F1 2023 thread

I think Stroll has probably already made a decent return on his investment. It was clever to buy a relatively cheap F1 team and then get into Aston Martin and tie the two together.

Just look at the stock jump after practice on Friday. Smart business.

I cracked that code...

Heads have already rolled at Ferrari..

And they'd deserve it too.

Speaking of losing drivers, Hamilton clearly quite upset with Merc. I made a post about it a few days ago, but I don't see a decent landing spot for him if he does lead, not unless Ferrari get their sh1t together.

I would imagine that his feedback would be a little more specific than that though..

This is from an interview with a former RBR Head of Aerodynamics:

• RBR's big secret? Listening to the driver. An F1 car is orders of magnitudes of variables. Aerodynamics you have yaw, pitch etc., engines have (many), chassis has (many). And so the cars have 'unreal' numbers of objective sensors. But they won't tell you the symptoms, like 'entry understeer'. 'Drivers are the sensors engineers forget'. They can pick out the things that matter.

I agree with the rest of what you're saying. I think Merc's biggest problem is that they're just not used to not throwing money at the problem. That, and they've lost a lot of talent to other teams.

(Link to the quote: https://old.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/eys9aw/peter_prodromou_interview_notes/ )

They also timed it beautifully with the media embargo on the Valkyrie lifting the day after the race. Straight after Alonso's result you had videos hitting the internet from Top Gear, Hagerty etc singing the praises of their new hypercar while driving it around the same circuit Fernando just raced on. That'll be a big halo effect for the brand.

BBC were talking about this at the weekend. Ferrari usually promote from within and that's a good because they bring institutional knowledge and continuity, but it also makes it difficult to make big changes and fire friends. But a new leader can take a fresh look and doesn't have loyalty to anyone. So they can do a clean sweep.

This might be a fresh start, or could be more of the same from Ferrari. Time will tell.

Mercedes-Benz have hit back at the reports of Hamilton's discontent.

The Lego Ferrari was it's nickname.

What a great season that was do Formula 1 had just gotten good again with 8 different winners in the first 8 races of that season and then everything changed in 2013 and 2014 and the dull 8 years of Mercedes dominance began.

Thankfully we have Red Bull to thank for it ending because I do not think Ferrari would have stopped it had Red Bull not been in the sport. Mercedes probably would still dominate and Lewis would be a 10 time WDC how boring.

It's hard not to see Max having 5 WDC's by the time the regs change. Even if (and it's a big if)) another constructor can match RBR for pace, you'd have to fancy Max over anyone right now, and he hasn't even hit his peak yet.

They still have ties with Ocon if they saw him as good enough. His contract ends next year I think. After that, who would they want? They were pretty Conservative getting Russell into the car. Do they have many young drivers they might take a punt on or would they buy in an established driver?

Assuming Hamilton stays for at least 1 more year

I doubt it's Schumacher. I'd imagine he's there because he's an experienced substitute if needs be. But he also has first hand knowledge of the Ferrari power unit and some Knowledge of the ferrari car from his testing role. A bit like Kvyat when he moved from TR to Ferrari for a year as reserve driver.

Fair play, they could target Leclerc or Norris. They would be great options. I'd give Russell some time to see how good he is. He finished behind Hamilton last week, but he was faster at the start of the race and Mercedes wouldn't use team orders. Hamilton finished well ahead which suggests Hamilton had much better race management. But I wouldn't write Russell off.

Is Astons Martins pace going to last throughout the season or are they going to trail off as the season goes on? They've copied a lot of the Red Bull and have a good few Mercedes parts too as part but do they have the engineers to develop cars rather than copy ideas? They had the pink Mercedes a couple of years ago and that only got them so far up the grid. This time around they probably have more money and have poached a lot more engineers so they could be knocking on the door for a top 3 finish in the constructors if they can develop the car as the season goes on.

Mercedes really need to do an Aston Martin and copy Red Bulls design and try and develop it. It would be much cheaper way of getting back on the pace.

Ferrari, McLaren and Alpine look to be very disappointing so far. They've gone backwards since last year.

It's race week.

A few notes:

Will Aston Martin continue to have a great start to the season, and have Ferrari sorted out their reliability?

Race thread coming soon.