2023 Hungarian Grand Prix Heroes and Zeroes

[Jericoke]

I'll admit, I fell asleep for part of the race, missed a bunch of pitstops from the leaders.  No idea what the hell happened with Ferrari.  Apparently LeClerc got stuck in the pits for 10 seconds but was still leading Sainz?  Anyway...

Heroes
Max/Newey.  Another day, another effortless victory.  I don't know if Perez is utter garbage, or Max is that good (or RBR favours Max that much), but I don't know that I've ever seen a teammate domination this big, especially if they're both race winners.

McLaren.  Great drives from Norris and Piastri.  Maybe best of the rest now.

Mercedes.  Also maybe best of the rest.  Hamilton and Russel are definitely top drivers, and the team working on upgrading the car are doing great work.  Still, doesn't feel like the unstoppable team that Wolff put together.  I wonder how much the spending cap has to do with Mercedes not being 'perfect'.

Daniel Riccardio.  We all know that one race can be a fluke, but he put in the exact weekend he needed to prove he still belongs in F1.  Being caught up with Zhou and the Alpines would have been an easy excuse to just coast around at the back, and everyone would have just said 'bad luck, you'll get them next time', but he put in a solid race, proving that the Alpha Tauri doesn't need to finish last.  Tsunoda might find himself in trouble.

I kinda want to put Albon as a hero... but I think he was just 'pretty good'.  He's got room for better.

Zeroes.
Ferrari.  Like I said before, I sort of slept through whatever they managed to screw up this week.

Zhou.  Before the race started, I was wondering about Zhou.  Great qualifying, but I don't really have any feelings about him one way or the other.  Doesn't strike me a 'good', but doesn't strike me as 'bad' either.  I was hoping to pay attention to him today so I could get a better feel.  Ooops, he had a bad day.  Who knew that when the Alpine cars took each other out, it would be someone else's fault?

Bottas.  Not as dramatic as Zhou's day, but still a bad day.

Aston Martin.  Not BAD bad, but whatever they were doing right early in the season has evaporated.  I am glad to see that Stroll isn't being outclassed by Alonso, but it's frustrating to see the team getting minimal points.

Bonus thought. 
Watching the SKY coverage, they had a 'junior' announcing team covering the weekend.  I couldn't see the full broadcast in Canada, but when the kids joined the normal crew, I found them very insightful, poised and well spoken.  I could watch them do race coverage.

[rmassart]

Having watched qualifying and see Hamilton get pole by 3 thousandth of a second I thought the first few laps might be interesting...

Well after the first corner Hamilton had dropped to fourth and Verstappen was in the lead. I switched the TV off and decided I had better things to do than watch Verstappen win by half a minute. I was only out by 3 seconds.

All kudos to RedBull for producing a monster of a car no one else can get close to. But as I have said previously this is killing the sport, I simply can't remember this sort of domination in the 40 years I've been following the sport. By which I mean going out of my way to watch most races in a season, even when Schumacher was dominating with Ferrari. This season I simply can't be bothered.

So I am even more the grateful for the excellent roundups of Jericoke. I still get to follow the ins and outs of the seasons even though I am missing many races.

[Dare]

Aston Martin copied the Red Bull and Alonso was a podium
finisher. Now it seems McLaren has copied the Red Bull better
and now Lando is a podium finisher. Why isn't Perez?

I had something to do this morning so I missed the race so
if I didn't have to see if there was a safety car for the GG I
would have passed looking up if Max won and had fast lap. Surprise of the ages he did

[Monty]

I have only seen highlights but my daughter was at the race. We both commented on how ridiculously fast the Red Bull is. Max can drive at 90% and still gap the rest of the field by over 30seconds! Perez could overtake any car, anywhere (obviously, with the weather conditions, his tyres suffered in the end but he was much faster than any other car).
I believe the budget cap over spend gave Red Bull a huge advantage and on-going development is keeping them ahead. It would not surprise me if they are currently still over-spending but of course we will not know for another year! Perhaps it will never be proven if the overspend gave them the clear advantage they have. Whatever the cause; the result is boring predictable races!

[Willy]

Once again thanks Jeri for ticking all the boxes. Even with a nap.

I recall how boring it was to watch Schumacher lead the field every race or use a pitstop for fuel and tires to pass. Those races were mostly a procession and with no DRS, passing was done in the pits.

Then Merc and Hamilton were dominant and I admit to actually enjoying watching him win as I have always been a Hamilton fan. But, once again not exciting racing where the result was usually a forgone conclusion.

RB is doing the same but is far, far faster than either Ferarri or Merc were in those times compared to the current field.
It can not be anything other than the illegal overspending they did as "catering excess" or whatever crap Horner has cooked up. 
I am willing to go out on a limb and say they are doing the same this season but the FIA will not figure it out for a long time.
By that time Horner, Marko(I can't even stand looking at that guy)  & Verstappen will have walked off with more trophies and records all with smug looks on their faces.

[Jericoke]

I recall how boring it was to watch Schumacher lead the field every race or use a pitstop for fuel and tires to pass. Those races were mostly a procession and with no DRS, passing was done in the pits.

A couple of key differences.  Those races were the Michael Schumacher show.  Not only was he winning the races handily, but he's all we saw.  Just someone leading the race with a teammate contractually obligated to keep out of the way.  Midfield battles only existed if Murray Walker mentioned it.  Hapless slower cars would only show up as Schumacher lapped them.

Now, what Ferrari accomplished was fantastic, just as what Newey has created now, but F1 kept changing the rules to make sure it wouldn't happen again.  Took away Ferrari's ability to rebuild the car entirely for each session.  To test as miles as they wanted on a private track.  Changed pit rules to encourage on track passing.  The FIA understood that one team winning all the time wasn't good for business, and did everything they could to stop Ferrari. 

Apparently putting some sort of mystical curse on them in the process.

Then Merc and Hamilton were dominant and I admit to actually enjoying watching him win as I have always been a Hamilton fan. But, once again not exciting racing where the result was usually a forgone conclusion.

The biggest difference in the 'Hamilton' era was that even if Mercedes was the class of the field, Hamilton and his teammate were (close to) equals, and so an internal competition replaced external competition, but there was still doubt.  Bottas wasn't Rosberg's match, but he could win if Hamilton had a bad day.  Similarly Vettel and Verstappen were challenging Hamilton as often as not.  Hamilton/Mercedes was the best, but they couldn't relax or make a mistake. 

And let's not forget 'Hammer Time'.  When Hamilton looked beatable, he could by sheer force of will pull out a perfect lap right when he needed it.

RB is doing the same but is far, far faster than either Ferarri or Merc were in those times compared to the current field.

It's interesting, that the RBR/MV combination is creating incredible gaps, even though over a single lap the F1 cars are as close as they've ever been.  Certainly part of RBR's advantage is they're better on tire management and probably fuel as well, so their 'ideal conditions' are a bigger window than their competition.

It can not be anything other than the illegal overspending they did as "catering excess" or whatever crap Horner has cooked up. 
I am willing to go out on a limb and say they are doing the same this season but the FIA will not figure it out for a long time.
By that time Horner, Marko(I can't even stand looking at that guy)  & Verstappen will have walked off with more trophies and records all with smug looks on their faces.

I have no idea how 'legal' it would be, but the only way to truly run a fair cost cap would be to have an external administrator.  Don't let Red Bull touch their money coming in/going out.

I suspect that even if RBR is playing 'fair' with the budget cap,  once you lock in certain facilities costs, you can save money that others can't.  Williams still tracks parts by paper, which costs time and money, RBR is part of a company that handles more logistics than any other group on the grid.  They can probably save millions a season by leveraging some software the drinks company has.  Perfectly legal, huge advantage.  Even though Mercedes, Ferrari and Alpine are car companies, Jaguar/Ford proved that the expertise of a car company do not translate to running a race team.  Companies like Fed Ex and Amazon would probably have a lot to offer an F1 team in terms of running things efficiently.

[cosworth151]

As usual, I missed the first hour of the race due to an ongoing schedule conflict. On the bright side, I guess I didn't miss much.

I read something this morning that Williams, Sauber-Alfa and AlphaTauri are pushing Formula 1 Commission to allow the smaller teams extra cost cap money to improve their infrastructure. That's the best cost cap idea I've heard in a long time.