F1 2022 season - Michael Masi sacked

First topic message reminder :

Otmar Szafnauer has left Aston Martin, widely expected, after Martin Whitmarsh joined the team.

Jeff Navarro wrote:Verstappen could finish second in all remaining 9 races and still win the championship...He's not really designed to be passive though...
After the summer break two home races for Verstappen - Belgium and Netherlands...Joy...

Yup - the word at Maranello should be for everyone to focus on next season, because this one's already gone.

It'll be interesting to see if Mercedes can continue their upward trajectory and supplant Ferrari as the #2 team...even if they already have one eye on next season.

Charles LeClerc genuinely looking broken...Totally heartbroken. Both drivers angry with the pit wall...

Idk, it's easier for Ferrari to replace their trackside leadership than it is for Mercedes to find massive performance gains

The Ferrari's trackside leadership has been criticized for years and years, and it has been suggested that their trackside leadership is a reflection of the teams leadership in other areas too.

Changing the Ferrari trackside leadership has been an ongoing issue since Todr, Brawn etc left the team.
After nearly 13 years there’s still no end in sight...

With the F1 summer break upon us, Leclerc is currently closer to Hamilton in sixth place than he is to Verstappen in first place.  So after the summer break the race for second place in the drivers championship is going to be more interesting than the race for first place.

After 13 races (9 races to go)
Psn, Driver, Points, Leclerc pts gap
1) Verstappen 258 (-80)
2) Leclerc .... 178
3) Perez ...... 173 (+05)
4) Russell ..... 158 (+20)
5) Sainz ....... 156 (+22)
6) Hamilton ... 146 (+32)
7) Norris ....... 076
8) Ocon ........ 058
9) Bottas ...... 046
10) Alonso ..... 041

Interesting comments from Horner, they decided to start on hards. Verstappen overruled that decision - both cars ran the same strategy. Soft - medium - medium.

Whereas LeClerc wanted to stay out yet the pit wall overruled and screwed him over again.

That’s the difference. Red Bull listens to their drivers, Ferrari are obsessed with the ‘historical data’

Wolff says Ferrari didn’t judge the situation correctly on Friday and wasted a set of mediums in FP2...

Something has to give really. This is the first time in over a decade Ferrari has had a potentially dominant package and they repeatedly shoot themselves in the foot every weekend. Everyone makes mistakes over the season but to be doing it as often as Ferrari do is incompetence

Someone's gonna carry the can at season's end and the betting favourite looks Binotto.

Not that I fully exclude Charles from that breakdown. He gives away too many in close championship fights

Monaco and Hungary should've been clear strongholds for this package. They didn't win either and only got 1 podium

Well in the end another superb weekend for Verstappen and Red Bull - stunning drive today all told, and clearly great work on the way to the grid to see that the hard tyres weren't going to work! Basically three full DNFs ahead now, really going to take a monumental screw up or failures for the drivers title to not land in his hands again this season. Looking decent for RB overall in constructors too.

Great weekend for Merc too - George with a great Saturday and decent race, Lewis a storming drive - he's really re-found his 2021 form the last month and a bit. Honestly, would you bet against them overhauling Ferrari for 2nd in constructors at this point? Not sure I would.

Ferrari clown show version 1502 today. Far far too worried about undercuts all the way through, pitted way too early on the mediums in the first stint (Sainz a lap after the soft runners!!) and then again when Max pitted early in the 2nd stint and they panicked to bring in Charles when he needed to go long and avoid the hards clearly. Not good at all, everyone and his wife could see the hards were a shambles tyre, I reckon going soft soft would have been much better if they had to get the mediums off!
Not sure where they really go from here - they've had arguably the best package overall this season on pace, but have conspired with reliability and strategy to p1ss it all away.

Good race from Norris, if anonymous. Riccardo yet another disaster, I don't see how McLaren can justify keeping him in that seat in 2023 - he's single handedly costing them 4th in constructors at the moment, even if he was just doing average it would be fine!

Fancy Alpine might be a touch disappointed with their result today - found the hard tyre issue for everyone else on the grid...

Good race for the Astons - Strolls race really hurt by the Danny Ric shunt, but still a good one and a good point for Seb too.

Nothing much to say about the rest - AlphaTauri have been seemingly missing for races on end now, Alfa having ferrari engine issues again...Haas's upgrades didn't seem to do much and Williams participated.

It is interesting this season where we feared removing the Q3 tyre rule and cars starting all on the same tyres we'd see a load of one stop races and same strategies, that in fact we are seeing almost the opposite! And these cars/tyres do seem to react really differently in different temperatures too. While the title race might not be close over the 2nd half of the season, we should see some good races between the top three I think

Lewis, Max and George laughing in the cooldown room that they put LeClerc on hards is the iconic moment of this season for Ferrari

Tyres & Pit Stops

George Russell.. P01: start S3; lap16 M0; lap39 M0: ............. finishes p3
Carlos Sainz..... P02: start M0; lap17 M0; lap47 S1: ............. finishes p4
Charles Leclerc. P03: start M0; lap21 M0; lap39 H0; lap54 S2: finishes P6
Lewis Hamilton.  P07: start M0; lap19 M0; lap51 S1: ............. finishes p2 + fastest lap
Max Verstappen P10: start S1; lap16 M0; lap38 M0: ............. finishes p1
Sergio Perez..... P11: start S0; lap18 M0; lap42 M1: ............. finishes p5

note:
lap 37 Leclerc to engineer: good tyre, let's stay on it. [16 lap old mediums]
lap 38 Verstappen boxes to replace 22 lap old mediums for fresh mediums [no more pit stops after this]
lap 39 engineer to Leclerc: verstappen just pitted for mediums. Box this lap, box this lap [replaces 18 lap old mediums for hards ...]

Lap 39 is where Leclerc's race was lost as Verstappen was on a different tyre strategy.  Sainz and Hamilton extended their second stint (medium tyres) for 30 and 32 laps respectively.

Iñaki Rueda, head of strategy at Ferrari, looking like a deadman walking...Italian media baying for blood this morning.

No name Bertie wrote:Tyres & Pit Stops

George Russell.. P01: start S3; lap16 M0; lap39 M0: ............. finishes p3
Carlos Sainz..... P02: start M0; lap17 M0; lap47 S1: ............. finishes p4
Charles Leclerc. P03: start M0; lap21 M0; lap39 H0; lap54 S2: finishes P6
Lewis Hamilton.  P07: start M0; lap19 M0; lap51 S1: ............. finishes p2 + fastest lap
Max Verstappen P10: start S1; lap16 M0; lap38 M0: ............. finishes p1
Sergio Perez..... P11: start S0; lap18 M0; lap42 M1: ............. finishes p5

note:
lap 37 Leclerc to engineer: good tyre, let's stay on it. [16 lap old mediums]
lap 38 Verstappen boxes to replace 22 lap old mediums for fresh mediums [no more pit stops after this]
lap 39 engineer to Leclerc: verstappen just pitted for mediums. Box this lap, box this lap [replaces 18 lap old mediums for hards ...]

Lap 39 is where Leclerc's race was lost as Verstappen was on a different tyre strategy.  Sainz and Hamilton extended their second stint (medium tyres) for 30 and 32 laps respectively.

Ferrari sacrificed Sainz yesterday. The Spaniard wasn’t going to allow LeClerc through. So they brought him in literally a lap after Russell.
We just lack the mental capacity to think logically under pressure

Whew huge news this morning - Alonso is going to Aston Martin for 2023!

For some reason

I heard this a few weeks ago, thought it was a joke tbh.
But the story goes Otmar Szafnauer had enough of El Plan and he didn’t want to loan out Piastri
RIP Lance Stroll your career will get destroyed yet further.

Good Golly I'm Olly wrote:Whew huge news this morning - Alonso is going to Aston Martin for 2023!

Uninformed fantasy owners just dominating the insider journalists this week.

Lowlandbrit wrote:

Good Golly I'm Olly wrote:Whew huge news this morning - Alonso is going to Aston Martin for 2023!

Uninformed fantasy owners just dominating the insider journalists this week.

Olly was quicker on the ball than the BBC anyway. Andrew Benson only posted this 3 hours ago...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/62376428


Feel bad for Alonso that he's having to move to an inferior team. But I guess if its a clash of personalities, they're going to keep the driver thats easier to deal with, even if it means getting rid of the better one. That said, Ocon does actually have more points (58) to Alonso's 41, but I'd still rather have Nando in my team, out of the two.

Official line according to the BBC article is that Fernando & Alpine couldn't agree on a new contract. Alpine wanted a 1 year plus 1 year option, while Aston were willing to do a multi-year deal.

Additionally, Aston have big plans in the pipeline...apparently they're building a "state of the art" new facility near Silverstone, which will eventually include their own wind tunnel.

GSC wrote:Idk, it's easier for Ferrari to replace their trackside leadership than it is for Mercedes to find massive performance gains

Easier...but will it result in better performances?

As Jeff said, they have been looking for competent leadership pretty much since Jean Todt and Ross Brawn left.

As long as Ferrari continue to drop the ball, Mercedes don't need to find massive performance gains, just incremental improvements to be best of the rest.

There's still only one of the two teams with a race winning car. Only have to look at the previous era to see how hard it is to close that gap, particularly if Mercedes have to move to a different concept

Seems like Alonso joined Aston Martin as he was convinced by the infrastructure investments Lawrence Stroll has made for the team.
Renault don’t seem interested in making a huge financial commitment and are pretty much just stuck in the midfield until they leave again.

FIA President Mohammed bin Sulayem says he’s working on a deal to finalise a Colombian GP…
Odd choice for a place to have a race…if they wanted another race in South America a logical option is Argentina. The home of the godfather of F1 Fangio.

Jeff Navarro wrote:FIA President Mohammed bin Sulayem says he’s working on a deal to finalise a Colombian GP…
Odd choice for a place to have a race…if they wanted another race in South America a logical option is Argentina. The home of the godfather of F1 Fangio.

Yeah - why not have a race at one of the most dangerous places in South America...home to violent drug cartels, where the police and military combined struggle to maintain law and order?

Argentina's undoubtedly a better bet...but still not particularly safe for British drivers. There are a large number of military veterans and nationalists who still hate the British and I wouldn't have too much faith in Argentinian security.

The idea of going to South America for a race makes sense - would Colombia be another made up street track though?

Still a lot of talk that South Africa will be on the calendar in 2023, which would also be good.

By all accounts Piastri has a pre contract agreement to take Danny Ric's seat next year while Alpine believe he is contractually bound to take their seat if offered. Seems like it's going well

Alpine also maintain they thought Alonso was staying until he confirmed he was off on social media

Mark Webber, Piastri’s agent, seems like a clown. He agreed a deal Williams. This secret deal with McLaren, stabbing his ‘mate’ Ricciardo in the back. Yet failing to realise Piastri is under contract with Alpine.
And Webber wonders why Red Bull always took Vettel’s advise over his...

Good Golly I'm Olly wrote:The idea of going to South America for a race makes sense - would Colombia be another made up street track though?

Still a lot of talk that South Africa will be on the calendar in 2023, which would also be good.

South Africa seems on ice for the moment. The covid restrictions means they can’t have full crowds. So the race would incur massive losses.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xv8FUmcwMJc

Worthwhile video. Shows why Red Bull are a level above Ferrari...

Oscar Piastri confirmed by Alpine for 2023, another Australian Italian on this grid

Further news on Piastri:
He categorically refused to join Williams on the two year loan Alpine had agreed.
Alpine says their contract with Piastri is water tight and legally binding for 2023 + a team option for 2024.
Alpine never gave Piastri/Webber to renegotiate with McLaren.
Seems like Zak Brown is up to his dodgy dealings again...see Palou Indycar situation.

Oscar Piastri says he’s not driving for Alpine

It's a fairly nuclear step, so either he and his team have concrete legal advice he can leave for McLaren or something fairly major has happened behind the scenes.

Either way a pretty disastrous few days for alpine. A swap involving Danny Ric and funds heading to Alpine would make some sense but imagine egos are going to make that fairly impossible

If Webber has got the contract situation wrong, Alpine could effectively end Piastri’s F1 career.
Force him to stay as reserve for 2 years. He’d become irrelevant.

Seems like Alpine may have monumentally c0cked this up from afar - apparently Piastri's deal with them or clause in his contract expired on 31st July...then Alonso without their knowledge announces he is off on 1st August right away, and Piastri doesn't want to drive for them. Surely too much going on there to be a coincidence...

They messed up not getting him a seat in the sport this year - and now have seemingly lost him forever. What a way to manage a precious talent, who you could build your team around for the next half decade

Fernando Alonso seems to be enjoying the carnage at Alpine…

Anyway there’s a few rumours indicating Piastri could actually have an offer from AlphaTauri. Pierre Gasly would be offered to Alpine in a swap.

At least Alpine have Esteban Ocon on a contract until the end of 2024.

Something that slipped under the radar with the Alpine meltdown, Honda announced they will continue their ‘technical support’ deal with Red Bull until the end of 2025 - basically a full works deal but all hush hush as to tow the Japanese government’s orders.

Anyway Honda wants to be title sponsor in 2023 as they massively regret leaving officially in 2021.

Gonna be a long old name if they do become title sponsor - Honda Oracle Red Bull Racing RBPT. Yeah I think Red Bull Racing sounds better...

Additionally Honda made an offer to buy out Red Bull for 2026, full takeover. Offer was ‘politely’ declined as Red Bull has a deal with Porsche. Also Dietrich Mateschitz has no interest in leaving F1. Honda not interested at present in AlphaTauri as they don’t get Verstappen, Horner or Newey with that team.

Lastly for Daniel Ricciardo to leave McLaren, the rumoured fee of $15m isn’t accurate. For Ricciardo to agree to leave, McLaren must pay him $25m. McLaren didn’t really think out the contract. Leaving all the options in Ricciardo’s favour.

No name Bertie wrote:At least Alpine have Esteban Ocon on a contract until the end of 2024.  

Mercedes has a option on Ocon, theoretically if Hamilton leaves at the end of 2023, Wolff will take Ocon.

Honda pulling out when they did, given the likely trajectory that the then current Red Bull - Honda team were on, seemed like a poorly thought out decision.  Then again the precarious nature that this left Red Bull in resulted in an agreement to freeze engine performance - power output development (except for reliability). I am not sure 100% why Honda decided to leave, but I think I heard that they wanted to focus resources on developing renewables and electric. I recall Toto Wolff's sales pitch to Mercedes - the amount of free advertising F1 generates more than makes up for their investment, although at that time Mercedes were the dominant car.

It's worth remembering Honda are also awaiting the engine rules for 2026, so they could offer a full works deal to a team like McLaren - you could argue the Honda PU is the best around at this moment in time.

When you factor in the 2026 line up:
Ferrrai works team
Mercedes works team
Alpine works team
Red Bull + Porsche works team
AlphaTauri + Porsche works team
Sauber + Audi works teams
Haas + Ferrari full partnership

That leaves Aston Martin, McLaren and Williams as potential partners for Honda if they don't start their own works team

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