Formula 1 2023 Season

Well, congrats to Max on his third* championship.  

Aston is real.  Legit podium,  super long run pace.  I liked his "This is a lovely car to drive." comment on the team radio.

Ferrari has that stunning Italian reliability sorted.

Merc, Ferrari and Aston are probably interchangeable, depending on the track.  

And, once again, the Aston has super pace on long runs.  Super easy on tires.

It seems RB also is easy on the tires doing Soft-Soft-Hard while most others seemed to do Soft-Hard-Hard.

Yep. it sure feels like 2022 all over again.

HAAS sure had a miserable race, as did McLaren.

Kudos to Gasly for starting dead last and not only getting into the points but scoring fastest lap too.

Williams seems to have made another small step forward, and Sargeant did well in his debut to finish 12th to Albon's 10th

But before we get all giddy about Alonso's 3rd place finish, he was still almost 40 secs back of Max at the end - that's a LONG ways back.....

NY Nick said:

Does Lewis not have the car or not have the fire? His leadership is what endears him to me and that has been on full display for the past few years but I just cringe when he gets passed like he did by Alonso. Like well here you go. Same with the attack on Carlos. After watching him get passed by Alonso it seems like he had the raw speed to put a move on Carlos and almost chose not to. Ugh, I really want to see #8 and I really don't want to see Max win 15 more races but that's where we look to be. 

He gave it a good shot at getting past Carlos, but he might have run out of battery or tire. Limited window of opportunity for him. Based on how things went for George, I think the car just isn't very strong right now.

Alonso didn't just walk past him, that was a legit scuffle. I suspect that having another few clean competitors to get some good wheel to wheel racing will help keep Lewis interested. Of course he wants to avenge 2021, but fighting for podiums can still be pretty engaging and keep the fire burning. 

That slow pit stop really cost George in the long run. If it had been 1.5s faster (which still would have been 3.5s), he'd have come out ahead of Alonso and might have finished in 5th. At least,that's what I remember seeing :)

Alonso was the only interesting thing about that race and his battle with Lewis shows how two great drivers can go hammer and tong without one or both of them getting chucked off the track-Max could learn a thing or two. I guess the whole multiple penalty Ocon was interesting, too. Anyways, I hope Mercedes stops work on their car now and focus on massive comeback for 2024. Nobody has anything for Red Bull and all the limits put on everybody means the competitive order will remain the same. As a huge F1 fan, I'm going to have to find interest in other stories because the WDC is a foregone conclusion. Vegas has Max at -138 to win the Championship and It might be wrapped up by the time the circus gets there

Logan was the highest starting and finishing rookie. He sounded critical of his race during the interviews, but I think he did pretty good and it probably still would not scored, even if he got everything perfect. Devries was really arrogant in "drive for survive" I am sure he was kicked down a couple pegs after this race weekend. Alonso had a good race (except for the start), and I would have liked to see him go toe to toe with Leclerc, hopefully this isn't a one off. Mercedes have already have kicked off their war cry to change the rules (snooze). McLaren looks terrible Piastri looks like a fool for his move, however it's early yet, maybe they can make some improvements mid-year. I don't think it's any surprise RB pace. Hopefully a team will be able to push them atleast a couple races.

Saw this morning and I passed him 

Has anybody explained exactly what Ocon's perpetual penalty was based on?  They seemed to be guessing on the broadcast.

In reply to Streetwiseguy :

First one (5s) was for parking just a leeetle bit too far forward on the grid. Second one (10s) was for not stopping long enough on the first one. Then he got dinged (5s) for speeding in the pit lane. The broadcast team viewed the last two (10s + 5s) as yet another 15s penalty because they'd lost track.

I think. I think he set a record either way.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Makes sense.

What is with the speeding on pit lane thing?  It's been a non-issue forever, and thats twice this year now.  Both Alpines, now that I think of it.  Gasley got done during quali, I think.

Toto needs to skip next door for full set of Aston bodywork,might as well leave the paintwork as is as its damn near impossible to tell them apart most camera angles anyways.

Streetwiseguy said:

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Makes sense.

What is with the speeding on pit lane thing?  It's been a non-issue forever, and thats twice this year now.  Both Alpines, now that I think of it.  Gasley got done during quali, I think.

I read that it was a result of doing 80.1kph instead of the 80kph limit.  The claim was that Ocon jumped the throttle "a half-meter too early" on pit exit.

In reply to wae :

Ocon was complaining "we always did that during testing" in one of the radio messages that was played during the broadcast, but I wasn't sure of the context. If it was about when he got off the limiter in the pit lane that would make sense. These guys shave the margins wherever they can.

Well, at the end of last season with the improved pace of the Mercedes (they won a race after all!), the fact that Red Bull's #1 car guy after Adrian Newey was going to Aston along with his #2 from Mercedes, and the supposed reliability improvements to the Ferrari I thought it would lead to more and different winners this year, but after the Bahrain race there is talk that not only has Red Bull already won both championships but that they will probably win every race this year!

I think that's a little optimistic, but there's no question the only one who could run with Max at the Bahrain race was his teammate.

Some say that the Red Bull was more optimized for the peculiarities of the Bahrain circuit than any other team and that's why their race pace was so strong, and that once the series moves to other circuits it may not look so dominant......I don't know about that, but some teams clearly have lost the plot - Mercedes and McLaren the most obvious. Even worse for Mercedes is the fact that Aston is their customer team, using not only their engine/power unit but also their rear suspension setup and their wind tunnel to develop their car!

Perez quipped that the Aston was so close a copy of the Red Bull that there were three Red Bull drivers on the podium!

What do you think? Will Red Bull run the table this season? Can anyone beat them, and if so - who? Remember, even Aston was almost 40 sec behind at the end of the race....

In reply to kevlarcorolla :

I thought the same perhaps in the sun or light of day it will be more distinguishable. 

In reply to MiniDave :

I sure hope somebody(don't care who) can beat RB,Horner is already King Arrogant in a paddock full of cocky people. :)

It's mostly about the designer.  These days (and for quite a while) it's Adrian Newey.  Before that we had Rory Byrne, then Gordon Murray, Gordon Coppuck, Derek Gardner, and Chapman's team (where Colin got the credit, but others did the actual design work - Maurice Phillipe and others).  In other words, to have a dominant season, you gotta have the right car.  A long time ago the driver could carry the car (Fangio at the Ring in '57, for example), but these days not so much.  A wanker can't win regularly in a great car, but the teams with the great cars will always have top drivers, so sometimes we have to look to the midfield for some great driver performances, which Fred certainly provided yesterday.  Looking forward to more from him, Lewis and George, and maybe the Ferrari guys, this year.

I really enjoyed the back and forth battle between Alonso and Hamilton. It reminded me of the similar battle Verstappen and LeClerc had here last year.

In reply to AaronT :

Likewise,2 oldest guys on the grid that don't really get on because of the past and yet have respect for each other on track

 Max clearly doesn't respect Lewis at all as he obviously raced him differently then the buddies he grew up racing with.

Verstappen had I thought a useful comment afterwards in that he thought with Aston's pace they'd probably win a few races.  He said something to the effect of "even in seasons when we were finishing races 40, 50, 60s behind Lewis, we still won a few."  Valid point it would seem.  

I don't root for mercedes but I'd be fine with them showing up with an entirely new concept and claiming the hospitality dept went a little nuts this yr ;)

Watching FP3 here at Saudi Arabia- not being an aero specialist, I wonder how much the high sidepod is hidden behind the front wheel wake.  The RB is so fast in the straight sections, they have clearly found a hole in the air- and they have some of the highest structure out there (along with the top spilling scoops).  

Seems that the tire drag influence would raise a little based on the spinning tire influence.  And that could be one reason the Mercedes is so much slower- that they put more bulk low than high.

Of course, that kind of discounts how fast and stable the RB is in every corner. 

I don't think the Red Bulls are showing everything they have.....

The Aston clearly is the best of the rest, but it's also nice to see the Alpine running close to the front.....

I think unless the Red Bull starts having to change a lot of power trains and incurs some grid penalties, it will be difficult to beat them this year. We'll see as the year progresses.

Are the Ferraris slow because they turned the power down so they'll live?

Max breaks and that will really make tomorrow really interesting to watch him climb from 14 or 15 (depending on LeClerc).  For RB fans, at least this is a whole lot easier to pass than other street tracks.

Also, sucks for Seargant- had a great lap had he not driven over the line post pit entry.  Would have easily made Q2, but that started a whole list of messes.

MiniDave said:

I don't think the Red Bulls are showing everything they have.....

The Aston clearly is the best of the rest, but it's also nice to see the Alpine running close to the front.....

I think unless the Red Bull starts having to change a lot of power trains and incurs some grid penalties, it will be difficult to beat them this year. We'll see as the year progresses.

Are the Ferraris slow because they turned the power down so they'll live?

Are you from the future? You said this and 20 minutes later he breaks a drive train thing. 
I say he still gets podium after passing the field.