Who knows if the gap left in the calendar by the cancellation of the Russian GP will help some teams to breathe more calmly. One would always want to work harder, but there is still the specter of budget cap to deal with. Although I find it hard to believe that it is so easy to check the ceiling on expenses. They tell me that at Red Bull they have adopted a system whereby in the factory you work in distinct groups, each with a different colored shirt: those destined for F1, those for supercars, those for racing boats and so on. I’m sure they are all correct (and a bit squeamish too), but I don’t want to think about what could happen if, by mistake, the T-shirts were mixed up.
Beyond this, in a very short time the flow of developments on single-seaters will slow down and then stop altogether, if not for some 2023 experiment. One thing is the adaptation changes, from track to track, another those of performance. The challenge between Red Bull and Ferrari is still mathematically open, even if thinking of being able to overturn it would be amazing (in the sense that to really believe it would need a truck of that stuff there). In Singapore, the next stop, we are expecting the ultimate true aerodynamic package for the F1-75. Curious how, despite changing dates, the same tracks are always the ones that foresee the arrival of substantial news. The bottom body, for example, is retouched for the French GP and then usually in Singapore. As well as the change of power unit – with relative penalty on the grid – for Leclerc has been planned for a long time for the United States GP in Austin.
On the engines I feel I can agree with the latest statements by M. Binotto: it is ridiculous to impose a limit on usable drives, if then no one is in it. Also because no one is in it purely for calculation: instead of throttling performance, to increase mileage, we might as well take into account a couple of extra comebacks from the back of the grid. And speaking of the bottom: I’m sure we’ll keep talking for a piece of the F1-75’s bottom cover. Pointing to him, perhaps, as the main culprit of the midsummer debacle that allowed Verstappen to run away. Well, everyone here has his theories. It appears to me that the fund is not ‘wrong’, in the sense that (as we saw at Paul Ricard but also in certain phases of Hungary) it guarantees a load; and in the curves the effect is felt. The problem is that this load is paid for with a ‘drag’, that is an exaggerated aerodynamic resistance. To the point that in the garage the appellative of ‘parachute‘until now reserved for the wretched SF1000 of two years ago, which was born thinking of a very different engine power, capable of neutralizing resistance. The F1-75 instead has horsepower, but against a super-efficient Red Bull (in the relationship between generated downforce and aerodynamic penetration, that is) there is no other solution than to ‘unload’ the wings. With the result seen in Monza, where Leclerc drove like on eggs. Excellent for pole position, in the hands of a handle like him, but much less for race pace, where the work of the wings ‘transfers’ to the tires, which slide too much and heat up on the surface, with the result of degrading quickly.
He says: then why don’t you go back to the old fund? David Sanchez, the executive director of aero developments, has the theories of him. In 2018, after Singapore, we actually returned to a solution more similar to the previous one: and in fact at Suzuka the drivers ‘felt’ the car again. However, if you go back, you restore the performance level of a few races before: and if in the meantime the others have made their developments work, you become a sitting duck. The following year, just at the Ricard, Sanchez tried to defend his work by explaining in debriefing that “the new bottom is not bad, the problem is that the old one was too good“(I still hope that whoever told me was joking). Now, I hear that the wizard from Montpellier has lost some faith in his beliefs. And maybe (maybe!) Also in the Maranello work system, which from a certain point forward in the season, just like the bottom body, seems to open the parachute. That of prudence, of not taking risks. I only know that the 90 minutes not yet in the legs is a chronic problem for Ferrari, which almost always concentrates the victories – when there are – in the pre-holiday phase. Maybe in Maranello they could save some of the yellow shirts used at the Italian GP – which everyone rightly liked – and form two working groups, like their English colleagues.
Okay, now I’m kidding, but to win a world championship you have to be as shod as the ancient knights; and have the sturdy shoulders so as not to collapse under the weight of the armor. As for certain statements that see the fateful 2026 as a possible target for the title, they simply cannot be heard around here.
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