F1 2023 Season

They didn't go out on softs on FP1. FP2 they did. The ones posted on the last page are from FP1.
 
TheMagicFoolBus said:
Ah gotcha - must have missed it then but were their fastest laps on softs? Or were they running with high fuel at the time?
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No idea what they did or tried to do :lol: They definitely did a lot of high fuel runs and seemed happy with the long run pace, which led some to speculate that they were sandbagging, then Lewis and George said the car's shit.

Think they'll be fine during the race but if the pace they showed today is what they got for the quali, then they'll have a lot of climbing to do.
 
Is this a sign of the extra wind tunnel time giving the lower teams a boost ?
 
Gringo said:
Is this a sign of the extra wind tunnel time giving the lower teams a boost ?
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No, I think we're seeing just circuit specifics which William's recent upgrades perform better in. I'd expect them to perform well at Spa & Monza as well this year, but struggle at places like Hungary.
 
F-Red said:
No, I think we're seeing just circuit specifics which William's recent upgrades perform better in. I'd expect them to perform well at Spa & Monza as well this year, but struggle at places like Hungary.
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The floors are so bloody sensitive and keeping the aerodynamic centre of pressure of the underfloor stable is a nightmare. Some cars on some tracks just seem to work i.e. the setup and floor just works then on other tracks the same floor and setup, doesnt.

The RB with its anti-dive front end and anti-lift rear end seems to keep the aerodynamic centre of pressure stable on all tracks (so far), which is why its a class apart.

Apparently AM are suffering from front end washout at silverstone and mercedes are suffering from a snappy rear end on high speed corners.

Also as one article put it mercedes have put a band aid on the car when it needs proper surgery (i.e. next years car due to the cost cap).

Coming back to Williams, how a car with a floor that could have been ordered on amazon from china is so quick is a mystery. Ground effect seems to be a very difficult subject to master for the best and brightest of F1.

Im coming round to the idea that the FIA have made a grave mistake. Ground effect and cost cap dont go hand in hand. Take the cost cap away and i think the teams chasing RB would be abit closer to them.
 
dinostar77 said:
Im coming round to the idea that the FIA have made a grave mistake. Ground effect and cost cap dont go hand in hand. Take the cost cap away and i think the teams chasing RB would be abit closer to them.
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I think you have an excellent point here, they wanted the cost cap to bring teams closer together, but it seems to have done the opposite, but its hear to stay.
Car handling better at some tracks has always been the case and drivers, but RB seems to have nailed it at all tracks.
Willams upgrades seem to have nailed this track, where has Mercedes have gone backwards, well thats what it looks like, yes they maybe be holding back for qualifying and the race, we shall have to wait and see, but like you say, Mercedes needs major surgery and that wont happen this season, this season smacks again of damage limitation , give Russell and Hamilton enough to keep them in the top 3/4 but nothing more.
No running for Leclerc in FP2 has to be a worry for Ferrari, with just FP3 to gather enough data and that looks like it could be wet and with the race looking dry, they are already on the back foot.
AM are very up and down, one minute they look second fastest on the grid, the next they are struggling.
 
This isn’t just an issue though for this year. It’ll be an issue every time there is sizeable changes to rules / regs. If one team nails something leaving others behind, they’ll have an advantage all the way through that rule set.

This time it’s Red Bull. Next time it could be Ferrari. Or Audi. Or anyone.
 
Principally though, I’m supportive and agree with the cost cap. Just not sure how to best resolve the impact of that on chasing teams, though.
 
British GP Practice Three Timesheet

Driver Team Time
Charles Leclerc Ferrari 1:27.419
Alex Albon Williams +0.173
Fernando Alonso Aston Martin +0.365
Pierre Gasly Alpine +0.474
Lewis Hamilton Mercedes +0.529
Carlos Sainz Ferrari +0.545
Logan Sargeant Williams +0.732
Max Verstappen Red Bull +0.847
George Russell Mercedes +0.865
Yuki Tsunoda AlphaTauri +0.918
Nyck de Vries AlphaTauri +1.085
Lando Norris McLaren +1.144
Lance Stroll Aston Martin +1.201
Sergio Perez Red Bull +1.485
Kevin Magnussen Haas +1.788
Esteban Ocon Alpine +1.814
Oscar Piastri McLaren +2.018
Valtteri Bottas Alfa Romeo +2.167
Nico Hulkenberg Haas +6.171
Zhou Guanyu Alfa Romeo No time set
 
Lando Norris has been summoned to stewards after an incident in the pit lane during the start of FP3 after McLaren had forgotten to take a cooling fan off the rear of the car, and a mechanic ran down the pit lane to remove it.
 
dinostar77 said:
Im coming round to the idea that the FIA have made a grave mistake. Ground effect and cost cap dont go hand in hand. Take the cost cap away and i think the teams chasing RB would be abit closer to them.
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This argument has the logical fault that the top team won't continue to spend to improve their advantage when there are no financial restrictions. If one team nails it from the get go, they have a tremendous advantage already, regardless of how the subsequent spending is regulated. See Merc and their turbohybrid engine.

The difference when you have unlimited spending will be that the midfield and tail end team would be 3 seconds behind like before.
 
pauldyson1uk said:
I think you have an excellent point here, they wanted the cost cap to bring teams closer together, but it seems to have done the opposite, but its hear to stay.
Car handling better at some tracks has always been the case and drivers, but RB seems to have nailed it at all tracks.
Willams upgrades seem to have nailed this track, where has Mercedes have gone backwards, well thats what it looks like, yes they maybe be holding back for qualifying and the race, we shall have to wait and see, but like you say, Mercedes needs major surgery and that wont happen this season, this season smacks again of damage limitation , give Russell and Hamilton enough to keep them in the top 3/4 but nothing more.
No running for Leclerc in FP2 has to be a worry for Ferrari, with just FP3 to gather enough data and that looks like it could be wet and with the race looking dry, they are already on the back foot.
AM are very up and down, one minute they look second fastest on the grid, the next they are struggling.
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The cost cap has had some benefits in that take away the top few teams and the racing is quite close.
But the fact is that people are focused on the top teams. And here it is far from close. And in truth pretty boring.
So I have been wondering whether the teams could be allowed to choose to spread their annual cost cap budget over maybe 2 years.
What that could mean would be that Mercedes for example would be able to realise that their zero sidepod design was a complete failure and transfer some of their annual budget into development of next year car budget.

That way, teams would have the flexibility to be able to work and operate over more than just the one year.
I do understand that the way the cost cap, which is currently a function of being towards the back may need to be revised.
 
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The Firestarter said:
This argument has the logical fault that the top team won't continue to spend to improve their advantage when there are no financial restrictions. If one team nails it from the get go, they have a tremendous advantage already, regardless of how the subsequent spending is regulated. See Merc and their turbohybrid engine.

The difference when you have unlimited spending will be that the midfield and tail end team would be 3 seconds behind like before.
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Exactly. We'd end up in/go back to a Man City type process. One thing that seems to be forgotten a lot is that it's not the cars by themselves that just magically appear to be good or not, it's the personnel and drivers you can pay. The fact that even Merc, RB and Ferrari can't retain talented staff/are having some of them leave for another team to make their contribution there simply because another team can afford to pay them under the cap when the other can't - proves to me there is indeed some merit to the cap.
 
If ground effect cars are the future for F1 it might be worth some pain now.

As we see with history, cost cap or not it's riddled with dominant cars and the odd competitive period and is really a team sport that rewards excellence.
 
Could be the usual Perez stinker in qualifying in mix conditions
 
The back end of the track looks very squirmy. Stowe, Vale and club
 
Is it good for the cars to sit out there for that long ? (Perez)
 
wow Max! Never seen that before

He's rattled! :drool:
 
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