F1 2023 thread

He won't get a better seat though. Is there even a better seat than 2nd RB driver? Remember this is a guy who was out of F1 if RB didnt sign him.

Perez is a good 2 , upper middle of the pack probably but I'd rate him behind Russell, behind Max obv, behind the likes of leclerc, alonso, gasly et al. He's doing a job in the Bottas role. Be a good boy and race well but don't challenge the clear number 1. It was the same with Irvine and Barrichello when MSC was at ferrari. You can't have 2 top class drivers in one team if you aren't the best car by a mile as you'll take points off each other.

There's one thing Checo won't do and that's rock the boat, Marko won't let him and probably demote him to Alpha Tauri like he did with Gasly when he got too big for his boots. Checo is the 5th or 6th best driver on the grind, he's good for a podium and the odd win but lacks the ability to turn up the pace when he needs too like Verstappen or Hamilton and the qualifying pace can be hit or miss. He has the cop on to play the team game and take his chances when he gets them. Assuming RB,Merc and Ferrari will be on the pace next season, Checo might not have it easy

They also have one of the most recognisable drivers on the grid who’s got a bit of a cult following. Easy marketing material for them. A win win

I don't think Danny Ric will ever take Checo's spot. I don't think DR's ego/competitiveness would ever allow him to play the no. 2 role as graciously as Checo.. And he's certainly not going to win a WDC so I don't see RB taking him over Checo anytime soon.. The way I see it, they either get a contender for the second car or a clear no.2. Getting someone in the middle just doesn't make sense, it would hamper the team.

More chatter of Binotto hitting the road

I really can't picture a scenario where Danny Ric will willingly play second fiddle to Max the way Checo did. Doesn't matter if it's that or out of F1, Danny would take out.

I think RTE might have added 2+1 to get 4. Not quite at 2+2 yet.

No sign of the BBC or Sky Sports reporting he's definitely gone.

My half Italian nephew said to me: Uncle-a Jordan, Binotto is-a outta the door-a 😉

If I remember correctly they commented that the Hamliton Rosberg title season was bad for the team.

Merc did let George and Lewis race this year, but they were racing for nothing. If either one was in spitting distance of the title, and were clear of the team mate, I'd expect them to be given the preference. If they were only battling each other, I'd expect them to be allowed to race.

Max was clear of Checo this season not because Checo played second fiddle to him, but because Max was much better. Same as Bottas playing second fiddle to Lewis, it was generally clear that Lewis was way ahead of him. I' sure we can find instances of the 'no.2' being asked to move over, but I don't think we will find many 'pull over on the back straight to give him the points' scenarios - most of the time it is just getting the faster driver ahead.

Binotto gone

some of the experts here can maybe confirm this - I read somewhere that the cars need to have a 15mm higher ground clearance at the rear (a regulation change for 2023) and, more importantly, this has been done specifically because of Mercedes complaining about the porpoising issue in 2022 and how it is bad for the health of the drivers - repotedly quite a few of the teams are unhappy about this (the teams that did not have porpoising as an issue)

Ferrari have a major problem with their management structure.

As it stands, the day-to-day Principal of the Scuderia and the guy sitting o21n the F1 pitwall, is also the head of Gestione Sportiva (all Ferrari racing efforts) and a member of the Ferrari S.p.A board. Until today that was Mattia.

Its worth remembering that Ferrari also has a massive GT and customer racing programme, works as an engine supplier and as of 2023 will run a full WEC/Le Mans Hypercar programme with the new 499P, which for my money will be every bit as tough as an F1 season, given the amount of competition which will be joining them from Porsche, Peugeot, BMW, Cadillac, Honda etc and the very restricted rules.

Ferrari needs the Sporting Director to sit at board level, with a separate executive manager responsible for each of the strands of racing I mentioned above, especially the F1 team, where the Team Principal has no other job than to oversee the development and operations of the Scuderia.

That model can be seen in other teams. Christian Horner runs Red Bull Advanced Technologies, which manages the RBR effort, but Horner has no seat on the RB board, but answers to a joint CEO called Mintzlaff, just as he did to the late Dietrich Mateschitz.

McLaren has Andreas Seidel as Team Principal. He in turn reports to Zak Brown as CEO of McLaren Racing and then Brown sits on the board of McLaren Group.

The separation of duties and reporting lines is clear and necessary and Ferrari don't have that. They should get a new sporting director to wear the Fendi suits and get Guenther Steiner in to run the F1 team at ground level, as Principal.

Of course he did, as Elkman is CEO of Ferrari S.p.A.

But both Ferrari S.p.A. and its sporting division are massively bigger now than they were in the days of Jean Todt. (600% more road cars produced now)

Having the guy on the pitwall and who pushes operations on the factory floor of 4 distinct racing efforts, being the same guy who sits on the Board, in an organisation the size of Ferrari, is mental.

I see the FIA have officially cancelled the Chinese GP for next year due to the Covid situation there. So down to 23 races for next year unless they decide to go somewhere else for that weekend instead.

Get rid of China and bring back Germany

Interesting ranking of the teams in terms of driver pairing for next year. Ranked by The-Race journalists.

Ah, they're a bit more interesting than that. It's actual racing journalists rather than the public and they give decent reasoning for their opinions.

Mclaren having a rookie makes them a bit unknown. But Norris is excellent and he'd fit in at any of the top teams. I'd rate him better than perez and Sainz. Up there with Russell, Leclerc and Hamilton last year.

I think Aponso will make a fool of Stroll next year. Now Vettel is gone, people won't need to pretend he's a good driver to make vettel look decebt by comparison. I think he'll be really shown up next year.

You think AM deliberately slowed Vettel down? That's silly. I wo der of you think they have a spin button to make Veteran lose control of the car from time to time. Why get an excellent driver like alonso, pay him a fortune and then slow him down? Silly stuff.

I don't see much to disagree with in the ranking. The reasoning is pretty sound. There's wiggle room as there always is with opi ions, but I thought it was a pretty well reasoned opinion.

Ah yeah but are you eing ironic saying they did it deliberately or do you really think they did it?

Vettel was slower than expected and spun more than expected, which follows a long pattern for him since 2018. No conspiracy theory needed to explain it.

Think he was replaced by Binotto as team principal in January 2019, the F1 season starts in March. Didn't really cut the mustard at ferrari while he was there.