2023 Bahrain Grand Prix - Sakhir, March 03 - 05

[AR3-GP]

Like the W11 with everyone elses hands tied behind their backs because of cost cap!

I dont like the cost cap idea since it cripples competition.

There needs to be a better way.

To me, if there is a cost cap, the construction rules do not need to be so tight, as it was supposedly to save costs.
With things so closely regulated any tiny edge is going to be enormously expensive, and there is no way an enterprising team can grab an edge by doing something different or unexpected because it is ruled out.

As long as the cost cap is met, why are al the restrictions needed?


I agree some are for safety or to be 'green', but there is no wriggle room with or without spare cash and geniuses engineers and designers. it is like Lego, you use what's in the box, you can not add anything

You're missing the point.

Let me try explaining it this way. Without the restrictive regulations, the field spread would be even larger. In many ways the regulations tell you HOW to build an F1 car within a given performance window. Without such "guard rails" preventing the designers from straying too far from one another, one team would end up even further ahead than RB, and others even further behind than Haas and because the design space was so big, it would be even harder for a team to try and copy a successful design.

[Mostlyeels]

RedBull can now stop spending on RB19 and focus on the RB20. It's 2000 to 2004 again. Times when you watch F1 and read the sunday paper at the same time.

The "battle" for first was pretty dull, but also the post-race vibe coming from Ferrari and Merc is like they've half given up already. At least AMR added some spectacle, plus the midfield was pretty tight (and with some unexpected winners e.g. Williams).

Let's just not talk about McLaren (speaking as a fan)

[langedweil]

AM performance today makes the case for the cost cap.

No it doesnt.

Except, it does .. it's now about utilizing your development tools to the max (money/ideas/concepts/tools/time) instead of chucking more money & ppl in the blender.

The fact it's harder to catch up isn't much different than the dev-tokens back in the day; that was especially handy if you were able to race for wins with a PU at only 70/80%.

See now why the non-MB ppl outhere took a bit of issue with that whole goat concept ?
There is no goats, there is excellent cars and excellent drivers .. and Latifi ofcourse.

[CHT]

Like the W11 with everyone elses hands tied behind their backs because of cost cap!

I dont like the cost cap idea since it cripples competition.

There needs to be a better way.

To me, if there is a cost cap, the construction rules do not need to be so tight, as it was supposedly to save costs.
With things so closely regulated any tiny edge is going to be enormously expensive, and there is no way an enterprising team can grab an edge by doing something different or unexpected because it is ruled out.

As long as the cost cap is met, why are al the restrictions needed?


I agree some are for safety or to be 'green', but there is no wriggle room with or without spare cash and geniuses engineers and designers. it is like Lego, you use what's in the box, you can not add anything

You're missing the point.

Let me try explaining it this way. Without the restrictive regulations, the field spread would be even larger. In many ways the regulations tell you HOW to build an F1 car within a given performance window. Without such "guard rails" preventing the designers from straying too far from one another, one team would end up even further ahead than RB, and others even further behind than Haas and because the design space was so big, it would be even harder for a team to try and copy a successful design.

Over the last 13 seasons, only 2 teams have won the championship, Merc = 7, RBR = 6

2010 to 2013 - RBR dominated the V8 KERs engine era with Renault
2014 to 2020 - Mer dominated the 1.6-litre V6 hybrid engines era
2022 to 2025 - RBR likely to dominate the 1.6-litre V6 E10 fuel era?

Very likely. Perhaps till 2024 at least since Merc and Ferrari will not be able to make performance gain on engine

[AR3-GP]

To me, if there is a cost cap, the construction rules do not need to be so tight, as it was supposedly to save costs.
With things so closely regulated any tiny edge is going to be enormously expensive, and there is no way an enterprising team can grab an edge by doing something different or unexpected because it is ruled out.

As long as the cost cap is met, why are al the restrictions needed?


I agree some are for safety or to be 'green', but there is no wriggle room with or without spare cash and geniuses engineers and designers. it is like Lego, you use what's in the box, you can not add anything

You're missing the point.

Let me try explaining it this way. Without the restrictive regulations, the field spread would be even larger. In many ways the regulations tell you HOW to build an F1 car within a given performance window. Without such "guard rails" preventing the designers from straying too far from one another, one team would end up even further ahead than RB, and others even further behind than Haas and because the design space was so big, it would be even harder for a team to try and copy a successful design.

Over the last 13 seasons, only 2 teams have won the championship, Merc = 7, RBR = 6

2010 to 2013 - RBR dominated the V8 KERs engine era with Renault
2014 to 2020 - Mer dominated the 1.6-litre V6 hybrid engines era
2022 to 2025 - RBR likely to dominate the 1.6-litre V6 E10 fuel era?

Very likely. Perhaps till 2024 at least since Merc and Ferrari will not be able to make performance gain on engine

How does this counter the point? If the regs were even more free, you might just have a different team doing the domination (the one who picked a crazy 6 wheel concept that no one else could adopt quickly), and then the gap to last even bigger.

[Sofa King]

For all the talk about Aston Martin’s leap forward and Mercedes failed concept, AM still finished 38 seconds behind and Ferrari was 10 seconds behind that. Red Bull is in another league vs every other team and no one is close enough to challenge them. The rest of the season will be like trying to push the buttons on the arcade when your credits have run out. Game over. F1 will become more and more of an off-track spectacle since the racing is boring af.

Mod edit: quoted post deleted

[ChrisF1]

It's been one race. Alonso was out of position compared to his pace, so I don't know why people are saying he was so far behind as if he had a perfect clear track like Max did.

As for those who are saying it's Red Bull dominance - it was dominance last year because Ferrari kept throwing races away.

There's nothing to say that track dependent order won't be a thing this year.

But again, it's only Merc fans who are going OTT with this, as if they didn't have the biggest cheat code in F1.

[Spoutnik]

[mendis]

RedBull can now stop spending on RB19 and focus on the RB20. It's 2000 to 2004 again. Times when you watch F1 and read the sunday paper at the same time.

I wonder what happened to that performance ceiling thing that RB was suppoed to hit and others making gains because their concepts have more development avenue compared to RB. As there is no change in regulations from 2023 to 24, there is no need to stop the development/spending on RB19 as all of it's developments would carry over to 2024. May be if FIA can publish the 2026 car regulations, then RB can start spending some money on that.

[mendis]

Looking through all the FP2 long run numbers, I think this is where teams stand. My best guess.

1. Red Bull
2. Aston Martin
3. Ferrari
4. Alpine
5. McLaren
6. Mercedes
7. Alfa Romeo
8. Haas
9. Williams
10. Alpha Tauri

Based on a practice session? I will give my opinion on this post after the race on Sunday

I think I overrated Alpine and McLaren and under estimated Williams. Your comments please.

[DChemTech]

Lot of doom and gloom after what was actually an entertaining race - except for P1, there was definitely some action, more than in most of the previous era with the impossible-to-follow-the-car-ahead trains.

- Mercedes did better than I expected based on testing. Combined with AMR coming up, we may have a genuine fight between Fer, MB and AMR - instead of a top 2, no-mans-land 3, and the rest. Very curious to see what the teams have in the pipeline still.

- Great job from Williams. I expected them to go up a bit, then testing didn't look too great... but Albon delivered. Wonderful, hope they can keep it up. Also good job from Yuki - I expected AT to be more to the back.

- Haas disappointed; I did not expect Nico to retain his top 10 position, but didn't expect him to drop all the way back.

Now I understand some of the gloomy feeling here - Max was ahead by a lot. On the other hand, it's race 1, there's a long season ahead, and there is the effect of reduced development time that may hamper Red Bull. So I wouldn't call anything done and dusted just yet - and even if P1 is set, there's a lot more potential for action in the rest of the field with the current formula than with the 2014-2021 trains. Also, some of the complaints just seem plain wrong in my mind.

The ironic thing now is that the cost cap is working right against what it was supposed to achieve.

I do not see how that would possibly be true. In 2014-2020, without a cost cap, we saw a single team dominating. The top 3 teams essentially spent the same, so for them, there's no difference between having a cost cap or not in terms of relative spending - things are not more locked in now then they were then. For the rest of the field, they were spending much less - meaning that there's a lot more potential for them to reasonably catch up (or not see the top of the field run away further with their absurd spending). Without the cost cap, things would just be worse.

Had the 2021 regulations been kept, we would have had at least 3 teams within 2 tenths of each other both last year and this year, and amazing seasons for years to come.

Maybe if they kept the exact same wording, but they rarely do. And even minor reg changes can prevent this from happening. 2020 was one of Mercedes' most dominant years, yet minor changes aside, it was 6 years into that set of regulations. On the other hand, 2022, with a whole new regulation set, started off perfectly - with Ferrari competitive and leading. Then they started dropping the ball again, and were crippled by a mid-season rule change - but before that, things looked good despite a complete rule overhaul. And at least, in contrast to 2014-2021, cars were able to follow each other and we saw some spiced up racing in the rest of the field.

I enjoyed those seasons when Nico and Lewis were at least battling it out.

That was one season, really. In the others, it was pretty clear who was winning.

but Checo will not provide any intra-team competition, and that sucks

Bit early to say that. I don't expect any 2016 level stuff, but he seems to be more comfortable with the current car. It may at least be similar to Hamilton - Bottas. It's been one race - let's not draw conclusions that cannot be drawn yet.

[DChemTech]

RedBull can now stop spending on RB19 and focus on the RB20. It's 2000 to 2004 again. Times when you watch F1 and read the sunday paper at the same time.

I wonder what happened to that performance ceiling thing that RB was suppoed to hit and others making gains because their concepts have more development avenue compared to RB. As there is no change in regulations from 2023 to 24, there is no need to stop the development/spending on RB19 as all of it's developments would carry over to 2024. May be if FIA can publish the 2026 car regulations, then RB can start spending some money on that.

Let's make 2025 a reset season.
Publish the 2026 rules in '25, and allow teams to only spend their time on that.
For 2025, make all the teams run F2 cars for a season. Also allows us to evaluate pure driver performance for once

[etusch]

Congratulations to Alonso. He had wonderfull race and wonderfull drive. He would be 3d without Leclerc dnf if he were able to start good.

[mendis]

The ironic thing now is that the cost cap is working right against what it was supposed to achieve. It would only work on the assumption that all teams started out in 2022 within a couple of tenths of each other. Now when the RB concept is the proven winner, they have a 2 year development advantage which no one will be able to catch up to with limited resources. Had the 2021 regulations been kept, we would have had at least 3 teams within 2 tenths of each other both last year and this year, and amazing seasons for years to come.

I don't understand this 'blame the regulations' thing. Regulatory changes have been constant in the sport. Some teams get it right and some wrong. Without the cost cap, the teams were going bankrupt and the sport was in self destruction mode. In 2012, they were thinking of implementing RRA (resource restriction agreement) of which, Brawn was the biggest proponent.

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/ross- ... 7/4452037/

Mercedes has been involved in talks with Ferrari, McLaren and Red Bull Racing to try and reach agreement on the RRA, following disagreements about various aspects of the deal teams are currently working to.

Those discussions have not produced a positive outcome, but Brawn thinks it vital efforts are ramped up to try and get the matter sorted.

"The RRA is very important," he said. "We have to find some means of restraining the costs in Formula 1, as technical and sporting regulations can only go so far.

"The concept is very important, but it does need everyone to commit to it and work together to find the best solution to having an RRA system.

"We are committed to it, and we are going to persevere to try and make sure it is applied properly and is part of the future of F1, because without it we are at higher risk."

[TimW]

The progress of AM is showing that the cost cap and the wind tunnel time restrictions based on WCC position are effective. AM finished 7th, and because of that they are are allocated 42% more wind tunnel & CFD time than the #1 finisher (58% if you include Red Bull's penalty). Combined with an approach of taking inspiration of others (=RB) and improving on that with their own ideas, they have put that to very effective use.

Red Bull stayed very close to their 2022 car, with lots of carry over. Yes they can do that because the 2022 car was very fast, but no doubt it is also driven by the wind tunnel time restrictions they have. They do not have the time to go exploring different directions, unlike AM will have the time to do that. So I very much expect AM to get closer as the year progresses.

Mercedes suffer because they won the 2021 WCC so they started with the least wind tunnel time. Combined with making some wrong development choices that hurts. Now they are shooting themselves in the foot by staying stubbornly with this concept. Working on another concept in parallel only makes things worse, because you have to allocated budget and wind tunnel time to two concepts. RB allocating everything to one concept will be better off.

And to the complaining Merc fans, remember that Mercedes is still a front runner (or at least was last year). The mechanism to balance the field are not so much there for them, but more for the teams further back. Like AM was last year. Merc just got it wrong, and they can only blame themselves for that, not the cost cap, or the breach by Red Bull.

Edit:
Toto Wolff: “The starting base is very different where we are today. We have lost a year in development and in order to have a steeper development curve you just need to take these decisions. Aston Martin took that decision and they came back strong." (from https://the-race.com/formula-1/mark-hug ... -template/)