F1 2023 Season

[Tyrion]

Or as I now call it 2/3 of a Henderson week


Max beat second by .8 of a second to get quali this week, it’s the best all round car since the merc and his pit wall is just as ruthless as he is, Mercs during there 7 years weren’t they had a head banging mistake in them.

The mercs seemed pretty ruthless. The big difference to me between the two eras is that Red Bull have struggled with their second seat. Horner would kill to have someone like Bottas who can reliably get P2/3 every race but they have struggled to find someone who can qualify in the top 10 for some reason.

Max is unbeatable this season but people said the same about Hamilton. Eventually the rules will change or the other teams will catch up and we'll complain about the eternal dominance of whoever wins the next one.

As a side note: Ferrari are useless. They just had Sainz drive around for a while despite having a hole in his car big enough to fit his head through. Regardless of the rules or set up, they make so many stupid mistakes they'll never win anything.

 

[Ahmer Baig]

Sky Germany saw Otmar visiting AM's motorhome for quite a while.

Otmar Szafnauer: "Yes, as you can see, my Alpine adventure has just ended. Now I can join a new F1 team from now on. Let's wait and see..."

Sky Germany: “You were just spotted entering the Aston Martin guest house."

Otmar Szafnauer: "I will not comment."

 

[pauldyson1uk]

Good on Max for keep on winning, but the sports is almost done for a semi-casual viewer. Even live coverage now focuses more time on mid-table. Its not just about dominance on winning championship alone, the car is so good that its on another planet. TBH, havent watched a live race in last few seasons and only catch highlights or final standings.

You cant fault him for this , its what he does and he does it very well, I just wish he had some competition, nobody is even close to him.

 

[Amar__]

Pretty happy with Leclerc yesterday, finishing third ahead of quicker Mercedes and Mclaren in recent weeks is a big success. Red Bulls are uncatchable. Also he said he had to save fuel in the end and he was glad Hamilton pitted, otherwise it would have been tight, so that was probably a wrong move by Mercedes.

 

[laughtersassassin]

You do realise £400k is enough to build and test 14 new floors and 28 rear wings over at Mercedes

Even at 400k it only highlights the flaw in the budget cap that it can never be perfect.

Mercedes for example inflicted millions of damage into the Red Bull Cars with the crashes in Silverstone and Hungary.

Obviously Red Bull also inflicted damage on Mercedes but no where near as much.

So it's a big flaw that Red Bull or any team for instance suddenly has so much less money to spend all because another team crashes into them.

Hungary especially for Merc was the luckiest thing that happened to them because while not on purpose they destroyed one Red Bull, heavily damaged the other, gained a lot of points and also managed to lower Red Bulls budget for upgrades by millions.

It's a hard thing to fix but just shows it's not a black and white conversation.

TLDR': Red Bull had more damage inflicted by other teams and outside their control so therefore any overspend isn't really allowing for further upgrades.

But the cap is the cap so while unlucky and kind of flawed the wind tunnel penalty was necessary

Like I would have major sympathy if a team breached the cap because another team totaled their car In the second last race for instance. Suddenly they have a a few extra million they are forced to spend. It's bound to happen at some point too so will be interesting.

 

[pauldyson1uk]

Thought you might like this, unforced error, some crackers.
One thing i noticed is that both Häkkinen's happened on what looked like dry tracks with inters on.

 

[Telsim]

If you take Max out of the equation its a greatly competitive season. People are so focused on no 1 they fail to pay attention to the rest. The one good message DtS tried to send. Was it boring when the Patriots or the Bulls won just about everything? Tiger Woods? Michael Phelps? Tyson or Ali? Etc. Domination exists in every sport, and in a way we probably won't fully appreciate it until its all well and done.

Indeed, I had given up on this season, but decided to come back recently and take it in. It's like Maradona for football, or Jordan for basketball, or Usain Bolt for running.

I want to be able to say I've been there and had the privilege to see it.

 

[pauldyson1uk]

If you take Max out of the equation its a greatly competitive season. People are so focused on no 1 they fail to pay attention to the rest. The one good message DtS tried to send. Was it boring when the Patriots or the Bulls won just about everything? Tiger Woods? Michael Phelps? Tyson or Ali? Etc. Domination exists in every sport, and in a way we probably won't fully appreciate it until its all well and done.

That a very good view to have.

 

[Dan_F]

If you take Max out of the equation its a greatly competitive season. People are so focused on no 1 they fail to pay attention to the rest. The one good message DtS tried to send. Was it boring when the Patriots or the Bulls won just about everything? Tiger Woods? Michael Phelps? Tyson or Ali? Etc. Domination exists in every sport, and in a way we probably won't fully appreciate it until its all well and done.

The Bull’s didn’t win anything close to every game and even the seasons when they were ridiculous, they still had to have it all on the line for the finals. Maybe if Max had a race at the end vs second where winner takes all, it might be comparable. A better comparison would be Usain Bolt running against people with weights in their trainers, because it’s basically the fastest person, with far better equipment, and you don’t tend to get that in a lot of other sports I would imagine.

That’s not to take anything away from Red Bull or Max, they’re clearly miles above anything else on the grid right now and worked to create that for themselves, but the nature of F1 means that we all know they will win everything until the next regulation change, anyone who thinks different is kidding themselves. We’ve seen it for well over a decade in F1 now with 3 dominant eras.

The reason why those people/teams are so beloved is because of the close battles they had to win to come out on top (the majority of the time). Max is asking to do pit stop practice half way through Spa

 

[pacifictheme]

If you take Max out of the equation its a greatly competitive season. People are so focused on no 1 they fail to pay attention to the rest. The one good message DtS tried to send. Was it boring when the Patriots or the Bulls won just about everything? Tiger Woods? Michael Phelps? Tyson or Ali? Etc. Domination exists in every sport, and in a way we probably won't fully appreciate it until its all well and done.

The key difference between league sports and F1 (since you included NFL and nba) is you don't play the best team every week. You will win some weeks, even if you don't win overall. In F1 only one team and driver can win each week. So the patriots dominating NFL is not comparable to red bull dominating F1.

 

[Mike Smalling]

Saw somewhere that Verstappen has averaged more than 25 points per race for the first half of the season - obviously due to sprint races, but still

Even if there is a clearly dominant car/driver combination like we have right now, F1 will always have enough smaller subplots to keep things somewhat interesting. Of course, people care most about who wins the races and championships, but right now it's also relevant to follow how Ferrari, Mercedes, McLaren and Aston Martin stack up, whether AlphaTauri, Haas, Williams and Alfa Romeo can get in the points, how drivers within each team compare, etc. Teams and drivers can still get massive results without actually winning the race, so there will always be something to cheer for, even if it's a given from the start that Verstappen will cross the line first.

 

[11101]

It was naive and he could have reacted faster but if Sainz doesnt miss the braking point and lock up it doesnt happen.

Why not? It was clearly Sainz's corner and it was on Piastri for sticking his nose in a disappearing gap. He hits the same apex whether he locks up or not. I don't rate Sainz much but he didn't do much wrong there. I think if Piastri had hit him any harder it would be Piastri facing a penalty.

 

[redshaw]

Put yourself in Sainz's position, you have Hamilton on your left with nowhere to go and the corner is tightening, Piastri puts the nose of the car in far behind his vision and somehow expects to go around three abreast. It's a real pinch point of a corner and like Sainz says people trying that cause collisions. The natural line is to cut it and not do a big circle around. You need multiple cars to do a wide line for a sharp dogleg corner, it's naive. Sometimes in real chaos we've seen Kimi and others take a wide line.

 

[Gringo]

One thing I've noticed is how clean the drivers are nowadays for the most part on starts. You used to nearly always see a race ending collision for someone and it was always a bit of a surprise if everyone got away cleanly. Now it's reversed.

 

[JuriM]

One thing I've noticed is how clean the drivers are nowadays for the most part on starts. You used to nearly always see a race ending collision for someone and it was always a bit of a surprise if everyone got away cleanly. Now it's reversed.

Drivers are better now than about 10 years ago, the average skill set is higher + race management is much more crafted now. You don't see drivers pushing their tires to the absolute maximum to defend from 2-3 levels superior car*, because they know that it's not the fight they can win now and might compromise their own race from that. The Witt and Racecraft + car management is at another level now. I remember watching in the 2000s or even 2010s, were drivers who were lapped by the race leader for some reason, unlapped themselves as they got faster and actually challenged for the fastest lap, etc* On normal racing conditions you don't see anything like that anymore or like it was brought out yesterday, that how you defend in DRS era from a car that has 20-30km/H over you on straight ready to overtake? Without killing your tires.

 

[klsv]

Horner touched Toto's ass while he was doing an interview. Toto laughed and called it harassment. The media:

Toto Wolff confronts Christian Horner

Toto Wolff accused Christian Horner of harassment in a post-race exchange while he was conducting an interview after the Belgian Grand Prix.

F1 journalism makes football journalism look sensible

 

[Abizzz]

Drivers are better now than about 10 years ago, the average skill set is higher + race management is much more crafted now. You don't see drivers pushing their tires to the absolute maximum to defend from 2-3 levels superior car*, because they know that it's not the fight they can win now and might compromise their own race from that. The Witt and Racecraft + car management is at another level now. I remember watching in the 2000s or even 2010s, were drivers who were lapped by the race leader for some reason, unlapped themselves as they got faster and actually challenged for the fastest lap, etc* On normal racing conditions you don't see anything like that anymore or like it was brought out yesterday, that how you defend in DRS era from a car that has 20-30km/H over you on straight ready to overtake? Without killing your tires.

You have to be kidding, right? Right!? I remember when overtaking was more than pressing a button. The current set of newer drivers now never even had the chance to hone that skill. Moderatedly skilled drivers, and by that I mean Perez in Austria, can walz through half the field without having to produce one memorable moment of racing.

Also please name a single f1 race where someone unlapped themselves on the track that wasn't lapped because of damage and then got fastest lap!?

 

[BusbyMalone]

Loved this overtake from Ocon. There were actually a couple of nice overtakes in this one

 

[JuriM]

You have to be kidding, right? Right!? I remember when overtaking was more than pressing a button. The current set of newer drivers now never even had the chance to hone that skill. Moderatedly skilled drivers, and by that I mean Perez in Austria, can walz through half the field without having to produce one memorable moment of racing.

Also please name a single f1 race where someone unlapped themselves on the track that wasn't lapped because of damage and then got fastest lap!?

I am not talking about overtaking only, the whole race management, tires and whole car performance related questions + keeping an eye on the whole race conditions etc overall.

Unlapping and getting the fastest times were very common back in the day, I can't remember any particular race or event from the 90s or 00s, but I remember seeing it plenty of times. Whether something had happened early in the race that caused actually fast driver to drop on the back of the grid and make it all possible.

+ Verstappen wins and races in total nowadays ain't as bad as many make it look. The 20-second gap that was last night was classed as "outrageous". Well, lapping everyone til like 4th place was a thing during Schumacher domination or even winning a race by almost 40 seconds or worst even happened within the Mercedes domination era. It just looks a lot worse now and the average viewer is much more knowledgeable now.

There was also a time when the 18th driver on the grid lost by 3 laps or worse even.

 

[Abizzz]

I am not talking about overtaking only, the whole race management, tires and whole car performance related questions + keeping an eye on the whole race conditions etc overall.

Unlapping and getting the fastest times were very common back in the day, I can't remember any particular race or event from the 90s or 00s, but I remember seeing it plenty of times. Whether something had happened early in the race that caused actually fast driver to drop on the back of the grid and make it all possible.

+ Verstappen wins and races in total nowadays ain't as bad as many make it look. The 20-second gap that was last night was classed as "outrageous". Well, lapping everyone til like 4th place was a thing during Schumacher domination or even winning a race by almost 40 seconds or worst even happened within the Mercedes domination era. It just looks a lot worse now and the average viewer is much more knowledgeable now.

There was also a time when the 18th driver on the grid lost by 3 laps or worse even.

I wouldn't separate Hamilton's era from Verstappen's in that sense to be honest. Both times the best driver in the best car drives away with it. Same with Schumi in Ferrari or Senna in a McLaren (albeit with better opposition, but no one can blame or give credit to any of them for the skills of their peers).

The difference for me between the Hamilton & Verstappen era to the past is that cars used to change a lot more over a season (and a race!) and used to be a lot less reliable in the 90s and 00s and that they had a lot less down force while having pretty much the same weight/power ratio. They also had worse tires and widely fluctuating weight with refilling. The slowest were unquestionably slower in comparison but I'm not sure that says that much about the quality unless you're talking of the base minimum. (And I have to be pedantic on this. Being lapped and on pace with the front was not a regular occurrence at all. And no one needed an extra point for fastest lap to create a bit of excitement at a GP back then).

 

[hobbers]

Horner touched Toto's ass while he was doing an interview. Toto laughed and called it harassment. The media:



F1 journalism makes football journalism look sensible

The tabloid F1 hacks are all deranged and sensationalise worse than D2S.

 

[goalscholes]

You do realise the year they broke the rules was the last year of the old cars and it was only by 1.6% of the €145 million cost cap and they even showed how bad there were with accounting by not applying a tax credit which would of reduced it to .37% breach, a brand new mid season floor and suspension set up would be a massive breach as that would cost millions to produce.

Firstly, it isn’t that simple. Teams abiding by the budget might have turned down a £2m upgrade because they only had £1.9m to spend, and instead introduced smaller changes that wouldn’t be as relevant on next years car. It’s not just the case that RB benefitted by that amount only, especially as track data is now so important with wind tunnel restrictions.

Secondly, my broader point is that the FIA aren’t treating the rules in the way that everyone else expected. If people knew in advance that would be the punishment, you’d have seen a lot more breaches. Why not risk a major breach now the FIA have shown themselves to be spineless?

Using a football analogy, if you let people get away with going down under minimal contact, don’t be surprised if teams scream every time they are touched or systematically fake head injuries in the 60th minute to take on energy tablets.

 

[goalscholes]

The mercs seemed pretty ruthless. The big difference to me between the two eras is that Red Bull have struggled with their second seat. Horner would kill to have someone like Bottas who can reliably get P2/3 every race but they have struggled to find someone who can qualify in the top 10 for some reason.

Max is unbeatable this season but people said the same about Hamilton. Eventually the rules will change or the other teams will catch up and we'll complain about the eternal dominance of whoever wins the next one.

As a side note: Ferrari are useless. They just had Sainz drive around for a while despite having a hole in his car big enough to fit his head through. Regardless of the rules or set up, they make so many stupid mistakes they'll never win anything.

I assumed they did this to support Leclerc E.g. try other tyre compounds first/ tested degradation etc.

 

[christy87]

Firstly, it isn’t that simple. Teams abiding by the budget might have turned down a £2m upgrade because they only had £1.9m to spend, and instead introduced smaller changes that wouldn’t be as relevant on next years car. It’s not just the case that RB benefitted by that amount only, especially as track data is now so important with wind tunnel restrictions.

Secondly, my broader point is that the FIA aren’t treating the rules in the way that everyone else expected. If people knew in advance that would be the punishment, you’d have seen a lot more breaches. Why not risk a major breach now the FIA have shown themselves to be spineless?

Using a football analogy, if you let people get away with going down under minimal contact, don’t be surprised if teams scream every time they are touched or systematically fake head injuries in the 60th minute to take on energy tablets.

I think you've missed the point entirely, they broke the rules in the old car, the only carry over was the engine, all the aero on the ground effect era cars was brand new car so there was little to no carry over data bar the engine.

 

[Ahmer Baig]

54mins into the Autosport post-race podcast and Matt Kew claims the following:

“I can’t say too much in case the lawyers or Lawrence Stroll sends his henchmen onme…but there is now, it’s now come to light there’s a clear reason for the Aston Martin drop off which is not quite to do with development direction but the races since have been recovering that lost ground and someone from AM put it to me that Spa effectively became a three day test session."

 

[dinostar77]

One thing I've noticed is how clean the drivers are nowadays for the most part on starts. You used to nearly always see a race ending collision for someone and it was always a bit of a surprise if everyone got away cleanly. Now it's reversed.

Id say following reasons:

1. Cost cap is a major factor, have to try to keep it clean. The more damage you cause to your car the more it eats up your budget.

2. Cars are so aero sensitive that any sort of damage will effectly ruin your race, especially damaging the floor.

3. Penalties are overly harsh now. There aint no room for rubbin'.

 

[dinostar77]

I wouldn't separate Hamilton's era from Verstappen's in that sense to be honest. Both times the best driver in the best car drives away with it. Same with Schumi in Ferrari or Senna in a McLaren (albeit with better opposition, but no one can blame or give credit to any of them for the skills of their peers).

The difference for me between the Hamilton & Verstappen era to the past is that cars used to change a lot more over a season (and a race!) and used to be a lot less reliable in the 90s and 00s and that they had a lot less down force while having pretty much the same weight/power ratio. They also had worse tires and widely fluctuating weight with refilling. The slowest were unquestionably slower in comparison but I'm not sure that says that much about the quality unless you're talking of the base minimum. (And I have to be pedantic on this. Being lapped and on pace with the front was not a regular occurrence at all. And no one needed an extra point for fastest lap to create a bit of excitement at a GP back then).

Agree with this. Reliability has gone up so much from the prost/senna - schmacher/hakkinen eras.

Drivers in 80s had alot more skill, no power steering, manual gearboxes, higher reving engines with spiky torque curve delivery etc.

 

[Ahmer Baig]

We have some good competition on the F1 prediction.

 

[Ahmer Baig]

54mins into the Autosport post-race podcast and Matt Kew claims the following:

Not sure what he was implying,,, does anyone have any idea?

 

[dinostar77]

Not sure what he was implying,,, does anyone have any idea?

That something they were running on the car was deemed illegal by FIA and they are trying to clawback lost performance?

 

[Ahmer Baig]

That something they were running on the car was deemed illegal by FIA and they are trying to clawback lost performance?

That is what my initial thoughts were.

 

[christy87]

Agree with this. Reliability has gone up so much from the prost/senna - schmacher/hakkinen eras.

Drivers in 80s had alot more skill, no power steering, manual gearboxes, higher reving engines with spiky torque curve delivery etc.

On the reliability side could it also be teams are playing it safer and not taking risks with engine development like Ferrari last season which blew up in there face constantly and so far this season to me it looks like that engine has been dialed down a bit, with more money to be won at the end of the season it's too big a risk to take that sort of a risk again.

I'd be happy to see some of the drivers aids removed, I think some of the drivers would be as well.

 

[Wicked_Badger]

Loved this overtake from Ocon. There were actually a couple of nice overtakes in this one

Yeah, that was lovely. I think he had another one a few laps before or after that was pretty tasty too. Was it him & Albon battling through a few corners?

Norris had a cracking one hanging it around the outside of Rivage (I think) when it started raining.

 

[The Firestarter]

On the reliability side could it also be teams are playing it safer and not taking risks with engine development like Ferrari last season which blew up in there face constantly and so far this season to me it looks like that engine has been dialed down a bit, with more money to be won at the end of the season it's too big a risk to take that sort of a risk again.

I'd be happy to see some of the drivers aids removed, I think some of the drivers would be as well.

Which systems do you mean? These cars already don't have abs, lc, tc (they used to before) The only thing they have is power steering but I think it would be impossible otherwise with these cars. Even the brakes are not amplified additionally.

 

[11101]

I think you've missed the point entirely, they broke the rules in the old car, the only carry over was the engine, all the aero on the ground effect era cars was brand new car so there was little to no carry over data bar the engine.

Good job the engine has nothing to do with performance then! Their engine is as far ahead as anything else.

Their other big advantages are the trick suspension and whatever goes on in the rear diffuser during DRS, neither of which are visible or possible to replicate in scrutineering...

 

[christy87]

Which systems do you mean? These cars already don't have abs, lc, tc (they used to before) The only thing they have is power steering but I think it would be impossible otherwise with these cars. Even the brakes are not amplified additionally.

Engine modes, battery power for pushing to overtake, DRS. Make it more the drivers driving skill, not how many buttons he can press to up his power and conserve his power and so on.

 

[dinostar77]

Good job the engine has nothing to do with performance then! Their engine is as far ahead as anything else.

Their other big advantages are the trick suspension and whatever goes on in the rear diffuser during DRS, neither of which are visible or possible to replicate in scrutineering...

The Mercedes/Ferrari and RB engines are level on power. Alpine engine is down 30bhp, which is why they are asking for special measures to bring them up to parity which is allowed under the rules. The team principals had a meeting about it after the belgium gp.

How that power is deployed and the electric motors used is a different conversation.

https://www.gpblog.com/en/news/229173/wolff-warns-on-alpine-horsepower-deficit.html

 

[The Firestarter]

Engine modes, battery power for pushing to overtake, DRS. Make it more the drivers driving skill, not how many buttons he can press to up his power and conserve his power and so on.

Battery power I would love to get removed but it will never happen, in fact its more likely the ICE gets eventually removed. DRS on ground effect cars indeed could be looked into at least for some sort of limitation if not outright removal.
The rest I disagree with. Engines modes have been in F1 for a long time. I don't think it's a competion for button pushing at all.

 

[Redplane]

 

[dinostar77]

There are 25 buttons on a F1 steering wheel, with sub menus within submenus. I think there a few hundred different combinations which is why drivers get confused during races when they have to troubleshoot.

Below isnt a mapping of the pic above but does explain some of the buttons. This is why alonso likened current F1 to being a aircraft pilot rather than a racing driver.

1. The button 'N' for Neutral.

2. ‘DRINK’ manages the drink bottle.

3. Radio.

4. Scroll down the dashboard.

5. Scroll up the dashboard.

6. ‘P’ is the pit limiter. When operated, it appears on the screen as ‘PIT LIMITER’ with the instant speed shown together.

7. ‘K2’ activates the DRS.

8. The rotary switch that manages the differential in the middle of the corner.

9. Manages engine braking.

10. 'OIL', activates an additional oil pump to increase lubrication.

11. The rotary 'TRQ' manages engine torque.

12. The clutch on the right side

14. Manages multiple functions, among them the ERS, REC (recovery), Mix (mixture fuel /air).

13. + 15. Number 13, 'ENGINE', manages the engine maps. It operates together with 15), that manages the ICE modes. Among them are 'WU' (warm up), 'PSH' (pre start heating), 'PSHQ' (pre start heating qualifying), 'BOX INTERS/XW' manages some torque modes related to the use of inters and wet tyres.

16. Manages the strategies of the hybrid part of the PU.

17. Is a multifunctional rotary switch: eg. 'SPK' manages the spark plug ignition, 'TUR' (waste gate pressure) and preset recovery programs labelled A, B, etc.

18. Together with 'TRQ', manages the throttle response.

19. Manages the output of the energy storage.

20. 'SLO' is a button that activates the virtual safety car mode

21. 'SOC' manages the maximum level of charge desired or possible related to the specific conditions of the moment.

22. 'OK’ copies the information received by the pit.

23. Manages the differential slip at the corner entrance.

Do you know how many buttons Senna's steering wheel in the 80s had? None. Theres a reason why the 80s were the golden era of F1. It was actual racing.