Tabla de contenidos para March 2023 en AUTOSPORT

Formula 1’s launch season remains a hotbed of intrigue despite the dead hand of the budget cap and the attendant limits on car development. There’s a delightful element of ‘kidology’ at play as some teams pull the wraps off cars with unusual aerodynamic features which may or may not see action on track (here’s looking at you Alfa Romeo, and your serrated floor). Others choose not to reveal their new cars at all, either through obsessive secrecy or the fact that they aren’t actually ready yet. It has always been so and yet some people in the wider world still don’t get it: step forward the Daily Express, a newspaper which has long seemed to inhabit a parallel universe. Red Bull’s new-livery-on-old-car launch moved that organ to become uncommonly vexed,…

CARS The plan to reduce has been abandoned despite resistance ENGINES Cosworth has ruled out a return to Formula 1 despite its former partner Ford’s planned comeback with Red Bull in 2026 POLITICS Domenicali has distanced F1 from drivers making “political” statements FANS Red Bull is to use different fan-designed liveries for the three races in the US this season RACES Las Vegas officials have approved plans to shut the iconic Strip for the race for the next 10 years DRIVERS Daniel Ricciardo, now Red Bull’s third driver, says he has no plans to race elsewhere this season…

PICTURES COMPUTER SAYS YES: THE POWER OF CFD There are many terms in motorsport bandied about by many people with only a vague understanding of what they really mean. One such is CFD or Computational Fluid Dynamics. In a way the very term is autological in that it describes itself but, equally, three simple words cannot do justice to an immensely complex subject. Any physical system can, in theory, have its various states calculated mathematically. Sometimes this is easy, such as the case of an object falling in a vacuum. Sometimes it’s more difficult, such as calculating the stress of an object of complex shape under loading. When it comes to predicting the flow of air over and around an F1 car, the problem becomes immensely complex but not insoluble to…

PICTURES AERO The way Formula 1 cars generate downforce was effectively inverted for 2022, with fiddly top surfaces marginalised in favour of ground effects. As such, edits after year one were inevitable. Banishing extreme porpoising has been the focus for legislators, resulting in a 15mm raise to the floor edge (teams lobbied against an initial 25mm hike) and the diffuser throat upped by 10mm. What’s more, floors can now deflect by just 5mm, to prevent teams using the elasticity of materials to flex downwards towards the track and induce an aerodynamic ‘seal’. Although these tweaks could cost 0.5 seconds per lap, designers reckon the steep learning curve at the start of a new rules cycle will ensure these losses are immediately recouped by the winter development race. This comes after…

PICTURES THE DESIRE TO CRACK AMERICA has been guiding Formula 1’s direction ever since Liberty Media took over the series in 2017. With three US races planned for this year, booming TV figures and an influx of American sponsors, you would be forgiven for thinking it’s mission accomplished. But especially in the Drive to Survive era where the personalities of the drivers have become so central to F1’s global image, without an American driver on the grid, there was always going to be for improvement. Enter Logan Sargeant, Williams’ new signing for 2023. When the lights go out in Bahrain, he will become the first American to race in F1 since Alexander Rossi’s five-race sojourn with Marussia in 2015, and follow Scott Speed in 2007 as the latest driver to…

PICTURES AND SHUTTERSTOCK The round of leadership changes announced during the off-season underlined the degree to which Formula 1 abhors stasis. But even seasoned observers were shocked to see the broom sweep through Ferrari, Williams, Sauber and McLaren. Going into the first race of the new season only four team principals hold the role they did in 2021. Toto Wolff, Christian Horner, Guenther Steiner and Franz Tost will find themselves sitting with some familiar faces in unfamiliar shirts, plus a couple fresh to the challenge of running a Formula 1 team. Christian Horner, Formula 1’s most experienced team boss, may well reflect on the changes he has seen since joining Red Bull as a fresh-faced 31-year old in 2005. Then it was the likes of Ron Dennis, Frank Williams and…

Ferrari had a good 2022. It won four races and took 12 pole positions, not enough to seriously challenge Red Bull and Max Verstappen but so much better than the previous two seasons. It was enough to move Ferrari from third to second in the constructors’ championship while, perhaps more importantly, starting the new regulatory era on the right track. It also added a new contract for Carlos Sainz, guaranteeing a settled team to make best use of the recently reconstructed foundations. Yep, the future was looking good at Maranello. Then it was out with the team principal… ’cos Ferrari. 25% of the 16 races led by a Ferrari in 2022 were converted into race wins F1’s longest-serving team has form in self-destruction. Its competitiveness has traced a jagged line…

If you could tear your eyes away from the sight of Max Verstappen stamping his pseudo-competition into the dirt last year, the most compelling teams battle was the dust-up over fourth between Alpine and McLaren. The Papaya Massive narrowly lost out on the honour of being best-of-the-rest – but did manage to steal the driver Alpine had lined up to take over from Fernando Alonso, Oscar Piastri. Fittingly after such an act of opportunistic burglary, this year will be the 60th anniversary of Bruce McLaren setting off on his clandestine operation to form his own racing team while competing in F1 with Cooper. In the intervening years his eponymous team has given us some of F1’s most iconic liveries, employed some of the most charismatic and quick drivers in history, and…

Haas is currently F1’s secondmost interesting American team which, considering it’s the only one that’s going to be on the grid, is indeed damning with faint praise. Haas tends to fly under the radar (except on Netflix, thanks to Guenther Steiner’s potty mouth) until it has a good season, at which point it becomes Paddock Enemy Number One. And this could be a good season for Haas. The most interesting thing about Haas is the business model. The original pitch almost a decade back was to avoid mirroring the uncompetitive arrival of Manor, Hispania and Caterham by using the full extent of the listed-parts criteria to piggy-back off Ferrari while building up its own design and manufacturing prowess. Eight seasons on, it’s gone the other way: no real intent to…

PICTURES ROUND 1/23 Bahrain Sakhir, 3-5 March OUR VERDICT The island kingdom of Bahrain hosts the opening round of the Formula 1 season for the fourth time. Teams will have had a chance to run their new machinery on the tricky 3.3-mile circuit, since the one and 3 only pre-season test takes place at 1 Sakhir 2 the week before. Owing to an abrasive track surface and numerous traction zones, it’s the rear tyres that suffer the most here. The stop-start nature of the circuit, in combination with three DRS zones, often generates good overtaking battles under the floodlights. The biggest worry can be the wind, which has been known to generate sandstorms in the past. RACE DATA Circuit name Bahrain International Circuit First GP 2004 F1 races held 18 Laps…

LUKE SMITH Luke catches up with the returning Nico Hülkenberg (p42) and F1 new boy Logan Sargeant (p48) ahead of the new season ANDREW BENSON BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer tries to answer the thorny question of who will be the best Brit at Mercedes in 2023 (p32) MATT KEW An analysis of whether last season’s rules reset had the desired effect is Matt’s focus this month, (p22), plus what’s been tweaked for 2023 (p28) MATT YOUSON Matt has taken a look at what all 10 teams need to do in 2023 and whether or not they'll be successful in their endeavours (p88) Thanks to Matt Bishop, Steve Cooper, Joslyn Garcia, Will Hings IS POWERED BY NETWORK…

@_markgallagher FORD FALLS BACK IN LOVE WITH FORMULA 1 Some of the biggest names in America have fallen for F1. Never mind the A and B-listers studiously ignoring Martin Brundle’s best efforts to get a coherent sentence out of them during a grid walk. Even the country’s automotive industry has been smitten. While General Motors has embarked on a blind date with Andretti, Ford took a shine to someone with proven world championship-winning credentials. As soon as they met, Ford and Red Bull decided to get a room, then marry. Jim Farley will go down as the Ford CEO who did the right thing and decided to bring the blue oval back to Formula 1. A man who races a classic GT40, made his pro racing debut at Daytona in…

PICTURES AND ASTON MARTIN It’s not much of a stretch to say that any GP Racing reader who has had building work done will be painfully aware that the process generally costs twice as much and takes twice as long as envisaged. Sometimes more. It’s an unwritten, unspoken rule which bedevils any construction – not least the controversial HS2 railway line, whose long-delayed path GP Racing traverses as we break orbit from Brackley en route to a site where another grand design is emerging piece by piece from this area’s muddy terroir. Lawrence Stroll had been a Formula 1 team owner for less than a year – and was several months away from swooping in to rescue the financially troubled Aston Martin marque – when in May 2019 he announced…

PICTURES RED BULL AND LAS VEGAS GP The first attempt to bring F1 to Las Vegas wasn’t a success. A twisty and demanding track in the Caesars Palace car park, combined with the heat, made drivers literally throw up. Just ask Nelson Piquet. On his way to fifth in the 1981 Caesars Palace GP which secured him the title, the Brazilian deposited the remnants of his lunch in his cockpit, then struggled to recover for another 15 minutes after the chequered flag. It wasn’t all bad, of course. “The good part was Caesars Palace itself!” Marc Surer, who took part in both races in Las Vegas in the early ’80s, tells GP Racing. “It was easy: you walk out of the hotel, and you’re in the paddock. It was even…

After eight successive titles, it came as something of a relief to all but the most ardent fans to see Mercedes finally fall off the constructors’ championship perch to which it had previously been nailed. It remains to be seen, however, whether Pax Merc is deceased or merely resting after a prolonged squawk – all of which makes the Silver Arrows by far the most interesting team to watch at the start of 2023. Before Christmas, during a bout of public musing, Helmut Marko declared Mercedes as the most likely threat to an extended Red Bull hegemony. Whether that was a firmly held belief or simply the good Doctor warming Ferrari’s chestnuts over an open fire doesn’t really matter, since it chimed with sense that Merc had turned a corner in…

On the face of it, the Sauber-operated Alfa Romeo team had a quietly effective 2022. Sixth in the constructors’ championship is a rise of three places on 2021 and Sauber’s best result since the late 2000s, when the blue-and-white propeller of BMW was above the door, while Valtteri Bottas was Hinwil’s first driver to sneak into the top ten of the drivers’ standings since Nico Hülkenberg in 2013. It is, however, tough to imagine the Swiss outfit hanging on to that spot in 2023. While sixth was nosebleed-city for a team that’s spent most of the last decade skulking around the lower reaches of the table, in another sense it was vintage Sauber: launching with a competent, tidy car, scoring well in the early exchanges, then falling away alarmingly as…

Are you one of those people who hoards random stuff against an unspecified future need? If so, you probably understand why Red Bull keeps a spare Formula 1 team in its shed. To the men on the mountain, the Italian outfit is the equivalent of a carpet offcut or that stick you think might be handy for stirring paint: Red Bull no longer seems to know what it needs a second team for, but it’s going to leave it propped up in the corner behind the box of Christmas decorations, just in case. Hiring ex-Merc tester Nyck de Vries, rather than promoting Liam Lawson, suggests an end to the days of AlphaTauri being the finishing school for the Red Bull Junior programme. Likewise, in Sergio Pérez, Red Bull broke with tradition…

PICTURES DEALING WITH BERNIE ECCLESTONE was never easy. Whatever the circumstances, or your apparent strength as inquisitor, he would look you in the eye, pause for an unnerving second or two, and then offer his response in a soft but vaguely menacing tone. I was reminded of that within the first minute of ‘Lucky!’, a docuseries in which Ecclestone tells his story. To the background of slow, subdued music, that familiar face fills the entire screen while looking straight at you. His pale features and mop of grey hair, set against a stark white background, present a spectral, spooky image that’s so Bernie – and immediately unnerving. Studio lighting accentuates the lived-in features of a man in his nineties. This is Ecclestone, warts and all. Which is the precise intention…

PICTURES @CoddersF1 facebook.com/gpracingonline BEN SULAYEM STEPS OUT OF THE FIRING LINE “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.” Whether it’s been scrawled on the internet by fans or communicated more privately by team bosses and the championship’s top brass, the reaction to FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem stepping back from day-to-day management of Formula 1 hasn’t been sentimental. It’s easy to see why. The championship is yet put the ghosts of Abu Dhabi 2021 to rest as the FIA tos and fros between the optimum number of race directors, while developing a peculiar fixation about drivers wearing jewellery. Ben Sulayem risked souring relations with F1 by publicly disputing the valuation placed on it. And even if an extra team or two is desired by the outside world,…

PICTURES 01 MOHAMMED BEN SULAYEM STEPS BACK 02 BLUE OVAL CONFIRMS COMEBACK Ford will be Red Bull ‘technical partner’ from 2026 03 BRAVI MOVE AT ALFA ROMEO FIA PRESIDENT HANDS OVER F1 REINS 01 FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem will no longer be hands-on in Formula 1’s daily affairs. He made the announcement in a letter sent to F1 teams at the beginning of February, in which he reiterated that relinquishing executive responsibility was part of his election manifesto. Dealing with everyday matters will now be the responsibility of Nikolas Tombazis, the former Benetton, Ferrari and McLaren engineer who has been the FIA’s head of single-seater technical matters for the past few years, and who now becomes its single-seater director. The appointment of the Greek, who has always shunned publicity, is…

@benedwardstv PICTURES DE VRIES ON A DIFFERENT ROAD TO F1 GLORY? Opportunities to race in Formula 1 seldom fail to differ. Max Verstappen remains the youngest-ever starter of a world championship grand prix at 17 years old, just two years after winning key world titles in karting. By comparison his friend, compatriot and a rival from those karting days, Nyck de Vries, made his grand prix debut at the age of 27 last year at Monza and is now preparing for his first full season in F1. Gilles Villeneuve was another driver who grabbed the opportunity to demonstrate his talent at the same age as de Vries when he was invited to race at Silverstone with McLaren in 1977. Like Nyck, he didn’t begin his full career in the team…

PICTURES It was arguably the biggest rethink of the technical regulations in Formula 1 history and that meant sky-high expectations. If the return of ground effect created races which featured anything less than a stream of spectacular overtakes, then the new rules would only ever earn a lukewarm reception. But the new framework – first presented at the 2019 United States Grand Prix – was already taking a pounding long before the opening round of 2022. Those who wandered to the bottom of the main Barcelona straight during pre-season testing were treated to a sight not seen in F1 since the early 1980s. The cars were hopping violently as speeds climbed. The rediscovery of this sensation would make ‘porpoising’ the buzzword at the dawn of the new era. This made…

PICTURES The closest team-mate contest in Formula 1 last year was at Mercedes, between a seven-time champion and a man who at the start of the season had not won a race George Russell, the new boy, came out on top in the championship by two places and 25 points. So did Russell ‘beat’ Lewis Hamilton last year? Did the points table accurately reflect the balance of power at Mercedes? And what do the answers reveal about how their contest may develop into the new season? Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff describes last year’s championship statistic as “irrelevant” in the context of a difficult year in which the team battled its worst car for a decade, with neither driver in title contention. It’s the answer you would expect from a…

PICTURES 2023 is shaping up to be the year of the comeback. Flip phones are all the rage again, David Tennant is set for a (brief) return as Doctor Who, and TV school drama Waterloo Road will ring the bell for a new class after an eight-year hiatus. It’s like the clocks have rewound to 2010. So, what better time for F1’s serial comeback king to make his return to the grid? Nico Hülkenberg is, in the words of Take That (another act which had a successful second coming), back for good, joining Haas for his first full season of racing since being axed by Renault at the end of 2019. Newcomers to F1 may only know of Hülkenberg through his depiction in Drive to Survive as the grid’s perennial…

PICTURES AND RED BULL IT GIVES AN ADVANTAGE TO OUR COMPETITORS, WHICH IS WHY THEY WERE PUSHING SO HARD FOR A DRACONIAN PENALTYCHRISTIAN HORNER CHRISTIAN HORNER, NATURALLY, WASN’T happy with the extent to which his Red Bull squad was punished late last year for breaching the 2021 cost cap – the first year of Formula 1’s precious new financial restrictions put to the test immediately. Red Bull’s rivals, equally naturally, weren’t happy either – feeling the punishment hadn’t gone far enough. The FIA, having handed out the penalty once Red Bull had entered into an Accepted Breach Agreement (ABA) for what constituted a ‘minor’ overspend breach, acknowledged the contrasting positions. In these circumstances a good compromise means all parties end up equally unhappy, which is what the FIA achieved. But…

So, what’s going to prevent Red Bull Racing winning both championships in 2023? Answers to that one generally evoke the supernatural: a plague of locusts in the design office; or a hellmouth opening beneath the race bays. The more excitable members of F1’s fanbase produce even more marginal possibilities: Max Verstappen quitting racing to concentrate on slam poetry, or someone building a faster car. The only reason jaws are not agape at Red Bull’s 2022 performance is that we’ve become inured to the sight of F1 having a dominant team. 17 wins from 22 is a pretty stark statistic though, especially in a year the team began under a cloud of reliability problems, while also contending with an overweight car. It’s not surprising Red Bull got past its early season woes:…

2022 yielded a significant increase in the number of successful overtakes, thus satisfying the primary goal of closer racing. Where the revised rules have failed – or at least, failed to date – is in closing up the field. If anything, the gap widened between F1’s top three teams and the midfield, which left Alpine as the works team on the wrong side of a yawning chasm. At least it was leading that particular best-of-the-rest category, since fourth place was the best return for ‘Team Enstone’ since 2018, when it was racing as Renault. Although Renault can trace its F1 history back to 1977, its most profitable periods have come in association with the team which entered F1 as Toleman in 1981, garnering success with Michael Schumacher’s second world title…

Aston Martin best exemplifies the notion that change, if it happens at all in F1, happens slowly. Lawrence Stroll’s consortium took over the team midway through 2018, promising big things. Four and a half years later, the promise remains intact. Aston Martin continues to bimble around the midfield: good races, bad races; capable of causing a headache to the front runners or trailing home at the rear. Investment at Silverstone in state-of-the-art facilities has been the consuming focus of the team – but sooner or later that needs to translate into results. There are signs, at least according to Stroll, that it’s already happening. His review of 2022 argued Aston Martin’s spritely second half of the season – recovering after a very poor start – wouldn’t have happened in a…

The bad news for Williams in 2022 was that it slipped back from eighth to last in the constructors’ championship – but the real disappointment was that barely anybody noticed (with the notable exception of the increasingly disillusioned owner). For a team with such an illustrious backstory, the slide into insignificance continues to be painful to watch. Among those of a certain age, the sense still pervades that Williams deserves better – but F1 has scant respect for history, and there’s a generation of fans who know Williams only as a backmarker. Hardly surprising since the team’s last win was an outlier one-off over a decade ago. Having delivered arguably the most efficient cars of the first ground-effect era, become virtually unassailable at the peak of the turbo years, then…