Tag: F1 2022

Danke Seb!

On By ChristofferIn F1, NewsLeave a comment

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!

On By ChristofferIn F1, NewsLeave a comment

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!

On By ChristofferIn F1, NewsLeave a comment

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: a whole new ball game!

On By ChristofferIn F1, News4 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!