Category: F1

F1 pit stop: …and the winner is…

On By ChristofferIn F1, NewsLeave a comment

…Lando Norris! In the end by a margin of two points on Max Verstappen, and 13 on his team mate Oscar Piastri. In my before-last F1 update back in June that you’ll find here, yours truly wrote: “I would claim we’re well beyond it (referring to halfway into the season, my remark) in terms of seeing where the season is heading – and the color of that is a solid orange. That’s however not the orange of Max Verstappen and the Netherlands we’ve gotten used to, but rather the papaya orange of McLaren!

Given the double Constructors’ and Drivers’ titles McLaren took this year, I guess I could say I was right, but of course, what I meant at the time was that McLaren would dominate the rest of the season as they had the first part. In my defence, I think few would have contested my statement back then. Only a few weeks later however, Red Bull’s team principal Christian Horner was sacked, and the summer thereafter became somewhat of a turning point, making the fight for the F1 Drivers’ title 2025 the most exciting it’s been since 2010, when Sebastian Vettel clinched it as one of four contenders in the last race of the season, also in Abu Dhabi.

Until the end of August this year, McLaren had won 12 of the 15 races, split 7-5 in Oscar Piastri’s favour over Lando Norris. Of the remaining three, Max Verstappen had won two, and George Russell one. Piastri was at the time in a relatively comfortable Championship lead, with Lando Norris a solid second. Verstappen at most was all of 104 points behind Piastri. It all looked like a McLaren internal fight for both world titles, with not even Max Verstappen being close.

Up until and including the Dutch GP in August, it was all very papaya orange!

From September onwards we had another nine races, including the last race of the season today in Abu Dhabi. George Russell won his second race of the season in this period, but that’s the only similarity with the first 2/3 of the season. Because of the remaining eight, Oscar Piastri has won none, Lando Norris has won two, and Max Verstappen no less than six. Going into today’s race, the three of them thus all had the chance to win the Drivers’ title, something that hasn’t happened in years.

Digging into this a bit closer and starting with Max and Red Bull, it’s no doubt true that he’s done far better in the last part of the season, meaning more or less since the departure of Christian Horner. The conclusion has to be that letting go of Horner was the right move, as it’s pretty clear the team does quite well without him. However, all of it is neither on the back of Horner, nor of Max’s doing either. McLaren has combined mistakes with a bit of bad luck since the summer, helping Max unexpectedly get a renewed chance at the title. And with Max, that’s really all he needs.

It started in Austin, where none of the McLarens finished the sprint race, which Verstappen won. In Las Vegas, both papaya cars were disqualified for skid wear (referring to too much wear on the plank running below the car, meaning it could run lower than allowed by regulation). Again, Verstappen won the race. And as late as last week in Qatar, when Norris was supposed to tie it all up, for some inexplicable reason, McLaren was the only team not to pit in a safety car phase early in the race, leaving both Piastri and Norris in complete limbo with some hilarious radio conversations between the drivers and the team we all could listen to taking place. Who won the race? You guessed it.

Max didn’t need much to be back in the game when McLaren ran into problems.

This isn’t meant to take anything away from Max Verstappen though. Until the end of the season, everyone would agree that McLaren had the better car, but in spite of that, as soon as there was a glimmer of hope, Max stepped it up and grasped it, pulling what feels like 130% out of the McLaren car in a way only he knows the secret of. It didn’t take him all the way but boy was it close, and as many that agree that McLaren had the better car would probably also agree that Max Verstappen is still the best driver.

It’s worth looking at bit closer at Oscar Piastri as well, who after winning seven races in the first part of the season, and having been on the podium in 13 of the first 15 races, has only been so three times since the summer. F1 veteran Martin Brundle named five reasons for this turnaround for the worst, being head, luck, setup, tracks, and Norris. I won’t go through all of them and it’s no doubt a mix of everything, also including team orders and tactics, which Brundle didn’t name. Piastri is a very good soldier, never contesting team orders and playing it all by the book. It pains me to say so, but that’s not exactly the traits of a world champion (did anyone mention Max?).

Behind McLaren and Red Bull, Mercedes-AMG has emerged as a solid third, even beating Red Bull in the teams’ classification. Much of this is thanks to Kimi Antonelli’s fantastic driving in his first season, scoring no less than three podiums and 150 points (that’s three podiums and 117 points more than Red Bull’s second driver Yuki Tsunoda…). That’s not bad for a 19-year old, and although it’s only less than half the points his teammate George Russell scored, the pair is more complementary than many would have thought.

19 years old and doing a splendid job in his first season. A coming world champion?

In comparison, what happens down in Maranello has us all scratching our heads, especially when it comes to Lewis Hamilton. How can it be that a seven-time world champion doesn’t manage it beyond Q1 in the last two qualifiers when his teammate Charles Leclerc does so with a margin? Plenty of theories are going around, essentially boiling down to Lewis at one end complaining and calling his first season at Ferrari a nightmare, and others pointing out that as a 40-year old driver with seven world titles, you should perhaps be able to make it beyond Q1, and if you don’t, that it’s perhaps time to say arrividerci.

I would tend to agree and also point out that it would be good for Lewis to change his tune before the team loses confidence in him as well. Ferrari is a Latin outfit which Seb Vettel and especially Schumi learnt to handle and exploit fully, but which Lewis seems to struggle with. That’s a bad direction to go in, especially when you’re 40 years old and cash a very big cheque. Before the season, I would definitely have put the Ferrari duo ahead of Russell and Antonelli at Mercedes, again showing that my predictive powers are about as reliable as worn-down Range Rover.

The other teams are all miles from the leading four, but it’s worth mentioning Williams who for many years were at the very back of the field but who now regularly score points with the well-functioning duo Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz. They both scored a similar amount of points (Albon at 73, Sainz at 64), with Carlos notably finishing third in the before-last race this season in Qatar. That’s nice to see, although it’s difficult to see the team moving further up the ranks.

Things are going well at Williams, and Albon and Sainz have emerged as a great duo.

As we close the books on 2025, we do so with Lando Norris as brand new world champion and McLaren thus taking the double. Seen over the full season, I would say it’s well deserved, as he’s been more constant than Oscar Piastri over the full season, and McLaren has clearly been the best team. Max Verstappen finishing second, only two points behind, is no doubt a disappointment for him, but far more than he could have hoped for a few weeks ago. Oscar Piastri’s disappointment is no doubt bigger, having basically had it all in his own hands back in September.

Of course, Piastri will have a new chance next year, as there is little doubt McLaren will be among the top teams then as well. It’s difficult to say more though, since the 2026 season will see a total revamp of the cars, with major changes notably to the power unit, chassis and aerodynamic rules. More on that next year before we start off the season 2026, but even as we conclude 2025, we know that it will be a tall order for the new cars in the new year to beat the excitement of the 2025 season!

F1 (extra) pit stop – inter-season action!

On By ChristofferIn F1, NewsLeave a comment

it was in late June that I published the latest F1 update, which was also the half of the season one. Rest assured that it’s not a lack of other stuff to write about which motivates another one so soon thereafter, but there’s been some inter-season action this summer that needs to be commented on. So in terms of race updates, I’ll come back to those yet another time before the season ends, in a few races from now. Today, we’ll look at the big news from behind the F1 scene.

“Thank you for everything, Christian, and you will forever remain an important part of our team history.”. Those were some of the words Red Bull’s MD Oliver Mintzlaff expressed when he earlier this summer announced that after 20 years, the Red Bull team had rather abruptly decided to sack team principal Christian Horner. By the looks of it, no one was more surprised than Christian himself, which is perhaps an indication that everything was actually not hunky dory at Milton Keynes, Red Bull’s HQ. When the boss doesn’t realize what’s going on, it’s usually not a good sign.

There have definitely been better days, if you’re Christian Horner…

Horner’s story with Red Bull is of course both a unique and a uniquely successful one. After some limited success as a driver in F2 and F3 during the 90’s, Christian admitted to himself that he didn’t have the balls for F1, and instead set off on a quest to build his own team in F3000, at the time the junior class acting as a stepping stone to F1. Doing so he met Red Bull’s grand old man Dr. Helmut Marko the first time, and it was no doubt their prior relationship that made Red Bull and Marko confident enough to choose him as (a 31-year old) untested team principal, when in 2001, they decided to launch their own F1 team. That was a bold move, but boy was it rewarded!

With Red Bull, Christian Horner went on to become the longest serving and one of the most successful team principals in F1 history. Over 20 years and 373 races, the team under his command recorded 113 race victories and six constructors’ titles. In the team’s best season 2022, Red Bull had a race win percentage of over 95%. And as the team’s uncontested first driver, Max Verstappen has won four world titles, the latest in 2024. So why on earth was Horner let go of?

Those were the days!

The first cracks started to appear in early 2024, when Horner was accused of inappropriate behavior by a female Red Bull employee. He was later acquitted, but neither Red Bull, nor Helmut Marko, nor Max Verstappen’s influential father Jos appreciated the negative PR, and openly stated so. A bit later the same year, both team manager Jonathan Wheatley and the legendary designer Adrian Newey, who had been instrumental in Red Bull’s success over many years, announced they were leaving. At the same time, not even Verstappen could handle the Red Bull car anymore, and other teams, especially McLaren, were catching up. Race-wise the 2025 season hasn’t been any better, and 2/3 into the season, Red Bull has no practical chance of winning neither the Constructors’, nor the Drivers’ title this year.

Without Newey, even Horner would admit that Red Bull would never have had the success they did.

The other way of looking at it is also that with each passing year, the Red Bull car seems to be increasingly developed for Max Verstappen – and only Max Verstappen. It’s almost comical how many second drivers have passed through Red Bull and failed to get anywhere near Verstappen’s results. It started with Ricciardo (who arguably, made one of many bad choices in joining Renault, but he didn’t do so on the back of massive success at Red Bull). Then came Pierre Gasly, followed by Alex Albon, in turn followed by Sergio Perez, Liam Leeson, and now Yuki Tsunoda. That’s six guys in 10 years. Six guys that may not have Max’s talent, but all of which have recorded better results with other teams than with Red Bull’s world champion outfit. If you build a car that is really tailor-made to one driver and that driver doesn’t win anymore, as a team principal in F1 where memory only goes back to last Sunday’s race, you leave yourself exposed.

I think it would be suprising if Christian Horner doesn’t return to F1 in some capacity. During the summer, there’s been plenty of rumours on him joining Ferrari, setting up his own team again, or perhaps becomes the principal of the new team for the 2026 season, which is the other big piece of news from this summer: Cadillac’s F1 entry.

Two happy 35-year olds, a bit unexpectedly back in action!

Of course, the news that there will be another team in F1 next year is older than this summer, but it was in August that Cadillac announced its driver line-up for 2026. Contrary to the recent trend among the more established F1 teams, Cadillac goes for experience all the way, with Mexican Sergio “Checo” Perez on one hand, and Finnish Valtteri Bottas on the other. None of them have a seat this season, with Bottas being test driver at Mercedes, and Perez having taken the year out to spend time with his family. They do however have a total of 106 podiums in F1 between them, and the idea is that both now bring their extensive experience to Cadillac to help shorten the time it will take the time to establish itself.

Cadillac will be the 11th team on the grid and is a brand new outfit, in a collaboration between Cadillac, GM and TWG Global, a Chicago-based investment company active in sports, media and entertainment. Former Virgin and Marussia team boss Graeme Lowdon will run it (so no, it won’t be Christian Horner taking up the job). The engine will initially be supplied by Ferrari, but will be replaced by a GM powertrain by 2029, and it’s no secret that it’s the new engine regulations for next year, that we’ll come back to before the 2026 season, that make the entry possible.

Images so far tell a very black story…

There’s no doubt that F1 and its boss Stefano Domenicali has thought long and hard about Cadillac’s entry as there isn’t room for any more teams behond this in F1, and any new entrants after this will therefore have to buy an existing team (is that perhaps where we’ll see or friend Christian Horner reappear?). There’s thus little doubt that Cadillac is serious about a long-term commitment. No F1 newcomer can however expect to be close to the podium in its first season(s), so don’t expect too much.

Come to think of it though, that’s not quite true. A young David Coulthard finished fourth in his first race for a brand new team in the 2005 season. The new team he was racing for was called Red Bull, and its principal was a rather unknown 31-year old, called Christian Horner…

Pictures from f1.com and Motorsport

F1 pit stop: half way in!

On By ChristofferIn F1, News2 Comments

It’s high time for a long overdue F1 update, and like me, you may just have seen Lando Norries winning the Austrian GP, the 11th of the season. We’re thus not fully half way in as this season will coujnd 26 races, but not far from it, and even though we’re still two races out from formal half time, I would claim we’re well beyond it in terms of seeing where the season is heading – and the color of that is a solid orange. That’s however not the orange of Max Verstappen and the Netherlands we’ve gotten used to, but rather the papaya orange of McLaren!

That the team from Woking in the UK has emerged as the top team in 2025 is not a big surprise. After all they won the Constructors’ title last year and many counted them as favorites going into the season. What is perhaps more suprrising is that it’s not Lando Norris but Oscar Piastri who leads the ranking, even if it’s only 15 points ahead of Norris. McLaren has won eight of the 11 races so far this season, with Piastri winning five and Norris three. As a team McLaren is already way ahead of the three following teams Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull, with roughly twice as many points as the second Mercedes.

Full harmony so far – let’s see if it lasts!

Another thing that the first 11 races of the season has made clear is that Red Bull has issues. It may not look it at first sight with Max Verstappen currently in P3 in the Drivers’ Championship, but the fact that he scored almost all the team’s points demonstrates – again – what we now know. Which is that Max is one hell of a driver, and the Red Bull car is one hell of a car, in the negative sense, for anyone but Max to drive.

Alex Albon couldn’t do it. Checo Perez was in the end so intimidated by the car that he could barely finish a race. Liam Lawson, to be fair, was never given a fair chance being kicked out after 2 1/2 races, and now it’s Yuki Tsunoda, who has proven many times in the past that he can drive, who cannot get to grips with the Red Bull car and just like Perez did, gets increasingly frustrated, thereby making mistakes. Max may bring out 110% of that same car, but that’s currently not enough to win races, and unless things change drastically, Red Bull won’t take neither the Drivers’, nor the Constructors’ title this year.

Max has had many better seasons…

Red Bull also suffers in this sense against both Mercedes and Ferrari, which both have two drivers who regularly score points. Kimi Antonelli is not at George Russell’s level, but with 63 points scored so far this season, he still ranks seventh in the Drivers’s behind his team mate Russell, Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton as the leading rookie. The latter would certainly have wished to be at least on a podium this season which hasn’t happened yet, but he’s had an ok start at Ferrari and with significant updates to the car coming out just before today’s race in Austria where Ferrari finished on P3 and P4, it bodes rather well for the coming races.

In my first post after the first race in the season, I speculated that Williams could be the positive surprise this year. To the extent that the team scores points regularly, mostly through Alex Albon and so far less with Carlos Sainz, I guess that was correct, but there’s a long way to go from the top four teams to Williams and the rest, although Williams are now somewhere in between the midfield and the top teams. In Austria however, Sainz couldn’t start as his whole break system locking up and going up in flames before the race start. Not necessarily something that should happen to an aspiring top team.

George Russell won the Canadian GP, the only race not going to McLaren or Max. As things are currently looking, he’s unfortunatley not close to repeating it.

As we are (almost) half way into the season, it’s thus difficult to imagine anything other than McLaren winning both the Constructors’ and the Drivers’ titles this year, but it’s far more difficult to say if it’ll be Lando or Oscar winning the title. And as things heat up in the second half, that may of course have implications on the harmony in the team, which still pretty much looks to be total. Whoever it is, it will be McLaren’s first Driver’s title since 2008, when Lewis Hamilton secured it with less than a lap to go at the Brazilian GP, winning it by a single point. Chances are there will be less drama this year, at least between McLaren and other teams, if not necessarily within the orange team…

Speaking of harmony, we’ll also see how Max handles no longer being in the fastest car. In Spain he drove into the side of George Russell out of sheer frustration you have to think, since Max doesn’t make those kinds of mistakes. On the other hand, his genius move in the second corner of the Emilia Romagna GP that he went on to win is the kind of thing only a world champion would dare – and succeed with. Unfortunately though, the opportunities for doing so to win races seem ot be diminishing as the season progresses.

After today’s race in Austria, we’re off to Silverstone next for the British GP, which is of course also McLaren’s home GP. It’s also the home race off both George Russell and Lewis Hamilton, and perhaps Lewis’s first podium? A week from now we’ll know!

Lawson out – Tsunoda in!

On By ChristofferIn F1Leave a comment

Well, that didn’t last long. 2 1/2 (if you count the China spring GP as 1/2) races into the season and Liam Lawson is already out of his Red Bull seat, being degraded to Racing Bulls and switching places with Yuki Tsunoda. I don’t have the stats to prove it, but I’m guessing this is the least patience any F1 team has ever shown with a new driver, especially a youngster who’s 20 years old…

As noted in my F1 post last week, Lawson isn’t completely new to F1, having started in 11 races and finished P9 at best. That said, his first races at Red Bull have been a complete nightmare, qualifying in P18 at best and not finishing better than P12. That’s not good enough for Red Bull, and Lawson thereby becomes the next in a relatively long line of second drivers at the team who don’t manage to perform in a car that by the looks of it, only Max Verstappen can handle. However, the question still remains if Red Bull didn’t test Lawson enough before signing him to notice it?

Red Bull are of course stressed about the Constructors’ title that they in my opinion will struggle greatly to regain this year. There is however another reason next to Lawson’s poor results playing in here, and as so often, it’s called money. The next GP is at Suzuka in Japan, and rumor has it that Tsunoda’s sponsors have paid north of USD 10m to Red Bull on the condition that they put Yuki in Lawson’s seat in time for it. Let’s see what happens. No doubt Tsunoda is a fast driver, but other second drivers at Red Bull have been so as well – in other cars. We’ll see if Yuki manages to handle that raging bull any better than Lawson in front of his home crowd! If so, Lawson isn’t about to return, at least not this season.

F1 pit stop – we’re off!

On By ChristofferIn F1, News1 Comment

The F1 season 2025 has finally started! We’ve been waiting for it and of course, now for the seventh year, Netflix has contributed to the build-up by launching the latest season of “Drive to Survive” a week ago (I’m not through it yet…). Anyway the new F1 season started today if you read this on the day of publication, and if so, you may just have seen Lando Norris win the first GP of the season in Melbourne, allowing a McLaren driver to lead the Drivers’ championship for the first time since 1992! If you look back on the practice sessions of the last weeks that was hardly a surprise, and Norris may well stay at the top far longer than just until next race.

Whatever happens, 2025 is the last season with F1 in its current form before some major changes in 2026. More on that later this year but it will affect fuels, engines and downforce, with signs that cars will not be as fast as in 2025. Therefore, we should enjoy the current season for as long as it lasts, especially since it promises to be even more exciting than last year, which itself was of course the most exciting season in many years!

Things have started well for Norris, who may well be the title favourite this season!

Starting with the driver line-up, the biggest news of the season is of course something that was announced already last season, namely Lewis Hamilton taking Carlos Sainz’ seat at Ferrari, with the latter joining Williams. Lewis is of course a true legend with seven world championship titles under his belt, but he will still have his work cut out for him, not only in comparison to Charles Leclerc but actually also to his predecessor who had a great season in 2024.

We know now that Sainz had the choice to join Alpine or Kick-Sauber in addition to Williams. Kick-Sauber is set to become Audi in 2026 and would perhaps have been most promising in that regard, seen from the outside. That Sainz still opted for Williams hopefully says a lot about the potential the team has this year. In the first, chaotic Melbourne GP he didn’t manage to capitalize on that, but his teammate Alex Albon finishing fourth may have been an early indication.

I think everyone wish that things go well for Sainz at Williams!

Lewis’ departure from Mercedes also meant Toto Wolf as team principal had a seat to fill, with quite some pressure to get it right. Toto, in my view wisely, chose not to go for Sainz or another more experienced driver, but rather for perhaps the most exciting of the five newcomers this season. The Italian Kimi Antonelli is only 18 years old and has been a part of the Mercedes Junior Team since 2019. Last year was his first in F2, he won several races and now gets the chance to drive for Mercedes in F1. That’s quite a development for a teenager who only got his driver’s license a few months ago… Together with George Russell who is now Mercedes’ first driver, that gives the team not only the youngest, but perhaps also the most exciting driver line-up.

This kid just got his driving license…

The other newcomers include 19-year old Englishman Oliver Bearman from the Ferrari academy driving for Haas, the 22-year old Australian Jack Dohan on Alpine, from the team’s own academy and the son of the MC legend Mick Dohan, and the 20-year old Brazilian Gabriele Bortoleto who won the F2 championship last year and now drives for Kick-Sauber. Last but not least is 20-year old Isack Hadjar who was the runner up in F2 last year and drives for Red Bull’s junior team Racing Bulls. Hadjar is French-Algerian, meaning he will be the first F1 driver ever from the African continent, outside of South Africa.

This means that only Aston Martin and McLaren have an unchanged driver line-up in 2025. Haas has replaced both their drivers, with Bearman coming in alongside Esteban Ocon, who lost his Alpine seat to Jack Dohan. None of the Kick-Sauber drivers, Bottas and Zhou, will drive in F1 this season, replaced by Bortoleto and Nico Hulkenberg from Haas. Most importantly however, Liam Lawson has graduated from Racing Bulls to Red Bull, being replaced by Hadjar, and now drives for Red Bull alongside Max Verstappen.

All newcomers crashed out of today’s rainy Melbourne GP – except Antonelli

Lawson is a 23-year old New Zealander who during last season was Red Bull’s reserve driver and came in to replace Daniel Ricciardo at the junior team Racing Bulls (previously called Alpha Tauri) when he broke his hand mid-season. Lawson has driven a total of 11 GP’s, finishing ninth at best, but proving he’s got the speed on a couple of occasions last year. And that’s probably a good thing, since it’s still a bit of a mystery how fast the Red Bull car really is.

McLaren of course won the Constructors’ title last year and clearly had the fastest car in the latter part of the season. At least at the beginning of this season, that still looks to be the case. Behind McLaren, we’ll have to see if Red Bull still has any kind of edge on Ferrari and Mercedes. It’s no secret that the car has a narrow window where it performs at 100%, and the question will be whether that window has become wider or not. If not, it’s difficult to see how Verstappen will be able to hold on to his title, and how the team could win back the Constructor’s title. And looking at the other teams, if the first race and Carlos Sainz’s experience is anything to go by, Williams could be the positive surprise of this season!

Flavio is back – the other team bosses better take notice!

Before we close, it’s also great to see that F1’s leading playboy is back! Flavio Briatore doesn’t need much of an introduction, he was of course team head at Renault in the 90’s during Schumi’s time, when the team was still called Renault, and returned to the team in the middle of last season. Back in the day, he helped Renault win three Constructors’ titles and four Drivers’ titles with Schumi, but was then banned from F1 in 2008 following “Crashgate”, when he was accused of instructing Nelson Piquet Jr. to crash, such as to help his teammate Fernando Alonso to win the race.

Flavio was later acquitted, and none of this prevented him, on a personal level, from having affairs both with Naomi Campbell and Heidi Klum, with whom he has a child. Briatore now returns to Alpine as “executive advisor”, but few doubt he’s running the team. And that’s a good thing, because not only is Briatore widely respected, he also has more charisma than all the other team heads taken together!

King Lewis the First!

On By ChristofferIn F1Leave a comment

In my last post on the 2024 F1 season from December that you can read in full here, should you want to, I wrote the following with regards to Lewis’s move to Ferrari in 2025: “At Ferrari, Charles Leclerc who doesn’t mind the limelight will have quite a lot of competition for it with Lewis alongside him (…)”. Well, it took about as long for that to come through as it took president Trump to issue his first executive order. In his first official picture for Ferrari, Lewis puts any doubts as to who is the current king of F1 to rest.

Lewis loves fashion, but it’s usually in the XXXL rapper style that isn’t necessarily to everyone’s taste. Not so here. In a perfect, carefully selected suit, along with coat and accessories, he’s also chosen as car the most iconic Ferrari of them all if you’re a Gen X:er. By pure coincidence, that’s not only the core generation among current F1 enthusiasts, but also the group with capital. It’s a masterful illustration of who’s in charge, and something Max Verstappen can match as little as Novak Djokovic can match the aura of Roger Federer or Rafa Nadal.

Let’s remember that what Lewis has done is pretty remarkable. I’m not referring to his seven world titles here, but rather to the fact that having been on a downward slope for the last years with Mercedes and with most thinking it more likely that he leaves F1, not only did he manage to pick up the pace at Mercedes in the last year, he also made Ferrari believe enough in him to offer him a contract – at the age of 40. The first picture proves them right, and I for one cross my fingers that next season does so even more!

F1 pitstop: the best season many years!

On By ChristofferIn F1Leave a comment

The longest F1 season in history is over since a week back, and I think most would agree that it wasn’t only the longest, but also the best in a long time. In the end, Max Verstappen claimed the title as expected, but didn’t manage to wrap it up until the third last race of the season, and his Red Bull team was also far from the double, ending third in the Constructors’ championship behind McLaren and Ferrari.

Behind that summary, there’s however a whole lot more to dwell into that contributed to making this season as good as it was. An essential ingredient is of course that after a few years’ of complete Red Bull domination, there’s now four teams that compete for every race. Next to Max, both drivers of the McLaren, Mercedes and Ferrari teams won at least two races during the season, and these same four teams also managed at least one race where they finished first and second.

Title nr 4 in the bag – but a harder one than any of the previous three!

Of the four, there is no doubt that Red Bull was the most unbalanced in terms of drivers. The team managed three 1-2’s, however all of them during the first five races, and without Sergio “Checo” Perez winning a single race. And after the first part of the season, he was really nowhere near a podium and scored less points during the remaining 18 races than he did during the first six. That’s obviously also what led to Red Bull not winning the Constructors’ championship. Perez didn’t have to do as well as Max for that to happen, but he would have had to do much better than he did.

That Red Bull will break the contract with Perez that would otherwise be valid for another two years seems rather obvious, and team boss Christian Horner recently declared that current RB drivers Yuki Tsunoda and Nigel Lawson are his preferred replacement candidates. Horner said he feels both of them did a good job in challenging circumstances – obviously implying that’s not how he feels about Checo Perez, and rightly so.

In the end it was McLaren that took the Constructors’ title, and what a line-up they had, and will continue to have next year, with Norris and Piastri. Between them, the two won six races during the season with Norris in the lead, clinching four, and they ended second (Norris) and fourth (Piastri) in the Drivers’ ranking. Even more importantly, it very much felt not only like Piastri caught up to Norris as the season progressed, but also like the car kept improving. If the trend continues next year, McLaren will certainly be a serious challenger for both the Constructors’ and Drivers’ titles.

A very well-deserved Constructors’ title for F1’s most sympathetic team!

Mercedes on the other hand really found their speed in the second part of the season, with George Russell and Lewis Hamilton each winning two races and finishing only 22 points apart as sixth and seventh in the Drivers’ championship (Russell ahead of Lewis). Just like with McLaren, the direction of travel is the right one, but there’s obviously an element of insecurity tied to Lewis moving to Ferrari after no less than 12 seasons and six world championship titles at Mercedes. That there was some emotion tied to this was very visible after the last race of the season at Abu Dhabi, and who can blame him. Faces at Mercedes were certainly happier a few years ago before Red Bull’s domination started, but it doesn’t change the fact that Lewis’s time at Mercedes has been one of the most successful runs ever in F1.

Just like Mercedes, Ferrari also became more competitive as the season progressed, with Charles Leclerc winning three races against Carlos Sainz’ two. The big surprise was however the announcement already before the first race of the season that Lewis would replace Sainz in 2025. The jury is certainly still out as to the wisdom of the switch. As Carlos would go on to prove during the season, he is very much a top driver more or less on par with Charles Leclerc, and both of them seem to have gotten along quite well, and together with team boss Cédric Vasseur creating more harmony in Ferrari than in many years.

Let’s hope the happy faces last…

That Lewis feels he needs a new challenge after 12 seasons at Mercedes is certainly not surprising, but he’s no longer a young man, and most of us would probably have thought he would rather be retiring. Ferrari hasn’t always been known for a wise strategy, and you can’t help but wonder if this decision will go down as another of those that in hindsight was less well thought through.

Carlos Sainz was thus left out in the cold and it took a while for him to find a new seat, which in the end turned out to be with Williams, where he will drive alongside Albon, replacing Logan Sargeant. Williams is certainly in far better shape than a few years ago, but the team is still miles away from the big four. In terms of Alex Albon, he’s certainly proven he can drive a car fast after his less than memorable run at Red Bull, but contrary to him, Carlos Sainz has nothing to prove in the driving department. You can’t help but feeling sorry for Carlos, and hope things at Williams will turn out better than there is reason to expect.

It would seem winning races is not enough…

Next to Sargeant, three other drivers will leave the circus after this season, namely both Alfa Romeo Sauber drivers, Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu, and Kevin Magnussen at Haas. Both Bottas and Magnussen are well past their prime and will leave F1 altogether, whereas it’s unclear what Guanuy will do. Newcomer Oliver Bearman will replace Magnussen at Haas, whereas Alfa Romeo Sauber is in a bit of a flux, with the team set to become Audi in 2026. In 2025, Nico Hülkenberg and newcomer Gabriel Bortoleto will make up the line-up.

As we close the books on 2024, it’s thus on a season that was really exciting, with four different teams winning races and seeing their highs at different times during the season. Hell, even Max Verstappen proved he was human in the last race, driving in to the side of Oscar Piastri in such an obvious driver mistake that not even he could contest it (he couldn’t help himself contesting the penalty though). Is he the best F1 driver ever? He’s certainly a candidate, and next to driving skills, he clearly has the mindset of a Senna, Schumacher or Prost (think competitive to a rather unpleasant level) to back it up.

Whoever replaces Checo Perez at Red Bull doesn’t matter, Max will completely dominate the team in 2025. At Ferrari, Charles Leclerc who doesn’t mind the limelight will have quite a lot of competition for it with Lewis alongside him, and over at Mercedes, George Russell is all of a sudden the team’s first driver. Will it perhaps be McLaren who in the end draw the longest straw out of all this? We’ll have a first indication in mid-March, as the new season kicks off in Melbourne!

F1 pit stop: buckle up!

On By ChristofferIn F1, NewsLeave a comment

The F1 circus is currently on a few weeks’ break before attacking the five last races of the season, starting in Mexico for round 20 on Oct 27, and then concluding in Abu Dhabi on Dec 8. In between are the races in Sao Paolo, Las Vegas and Qatar. As we all take a breather, let’s therefore check in on what’s happened over the last races since my latest update in early June. Because boy has there been some action!

As you may remember, I called the post back in June “Could it be?”, alluding to the fact that it looked like both Ferrari and McLaren had come closer to Red Bull and maybe, just maybe, could bring some excitement to the second half of the season. Well, for once it seems I was right, but little did I think things were about to change so drastically. And I should have added Mercedes to the list of possbiel contenders as well, although their improvement didn’t become apparent until slightly later. As I write this in the first week of October, Red Bull has lost the lead in the constructor standings to McLaren and have Ferrari breathing down their neck. What happened?

No other team has found more speed than McLaren in the second half of the season

There have been 10 races since Monaco at the end of May, and Verstappen, having finished 6th in Monaco, showed that he can still drive by subsequently winning both in Canada and Spain. But in the eight races since Spain, he hasn’t won a single one – yep, you read that right. I might add that Sergio “Checo” Perez hasn’t won any of those eight either, which is perhaps no big surprise, but to be fair, also makes clear that this has more to do with the car then the drivers. Or rather, it has more to do with the other cars in red, orange and silver.

The last eight races have split pretty evenly between McLaren (four victories) Mercedes and (three), with Ferrari and Leclerc picking up the win at home in Monza in front of more than 300.000 jubilant Tifosis, and guaranteeing Leclerc’s legend status in Italy for many years to come (and given the Monegasque Leclerc also won his home GP for the first time this year, he will certainly be happy with the 2024 season!). If you look beyond first place though, it becomes pretty clear that although all three teams have come much closer to Red Bull’s speed, improvements are most notable at McLaren and within the team, things are now much more even between Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri.

It’s probably debatable if Monza or Monaco was Leclerc’s sweetest win…

This is Piastri’s second F1 season and he quickly showed he deserves his McLaren seat, managing to score two podiums and a sprint victory in his first season 2023. In the first part of this year however, Lando Norris had the lead internally at McLaren. But in the last races since Monaco, Piastri has been on seven podiums and won two races, in Hungary and Azerbaijan. Norris hasn’t done too badly either and is firmly in second place in the drivers’ standings, but to have a realistic chance at he title, he would have needed some of Piastri’s results in the last races.

McLaren is thus in great shape with a car that performs well on most type of tracks. And both Mercedes and Ferrari have found more speed than they had earlier in the season. But with that said, it’s not like Red Bull have broken down and Verstappen has taken a leave. Max is still there, he’s still fast and even though he doesn’t win, he’s still regularly on the podium. Right now however, he’s not really faster than the other six drivers in the top teams. But with a lead of over 50 points going into the last five races of the season, it’s most probable that he will clinch the title this year as well.

For the constructors’ title however, things look a bit different. With Checo Perez being nowhere in terms of speed or podiums, Red Bull have lost the lead to McLaren, and as things look right now, the team from Woking in the UK can be expected to hold on to that lead. And Max had better continue to perform, because otherwise Red Bull could end up behind Ferrari as well, which currently trails it by only 34 points. For a team as spoiled as Red Bull, that would be nothing short of catastrophic.

This is not where Max is used to parking…

I’ll dive into all the driver changes for next season in a future post, as there’s plenty to cover. For now however, we need to address the recent mid-season switch at RB, Red Bull’s junior team, where Daniel Ricciardo has been replaced by Liam Lawson. Lawson is already a familiar face, having stepped in for Ricciardo during several races. It’s no secret that Ricciardo’s performance has been declining over the past few years across different teams, so it’s not very surprising that this likely marks the end of his F1 career. Bringing in a younger talent like 22-year old Lawson aligns with Red Bull’s long-term strategy, though Red Bull still need to find a replacement for Checo Pérez, most probably already for next season.

There we are – five races to go, and at least a constructor championship title to fight for with Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari all in contention. And even though it seems clear that Verstappen will take the driver’s title, Lando Norris most probably hasn’t given up yet. Neither has Oscar Piastri, who would love to score more points than Norris this season. And wouldn’t it be a nice conclusion for Carlos Sainz to win a race for Ferrari before his time with the team ends? And for Lewis to do the same at Mercedes? It’s pretty certain there won’t be any lack of excitement in the last part of the 2024 season – buckle up!

F1 pit stop: could it be?

On By ChristofferIn F1, News3 Comments

We’re around a third into the 2024 F1 season and until a couple of races ago, it did look like it would again be a very one-sided affair, with Max in his Red Bull having claimed all pole positions so far, winning 5 races, and looking unstoppable on the way to his fourth consecutive world championship title. 

And then came Emilia Romagna in Italy, which Verstappen did win but not quite like before, where Max wasn’t even close to the podium. Ever so slowly a bit of excitement has returned – what has happened? To recap for those who may have gotten tired of following this every other week (you have my sympathy), it’s really two teams that have made notable progress and have gotten a bit too close to comfort for Red Bull. 

If they fired him to make him faster, it worked

The first one is Ferrari, currently second in the championship and the team that so far had been closest to Red Bull. And with two great drivers, it’s both Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc who at least to some extent give Verstappen a run for the money. Sainz’s improving results showed a strong correlation with Ferrari’s decision to sack him, replacing him with Lewis Hamilton, in 2025 and could perhaps be seen as his pride having been hurt. Personally, I think it’s more a case of a great driver in an improved car. 

Leclerc’s results seem to validate that theory and at no time more so than last week in Monaco when he won his home race for the first time, having previously not even been on the podium in the Principality. Leclerc is one of a few thousand Monegasques so this was also the first time a native won the very special Monaco race, and did so in quite a dominant way. 

The second team that has come closer to Red Bull, perhaps even more so than Ferrari, is of course McLaren. Here Lando Norris has led the charge and nowhere more so than in Miami where he won his first race of the season, his fourth podium for the season. Oscar Piastri is also finding more speed in his car, with a first podium finish in Monaco where he was second. 

I’m willing to bet this wasn’t the lsat time we see Lando on P1

So what about Red Bull? Well, when Norris won in Miami in the first days of May, Max finished second and Perez fourth. And then in Monaco, Verstappen wasn’t on pole for the first time this year, starting six. Perez, also a first for this year, was however eliminated in Q1, starting impossibly far back. Of course Monaco is a very special race and not really indicative of things to come, but the team confessed to the car having a problem when driven on curbs which obviously penalized lap times, and Max also hit a wall in qualifying, ruining his chances of starting higher up. For a driver never making mistakes, that’s telling.

I may be grasping for straws here and of course Red Bull is still the leading team this season with a very healthy lead both in the team and driver rankings. The most likely scenario is no doubt still that Max and Red Bull win both titles. But Perez’ renewed performance dip is worrying, and there’s little doubt that Verstappen feels both McLaren and Ferrari breathing down his neck more than in the first part of the season. In that sense, the coming races will be very interesting, especially Barcelona on 23 June, since that is the next real driving course.

It’s all hugs and smiles for now – hopefully it’ll stay that way

Further down the field, not much has changed. Unfortunately Mercedes hasn’t found the same speed as Ferrari and McLaren, and now rank clearly behind the two. Further down, Alonso does what he can in the Aston Martin car, with the team is a solid fifth in the championship. Even Stroll manages to score a few points here and there, knowing that Aston Martin no doubt has the most unbalanced driver line-up of all…). As for the rest of the teams, there really isn’t much to mention.

We’ll see over the next races how this pans out. Can Max preserve his lead and for the team’s sake, can Perez find his speed again? Will Leclerc be able to build on Monaco and keep that competitiveness over the coming races? Or will Lando Norries be the hungrier one, extending his nice podium run? I guess the season does have some excitement in it, after all!

PS. Make sure you don’t miss the documentary “Senna” on Netflix, a nice portrait of the man who was perhaps the greatest of them all. It also serves as a reminder of how very different the F1 sport was 30 years ago. Not to take anything away from the drivers nowadays, but the level of courage of those guys… You’ll see what I mean if you watch it!

F1 season 2024 – the calm before the storm?

On By ChristofferIn F1, NewsLeave a comment

If you read this on the Sunday of publication, it means the F1 season 2024 is only one week away with the engines revving up for the first time on March 2 in Bahrain. 24 races are planned this year, making it the longest season ever if they all take place. The season will end not far from where it starts, in Abu Dhabi, in early December, and as I finish this post, the last day of official testing is already underway!

In a way, the 2024 season is shaping up to be a repeat of 2023. No one really doubts that Max Verstappen will add another world champion title to his and Red Bull’s belt, at least not yet, all drivers are in the same seat as last year, and all teams are the same, except in name. And yet, there have been two pieces of news before the season kicks off that have made the headlines: the first was Günther Steiner being fired as team head of Haas, and the second that Lewis Hamilton is leaving Mercedes for Ferrari at the end of the season.

The news were certainly unexpected!

To start with the Lewis, this is of course both surprising and exciting. Surprising since Hamilton has been part of Mercedes since what feels like forever and is in reality 11 years, a very long time in F1. He’s of course one of the most successful drivers of all time, but we also know of the difficulties Mercedes have seen in the last seasons, probably making a change feel like a good option, both for Lewis and the team.

I think we all look forward to seeing Lewis in a red car from Maranello, and we should also be thankful that the news was this rather than that of him retiring, which could also have been the case. It does leave the question however why the announcement comes now, given it’s a year away, but it’s probably as simple as once the decision was taken, the news would have come out anyway, and no one really doubts that Lewis is professional enough not to be distracted by this in his last Mercedes season.

Yet another reason for announcing the move now if of course also to leave Carlos Sainz enough time to find a new seat. Ferrari have very little reason not to be pleased with Sainz, who together with Charles Leclerc has formed on of the best driving duos the last years in a car that hasn’t always been as good as it should be. The decision to replace Carlos with Lewis cannot have been an easy one, especially since Lewis probably won’t hang on for the next five-six years. So far, it’s unclear if, and if so, for what team Carlos will drive in 2025, but I’d bbet a lot on him doing all he can in 2024 to prove Ferrari wrong!

“What the f* Gene? It wasn’t my fault!”

The other piece of pre-season news was that Günther Steiner, one of the most carismatic profiles of F1, is no longer at the helm of Haas. He’s being replaced by Ayao Komatsu who’s been an engineer with the team since 2016. Let’s just say that I’d be very surprised if a Japanese engineer reaches the same level of flamboyancy as good ol’ Günther… He for one isn’t happy about the decision, although he’s made clear that Gene Haas as owner is in his right to do whatever he likes.

To an outside observer, it seems pretty obvious that Haas’s issues have very little to do with Steiner as a team head, and a lot to do with Haas suffering from too small a budget and resources to keep up, and thus have a car that simply wasn’t fast enough. I’d be very surprised if Komatsu-San can do a better job result-wise than Günther, but I guess time will tell! If the testing that just ended is anything to go by, it doesn’t look good, since both Haas cars ended last…

Coming back to this year’s season, I really can’t think of a year when there was as little movement between drivers and teams as now, given we’re at zero. Daniel Ricciardo is now confirmed as permanent and not just a replacement for Nicky de Vries, next to Yoki Tsunoda in the second AlphaTauri, this year renamed to RB. Those who follow F1 know that Ricciardo’s career has been rather shaky in the last years and not characterized by the best decisions, so let’s hope this works out for him.

Whether first or last on the grid, Sauber will certainly be seen!

Next to that, the only piece of news on the team and driver side is that what used to be the Sauber team and then became Alfa Romeo Racing is now again called Sauber (or rather Kick Sauber, with Kick being the new sponsor). For someone living less than 10 kms from the factory here in Switzerland that’s pretty cool, especially since the team has managed to hang in there since 1993, and has nurtured some of the best drivers out there, including Kimi Räikkönen and Sergio Perez, among others.

Of course all 2024 cars are new, but technical changes are largely absent, knowing that 2025 will be the last year with the current V6 engines. We’re not fully clear on what will replace them, but let me stick my neck out and say that it will probably not be rumbling V8’s…

With such calm before the season starts, will there be a bit more storm when the lights turn to green next Sunday? Let’s indeed hope so, since yet another season with Red Bull and Verstappen dominating proceedings as has been the case in the last years would be slightly…. boring? I’ll leave you to guess who was fasted in the last pre-season training session…

Anyone wants to bet against this ending?

F1 pit stop: a record breaking 2023 season!

On By ChristofferIn F1, News1 Comment

The F1 season 2023 has come to an end, and in terms of the the title, it’s been a very unspectacular one from start to end, and at any point there in between. Max Verstappen and Red Bull Racing are very much the uncontested champions of this year’s season, of which there was really never any doubt – except for yours truly, who at some point was at least hoping things would heat up a little…

The title was his already after the sprint race in Qatar on 7 October.

Looking a bit more in detail at the numbers around Max’s triumph makes it even more impressive. His 19 wins this season is more than anyone has ever achieved, as are his 21 podiums (which of course means that when he was on the podium, with only two exceptions he claimed P1. That most definitely says a bit about the character of the man!). 10 of those 19 wins were also consecutive, which, you guessed it, is yet another record.

Max of course excels not only in driving skills but also in consistency and mental strength. This is perhaps best illustrated in a comparison with Sergio “Checo” Perez, his teammate. There is really no doubt that Checo is one of the best drivers on the grid, but as we sum up the season, he is still lightyears away from Max, especially in consistency and mental strength, which I would claim contribute more than you may think to Verstappen’s success.

The season had ups and downs, but in the end Checo managed P2

There was thus never any question on who would become world champion, but it was far more unclear that Checo would manage to hold on to P2, especially in the latter part of the season when he faded quite considerably. In the end he did fight off Lewis Hamilton on Mercedes by a relatively healthy 51 points, making it a 1-2 for Red Bull. For team boss Christian Horner, it also means beating his arch rival Toto Wolf at Mercedes for the third year in a row, which is probably almost as important as the title itself…

All was not gloom and doom for the other teams though, especially in the second part of the season. Ferrari, Mercedes and McLaren all became more competitive basically with every race. The biggest surprise was perhaps McLaren where Lando Norris made seven podiums this year, all in the second part of the season, and Oscar Piastri added another two. McLaren are clearly on a positive trend, and Piastri is still young, so next year could be really interesting for the team!

McLaren and Norris are now on par with Mercedes and Ferrari, and sometimes above!

Especially in the second part of the season, Ferrari also looked like a much better team than at any time in the last years, which is down both to improvements with the car, but also with Cédric Vasseur as new team boss, clearly bringing some well-needed strategy, and reminding the team of how to execute a pit stop properly. In the end Leclerc and Sainz finished fifth and seventh respectively, with only six points and one Lando Norris in between them.

The biggest surprise in this year’s first races was no doubt Aston Martin Racing and Fernando Alonso, who managed to score six podiums in the first eight races of the year. Unfortunately he faded after that, only adding another two in the latter part of the year, but still ending the year in a very impressive fourth position, giving a good illustration of the potential of the car, in stark contrast to his team mate Lance Stroll, who was nowhere to be seen.

Alonso proved both him and the car (still) have a lot to give!

Looking further down the ranking, there really isn’t much to write home about. Renault Alpine is stuck somewhere in the middle, better than the teams behind but no longer comparable to McLaren, as they’ve been in previous years. Behind them, Alpha Tauri, Williams, Alfa Romeo Racing and Haas (roughly from best to worse) are as far from the top as Elon Musk’s ability to stick to deadlines.

Tsunoda produces more f-words than points in most races, Alex Albon manages to get more out of the Williams than should be possible from time to time, Bottas and the Alfa Romeo car he’s driving both look about as tired, and not even team boss Günther Steiner can make Haas feel like an attractive proposition for next season, unless something changes pretty dramatically.

Thus, as we close the books for 2023, it looks pretty much the same as when we did so in 2022. Ferrari, Mercedes and McLaren are all closer to Red Bull than they used to be, but right now it’s difficult to see how they would be able to challenge neither the team, nor Max Verstappen as a driver next season. I guess the risk that Max’s ego no longer fits into the Red Bull car needs to be taken into account, but assuming he manages to squeeze it in, at this stage the money is on a fourth Verstappen-Red Bull title a year from now!

F1 pit stop: MAXimizing!

On By ChristofferIn F1, NewsLeave a comment

The European summer has come and gone and as always, it leaves me with a sad feeling, especially since in central Europe, it was a very nice one. Although a passionate skier, I’m no friend of the dark season which will soon be upon us, but that also means we’re entering the final straight of the 2023 F1 season. In my last update just before the summer, fresh out of a bull fight in Madrid as I was at the time, the analogy with the charging bull Fernando Alonso was a rather obvious one. A few months later, it’s clear some things have changed while others have stayed the same. The bull analogy is still working, but the green bull has been replaced by its red cousin, which wasn’t doing too bad at the beginning of the season either.

The red bull, or rather bulls, reign supreme!

The way Red Bull has dominated the 2023 season almost makes you forget the pretty significant updates to the cars we saw before last season, aiming at making the races more exciting, and very much succeeding in doing so last season. This year, Max Verstappen has won 12 of 15 races and been on the podium in all but one. By the time of my last update though, Sergio “Checo” Perez had won in Saudi Arabia and Azerbaijan, which made me speculate that Perez may, just maybe, be good enough to challenge Max for the title. Well I was wrong, because since early summer, Max’s winning streak has continued while Checo has faded significantly, as has Alonso on Aston Martin. Instead, we’ve seen a slow but steady return to form of three other teams and drivers: Ferrari, Mercedes and McLaren.

Looking at them in that order, the biggest change in Maranello is probably that with the arrival of Cédric Vasseur as team head, Ferrari now has a strategy when they start a race, something that seemed to be missing most of last season. Nowhere was this more visible than in the fantastic race in Singapore a week ago, where it was the strategy, next to Carlos’ sublime driving that gave him and Ferrari their first win for the season. The end of the race was the most exciting this year, with Sainz managing to keep his first follower Norris behind him but within DRS distance for something like five laps so that the two chasing Mercedeses that were both quicker wouldn’t be able to pass Norris, and thus threaten himself. It was highly impressive driving, and a very deserved win!

Brilliant driving and a brilliant win for Carlos in Singapore!

Mercedes on their hand have clearly progressed in the last races with Russell and Hamilton still forming one of the best duos among all the teams. They’re also quite close result-wise, with Hamilton still having the edge, being third in the championship. The biggest progress is however to be found at McLaren. Lando Norris still dominates the young Oscar Pilastri, but the latter is progressing fast in his first full season and in the last races, both have enjoyed a car that’s quicker than both Mercedes and Ferrari.

It’s thus pretty clear that Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren are the three teams that will finish second-fourth when we round up the season (but not necessarily in that order). It’s also not impossible that whilst no one will challenge Max for the title, should Checo’s recent difficulties continue, both Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso could challenge him for second place, if all the stars align. That would however require Alonso and the Aston Martin returning to the form of the first half of the season.

Mercedes have clearly improved as the season has progressed

Further down the field it’s especially Alex Albon who continues to surprise positively, managing to regularly place the not-very-fast Williams in the points. He seems to be enjoying his time at Williams, but there are of course limits to how fast the team will ever get. That unfortunately goes for the other teams in the second half as well, with both Alfa Romeo Racing and Haas failing so far to progress in any way. Given the experience in the driver line-up of both teams (Bottas on Alfa Romeo, Hulkenberg and Magnussen on Haas), there’s really no doubt the cars, or rather the development budgets, are the real problem.

Things look somewhat better at Alpine (Renault) whereas they look somewhat worse at AlphaTauri, where Tsunoda swears far more while driving than he collects points. AlphaTauri have also replaced Nyck de Vries with our favorite Aussie Daniel Ricciardo, who without wanting to be mean has a great talent for picking teams on their way down rather than up. With AlphaTauri however there’s only one way to go, and Ricciardo will be there for all of 2024, so maybe, just maybe, things will start to look up both for the team and him again. That’s all relative though, since the chance of AlphaTauri or any of the small teams clinching a podium are all but inexistant.

Ricciardo will need all of his significant neck muscles to win points in the AlphaTauri…

As we enter the last straight of the 2023 season, Red Bull is thus as dominant as ever, and Max is in a league of his own. It’s also obvious that he’s gained a new level of maturity in his driving, being far calmer and, by the looks of it, in perfect harmony with the car. Most probably, the season will end with a Red Bull one-two, since although Checo has had a streak of bad luck and seems to be out of form, it should still be enough to hold on to second place.

The other top teams have come somewhat closer but the difference to Red Bull is still significant, and the question is perhaps not if they catch up this year, but rather if they manage to do so next. It’s interesting to listen to Lewis Hamilton in this regard, being very open about what he still sees as a very wide gap to Red Bull, and the Mercedes car still suffering from issues, notably in terms of rear downforce. Leclerc is just as open in terms of Ferrari’s progress but what still remains a significant gap to Red Bull. That doesn’t really bode well for an exciting 2024 season – but let’s perhaps finish 2023 before we worry about that, and hope we get some excitement for second place in the championship!

F1 pit stop: the bulls dominate!

On By ChristofferIn F1, NewsLeave a comment

I was in Madrid on a business trip this week and my local business partner took me to experience the Wednesday bull fighting, something I’ve never done before. He had asked very carefully before if I was up for it, and in meetings the subsequent days it became clear that Madrilenes aren’t used to foreigners thinking highly of this local tradition, which has been banned notably in Barcelona.

I won’t claim that I found it particularly exciting, but although I don’t really see the point of making a show out of killing the bull (the meat of which is by the way not wasted but processed and sold), I’m an omnivore and respectful of local traditions. What was amazing though was the aggressiveness and persistence of the bulls (the Spaniards would call it courage), going for the banderilleros and picadores time after time after time, like there was no tomorrow. Which of course there isn’t if you’re the bull.

As Alonso said himself in Monaco: “I’m pushing like an animal!”

So what does my bull fight have to do with F1? Actually I wasn’t primarily thinking about the team with a red bull as symbol that leads the championship and will most probably take the title, but rather of this year’s surprise driver Fernando Alonso, the grand old man of the F1 circus. Alonso is not only from Spain, he charges like a bull in every race and drives like there is no tomorrow. Which for Fernando, there hopefully is!

If you read this the Sunday it’s published, you may also have seen the most legendary race of the season on the narrow streets of Monaco earlier today. It sums up the first third of the season and in spite of the chaos caused by heavy rain in the last 20 laps, was pretty much in line with the season so far. The first third was however one race shorter than planned, as the Emilia Romagna GP in Italy had to be cancelled last week because of the severe flooding that hit large parts of northern Italy. Luckily the situation there has improved now, so let’s go back over the previous races that did take place and look a bit closer at what has characterized the season so far.

It’s mostly smiles so far – we’ll see if that lasts all season…

Starting with Red Bull, the team is as dominant, if not more, than last year, with Verstappen and Perez winning all the races so far. To the difference of last year however, Checo Perez is giving Max a run for the money, so far winning two races against Verstappen’s four. The fact that he hit the wall in training and thus started last in today’s Monaco GP meant he didn’t score any points, but otherwise Perez has very much been breathing down Verstappen’s neck and is currently the only real contender to Max claiming another title. Or is he?

If most people expected the Red Bull dominance, not many expected Alonso to do as well as he has. He’s currently third in the overall ranking and has been on the podium in five of the six races so far, four times as third and today in Monaco as second. We knew before the season that Aston Martin had invested heavily in developing a competitive car but that it would be this good, and so clearly ahead of Mercedes and Ferrari was certainly unexpected. It’s also a bit surprising how far ahead Fernando is of his team mate Lance Stroll, at least so far. After today’s race, he’s only 12 points behind Perez in the rankings, so it will be very interesting to see if he can keep it up!

Somehow it was more fun 2-3 years ago…

Ferrari on the other hand is clearly less competitive than last year, and Mercedes hasn’t made much progress either, although changes before today’s race may improve the situation going forward. The respective drivers make up places four to seven in the overall rankings with not much between them, but they’re far behind Red Bull and third placed Alonso.

Cédric Vasseur, Ferrari’s new team principal should be given a bit of time to sort things out as he only joined this season (from Alfa Romeo Racing), but Ferrari has only scored one podium this year, when Leclerc finished third in Azerbaijan. Mercedes’ team boss Toto Wolf looks increasingly tired and confused, as does Lewis Hamilton to be honest. In summary, both for Ferrari and Mercedes, things can thus only get better.

Lance Stroll rounds off the top 8 and behind the top four teams, the remaining have scored 69 points – taken together. And that’s only after today’s race, as before that, it was only half. Then again Alpine did really well in the Principality, with Ocon taking third place and Gasly coming in as seventh. That still shows that the distance to the top teams is huge, but also that the difference between the teams in this group is also far relatively small, as fifth-ranked Alpine is only 34 points ahead of Williams, that ranks last with so far only one point. Alex Albon does impressive things in terms of driving, as much as the car allows for. Then again, when he had the chance to race a capable car at Red Bull, he didn’t take it. The question is whether he gets a second one in a better team?

Alex Albon does as well as the Williams car allows him to

McLaren may be slowly improving, with important changes/improvements having been made to the car ahead of Monaco. Alpine looks quite promising as well, especially if today’s race is anything to go by. For Alfa Romeo Racing, Haas and AlphaTauri, this will most probably be another season to forget.

So there we are after seven races (actually six given the cancelled Emilia Romagna GP) of the 2023 season, and with another 16 to go. Can Sergio Perez really challenge Max for the title, and will the team allow him to do so, should we come to that? Will Ferrari and Mercedes find some speed again, or will the distance to Red Bull continue to grow? And just how far can Fernando “the bull” Alonso take Aston Martin’s renewal? As the European summer nears the end, we’ll check in again to see where things stand!

The F1 season 2023!

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Exactly one week after I write this, the F1 season 2023 will (hopefully) have kicked off in Bahrain and we’ll know who claimed the first race of the season. With a week to go it’s therefore high time to check how the new season is shaping up, how the team line-ups look and perhaps even try to figure out who will come out on top, even that if at this stage at best a qualified guess. One thing is however certain already now, namely the there will not be any big changes to neither cars nor rules this season, in stark contrast to last year.

By now all the teams have launched their new cars and whereas some did it in the spirit of not much new to report about, others were much more bullish about their new creations, none more so than Ferrari. CEO Benedetto Vigna wasn’t holding back when he said the SF-23 is “a single-seater that will be unprecedented in terms of speed.” We’ll see if that’s confirmed, but according to rumours, Ferrari have found an extra 30 hp, which would no doubt be helpful given the power shortage they had last year. Mercedes on the other hand have been far more restrained, with team boss Toto Wolff talking about the new car “eventually” becoming competitive enough. Modesty, lack of confidence or playing down expectations? That remains to be seen. What will also be clear to see from the first training is how many cars have taken inspiration from Red Bull’s car from last year. And whereas the Red Bull team was punished by fewer windtunnel tests in preparation of the season as part of the punitive measures for having exceeded the spending limit the year before, few doubt the RB car 2023 will be very fast indeed.

The Red Bull 2023 car

On the driver side, the top teams have the same line-up as last year, but there are some changes in the other teams, with three newcomers and one returning driver. Pierre Gasly is moving to Alpine, taking over Fernando Alonso’s seat as Alonso moves on to Aston Martin to replace Sebastian Vettel, who ended his career after last season. Nico Hülkenberg returns to F1 to take over Mick Schumacher’s seat at Haas, teaming up with Kevin Magnussen. The American-owned team thus goes for two of the most experienced drivers on the grid, in the hope that will help performance and especially consistency. it’s pretty clear that if Haas still doesn’t perform, it will not be because of teh drivers. Which by the way goes for Aston Martin as well, who are said to have invested a lot of money in their new car, which is the most changed of all on the grid, compared to last year.

Aston Martin’s new car – lots of changes, hopefully more speed and consistency!

As for the newcomers, most focus has been on Oscar Pilastri who will join McLaren next to Lando Norris. Being Australian as his predecessor at McLaren, Daniel Ricciardo, Pilastri won the F3 championship in 2020, moved on to F2 and won that championship in his first yeaer. He was Alpine’s reserve driver last year coming out of their driving academy and will hopefully see some success with McLaren this year. Next to him, American Logan Sargeant will drive next to Alex Albon at Williams, replacing Nicolas Latifi and being the first driver from the US since Alex Rossi in 2015. Finally Dutchman Nyck de Vries gets a seat at Alpha Tauri after having been on the edges of F1 in the last years, notably as Mercedes’ reserve driver, and stepping in for Alex Albon / Williams at Monza last season and to everyone’s surprise, claiming P9. Of these three, I’d put my money on Pilastri as being most successful, also given the best car (with a small reservation for what it is Aston has created…).

Hopefully Pilastri will have more success than countryman Riccardo did!

In terms of the season itself, it will as said start in Bahrain next weekend and end in Abu Dhabi on 26 November. There will be a total of six sprint races this year, twice as many as last year. After a total of 23 racing weekends the winner will be decided and if I were a betting man, I’d put most of my money on Max Verstappen claiming another title. This follows from Mercedes’ not very convincing communication so far, indicating the car may well come up to speed at some point but most probably too late to claim the title. At Ferrari, it’s really no surprise that Mattia Binotto was let go of (one thing I actually got right in my predictions last year). He’s replaced by Cédric Vasseur from Alfa Romeo Racing who is an experienced operator, but has one hell of a job of transforming Ferrari such as not to lose points unnecessarily over the whole season. That will most probably take more than one year, meaning that things are looking good for Verstappen – perhaps even with Sergio Perez in second position? In a week, we’ll at least know how it started!

Danke Seb!

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The longest F1 season in history came to an end in Abu Dhabi last weekend. I don’t mean “longest in history” in the sense of it being boring, even though it was definitely more exciting in the first half than in the second. No, it was indeed objectively the longest season so far. Of course it was clear already from a few races back that Max Verstappen would be the undisputed and well-deserved world champion for the second time around. It was however really down to the wire as to whom would finish second, with Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) and Sergio Perez (Red Bull) starting the race at exactly the same points. In the end Leclerc, fighting like a lion on aging tires, managed to stay in second and thus to finish in second place overall ahead of Perez in third. Well deserved for Ferrari, but it must still leave a bitter taste to know that they could maybe have challenged Red Bull for the title, had there not been as many mishaps and strategy errors during the season.

The same podium in Abu Dhabi as the final standings: Verstappen ahead of Leclerc and Perez

For Mercedes this was a season to forget, but at least the trend turned upwards in the second half of the season, with Hamilton and Russell being more competitive as races went by. Behind the top three teams McLaren and Alpine formed the next group, although Daniel Ricciardo didn’t find his footing during the whole season and will now leave McLaren for Red Bull, as reserve river in 2023. He’ll be replaced by newcomer Oscar Piastri. Fernando Alonso is moving on to Aston Martin, being replaced by Pierre Gasly who together with Esteban Ocon will make Alpine an all French line-up. Also, veteran Nico Hulkenberg will replace Mick Schumacher at Haas, who hereby doesn’t have a seat for next season. This is a bit surprising given Mick showed a lot of promise, but apparently Haas team boss Günther Steiner found there were a bit too many ups and owns during the season to justify keeping him. It’s not fully clear what Mick will do next year, but he may end up as reserve driver for Mercedes according to rumors.

There was a bit too much of this and a bit too few points for young Schumi…

Alonso moving to Aston Martin means that Sebastian Vettel is calling it a day. He’s been in F1 for as long as anyone can remember but has somehow become a bit anonymous in the last years, given how uncompetitive Aston Martin has been. It almost makes you forget what a stellar career he’s had since his debut on BMW Sauber in 2007, when he stood in for Robert Kubica in Indianapolis and managed to score his first points. In numbers, it sums to an incredible 4 world titles, 53 wins, 122 podiums and 57 poles. He came to Red Bull in 2009 and would then take his four world championship titles in the subsequent years 2010-2013, i.e. four consecutive titles of which the first at 23 years still make him the youngest ever world champion in F1. In 2015 Seb moved on to Ferrari replacing Fernando Alonso and then unsuccessfully challenged Lewis Hamilton for the world title especially in 2017-2018, becoming half Italian and definitely a legend in Italy in the process. He stayed for six years at Ferrari before moving to Aston Martin in 2020.

Vettel took four world titles on Red Bull between 2010-2013

From being a youngster on the circus 15 years ago, Seb’s gone from quite a hot blooded youngster not always on the right side neither of the rules, nor of sportiness, to a mature man today engaged in climate and LGBTQ questions. No one becomes F1 champion by being nice, as Seb demonstrated in Malaysia in 2013 when his Red Bull team had ordered him to stay behind teammate Mark Webber for the remainder of the race. Seb ignored the order, passed Webber, won the race and later motivated the whole thing with “I was racing, I was faster, I passed him, I won.” Can’t really argue with that, but you can certainly argue with him in Azerbaijan in 2017 when he thought Lewis Hamilton was brake-testing him and decided to drive into Lewis’s car sideways. He apologized for the whole thing afterwards, and the two of them later agreed it’s somehow made them better friends.

Not Seb’s finest moment – Azerbaijan 2017

Seb himself will tell you he doesn’t need to be remembered, which he of course will be anyway. I would however be surprised if we see him being active on the F1 circus going forward, given his interests today seem to be elsewhere. As for the next F1 season, given how long this one was, it will start sooner than we think and will most probably again be a fight between Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari. Will the latter get their strategy right the whole season, allowing Leclerc or Sainz to fight for the title? Will Mercedes managed to be really competitive again, and will in that case Russell or Hamilton come out on top? And although he’s been the best second driver Red Bull has ever had, can Sergio Perez step out of Verstappen’s shadow and fight for the title? We’ll have a first idea in a few months’ time. if I had to guess though, I think Max Verstappen is well placed to become a three time world champion in 2023 and then perhaps to equal Seb’s four-year stretch in 2024!

F1 pit stop – half time!

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After 13 rounds of the 2022 season we’re into the summer break, with the next race not happening until early September in Max Verstappen’s home country of the Netherlands. It’s thus time to take the temperature on the season so far and doing so, a few things seem pretty obvious already now. Most importantly, I’m not really sticking out my neck by saying that I’m pretty convinced Max will be the relatively uncontested world champion in 2022, for the second time around. However, predicting who will finish on places 2-6 is much harder, almost as hard as guessing if Ferrari will ever get their theme strategy together. These are really the main questions for the second half of the season.

Things are going well for Max!

To start off though, there’s been two big pieces of news on the drivers’ side worth mentioning, especially since it all happened in the last days. Firstly, on Wednesday night ahead of the Hungarian GP, Sebastian Vettel informed Lawrence Stroll, owner of the Aston Martin F1 team, that he’s retiring at the end of the season. Aston would have loved to keep him for another year, especially since Seb has delivered more than what should be possible with the current car, but Lawrence is said to have accepted Seb’s decision, mostly driven by his wish to spend more time with his family. Lawrence didn’t lose any time though and instead picked up the phone to Fernando Alonso whom he knows well, offering him what sounds like a deal too good to say no to. It was all done in five days and Alonso, about to turn 41, will thus step in to Seb’s shoes as a mentor to Lance Stroll and hopefully with a faster Aston car next year.

Neither Alonso nor Lawrence Stroll apparently saw a need to inform Renault/Alpine boss Otmar Szafnauer though, who claims he only learnt the news through the official F1 communication. His disappointment is indeed understandable since with Ocon and Alonso, Alpine had a driver pairing helping them to what is currently P4 in the constructor championship, ahead of all teams except for the three big ones. There’s a slight déjà vu here remembering Ricciardo’s move from Renault two years ago when he seemed to be on the way to McLaren, where things have basically gone south every since. Let’s thus hope Fernando knows what he’s doing and that Aston will start performing next year!

Thanks for everything Seb – Ferrari will never forget you!

At the top of the ranking, it’s really all about Max Verstappen. Red Bull started the season on par or sometimes perhaps even slightly behind Ferrari, but the last races have confirmed that they’re back where they were last year, with Perez doing a mighty fine job in spite of being the most obvious “second” driver of all teams, currently ranking P3 in the drivers’ standings. Max leads by a margin of 80 points on Leclerc in second, his driving is as phenomenal as his ego is large (as we know, a combination any good racing driver needs to have!) and in combination with the most professional team on the circuit, it’s really difficult to see how anyone could challenge him, especially since Ferrari insists on giving him the helping hand he doesn’t need through one tactical misstep after the other.

Binotto doesn’t have much to smile about currently…

Hungary was the latest but probably not the last example of tactics going wrong, having everyone except Ferrari F1 boss Binotti scratching their heads. With 30 laps to go and with Leclerc in the lead, the team pitted the car and put him on hard tires. In a way they had no choice as it was too early for softs, but Leclerc hadn’t been complaining about the mid tires and would probably have lost less time staying on them until the softs would have made it until the end. Those are his thoughts, not mine. This is the latest in a series of mistakes, such as for example in Leclerc’s home race in Monaco when Ferrari pitted him at the same time as Sainz, which cost him the win, or Montreal, where the team pitted Sainz rather than Leclerc who was in the lead, again costing him the race. If you add to this mechanical failures and to be fair, also driver mistakes, the second part of the first half of 2022 hasn’t been much to cheer about in Maranello. Binotto however doesn’t see the need to change anything and insists everyone’s happy. So far Leclerc and Sainz don’t say anything, but If things don’t improve quickly in the second half, I very much doubt that will remain the case.

So what about positions 2 to 6? Well, there’s in total only 27 points between Leclerc in second and Lewis Hamilton in sixth, with Perez, Russell and Sainz (in that order) between them. Anyone of the six can thus take second position and if the current trend is anything to go by, it’s definitely Mercedes who are on the way up, and I would tend to put my money on either Russell or Hamilton, together with Perez. Then again, if Ferrari manage to find the form of the first part of the season again, it could also be Leclerc or Sainz. Not much of a conclusion here as you can see, time will tell!

If Russell finishes in P2, will Lewis call it a day?

Except for Alpine Renault who as mentioned are currently in P4, there’s really not much to cheer about for any of the other teams. Alfa Romeo started the season well but don’t seem to get anywhere currently. The same goes for McLaren and especially Daniel Ricciardo who is systematically underperforming Lando Norris, Haas where Mick Schumacher is however starting to show his talent, Aston Martin and Alpha Tauri where not much is happening, and finally Williams who have more speed than last year but still not enough to secure them points in most races. McLaren, Alfa Romeo, Alpha Tauri and Aston Martin should all be on stable footing in terms of their financing, I’m less sure if that’s the case for Haas and Williams, so the second half of the year may well decide if we see them again in 2023. Stay tuned!

F1 pit stop – best season in ages!

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We’re five races into the F1 season 2022 and so far, this is the best season in ages! The extensive changes introduced to the cars and notably described in my post form October last year have done wonders in making the races exciting again, by allowing cars to close up nearer to each other and thus helping overtaking. And then we’ve seen overtaken drivers fighting back for position, something that never happened in previous years but that I believe is called real racing! There’s actually so much overtaking that the next consideration may well be weather to reduce the DRS as it’s hardly needed anymore. What’s also really cool is seeing how much interest F1 generates this year, which maybe not entirely, but to a very large extent is due to Netflix’s “Drive to survive” series that if you haven’t seen it yet, you definitely should. Season 4 (which describes what happened last season) is the best so far, also as drivers are by now used to the cameras and it becomes even more intimate.

The success of “Drive to survive” has meant all teams now participate, which wan’t the case the first years.

F1 is thus very much on a high after the first five races, and although it’s too early to say how the season will end (there’s another 17 races to go!), we’re certainly seeing some interesting trends in how things are developing. A lot of that wasn’t really expected at the start of the season, so here’s a short summary of the main trends seen so far, some of which look likely to mark the whole season and especially the intense phase ahead, with from next weekend three races over the coming four weeks, including the two city races in Monaco and Baku.

The biggest surprise of the year is certainly that at least at the time of writing, Mercedes isn’t a title contender neither on the team nor on the driver side. In other words, Lewis Hamilton will most probably not be the world champion in 2022. Mercedes currently ranks third in the constructors’ rankings, but already 50 points behind the leading teams. George Russell and Hamilton rank fourth and sixth in the drivers’ standings but again, already with a large distance to the top drivers. As things stand, the team is not fighting for the front row in qualifying (they’re actually not certain of making it to Q3…) and as we know, losing that front row makes it much more difficult to fight for wins. Especially of course when you have a slower car, as is currently the case. This doesn’t change anything to the fact that George Russell has delivered on a scale the team may have hoped for but couldn’t be certain of, currently ranking well ahead of Lewis, which wasn’t really expected by anyone. Will Mercedes with its enormous resources manage to change things before it’s too late, and will Lewis find his footing? Let’s indeed hope so, but it’s not looking likely right now.

Leclerc and Ferrari are off to a perfect start of the season!

The second thing to note that I think most F1 fans are very happy to see is that Ferrari is not only back, but actually on par or even slightly ahead of Red Bull, currently leading the constructors’ championship and with Leclerc leading the drivers’ ranking. This means they’ve come a very long way since 2020 which was the team’s worst season in 40 years, and the last of their record 16 drivers’ titles which goes back all the way to Kimi Räikkönen in 2007. This year everything’s different, the car is fast, as are both drivers and especially Leclerc. As Red Bull and the Verstappen-Perez driver pairing look just as strong as last year, this basically means that Ferrari has replaced Mercedes as the main competitor for the title. Without taking anything away from Red Bull, As Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has said, Ferrari is a legendary team that belongs at the top of F1!

Next to the three top teams, it’s really a mix of good and bad. Starting with the bad, McLaren who have been making steady progress in the last years seem to have lost most of it, with a car that currently lacks any kind of consistency. it’s still enough for P4 in the teams’ ranking, but Norris and Ricciardo both find themselves way down in the driver rankings, with little improvement currently in sight. The same goes for Aston Martin who seem to have completely lost their footing, with a very meager six points to their account so far. AlphaTauri deserves a mention on the bad side as well, not as dramatically lost as Aston, but clearly inferior to what especially Gasly was able to produce last year.

As for the positive surprises, it’s interesting to see that we seem to have two cases of the “in a more relaxed environment I’m able to perform” syndrom. The first is Valtteri Bottas who is clearly enjoying life to the max at Alfa Romeo, impressing everyone both in qualifying and racing and completely outclassing his team colleague Zhou. Bottas is currently eigth in the drivers’ rankings (and by the way, only six points behind Lewis…) and thanks to him, Alfa Romeo is in fifth place in the teams’ rankings. The second is Alex Albon who this year has returned to F1, driving for Williams. What he does there is actually even better than what George Russell managed to produce last year, arguably in a better car. Albon regularly finishes around P10 and looks far better and more relaxed than at any time with Red Bull.

Steiner has more to smile about this year!

Finally, Haas has found their footing again thanks to a better car and even more to Kevin Magnussen, who in his typical no-bullshit style has scored in four of the five races so far. Mick Schumacher is still waiting to do so but already now, what Magnussen produces is probably enough to have team principal Günther Steiner swearing slighly less in his Austrian version of English.

2022 is thus looking like the best F1 season in many years, and at this stage it’s very much open if in the end it’s a second consecutive tittle for Red Bull, or the first one in 15 years for Ferrari. Until we know it looks quite certain that we’ll have many great races to look forward to!

F1 2022: the race is on!

On By ChristofferIn F1, News1 Comment

If you read this hot off the press on Sunday, you may also just have witnessed the first race of the 2022 F1 season in Bahrain just a few hours ago, and seen Charles Leclerc / Ferrari win it ahead of his team mate Carlos Sainz and Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton, after Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez’ cars both broke down because of engine-related issues in that last three laps of the race. Next to a 1-2 for Ferrari, the new season is off to a good start with some suprises, a dramatic end with Red Bull’s debacle, one safety car phase and generally great racing!

Ferrari started off the 2022 season in the best way possible!

The season that started today is one of many changes, as already described in my post from October last year, see here if you missed or as a reminder. Given big changes to the cars, it’s perhaps a good thing then that there isn’t that much happening on the side of the drivers, with 15 of 20 being in the same seat as last season. Of the five that aren’t, two have switched teams, two return to F1 having been absent last season, and one is a newcomer. Let’s have a quick look at who’s who.

George Russell is certainly the one name to look out for this season. Having done small wonders in an impossible Williams car over the last years, George is the driver to keep your eyes on this season now that he’s finally in a good car, taking over Valtteri Bottas’s seat in Mercedes next to Lewis. This of course means Valtteri moves, and he does so joining Alfa Romeo Racing, replacing retiring Kimi Räikkönen. This is obviously a move in the “wrong” direction, so it must have felt great for Bottas to be quicker in qualifying than Russell, and end the first race in P6. The Alfa car is predicted, based on pre-season training, to be one of the positive surprises this year, and if the first race is anything to go by, this seems to be confirmed with the Alfas ending sixth and tenth.

Will Valtteri’s switch to Alfa Romeo actually be a good one!

Valtteri’s team mate at Alfa will be the relatively unknown Chinese driver Zhou Guanyu. The 22-year old from Shanghai is China’s first F1 driver, but he’s lived in the UK since the age of 12. After some promising results early on, he became part of Ferrari’s driving academy in 2014 and moved on to the one at Renault five years later. He debuted in F2 the same year and scored enough good results over the coming three seasons to convince Cédric Vasseur, team principal at Alfa, to give him a chance. He’s also the driver who will “open” the Chinese market with it’s 1.4bn inhabitants for real to the F1 circus… Finally, the two returning drivers are Alex Albon who lost his seat at Red Bull two years ago and now returns to replace George Russell at Williams, and Kevin Magnussen who returns to Haas after a season away, replacing the not very successful Nikita Mazepin. Kevin hasn’t been enjoying the beach while away but rather raced notably in the US Indy series, and he needed only one race to show he’s not lost the pace, ending the first race in P5!

Moving on to the cars I won’t go into all the big changes introduced this year, see my earlier post for that. The objective of the changes was notably to make the races more even, as the airflows under the cars that create the sucking-to-the-ground venturi effect means the cars lose less traction when being close behind the car in front than with the old wing system. That’s exactly what we saw in today’s race in Bahrain with notably fantastic racing with multiple takeovers between Leclerc and Verstappen in the first half of the race. It looks promising in other words! And even if the top teams from last year can generally be expected to be the same, it’s clear that Ferrari currently has more speed than Mercedes, which starts the season as slowest of the top three teams. A few weeks ago the assumption was still that Lewis was bluffing when he was discussing the team’s lack of speed, but as the season has drawn closer, it’s become obvious that Mercedes is not fully there yet, and have some work to do.

Less wings, larger but uglier wheels, more downforce – the Red Bull car 2022

Things are definitely more relaxed over at Red Bull, and at the time of writing, pretty festive at Ferrari! By the looks of it it’s these two teams that will dominate the first part of the season. Everyone was expecting Red Bull to come out on top in the first race, but Ferrari seem to be very much up there, fully able to compete for race wins, not only when the Red Bull cars break down. If that’s confirmed there’s no doubt that the Leclerc – Sainz drive pairing isn’t far behind Verstappen and Perez at Red Bull, if at all, and we could be in for some great racing. Looking at the midfield teams, Alpine looks good, as does Alpha Tauri, whereas Aston Martin and especially McLaren do not look very competitive, at least not yet. Finally the three teams at at the end of the field last year, Alfa, Haas and Williams, have all made progress, with Alfa and Haas looking to have moved into the upper part of the midfield. With Williams also clearly making progress, it’s actually McLaren who find themselves at the end of the field at he start of the new season.

We probably all remember the absolutely crazy last race of last season, where race director Michael Masi was at the center of a lot of controversy with his decisions notably on which cars would be allowed to underlap. That had consequences, and not only in making Verstappen the 2021 world champion. Masi is gone and has actually not been replaced by a new director, but rather by a group of people who will take race-related decisions together. Not only that, a remote center in Geneva has also been created that will supervise the race from afar and be able to decide on important incidents. The F1 circus thus seems to be set on less controversy, which together with what looks like great prospects for more exciting racing than in years can only be a good thing!

F1: the winner took it all!

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1293 – that’s the total number of laps of this past F1 season in all 22 races. Years where the title has been decided in the last race are rare, not to speak of the two top contenders being on equal points before the final race. A year where the title is decided in the last lap of the last race of the whole season is at least to me unheard of in the modern era, and yet that’s what happened last Sunday. Max Verstappen took his first world championship title, equally a first for a Dutch driver, and we all learnt who Michael Masi is, more on that later. You could safely say that anyone who still claims F1 is boring after this season has very high demands!

The champagne brand “Carbon” was unknown to me…

Even if it was at the risk of being at the end of the line in terms of commentaries on the season, I didn’t want to write this post last Sunday since given how things turned out, it wasn’t excluded that there could be an after-play during the week. Luckily though, it hasn’t really come to that. Mercedes did indeed protest against the un-lapping of only some cars in the before-last lap. The protest was however turned down, as was the subsequent appeal earlier this week, and whatever you think of the outcome, no one, and certainly not Lewis, would have liked the title to be decided anywhere else than on the race track. There is however reason to think that the king may have lost his crown not just for this year, even though any kind of bet on what will happen next year given the massive changes that I detailed earlier this year (see here) is difficult to make. Before going into all that, let’s however start with a short recap of the last part of the fabulous 2021 season.

There were six races remaining after my last update after the Turkish GP and it was pretty clear already then that this would go down to the wire. Bottas won in Turkey, the last race of the season where another driver than Max and Lewis finished first or second. After that Max would go on to win in the US, Mexico and Abu Dhabi, with Lewis winning three in a row in Brazil, Qatar and Saudi. This made it very clear that Mercedes was back in the game and that the car, which in some races earlier in the season hand’t looked that competitive anymore, was again as fast as earlier in the season. The only problem for Mercedes was that so was Red Bull. This was also reflected by Bottas and Perez, who both ended the season strongly with each two third places over the last six races. And if anyone needed any proof of Perez’s quality, that was to be found in his heroic driving to keep Lewis behind him during a few laps in Abu Dhabi – to me, perhaps the best driving of the season. This also meant that Valtteri ended his career with Mercedes with dignity before leaving for Alfa Romeo next year. Both Mercedes and Lewis have appreciated him for his loyalty and fairness, but it’s also true that he lacks the final percent needed to win races, and that both Lewis and Max have tons of.

Solid, loyal, but lacking the killer instinct. Good luck at Alfa Romeo, Valtteri!

Behind the two top teams it stayed a close call for third between McLaren and Ferrari, where in both cases the drivers are also close to each other. In the end Ferrari came out on top with Sainz ranking fifth in the drivers’ championship and Ferrari third in the constructors’. McLaren is not far behind though and Ricciardo certainly doesn’t regret his move from Renault since winning the Italian GP in September. Internally though he ranked second to Norris, as Leclerc did to Sainz at Ferrari. Alpine (ex Renault) is not far behind and forms so to say a third group with AlphaTauri, and Tsunoda on AlphaTauri was perhaps the driver that improved the most in the last part of the season. In the last part of the classification Aston Martin was clearly ahead of Williams and Haas, but not on par with any of the better ranked teams.

Things really heated up two weeks earlier in Jeddah when during the race Max and Lewis on several occasions were very close both on and off the track and Max at one point, when ordered to give back his position to Lewis, decided to brake heavily on the straight with Lewis right behind him. Lewis hit him, luckily only lightly, but it’s difficult to see what Max’s plan was here (and no, he didn’t just lift his foot as he claimed, the braking was measured at over 2G…). That and the rest of the race along with the fact that it put both of them equal in points was obviously enough to have everyone on their toes for the last race. For those in my generation, this almost reminded us of Senna and Prost back in the day and it was really hoping for the best but fearing the worst that we went into last week in Abu Dhabi.

Jeddah gave an indication of things to come…

Things couldn’t have looked better for Max before the race, starting from pole. They couldn’t have looked worse after the first straight as Lewis took the lead after what must have been the best start of the season. With Verstappen expected to take the start, not only because he was on P1 but also being on softer tires, he made a perfect dive into turn seven, pushing Lewis off the track, but Lewis managed to re-join in the lead. The stewards didn’t see it as requiring an investigation, and I agree. Max’s move was perfect and Lewis chose not to break in order not to lose position. Lewis then kept his distance and the race was rather quiet until a virtual safety car phase around 20 laps from the end. Max came in directly to change tires, but Lewis didn’t. He questioned this directly on the radio, saying it was kind of a risky decision. Oh how right he would be… After the VSC phase there was 20 laps to go with Max around 18 seconds behind, and it became clear pretty quickly that he wouldn’t catch Lewis. And then with five laps to go Latifi decided to create some excitement by putting his car in the barrier. The ensuing final safety car phase would change everything and make Michael Masi famous.

Famous overnight – Michael Masi

Masi is the F1 race director and thereby the guy who decides what happens in different situations during the race, such as for example the un-lapping of lapped cars during safety car phases. As any race director would be, Masi has sometimes been criticized during the season for his decisions, but no decision has been as controversial as the one last Sunday to let only the cars between Lewis and Max un-lap before the final lap, and then pulling the SC car in quicker than usual, such as to leave one lap of racing. With Max right behind Lewis on completely fresh tires (he used the fact that contrary to Lewis he wouldn’t lose any positions to change tires again during the SC phase), it was pretty clear how it would end.

The rules state that any cars should be allowed to un-lap, which Mercedes understands as all cars, and Red Bull as any, meaning not necessarily all. That’s a pretty good example of a not very clear rule. It’s however important to remember that un-lapping all cars, if done in time, wouldn’t have changed the outcome, and not un-lapping any would potentially not have done so either – even if there was only one lap remaining I would think that all drivers between Max and Lewis would more or less have thrown themselves off the track to let Max by. It’s however clear that Masi’s decision to pull the SC car quickly came out of a desire to see the season ending racing, and even though we all like and sympathize with that, it’s obviously not in the rules. Then again, had Mercedes changed tires on Lewis’ car during the VSC phase as they very well could have done, and as Lewis wanted to, he would have been in a far better position to fend off Max during the last lap. We’ll never know if it would have been enough and as Mercedes has also realized this week, it is what it is, and it’s in no way undeserved for Max.

Two great champions!

Max’s full season and career so far couldn’t be more impressive. When he came to Toro Rosso in 2015 at the age of 17 he became the youngest driver in an F1 race, and he has since won 20 of them since joining Red Bull in 2016 where he’ll stay until at least 2023. Racing runs in his blood with his father Jos also being an old F1 driver who competed for Benetton back in the day. What all drivers mention as outstanding with Max is his aggressiveness and winning instinct which is second to none, including Lewis. It may be over the top sometimes but it always is with the top guys (perhaps with the exception of Lewis…). This is thus a well deserved title and I’d bet it’s not the last one. For Lewis the future risks getting harder in general with the immensely talented George Russell now taking Valtteri’s place. His instinct looks to be pretty comparable to Max’s, so Lewis may be up for the fight of his life to reclaim his title. We’ll know how it all turned out at the end of next year but for now, big congratulations to Max Verstappen, the F1 world champion in 2021!

F1 2022: a whole new ball game!

On By ChristofferIn F1, News5 Comments

Formula 1 is up for some big changes next year, with the aim of making cars and thereby racing more competitive. Feel like you’ve heard it before? I agree, but if you look closer, what’s happening this time is not some new restrictions on tire width, nope, we’re talking about the largest changes to F1 that have ever happened. Had it not been for a certain pandemic they would actually have come into effect already this year, so those of us who enjoy F1 in its current form got another year to do so. That’s not to say that the planned changes won’t be positive – the proof will be in the pudding as always.

The 2022 F1 show car, as shown on Silverstone

For this season there was a budget limit of USD 145m imposed on the teams with the same objective of reducing differences between teams and thereby improve racing, but it didn’t change much given firstly that this year’s cars were designed before the cost cap and secondly and perhaps even more importantly, the large teams have developed quite an infrastructure over the years that it will take smaller teams time to catch up with. That together with a few loopholes here and there meant that the cost limit didn’t have the desired effect, and the fact that races are generally less one-sided this year has more to do with the large teams not investing more in the current cars given next year’s changes. These changes are in turn not focused on further cost reductions but rather on the cars themselves in terms of mainly aerodynamics and tires, so let’s have a closer look at that.

Starting with the most visible aerodynamics changes, what we’re seeing is basically a return to the technology of the 70’s and 80’s before wings became the main tool to create downforce. What made F1 cars looked simpler before is that downforce was created by leading air through tunnels under the car, sucking it to the road, instead of pushing it downwards through wings. This form of downforce serves to reduce wake and also the upwash of air exiting takes a much higher trajectory, in both cases reducing turbulence behind the car and thus allowing followers to come closer and improve their chances of overtaking. Numbers show a following car to retain 86% of its downforce at a distance of one car length, compared to 55% today. It also means the front and rear wings will look different and much simpler than today.

Jacques Villeneuve in South Africa in 1979 – glued to the ground!

The reason this technology was banned 40 years ago was that the teams back then went a bit over board, complementing the wind tunnels under the car with side skirts and hereby gluing the car to the road like an iron, thereby becoming too fast for their own – and the drivers’ – good. The skirts won’t be back, however we will see the introduction of wheel caps that aren’t necessarily pretty, but that also serve to reduce air turbulence.

There are differences to the suspension and tires as well and as goes for the tires, these are no less visible than the aerodynamic changes as we’ll be going from the current 13-inch tires to a whole 18-inch! The new larger, low-profile tires will be less temperature-sensitive while still degrading enough to keep the team tire-changing strategy interesting. That’s the theory, let’s see how it works out in real life and also how much they slow the cars down, which they most probably will. Changes to the suspension as essentially mean that hydraulic components have been outlawed and it’s all springs and dampers going forward.

Lewis testing the 18-inch wheels earlier this year

As for the engines, there is actually not much to say since except for having to run on an E10 fuel mix they’ll stay the same. That might well be good since the full package they’ll have to push forward will be a very different one, and introducing changes to the engines could have been a bit too much at the same time. The same goes for planned changes to the race weekends, qualifying and possibly other aspects of the races that have been pushed one year forward to 2023.

There is no doubt that next year’s changes will fundamentally change the nature of races and, you have to believe, also make these more competitive, which would of course be welcome. It remains to be confirmed how well the different parts work out in the end and it will most probably not be a completely even playing field given again the resources and infrastructure of the larger teams (and the quality of their drivers!), but it’s clear that the room for manoeuvre has been heavily reduced, and that can only be a good thing!