F1 2023 Season

George Russell (Mercedes) expects Red Bull to be in a league of its own in Bahrain and that Ferrari, Mercedes and Aston Martin will battle behind it.

"But this is quite a separate circuit, so I don't expect the gap to be that big everywhere." #F1
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Anyone feeling slightly indifferent about this season? Usually i'm buzzing for the 1st race but by the looks of things its going to be more of the same as we saw last year, RB dominance. Last season was incredibly dull once Ferrari fell away and most races just felt like a procession.
 
Ayoba said:
Anyone feeling slightly indifferent about this season? Usually i'm buzzing for the 1st race but by the looks of things its going to be more of the same as we saw last year, RB dominance. Last season was incredibly dull once Ferrari fell away and most races just felt like a procession.
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Yes, even though I'm a Hamilton fan, the Mercedes era was boring as feck too. Last year was a season I finally got into again after a while but then quickly became the borefest of seasons before.
 
The problem with substantial new rules is they take years to implement. The FIA held off introducing new rules as they expected cars to catch up with Mercedes, and they didn’t.

So they decided to bring at least RB into play, by changing the car design to the specialism of their chief designer (and arguably the best aero designer of all time). The issue being that the RB had caught up with the Merc by the time they’d implemented it, so they ruined a great battle and given RB a huge advantage. Plus RB spent half a million more on their car.

Hopefully the significant wind tunnel advantage by other teams this year allows them to catch up. Development should be stronger for the other teams.
 
In the middle of excited and Meh to be honest.
Was hoping for a challenge to RB, but does not look likely.
Aston look like they could be closer, maybe a fight with Ferrari and hopefully Mercedes.
 
Good to see Lance is fit to drive, but is he really?
I would think the wrists take a hammering, operation and screws, wrist will already be tender, would not be shocked if he did not complete the weekend.
 
Seems Aston made an excellent Red Bull copy, Alonso splitting Perez and Verstappen on the softs at the moment
 
macheda14 said:
Still keeping to their racing point heritage, from the pink Mercedes to the green red bull
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Yeah, but this time they went even further and even hired some top Red Bull staff to copy the Red Bull :lol:

Great for Alonso though. Hopefully they'll continue to be in the mix throughout the season.
 
Bahrain GP FP1 Timesheet
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My take on FP1, RB is fast, RB , Aston clearly have a very decent car, Stroll could be their problem with his wrist.
Ferrari look to have rear wing problems, so much flex in it, Sky hinting at a design fault, but find that hard to believe.
Mercedes, well are they sandbagging I have no idea, but they look to have nailed the bouncing.
Lot of drivers with 2.1 - 2.2 behind, mid table battle should be decent.
 
Merc should at least be better starting than last. If the car is still flawed, they had a strong showing in the second half last year and some tracks seem to favour them. With Merc and Ferrari chipping away it might not be such a borefest, plus AM might be up there for a few races making strategy interesting. I'll wait till 3-4 races in.
 
I think when reality sets in and all the randomness that comes with testing and FP is a thing of the past, RB will be up 0.3-0.5s on their rivals in Q3 tomorrow. Ferrari is the potential dark horse there. Merc and Aston probs a tad behind Ferrari, although the Ferrari rear wing issue may suggest Ferrari are closer to them than they are RB. Merc have more performance than they are showing but probably to pull them into a similar territory to Aston Martin, not necessarily beyond.
 
The Merc was also a much better race car than qualifying car last year. I wonder if the same trend will hold true. Ferrari was the opposite - so again, wonder if that trend remains too.
 
The Merc is obviously a fair bit behind the RB's, but they were running mediums in that session and everybody else apart from Leclerc had their fastest time on softs. The latter suggests Ferrari have got a bit of pace to me.
 
Going to be very embarassing for Mercedes if they get robustly beaten by Aston Martin. Seeing as Mercedes provide AM with their rear suspension, drivetrain and gearbox.

Cant help think as Martin Brundle said, Mercedes should have copied the design of the RB for this season. They are an outlier to the rest of the grid with their design of their sidepods. Either they have an eureka moment and it comes together and delivers the simulation numbers or most likely, they accept they have designed themseleves into a cul-de-sac.
 
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