F1 2022 thread - see post 1 for rules

And given the renault engine is poor anf mercedes engine is good, it probably means the alpine car, apart from the engine, is at least as good as the mclaren and maybe better.

The Renault engine is not poor. They have done very good this year. Have they even had any reliability problems this year? I don't think they have.

And mclaren has had good form for making decent chassis. Even the Honda cars had decent chassis and aero.

No they didn't. They were terrible. They kept saying they haveca great chassis it was just the engine was not fast yet but they were proved wrong on a few occasions. Mclaren do not always make good chassis. Its not just when they were with Honda. Go back to 2012 I think. The Mclaren with the-U shaped sidepods. It was terrible. They admitted afterwords they tried to be too radical. Before that they were too Conservative. So Mclaren have not always been good at the chassis.

Interesting development but not surprising in the least. Piastri is coming out very much the worst of all involved. Horner didn't seem too impressed with the situation either when he was giving an interview with Sky over the weekend, and I'd imagine that goes for a lot of teams/team principals.

Obviously Otmar's main issue is the wording used by Piastri in the now infamous tweet. It was a very poorly worded tweet and unnecessarily disrespectful towards the team that invested heavily in him. Apparently they'll be seeking monetary compensation from Piastri should the ruling go in their favour (rather than force him to drive). It'll be very interesting to see what sort of compensation they'll be seeking, because McLaren have already taken a big hit getting rid of Danny Ric and might not be keen to fork out again.

Personally I don't think it would have been too much to ask for Piastri to have acted with a bit more class. Alpine invested heavily in him, and while that doesn't assure loyalty, it should at the minimum ensured a bit of respect. The more time passes from that tweet, the harder I find it to root for Piastri. And unless he's lives up to his potential, he could find himself out of the sport very early indeed, and he'll only have himself to blame.

Surely they just go to their second spec and improve that. No way they are that thick that they threw a mule out on track to throw everyone off their actual concept.

They have already let RB and Ferrari come up with aero concepts this year. We have seen two attempts at replicating those already.

Isn't that due to the narrow setup window and track temps etc? I would imagine the reason for the narrow setup window is everything is reliant on the floor and front/rear wings and also reg changes on brake ducts means they don't have brake magic which may have been a bigger performance player than people once thought.

They must switch to the car that has sidepods because its proven by other teams to work significantly better than one without sidepods, more surface area to control air flow and extra stays etc etc

True, they never raced the original spec but by no means does that mean they shouldn't run it in future.

Just go with the classic design like everyone else.

Also, who thinks Danny Ric may not be mentally ready for another season no matter what seat he gets??

Yeah they are trying to gather data on two concepts they are not used to. Ground effect AND a shell with no sidepods, there are bound to be issues. They can't escape the ground effect regs but nothing is locking them into the sidepod concept except themselves.

Stick to what you know, go back to the sidepods, they have more of an understanding already on the sidepod design.

Two options with budget caps in mind.

Stick with the dodgy data they don't understand with the current sidepod design and pour money and resources into that one problem until they hopefully make a breakthrough.

Go to a sidepod concept they already understand and can work through the data on. Might cost half the amount of resources because their main focus can be ground effect.

Nothing to date makes you think the unlocked performance is just around the corner or that they are improving anywhere.

I presume Alpine are only pursuing the case over Piastri's contract so they get a pay out from mclaren. Next year could be devilish expensive for mclaren. They're paying DRic NOT to drive for them, then paying Piastri's wage plus paying Alpine for Piastri NOT driving for them. Essentially paying 4 times for 2 drivers.

A driver like Norris who just keeps his head down, works hard, drives well and signs a long term contract, is worth his weight in gold.

Alpine were lining him up with the Williams seat, and an Alpine drive the following year. The reason Alonso jumped ship was that the team wouldn't give him a 2 year contract as they wanted to leave room for Piastri.

If Alpine do win the contract dispute, he's likely to find himself on the sidelines for another year due to his actions when he could have been racing next year. He's also tainted now - look at comments made by both Toto Wolff and Christian Horner last weekend. If he gets a drive and he's fast on track it will all eventually be forgotten, but he's given other teams a reason to think twice about whether they should hire him if he might not honour his contract if they do.

It's looking like there is some form of three way negotiation going on where Alpine will allow McLaren to take Piastri if McLaren allow Herta to go to Alpha Tauri if Alpha Tauri allow Gasly to go to Alpine. Gasly doesn't have a long term future at Red Bull so I can see why that move would make sense for both him and the team, but there's a lot of other parts to fall into place. I could imagine Mick Schumacher being on the shortlist as a Gasly replacement given the upcoming Porsche tie up with Red Bull, or if not both he and Ricciardo's best chances to stay in the sport look like they lie with Williams right now.

Their data pointed them towards this current concept, and it was totally off. So switching concepts doesn’t guarantee better results even if other teams are doing it, they have to have an understanding of it before they commit.

Their concept would have be go beyond changing the pods, this article sums it up pretty well and the position they find themselves in -

Think back to Singapore 2017. It was a year which was defined as "this circuit" is a Mercedes-Benz circuit and "that circuit" is a Ferrari circuit. Well Singapore definitely fell into the Ferrari camp with Red Bull even out qualifying Hamilton into 5th and nobody expecting him to challenge. Then this happened.

So, even in this state never rule out Mercedes-Benz for a race win.

Side note, I miss the Setanta/Eir Sport days

Does anyone else think that Sainz is more then pleased watching Leclercs downfall.

Leclerc was 1 or 2 races away from becoming Ferrari’s No1 Driver and you could sense Sainz’s frustration when talking to the media.

Once a driver becomes the No1 driver in a team the No2 driver is pretty goosed.

Odd, Are you saying Hamilton was not prioritised over Bottas

Not really all that often. He usually beat bottas fair and square. And he usually beat the opposition too so they only occasionally had to put bottas on a slower strategy to interfere with the opposition.

I think Mercedes were always prepared with lots of parts so I never heard about them giving Hamilton the new front wing, or whatever new part, and leaving bottas with the older part. That kind of thing happens with less well resourced teams. Hamilton was clearly the priority driver but it rarely actually manifested because it wasn't needed.

Whoever was advising Piastri has done a terrible job. The tweet is only acceptable if you’re 100% sure that you’re out of contract and have another preferred option.

Now it looks like he’s publicly turned down a seat in a mid tier F1 team because he’s had his head turned, and it’s not a great look. If he does go to McLaren he’ll be under immense pressure right from the off, too. They’ve just let go a proven driver because he couldn’t perform, and presumably will have to pay through the nose to get him too.

Ah, it was a gamble to have autonomy in his career moves for the next few years. Not to mention the money and work conditions he could negotiate outside the Alpine contract.

His options were to muck about at Williams for a year or 2 depending on how long Alonso stayed on. Low wages and probably second dibbs on everything's from strategy to mechanic team when he gets to Alpine in 2024 or 2025. Or negotiate a move to jump straight into a mclaren next year, on more money and with potentially equal status to Norris.

He had to take the gamble. It might pay off yet and he might get everything he wanted. I don't begrudge him the ambition to avoid tooling around in a heap of scrap for a year or 2. The talk of loyalty is total fairytale stuff. Its not real life, it's sport and business and loyalty doesn't really exist (or certainly isn’t mandatory) in either. He was right to look out for number 1.

Well, that's how it turned out but Alpine weren't trying to get him into the Alpine for next year. They were trying to get him into the williams and Piastri was trying to get himself into the Mclaren. And there is a huge difference between those two cars.

Alpine offered him the Alpine seat after Alonso announced he was leaving and he believed he was out of contract. But that's the part which is in dispute so we'll have to wait and see what the ruling is.

It's not just about the Willians/Alpine vs Mclaren. It's also about the ability negotiate his pay working conditions which probably really only exists with mclaren and not if he just extends the Alpine contract.

There was a lot at stake and it was a gamble.