2022 - No regrets, 2023 - Let's go (presuming Red Bull have challengers this year)

2022 - No regrets on not posting

Well, it cannot have escaped those eagle-eyed readers amongst all five of you (I'm being generous with my reader numbers), that I didn't squeeze out a blog at all in 2022. I think that is the first full year since starting this blog with my esteemed colleague in 2010, that I have gone a full year and not dropped one out. 

I'm not going to do any roundups of 2022 or big analysis here now, what would be the point?

At varying stages of the season, and to varying levels, I lost interest in F1 frankly. There were some fun races and some great battles. But there were a fair few dull races, let downs, too, with Max winning what, 15 or 16 races out of however many, the driver and car package started to remind me of Schumacher and Ferrari in 2001-2004 and Lewis and Mercedes between 2017 and 2020 (once Vettel had fallen away mid-season in 2017 and 2018). 

The race winner was more often than not very predictable. I like my F1 with battles for first, not focused on midfield fights for 9th or 10th. Hey ho.

Ok,ok, it would had to have been a monumental 2022 to better the insane championship fight we had in 2021. Let's face it, 2021 had it all and then some (a real once in a generation fight that got nasty on track, like Senna vs Prost etc)! But once Red Bull pegged back Ferrari it felt like game over by mid-season in 2022 (and Ferrari started throwing things away with strategy errors and driver errors etc - question?)...

My head was more than turned by MotoGP in 2022. I'd been following championships past, on and off over the last 2 or 3 years, but my interest exploded in 2022. As my F1 interest faltered at times, my interest in MotoGP grew and grew. The title race was immense, most races had fights at the front and all the way through the field. What a title race and climax at the end, with Francesco Bagnaia looking out of it around half-way, around 90 odd points behind Fabio Quartararo. How Bagnaia turned it around is almost beyond comprehension.

Optimistic outlook for F1 2023

I am hopefully optimistic for F1 2023, and here is why.

Alonso at Aston Martin (I am a huge Alonso fan)

Fair play to Fernando Alonso for snapping up a position at Aston Martin. Alpine were beyond useless on all fronts for securing a driver alongside Ocon for 2023. Apparently they offered Alonso a 1+1 year deal, which if you read the writing on the wall, it sort of looked like they were keeping Piastri in the wings to take over from Alonso the minute they didn't think he was performing.

Alonso preempted them, by buggering off to Aston Martin on a multi-year deal (read 2 or 3 I think?), in the space created by Vettel retiring. 

You're 41, and your current team have left you feeling a little devalued, then a team with a huge development budget comes in and makes you feel immediately wanted with a big deal for multiple years and no doubt an even bigger salary. Bit of a no-brainer really. He is enjoying F1, driving very well indeed, and he wants to ensure he is here for a few more years yet. Aston Martin guaranteed him more years in F1.

Mercedes and Hamilton licking their wounds

Compared to their title-winning cars, Mercedes built a bit of a shitbox for 2022. Hamilton spent more of the early races with different parts on the car in practice sessions, thus negating any good setup time for qualifying and races. Russell drove consistently well all year pretty much. So, both Mercedes and Hamilton will be looking forward to building a race-winning car and thus something to beat Red Bull with again.

Ferrari have to do better, right?

They had the quickest car over one lap in 2022, but through a combination of cock ups and Red Bull improving, they managed to fritter away any title possibilities fairly early on in the season really. If they can build a fast car again and rid themselves of their strategy mess ups, then I am hoping that, along with Merc, we have a 3-team battle at the front.

Alpine fireworks

Interesting that as soon as Alonso said he was leaving, there were bullets being spat left, right and centre between him and Ocon. It seemed an otherwise ok relationship, aside from one or two very close tussles on track (Ocon blocking Alonso off the grid at Hungary, thus moving them both back around 5 places for one!).

Now we have Gasly alongside Ocon. These two famously fell out a few years ago. It is all nice and cordial at the moment. Of course it is. Two French drivers in a French team, they have to appear to be making an effort. I guarantee it will go to shit on track and the relationship will dissolve very quickly in 2023, which is fantastic for the neutrals! After all, looking back, it does seem to be Ocon a lot of the time who has on track prangs with teammates.

Stupid rules (will be broken!)

The silliest rule yet, that F1 drivers cannot speak about politics or religion without prior permission, is beyond stupid. In this day and age, some drivers like using F1 as a platform to raise awareness of things going on in the world. But F1 has to think about the money of course. What if our star driver offends this country with horrific human rights records that gives us buckets and buckets of money? Pft!

That is all I can think of for now. See you again soon in 2023! Next up, car launches!!!

Farce - my still prevaling feelings on the 2021 title climax

Farce (noun) - a comic dramatic work using buffoonery and horseplay and typically including crude characterization and ludicrously improbable situations.

- an event or situation that is absurd or disorganised.

I wasn't sure where to begin, so I went with my still prevailing feelings on the race that was in Abu Dhabi.

I should also state early on, I am neither a big fan of Lewis or Max, but it is my solid belief that the actions of Race Control late in the race made this an absolute farce of an ending to a world title race.

I am not upset that either Max or Lewis won or lost. I am annoyed because our sport looked pretty stupid today.

You simply cannot change the rules on the fly just because it makes a better show. End of. If this were any other race in the year, other than the final one where the title is being decided, I highly suspect it would have ended under the safety car. Andrew Benson at the BBC has apparently spoken to many people who think the same.

There has been a lot of "just let them race" from Race Control lately, and indeed some of it has sparked debate amongst drivers as to the track limits and where and how an acceptable overtake can be made.

Letting them race today, for one lap at the end, after having told all the cars between Lewis and Max to unlap themselves (but ignoring the other cars further down the field that could also have unlapped themselves, but were not allowed), then saying the safety car is coming in on the same lap too, that is two blatant rule changes right there to make it a better show for one lap. I sort of see where Michael Masi was coming from, but was this fair? Absolutely not. 

If you start tearing up the rule book to suit different situations, how are teams and drivers to know what is coming next? An absolute joke frankly. 

Those rules being, in the F1 rulebook, either all cars unlap themselves under the Safety Car, or none. After that has happened, the Safety Car comes in the following lap, not on the same lap (I think?). 

This season has been full of stewards, race control, appeals, penalties, swearing on team radio, collisions, angry words from teams to race control....bitter words between team principals. So in one way I am not surprised it has ended as it has been all year.

But, do I agree with this ending? Absolutely not. Anyone new to F1 who had tuned into see this race will need someone to explain to them "yep they changed the rules to allow them to race on the last lap". In my humble opinion, Lewis was actually robbed clean. 

Damon Hill tweeted about how it all seems there's a bit too much of "guess what I'm going to do next" from Race Control here. 

Also another tweet from Damon about what Race Control said regarding all teams had already agreed to end races on a green flag racing situation where possible here. 

But surely, they would have assumed all rules would be followed to get that green flag racing situation, not half followed and half made up....

The timeline included Masi saying no cars would be allowed to unlap themselves. Horner, clearly thinking time was running out and they'd finish behind the Safety Car, got on the radio to complain about this to Michael Masi. Masi then changes his mind and allows all the backmarkers between Lewis and Max to get out of the way of Max and go and unlap themselves. Brutal. With Max on new soft tyres and Lewis on old Hard tyres, Lewis was a sitting duck.

To me, the race result was as artificial as a DRS pass frankly. 

Get rid of DRS please, on a related note. Make the cars so they run better in dirty air, then bloody scrap DRS for the love of F1 please!!!

I also do not like either of the main team principals moaning over the radio trying to influence things happening in the race. Horner did it, so did Wolff (please don't make this a full safety car Michael), during the virtual safety car period.

I will write more in the coming days, more in-depth about Lewis and Max and the race. But this is my immediate reaction. We simply cannot have Race Control changing/ adapting rules on the fly, as otherwise why have a rulebook in the first place? Ok it's a tough job no doubt, but today he got it very wrong indeed.

If you no longer go for a gap that exists, you are no longer a racing driver

 19.7.21

A quote from perhaps the greatest of them all, the idol of Lewis Hamilton, Ayrton Senna. Was Lewis channelling that mantra as he arrived at Copse on lap 1?

Ok, as my former blogging colleague, and co-founder of this very blog, pointed out, that quote was from 30 years ago, of a different time in F1, where Senna perhaps got away with things here and there. These days F1 is very risk averse in comparison, hence penalties are dished out for all sorts.

I’ve been texting my F1 mates a lot about this and overall, opinion seems fairly divided. Channel 4 pundits DC and Mark Webber said Lewis shouldn’t have left his wheel in there and that he got off fairly lightly on the penalty. Though I have since seen that LeClerc and Alonso both labelled it a racing incident. Norris seemed less inclined to give his opinion. Fans of both drivers will no doubt back each of their guys.

I have no doubt Horner and Wolff, if their positions were swapped, would be saying the exact things the other is saying right now (and directly after the race).

And let us be honest, do we really think Max would have done any different if he were in Lewis’ position?

 

Racing incident 

I am calling the Lewis vs Max crash at Silverstone a racing incident. Both guys were super aggressive and neither wanted to back off. When that happens, inevitably there is a crash. Perhaps there was 5% more blame on Lewis, because he wasn’t on the usual line for Copse, and Max was.

Though Max knew Lewis was there and was probably expecting him to back off. But unlike the other couple of near moments they have had in races this year, where Lewis had to back off to avoid an accident against the always aggressive Max, this time he didn’t.

Maybe that did come from a moment of desperation. Perhaps he had to overtake Max on lap 1 and make it stick, otherwise Max would have pulled away and disappeared into the distance. 33 points in the title race is a fair way off.

But, Lewis was alongside far enough to be entitled to think it was his corner. Contradicting myself here, but on the flipside he was on a very tight angle and understeering. See, even as I write this I can’t decide entirely where blame should lie.

Andrew Benson, the F1 analyst at BBC, makes some good points in his article. That Lewis has not really had any big title pressure in the last couple of years. 2017 and 18 early on there was a nibble from Vettel, which faded over the course of the seasons. You need to go back to 2016 for when the pressure was last turned up to 10. And Lewis did make a couple of mistakes back then, the big one in Barcelona of course (when Rosberg was ahead and perfectly entitled to slam the door shut on Lewis, causing Lewis to brake and spin onto the grass and clatter into Nico). Nico did not back off at all in 2016 in these sorts of situations, where he perhaps had done previously.

 

24.7.21

Ok, I needed to step away for a few days to clear my head on this one. Red Bull have since announced that the crash could cost them up to £1.3m! Ouch!

It is clear that emotions were very high in the aftermath, from all sides. Christian Horner has mellowed a little since then perhaps. I don’t really agree with Max tweeting from hospital saying he found Lewis celebrating to be disrespectful. They crashed, Lewis was told Max was out of the car and essentially ok. I think, if anything, the fact Lewis still won with that penalty just shows how far ahead Mercedes and Red Bull are of the rest.

 

Drivers of the weekend?

As good as Hamilton’s win was, I can’t give him driver of the weekend when he has been involved in punting his rival into the kitty litter.

You’d have to go some way to beat LeClerc on this for me. That Ferrari had no right being in first place for most of the grand prix. But he showed yet again just what a supreme talent he truly is. And let us not forget that Hamilton was helped out by Ferrari car gremlins as he caught and passed LeClerc.

 

Let us also consider the quite mighty weekend from none other than Fernando Alonso. His sprint race start was utterly electric, going from 11^th to 5^th! Ok he had soft tyres, but his starts have always been mighty, and he found a way around the outside of a couple of cars at least. Then he spent the second half of the sprint race in 7^th fending off a queue of faster cars behind him. As like the Ferrari of LeClerc in the main race, that Alpine had no real business being that high up the order. He spent the grand prix in 7^th, fending off cars behind him too. A true fighting drive.

 

Driver of the year so far

Is unquestionably Lando Norris. Next!

 

Sprint race yey or ney?

I think from a spectator point of view, having qualifying on Friday in place of practice sessions worked well. Let’s face it, most practice sessions are boring to watch.

Then having a mini race on Saturday was diverting enough for a few laps, then it all settled and got very boring very quickly. As most people have remarked, it was saved by Alonso seemingly being in a rocket ship.

I am undecided really. I think the sprint race needs some tweaking if it is to be a permanent fixture, but I hope it really just fades away as for an OCD chap like myself it messes with records a bit. They did a usual qualifying session on Friday and it wasn’t pole position, it was “speed king”. Huh?

 

The championship year ahead

The crash was perhaps inevitable, the way the two protagonists race. And there will be a couple more before the end of the year. The gloves are well and truly off now and we’ll all be watching to see how it pans out in Hungary. For the neutral, this is utterly fantastic.