Excited to see how Sargent performs relative to Albon. I think Albon deserves to drive a better car than the Williams. Yes he had his chance in the RB, yes it wasn’t great, but he showed real pace at times.
I think RB is not going to miss a beat with the wind tunnel penalty. This years car is just an evolution and not a revolution. Assuming their powerplant is still a monster the small aero penalty isn’t going to mean much. Sounds like Merc know what the issue was on last years car and I expect for them to come out swinging. Ferrari is just gonna Ferrari and thow away potential podiums and wins on dumb calls.
How I see the constructors working out.
Merc
RB
McLaren
Ferrari
Alpine
Alpha Tauri
Aston Martin (biggeset unknown to me. maybe Nando didn’t make a dumb decision and they copy RB like they copied the '19 Merc)
Pretty good list I think.
I don’t think McLaren with a rookie will beat Ferrari, regardless of how good Piastri is. Two Lando-quality drivers would not have beaten Ferrari last year, and I don’t think Piastri will be at that level right away.
The rest I pretty much agree with, except I think I would swap Aston and AT. I think with the loss of Gasly, AT will be weaker and their car seems to be not very strong across a season, so will take time to develop that out of the car. I don’t think Yuki is ready to lead the team, and Devries will be essentially a rookie. The Aston developed really well last year after a complete sidepod design philosphy change part-way through the season and they’ve improved their driver line-up with Fernando. I think Aston showed last year that they can develop the car really well and personally I’m going to put them as my dark horse pick to grab best-of-the-rest this year.
I think the most intriguing team this year for me will be Alfa Romeo. The investment should start from Audi to strengthen the chassis technical side and keep ramping up until 2026 but how much will that increased investment help them in the near term and will they now be at the budget cap. I know last year development stopped on their car as they just didn’t have the money to develop the car, their infrastructure also needs a lot of work but none of that will actually be implemented for 2023.
Like the platypus, they are equipped with electrosensors, but while the platypus has 40,000 electroreceptors on its bill, the long-beaked echidna has only 2,000. The short-beaked echidna, which lives in a drier environment, has no more than 400 at the tip of its snout.[7] Echidnas use their electroreceptive beaks to sense earthworms, termites, ants, and other burrowing prey.[8]
Good list there Personally I would swap Alpine and McLaren I just have a feeling they will rectify some of their reliability issues from last year. Looking forward to seeing how Gasly performs, he is one of the drivers I like to root for. Also I really think Alfa will be above HASS if they too can be reliable.
I’ve unfortunately run over several echidnas. They have a tendency to shuffle across the highway on dusk, like hitting a brick and your tyres get full of the quills to the point of them being full of holes. It is surprising how hard hair can get.
Despite all the hype, I think Piastri has a chance to look the relative “worst” out of these three. Norris hands down beats him head to head. And De Vries will be closer to Tsunoda And therefore look better. But Piastri could come out of the box on Tsunoda’s level, but we would never know. That’s the confidence I have in Lando to clearly win that matchup.
I suspect that that the EV market will inevitably run headlong into the technical & energy “wall” of it’s inherent, physical limits in the current format. Thus, I still see ICE’s being the primary engine modus if & until a better, more abundant battery material comes along, & viable energy production methods & delivery infrastructure follow suit. There’s still practical reasons for ICE’s to still be the thing in automotive propulsion, & for car makers to race with them.
I agree. I actually think De Vries relative experience at a high-level of racing means he will be able to hit the ground running (obviously look at Monza) and slot in pretty quickly. Honestly I think Yuki will have his hands full with him. Yuki needs a big year this year.
I think Oscar is so hyped that he will end up being slightly disappointing to many, but hopefully people give him the benefit of letting him learn F1 and get up to speed.
2023 is officially here with the first car livery reveal of the year in Haas.
This appears to be more than just a livery reveal as stated though… The engine cover is very different to the 2022 car, as well as the front wing endplates and side pod cooling outlets. So this is probably actually an early version of the actual 2023 car. That engine cover reminds me of the 2012/13 Williams with the really shrink-wrapped look, hopefully it’s faster than that car…
I like the livery! I was hoping for more black on the car this year, which we got. Black F1 cars always look awesome. Better number font too, and the red accents on the wheel covers is nice. And Moneygram has be integrated well I think.
They’re getting $20 million a year for the title sponsorship from Moneygram. Less than the big teams would get for a title sponsor, but enough to get them to the budget cap. I imagine the sponsorship became more lucrative once the budget cap came in and sponsors knew they could offer a more reasonable sum to get major branding on the car.
Haas was always going to be about Gene’s company, that was the intent from the start, so any title sponsor for Haas is going to receive equal branding at best. Like Red Bull works too.
I’m looking forward to see how Logan Sargent does and hope he does well. I remember him from the Rotax Grand Nationals (2013?), was quick but didn’t seem to have the pocket money that it would take to get him to F1. If the Williams is difficult and/or slow, he’ll look bad and be out of F1 in no time. He has a pretty high bar against Albon.
I think the Sargeant family is pretty loaded. Logan’s uncle is a billionaire with government military contracts.
I think his seat will be safe for a couple seasons if he writes the checks. But I expect him to be an upgrade over Latifi for sure. He won’t match Albon I don’t think. Albon has proven his quality at Williams and rebuilt his rep after the Red Bull fiasco.
Tough seat for the American. Hard to look “good” when you’re in the worst seat on the grid.
In my eyes, as long as the comparison is with Latifi he should be fine, initially. I expect Sargeant will out perform what Latifi accomplished. In reality, it shouldn’t be hard to do.
How long he stays in F1 depends on how deep his Uncle wants to go in his pockets while we Americans hope that Williams is able to not Williams themselves and can move up the grid with a better car.
Personally I would swap Alpine and McLaren I just have a feeling they will rectify some of their reliability issues from last year. Looking forward to seeing how Gasly performs, he is one of the drivers I like to root for. Also I really think Alfa will be above HASS if they too can be reliable.