F1 Teardown: Austrian GP 2023
Stewards work overtime, Results are not results, Ocon makes history, and more...
Holy Shitshow Batman!
This week’s F1 news was packed full of goodies, but the weekend’s event put the icing on the cake as “track limits” took center stage. According to the FIA, there were over 1200 instances where a car “may” have exceeded track limits during the race.
This led to Aston Martin protesting the race upon completion and the FIA upholding that protest.
"Some of these infringements warranted a penalty that was not previously applied when the Provisional Classification was published. These penalties will be reflected in the Final Classification."
"During the Grand Prix, Race Control was tasked with reviewing well over 1,200 instances where a car was reported as potentially leaving the track. The results will be updated once the review of those which were not able to be reviewed during the race is complete."
“The FIA will also recommend to the promoters that a gravel trap is added at the exit of Turns 9 and 10.”
Fortunately, the amended results didn’t affect the podium, or top 3, but the remaining order was changed. Here is a look at the new top 10.
1. Verstappen
2. Leclerc
3. Perez
4. Norris 📈
5. Alonso 📈
6. Sainz 📉
7. Russell 📈
8. Hamilton 📉
9. Stroll 📈
10. Gasly 📉
Aston Martin clearly made a good call to protest the race as both of their drivers moved up, locking in critical points toward the constructor’s championship. In a fight over millions of dollars of reward money, every single point counts, especially as they battle the behemoths of Mercedes & Ferrari. Alonso (P5) said this is not his best circuit, and that the team has always struggled here in the past. Stroll (P9) even out-qualified Alonso for the first time this season.
Verstappen once again dominated in front of the sea of orange fans that saluted him through the rain-soaked weekend. The track—the second shortest on the calendar next to Monaco—very much favored the Newey-designed Red Bull.
Posting pole position in qualifying and sprint qualifying, Max dodged a dicey first lap with his teammate, Perez, to win the Sprint race. Then, like many races this summer, smoked the competition. Holding a 24-second lead over LeClerc, Verstappen encouraged the team to pit him with 2 laps left in order to put on fresh tires so he could capture fast lap of the race, adding another point to his championship tally.
The only thing Verstappen lost on the weekend was his consecutive laps led (249) as LeClerc took the lead when he pitted early in the race for hard tires.
The weekend could not have been more perfect for his 42nd win with 21 of those wins coming in 14 months. To give fans perspective, Verstappen has won more races in 14 months than Kimi Räikkönen did in his 20-year F1 career.
The win was also Red Bull’s 10th in a row, one shy of the longest consecutive team wins record held by McLaren (11) set over 2 decades ago by the combination of Alan Prost & Aryton Senna.
Sergio Perez fought off a high fever, and another poor qualifying effort to score his first podium at the Red Bull Ring, thus saving his seat for now. I feared another bad run for the Mexican might lead to additional rumors and rumblings of being replaced before season end. While he might not be on Verstappen’s performance level, he still drives a dominant car and needs to show he can maximize the weekend, health aside.
So besides the steward’s room where was the action?
Well, the remainder of the field had some great, clean battles in both races. There was good action all around the track with Ferrari, Mercedes, McLaren, and Aston Martin battling for points positions. We saw the producer cut to action with 3 to 4 cars battling in some corners and failing to hit each other.
Ferrari posted a solid day, showing speed all weekend with their new upgrades as LeClerc (P2) and Sainz (P6) stayed clear of the trouble on the track, and the team didn’t make blatant strategy mistakes. Amazing what can happen when you have a fast car and everyone in the team executes.
In qualifying, LeClerc was only .048 off from taking pole position from Max; here is a visualization of the effort. It's about as quick as LeClerc removing his watch around eager fans.
Mercedes took a step back as team boss, Toto Wolf, labeled it a “bruising day”. Hamilton (P8) complained like a teenage girl over the radio about track limits after he was penalized early in the race. Meanwhile, Russell (P7) was the only driver to stay squeaky clean all weekend and not get warned about track limits.
McLaren celebrated Norris’ driver of the day (P4) as the new upgrades looked fast. Team boss, Zach Brown, has been threatening they would be faster, and he was half right. Norris’ teammate, Piastri (P16), on the other hand, had a disaster of the day comparatively. To his benefit, he lacked upgrades that were on Norris’ car, incurred damage, and had to make 3 pit stops in the race.
Regardless, it is the first time we have seen 2 customer cars of Mercedes ahead of the works team in the results. Perhaps this feeds into Toto’s “bruising” comment.
Incurring the most amount of damage to his car this season, Gasly (P10) stayed clean and rounded out the points for Alpine, but it was his teammate, Esteban Ocon (P14), who is now in the history books of F1. He has now broken the record for most driving penalties in an F1 race with 4, which was previously held by Pastor Maldonado.
Haas, despite a superb qualifying effort by Hülkenberg (P20), was glad to leave the Austrian circuit and a miserable weekend behind. Hülkenberg had an issue early in the race that resulted in him retiring the car, and Magnussen (P18) struggled with the car all weekend as interviews pointed to him being dumbfounded on how he could be so far off his teammate.
One bright spot on the weekend was Williams. Sargeant (P13) finally received upgrades that Albon (P11) had last race and posted his best result of the season. At one point he was even running in the points, as the young American rookie hits a streak of tracks that he has previous experience racing. Albon might have made the points but the team failed to warn him of his infringement of track limits before receiving a penalty. Seems communication needs to be improved at Williams.
Zhou (P12) got a driver’s tear-off stuck in his rear brake duct and thus had to make an additional stop to remove it, otherwise, he might have earned points for Alfa Romeo. Bottas (P15) wasn’t a threat to anyone as he broke his front wing early in the race and the team choose not to replace it.
The team with new “branding” coming in 2024, Alpha Tauri, again showed poor results as de Vries (P17) and Tsunoda (P19) were well down the results. Tsunoda incurred floor damage when he ran off in the gravel including breaking his front wing early in the race. These are 2 drivers that are definitely on the hot seat even as rumors swirl about Riccardo taking over one of the seats as soon as 2024.
Not Important Notes
Domenicali says F1 engines will get louder again with the new regulations in 2026.
"The intention is to make sure in the new regulation the engine [noise] itself will be higher because that’s part of our emotion."
"It is really what our fans want to hear and that’s the duty for us to commit to that."
"We need to have a different sound. It’s music for my ears. It’s true that we had the 12 cylinders, it was a different frequency, very loud. And then 10, eight, six – it’s not [going] again down."
F3 driver Hoff lost his life at Spa on Eau Rouge🤬; Alonso had the best thoughts on the safety of the historic corner where many have been lost.
F1 cost cap loophole closed off by FIA
The FIA has closed off a potential loophole in Formula 1’s cost cap regulations to prevent teams from making use of staff outside of spending restrictions, Autosport learned.
In recent years it has been common for F1 teams to employ senior technical staff to work in separate divisions on technical projects to exploit knowledge gained in grand prix racing and sell it to the wider business world.
Red Bull has an Advanced Technology division
McLaren has Applied Technologies
Mercedes has Applied Science
Aston Martin has Performance Technologies.
These have all been successful and worked on multiple projects involving road cars, America’s Cup yachts, bicycles, and other designs. But in the wake of suspicions that some were perhaps gaming the system and using these divisions to further F1 knowledge on the side outside of the cost cap, before passing that information back to their teams free of charge, the FIA has stepped in.
Alonso: “Aston is the most confidence-inspiring project in my F1 career”
Two-time Formula 1 world champion Fernando Alonso says the Aston Martin project gives him more confidence than any other team has managed to inspire throughout his career.
Alonso has been with just about every team but Red Bull, so that’s saying something about AMR’s culture currently.
It is rumored in the paddock (ESPN) Toyota is returning to F1 in partnership with Williams. Kamui Kobayashi will be the driver and team principal. The deal is currently being finalized.
Alpine has secured a €200m cash injection from a group of investors, including Hollywood actor Ryan Reynolds, to support the French operation’s sporting ambitions in Formula 1.
The Investor Group – formed of Otro Capital, RedBird Capital Partners, and Maximum Effort Investments – have acquired a 24% stake in the F1 team, placing their value, say Alpine, at around €900m.
The group has worked with NFL side Dallas Cowboys, America’s National Football League (NFL), French football club Toulouse FC, and English football team Wrexham AFC.
