The Incredible Hülk Returns, 2023 F1 Season

kfoss99

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2009
1,190
I had no expectations, that was a fun race. There's far worse circuits on the calendar.

I read a rumor Liberty/F1 would like Vegas to replace Monaco, as the Principality keeps a lot more of Monaco's profits and has its own sponsors. I hope that doesn't happen, Monaco is a terrible race, but it's the sport's best event/spectacle.

I hope Williams can give Albon a slightly better car next year, he'd be in the mix.
 

tmracht

Member
SoSH Member
Aug 19, 2009
3,070
I think Vegas, over Monaco would be awful, over Miami sure. Max and Checo both bailed out by the timing of the SC, but LeClerc ran a great race to be honest, Checo getting pantsed at the end in back-to-back races, was pretty telling of his skill, since both competitors said they were able to see the weakness in Checo real time to plot and overtake. He gets P2, based on Merc not being good enough, but man he is not a great #2.

Albon and Gasly are both better than their machines show. They both really did belong in RBR just were too green and didn't have the leeway that Checo had since Max was able to run away. Next season hopefully is a bit better but really hoping things are a little more balanced in 2026.
 

DennyDoyle'sBoil

Found no thrill on Blueberry Hill
SoSH Member
Sep 9, 2008
42,271
AZ
Friend just got back -- he's buzzing about it. After a terrible Thursday, he said that it was an amazing experience. He paid full fare tickets in the MGM zone -- middle of the strip. He said if he had it to do over again, he probably would not buy a 3-day ticket, but would try for the grid for qualifying and the grid or the sphere for the race. He had a great time and although he said there were all sorts of logistics snafus, he is thinking about doing it again next year.
 

Bigdogx

New Member
Jul 21, 2020
145
The race needs to either be moved to the summer months or start it earlier and tell the euro fans to set an alarm clock. The racing would of been so much better if the tires could keep temps.
 

DennyDoyle'sBoil

Found no thrill on Blueberry Hill
SoSH Member
Sep 9, 2008
42,271
AZ
The race needs to either be moved to the summer months or start it earlier and tell the euro fans to set an alarm clock. The racing would of been so much better if the tires could keep temps.
Sounds like the drivers were not happy about the schedule either, but I think it's going to stay a Saturday night race. No idea if they will move it on the calendar, but I assume that it can't be move too much earlier in the year, since temperatures can be as high as 100 even until late September. The temperature drops very quickly in the desert -- there isn't much of a shoulder season and you never know when it will be.
 

Bigdogx

New Member
Jul 21, 2020
145
Sounds like the drivers were not happy about the schedule either, but I think it's going to stay a Saturday night race. No idea if they will move it on the calendar, but I assume that it can't be move too much earlier in the year, since temperatures can be as high as 100 even until late September. The temperature drops very quickly in the desert -- there isn't much of a shoulder season and you never know when it will be.
I don't blame them the time slot choices were ridiculous, F-1 needs to decide if they want traction in the American market or not, if yes then european fans can take a back seat for races here in America. The thing i don't understand is they don't have idiotic time slots for the other 2 races here, i understand wanting the night scene but they could of easily gotten that with a 9pm est start time instead of 1am.
 

tmracht

Member
SoSH Member
Aug 19, 2009
3,070
Rumors out that Alpha Tauri is rebranding as Racing Bulls... RBRBPT great naming not sure why they didn't just pivot back to Toro Rosso in that case, I guess Adidas Racing Bulls isn't hideous, but it is such a minor league team name.
 

kfoss99

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2009
1,190
Except for Max running away with the championship, a pretty fun season. Every team scored points. 11 drivers stood on the podium. The Championship standings were on the line for four teams going into the final race.

Perez even Perez'd the final race. He was just awful the second half of the season.

I root for Williams and Sargent stinks, but Albon is very competitive. Norris and Piastri are legit. If F1 does some NASCAR-type finagling to decrease Red Bill's superiority, next year could be even more fun.
 

DennyDoyle'sBoil

Found no thrill on Blueberry Hill
SoSH Member
Sep 9, 2008
42,271
AZ
Constructors was really close for second. Russell locks it up by a second, with Sainz unable to finish.
 

saintnick912

GINO!
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Oct 30, 2004
4,967
Somerville, MA
Vasseur (Ferrari team principal) said something along the lines of "we didn't lose second place in the constructors today". To me, the Ferrari was a faster car this year but they managed to beat Mercedes in the bad luck, bad strategy, and general foot shooting championship.
 

BrazilianSoxFan

Member
SoSH Member
Apr 11, 2006
3,751
Brasil
I don't blame them the time slot choices were ridiculous, F-1 needs to decide if they want traction in the American market or not, if yes then european fans can take a back seat for races here in America. The thing i don't understand is they don't have idiotic time slots for the other 2 races here, i understand wanting the night scene but they could of easily gotten that with a 9pm est start time instead of 1am.
They would need to close the strip a lot earlier for a 9pm start. I don't think F1 is the sole culprit for the 1am start time.
 

DennyDoyle'sBoil

Found no thrill on Blueberry Hill
SoSH Member
Sep 9, 2008
42,271
AZ
Vasseur (Ferrari team principal) said something along the lines of "we didn't lose second place in the constructors today". To me, the Ferrari was a faster car this year but they managed to beat Mercedes in the bad luck, bad strategy, and general foot shooting championship.
I didn't watch the race, but it's unclear to me why Sainz was in the position he was in and couldn't compete to catch Hamilton. For all the fireworks in the top 4 to try to drop Russell into fourth, really the constructors P2 could have been secured with a decent race by Sainz. From the post-race commentary, it seems as though they made some tactical tire errors so I'm not sure how Vasseur can say that they didn't lose P2 on the day -- they held the tie breaker.

Sainz took top points in Singapore, and had a very good car, and still couldn't come out ahead of Lando, Hamilton, Alonso, and Leclerc. They had the better car and the tiebreaker, but Australia put them in a hole and they could not really ever dig out of it. Came close.
 

tmracht

Member
SoSH Member
Aug 19, 2009
3,070
Running that crazy strategy of hard hard was not a great idea either, though you really needed a safety car at the right time to make that work.
 

tmracht

Member
SoSH Member
Aug 19, 2009
3,070
V-CARB being the inhouse name for new age Torro Rosso is pretty telling. What a terrible name.
 

Nick Kaufman

protector of human kind from spoilers
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Aug 2, 2003
13,410
A Lost Time
My initial reaction is that it makes sense for Hamilton, but not sure about Ferrari. I could be wrong though.
 

tmracht

Member
SoSH Member
Aug 19, 2009
3,070
My gosh this is absolutely amazing, let the carousel commence. For Hamilton, it may or not be an upgrade as who knows what the landscape is for the 2026 refresh.
But with George in a good spot settling in at Merc, that's not a total disaster for Merc as it could have been if their new lead was someone like Bottas, but will be interesting who guns for the second seat, Alonso, Sainz? Fun times.
 

88 MVP

Member
SoSH Member
Dec 25, 2007
534
WNY
This will be highly entertaining. Over/under on how many laps into the season before the first time Lewis blows up at his Race Engineer for screwing up pit/tire strategy?
 

tmracht

Member
SoSH Member
Aug 19, 2009
3,070
My gosh this is absolutely amazing, let the carousel commence. For Hamilton, it may or not be an upgrade as who knows what the landscape is for the 2026 refresh.
But with George in a good spot settling in at Merc, that's not a total disaster for Merc as it could have been if their new lead was someone like Bottas, but will be interesting who guns for the second seat, Alonso, Sainz? Fun times.
I guess on second thought, would they try to do Albon to Merc and Antonelli to Williams or try to promote Antonelli directly? I guess it depends if Antonelli can get his super license.
 

SocrManiac

Tommy Seebach’s mustache
SoSH Member
Apr 15, 2006
8,634
Somers, CT
This will be highly entertaining. Over/under on how many laps into the season before the first time Lewis blows up at his Race Engineer for screwing up pit/tire strategy?
Oh my god. I didn’t connect Ferrari strategy and Lewis’s whining.
 

Chainsaw318

Member
SoSH Member
Nov 6, 2006
1,902
Burned . . . Blacklisted
Or just general reliability. Ferrari ls always seem to break in the stupidest ways, while even in a reduced state last year, the Mercedes has always felt super reliable.

I cannot see that going over well with Lewis when the power train and gearbox continually fail.
 

tmracht

Member
SoSH Member
Aug 19, 2009
3,070
I mean Carlos is more than fine, he's even probably really darn good, but for Ferrari he's not Lewis for a handful of reasons.
1) Marketing - Lewis to Ferrari has a chance to make Silverstone into Monza 2.0.
2) Strategy - Ferrari is bringing in Lewis as a development and strategy guy as well not just a driver, as good as Sainz was, Hamilton's gravitas may help bring some actual strategy change. https://formu1a.uno/ferrari-hamilton-guadagnera-100m-lanno-e-sara-anche-un-importante-asset-strategico/
3) Freddy V - Fred has been a part of Lewis' career reaching back a long time, getting them back together probably gives Elkann and Fred an additional layer of comfort.

But really we all win when Charles realizes he's now basically a number 2 driver, and the fallout that commences from that.
 

Nick Kaufman

protector of human kind from spoilers
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Aug 2, 2003
13,410
A Lost Time
But really we all win when Charles realizes he's now basically a number 2 driver, and the fallout that commences from that.
I think that's their mistake. Charles and Carlos were one of the best driving pairings on the grid. Replacing Carlos with a 40 year old Lewis isn't necessarily an upgrade. If there's an argument for replacing Carlos is that since Charles wants an understeery car and Carlos an oversteery car and since it would probably be best to delineate a no 1 and a number 2 driver, you could move from Carlos to a driver who could play Perez' role, i.e. a clear no 2 driver whose job is to support LeClerc. That could have been a young prospect or a willy veteran like Bottas-though not Bottas! Instead they went with Hamilton. But I don't think you can anoint him as no 1 Driver at the age of 40 and it is a self-defeating move against the guy who's at the peak of his career, who you just signed to a big contract and for whom until yesterday you wanted to go all in to win the driver's championship.

I guess that if LeClerc wants to become world champion. he should have to beat Lewis and that would entail cutting down on his mistakes and improving his racecraft.

It could still work out, but it could also flame out spectacularly.

Btw, I 've already heard speculation about Alonso moving to Mercedes.
 

tmracht

Member
SoSH Member
Aug 19, 2009
3,070
Yeah you can't outright name one a number one driver and one a number two driver, but you don't pay Lewis Hamilton 100m to protect Charles like Perez for Max. As you said that would have been someone like Bottas (Gasly or Ocon), good enough, pleased to get a seat in Ferrari etc.

Not shocked about Alonso, that's was kind my thought initially and dovetails nicely with my second thought as Alonso is also a nice bridge to Antonelli after a few seasons to season in F2 and Williams(or something).
 

tmracht

Member
SoSH Member
Aug 19, 2009
3,070
The news about Horner coming out that has an internal investigation kicked off by Red Bull. Times is reporting it is for inappropriate behavior toward a female. Horner has denied any involvement. Will see what comes of this, but what a wild start to the season.

On a lighter note, Kick Stake Alfa Sauber has a new neon livery and an entirely new front suspension moving to a pull rod suspension instead of a push rod, shades of RB there. Ditto a new pontoon shape and scoops reminiscent of RB.

Williams only did a livery reveal and got a darker more muted tone than the bright pop of blue of the FW45.
 

DennyDoyle'sBoil

Found no thrill on Blueberry Hill
SoSH Member
Sep 9, 2008
42,271
AZ
The news about Horner coming out that has an internal investigation kicked off by Red Bull. Times is reporting it is for inappropriate behavior toward a female. Horner has denied any involvement. Will see what comes of this, but what a wild start to the season.

On a lighter note, Kick Stake Alfa Sauber has a new neon livery and an entirely new front suspension moving to a pull rod suspension instead of a push rod, shades of RB there. Ditto a new pontoon shape and scoops reminiscent of RB.

Williams only did a livery reveal and got a darker more muted tone than the bright pop of blue of the FW45.
A little more detail on the Horner investigation today. The word is that it's a "controlling" type of behavior. I don't know whether that's a euphemism or has some kind of secondary meaning in European news coverage. It's not clear to me whether it means he was a difficult and controlling boss and the fact that the accuser is a woman is not the key feature, or whether this is a kind of hostile work discrimination or man-acting-badly Jonah Hill kind of claim. Details are hard to get, but the fact that the investigation seems to have shifted from a Red Bull internal investigation to an F1 investigation does not seem great for Horner and maybe implies the latter. I guess we'll see. For all the winning, there's some drama on that team.

https://www.gbnews.com/sport/f1/red-bull-christian-horner-hearing-f1-news
 

tmracht

Member
SoSH Member
Aug 19, 2009
3,070
Yeah it has been a very split set of reporting depending if you read German/Dutch news or AP/English news services. We should have more information tomorrow after the hearings for sure, but this has been a wild ride in F1 this past month.

Ocon popping up reiterating he's still a Mercedes Junior driver (at a spry age of 27), to throw more fuel into the 2025 seat opening fire.
Chain Bear coming out of hiatus to comment on Andretti's smack down by FOM and to comment on Lewis' exit and then continuing to comment (thankfully).
Stake KICK Sauber using a gambling sponsor that doesn't have a license in it's own country to operate.
Silverstone getting extended another decade (thankfully).
It's been so wild, that we forget Toto Hamilton is leaving for Ferrari wait no we didn't.
 

Nick Kaufman

protector of human kind from spoilers
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Aug 2, 2003
13,410
A Lost Time
Why is no one talking about the championship winning car that was released today? Tsk tsk tsk.
 

Nick Kaufman

protector of human kind from spoilers
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Aug 2, 2003
13,410
A Lost Time
It's February and I want to believe!

Ferrari did redesign the car with the aim of making it more consistent so hopefully this works and it stops killing its tyres.
 

tmracht

Member
SoSH Member
Aug 19, 2009
3,070
I also like they didn't just copy RB suspension, if they can keep the advantage on certain tracks, while not eating their tires on others, that's a good pivot strategy.