2021 Formula 1 Thread

[axmea?]

Under promise, over deliver. MB/TW poker-faced, pre-season mantra.

[DLSTR]

Boring and efficient but winning. Mercedes have a system that works. Easy to not like them but admirable as well. Most teams strive for such situation!

[axmea?]

Why can't Red Bull put a muzzle on Helmut Marko? He says the stupidest things.

[DLSTR]

Race starts in: 41 days 23 hours 49 min 27 sec
Circuit: Bahrain
Race: 57 laps / 308.238 km

[DLSTR]

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/15...-engine-freeze

After months of back-and-forth between Formula 1 teams, an agreement was reached last week to introduce an engine development freeze from 2022.

Ever since Honda announced at the start of October that it would be ending its involvement in F1 after 2021, Red Bull had been pushing hard to get an engine freeze implemented.

The team always seemed relaxed, even confident, about its future despite appearing to have lost an important ally that offered it works status. As momentum gathered for an engine freeze that would allow it to take on the Honda IP and run the project itself after the Japanese manufacturer's exit, it was clear what the endgame was.

The debate went back and forth in the weeks that followed. Ferrari was initially the chief opponent to Red Bull's plan, saying it was "firmly against" suspending development, only to then change its tune a few weeks later after a compromise was reached to bring the next generation of power unit forward by one year to 2025.

But as Ferrari and Red Bull also pushed for a mechanism to be introduced that would ensure any drop in performance could be made up for, using means such as permitting a higher fuel flow rate in the event of a horsepower deficit, Mercedes dug its heels in. While it supported an engine freeze from a cost perspective, it did not want to give a complete free pass. Renault was aligned with Mercedes, leaving the plan facing uncertainty going into the winter.

News emerged from Thursday's F1 Commission meeting that the engine freeze had not only been approved, but had been so with unanimous agreement between the teams. Importantly, no mechanism to balance performance was agreed or seriously considered. While not all parties would have got the complete deal they wanted, there had at least been consensus.

The agreement was largely good news for Red Bull, which is now able to proceed with plans to acquire the IP for the Honda power unit and take over the running of it from the start of next year. This was always Red Bull's preferred route, avoiding an awkward reunion with Renault just three seasons after their divorce, and giving it greater control over its future.

Even with development frozen, establishing a division to oversee the power unit will be costly for Red Bull. Work is already underway to adapt part of the team's facilities in Milton Keynes to focus on running engines, which is no cheap exercise. But considering how costly an engine agreement would have been with another manufacturer, Red Bull won't be that much worse off.

Crucially, it also sets Red Bull up perfectly for the introduction of the new power units in 2025. The F1 Commission meeting furthered plans for the future, committing to making the power units simpler, cheaper and more attractive for possible manufacturers. The cost element is particularly appealing to Red Bull, which confirmed at the end of last year that it may even build its own power units under the new regulations.

"If the hints become true that the new engine is much simpler in design, that the MGU-H is eliminated, and that it remains innovative but the annual cost limit is somewhere around 50 million, then it's no longer such a complex issue as the current engine," Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko told Autosport in December. "That means you could then do the development for such an engine with the paraphernalia we will have in Milton Keynes."

The door would be open to work with another manufacturer, should the new regulations be appealing enough, but developing a new power unit in-house is a decent back-up option. Even if it did link up with a manufacturer for a works deal, having an established engine division with greater know-how is also only going to strengthen Red Bull. The flexibility is there.

On the cost front, Red Bull will also be able to use the independence it has to market the power unit however it wishes. Amid the first fractures of its relationship with Renault six years ago, Red Bull rebadged the power units under the watch brand TAG Heuer. A similar sponsorship deal will now be possible for at least the next three years, again helping bring in some added revenue.

It's an exciting development for Red Bull's future - but it does not guarantee success for the team in the next three seasons.

In announcing its exit, Honda stressed its commitment to developing a new power unit for the 2021 season that it hoped would allow Red Bull to launch a proper title challenge. But it is not clear what assistance there will be from Honda in sorting developments ahead of Red Bull's inheritance of the project.

While Ferrari, Mercedes and Renault will all be working throughout 2021 to ensure their engines are as strong as possible for when the freeze comes into force at the start of the 2022 campaign, Red Bull cannot afford to lose ground in the meantime. As it gets up to speed with its engine division, a helping hand from Honda to ensure the first Red Bull in-house engine is not lagging behind will be important.

This is where the lack of correction mechanism could prove costly. Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said at the end of last season that "to lock in performance for three years" could be "quite damaging" for any team that did undershoot, hence his desire for some kind of balance of performance system if required.

The possible cost of getting the power unit so badly wrong is shown by Ferrari's struggles last year. With no development permitted in-season as part of the cost-saving measures forced by the COVID-19 pandemic, Ferrari was stuck with its underperforming power unit for the entire season, leaving it and customers Alfa Romeo and Haas painfully down on pace.

It is therefore perhaps no surprise that Ferrari was aligned with Red Bull for the correction mechanism. But the fact the plan has now been pushed through with unanimous support indicates a change in stance. The noises coming out of Maranello over its new power unit coming for 2021 have been positive. Has this confidence prompted Ferrari to get on board with the freeze, banking on getting back to a competitive level come the start of the 2022 campaign?

Red Bull may have got the breakthrough it wanted with the engine freeze, allowing it to plan not just for the post-Honda era, but for the next power unit rule cycle starting in 2025. Long-term, things are looking good.

But without any kind of balance of performance system in place, the pressure will now be on to ensure that by the start of 2022 - regardless of what the Red Bull-run power unit is called - it is competitive enough to at long last take the fight to Mercedes.

[DLSTR]

Mclaren reveal show - Starts at 0830 seconds of the video. I was watching live. Very fun to see

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSlJGWM4T7s

[DLSTR]

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/15...-red-bull-deal

Red Bull has confirmed Max Verstappen has a performance clause in his Formula 1 contract and believes he will be top of Mercedes' list if Lewis Hamilton quits after 2021.

Mercedes announced last week that seven-time world champion Hamilton had signed a new one-year contract to remain at the team for 2021, leading to speculation about his future beyond the end of the season.

Should Hamilton decide to step away from F1 at the end of the year, it has been suggested that Verstappen could be an option for Mercedes to replace the Briton.

Although Verstappen's Red Bull contract runs to the end of the 2023 season, it has been common in the past for drivers to have performance-related clauses in their contract. One example came in 2014 when Sebastian Vettel triggered an exit clause at Red Bull to join Ferrari for 2015.

Red Bull has previously hinted that Verstappen's contract may include such a clause, but it was confirmed by team principal Christian Horner on Monday during a select media roundtable.

"All drivers have safeguards within performance, and the reality is that as there has always been," Horner said.

"There is an element of performance related to Max's contract.

"I'm not going to go into what that is. It doesn't relate to the power unit in any way, it's just a binary performance at a certain measurement in time.

"As with all these things, though, to force a driver that doesn't want to be there, it's more about relationships than contracts.

"You only pull a contract out of a drawer when you've got a problem, in my experience.

"The relationship with Max is very strong. He believes in the project, he believes in what we're doing.

"He sees the investment that Red Bull is making, very much with the recent commitment on the powertrain, he believes in the people within the team, working within the team.

"I'm confident that we won't need to refer to any contractual clauses.

"I think that it will ultimately be down to us to deliver a competitive car. That's what he wants, that's what we want. He needs that, we need that.

"So in that respect, we're both in an identical situation."

68f1f5513a9b6c8352c4b114236aa79d.jpg

Asked if he was at all worried that Mercedes could make an approach for Verstappen if Hamilton were to leave, Horner said it was logical he would be at the top of its shortlist.

"I'm sure that should Lewis decide to stop then Max would naturally be the driver at the top of the list," Horner said.

"But they also have George Russell. They've also got other drivers obviously available to them.

"And I think again, as I say, it's all down to relationships and us forming a competitive car.

"There's no guarantees for 2022. It's a complete clean sheet of paper.

"If there's going to be a significant mix up of the order, one would assume it's going to be with that big regulation change."

Verstappen signed a new long-term agreement with Red Bull at the start of 2020, committing to the squad for the following four seasons.

After becoming the youngest race winner in F1 history on debut for Red Bull in 2016, Verstappen has scored a further nine wins for the squad, and finished third in the drivers' championship for each of the past two seasons.

Mercedes is yet to confirm any of its driver plans beyond 2021.

Both Hamilton and team-mate Valtteri Bottas are out of contract at the end of the season, while junior driver George Russell will also be a free agent once his Williams deal expires.

[Hotrodz]

I don't see Max going to MB because it would simply not be a financial beneficial. They have George Russell and let's see what Lando Norris does with a MB power until strapped to his McClaren. The boy has serious race craft skills!

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

[DLSTR]

New layout for Aussie GP - https://www.espn.com/f1/story/_/id/3...-australian-gp

[DLSTR]

Tsunoda profile -

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/15...ver-its-rookie

Why AlphaTauri is raving over its new F1 rookie

Japan's new Formula 1 star Yuki Tsunoda has enjoyed a mercurial rise through the ranks, spending just one year apiece in Formula 3 and Formula 2 before his graduation this year with AlphaTauri. Already he has impressed his team, as ADAM COOPER has been finding out

Tsunoda's ascension through the junior ranks to a Formula 1 race seat happened so quickly that there hasn't been time for the usual apprenticeship of FP1 sessions, or a season spent embedded in the team at the track.

He thus faces a steep learning curve, and like his 2021 fellow rookies Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin he will enjoy only one and half test days in the new car before the first race in Bahrain, plus a little filming day running.

To further complicate matters this is only his third season in Europe, and he still has much to learn off the track as well. Regardless, Tsunoda's brief time with AlphaTauri has seen him impress those around him in a big way.

Tsunoda has already made a big impression on everyone at AlphaTauri, and it's apparent that the team has a lot of faith in him.

"I would say considering his age, he's very focussed on what he's doing," says Graham Watson, AlphaTauri's team manager. "And he has a lot of self-confidence, which is a good thing. When I first met him, I thought he was a little boy, but actually he's really got some self-confidence. Not arrogance, but enough to believe in himself, and then you believe in him as he carries that through.

"I know that the other day that he was asked by a journalist, 'What's your plan for 2021?,' and he said: 'Beat Gasly!'' If that's his attitude, you can't knock him for it. At the end of the day, as everybody says, you're judged on your team mates. He's got to do his job. I think there's going be some fun along the way, for sure. Young guys always have to have their first big accident, and all those things, as you go along. But he's definitely got some talent, there's no doubting that.

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"Franz Tost is a massive fan of his, and when it comes to drivers, he knows what he's talking about. He could see pretty soon that Yuki has got the ability to do the job. We are seeing good, positive signs every day he gets in the car."

The 2021 season is a tough one for a rookie driver, given pre-season testing has been limited to just three days in Bahrain ahead of the opening round of the season. To make up for a lack of mileage in the new car, AlphaTauri has found a way to help Tsunoda to adapt faster, while enabling the team to learn about its new driver at the same time.

It's been possible because AlphaTauri has finally been able to field a two-year-old car and take advantage of the unlimited testing mileage the FIA regulations allow. Testing of previous cars, as the FIA terms such running, has become a routine way for teams to give young drivers seat time now regular opportunities to run current machinery are so limited.


Renault and Ferrari have been very active in this area with their respective squads of young drivers, with Mick Schumacher among the recent beneficiaries. Meanwhile Nikita Mazepin has undertaken extensive and very private testing worldwide with an old Mercedes - a strategy previously employed by Williams with Lance Stroll.

"He's really grown, and we've seen a massive change with him since Abu Dhabi. In Abu Dhabi he did a good job, but every time he gets back in the car now he's just becoming more and more mature, with more understanding," Graham Watson
In recent years AlphaTauri has not been able to do such running with its young drivers due to its regular changes of engine supplier.

In five seasons from 2013 to 2017, the then Toro Rosso team went from Ferrari to Renault to Ferrari and back to Renault, before joining forces with Honda in 2018. The team simply never had the ability to a run two-year old car because it didn't have access to suitable power units.

That changed in 2020, when the first Honda-powered Toro Rosso STR13 from 2018 became eligible. It was first used before the delayed start of last season to help Pierre Gasly and Daniil Kvyat get up to speed, and latterly it has been run regularly by Tsunoda.

[​IMG]

"As a team we have the opportunity for the first time to use a previous car," Watson explains. "Normally we have been changing our power units every other year. Because of our stability with Honda we've managed to get to the point where we actually have a two-year-old car with a PU that we can run. It worked out very well for us. And it's given us an opportunity to put Yuki in the car just to pound around the circuits.

"We obviously want Yuki to succeed. I feel that he's got a very big talent. He hasn't done a lot of European racing, and yet he still was fairly strong in F3, and then really came to his own in F2 last year against Schumacher and Mazepin and those guys. So I think he deserves his chance."

Tsunoda ran his first F1 miles in the repainted Toro Rosso at Imola in the week after the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix last year. He subsequently enjoyed a public outing in the 2020 AT01 at the Abu Dhabi test in December, before logging more miles over four days in an older machine - now upgraded to the 2019-spec Toro Rosso - earlier this month.

Preparing and running 2018 and 2019 spec power units has required considerable effort from Honda, and the fact that it has happened is a sign of the manufacturer's faith in the youngster.


"We did two days in Imola, then two days in Misano," says Watson. "And luckily, I don't know how, we ended up on those four days of running with blue skies and a bit of wind. We dodged a bullet, I think! He's going to be well prepared when he gets to the first grand prix. We're doing another three days in Imola on 23-25 February. But we'll split that between both the guys, between Yuki and Pierre [Gasly], to give Pierre a chance as well."

The team has seen steady progress from Tsunoda on each outing, which is the point of the exercise: "It's just miles really, and the chance to understand all the complexities of the steering wheel and everything else that goes with the engineering side," Watson adds.

"He's really grown, and we've seen a massive change with him since Abu Dhabi. In Abu Dhabi he did a good job, but every time he gets back in the car now he's just becoming more and more mature, with more understanding, as you'd expect. He's only a young guy, 20-years-old. He's done very good work for us, actually. And I'd say when you get to the test in Bahrain, he'll be probably one of the highest mileage rookies for many seasons."

[​IMG]

Full days of testing on an empty track have allowed the team to guide Tsunoda through run plans that would not usually be possible, given how precious any running is, further bedding him in for his F1 debut in March.

"I don't think people can quite appreciate the speed these things are doing," says Watson. "And with an engineer yelling in your in your ear to change a switch, default this, and default that. So basically we are just bombarding him with lots of unnecessary changes, just training for when they do become necessary, and giving him the opportunity to deal with it.

"And then on top of that just giving him a chance to try some different springs and bars and ride heights and downforce levels, just so he's got a really good feel for the car, and how it should feel, as opposed to how it shouldn't feel. It's a luxury to have this previous car to do that, because a lot of young guys will turn up at their first race probably a bit like Schumacher - he had a run in the Ferrari the other day, but his experience will be quite small compared to Yuki.

"It's a benefit for Yuki, but it's also a massive benefit for us, because it gives him a good experience, and creates a line of trust in what he's telling us. And vice versa, what we're telling him."

"He has a lot of self-confidence, which is a good thing. When I first met him, I thought he was a little boy, but actually he's really got some self-confidence. Not arrogance, but enough to believe in himself, and then you believe in him as he carries that through," Graham Watson
Getting used to F1 tyres is one of the main challenges for any rookie. Running a two-year-old car does not allow use of proper Pirelli race rubber, but it still helps to provide an education.

"One of the biggest performance advantages is understanding the tyres," says Watson. "You watch these young guys come into the sport, and they generally burn the tyres up in the first few laps, and are screaming for a new set, so this is quite valuable as well.

"Although the tyres aren't race tyres, they are still a Pirelli product, and they give him chance to understand about making them live, and how to get the best out of them without destroying them. So it's a good training ground as well. One thing I noticed in F2 last year was he was probably one of the few drivers that could really find lap time in qualifying. I think his direct competitors weren't always able to.

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"Maybe I'm wrong, but I just felt like if he had to find a couple of tenths, he was able to do it, while the guys he was fighting in the championship were never quite there. And it's something we see with him in the F1 car. He knows where to find the time, which is a good sign."

Tsunoda has spent a lot of time in Italy in recent weeks, although he's not seeking a permanent home near the factory. He's also been getting to know his new physio.

"There's a golf course up the road in Faenza, with a hotel, and we've put him in there," says Watson. "It's a very nice hotel, but I'm sure he's bored! His physio is here with him - Noel Carroll, who was with Dany [Kvyat] last year. It's a new relationship, and it seems to be going really well.

"I know Yuki is not a big fan of the gym, he told me himself! Unfortunately it's part of the job, so he has deal with it. He's pushing hard, he's going for it. And they're basically using the gym here on site at the factory for training for three or four hours a day, and staying in the hotel.

"I think the plan long-term is for him to live in Milton Keynes and be near the simulator, so he can use it. Then he can just fly in and out of the UK. Hardly any driver needs to spend much time in a factory these days other than for the simulator, so it makes sense to be located as close as possible."

Despite pretty much being thrown in at the deep-end for his F1 debut, AlphaTauri's efforts coupled with Tsunoda's own approach to his rookie campaign looks like they will ensure he will be prepared for his first grand prix next month.

[DLSTR]

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/15...elation-issues

Christian Horner says Red Bull has had to fix a correlation misalignment in its Formula 1 design and windtunnel work, which contributed its 2020 car problems.

Red Bull's RB16 machine had several spins during winter testing last year, a problem that continued when the pandemic-delayed season got underway.

The team initially attributed the spins to its drivers finding the limit, before accepting that it had something going wrong aerodynamically after the opening rounds of the season revealed the scale of its gap to the Mercedes squad at the head of the pack.

Red Bull's approach of bringing regular updates to the RB16 throughout last season helped it close the gap to Mercedes, and Horner hopes this decision will pay off with the RB16B in 2021 - along with its efforts to address problems related to the design stage.

"We've worked very hard to understand why we struggled for correlation at the beginning of last year," the Red Bull team principal told Autosport in an exclusive interview for this week's Autosport magazine.

"When it [the season] eventually got going, compared with what our simulation tools were telling us - both windtunnel and other tools [something was amiss].

"So, we learned a lot during 2020. And, of course, the challenge now is to apply that in 2021."

When asked if Red Bull had fully addressed the correlation issue, Horner replied: "I don't know - we'll see when the car runs!

"I think we gained a lot of understanding through last year, and I think some of it [was] the complexities of our windtunnel, which has its limitations in some respects.

"So yeah, I think we're only going to know what sort of progress we've made once we get racing from Bahrain onwards."

At the end of last season, Max Verstappen expressed his frustration that Red Bull "just depend a bit more on track running" with new parts and that "we have to find a way of making sure that what comes out of the windtunnel works straight away on the car, and it's immediate, and puts us in the right direction".

In response to these comments, Horner said he feels that Red Bull has "had quite a high hit rate" regarding updates.

"When something new is introduced to the car, it tends to stay on the car.

"And of course, you don't have the benefit of testing anymore, so you have to test components at a grand prix circuit or in your virtual world.

"I think we were led off at a tangent at the beginning of the year. And we managed to recover from that throughout the 2020 season.

"And of course that's what we'll be looking to learn from as we head into the 2021 season."

[DLSTR]

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/15...pt-to-red-bull

Sergio Perez says he can understand why drivers have struggled to adjust to Red Bull's Formula 1 car concept, finding it "quite different" to what he has previously driven.

Perez has sampled Red Bull F1 machinery for the first time this week, completing a run in the 2019-spec RB15 on Tuesday before completing a filming day shakedown in the new RB16B on Wednesday.

The Mexican has joined Red Bull on a one-year deal after leaving Racing Point at the end of last year, replacing Alexander Albon.

It marks Perez's first time racing for a front-running team since his single-season stint with McLaren in 2013, handing him the chance to add to his shock maiden F1 victory in Sakhir last year.

But Red Bull's cars have traditionally been tricky for drivers to adjust to, with the RB16 proving skittish for both Albon and team-mate Max Verstappen in the early part of last year.

Asked by Autosport how he has found adjusting to a new car concept both during the filming day and in the simulator, Perez noted there were definite differences to what he has previously driven.

"It is quite different, I can already spot the differences," Perez said.

"[You can feel] the strong front end that the car has and so on, those are things that as soon as you jump into the car and the simulator. You can spot them out fairly quickly."

Perez is Verstappen's fourth team-mate in the last four years, replacing Albon who was dropped after just one full season in the Red Bull seat.

Albon himself had been drafted in as a replacement for Pierre Gasly, who lost the seat after just 12 races in 2019 amid similar struggles in matching Verstappen.

Perez acknowledged from his initial running for Red Bull that he could understand why his predecessors may have struggled to adapt to it.

"I think it's obviously a car [that] I can see why not every driver can adapt to it," Perez said.

"I can already spot that. In terms of the timing that I need, to know exactly where to set up the car, where to take the final tenths out of it.

"That comes with experience in the car, and learning how to make the most out of it. That's something that will come just once I fully understand. I hope it doesn't take me too long."

Although Perez was unwilling to draw any firm conclusions from his brief shakedown run-out in the RB16B at Silverstone, conducting on demonstration tyres, he felt there were positive signs in the car for the year ahead.

"It's a filming day, so it's all about trying to get myself comfortable in the car," Perez said.

"I can kind of already see that there is potential in it, and I can spot some of the differences.

"It's on test tyres and so on, so I don't want to draw any conclusions.

"But I can just see there is some good potential in the car."

[axmea?]

Does this mean we have to look for MV's 5th teammate?

[DLSTR]

Originally Posted by axmea?

Does this mean we have to look for MV's 5th teammate?

I think Sergio is stating the obvious. That car is based on last years machine, was not easy to drive from testing. Was improved but never was even close to Mercedes. Also he see's what the Honda PU offers and drives compared to the Mercedes motor. The other piece missing is the fact that the tires used for Sergio's drive were Pirelli demo tires not at all race tires. That is a big data point missing.

[axmea?]

Originally Posted by DLSTR

I think Sergio is stating the obvious. That car is based on last years machine, was not easy to drive from testing. Was improved but never was even close to Mercedes. Also he see's what the Honda PU offers and drives compared to the Mercedes motor. The other piece missing is the fact that the tires used for Sergio's drive were Pirelli demo tires not at all race tires. That is a big data point missing.

I am hopeful he'll do well and better than PG and AA. I was being facetious.