Bahrain preview?

They are only mild evolutions of last years cars

 

Liberty doesn't want testing, they want to fill every opening of a car on track with an actual Grand Prix racing. They see one thing... $$$$$

Sadly, to the true F1 enthusiast, pre season testing was one of the most exciting build ups to the season.

 

The race in F1 takes place at the factories not on the track.
The track is where they get together, every couple of weeks, to see which factory is making more forward progress faster.

 

Absolute nonsense to limit testing when they’re spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year per team. The only sport that doesn’t let you practice and test rookies.

 

What would be interesting is to have a race where the new car )say 2023) is raced alongside the old car (say 2022) to see how much faster the new car is over the old car.

It was said (decades back) that cars get 2-3 seconds per lap faster at the end of the year than at the beginning.

The problem is you can't put the same driver in both cars.

 

On the other hand, less pre-season testing should make for more interesting races at the beginning. There's always some issues with reliability, so who knows. How about another season with 7 different winners in the first 7 races, I'd vote for that!

 

Max,
Lewis,
Sergio,
George,
Carlos,
Charles,
And a reserve driver from on of the top 3 teams--due to some unforeseen circumstances.

Would that satisfy your lust for spreading victories around ??

 

Can't we get poor Lando a win? He's due.

 

I can only guess that Liberty Media and the FIA think that limiting testing will result in more mistakes on track, which will provide exciting images for the cameras to capture.

It seems geared towards crash fans, rather than race fans.

All the best,
Andrew.

 

Back in the testing-everyday era, Luca Badoer took 90%+ of the driving chores.

 

Exactly. They think limited testing will throw up unexpected results—which may happen at the beginning of the year—but the best teams will just work harder and better at the factory and still be at the front of the grid.

 

I suspect limited testing means that the cars get designed and developed with a lot less real world driver input. Instead, the drivers are just taught how to drive them based on simulation predictions.

All the best,
Andrew.

 

This^^ + the driver feedback so many think drivers are so good at is not really assessed until race conditions. Loss of days in testing is now offset somewhat by more races.

 

We all complain about Liberty media, FIA, testing limitations etc. I guess we are just venting frustration. They are not reading any of this, nor will they change anything. Thats why I enjoy watching old 60s and 70s races on YT!

 

F1 is finished for the most part, its losing fans by the 1000s every year. We all know its a dumbed down series, pretty soon it will become as ignorant as nascar. It should not be referred to as F1 anymore anyhow, it has long since departed from what Formula One really means, its that simple. And karma for Ferrari becoming such a crappy greedy company will be f1 titles few and far between if any at all. I hope Hamilton or Max win all the titles until either or both retire. Ferrari will not win the title as long as Lewis or Max are driving for their respective teams.

Mr. G

 

So this is the pre-race thread for Bahrain -

Aston says--

Drugovich to make F1 debut for Aston if Stroll is unfit for Bahrain
The Aston Martin Formula 1 team has confirmed that Felipe Drugovich will compete in the Bahrain GP should Lance Stroll be unable to take part due to his wrist injury.

 

Will be interesting the Gasly / Ocon competition this year!

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/confident-alpine-planning-upgrade-for-f1-bahrain-gp/10436860/
Confident’ Alpine planning upgrade for F1 Bahrain GP
The Alpine Formula 1 team has “a level of confidence” ahead of the opening race of the season in Bahrain, where it will already introduce its first upgrade package.

By: Adam Cooper
Feb 26, 2023, 2:29 PM
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Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly did not feature that high on timing screens over the three-day pre-season test in Sakhir as the team focused on longer runs and experimentation with its A523, deciding not to run with low fuel or use the softest tyres in Pirelli’s range.

However, rivals have indicated that the Enstone team looks competitive and will potentially be vying with Aston Martin to be head of the midfield.

Technical director Matt Harman indicated that the team was satisfied with the outcome of the testing as it knows how much performance it has in hand.

“We have a level of confidence,” he said. “Of course we do, because we're clearly not running the car at its full potential.

“I don't like to labour on that too much, because I have no idea where the others are running, to be quite honest. We do our analysis, we all know we are looking at each other, and where we are.

“There's a massive level of uncertainty in that. But from our point of view things are responding as we expected, our aerodynamics are working as we expected.

“We've tried some quite interesting different developments this week, and they've proved to be quite positive. So we're looking forward to the first race.”

Team principal Otmar Szafnauer agreed that testing had shown some promise and that was cautiously optimistic.

He said: "We haven't taken the fuel out yet to see what we can do over one lap, my optimism comes from the fact that our long-run pace looks pretty good, and that we've had decent feedback from the drivers saying they're happy with the car.

“It's predictable, there's no gremlins, no snappiness. However, there's still some work to be done."
Harman confirmed that the first upgrade package will hit the track as early as next weekend for the opening round.

“There'll be some visual differences to the first race,” he said. “We've got quite a nice upgrade going on, and hopefully that'll help with our with our quest at getting closer to that third position, if not being in that position."

 

Mike Elliot stating they are putting a smaller (lower downforce) rear wing on the Merc for Bahrain.

 

Everyone will need something to catch or be a bit closer RedBull lol

 

Track info.

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It's raining at the track. Yes, it rains in the desert.

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The Honda RBPTH001.

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