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I think Alfa Romeo with Bottas and the new Ferrari PU will be the 2022 Alpha Tauri.
I can see Bottas enjoying being out of the limelight and not being constantly compared to Hamilton. I think he'll put in some "oh, that was a good drive" moments because he'll be back enjoying himself again. No more "to whom it may concern" stuff, and more of the fun stuff.
Yes, feeling exactly the same. I believe his experience at Mercedes will help Alfa too.
I think Alfa Romeo with Bottas and the new Ferrari PU will be the 2022 Alpha Tauri.
I can see Bottas enjoying being out of the limelight and not being constantly compared to Hamilton. I think he'll put in some "oh, that was a good drive" moments because he'll be back enjoying himself again. No more "to whom it may concern" stuff, and more of the fun stuff.
I wonder what the ratio of "i'm no longer under scrutiny" vs "I drove the best race of my life and finished 7th" is...
I imagine he'll feel really good at first but not so good next year.
I think Alfa Romeo with Bottas and the new Ferrari PU will be the 2022 Alpha Tauri.
I can see Bottas enjoying being out of the limelight and not being constantly compared to Hamilton. I think he'll put in some "oh, that was a good drive" moments because he'll be back enjoying himself again. No more "to whom it may concern" stuff, and more of the fun stuff.
I wonder what the ratio of "i'm no longer under scrutiny" vs "I drove the best race of my life and finished 7th" is...
I imagine he'll feel really good at first but not so good next year.
I guess someone could ask Seb how he's enjoying AM. We know he's still got the racer's instinct as he still gets annoyed even though he's fighting for crumbs in the midfield. It'll be interesting to see whether Bottas gets stroppy on the radio if it's not going well. That would give us a good indication of whether he's just happy to be driving or if the racer's instinct is still strong.
If you are more fortunate than others, build a larger table not a taller fence.
During the entire hybrid era until 2019, they had to depend on Renault giving them an engine and most of the time not knowing the exact details until it was too late, therefore a lot of DNF's, breakdowns and technical issues which resulted in RB having a bad start to new regulation changes, they had to build around the engine instead of the engine fitting into their concept.
Honda have had all year to work on and improve this great power unit for 2022 and as this engine was designed for 2022 anyway, the new fuel should work well with it.
In 2019/2020 the RB chassis was an issue but Max could deal with it and all they were missing was the extra engine power which they did get this year. In 2019, he could have challenged Mercedes as well imo with this power unit.
I can't imagine Alfa being on top from nowhere. Neither Bottas.
But it is new regulations and it looks quite a different direction to me. So I can imagine that some of the teams completely get it wrong, but also a few interesting solutions. Let's hope Alpine gets it right, for instance. But it would be a bit of a surprise.
I thought Newey is supposed to be best in those kind of reshuffles.
How is the Mclaren team? they missed the boat a few times, but the have recruited a lot of new people. Some new geniuses?
But in the end: Mercedes has been creative last years so I am afraid they get it right again.
With the different regulations, it's pretty much guesswork who will do well. I expect the big teams that can fully fill the budget cap and have seasoned engineers to be in the mix, but then the other teams already fully banked on 2022 dev to start with. So really, surprises can happen. I don't expect Haas to be in the mix, but you never know.
So, best guess in my view - just assume all teams are equal (since we have no banking on who will stand out yet), and rank on expected driver performance.
1: Verstappen
2: Hamilton
3: Norris
4: Leclerc
5: Russell
6: Sainz
7: Ricciardo
8: Alonso (yes, he is aging a bit...)
9: Gasly
10: Perez
11: Vettel (this is a bit of a wildcard. depends on how the cars behave. Planted rear? move him up 5 places)
12: Ocon
13: Schumacher
14: Bottas
15: Albon
16: Stroll
17: Tsunoda
18: Latifi
19: Zhou
20: Mazepin
I can't imagine Alfa being on top from nowhere. Neither Bottas.
But it is new regulations and it looks quite a different direction to me. So I can imagine that some of the teams completely get it wrong, but also a few interesting solutions. Let's hope Alpine gets it right, for instance. But it would be a bit of a surprise.
I do not think we have this in the rules. The rules this time are very tight, there are supposedly no big loop holes and no getting it wrong with the airflow around the tires. All of these open points in the last reg changes are tied now. So we will see mainly:
- Who has a good CFD and wind tunnel correlation: We know Merc and Bull are super efficient here. Ferrari is getting better.
- Who has the most engine power. Aero is strictly limited, so any kW they can squeeze from the engine with the new fuel will be crucial. Split turbo will be crucial for turbo efficiency.
- Who has the better cooling integration. As the aero is strictly limited, the size and efficiency of the cooling openings are a big differentiation. Again...Merc with its superb heat management and RedBull are prime. No non-works team will play any role in the first year as they do not have the information of the new engine cooling to get it right.
In this regard:
F1:
1. Merc. Clearly. Rus and Ham (or whoever) will battle for the F1 title.
F1.3
2. RedBull. Depends on how good they modify the Honda engine to the new rules (cooling concept, fuel). If they are super good, maybe they win in some place.
F1.6
3. Ferrari and Alpine. Strongly depends on the new engines. I guess they will have to deal with reliability until second half of 22 at least.
4. McLaren, best of the non-works.
5. Everything else non-works will not play a role.
I thought Newey is supposed to be best in those kind of reshuffles.
He is good, but no rule change he got right from the beginning....although he was preparing very long for the last two...I would see them more in the second year.
How is the Mclaren team? they missed the boat a few times, but the have recruited a lot of new people. Some new geniuses?
Will not be good. They do not have the engine info for the cooling. Merc will give them a new concept every months and they have to adapt now. Also rather interesting in the second year.
I can't imagine Alfa being on top from nowhere. Neither Bottas.
But it is new regulations and it looks quite a different direction to me. So I can imagine that some of the teams completely get it wrong, but also a few interesting solutions. Let's hope Alpine gets it right, for instance. But it would be a bit of a surprise.
I do not think we have this in the rules. The rules this time are very tight, there are supposedly no big loop holes and no getting it wrong with the airflow around the tires. All of these open points in the last reg changes are tied now.
I read some article that, up until recently, they are continuing to close any loop holes they themselves are finding. Also, queries coming from teams related to their clever interpretations are being shot down under "spirit of the rules" reasoning. Anyone trying to interpret differently, without consulting FIA, are probably in for a shock. If we continue to think with traditional hat and place the bets, it's probably going to go wrong. Especially with Cost cap coming in, can cause a lot of headaches for top teams.
Good & well reasoned, but Newey got the narrow cars right first time with McLaren in 1998, which lead to 2 years of domination and only Ferrari (Todt, Brawn, Schumacher) able to provide any challenge in 2000
Perspective - Understanding that sometimes the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.
Good & well reasoned, but Newey got the narrow cars right first time with McLaren in 1998, which lead to 2 years of domination and only Ferrari (Todt, Brawn, Schumacher) able to provide any challenge in 2000
Adrian Newey is one of the greatest race car designers of all time but, he has his weaknesses too. As seen trough history, more then once he just packed the car to tight or being to radical. His designs always had reliability problems with the early versions. Also, he is a master in evolving designs where with the new rules, it’s all new. For instance. If you look at the innovations he put into the Leyton House cars, he put them into the Williams straight after the same as his RedBulls had a lot of cues from the late McLarens (and all were fragile). Only in recent seasons the RB’s were reliable.
There is one thing I dont understand about this forum. Everyone seems really downbeat about Alpine, but in all honesty I feel its one of the most reasonable teams to bet on for next year, and I plan on putting a ample bet into them for next year. If they don't win the championship, I would guess at least a top 3. Lets recap why:
1) Cost cap: At this point Alpine should first of all be opperating at it, but most importantly won't have to make the cuts to their departments to make it work. Something which I am sure will hamper the organisational effectiveness of teams like RB and Merc. On a second note relating to that, Alpine has been the team with the least crashes this season which while may seem unimportant, with the cost cap this is money that will go into R&D rather than new front wings and floors. Especially, lets remember these extra parts over a season will add up to considerable amounts. maybe 3-7 million USD, which in terms of hiring engineers is considerable and not neglectable.
2) On track effectiveness: You can't deny that Alpine this season, by hiring Briatore, has been one of the strongest teams operationally in the pitlane. Each time they were faced with an opportunity they maximized it, and the result was finishing p5 in the constructors in what should have been a p6 car at times.
3) drivers: the previous point then brings me on to the drivers. I sincerely believe that Ocon is one of the most underrated drivers out there. The "issue" with him only being that he performs best under pressure. If there is no pressure, he maybe performs a little worse. Hear me out: the force india days were solid next to perez, with a level of consistency and performance which was insane. Which I would argue came from his rivalry with Perez. Then 2020 was really a bit of a comeback year where he needed to settle in, but this year when the pressure was on, he made no mistakes. Lets look at Hungary for example, he held off a 4 time world champion for an entire race, without making a single mistake to win the GP. Or take a look at Jeddah with his impeccable drive to hold on to p3 for the entire race, only to lose out to Bottas in a far superior car on the last straight. So, put him in a title challenging car, and i will bet my left kidney this man willl fight till the end and won't crack under pressure. As for Alonso, I think his past few performances speak for themselves, the old man still has it in him. Let's also not forget, the old man has already driven the 18 inch tires in endurence, and he recently admitted it was going to be an advantage going into next year. On top of that, I wont even bother talking about their relationship together, which seems to just be the most constructive one I've seen in the pitlane. All of that against I feel teams with much more inconsistent, and with unbalanced driver pairings, like McLaren, Alpha Tauri or Aston Martin.
4) the car: Can we just for a minute think about how this car is basically running a 2018 chassis with a B-spec engine from 2019, and still managed 5th? If anything that should be a testament as to how strong the car is on other surrounding factors like maybe the aero, which therefore has me thinking, what would happen with a fresh chassis and engine? Well they have discussed that they have been working on the 2022 engine basically for 3 years, on top of a chassis which was already started on in late 2019. The engine rn, has been said to have been completely revamped (while they didnt say anything who are we kidding, its gonna be a split turbo) with apparently a completely different cooling system which will be much more compact. More power, more compact, sounds like a big upgrade. Important to note, that if they do encounter issues with reliability, even though there is a freeze on the engines from next year onwards, updates to the reliability are allowed. Which would make them keep their power, and have the possibility if not reliable out of the box, to make it. On top of that, Alpine has basically been working flat out on the car since April while other teams like Merc and RB have stayed much more in the fight for the championship this season, hampering their progress for next year.
Important to note though that both Luca and Laurent Rossi have said they give Alpine 3-5 years to be world champions, but i'd argue the only reason they are saying that is to alleviate unnecessary pressure on them from the media, and instead come out of the box over delivering rather than underdelivering. And then, its all the better marketing. For me, the entire vibe coming out of Alpine right now is quietly confident in next year, which is not the same as in 2019 or 2020 when it just felt they were overprimising, and over confident. I mean, instead of talking about a break in their last interviews Esteban and Fernando talked about how excited they were for next year, and how many hours they were going to put in the sim over christmas. This screams to me quiet confidence.
So overall, the aforementioned points about the cost cap, the drivers, the on track effectiveness, and the car will basically put down the foundations for a proper car and team organisation next year, which I expect to a bare minimum will challenge for p3 in the standings, if not win the championship. Of course I understand that other teams can and will find a pace, and maybe we could find outselves with one of the most exciting fights in history, with 6 teams fighting for the championship for example. Afterall only time will tell
Teams that appear to have used 2021 as a holding year with very few upgrades (Haas, Alfa, Williams, Aston, maybe Ferrari(??)), have obviously been concentrating on their 2022 cars. Also expect the two Ferrari customer teams to make a step when they get the latest power store. McLaren have been fully 2022 since the summer break as well.
Mercedes seem to be in a similar position. RedBull have appeared to have been developing the RB16B right to the end.
What teams said and what they've done...
I think we should look at the performance curve of the teams, relative to one another. Then Mercedes seems to have spent much more than any other team since the summer break. Redbull on the other hand seems to have underspent relative to the rest.
11: Vettel (this is a bit of a wildcard. depends on how the cars behave. Planted rear? move him up 5 places)
This is from Mario Isola.
"I can say that the general comment from all the drivers was about understeer, it seems that our rear tyre is much stronger, it's pushing a lot the front. And the general feedback was on an understeer balance."
When I think of the next year, I keep coming back to this:
Who has a good CFD and wind tunnel correlation: We know Merc and Bull are super efficient here. Ferrari is getting better.
It doesn’t matter how much CFD or wind tunnel time the rules give you, if you are inefficient with that time and struggling with correlation, it doesn’t matter. I think Merc has done the best job of that recently.
When you look at race times this year and not qualifying (it looks pretty close), Lewis and Max might as well have been in a different class. NO ONE else was close.
