2023-01-22 The Race: How Each Team Needs To Improve In 2023
Contents
Williams
- James Vowles, the new Williams team principal, has a lot to do
- Need to get everyone pulling in the same direction
- Heal cultural and factional differences
- Needs to fix the team's culture before making new investments
Alpha Tauri
- Get the most out of the car
- Make race performance match car performance
- Question marks around driver line-up
- Improve the operating window of the car, especially downforce in high-speed corners
Haas
- Improve the car throughout the year
- Maximize their performance at the beginning of the season when their performance deficit is less than other teams
- Fewer crashes — Nico Hulkenberg should help with this
Aston Martin
- Need to ensure that the whole is as good as the sum of its parts
- Justify the huge investment that Lawrence Stroll has put into the team
- High profile recruitments have to prove their worth
- Talent from Mercedes and Red Bull
- Fernando Alonso
- Ensure that the output of simulations translates better into real world performance
- Needs to show a trend of improvement
- A 6th place finish would be a good way of displaying this improvement
- Improve Lance Stroll's on-track etiquette
- Big test for Dan Fallows, their prime engineering recruit from Red Bull
Alfa Romeo
- Needs to improve production capability to build more parts more quickly
- Ramp-up in advance of Audi's incoming investment
- Has a decent car, needs to access its potential more often
- Improve simulation tools
McLaren
- Produce a car that's worthy of Lando Norris
- Norris can definitely deliver points if he has a good car underneath him
- McLaren feels "stuck" — this season was a step backwards compared to 2021
- In danger of being overtaken by Aston and Alfa Romeo
- Car has aerodynamic limitations that only Lando Norris can currently (barely) handle
- Really ought to be a 4th place team, but might be destined for another 5th place finish
Alpine
- Improve power-unit reliability
- Continue pattern of improvement over the past two years
- Mitigate friction between drivers — Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon have a history with each other
- Alpine could potentially be a front running team this year or next year, which is good, but they really should have been a front-running team two years ago
Mercedes
- Build a "usable" race car
- Useful downforce at realistic ride-heights
- No porpoising
- Fix the design and simulation tools so they're not leading Mercedes down blind alleys
- This will be a big test for Mercedes to prove that it has successfully compensated for senior people leaving for Aston Martin, Williams, etc.
Ferrari
- Power unit reliability
- Better decision-making re: tires and race strategy
- Convert qualifying performance into race performance
- Improve efficiency — bring down the cost of development so they can match Red Bull in in-season development
- Ferrari has done the "hard part", i.e. building a competitive car, now they need to fix all the other stuff
Red Bull
- Red Bull is basically perfect, they just need to keep doing what they're doing, and not make stupid accounting mistakes
