In the round-up: George Russell is confident Mercedes will start the 2023 Formula 1 season in better shape than this year’s campaign.
In brief
Russell expects tough 2022 will turn into a positive
Having seen Mercedes turn around their poor start to the 2022 campaign and claimed his breakthrough victory in the penultimate round of the season, Russell expects a much more competitive season for the team next year.“We are a step behind Red Bull and Ferrari and we’ve got a lot of catching up to do,” he told the BBC. “But we’re definitely going to be in a much stronger position from race one next year than we were this year.”
“As a team these struggles are going to set us up much nicer for the coming years so I hope I look back in 10 years’ time and say actually this 2022 season was a positive one for the journey,” he added.
Miami Grand Prix out-performed city’s Superbowl – Domenicali
“The first Grand Prix in Miami, this year, generated results superior to those recorded by the 2020 Superbowl organised in the same city,” he told the RCS (Rizzoli-Corriere della Sera) Academy. “For us, this is a data of enormous importance that contains many precious indications.”
The San Francisco 49ers played the Kansas City Chiefs in the event on February 2nd, 2020, before the disruption caused by the global Covid-19 pandemic that year.
Domenicali also told his audience he intends to continue adding more competitive sessions to grand prix weekends. “Free practice isn’t of much interest and allows the teams to prepare, which ends up reducing the competitive variables,” he said.
DS Penske drivers enthused by first test
Two-times Formula E champion Jean-Eric Vergne says DS Penske’s performance was “very good” in the pre-season test at Valencia. “Everything went very well [and] I’m happy with the car and with all the work that has been carried out with the team.”
His new team mate, reigning champion Stoffel Vandoorne, described the opening test as “extremely positive” for the team. “We learned a lot of things about our new car.”
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Links
Motor racing links of interest:
Las Vegas Grand Prix fan fest to offer cheaper race experience (Las Vegas Review-Journal)
'But Las Vegas Grand Prix CEO Renee Wilm said a fan festival will be held on the Wynn West land, on the west side of Las Vegas Boulevard between Fashion Show Drive and Genting Boulevard, so other fans can take in the excitement.'
Nannini carries speed, global pedigree to Juncos Hollinger (IndyCar)
'Fans here are open and allowed to really interact with the driver, it's something unique because I was not used to that. In Europe, everything is super closed, and they don't really allow the fans to be able to speak with the drivers. Honestly, if I were a fan, I prefer much more the American way.'
Legends and rising stars join line-up for ROC Sweden (Race of Champions)
'2022 Formula 2 Champion Felipe Drugovich, IndyCar ace Felix Rosenqvist and World Rally star Thierry Neuville will make their Race Of Champions debut on the snow and ice of Sweden’s Pite Havsbad on January 28-29, 2023.'
We always endeavour to credit original sources. If you have a tip for a link relating to single-seater motorsport to feature in the next RaceFans round-up please send it in via the contact form.
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Social media
Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:
In a year when we've needed your support more than ever, thank you, Team. ❤️🙏 pic.twitter.com/0Dtssc1Opu
— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) December 17, 2022
A record-breaking year requires a star-studded Homerun ⭐️ Thanks to everyone who joined us 😍
— Oracle Red Bull Racing (@redbullracing) December 17, 2022
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- Find more official F1 accounts to follow in the F1 Twitter Directory
Comment of the day
Those cars look short, light, agile, and very raceable. Ideal for street circuits.
I wonder if it would it be possible for F1 to develop a short and a long chassis for the season? The one size fits all does not suit all circuits, often to the detriment of racing. Historic circuits like Zandvoort would also not be forced to change the nature of their circuit layout (to accommodate for the long form modern F1 cars).
Olivier
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Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
18th December 2022, 0:20
They said the same thing last year. Every team does. It doesn’t matter, none of them knows what they’re going to compete with.
petebaldwin (@)
18th December 2022, 0:48
Sure but the way they managed to make the car competitive by the end of the season without a major redesign is fairly impressive. I’d be surprised if they didn’t have at least the 2nd best car next year.
Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
18th December 2022, 9:55
Mercedes started the year 7 tenths behind pole in Q3 for the Bahrain GP.
Mercedes finished the year 7 tenths behind pole in Q3 for the Abu Dhabi GP.
Tifoso1989 (@tifoso1989)
18th December 2022, 13:28
@petebaldwin
Nothing impressive when we know they got a bailout from the FIA with a biased technical directive (TD039) towards their car design concept. They are sure that they will be competitive from the start next year because of the 2023 rule changes again in their favour.
They were lobbying to increase the floor edges by 25 millimetres which was the initial FIA proposal, RBR and Ferrari were against that change because they had already dealt with porpoising with the anti-porpoising metric in place. A 15mm millimetres increase was reached as a compromise.
sethje (@seth-space)
18th December 2022, 21:46
Both Ferrari and RbR ended their development way before the end of the season.
It was not Mercedes gaining but the opposition losing advantage.
Not sure if Merc is really able to correct the faults in the design in the first half of the year..
pastaman
18th December 2022, 0:47
This is really disingenuous. The Hard Rock Stadium itself only has about ~65k seats. How about comparing viewership? There were 100+ million viewers of that Super Bowl just in the US alone.
some racing fan
18th December 2022, 5:46
It gets better than that- the Super Bowl isn’t held in the same city every year. Miami has hosted it 10 times since the 1960s and the last time it was there was 2020. And it’s in Phoenix (yes, THAT Phoenix) this year.
KaIIe (@kaiie)
18th December 2022, 6:52
Yeah, if you read the quote carefully, Domenicali mentions “results”, not viewership. I have no idea what these F1-favouring results are; I suppose you can generate or interpret the data in thousands different ways, from economic impact to viewers to something completely different.
Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
18th December 2022, 10:07
It’s a time-honoured tradition:
The higher the cost of an event, the more absurdly nonsensical the studies produced to justify them.
Jere (@jerejj)
18th December 2022, 5:49
I’m sure they’ll start next season more competitively, but whether they’d still be fast enough to win on merit regularly is another matter.
My view on Domenicali’s practice reference has remained unchanged, i.e., a practice session wouldn’t be practice sessions if it were competitive rather than non-competitive, so better ax them altogether or only have a single one, if anything.
COTD’s proposition is interesting, but perhaps easier said than done.
S
18th December 2022, 6:10
I disagree on practice sessions.
If the only thing that matters from a competitive aspect is a best lap time – then that can be set at any point during the session, and the rest of it can still be used for ‘practice.’ It would be up to the teams to determine how best to use their allocation of time of resources.
The old 1 hour qualifying sessions on Fridays and Saturdays were also used in this manner, to an extent.
Bottom line is that, ultimately, people want the cars on the track – but that time is wasted if they can sit in their garages doing nothing for the entire session. Like it or not, this is entertainment.
Adding a competitive element satisfies everyone except those who reject it on principle.
As for CotD – there’s actually nothing stopping the teams from doing exactly that. They’d just be spreading their resources over two projects simultaneously instead of one, and quite possibly dropping the ball with both of them.
At least with only one car with 100% of team resources thrown at it, it’s bound to be (relatively) good somewhere.
MichaelN
18th December 2022, 12:08
Domenicali’s comments are like a graph without a y-axis.
As the CEO of the Formula One Group, the venues serve two purposes; extract hosting fees, and provide marketing value to the participants. What that is, and how that is calculated is anyone’s guess. As the old saying goes, half of all marketing is wasted – the problem is nobody knows which half that is.
Also, it’s hardly a surprise that a three day event spread out over many kilometers can seat more people than a one day stadium-bound event.
bernasaurus (@bernasaurus)
18th December 2022, 12:24
COTD: I don’t know about running two different chassis throughout the year (long & short), if it’s allowed I guess you’d have to homologate both, which could be a pain. I wouldn’t surprised if its forbidden on costs grounds, HAAS can only just build enough parts for one chassis.
But it isn’t one size fits all, during Mercedes dominate years they ran a longer wheelbase than Red Bull. I don’t know if thats still the case under the new regs.
Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
18th December 2022, 13:35
No. Haas chooses to produce a minimum of parts and to take a participation trophy approach to being in Formula 1.
As for using different chassis, as the post suggested, that misses the mark to me because it cannot solve the supposed issue of today’s cars not working on silly circuits Formula 1 races on for tradition and to placate the home audience of the current WDC.
The chassis has the dimensions it has to ensure driver safety. You simply cannot make it significantly shorter without compressing the survival cell (no-go) or compromising the position of the fuel cell.
Not a solvable problem. Not a viable solution. Not going to happen.
Asanator (@asanator)
18th December 2022, 20:16
I am not sure that this is true. My understanding is that the new generation of cars run with a mandatory spacer between the engine and gearbox. The intention being to be able to remove it and reduce the length of the wheelbase at some point in the future.
Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
19th December 2022, 0:18
If they do, and I will gladly admit that I don’t know, that’s not relevant to the chassis discussion. The chassis, as far as Formula 1 is concerned, is the monocoque containing the driver survival cell and the fuel cell. It is bolted to the roll-hoop, the front crash structure, the side impact crash structures and the engine block.
It also contains the mounting points of the forward suspension elements, the geometry of which you could change, but rules for the front axle centre line also exist IIRC.
Bbob
19th December 2022, 9:35
February 2020 had many people in fear of Covid-19.