F1 2023 thread

The safety in modern motorsport really is incredible. A crash at 130R in Super Formula this morning and it's amazing drivers can walk away from that kind of accident, it's crazy looking back now people were against new safety procedures in the likes of F1

This was all started by a cryptic tweet from a journalist and then Will Buxton hinting as well.

I do not see it happening at all, I just can't.

Alonso with Taylor Swift was more credible then this.

If Lance, however, finally gives up that delusion he's a racing driver then I could see Perez team up with Alonso at Aston Martin

--

A few report flying around there's a slim chance of Malaysia making an appearance on the calendar again. Petronas agreed a deal to rename the circuit, you'd be hoping with that funding and Petronas Merc connection it would be enough to get it back on the calendar

It's a cruel business. He was supposedly side stepped into a more suitable role. Ya right.

Zero sidepods is sackable offence

Well the fan car and the 6 wheelers were concepts that worked but worked so well they had to be banned.

The merc was just pants.

That's quite a few senior heads gone at Merc the last year or two

Ah yeah but that's been happening for years. When they were at the too, they lost people to other teams. Now red bull have lost people to other teams. I remember a lead designer going to AM in the last year or so.

When the team wins, team members market value goes up. When the team fails, the team fires some people. It's always happening. Mercedes will now be on the lookout for opportunities to recruit top people from other teams rather than looking to avoid losing thier top people which has been their issue for the last number of years.

Can't imagine he'd be in great demand at the moment considering where he's put Mercedes-Benz. If you're trying to coax away the "Adrian Newey" equivalent who's responsible for Mercs pre 2021 domination you'd be looking at James Allison. Williams probably thought they'd hit the jackpot in 2017 when they got Paddy Lowe in exchange for Bottas, but we all saw how that turned out. Same could be said for James Key at McLaren.

I think Merc find themselves in a bit of a holding pattern of sorts. A few years back, I think it was 2018, maybe 2017, their car was described as a "diva" with set up. Their solution, like any big team, was to throw money at it which solved the problem.

These new rules really do a great job at preventing that now. I also think losing James Vowles to Williams was a bigger loss than expected, look at how well Williams have been progressing this year with a fraction of the resources that Merc have.

Allison will probably help, he was at Ferrari though when things weren't very great, so he isn't a guarantee of things.

I also see parallels with last year where they got better towards the end of the year and won a race. It is hard to measure where they could end up, just look at McLaren now, I would have them closer to RB overall in the past few races. Ferrari can't be written off just yet and even Aston Martin showed how much ground can be made up over a winter when you are nowhere.

5 years ago.

Ya bollox!!!