middle of everything. A high-rake car was around 140mm [rear ride height]. A low-rake car would be like 120mm or whatever. Well, both of them are stratospheric ranges compared with these cars.”
This may seem technical but it is quite important given the cost in performance, the lower the car is to the ground the greater the performance gain. I think the team are also looking to widen out the performance window so they have more flexibility when it comes to strategy, this comes as they bring a new concept for this year. But you need to have a good balance between speed, cornering, balance and performance to be good on track.
Allison said that it was a situation that he did not particularly relish – and he reckoned that even someone who is enjoying success in the current era like world champion Max Verstappen is not especially happy. I think that while they accept last year was the one of the biggest margins ever, meaning closing that gap is hard they are not going to try.
West Northamptonshire Council has granted planning permission for the team to relocate the main access of its Brackley headquarters from Lauda Drive to St James Road, a cul-de-sac occupied by several small firms. The council said it would lead to “significant economic development benefits” for the town. However local companies said the road would be inundated by traffic, which could increase tenfold.
Mercedes is planning to increase staffing in the town from 1,400 to 1,900 by the end of the decade. Simon Wheeler, managing director of Canonbury Products located on St James Road, spoke at the meeting as an objector and said he was “disappointed” Mercedes had not been in touch to discuss their proposals.
Local businesses alleged Mercedes have ‘completely sidelined in the planning process,’ and doing it ‘to provide a more attractive landscape campus for their employees,’ not justifying the reasoning.
Development manager Ian Smith told the meeting that the company had looked at different options on access routes, but that ultimately splitting their access between the previous entrance at Lauda Drive and using St James Road in peak hours was the “best operation”.
He added: “Our current site does not meet the future ambitions of the company moving forward. We need to make significant investment in our site and create a world-class campus which ensures that we not only attract the highest calibre of staff but also attract and retain sponsors.”
McLaren
Oscar Piastri believes a “completely open” and “no barriers” relationship with teammate Lando Norris is key if McLaren is to keep developing. Last season once McLaren resolved the issues they had with the car and once Piastri found his feet the duo proved pretty evenly matched, though the Australian took his maiden win in the sprint in Lusail.
That personal progress – and the development of the team, which allowed it to occasionally challenge Red Bull for wins – could result in a more closed-off dynamic between Piastri and Norris. Speaking Motorsport.com, Piastri says the pair must stay “completely open” with one another by sharing data if they are to help drive the entire McLaren team forward.
Piastri said “The relationship is still exactly the same. Of course, we’re not winning [titles] at the moment. We’re a lot closer than we were, but we still need to find that bit more to challenge and to beat Red Bull. So, it’s still very important for us to work together and help the team develop the car.”
While its easy to say that we know it can be harder in practice given that drivers are competitive, I’ve heard this many times but we know McLaren, should be fighting at the front but making the jump needed to beat Red Bull is very difficult. As Piastri said he and Norris both want similar things from the car which makes it easier for the team when deciding the direction they need to go in.
Reflecting on McLaren’s poor start to 2023, Piastri reckoned it more quickly shifted focus to how he compared against Norris rather than allowing him to lean towards the back of the grid and away from the limelight.
Team principal Andrea Stella says the team’s ‘pure focus’ this year is optimising its development rather than targeting specific results in 2024, as they will “take care of themselves”. Following a poor start last year, the midseason upgrades saw the team join the midfield pack before eventually overtaking Aston Martin to finish fourth in the constructors.
That turnaround resulted from a technical restructuring by Stella to better utilise staff already in place at Woking, with its new hires and facility improvements yet to be deployed in 2024 and beyond. That is driving optimism that McLaren can continue making big gains and challenge the likes of Ferrari and Mercedes this year.
But Stella says the team doesn’t talk about setting concrete goals like that, and instead focuses on improving its processes and development. Stella told Motorsport.com, “I won’t talk about how we want to be second, first, third – because that’s not even the language we use internally at McLaren. We don’t talk about this, results take care of themselves. What we talk about is: ‘What do we have to do in terms of aerodynamic development, mechanical development, how do we improve the interaction with the tyres’?”
He says internally they don’t speak about where they want to finish in the championship, with the conversation being about how the team can move forwards in all areas. When asked if McLaren’s better-than-expected performance has meant Stella has had to change any of his plans, he replied: “One thing I often tell especially my leadership team: plans are really good, but we are not here to execute plans, we are here to deliver performance.
Alpine
The teams technical director Matt Harman says that upgraded factory tools will give the team a boost even before the change of regulations in 2026. The French manufacturer finished sixth in the constructor’s championship following a mixed season last year when it only scored two podiums but struggled at other venues.
The team is investing heavily in new infrastructure, with a new simulator building on schedule to come online as the team ramps up the development of its 2026 car. Helped by the extra spending capability other factory tools are also being upgraded, and Harman believes that the changes will pay dividends in the short term.
he said, “Our focus is very much on the future and the 2026 regulations as well as the cars that we need to do between now and then. We’ve also got a big programme at both sites [Enstone and Viry] to improve the capabilities and the functions – you will have seen this in CapEx equalisation topics that have gone on with the FIA.”
“We’re fully funded to achieve those, we’re going to put all those pieces of equipment in, there’ll be alive and working to feed into the 2026 regulations. They will also be feeding into cars well before that.” He says the long-term goal of fighting for championships hasn’t changed but was rather accelerating and it was about getting their heads down.
Harman stressed that the new simulator will be a major step for the team. he said, “It will be commissioned in readiness for 2026. It’s a fantastic capability, we’re really excited about it, it’s going to sit in an absolutely massive building, which is going to help some other interesting developments as well.”
But he did concede the team hasn’t always been as successful as it could be at pinpointing and addressing fundamental issues, although he believes that it has made progress of late. Alpine need to be up there with the other manufacturers it hasn’t won a title ssince2006, as Renault, but as I said in the review it’s difficult with the chopping and changing in management to get that leadership
Williams
Williams has signed a new deal with Mercedes for power units until at least the end of 2030. The deal comes ahead of the June deadline for teams to secure their power units for 2026 onwards when the new engine regulations are introduced.
Mercedes having already extended a deal with McLaren at the end of last year, the German manufacturer has now confirmed that Williams will remain a part of its roster too. Williams has used Mercedes since the start of the current engine formula in 2014, with that season and 2015 being their best finish third in the constructors.
Williams team principal James Vowles said: “It is fantastic to extend our partnership with Williams Racing until 2030. We have enjoyed a strong relationship with them since the introduction of the current power unit regulations and look forward to continuing that into this next era.”
“Their commitment and support to our future power unit strategy is highly valued. We look forward to approaching this new ruleset together, with the same passion and enthusiasm we did in 2014 and with the aim of achieving similar successes.”
Logan Sargeant thinks American racers are often not given the credit they deserve.
Alpha Tauri
Technical director Jody Egginton says that a downwashing aerodynamics package is not the only key to success and that the “devil is in the detail.” The current regulations brought in in 2022 have seen teams have gravitated towards the downwashing concept, following the lead of pacesetters Red Bull.
downwash design channels the air towards the lower area of the car, in particular towards the diffuser, in order to generate more downforce. However, Egginton says that taking that route comes with no guarantees and that teams have to understand how to fully exploit it.
he told Motorsport.com, “People do converge in any regulation, and Red Bull and McLaren and a few of the teams have shown some really interesting development directions, and everyone’s looking at what everyone’s doing. At the top level, our concept is a downwashing concept, not dissimilar to a number of other teams.”
“There are cars that are not scoring podiums every weekend that have got some really nice features on them. We’re always looking at what people are doing, and it’s about bringing all that together and understanding it, you got to understand that.” We are in the third of these regulations and I think teams are conversing around a similar concept but that doesn’t mean it will work.
As Egginton stressed that the main target for all F1 teams is to have a car that works effectively on different types of tracks.
Sauber
Valtteri Bottas reckons the key weakness Sauber must address is the time taken between the team identifying gains in the wind tunnel and actually bringing upgrades. In his third season after leaving Mercedes, he has started seasons strongly however that momentum appears to disappear once the development from its rivals starts coming through mid-season.
Ahead of Audi formally returning to the grid in 2026, Bottas says the team must speed up its reaction time when identifying areas to improve in the wind tunnel. Speaking to Motorsport.com, the Finn said: “For us at the moment, the way we can turn around upgrades [is a key area that needs to be addressed]. At the moment, we find something in the wind tunnel, how long it takes to actually get it in the car… That’s, I would say, one quite big thing compared to some other things.”
Bottas says “Mechanically, a few things here and there in terms of balance tools, but then also aero side [need work]. [Key]’s seen all the numbers and the aero behaviour of the car, the yaw and roll.”
“He’s got fresh in his mind how the McLaren [aero] maps look like. So, he’s seen some things that he definitely agrees that there’s room for improvement. Of course, the mind of a guy who’s been in that kind of role starts to roll and lots of ideas are coming. I like him as a person.”
Haas
On Wednesday Haas confirmed it had parted with team principal Guenther Steiner with owner Gene Haas saying that the surprise departure “came down to performance” on the track, with the American owner saying he has had enough of being “humiliated” by their form.
In an interview with F1, Haas also said he had “no interest in being tenth anymore,” which represents last place in F1’s Constructors’ Championship – and that “I can’t understand how we can be with all the equipment and people we have.” This confirmed the speculation that we all thought was behind Steiner’s. departure after a decade with the team.
I think there are two sides we have been hearing, Haas want to get better results but Steiner claims that Haas doesn’t want to put the cash in, I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. I wrote in the review the team which has struggled to string a season together and while they started the season strongly it always seems not to come together across the season. I think they always seem to drop off following a good start to the season.
Haas added, “It came down to performance. Here we are in our eighth year, over 160 races – we have never had a podium. The last couple of years, we’ve been tenth or ninth. I’m not sitting here saying it’s Guenther’s fault, or anything like that, but it just seems like this was an appropriate time to make a change and try a different direction because it doesn’t seem like continuing with what we had is really going to work.”
According to Sky Sports backing up my own suspicions, it may have been down to differing options about the next steps for the team in terms of the timing for additional funding in infrastructure. Haas disputed widespread long-held suggestions that the team was relatively underfunded in comparison to F1’s budget cap of $135m (£105m), which most teams are operating at or close towards. That was another point of speculation that they weren’t able to operate at the cap.
He also suggested that the team hadn’t spent the money in the right place and we know the big topic at the moment with all the teams is infrastructure development, they outsource a lot to Dallara so I wonder if they also need to look at long term bringing that in house and Ferrari. Haas said about Ferrari “I’m embarrassed that we haven’t been able to do better with it,” he added about the Ferrari deal. “But going forward I want to take advantage of good equipment that a lot of other teams don’t have.”
Haas, who scored only 12 points in F1 2023, added: “I talk to a lot of the engineers and I think our biggest failing is aero; our aero programme needs work. When you’re at the track and you’re humiliated every weekend, I’m going to stop taking that one anymore.”
The reason he appointed from within was “Ayao is very technical, he looks at things based on statistics – this is what we’re doing bad, where can we do better. It’s a different approach. We really do need something different because we weren’t really doing that well.”
The Week Ahead
Next week this time of year can be a bit slow in terms of news but with around six weeks to go until Bahrain, I think we will get teams confirming launch dates. This a big opportunity for the teams to try to set their own hopes and aims for this year, we need to try and pick to the truth as the believe there is a lot of PR speak. But the consensus appears to be that beating Red Bull is going to be a big challenge.
When that does happen, Red Bull will try to play it down and others make it out to be a big challenge, this is all part of the games in the sport. I explored this in my year ahead post, simply I think Red Bull go into this year as the team to beat and often the narrative is somewhere in the middle. I think we will see this game continue until Bahrain.
The watch word appeared this week to be infrastructure teams are setting out their longer-term plans, Mercedes expanding its Brackley base, McLaren waiting for the wind tunnel. I think everyone wants their ducks in a row for the 2026 regulation change, that could be a big talking point.
At the time of writing on Friday, we have not heard from Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen about the main story this week the departure of Guenther Steiner from Haas, I think we won’t normally drivers don’t give their first big interviews until late January / early February. Also to hear what really going on it seems to me we don’t have the Steiner side of the story yet.
Its often a slower time of year news wise so we are looking at planning ahead in terms of content, all the drivers are in place but we could still get reserve driver confirmation as well as changes in team personnel like we have seen in recent days at Haas. F1’s politics will kick off soon I’m expecting some battles as they iron out the little bits of the regulations which shouldn’t be too much.
