The wet opening practice session at Spa-Francorchamps left teams blind about choosing their best set-ups for the Belgian weekend – especially with parc ferme conditions kicking in from the start of Friday afternoon’s qualifying session. Lewis Hamilton admitted it was a complete guessing game about how best to approach things, with Mercedes in the end covering its bases and opting for a lower and higher downforce configuration across both its

With F1 committed to using fully sustainable fuels from 2026 rather than going down an all-electric route, thoughts are already being put towards what type of power unit the series could use further down the road.  And with Domenicali having been clear recently that he wants to see car weight coming down, one area where significant mass could be reduced is with the hybrid power units, which currently incorporate heavy

And while the big-ticket items, such as the sidepods and front suspension, were obvious talking points, there were also some interesting detail changes that emerged too.   Mercedes W14 front detail Photo by: Giorgio Piola In terms of the new front suspension arrangement, the main change came to the pickup position at the chassis end on the lead arm of the upper wishbone. The arm is now mounted on the

The double world champion set the third fastest time in qualifying, 0.465 seconds away from Perez’s ultimate pace, but will move up to the front row on the grid as Charles Leclerc will cop at least a 10-place grid penalty for taking on new control electronics. Despite a solid qualifying result, the consensus is that Aston Martin is much stronger in race trim, and Alonso explained that general long-run pace

Following FP1 before sundown, FP2 was run at nightfall in more representative conditions for qualifying and the race, the temperature floating around 26 degrees Celsius for the start of the session. Lance Stroll kicked off proceedings on the medium tyre with a 1m32.293s, but this was quickly felled by Carlos Sainz’s 1m31.080s as the cars flooded the circuit at the top of the session. The Spaniard held the top of

In the Bahrain season opener Yuki Tsunoda started 14th and Nyck De Vries 18th, and neither driver made it into the points. In FP1 in Jeddah on Friday Tsunoda was a respectable 10th fastest, three spots ahead of his team-mate. Despite that apparent sign of improvement, Tost complained that over the winter his technical team promised that the new car would represent a significant step forward, but so far that

Fernando Alonso and Aston Martin backed up their promising Formula 1 2023 testing form with the quickest time in the opening practice running for the Bahrain Grand Prix, but pre-season favourites Max Verstappen and Red Bull are lurking close behind. In fact, judging by the times logged in the late-FP2 race data gathering exercises and based on information supplied from sources from the paddock, right now it seems Red Bull

As reported by Motorsport.com on Friday, F1 teams, the FIA and FOM are all due to hold a vote after this year’s British Grand Prix to decide whether or not to go ahead with a ban on tyre warming.  There have been many attempts in the past to outlaw tyre blankets, on both costs and sustainability grounds, but each time the efforts have been abandoned because of complications in coming

Team principal Andrea Stella’s admission that the squad was not “entirely happy” with the launch specification version of its 2023 challenger had laid down a clear marker in reducing expectations. Launches are normally happy scene-setters for the campaign ahead, and it is quite rare for teams to deliver such a downbeat assessment as their shiny new model is revealed. The conclusion was that it was either a deliberate attempt to

Following last year’s technical regulations overhaul, F1 undergoes minor changes to the new era of ground-effect cars launched last season. The biggest tweak to last year has been the car floors raised by 15mm on safety grounds to combat the porpoising issue which dominated the 2022 season technical rules talking points. Various other rules around the new regulations have been tightened up, while an ongoing focus will be Red Bull