F1 2022 Season

[Jerch]

What percentage of the car development budget was their over spend? That would be a more relevant metric.

How many other teams made this "mistake"?

Dodgiest team on the grid.

Based on last two sentence it's not worth responding but i still will.

The loudest rumor is that they didn't included Newey's salary since he is in top 3 earners but the contract they have with Newey makes him outsourced partner and couldn't be excluded. They had this type of contract with him for years and if that is right they will surely change it this season. So the additional cost that pushed them from way below cost cap to over it didn't come out of development budget since it was accounting error and not overspend.

People fail to understand that a lot of things are excluded from the budget and team like Mercedes with all the additional costs for drivers salary, top 3 earners, marketing budget and others things that are excluded still spend a lot more than a team like Haas.
So narative that Red Bull gained some sort of big advantage by going 400k pounds over all other teams which spend the same is very naive since it's not the case.

Their first submission as I said was 5 mil below, many teams probably left themselves even more leeway and some others probably went much more to the limit and the money spend which is included in the cost cap from team to team varied in the millions. Not even mentioning costs that are excluded.
And you say that 400k significantly impacted results in those circumstances...

Yes in the end they were over and have to pay big fine and are heavily impacted from reduction of wind tunnel testing but those punishment have much bigger negative impact that the money overspend could have positive impact. To be fair like all punishments should have.

 

[Buster15]

Based on what they want to be true.

Not even any anecdotal evidence.

 

[F-Red]

It seems that Red Bull learns from somewhere wher others don't then.

I don't see how after all practice session Mercedes drivers come out and say "hards are shit", despite their team choosing hards to be used in more than half of the race. How exactly did they decide hards are good option if they didn't do any testing before?

Red Bull has such an advantage that it doesn't need to learn, the car will be faster than the field so they'll be able to make any tyre strategy work.

Hards were probably chosen to go longer for Mercedes, on the chance that the Mediums would drop off for Red Bull. This was their only chance to win the race, they wouldn't have been able to match the strategy and pace of Red Bull. So the strategy they played was to go longer on both compounds, and the harder compounds have particularly worked well for Mercedes this year and from their data then would suggest that going to medium again wouldn't work for tyre life and also they would need to stop again to put on a different regulatory compound. Quickest route to the finish was a one stop yesterday.

What disrupted that strategy was that Red Bull were very good on tyre wear in this race, and made the medium last (only one driver, Norris, went longer on mediums in a race this year than Red Bull in Mexico). I don't think Hamilton could have improved from 2nd, but the gamble Mercedes should have made was to put Russell on a more aggressive strategy to put pressure on Perez. However to try an insinuate that the race was lost by Mercedes due to strategy, and not because of the speed differential to Red Bull, is a bit disingenuous.

 

[dinostar77]

Re: yesterdays race. All the teams lost practise sessions worth of data because they had to run pirelli 2023 tyres in a blind test. FP1 & FP2 i think that was.

So that left FP3, which is too late to be doing hugh fuel sim runs with what is the least preferable of the 3 compounds for the weekend.

Mercedes gambled and lost. Bad strategy call. It happens.

 

[F-Red]

Re: yesterdays race. All the teams lost practise sessions worth of data because they had to run pirelli 2023 tyres in a blind test. FP1 & FP2 i think that was.

So that left FP3, which is too late to be doing hugh fuel sim runs with what is the least preferable of the 3 compounds for the weekend.

Mercedes gambled and lost. Bad strategy call. It happens.

It was FP2 and they had an additional 30 minutes on the session to cover the test that Pirelli wanted. There was no lost session time due to the 2023 tyre test.

 

[dinostar77]

It was FP2 and they had an additional 30 minutes on the session to cover the test that Pirelli wanted. There was no lost session time due to the 2023 tyre test.

Ok i didnt really pay attention to the FPs. So even less excuses for them.

 

[Adam-Utd]

Mercedes have just become scared of challenging red bull on track for some reason. I think they're embarrased by the straight line speed deficit.

Why on earth they didn't listen to Russell, he said lets go long and put the softs on at the end. "oh the tyres won't last"

For some reason the level of wear on the tyres was catching everybody by surprise. What I don't get though is why when it was obvious they were wrong - they wouldn't roll the dice and see what happened.

With the pace Ricciardo showed on the softs, surely it was worth a gamble to say Russell go chase down Perez on some softs? meh.

 

[mitChley]

Red Bull has such an advantage that it doesn't need to learn, the car will be faster than the field so they'll be able to make any tyre strategy work.

RB did their learning in the multiple years their car was slower than Mercedes and Ferrari, and they've carried those learnings into the years where their car matches or exceeds their rivals. Mercedes are now in the opposite situation where for a significant period of time they didn't have to make quick or bold strategy calls due to the monster of a car they developed, now they've slipped on the development their inability to make a decisive pit call is showing, although I'm sure they'll learn (or make a car so quick they don't have too).

 

[dinostar77]

Mercedes have just become scared of challenging red bull on track for some reason. I think they're embarrased by the straight line speed deficit.

Why on earth they didn't listen to Russell, he said lets go long and put the softs on at the end. "oh the tyres won't last"

For some reason the level of wear on the tyres was catching everybody by surprise. What I don't get though is why when it was obvious they were wrong - they wouldn't roll the dice and see what happened.

With the pace Ricciardo showed on the softs, surely it was worth a gamble to say Russell go chase down Perez on some softs? meh.

The problem as Mercedes saw it was that even with DRS and a tow they wouldnt have been able to overtake on track a RedBull that is faster in the straights than any other car.

Brundle thought they made a mistake, we all did. How do you go from telling hamilton target +6, so extend the stint on MED, to then suddenly bringing him in?

Unless they thought the delta between SOFTs and MED was so negliable that hamilton and russell would have destroyed their softs trying to close down a 24sec gap after a pitstop.

Regardless it shows the progress they habe made, towards the end of the season with a car that has a fatal flaw that cant be fixed.

 

[dinostar77]

Anyone think it wierd that Ferrari had such power issues with their turbocharger and mgu-h at altitude?

I guess smarter people must have figured out how their turbocharger works from the problems they had at mexico.

I cant recall if Ferrari are the exception to the rule for MGU-H layout that everyone copied from Mercedes. Or was it Alpine?

Regardless thats a big flaw at altitude. Will need fixing for mexico next year.

 

[Drawfull]

How do you know that. Based on what actual data because I was not aware that teams published their spend.

The UK based teams have to publicly publish their spend. Companies House rules.

 

[Adam-Utd]

The problem as Mercedes saw it was that even with DRS and a tow they wouldnt have been able to overtake on track a RedBull that is faster in the straights than any other car.

Brundle thought they made a mistake, we all did. How do you go from telling hamilton target +6, so extend the stint on MED, to then suddenly bringing him in?

Unless they thought the delta between SOFTs and MED was so negliable that hamilton and russell would have destroyed their softs trying to close down a 24sec gap after a pitstop.

Regardless it shows the progress they habe made, towards the end of the season with a car that has a fatal flaw that cant be fixed.

Tyre advantage is king though. Look at the way Ricciardo carved his way through the pack with fresh tyres. Mclaren aren't great in a straight line usually and Norris was stuck in the DRS train most of the race.

The way he rocked up and overtook them was like a different formula. Overtaking is usually about getting a better exit from a corner due to more grip, and then being able to brake later to block pass them.

I have no doubt that Russell would have managed to get passed IF he caught up. It's just sad they didn't even try.

 

[Ahmer Baig]

Really feel for Alonso.

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[Ahmer Baig]

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This has to be sabotage at this point. Unbelivable

Listening to ALO's radio asking for code fixes was so painful. Even more considering all the efforts made in the first stint.
But then again, It can't be a mistake to put the hards on when you already had the RIC info with softs.
I watched last 6 races with ALO's onboard paired with general live coverage and right when OCO was lapped and got up to a 10 sec gap, they urged ALO to put a code in urgently. No problems reported until that point and then all of a sudden it all goes down the drain.
I noticed this in other races where ALO had deployment issues it was always after a new SOC available or a higher top speed mode. How convenient.

Feels like it's no longer priority number one by Alpine to fix his car. And if Ocon is ahead of Alonso in the standings, that doesn't look too bad for Alpine either. But it's sad that Alonso is gone like this.

Otmar is dismissing this as yet another case of Fernando’s bad luck.

Also Szafnauer has been very antagonistic to Alonso right from the start, basically blaming him for everything. There has been many instances whereby he was deflecting any blame for the failures but one stood out for me. In Spain when the team sent Alonso out late in Q1 and his RE was hurrying him to quickly start his lap even though there was a bit of time left on the clock, which resulted in a ruined lap since he got too close to Lando, Alonso said in the post qualy interview that there was a miscommunication with the team. But Szafnauer somehow saw the need to publicly point his finger at Alonso and said the driver should have asked exactly how much time was left on the clock, which was a really ridiculous thing to pin on the driver in that kind of situation



Perhaps Szafnauer thinks that he has to exert his authority on the team, including the drivers. By all accounts, Alonso is well loved by the engineers, so maybe Szafnauer who has little experience dealing with a top driver, sees the need to stamp his authority to maintain his standing within the team.

 

[dinostar77]

Could you imagine the season we would have had, if alonso had been in the RedBull alongside max? That would have been box office.

 

[sun_tzu]

Could you imagine the season we would have had, if alonso had been in the RedBull alongside max? That would have been box office.

or if redbull had not cheated last season and there could have been a fair fight with ferrari and merc

 

[Adam-Utd]

Listening to ALO's radio asking for code fixes was so painful. Even more considering all the efforts made in the first stint.
But then again, It can't be a mistake to put the hards on when you already had the RIC info with softs.
I watched last 6 races with ALO's onboard paired with general live coverage and right when OCO was lapped and got up to a 10 sec gap, they urged ALO to put a code in urgently. No problems reported until that point and then all of a sudden it all goes down the drain.
I noticed this in other races where ALO had deployment issues it was always after a new SOC available or a higher top speed mode. How convenient.

Feels like it's no longer priority number one by Alpine to fix his car. And if Ocon is ahead of Alonso in the standings, that doesn't look too bad for Alpine either. But it's sad that Alonso is gone like this.

Otmar is dismissing this as yet another case of Fernando’s bad luck.

Also Szafnauer has been very antagonistic to Alonso right from the start, basically blaming him for everything. There has been many instances whereby he was deflecting any blame for the failures but one stood out for me. In Spain when the team sent Alonso out late in Q1 and his RE was hurrying him to quickly start his lap even though there was a bit of time left on the clock, which resulted in a ruined lap since he got too close to Lando, Alonso said in the post qualy interview that there was a miscommunication with the team. But Szafnauer somehow saw the need to publicly point his finger at Alonso and said the driver should have asked exactly how much time was left on the clock, which was a really ridiculous thing to pin on the driver in that kind of situation



Perhaps Szafnauer thinks that he has to exert his authority on the team, including the drivers. By all accounts, Alonso is well loved by the engineers, so maybe Szafnauer who has little experience dealing with a top driver, sees the need to stamp his authority to maintain his standing within the team.

The battle of 2 egotistical maniacs.

I very much doubt they'd sabotage Alonso anyway considering how many points they keep throwing away. They shouldn't even be in a fight with Mclaren at this stage, but somehow it's still alive.

 

[elmo]

The battle of 2 egotistical maniacs.

I very much doubt they'd sabotage Alonso anyway considering how many points they keep throwing away. They shouldn't even be in a fight with Mclaren at this stage, but somehow it's still alive.

They wouldn’t need to purposely sabotage Alonso. Their car is that unreliable.

 

[elmo]

Everyone played it safe bar Ricciardo yesterday. To your point above, they learn as much as they can but they never run a car at full weight with fuel until the race, so they'll rely a lot on data from previous races to help there. However the variables of weather, track temperature, and track condition will always impact strategy to some point where they can't guarantee an absolute strategy.

Pirelli should probably go a bit more aggressive on compound choices next year to open up a variety of strategy choices.

It’s not really up to them though? They’re just making whatever FIA wants. They’ve mentioned plenty of times that they could make a tire that last the entire race if needed, but that would just make the race even more boring and you’ll see some winners being a full lap ahead of everyone else.

 

[elmo]

Minimum stops for Monaco definately. The rest of the season? Should be a choice. No to refuelling from me as well.

Maybe im out on my own on this, in the thread but i think ballast would have a huge change to F1. If max had to carry an additional 65kg of weight as championship leader, he wouldnt have been sleep-driving himself to consecutive victories.

However on the flipside. RedBull utterly nailed the rule changes and produced their best car since vettel years at RedBull. It really is on Mercedes and Ferrari shoulder to produce a car next season that can challenge.

Will be interesting to see if RedBull lose the straight line speed advantage next season, i dont doubt that Ferrari and Mercedes will have Shell and Petronas working overtime to get their fuel addatives sorted out. Optimise ERS deployment. Add to that weight reduction, making their cars less draggy (RB have set the template).

However probably more important than anything, nail the suspension setup.

What’s the extra weight going to do when everyone will still be on the same weight?

They literally made that rule to ensure that the taller/heavier drivers aren’t at a disadvantage.

 

[sun_tzu]

However on the flipside. RedBull utterly nailed the rule changes .

Thats like saying Manchester City and PSG nailed FFP

 

[Adam-Utd]

They wouldn’t need to purposely sabotage Alonso. Their car is that unreliable.

I think they're pushing the engines too hard. Their straight line speed is probably 2nd best on the grid, it seems like they're going for performance > reliability.

 

[dinostar77]

What’s the extra weight going to do when everyone will still be on the same weight?

They literally made that rule to ensure that the taller/heavier drivers aren’t at a disadvantage.

Ballast is added to the car depending on championship standings for top 6 for example. Thats completely seperate to the minimum weight of the car.

 

[dinostar77]

They wouldn’t need to purposely sabotage Alonso. Their car is that unreliable.

French engineering for you. Prost had loads of issues when he drove for renault back in the day.

 

[F-Red]

It’s not really up to them though? They’re just making whatever FIA wants. They’ve mentioned plenty of times that they could make a tire that last the entire race if needed, but that would just make the race even more boring and you’ll see some winners being a full lap ahead of everyone else.

I'm not on about the construction of the tyre, I'm on about the compound choices they select for the race. They could select C1-C3 for this race but choose C2-C4, thus giving the possibilities of more stops in the race and varying strategic tyre choices for the teams.

 

[Camy89]

With regards Max boycotting Sky, I am in no way a Max fan, I despise Horner and RBR but can see where Max is coming from. He's totally within his right to not speak to a media outlet if he receives constant bias from them. Kravitz etc do still bang on about it to the point it's become a bit of a meme.

I've in fact found Max to be a bit more tolerable this year and is always the first to point out that Schumacher had less races in a year when someone brings up the wins per season record. The real devil is Horner. He's a smug little prick.

It's just how Sir Alex boycotted BBC for years (I think he agreed to interact with them again in the twilight years at United).

 

[Adam-Utd]

With regards Max boycotting Sky, I am in no way a Max fan, I despise Horner and RBR but can see where Max is coming from. He's totally within his right to not speak to a media outlet if he receives constant bias from them. Kravitz etc do still bang on about it to the point it's become a bit of a meme.

I've in fact found Max to be a bit more tolerable this year and is always the first to point out that Schumacher had less races in a year when someone brings up the wins per season record. The real devil is Horner. He's a smug little prick.

It's just how Sir Alex boycotted BBC for years (I think he agreed to interact with them again in the twilight years at United).

I very much doubt Ziggo TV is impartial either. If anything Sky TV in England heavily favoured Max to win.

I remember pre Abu Dhabi and the likes of Paul Di Resta, Karun Chandlok etc were desperate for a Max victory.

 

[RoadTrip]

I think people are overthinking this a bit. Mercedes clearly thought that the medium wouldn’t go to the end after 1 stop following the softs. They presumably thought those who started on softs would need to pit again. If that’s what the data is telling them, then fine. But then they need to be a) challenging themselves as to what analysis they were missing since it seemed quite clear the mediums would last longer than expected and b) think about why they didn’t consider an alternative strategy for one of their drivers, given how slow Ferrari were.

 

[RoadTrip]

With regards Max boycotting Sky, I am in no way a Max fan, I despise Horner and RBR but can see where Max is coming from. He's totally within his right to not speak to a media outlet if he receives constant bias from them. Kravitz etc do still bang on about it to the point it's become a bit of a meme.

I've in fact found Max to be a bit more tolerable this year and is always the first to point out that Schumacher had less races in a year when someone brings up the wins per season record. The real devil is Horner. He's a smug little prick.

It's just how Sir Alex boycotted BBC for years (I think he agreed to interact with them again in the twilight years at United).

I’m fine with Max and RB boycotting Sky but can we please stop calling what Ted said as bias? Bias implies he wouldn’t have that same view if roles were reversed or if other drivers were in the same position. And we have no idea about that at the very least, or can reasonably assume he like the rest of us would have felt that any driver in Hamilton’s position, including Max, would have been robbed.

 

[dinostar77]

I’m fine with Max and RB boycotting Sky but can we please stop calling what Ted said as bias? Bias implies he wouldn’t have that same view if roles were reversed or if other drivers were in the same position. And we have no idea about that at the very least, or can reasonably assume he like the rest of us would have felt that any driver in Hamilton’s position, including Max, would have been robbed.

Agreed

 

[hobbers]

I’m fine with Max and RB boycotting Sky but can we please stop calling what Ted said as bias? Bias implies he wouldn’t have that same view if roles were reversed or if other drivers were in the same position. And we have no idea about that at the very least, or can reasonably assume he like the rest of us would have felt that any driver in Hamilton’s position, including Max, would have been robbed.

Ted is biased though, it's not a secret. The robbed part is one word of one example, and it's not even the questionable/bitter part of his rant in Austin. The bit where he suggests that Max is only beating Hamilton now because of Newey is obviously where the bias is. Would he ever say that Hamilton only wins because of his car? No. In fact, when other people suggest that, like Alonso, Ted loses his little mind.

His comments in Japan were also more of an obviously bitter dig.

 

[RoadTrip]

Ted is biased though, it's not a secret. The robbed part is one word of one example, and it's not even the questionable/bitter part of his rant in Austin. The bit where he suggests that Max is only beating Hamilton now because of Newey is obviously where the bias is. Would he ever say that Hamilton only wins because of his car? No. In fact, when other people suggest that, like Alonso, Ted loses his little mind.

His comments in Japan were also more of an obviously bitter dig.

From what I’ve heard from him, and granted I haven’t listened to everything and anything, he’s been pretty reasonable in his comments. On sky, Croft definitely has a “pro-British” agenda. Di Resta hates Hamilton. Chandok is generally OK, as is Brundle. Is any pundit truly impartial? I don’t think so. But your interpretation that Sky has a love fest with Hamilton and Mercedes is just wrong IMO.

 

[Gringo]

Ted certainly has a way with words so to speak. He has no barrier which is part of his "charm".

 

[BristolRuss]

Ted is absolutely allowed to voice his opinion, and Max and RB are absolutely allowed to not speak to Sky. It's an absolute non-issue.

Fergie didn't speak to the BBC for years after they bad-mouthed his son and nobody cared.

 

[altodevil]

Lazenby, Herbert, Kravitz, Crofty. Those are the worst culprits for the pro-English agenda. I'll never have a bad word to say about Brundle.

 

[hobbers]

But your interpretation that Sky has a love fest with Hamilton and Mercedes is just wrong IMO.

Ted and Crofty get far far more airtime on sky than anyone else, along with Lazenby. Brundle and Karun are fine, also helps they actually know what they’re talking about. Di Resta isn’t biased but he is a shite pundit much like Nico.

Herbert and Hill are also both parodies, but we only have to suffer them at European races.

 

[dinostar77]

Ted is biased though, it's not a secret. The robbed part is one word of one example, and it's not even the questionable/bitter part of his rant in Austin. The bit where he suggests that Max is only beating Hamilton now because of Newey is obviously where the bias is. Would he ever say that Hamilton only wins because of his car? No. In fact, when other people suggest that, like Alonso, Ted loses his little mind.

His comments in Japan were also more of an obviously bitter dig.

When did he say that? Which notebook was that in? Doesnt sound like something he would say. Kravitz has been pretty impartial throughout. Which is why when new Sky headhoncho got rid of him there was such an outcry for him to be restored.

 

[sepulturite]

It added another dimension to the strategy. Start empty and speed off, go super heavy and try a no stopper... etc. I have positive memories ofit during the Schumi/Hakkinen, Schumi/Hill seasons, I'd like to see a return of it.


But then again if the future of F1 is people not being able to say the truth on official F1 content... who the feck cares anymore? We've gotten used to F1 races being flogged off to any flogging dictatorship over the years but if this becomes the norm they can move FIA/Liberty etc. headquarters to north Korea for all I care.

Yeh I had positive memories too, until I rewatched the seasons on F1 tv and online and saw that most of them were pretty dull. I watch sport to be entertained, especially F1, and unfortunately that didn't happen for me in the refueling days bar a few races. But each to their own and all that.

 

[sepulturite]

Not averse to it. But the reason 2 compounds works is only when you’ve got something on the cusp of a 2 stop or 1 stop race. Or, on the odd occasion, where teams seem confused about data on longevity and reality (like yesterday).

With 3 compounds, every race will be a two stopper (assuming tyres in their current form and not changed on durability). And by large I’d expect teams to do the same thing generally. I could be wrong though and tbh am not averse to it being tried.

Yeh, like it could be a total disaster and not work, but it's worth a try for a season I think. Because I'm really starting to find the regular one stop races pretty dull these days.

 

[sepulturite]

It’s a bit sad that ted has re stirred this pot even it is true, Horner said during that race they need a miracle to catch Lewis, enter masi. That’s just facts. No fanboy, no horse in the race, just what happened. Shame f1 has become so tribal

Yeh and certain posters on here don't help with the tribalism. Is it really so hard to have an opinion on one driver without sounding like a total knob towards the other driver? It's playground stuff, and so many on here are guilty of it.