This Week – 31/03/2024
Hello, happy easter and welcome to This Week last weekend Carlos Sainz had a remarkable comeback last week in Melbourne that has made him a key player as expected in next year’s driver market. But it’s too soon to know if Ferrari are genuine title contenders, however, beating Red Bull appears to be tough but there is now a chance as proven by Sainz.
General News
Renault boss and former Queens Park Rangers co-owner Flavio Briatore has undergone heart surgery to remove a benign tumour. The Italian said he has been discharged from hospital in Milan following the operation.
Briatore said on Instagram the surgery had been “perfectly successful”. Adding “ Following a routine check-up I underwent heart surgery because I had a benign mass which was removed with a minimal invasive procedure.”
The Italian was the managing director of what is now Alpine, both as Benetton and Renault, when Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso won titles. But resigned over the Crashgate scandal and was found guilty by the FIA of conspiracy to cause a deliberate crash and race fixing. His leadership skills have been tailored towards managing Alonso’s career.
Red Bull
Christian Horner has admitted that current “nemesis” Carlos Sainz – the only driver from a rival team to win races in the past sixteen months, cannot be discounted as a contender for the vacant seat at the F1 world champions for 2025.
Sainz started his career alongside the three-time champion at what was Toro Rosso (RB) in 2015, then Renault (Alpine) and McLaren before joining Ferrari in 2021. He broke his former team-mate’s nine-race winning streak with an accomplished drive for Ferrari in Melbourne on Sunday, but is a key player in next year’s driver market, after Ferrari in February signed seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton to replace him.
And as the three-time race winner quipped to Sky Sports, “I’m still jobless for next year so at least that [winning] is good for me!” These comments were made when asked about RB’s Yuki Tsunoda prospects for 2025 to praise Sainz – who he also quipped “appears to be our nemesis” on the track given his two recent wins.
Red Bull currently have a decision to make over the seat next to Verstappen with Sergio Perez’s deal expiring at the end of the year, as things currently stand he needs to still show he is capable of being an effective number two. But there are also links to Audi/Sauber which hasn’t gone away. The 29-year-old admitted his latest win “does no harm” to his prospects for next season.
Mercedes
CEO and team principal Toto Wolff says that that the persisting car troubles can be blamed on the wind tunnel data not correlating with on-track performance, rather than internal “dogmatism”. Since 2022, the team has struggled with various issues with its car mainly porpoising and bouncing though those issues have largely been resolved, it masked other issues like rear-end handling instability.
That prompted Mercedes to change the concept for 2024, fully abandoning a size-zero sidepod architecture in the hope of developing a platform that was more predictable and consistent. But the new W15 has also proved temperamental Wolff believes this now points to the team’s wind tunnel findings not matching how the car behaves on track.
Speaking about the weaknesses of its recent ground-effect creations, Wolff said, “When I look at the positives, I think we took many potential root causes out of the equation. We weren’t sure about our suspension. We weren’t sure about the stiffness of our gearbox carrier. We had a vibrating steering rack. All of those things have disappeared.
“But fundamentally, whatever we see in the tunnel doesn’t correlate with what’s happening on the track.”
The Austrian reckoned it was a blanket issue with translating the data, rather than any one member of staff leading it in the wrong direction and we know one of the things we see in history and I’ve said been saying the key to the success is the ‘no blame culture’
Ferrari
Charles Leclerc reckons he and teammate Carlos Sainz could tell Ferrari’s 2024 car could win the Australian Grand Prix from as early as Friday’s first practice. Sainz passed polesitter Max Verstappen around the outside on lap two before the Red Bull champion retired with a fiery rear-right brake failure. That enabled Leclerc to complete a one-two.
Asked how important the victory was for morale, he said, “It’s extremely important. It’s been a long time since we have had the genuine pace to have Red Bull.”
“I wouldn’t say under control, because we don’t know what was the real pace of Max today, but I will say that from FP1, we knew that pole position and the race win were possible because we had very good tyre degradation, very good pace. That is a very encouraging sign.” Ferrari has earned criticism in recent seasons for poor pitstop execution and questionable strategy calls, but Leclerc added that the team had maximised all areas of race craft at the start of 2024.
I agree based on what I’ve seen and last weekend Ferrari took advantage of situation and it paid off with a win, the took the opportunity of a weak Red Bull and they would have learned a lot. Leclerc also said, “Looking back at the first three races, there is not one race where we didn’t maximise the result.”
Team principal Fred Vasseur says his drivers are no longer in “survival mode” in races thanks to a much more consistent car. Over the last few years, Sainz and Leclerc often had to focus on tyre management, which was made more difficult by inconsistent and unpredictable behaviour even between sets of the same compound.
However, the common option and Vasseur’s own view is that tyre management has improved rather than outright speed, which is the step Ferrari needed to make. It’s also been that the consistency between the tyre compounds. Vasseur also says the drivers are now better able to look after their tyres through a race stint.
- You can read more analysis from last weekend here
McLaren
Lando Norris believes Oscar Piastri is making him a better driver after McLaren scored their first podium of the 2024 season in Melbourne. He took his fourteenth podium last weekend in Melbourne, although he was let through by Piastri in the middle of the race, though this likely wouldn’t have changed the result.
Both drivers have enjoyed good starts to the season in terms of performance, continuing their impressive second half of 2023. Piastri is one point ahead of Norris in the drivers as they look this season to be pretty evenly matched, we know give each other that push to be better
Speaking about Piastri he said, “Last year was already a very tough competition. He (Piastri) has obviously improved because it’s second year he’s a bit more comfortable.”
“He looked comfortable last year but now he’s probably even more comfortable. He’s doing a strong job and he did since day one last year already, so I don’t expect anything different. He’s going to push me, I’m going to push him and I look forward to our battles together.”
While Norris had the upper hand on Piastri last year with an impressive run of four consecutive podiums near the end of the season, but it was the Australian who won a race, albeit a Sprint, in Doha.
Norris and Piastri are seen as one of the best driver pairings on the grid even with highly-rated drivers at Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes. Driving styles are key to performance in F1 and Norris has previously openly discussed how he likes to “U” the corner, meaning he wants to brake earlier but carry a high minimum speed through the turn.
However, last year’s McLaren was more suited to a “V” corner style, where you brake later but have less minimum speed. This year’s car is an improvement but McLaren is still weak in the slow-speed corners, where Norris and Piastri both want more mechanical grip.
Asked if Piastri was making him a better driver, Norris added: “He has. I said since the first test we did last year pre-season that he’s been on the pace, and as much as our comments and everything always align and are 99 per cent of the time the same, he still drives in a slightly different way.”
Next weekend they return to Suzuka where they were both on the podium six months ago, the circuit should again suit the car as they were ahead of Mercedes in Jeddah.
Adding “Suzuka proved that last year. I think they’re kind of similar. You’ve got a lot of high-speed corners. The problem is Ferrari have improved their high speed a lot and that’s where they were struggling last year. So that’s why they’ve been able to take such a good step forward.”
Aston Martin
Aston Martin will not appeal the penalty against Fernando Alonso at last weekend’s Australian Grand Prix for “potentially dangerous” driving. The two-time champion dropped from sixth to eighth after he braked unusually early into turn six at Albert Park on the penultimate lap and Mercedes driver George Russell, who was following close behind, crashed.
That dropped Alonso dropped from sixth to eighth, but team principal Mike Krack said the team had to “accept the decision”. I believe that is the right call as I don’t see any serious grounds or question marks over the actions of Alonso, and we know stewarding has changed they only give out penalties if a driver is ‘predominantly to blame’. In this case the stewards deemed that he slowed down to an “extraordinary” extent, more than reasonable to optimise his corner exit.
Krack said in a message to fans on social media, “I want you to know that we fully support Fernando. To receive a twenty-second-time penalty when there was no contact with the following car has been a bitter pill to swallow, but we have to accept the decision.”
After the race Alonso, told stewards he had “got it slightly wrong”, but said later on social media he was “surprised” by the decision. Russell, 26, lost control and ended with his car on its side in the middle of the track, leading to the race ending under a virtual safety car.
Honda
Honda is to open a new base in the UK that will mainly carry out post-race maintenance on the power units it will provide to Aston Martin from 2026. Honda withdrew as a manufacturer in 2021 but will continue to supply and support Red Bull and RB until the end of 2025.
It will return, however, as a manufacturer in 2026 after the regulation change to what Honda wanted to focus on with sustainability and reduction in cost. It has been tempted back by the ditch the expensive and complex Motor Generator Unit–Heat and shift to a 50:50 power split between the 1.6-litre turbocharged engine and hybrid system.
Its comeback will be as the works engine supplier to Aston Martin, and to assist that deal, HRC has created a new UK company and will correspondingly open a factory. This will be headed up by HRC president Koji Watanabe, who joined Honda in 1987.
According to a statement from HRC: “This new company has been founded to primarily perform post-race maintenance and preparation tasks on the Honda-built F1 power units (PUs), whilst also operating as a logistics operation for the European region. The establishment of HRC UK will further enhance the effectiveness of Honda’s PU operations, in support of the partnership with Aston Martin [F1] Team.”
In my view, Honda never left really this is why they are once again scaling up their operations for 2026 and will begin recruiting engineers, technicians and PR staff in the spring. A second base will open in California for the six Americas races and will embed personnel at Aston Martin as the American arm steps up its involvement in the company’s global programmes.
Williams
James Vowles says the Williams will have two cars ready for Japan “without too many issues” after facing a race against time to repair Alex Albon’s damaged chassis. In Melbourne, the lack of spare parts and Albon’s crash on Friday caused the team to withdraw his car and teammate Logan Sargeant.
In his post-race debrief, Vowles detailed the process of having Albon’s damaged chassis repaired in time to be shipped out to Suzuka, which will host the fourth round of the season next week.
he explained, “I’m confident we’ll be able to fix the chassis. We put measures in place to make sure the chassis was back here [in the Grove factory] very early on Monday morning, I think it arrived around 2am. There were already crews inside the building, working on that, stripping it down and doing repairs.”
“We’re in a good place for having the chassis back early enough for Suzuka. Actually, back in Melbourne, there were photographs and techniques called NDT, which is non-destructive testing. It allows us to fully understand how big the damage is, and what we have to do.”
However, the team are still without a third chassis possibly until Miami, this is because of production delays pre-season and then further delays because of Albon’s crash in Melbourne.
Vowles accepted this was not ideal but explained “It is thousands of hours spent in composites in order to get it ready. It’s one of the biggest jobs within an F1 team. We will have a chassis soon. In the meantime, we have to deal with the circumstances we have in front of us.”
RB
Red Bull junior and Super Formula driver Ayumu Iwasa is set for his debut at next week’s Japanese Grand Prix, taking over Daniel Ricciardo’s RB car for FP1. The team will have two Japanese drivers in practice. RB has given Iwasa the first of two mandatory rookie FP1 slots for the year, with the 22-year-old among the roster of young driver prospects that also includes reserve driver Liam Lawson and F2 driver Isack Hadjar.
He said “I am very happy to be able to participate in an official F1 session in my home country, and I am excited to be able to take the first step toward the realisation of my dream – winning races and capture the world championship title for many consecutive years in F1, the world’s most prestigious series”
This year Iwasa competes in Japan’s domestic Super Formula series, scoring ninth on his Suzuka debut with Mugen as the top rookie with ninth. Previously Iwasa won the 2020 French F4 championship, which led to an F3 campaign with Hitech and two years in F2 with DAMS. Last year he scored three wins on his way to fourth in the championship, with too many non-scores to be a factor in the title fight.
Iwasa made his F1 testing debut at last November’s Abu Dhabi young driver test for the team then called AlphaTauri.
team principal Laurent Mekies says that the Faenza outfit must give Daniel Ricciardo a car “he’s more comfortable with” following a difficult home race for the Australian. Ricciardo failed to get out of Q1 in Melbourne after his fastest time was deleted for track limits.
In the race, Ricciardo moved up to 12th at the flag, helped by attrition and issues for Esteban Ocon and Valtteri Bottas, while Tsunoda finished an impressive seventh.
Mekies says that the team is still fully behind Ricciardo and has to tailor the VCARB 01 to his needs. the Frenchman told Motorsport.com, “The truth is that we need to give him a car that he’s more comfortable with. Yuki had a car that he was very comfortable with from FP1 here.”
“We probably reached that stage only in qualifying with Daniel, and from there you need to build. And we feel that he has certainly done that in the race. He was as fast as the guys getting the points today. So we will have been fighting for the points with a more decent starting position.”
CEO Peter Bayer suggests that Ricciardo was too hard on himself when assessing his qualifying performance relative to that of Tsunoda, and stresses that he had a strong race given his starting position. Bayer suggested the Australian had ‘misinterpreted a bit the data.’
Adding “I’m also taking positives away for Daniel, because he found his found his pace again in qualifying. I think if he could have done that lap on Friday, then he could have built on it. I’m sure that he would have been in the in the top ten as well in the qualifying. So we just need to take that away.”
Haas
Former team principal Guenther Steiner feels it was “wrong” by the squad to massively downplay its expectations for this season. His successor Ayao Komatsu cautioned that Haas would start the season near the last row on the grid after the development of its new car got held up during the course of 2023.
However it has started the season well, scoring points in Jeddah and Melbourne has allowed it to move into seventh in the constructors as it has cured most of its crippling tyre wear issues that plagued it throughout last season.
Steiner says that based on the wind tunnel numbers Haas’ decent start to 2024 shouldn’t come as a big surprise and felt it wasn’t right to play down its expectations to such a degree. He said “They did a good job and I always told Gene Haas that I actually had it right on where they ended up to be, because I knew the numbers from the wind tunnel.”
“I think in the beginning they played it down to have an excuse to start off with and then it was better than they expected. That is for me wrong to do. And I think everybody was convinced it was this path, I was convinced that’s what it was.”
Steiner says he has “no bad feelings” about leaving and was pleased to see the people he worked with for years be rewarded with a good start to the new season. Some of the progress would have been down to his foundations.