Staying Ahead Of The Pack
This weekend sees the final race in the Grand Prix calendar before the mid season break. The teams have been striving to find lost seconds since the testing that took place preseason way back in February. Many of the teams have bought various upgrades across the 12 races that have taken place thus far.
This season sees the original 24 races reduced to 22 due to the conflict in the Middle East and we lost the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian races. There is still 9 races remaining after the Hungarian race is completed this Sunday so there is still so much that can change before now and the end of the season.
A team like Aston Martin bringing 16 upgrades for one race is kind of telling everyone where they are and reflects how poor the car has performed. There is not one part of the car that has not been tweaked and upgraded besides the engine and battery. Having the best designer on board with Adrian Newey these are the first bits of his involvement since joining the team having left Red Bull after taking gardening leave not allowed to be involved for 12 months. So much is expected of the team and it will be interesting to see if and how these changes improve the cars performance.
Looking at free practice 2 from todays statistics it shows Aston Martin are still struggling and this will take so much more time playing catch up. What does stand out is Ferrari leading the pack and their upgrades seemed to have made a big difference.
Mercedes have been leading the way for the entire season and it has taken the other teams 12 races to claw in the seconds required. What is fascinating to see is the improvements these teams make over the course of one season. The average improvements are as much as two seconds per lap quicker so teams cannot rest on their laurels and need to hunt for tenths of seconds. The data from every race is what allows the teams to find these lost seconds and how some teams can go from the middle of the pack to leading the pack if they unlock the true potential of their cars.
The Hungaroring being the track in Hungary is not the fastest track around and what these lap times is telling us is that Ferrari are quicker in the corners and may not necessarily be the fastest down the straights. Ferrari have been threatening for the last two or three races and this was slowly coming together and the race itself will tell everyone far more where they are for the remainder of the season.
What is fairly clear is there are tow or three teams or possibly four if you do not count out McLaren who could dominate the remainder of the season. Mercedes definitely has a challenge on their hands with both Ferrari and Red Bull having made up the lost ground from Mercedes early season dominance. Mercedes were expected to drop back once their engine dominance cheat mode was removed and the playing field was levelled once more.
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I think that the car makes the racer truly prove himself. If you don't have a good car, if you don't push the boundaries and tweak it, you cannot do so much on your own. Thus besides the F1 racers, I also keep a close eye on the manufacturers as I consider that's where the magic happens. 😊
@cryptoandcoffee, "Looking at free practice 2 from todays statistics it shows A..." es algo que merece más atención de la que recibe.
astin martin.. do they still make commercial cars? i prefer BMW.