Ocon and team-mate Pierre Gasly were both left asking for more performance after they finished eighth and ninth in the Saudi Arabian GP.The two cars ran a few seconds apart for much of the race, with the drivers enjoying a brief fight after the safety car restart.The A523’s pace clearly indicated that it is the fifth quickest car at the moment.Ocon made it clear that the current …Keep reading
From the February launch of the MCL60 car, which is an evolution of the 2022 design that Stella said McLaren was “not entirely happy with”, the prevailing sentiment has been that the team must be “realistic” in the early races.While Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri both hit reliability problems in the Bahrain season opener, they were buoyed by pace that should have left them on the cusp …Keep reading
In Bahrain’s season opening race, Alpine driver Ocon was penalised for incorrectly positioning his car in his grid slot.The same thing happened to Aston Martin’s Alonso in Saudi Arabia, as the Spaniard was given a five-second time penalty for starting too far to the left of his box. However, Alonso still finished on the podium behind winner Sergio Perez and his Red Bull team-mate Verstappen …Keep reading
After the Bahrain Grand Prix team boss Toto Wolff made it clear that it was time to look at a change of direction, and that there would be “no holy cows” in terms of sticking to established ideas.The definition of exactly what the concept of an F1 car entails has been a talking point in recent weeks, with Wolff making it clear that it extends beyond the trademark ‘size zero’ sidepods …Keep reading
This growth can be attributed to several factors, including the impact of the Netflix series Drive to Survive and the expansion of the US Grands Prix to include a second race in Miami and a third race in Las Vegas. In 2023, it also has the added value of an American driver in Logan Sargeant.However, the series must still establish a foothold in a market dominated by the NFL, NBA, and …Keep reading
The changes made to the outer portion of the front wing’s upper flap and where it connects with the endplate will be familiar, as a number of teams have made headway in this region so far this season. The alteration made by Ferrari is subtle at this stage though, with just a c-shaped cut-out made in the junction of the upper flap and endplate. Beyond that, the team still used …Keep reading
Speaking on F1’s Beyond the Grid podcast, Stoddart reflected on Alonso’s rookie season as the Spaniard joined Minardi at the age of 19.Alonso joined a team that was close to going out of business before Stoddart’s European charter airline company bought it in December 2000, and turned up for his first race at Melbourne in the following year with minimal experience of the PS01 car.Stoddart …Keep reading
Fernando Alonso finished a strong third in the season opener at Sakhir, albeit helped by the retirement of Charles Leclerc.However, Krack says the team remained “cautious” about the rest of the season, while knowing that Jeddah’s high-speed corners and long straights would provide a different test.Last weekend Leclerc outqualified Alonso, but the Ferrari driver dropped back on the …Keep reading
In both cases, the drivers were deemed to have placed their cars too far to one side of their grid boxes at the start, and both subsequently received penalties.The decisions by the stewards were based on an addition to the International Sporting Code that was introduced for 2022, which says that a car “must be stationary at its allocated grid box with no part of the contact patch of its front …Keep reading
The seven-time world champion has had a difficult start to the campaign, with Mercedes not delivering the step forward it hoped to be able to challenge Red Bull this year.However, his situation has been further hampered by the fact that he does not appear as settled with the handling of the W14 as team-mate George Russell.While he thinks his situation could be helped by the team bringing …Keep reading