[Other Sport] F1 2022

[JackB247]

Thanks for your insightful F1 posts this year Audax.

Glad the season is over - let's hope that, come Bahrain in March, the Red Bull dominance is over.

 

[Audax]

Thanks for your insightful F1 posts this year Audax.

Glad the season is over - let's hope that, come Bahrain in March, the Red Bull dominance is over.

I'll keep an eye out for anything noteworthy over the off season and put it in the 2023 thread - but I'm expecting the aero testing restrictions will peg Red Bull back. There's a few options for generating a far more competitive (for WDC / WCC) season in 2023:

1. Red Bull aero testing restrictions limit their in-season development. RB have been the masters of this for years (even when they were relatively struggling), but they'll be short on wind tunnel runs and CFD for next season. I'm expecting their car to be very strong for race 1, but then not develop as strongly through the season and get pegged back the longer the season goes.

2. Ferrari are able to sort out their power unit reliability. Their performance drop off this season was at least partly the result of turning down the power output on their ICE as well as being more affected by high altitude with their smaller turbo (fun fact: smaller turbo = better acceleration, but the turbo has to work harder - and that working harder gets worse at high altitude tracks such as Mexico) and thus having to turn down the turbo for some races as well. If they sort the reliability, expect them to be stronger.

3. Mercedes have actually figured out what went wrong with the 2022 car and are able to fix it for 2023. They (eventually) got the 2022 car working, more or less, but the final 2-3 tenths they needed to challenge RB regularly remained locked up by the car faults. If they've genuinely identified the source of the problem and remove it for the next car, they could come out from race 1 on the pace.

4. A surprise from midfield.

a. Alpine have made small steps forward this season - can they translate that into a leap into the "tier 1" pack for 2023? (I doubt it)​

b. McLaren return to form? (Suspect the best they'll be able to manage is to put themselves back ahead of Alpine in no-man's land between 3rd and 5th)​

c. Aston Martin - this for me is the potential dark horse. Their 2023 car will be the first that benefits from the input of Dan Fallows (poached from RB) and other significant staffing investment since Stroll took over.​

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(I cross-posted this to the 2023 thread as well)