2021 Formula 1 Thread

[ZCanadian]

Why does Alpine still sponsor the team? They stopped production on their one and only car.
Must be a French thing.....

:-)

[DLSTR]

Money will limit the ability to over come an early fast winning team. So..........the budget is about to be a limiter for those who are slower and not winning.


https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/fe...-2022/7167390/

Ferrari: Budget cap will mean fewer in-season updates in F1 2022
Ferrari director Laurent Mekies is expecting Formula 1 teams to push out fewer in-season car developments in 2022 due to budget cap constraints.

Co-author: Luke Smith
Jan 10, 2022, 5:28 AM
Last season most F1 teams halted any development push on their 2021 cars early in a bid to get ahead of the game for this year's all-new technical regulations.

While 2021 was an outlier in that regard, Mekies believes the sport's budget cap will still limit in-season developments compared to pre-2020 levels, as the financial restrictions put in place to make F1 more sustainable will reduce the number of updates teams can afford to pump out.

"Not compared to this year, because this year obviously was near zero, or at least for us was very little, but if you go back to 2019, 2018, we think you will see less," Mekies said.

"In 2018, 2019, in the big teams, you had something every race on the car or every other race.

"It sounds difficult from our perspective to have a high number of updates with the constraints that we have."

The cost cap, which has been lowered to a base figure of $140m this year - excluding add-ons - means F1's biggest teams have had to be more disciplined about where and when to spend the budget they earmarked for developments.

That luxury problem particularly affects big spenders Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari, teams which have already had to radically downsize their teams to fit within the budget cap.

"You need to keep a budget to develop during the year, because you will learn more and more, and therefore you will need ways to adjust. This has been the biggest challenge," explained Mekies, whose Ferrari team finished third in the 2021 constructors' championship.

"Once you have defined that envelope, that's what you have for aero development, that's what you have for mechanical development, then it goes to each department and aero will say: 'OK with that, I will be able to do two developments or three developments', and then you reschedule all your plans to feed that.

"That's effectively what we do now. How much of a challenge it is depends on your level of competitiveness to the others."

But Mekies warns that if 2022's pre-season testing unearths several issues on the new cars that need to be addressed quickly, fixing those problems could mean teams may have to dip into their development pot earlier than planned and sacrifice some in-season updates.

"If you have a big issue at the beginning of the year and nothing is correlating and so on, you may invest some of your package two or package three money," Mekies added. "You need to fix it anyway now, so you take your parts, you put them into the bin, and that's the way you will deal with it."

[ZCanadian]

Originally Posted by DLSTR

Money will limit the ability to over come an early fast winning team. So..........the budget is about to be a limiter for those who are slower and not winning.


https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/fe...-2022/7167390/

Ferrari: Budget cap will mean fewer in-season updates in F1 2022
Ferrari director Laurent Mekies is expecting Formula 1 teams to push out fewer in-season car developments in 2022 due to budget cap constraints.

Co-author: Luke Smith
Jan 10, 2022, 5:28 AM
Last season most F1 teams halted any development push on their 2021 cars early in a bid to get ahead of the game for this year's all-new technical regulations.

While 2021 was an outlier in that regard, Mekies believes the sport's budget cap will still limit in-season developments compared to pre-2020 levels, as the financial restrictions put in place to make F1 more sustainable will reduce the number of updates teams can afford to pump out.

"Not compared to this year, because this year obviously was near zero, or at least for us was very little, but if you go back to 2019, 2018, we think you will see less," Mekies said.

"In 2018, 2019, in the big teams, you had something every race on the car or every other race.

"It sounds difficult from our perspective to have a high number of updates with the constraints that we have."

The cost cap, which has been lowered to a base figure of $140m this year - excluding add-ons - means F1's biggest teams have had to be more disciplined about where and when to spend the budget they earmarked for developments.

That luxury problem particularly affects big spenders Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari, teams which have already had to radically downsize their teams to fit within the budget cap.

"You need to keep a budget to develop during the year, because you will learn more and more, and therefore you will need ways to adjust. This has been the biggest challenge," explained Mekies, whose Ferrari team finished third in the 2021 constructors' championship.

"Once you have defined that envelope, that's what you have for aero development, that's what you have for mechanical development, then it goes to each department and aero will say: 'OK with that, I will be able to do two developments or three developments', and then you reschedule all your plans to feed that.

"That's effectively what we do now. How much of a challenge it is depends on your level of competitiveness to the others."

But Mekies warns that if 2022's pre-season testing unearths several issues on the new cars that need to be addressed quickly, fixing those problems could mean teams may have to dip into their development pot earlier than planned and sacrifice some in-season updates.

"If you have a big issue at the beginning of the year and nothing is correlating and so on, you may invest some of your package two or package three money," Mekies added. "You need to fix it anyway now, so you take your parts, you put them into the bin, and that's the way you will deal with it."

Which basically means we won't get the best racing possible in 2022. Teams like Alfa, Haas and Williams did not throw a lot of dollars at upgrades this past year, but frankly they'd have better chances of being hit by lighting twice than cracking the 2022 car out of the gate. Red Bull, Mercedes, and Ferrari certainly brought a lot of upgrades to the 2021 table. RBR had to, as they may well have lost Max if they couldn't provide him with a competitive car. Now, they have taken on the engine from Honda, which must have eaten into their budget as well (just to maintain the status quo PU). Ferrari and AMG seem to have been more cagey about their upgrades, but it appears from the second half of their seasons that they invested rather heavily. I question whether McLaren had the funds to spend up to the budget cap in 2021.

So my guess is that we'll see haphazard results for the first half of the year, with tweaks brought in later in the season. The most adaptable drivers will really shine - but they can only do so much to make up for a less than ideal car. If that is what F1 calls fairer racing, then it is just going to benefit the smaller teams, not really the fans.

[abm89]

Ferrari made some upgrades with their power unit (electrical side) but they have a new V6 coming in 2022 i believe. that should be really interesting.

IIRC, mercedes upgraded their floor for Silverstone and that was about it. There was a new front wing planned but it failed a crash test. They used Zero tokens for the whole year. They did run into those issues with the V6 reliability so they ran through them until they found a fix. In that respect, they threw quite a bit of money into that.

As far as the car, they quite literally ran a 2020 merc with no DAS and a chopped floor.

After 2009, I won't place bets on who will be on top, but I think McLaren and Ferrari are the ones to watch. Alpine is a team where I'll believe it when I see it.

[Hotrodz]

Just to put it out there, I think it is going to be between Ferrari and Merc. Reb Bull will be fighting for third.

[DLSTR]

Originally Posted by abm89

Ferrari made some upgrades with their power unit (electrical side) but they have a new V6 coming in 2022 i believe. that should be really interesting.

IIRC, mercedes upgraded their floor for Silverstone and that was about it. There was a new front wing planned but it failed a crash test. They used Zero tokens for the whole year. They did run into those issues with the V6 reliability so they ran through them until they found a fix. In that respect, they threw quite a bit of money into that.

As far as the car, they quite literally ran a 2020 merc with no DAS and a chopped floor.

After 2009, I won't place bets on who will be on top, but I think McLaren and Ferrari are the ones to watch. Alpine is a team where I'll believe it when I see it.

The top teams 'front loaded' the last 2 years of big budgets into the 2022 cars. Mercedes did an virtual no upgrade season and almost won or basically did. They swear they did not compromise on anything for the new car.

RedBull did not do this. Ferrari were also fully focused on 2022. Mclaren is the wild card. We may yet be surprised but unless RedBull did something amazing they essentially 'paid' to keep Max????????????

[DLSTR]

Originally Posted by ZCanadian

Which basically means we won't get the best racing possible in 2022. Teams like Alfa, Haas and Williams did not throw a lot of dollars at upgrades this past year, but frankly they'd have better chances of being hit by lighting twice than cracking the 2022 car out of the gate. Red Bull, Mercedes, and Ferrari certainly brought a lot of upgrades to the 2021 table. RBR had to, as they may well have lost Max if they couldn't provide him with a competitive car. Now, they have taken on the engine from Honda, which must have eaten into their budget as well (just to maintain the status quo PU). Ferrari and AMG seem to have been more cagey about their upgrades, but it appears from the second half of their seasons that they invested rather heavily. I question whether McLaren had the funds to spend up to the budget cap in 2021.

So my guess is that we'll see haphazard results for the first half of the year, with tweaks brought in later in the season. The most adaptable drivers will really shine - but they can only do so much to make up for a less than ideal car. If that is what F1 calls fairer racing, then it is just going to benefit the smaller teams, not really the fans.

The budget is a gimmick. It attracts smaller teams, makes a promise of closer racing?? Not sure what they were thinking other than small team survival. They will survive or will they be able to compete. I think one step closer to spec-series racing.

For that Id rather watch the Porsche Super-Cup lol

[ZCanadian]

Originally Posted by DLSTR

The top teams 'front loaded' the last 2 years of big budgets into the 2022 cars. Mercedes did an virtual no upgrade season and almost won or basically did. They swear they did not compromise on anything for the new car.

RedBull did not do this. Ferrari were also fully focused on 2022. Mclaren is the wild card. We may yet be surprised but unless RedBull did something amazing they essentially 'paid' to keep Max????????????

Yup, that's exactly what they did - paid to keep him, and paid even more to not have to go back to Renault for engines!

[Hotrodz]

Originally Posted by ZCanadian

Yup, that's exactly what they did - paid to keep him, and paid even more to not have to go back to Renault for engines!

The issue for RB is to keep him they have to stay competitive and they need to start thinking about next. They have let a couple of really talented drivers go. MB was in that same space with Ocon and they had to make a tough decision between him and Bottas. Luckily they had George in the wings as I doubt that he would have remained at Williams if there was an open seat somewhere else.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

[DLSTR]

So review and current status of this mess and LH delay his decision to race next year

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/59951382

Lewis Hamilton: Mercedes driver to decide on F1 future after Abu Dhabi inquiry
By Andrew BensonChief F1 writer

Last updated on
11 January 202211 January 2022.From the section Formula 1

Seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton missed out on the 2021 championship to Red Bull's Max Verstappen following a controversial end to the season

Lewis Hamilton will not decide whether to return to Formula 1 this season until he sees the results of an inquiry into the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

Hamilton is "disillusioned" with F1, his Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff has said, as a result of last year's title-deciding race.

Hamilton lost the championship to Red Bull's Max Verstappen after FIA race director Michael Masi did not apply the rules correctly in a late safety-car period.

Insiders say Hamilton has lost trust in the governing body as a result.

Mercedes declined to comment on the situation surrounding Hamilton's future when approached by BBC Sport.

The team and Hamilton are said to be aligned on the issue and waiting to see what action the FIA takes to address the matters raised by the Abu Dhabi race.

The FIA has launched an inquiry into the events at Yas Marina and is aware both of Hamilton's unhappiness and that it has a big task on its hands to win back the seven-time champion's confidence.



New president Mohammed Ben Sulayem has said he has contacted Hamilton since his election five days after the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

"I don't think he's 100% ready to respond right now," Ben Sulayem said last week. "We don't blame him. I understand his position."

Some senior F1 insiders are concerned that the governing body has not fully grasped the threat to its credibility created by the final race of the season.

It has been a month since the Abu Dhabi race. But when asked about the timing of the inquiry's findings or what matters it will seek to address, the FIA said it was not yet ready to answer queries.

The FIA admitted in a statement last month that the events of Abu Dhabi were "tarnishing the image" of F1 but also said that it had "generated significant misunderstanding and reactions from F1 teams, drivers and fans".

Announcing the inquiry, the FIA said it would be done in time for "any identified meaningful feedback and conclusions to be made before the beginning of the 2022 season".

The first of two pre-season tests starts on 23 February, while the opening race is in Bahrain on 18-20 March.

The future of Masi is in doubt as a result of his handling of the race, which came at the end of a season in which there were repeated concerns among teams and drivers over the consistency of application of the rules.

One senior source told BBC Sport that Mercedes had dropped their appeal against the results of the race after agreeing a quid pro quo with the FIA.

This deal was said to be that Masi and FIA head of single-seater technical matters Nikolas Tombazis would no longer be in their positions for the 2022 season.

Mercedes deny that any such deal was reached, and insist that they dropped their appeal after receiving assurances only that the issue would be treated seriously and appropriate action would be taken by the FIA.

Wolff said last month that Mercedes would "hold the FIA to account".

He did not clarify how he intended to do that but said he had "confidence, trust and faith" that the teams and drivers could work with the governing body to create a "more robust decision-making process".

Several senior figures have told BBC Sport that they do not see how Masi can retain his position as race director, but some have cautioned that the FIA is in a difficult position because there is no obvious replacement.
Max Verstappen overtakes Lewis Hamilton
The 2021 championship was decided in the last lap of the season's final race
What is Hamilton's contractual situation?

Hamilton signed a new two-year contract with Mercedes last year, which in theory will keep him at the team until at least the end of 2023.

Mercedes have recruited George Russell, one of the leading lights of the new generation of drivers, as the seven-time champion's team-mate in 2022.

The likeliest outcome is thought to be that the FIA will take significant action and that Hamilton will return in 2022.

But if Hamilton did decide to step away from F1, it is not immediately obvious who Mercedes would recruit to replace him.

Every major driver is under contract for the 2022 season and it is likely Mercedes would have to seek a deal to buy their chosen candidate out of his current commitments - as they did when they bought Valtteri Bottas out of Williams when Nico Rosberg retired after winning the 2016 world title.
What happened in Abu Dhabi to upset Hamilton?

Hamilton had dominated the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix and was on course to win a record-breaking eighth world drivers' title when the safety car was sent out when Nicholas Latifi crashed his Williams with five laps to go.

Red Bull pitted Verstappen to fit fresh tyres in the hope the race would restart before the chequered flag, but Mercedes felt they could not do the same with Hamilton because it would have meant the Briton losing the lead with no certainty the race would restart.

Masi then failed to apply the rules correctly in two different ways.

Normal protocol is to allow either all the lapped cars dotted through the field to un-lap themselves so they do not interfere with racing on the restart, or leave all in place.

But Masi allowed only some of the lapped cars in between the leaders to un-lap themselves - sending the five cars between Hamilton and Verstappen through so they were not in the way, but leaving all the others in place, including the two cars between Verstappen and third-placed Carlos Sainz's Ferrari.

In addition, Masi ignored a rule that dictates that the race restarts at the end of the following lap after the lapped cars have been removed, and restarted it a lap early.


That lap was the last racing lap, and Verstappen used the extra grip of his fresh tyres to pass Hamilton, win the race and take his first world title.

An initial appeal by Mercedes against the results of the race was rejected by stewards that night. The team gave notice of their intention to appeal against that decision but withdrew that notice after three days of talks with the FIA.

Wolff has accused Masi of "a freestyle reading of the rules [that] left Lewis like a sitting duck", adding: "Robbing him in the last lap of the race is unacceptable."

But he has also said that there is a bigger problem for the FIA to solve than just finding a new race director.

"It's not only a decision to change the race director; the whole system of decision-making needs to be improved," Wolff said. "The race director is certainly under big pressure and some of that is due to our own faults."

One major change expected as a result of Abu Dhabi is for team principals to no longer be allowed to contact the race director during a grand prix.

Both Wolff and Red Bull's Christian Horner lobbied for actions that favoured their teams in the course of the race, as has become normal practice in recent seasons.

[DLSTR]

https://www.formulanerds.com/news/mi...Qnr34VAcoXxHRo

Michael Masi Not Named on FIA Organisation Chart for January 2022

[Hotrodz]

I think even if one does not consider the last race of the season, no one is happy with Masi's performance over the last year. The RB fans on here as well as us MB fans have complained about the inconsistencies and his judgment. He needs to be fired for non-performance, period!

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

[abm89]

Originally Posted by Hotrodz

I think even if one does not consider the last race of the season, no one is happy with Masi's performance over the last year. The RB fans on here as well as us MB fans have complained about the inconsistencies and his judgment. He needs to be fired for non-performance, period!

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

Yeah, that's one theme that was consistent with most reasonable F1 fans. The way races were directed and officiated were inconsistent. Abu Dhabi was basically the last straw and guaranteed Masi would be kicked out. Honestly, the way Jeddah was handled was absolutely awful and should have warned us of the f*ckery that was to come.

The fact that we have multiple races that were complete jokes all in one season is a huge red flag: Spa for the 2 lap farce, Jeddah for just the complete sh!t show, and the Abu Dhabi ending. That's not even including other sessions like Monza qualifying and the Mugello restart in 2020.

I think it was already said in here, but there needs to be absolutely clear rules of engagement for racing set before 2022 starts, and they stick with it. We've seen enough racing to know what is deemed fair and what's not. Perez v Hamilton and Alonso v Hamilton were both on-track battles I felt were fair and within the rules.

I'm sticking with my protest against watching F1 just solely due to the fact that they don't deserve my money, especially after blaming fans for not understanding convoluted rules they have (which is insulting), but I think a racing standards clamp down needs to happen before I will willingly watch again.

[DLSTR]

Originally Posted by abm89

Yeah, that's one theme that was consistent with most reasonable F1 fans. The way races were directed and officiated were inconsistent. Abu Dhabi was basically the last straw and guaranteed Masi would be kicked out. Honestly, the way Jeddah was handled was absolutely awful and should have warned us of the f*ckery that was to come.

The fact that we have multiple races that were complete jokes all in one season is a huge red flag: Spa for the 2 lap farce, Jeddah for just the complete sh!t show, and the Abu Dhabi ending. That's not even including other sessions like Monza qualifying and the Mugello restart in 2020.

I think it was already said in here, but there needs to be absolutely clear rules of engagement for racing set before 2022 starts, and they stick with it. We've seen enough racing to know what is deemed fair and what's not. Perez v Hamilton and Alonso v Hamilton were both on-track battles I felt were fair and within the rules.

I'm sticking with my protest against watching F1 just solely due to the fact that they don't deserve my money, especially after blaming fans for not understanding convoluted rules they have (which is insulting), but I think a racing standards clamp down needs to happen before I will willingly watch again.

Brazil with Max 10 + meters off the circuit pushing out LH. Ridiculous..........

[Hotrodz]

Just so much wrong it is not funny. I will contest even though the battle between Perez and Hamilton was epic it was not racing. Perez was simply defending to slow Hamilton down and not fighting for position, which is in stark contrast with Alonzo how was fight for a result. I get team play but if that is going to be allowed in that fashion it will become very dangerous.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk