Hello, welcome to This Week, a week when things appear to be settling down in the brief pause before the run-in over the next month and a half to Abu Dhabi. Of course, we should have been in Sochi, while the impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as dipped of the F1 agenda it will continue to be felt.
This break gives us six races to go but the conclusion of the season is likely to see Max Verstappen crowned champion, but the focus starting to shift towards 2023. But the long winter months with rising prices could see more attempts for cost savings and what will that mean for levelling up…
General News
F1 announced its twenty-four race calendar for 2023 this week confirming the return of China, Qatar and Las Vegas. The season will begin in Bahrain on 03 – 05 March with China returning as round four after a three-year break. Baku moves to the final weekend in April with Imola moving to 19 –21 May. Barcelona will move to early June with Spa the final race before the break.
Qatar returns to the calendar in early October between the Asian and Americas leg, which begins a 10-year contract and didn’t have a 2022 race due to the FIFA World Cup, before the second triple-header takes place in USA, Mexico and Brazil. Las Vegas returns in mid-November with Abu Dhabi returning to its traditional final weekend in November, after four years.
An agreement has been finalised with the Automobile Club of Monaco (ACM) to continue to race on the famous streets of Monte-Carlo until 2025 inclusive, under a new three-year deal.
F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali says he has no doubts despite Red Bull dominance this season the new regulations will eventually close the field. This season has still seen a big gap between the top two teams with Ferrari and Red Bull have emerged as being in a class of their own and the championship battle has been quite one-sided in Max Verstappen’s favour.
He said, “It is clear that a championship with these gaps between first and the second will not deliver the finale we saw last year. I believe that from a technical point of view, it is important to understand how quickly certain performance gaps can be closed, and this is one of the points on which the regulations were based.”
The hope with the various sliding scales finical, wind tunnel that the gap will continue to close, looking behind the headline results digging into the performances partially in the middle it is closer.
Mercedes
George Russell thinks Mercedes will feel glad to see the back of high-speed Formula 1 track layouts like Spa and Monza as it bids to end its win drought. The German manufacturer is yet to win a race this season after struggling following the regulation change. But it has been getting closer to the front, recording a podium finish in eight of the last nine races.
Russell managed to finish third last time out at Monza despite Mercedes’ struggles in matching the pace of Red Bull and Ferrari around the high-speed track. He admitted Ferrari “surprised” him with its pace around Monza, leading to a “lonely race” that made him glad to see the end of the run of high-speed tracks.
Russell after the race at Monza said, “Our car certainly wasn’t performing at its best around this circuit,” I think we have a good idea why that is, and [we are] sort of happy that these low downforce, high-speed circuits are behind us now.” Mercedes performs better at high downforce tracks this season
Asked if he thought Singapore would offer Mercedes more of an opportunity, Russell said there was “no doubt about it” compared to Monza, but remained wary of the bumpy track.
Red Bull
Christian Horner has revealed Red Bull missed the chance to sign Oscar Piastri to its young driver programme a few years ago, calling it “something that I regret.” The South Africa was at the centre of a dispute with Alpine and McLaren with the contract Recongison Board ruling in McLaren;’s favour.
Horner said it was “difficult” for him to comment on Piastri’s situation, but that contracts would have been watertight had he been under Red Bull’s wing – something there was a chance for a few years ago before he moved up to F3.
Horner said, “He drove for the Arden team in Formula 4 and Formula Renault, and was obviously a significant talent. There was an opportunity for Red Bull to look at him at the time, and we didn’t take up that option, which is something that I regret. But what he went on to achieve is phenomenal, in Formula 3 and Formula 2.”
Asked about the fallout from Fernando Alonso’s decision to leave Alpine for Aston Martin in 2023 had “created the ripple that rolled out over numerous seats”, which now includes Red Bull’s sister team, AlphaTauri.
Ferrari
Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto believes the FIA needs to consider increasing the power unit allocation per season after almost half the grid took penalties at Monza. Each F1 driver is limited to using no more than three engines per season without taking a penalty, although it is rare for anyone to get through an entire campaign on that allocation.
While this is designed to saved cost I feel that the general consensuses with the twenty-three race calendar that three power units aren’t enough to get through a season without penalties. The other issue is the amount of time and confusion caused by tactical engine changes at places like Monza and Spa where overtaking is possible.
Binotto thought the FIA needed to clarify how the grid penalties were applied to define the starting grid more quickly, as well as consider an increase to the number of engines before penalising teams.
Saying “The reason why it took so long [to publish the grid] is that there are certainly different interpretations and the regulation is not clear enough. That’s something we need to address certainly for the future – I think not only how we decide the grid position based on the penalties, I think the amount of penalties we got as well is too many.”
McLaren
McLaren continues to believe they are still feeling the long-term impact of the brake problems they suffered in the middle east back in March which is having an effect on its whole season. Alpine looks the favourite now for best of the rest boosted by their announcing a major new floor update to the Singapore GP, McLaren accepts that it has paid the price for its difficult start to 2022.
Asked if the impact of the brake issues could ultimately have made the difference in the fight with Alpine, Seidl said: “Of course it didn’t help, because in the end we had to use a lot of resources to fix the issue that you would have preferred to use straight away for performance development, especially in this period of the season.”
Daniel Ricciardo has suggested he is open to taking a year out if it allows him to take “two steps forwards” if he returns in 2024. Ricciardo will leave McLaren at the end of the season after agreeing a mutual split with one year remaining on his contract following a difficult stint at Woking.
He told Australian radio, he still did not know what his future held, but that he was carefully considering his options along with his management team. Ricciardo said, “When I say I don’t know, I don’t have a contract yet for next year. Could it still happen? It could. I guess I’m not getting too caught up in next year. Of course I want to race, I want to be on the grid, I want to be competing. But I’m not kind of seeing next year as all or nothing. Obviously 2024 is something I want to be aware of and look at.”
I think that while the market is for next year looks settled in the higher end of the midfield, there are still opportunities for Ricciardo to have a project. But is he a driver who enjoys the driving more or one who wants the results? Only he knows the answer to that
Alpine
When Alpine/Renault returned to the sport as a works team in 2016 they hoped to be challenging for titles by now. The rebranding of the team lead to a hundred-race target of challenging for titles, that has not happened and they insist that the long term target can be met, despite losing both Oscar Piastri and Fernando Alonso.
Their shock departures have left Alpine on the hunt for a new teammate for Esteban Ocon, with Alpha Tauri’s Pierre Gasly still a firm favourite if a deal can be sorted with his current Red Bull bosses.
Rossi is convinced that a target he set at the start of last year – of Alpine fighting at the front within 100 races – remains fully in place and does not need to change. Rossi. Explained, “For now, it is not derailed because we stay the course [until the end of the year] with Fernando, so that’s fine. I would contend that we should normally be able to simply absorb that bump on the road, because the most important thing is the car at this stage.”
Alpine are a strong midfield team, but in my view these targets never work but we know the team are continuing to be aggressive with their upgrade package, they will be bringing an upgrade for Singapore, which they hope will deliver a massive step forward in performance, according to sporting director Alan Permane.
Alpha Tauri
Yuki Tsunoda has been retained as part of its lineup for 2023. He made his debut with the team last year and was widely expected to be retained by the team for a third season heading into next year. While he said last month that his future was dependent on “things in the background”, I had the feeling it was more a formality as we know he is becoming more competitive
He said, “I want to say a huge thank you to Red Bull, Honda and Scuderia AlphaTauri for continuing to give me the opportunity to drive in F1. Having moved to Italy last year, to be closer to the factory, I really feel part of the team and am glad that I get to carry on racing with them in 2023.”
“Of course, our 2022 season isn’t over yet and we’re still pushing hard in the midfield battle, so I’m fully focused on finishing it on a high and then we will look forward to next year.” Tsunoda is improving with his consistency and isn’t crashing as much, Franz Tost saying you need three years to show true potential.
I think Tsunoda has the talent and has managed to get to the place where he is making less mistakes, this year the team has struggled more with the car and that he has still managed to be more consistent and make fewer mistakes.
Aston Martin
Sebastian Vettel may be retiring from the sport at the end of the end of the season but Aston Martin says there has been no change in his approach, calling him the “ultimate professional.” Vettel will leave the team after two seasons where he took his only podium for the team in Baku last year.
Performance director Tom McCullough hailed Vettel’s efforts with the team, noting there had not been any drop in his commitment or change of approach since revealing his retirement plan.
When asked if he’d seen anything change with Vettel in the past six weeks. McCullough said, “We is the ultimate professional really, so I’d say no to that. Maybe he’s a little bit more relaxed in himself. But I wouldn’t see that in the engineering office and the way he drives the car. Sebastian is a bit of a machine really from a work side of things.”
Vettel we know is being replaced by the oldest driver on the grid Fernando Alonso, but McCullough said the Spaniard looked “particularly competitive and is really wanting to do well” from his current efforts.
Meanwhile, technical director Dan Fallows says the team feels like the very early days of Red Bull. Team owner Lawrence Stroll has been clear with his ambition to turn the team into a front running team by the end of the decade, by signing two-time world champion Fernando Alonso for 2023. The team is also building a new factory at Silverstone as part of a significant investment in its facilities to bring them up to the highest level.
Fallows enjoyed enormous success with Red Bull, playing a role in nine world championship wins, and said he could see some similarities between the early days of that operation and what was being built now at Aston Martin.
Fallows in an interview on Aston Martin’s website, “One of the most exciting parts of the Red Bull journey was when the team evolved from Jaguar. A small team with a very limited budget suddenly had significantly more budget, more resource, and more technical strength right at the top of the organisation.”
We know that now the team are able to now operate at the cap, and has heavily invested in their Silverstone base which should be fully operational by the end of the year. But next year will be more about getting the correlation between things like the wind tunnel and car right.
Williams
Nicolas Latifi and Williams have confirmed that they will part ways at the end of the 2022 season while confirming they will retain Alex Albon. Latifi made his debut with Williams Racing at the 2020 Austrian Grand Prix and has so far made fifty-five Grand Prix starts, scoring seven championship points.
Latifi made his debut with Williams Racing at the 2020 Austrian Grand Prix and has so far made fifty-five Grand Prix starts, scoring seven championship points, including his debut points scoring finish at the 2021 Hungarian Grand Prix. He hasn’t delivered against both George Russell and Alex Albon, as well as Nyck de Vries who stood in for Albon at Monza.
He said, “I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone at Williams Racing – all the people back at the factory and those I work with trackside – for the last three years.” De Vries has to be the favourite for the seat, the Dutchman had a brilliant debut at Monza outshining the Canadian and the links between Mercedes and Williams I think make him the favourite candidate
The Week Ahead
Next weekend F1 returns to Singapore, this week is normally is one where rumours about driver moves and deals being done are announced as well as business deals. The news agenda in the days leading up to the race could see a lot of announcements, there are still a few seats around but I am feeling we are getting to the point where things are going to get confirmed.
The focus in the build-up to next weekends race is going to be on whether Max Verstappen can wrap his second title up, to do that he needs to win. Verstappen we know has been on a roll lately I think that Red Bull is really strong and Ferrari would need a miracle at a number of races to win this championship. Naturally, the news agenda will circle around that possibility.
Ferrari could shift that, while naturally their line will be ‘its not over till its mathematically impossible,’ they will be pushing hard over these remaining races I feel to try and learn for next year so they could possibly mount a challenge for the title. Mercedes are going to try and be the disruptors over the remaining races, but how they do that is the challenge, but they have a really spin operation and to me that is one of the strengths of the team
