The F1 mid-season report

[Mr Jack]

Coming up to the mid-season break, what are we thinking about the season so far? My take:

Season overall

The title race seems to be all over bar the singing, and total domination does not a great season make but behind the one Red Bull we've had plenty of action and the new rules have clearly made the racing better. DRS unfortunately continues to stink up the place. The balance between drivers and teams seems to have shifted a lot more than usual as well.

Red Bull

Newey delivers the goods once more, and Max is getting better all the time. Whether we'd see the old dodgy driving return in a real contest I don't know, but he's barely put a foot wrong so far. Which cannot be said of the seat warmer in the other car. Pérez has seriously under-delivered, and only sits second due to a massive car advantage; just not good enough and his seat must surely be in doubt.

Mercedes

Much improved from last season, but still nowhere near the energy drink. Clearly got the direction wrong between seasons, but have improved pretty sharply. Hamilton is still clearly unhappy, but seems much better than last season and has seriously maximised the points available in that car. Russell has been okay but can't match Hamilton and needs to reflect on himself. Have to hope the new direction can give them a serious boost before next season.

Aston Martin

Turned up with the second best car, but seem to be badly loosing the development race. Alonso has excelled and looked likely to take a win, until the team started falling back. Stroll deserves a little bit of slack for coming into the season injured and having missed testing but still should be better. Stroll's failure to develop as a driver has become a real problem. Still he has that seat until he decides he doesn't want it. Aston look like they're developing into a true top team which throws the Lance problem into even starker relief.

Ferrari

For me, the big disappointment of the season. After looking to challenge for the title at the start of last season, this season they are absolutely nowhere near the mighty Bulls. Leclerc has still somehow dragged that to three podiums, whilst Sainz in the other seat lacks the outright pace but brings consistency and seems a much more intelligent driver, frequently leading on strategy and saving himself from Ferrari's finest clown shoes.

McLaren

Bungled their off season but eventually brought an incredible upgrade package delivering the car their drivers deserve. Norris has done a fine job of maximising the car once it improved, and put in some great drives. Piastri has done a good job in his rookie season, closer to Norris than DR managed from the off and showing signs of matching Norris in the last couple of races. Things could get tasty between the two if Piastri can keep that up.

Alpine

Another embarrassing season for the works team, descending into intra-team chaos. Gasly has failed to impress in the way I expected, and Ocon looks to have the measure of him. Surprisingly, they haven't fallen into a pattern of conflict and collision between the two of them.

Williams

A clear step forward, but still a long way from mid-field respectability. Albon has excelled, repeatedly dragging that car into impressive positions in quali and sometimes holding in the race. Logan has had a more difficult time, but some of that is Williams deliberately putting him on strategies to help train his race-craft by, for example, running him long on soft tyres so he can learn how to manage the tyres as they go off. Logan feels to me like he's one really good race weekend away from stepping up to where he should be.

Alfa Romeo

A disappointing season for both drivers and team. Bottas has been narrowly the better driver, but given his experience he should be performing much better, and he seems more like he's collecting a paycheque than really pushing himself. Zhou is having a decent second season but needs to find a bit extra or land a bad of luck to really impress.

Haas

Hülkenberg has been impressive at times, but hasn't been able to turn qualifying success into race results. KMag in the other car has been having an absolute mare; not sure he'll even have a seat next season if other options become available. Haas, overall, feel like the most back-makery of teams into their strategy and behaviour even if they're not bottom of the pack on points.

AlphaTauri

An absolute stinker of a car. De Vries failed to deliver on his promise of instant results made in Monza last year and, whilst a little harsh, earned his mid-season dumping. Too early to judge DR but it's looking good, especially compared to his McLaren disaster. Tsunoda has seemed much more considered and composed than last season, and has gained a few points finishes as a result, but DR's appearance in the team will make or break him I think. Either he holds his own and gets a crack at the RB seat or he gets beaten by DR and shuffled out of F1 to make way for the next RB junior driver.

 

[Mr Jack]

I disagree there.

Honestly, i haven't noticed any real difference in racing/action. It is what they want you to think their amazing new regulations did, but i don't see it.

How do you imagine "they" change my opinion of the racing? No, compare '19 and '20 to '22 and '23 and it's really obvious the racing is better. Before overtakes were all or nothing - either the car behind had the ability to romp past or it was stuck and would soon have to drop back into clean air - now the cars can follow much closer and we often see overtakes built up over several laps and even the occasional non-DRS overtake. The battle at the front we got through '21 masks how bad most of the racing was in the previous era and how it got worse as the era went on.

It hasn't fixed the problem - the cars are still too long and too wide for good overtaking, and DRS is still rubbish - but it is better than before.

 

[Mr Jack]

There's no real overtakes "built up over several laps" though. Drivers just have to work to get DRS then wait for a straight to use it. It's rubbish. Like in the race just gone, you had a lap or two where it almost got tense (I say almost because it was an inevitability) with Max and Hamilton exchanging tenths off each lap time, going from 0.4 to 0.5, to 0.4 etc. But then Hamilton lost his DRS and Max drove by on a straight like he was overtaking a pensioner on the M25.

It's true that Max's Red Bull is just ridiculous under DRS, and so much better than the other cars, than you never see this kind of thing from him, but look down the grid and you'll see drivers working across multiple laps to get into the perfect position for an overtake - although they still nearly always end up being boring DRS passes when they do happen, at least they can work at it for a while rather than trashing their tyres, overheating, and having to drop back if they don't pass within a few laps of reaching the car in front.

 

[Mr Jack]

We don't get overtakes very much without DRS simply because the cars are generally so evenly paced because they're built to such tight specifications.

When there's less than a second difference between the top ten cars over a 3 mile lap, the only way anyone's going to overtake is if the driver in front makes a mistake.

I don't think this is true. Formulas with more tightly specced cars seem to have more overtaking not less, just look at F2, F3, or IndyCar.

There no real scope for innovation because the regulations are so tight. If the regulations simply said "Here are your minimum and maximum dimensions and weight, here's the engine capacity and cylinder count, off you go and build a car" then it'd be so much more fun

I do agree thought that things would be better with less regulation. Probably need a little bit more than you suggest to ensure safety, etc. but I think a more open set of rules would be better, especially on the mechanical and suspension end of things.