The king is dead, long live the king.
Only 102 days to lights out for 2023..
It’s a good sign of Perez is that fast already. Or maybe more so, a worrying sign.
I still think Aston Martin will be the biggest gainers this year, some data has them 3rd fastest on race pace.
could be the same again this year but with more competition from Aston Martin.
And Alpine will be there too.
Report that Red Bull want to sell Alpha Tauri or move it to England
I think the fact they went with Checo rather than a RB driver spelt the end for Alpha Tauri
Alpine will need to sort out the bouncing issue first. It looked the worst car for it throughout the testing.
Yes true. Hopefully they can get it sorted.
Makes sense to sell it. No driver at that team is going to get a seat in a RB.
Sell which cuts costs, remain as a supplier which generates revenue. Its a good PU and the car is setup for it.
Stellantis should buy it...
Seems to be lots of paddock that Aston look the real deal, some even saying they'll be challenging Mercedes which is mad when you think about it. Alonso showed last year he still has it about him, could be good!
Thst seems to be the chat alright. I'd believe it when I see it in a proper race weekend. Hoe alonso can keep it going. He's really surprised me with his performance in spite of his age. It would be class of he has a front running car again.
I'd imagine the big teams will sort out their problems and unlock the performance in te design faster than the small teams. So if AM is fast they need to make hay while the sun shines. Last time AM had a fast car (the pink mercedes) they really struggled to develop and moved back down the packing order throughout the season. Interesting to see if they can develop this time.
We only have to wait a week to find out.
I'm interested in the Alfa purely from what i can see on design and testing (understanding testing not being a benchmark)
Drugovich being lined up for a race drive next week if Lance is not fit to drive. Couple that with a car that might challenge the best of the rest, show up Alonso while he's at it, Drugovich might have the chance of a lifetime!!
It all depends on Alonsos pace but if the rumours about how quick the Aston is are true, then Drugovich should be at least targeting a points finish.
He doesn’t have a chance at that seat long term, Lance probably has one of the most secure seats on the grid but a decent performance might have him in mind for Alfa/AT/Haas in future.
No there probably isn’t space for him at AM but he’ll have seen how De Vries managed to put in a great performance when he was called in last year for Williams and it basically landed him a seat at Alpha Tauri. Drugovich will be keen to do the same I think. If Lance has one or two broken wrists he might miss more than one race.
Sim Run , Tuesday or Wednesday to prove Fitness for Lance then Drugovich will be confirmed or unconfirmed after that.
then again Button Raced with a broke hand , I can only imagine the pain of it , Wrist damage can be worse .
https://racingnews365.com/when-button-raced-with-a-broken-hand-at-the-japanese-gp
Buzzing for quali this weekend now. I suspect the AM rumours to be slightly overblown but still should be a comfortable 4th.
McLaren and Alpine are the interesting ones, McLaren looks like a fair step backward, everyone at Alpine seemed relatively happy even though they had the slowest lap time recorded over testing.
Would hope to see Williams jump to start battling some midfield cars too.
Yeah , Mclaren were supprising 2 years in a row as someone else above mentions with Front brake issues.
AM do look like the took a step forward ...a fairly big one. Alpine are a bit strange . Pit talk if you can believe what I say on SKY coverage was they were a team to watch , but never really showed anything smooth over the Test days , and In my boredom I watched a lot of it ..........way too much . Then again I read nothing , or watched nothing since the last race of 2022 :D
From what I've heard about Alpha Tauri it's not so much about any recent issues with the team or the young driver program, but more to do with the new management direction at Red Bull since Dieter Mateschitz passed away.
He was always a huge F1 fan and most of Red Bull's investment in the sport was more of a passion project than anything else. The sport has been really lucky to have a billionaire invest so much into it over the past few years the way he has, but suddenly we now have an energy drink company wondering why it needs to run 2 F1 teams along with maintaining one of the greatest F1 tracks while also supporting countless teams and drivers in feeder series.
Red Bull has been unique in recent years with the sort of passion, sportsmanship and culture of an old school privateer team combined with the finances to actually compete with the soulless manufacturers who are only there for a return on investment and who would otherwise dominate thanks to their wealth and political clout. I did wonder when hearing the news about Mateschitz last year if we'd start to see things changing and I suspect Alpha Tauri is just the start of that.
I see no casts
Spanish Grand Prix is dropping the sector 3 chicane and going back to racing around the outside of the corners.
If it's broken wrists he could be out for months. Wrists are notoriously tricky and slow to fix. Depending on the injury, a wrist might never get full movement back which could be a major problem.
I haven't heard and confirmed reports about his injuries so we'll have to wait and see what comes out next weekend.
Delighted about that, that chicane ruined the lap imo. Back to proper fast final too corners, a bit like the Red Bull Ring.
I dunno, it was a dreadful circuit before they added the chicane too. I remember through the 90s and early 2000s the Spanish GP would routinely be the most boring on the calendar, with a few rare exceptions. The chicane was introduced to remedy the problem, it didn't really help but I don't think going back to the old layout is going to achieve much either. Maybe with the ground effect cars we'll see something different.
That's true it did used to be a bore fest, although as long as schumi was winning I didn't care. 😁 I'm just happy they've gone back to challenging fast corners. Speaking of which, whatever happened to the Turkish grand prix, that had some great fast corners iirc.
Team rankings according to The Race, with adjustments for track conditions, wind, tyres etc:
1. Red Bull
2. Ferrari, +0.45s
3. Aston Martin, 0.66s
4. Mercedes, +1.00s
5. Alfa Romeo, +1.34s
6. Haas, +1.39s
7. Alpine, +1.62s
8. McLaren, +1.67s
9. Williams, +1.67s
10. AT, +1.91s
Take from that what ye will...
I would be surprised if the red Bulls are bookending the grid. Presumably they share a lot of the information they're allowed to share. And the engine is strong.
Lots of questions ahead of the race this weekend.
Probably not broken so.
Alpha Tauri were pretty poor last season though, so obviously they can't or don't share all that much 🤷
Yeah. True enough.
I have an odd Theory on that . In 2020 the Alpha Tauri was a fairly netural car and Gasly was fast in it , some time around the Race in Spa Alpha Tauri made an update to the front end and steering and how that operated making the Car really compeitive ( That update was credited to feedback from Dani Kyvatt) . Gasly excelled in the even more after that, but Dani Kyvatt was also in the mix for points at nearly every race after that .
The Car didnt change in 2021 , Kyvatt out and Yuki , Gasly still flying it. New cars comes in 2022 and while every team would have issues their cars, The Alpha Tauri did not progress over the season in 2022 and Given what is been said about Nyck De Vries and his comments on how poor the car was and what needed to be sorted , It might be that Gasly weakness is actually the developent of the car . Still very fast as a driver . Each driver has a weakness maybe thats his. Yuki was still quiet new to it maybe he was unsure as well.
Sorry long winded .
