Alonso Still in Prime!

In this week’s email:

• Alonso’s podium: Aston Martin looks to join the “Big 3”

• Otmar exposes loophole: Teams only have $135m to spend.. or do they?

• McLaren’s little big problem: Is 15mm the reason they’re struggling?

• Meme of the Week: Are you not entertained? 😂

• Standings: Red Bull, Red Bull, and more Red Bull

Alonso’s Podium

Bahrain GP Recap

The first race of the 2023 season is finished, which saw Max (1), Checo (2), and Alonso (3). The Red Bulls were of no surprise as they continued to dominate. You know you have an incredible car when you finish 1-2 in a race.

But what was a shock to everyone was Aston Martin. Alonso racked up a podium and Stroll finished P6, who battled back after having surgery on his wrist a mere 12 days before the start. For the last couple of years, the grid has been dominated by what people refer to as the “Big 3” (Red Bull, Mercedes, Ferrari) but Aston Martin’s performance now has them making it a “Big 4”. What’s their secret? Maybe hiring Red Bull’s former technical director Dan Fallows, because the car looks quite similar to a previous Red Bull. Checo even said “3 Red Bulls on the podium” lol. If you can’t beat them, copy them.

Ferrari on the other hand wished the race ended sooner. Leclerc looked to be on his way to a P3 when his car had engine trouble and had to retire early. Sainz got a P4, so that’s a silver lining at least.

The other six teams seemed to be all bunched together. Usually, you have three tiers every year, top, middle, and bottom, but Bahrain showed us maybe it’s going to be just two tiers of teams now. I guess we’ll see. If McLaren doesn’t figure out what’s wrong they may just be in the bottom tier by themselves. They had one retire early and another one limp to the finish line.

Otmar exposes loophole

Formula 1’s budget cap can be skirted

Alpine’s Team Principal, Otmar Szafnauer, has recently brought up a potential way for F1 teams to get around the budget cap that was put in place to even the playing field.

Otmar said teams are moving resources away from their team and putting them in other related companies. This would in return not show up on the team’s budget since the new company is a different entity. An example of this that happened recently was Aston Martin’s CTO Andrew Green going from the Formula 1 side to the technology side.

Let’s be honest, this probably isn’t the only example of this happening. All teams are fighting for any edge they can get and aren’t afraid to operate in a grey area to make their team better. Can you blame them though?

McLaren’s little big problem

15mm might be the reason they’re struggling

McLaren tried to address the issue of "porpoising" with their 2023 car by raising the floor edge height by 15mm. But they soon realized that it was going to be hard to recover performance by doing so. The full new package wasn’t ready in time for the Bahrain GP.

They're hoping to make a big improvement in Baku. This change hurt McLaren more than other teams because of their aerodynamic approach to the MCL36 car. They’re frustrated they made the decision so late, especially now that the new route seems to be working.

Meme of the Week

Standings

Way too early to make any kind of judgments, but hopefully we see other teams taking a shot at Red Bull, not trying to have this be another Mercedes dynasty snorfest with no suspense. Next race is the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix on March 19th, let’s see who can make improvements before then.

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