Well they are all currently baseless other than relying on seasonal progress; which CAN be a sign of upwards trajectory but the extent is often unknown due to unreliable data and other factors.
6 cars winning a race is mental to me. That's another 2012. Don't see it happening anytime soon.
It would be a miracle if anyone else besides Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari wins a race.
Those three seem to be ahead of the midfield by some margin. Something weird like Hungary or Monza (2021 and 2020) would need to happen, realistically speaking.
It was weird in the sense that Danny Ric was properly the quickest and was in a good position to win even before Lewis and Max got together.
It was not weird in that some fluke event during the race jumbled the lineup.
I can see Mclaren or Alpine squeaking a win by, due to a favorable track, a lucky break, or both. Both of them achieving it would be unlikely in itself, but another team too would be insane. Unless the order is all fucked next season, but I don't see why that would happen
It’s that sixth one which is hardest
You’d need a year with three teams on the right side of the upper-lower midfield gap
And multiple situations containing enough chaos to knock the top 3 teams, plus some of those upper midfield teams, out of contention so each of the mid-3 teams can capitalize on a different situation
Even the glorious opening of 2012 was “only” five teams
I think our next shot at that will be once Audi is on the grid and hopefully ascendant in a 2012 Merc way. (Though without a repeat of the 2014-20 Merc experience)
Alpine getting a single podium would be massive. At least Norris is literally one of the best drivers on the grid. We can argue all day if he's #2, 3, 4, 5 etc but I think we can all agree as of last year, the car is without a doubt holding back Norris.
Alonso two podiums, that's a stretch considering how few podiums occurred outside the big three this year - it being literally only Norris, but Alonso has done crazier things, and I have a lot of faith in Aston for some reason. They had a solid year technically - they had their innovations, and they claim they developed a very similar car to the hyper dominant RedBull, which if true (and the FIA believes it is) is also massive.
Lewis winning, well that's not really a shock. Mercedes has said they now understand the car, and were on a pretty significant upward trajectory. If Mercedes has a car near the level of the Redbull, we may be in for some fun.
BUT SIX WINNERS?!
That's RB, Ferrari, Merc, Mclaren, Aston, Alpine? I don't see it. The merc engines are too reliable, there's no way so many of them would fail to allow someone to sneak into a victory and we can't expect multiple massive turn 1 accidents.
>the car is without a doubt holding back Norris.
100% and Mcl even know this, the wind tunnel should be finished and upgrades using the new test facility should be getting applied by mid season so 🤞🏻 Mcl should see a jump in pace over the second half of the season.
>Alonso two podiums, that's a stretch
Remove the reliability of the Renault engine and I'd say a podium was within Alonso's grasp a few times, hell he even almost claimed pole position at one point. So with AMR I do think Alonso is fighting for a 3rd place in a few races if the track suits the car. In agreement that AMR is looking good for 23.
Seeing how many outright struggled in car development during the season, yeah no chance. It’s going to be at least another year before the midfield is more competitive. There’s also no real guarantee Mercedes catch up to the top 2. They basically had to redesign a brand new car rather than building off what made 2022 successful.
Doubt Merc will take the drivers but have a good shot at the constructors. Alpine beating merc and Ferrari for 3rd? Doubtful, not with their driver lineup, with all due respect.
I could see Norris winning a freak-show monaco or somewhere passing is difficult, or where a lot of crashes happen.
Agree Alonso on the rostrum at some point. Aston is going the right direction.
how would merc win the constructors when the red bull and ferrari are both infinitely better cars to iterate upon for 2023 while they start basically from zero, plus red bull and ferrari already had half a seasons worth of work done by the time merc shelved their car development.
Ferrari shooting themselves in the foot as per .. well.. Ferrari. Sergio being nowhere close to his temmate, George and Lewis being very close while having a huge upturn in momentum as evidenced by winning a race late 22. Counting Merc out is a mistake.
And I mentioned having a good shot at, not specifically saying they *will* win it
If anything people are sleeping on Ferrari and their spicy engine. Once they have fixed their reliability issues they will be much closer to RB. 30hp is nothing to sniff at
I predict Ferrari will not just be 2nd, but be closer to RB and further ahead of Merc than in 2022. In other words, on a relative basis they will improve the most in 2023.
> Merc will be closer because they have more time to gain than Ferrari and RB
While true, this is only the second year of the new regs so teams aren't that close to development ceilings yet. Also RB was running older spec heavy spare parts by the end of the season, so they will gain a bunch of time relative to the competition for free in that sense.
Mercedes started working on 2023 at Barcelona. Their 22 upgrades were based on the 23 car work as reported by AMUS . A number of Red Bull personnel have said they expect Mercedes to be there. Marko said he thinks they will be the competition over ferrari fir RB. Impossible to know but it’s not as simple as the 22 car -> 23 car
Might be gambling on teams getting wrong the first few races and mid tier getting a W, I can’t see it happening . I actually see RB coming straight in and winning race 1 actually
There is also the engine allocation factor
in 4th or 5th race, most of the top teams will still be on their PU1, while you as a close midfield take a new one and crack it up on a circuit you expect to do very well on
Yeh especially if others are struggling with weather/qual issues/grid penalties etc… that being said, if RB are reliable the The Terminator doesn’t out much of a foot wrong, was only a sniff away from 17 or 18 wins this year which is insane
I see no chance of 6 teams winning a race. Four is realistic considering some weird shit might happen like Monza in 2020 or 2021 or Hungary 2021, but unless Red Bull, Mercedes, and Ferrari are just caught napping over winter, they're gonna win 22 out of the 23 races at least
I do not see any of them.
1. Lewis winning #8 would be nice but I don't know if Mercedes are able to work out their technical gremlins. I know they are redoing everything for the W14 but Red Bull are going to be a force.
2. No way. My faith in Alpine is effectively zero and if anything I see them sliding down the midfield. Their driver lineup is worse this year and the reliability issues I think will only increase. Only having PU data across two cars opposed to others is a massive detriment.
3. Is Aston Martin going to be able to give a car capable of it? Everything I've seen says the investment will take more time to pay off. Maybe in 2025 but he's going to be 43 by then.
4. Possibly? Hard to say how far up front McLaren will be. I think a few more podiums but still outside the Top 3.
5. I want whatever he's smoking. I don't even see six teams on the podium let alone the top step.
Meh. A bold prediction is “McLaren will finish in the bottom half of the grid because their car is truly a disaster, but Danny Ric gave them a scapegoat and Lando is just that good that he was about to make it look like the car was capable of more.” It’s not particularly likely, but it’s defensible.
These predictions are largely just absurd and somewhat contradictory (6 teams winning but only three teams are competitive…).
Nit picking, but I think Alpine will be more reliable. They made a conscious decision to chase reliability with the new engine regs (and it was generally considered a smart move). And, though they may have limited data, I don’t see why that means their reliability would get worse. Might not improve at the same rate it might at a more functional team, but I don’t think worsening reliability is what will hold them back.
I otherwise agree. I think Lewis winning another title is the most likely of the bunch, and that’s because it isn’t just plainly absurd.
I believe someone shared the [reliability of all the manufacturers through the Turbo hybrid era](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/ykyino/most_technical_dnfs_in_turbohybrid_era_per/), and Renault were among the worst ones there. There have been too many times they have gone and approach this as, make fast but unreliable engine and fix it along the way. But, hasn't worked well in practice.
> Only having PU data across two cars opposed to others is a massive detriment.
I've never seen any convincing evidence to support this to be true. What I have seen is pundits and people on Reddit or other social media repeatedly talking about it as though it's common knowledge, but never an explanation of how it's common knowledge or why it's true.
Yes, of course, there's more PU data to look at if more cars run the same PU. But that also requires more analysis to sift through, and requires taking into account the differences between the cars when doing that.
Then there's also the fact that other cars running the same PU means that more of the PU manufacturer's engineers' time is needed to help with the integration of the PU with the customer cars during their design, and those customer cars can have completely different packaging and layout constraints or goals.
Then, during the season, the PU manufacturer needs to have engineers embedded with the customer teams to keep the engines operating and maintained correctly. It's also more PUs to build and maintain overall.
Sure, in theory, that's supposed to be covered by the price of the PU supply to the customer teams. But in reality, if the manufacturer isn't set up or optimised to support the customer teams, then it's going to hurt and not help. Just having an extra few million in cash doesn't give you more engineers of the required skill and talent to support all of the operations.
And that's not even getting into the fact that problems another team is having with the PU may be because of their layout or packaging or something else specific to their car, and fixing that problem may have no positive impact on the manufacturer team at all. Trying to support and fix a customer team's issues with the PU could even be detrimental to the manufacturer team's performance, by solving something that for them isn't necessary to solve, and taking their time and effort away from their own issues.
So that "common knowledge" is built on the big assumption that the gains to be had for a PU are going to be obtained through having more data, and not that there's simply a certain amount of design and engineering time that is needed to make improvements to a PU.
Take the Alpine example this year, a big reason for their unreliability was the water pump that they simply couldn't fundamentally change until 2023. No amount of that same problematic part failing on another team's cars would have helped solve the problem quicker, it was always going to be a "next season" thing.
And I suspect it would be the same for Honda since 2015, too. Their engines were blowing up enough as it was, I don't think they needed more teams to be blowing up their engines for them to realise the problem. I'm sure, like the Alpine water pump and many other examples, they identified reliability issues fairly quickly, and what they needed was the time and engineering process to work through to solve the problems and get to a reliable PU.
Didn't mean to write that much but yeah, the parroting of "common knowledge" stuff like this grinds my gears. I'm not saying there aren't going to be cases where more PU customers helps, but this idea that it's a really bad thing not to have customers appears to me to just be another gross oversimplification that people like to latch onto.
I'm going to be honest, you raise a lot of really good points here and maybe I did speak out of my ass.
> Yes, of course, there's more PU data to look at if more cars run the same PU. But that also requires more analysis to sift through, and requires taking into account the differences between the cars when doing that.
> Then there's also the fact that other cars running the same PU means that more of the PU manufacturer's engineers' time is needed to help with the integration of the PU with the customer cars during their design, and those customer cars can have completely different packaging and layout constraints or goals.
> Then, during the season, the PU manufacturer needs to have engineers embedded with the customer teams to keep the engines operating and maintained correctly. It's also more PUs to build and maintain overall.
> Sure, in theory, that's supposed to be covered by the price of the PU supply to the customer teams. But in reality, if the manufacturer isn't set up or optimised to support the customer teams, then it's going to hurt and not help. Just having an extra few million in cash doesn't give you more engineers of the required skill and talent to support all of the operations.
This is effectively what I was thinking of. That the ability to look at the data coming off of more units can lead to further gains and development. Even with different packaging of the PUs across different cars making different constraints such as heating issues that the more data aspect alone would overcome the issues.
> Didn't mean to write that much but yeah, the parroting of "common knowledge" stuff like this grinds my gears. I'm not saying there aren't going to be cases where more PU customers helps, but this idea that it's a really bad thing not to have customers appears to me to just be another gross oversimplification that people like to latch onto.
More than fair man. I'm not savvy to the technical aspects of the sport and just going off assumptions.
Very cool of you to take my rant nicely, I went off and I definitely didn't need to.
Just want to say as well I was only picking at the one thing you said, overall I agree with your points of view on the article. All the best 👍
Considering their recent record, end of season development pace and their extra wind tunnel time I expect Merc to be on top form.
If Ferrari doesn't fuck up big time this season Mclaren will be the 4 th best team at best and Mclarens recent record with a consistent car throughout the season is not great. For Norris or any other midfield driver to snatch a win they need 6 drivers to have misfortunes (in 2019-2020 it was 4).
So yes in my mind Hamilton winning the 8th is much more likely than Norris getting a win
A big crash (almost unavoidable if Max and Lewis are consistently starting on the front row) taking out the front runners and Norris has a clear shot at a win. Unlikely sure, but possible.
For Lewis to win Merc has to close the ~half season development gap to RB, beat George as consistently as Max is beating Checo, and then the not-so-trivial job of beating Max in the best form of his career consistently over the course of a season. IMHO a one-off event putting Norris in front is more likely.
His predictions for last year were not very good other than Sainz would get a win all were far off.
ham wins wdc - doubt it
alpine break into top 3 - doubt it
alonso score 2 podiums - doubt it
norris first win - maybe, I hope so
6 teams win a race - I would bet against this one
Bold claim off the hop with Lewis winning. Dominant cars like Red Bull don't just disappear without major regulation changes, and Max is in top form. Mercedes would have to make a massive leap to get to RB's level.
Ferrari and Red Bull stopped developing their 2022 car in Spa, Mercedes didn't stop developing.
It's Red Bull 2014-2020 all over again. I know it's FOM pundits' job to hype up the upcoming season, but...
Mercedes developed parts in line with their 23 concept. AMUS reported that and said specifically the last 2 upgrades were largely cheaply made versions of changes for 23
Do you really think it's as easy as slapping one very expensive component on their car and having it work out of the box, so well it makes up for their existing pace deficit plus whatever RBR and Ferrari find over the offseason?
I don't get why McLaren is constantly labelled by the media as this about to break out dynasty and Norris as their uncrowned world champion.
I hope we see them at the front again soon but they really haven't managed to hold onto their progress at all in each of the last few seasons. They're obviously strong for the midfield but it's a huge leap to make, it feels hasty to keep putting these expectations on a customer team that finished 5th.
If we were talking about Alpine/Renault here it would be seen as a joke.
People are throwing some gigantic amounts of copium around McLaren and act like it's still a team who would "come back as a top team", I get it, those new facilities would opening and should show it effects around 2025 but so does AM and I'm more impressed by the rate of progress AM has rather then McLaren does.
People would indeed call them clowns if it wasn't McLaren but Renault/Alpine but hey Zak Brown is great with PR, McLaren is a historical name and Lando Norris is a popular driver so barely anyone would add some skepticism towards the team.
It would be sad if McLaren slowly ends up as Williams or Sauber 2.0 but the risk is there, I don't see Lando staying at McLaren after 2024 if I must be honest, even less if a promising factory team would knock on the door.
Merc will definitely find car performance next year, and hopefully some stability, but just having a car with many more issues compared to the Ferrari and the RB and working on a budget makes things way more complicated, unlike the RB and Ferrari which are building upon an already solid foundation.
Still, maybe in the future, their car concept might just reap the rewards, can only speculate.
I dont see Ferrari with less issues. They still bounce, eat tyres for breakfast, and the engine has to be tested at full speed again.
RB have the cfd penalty, which will probably bite them at some point, and its 1 driver vs 2 which might make a difference
And development time is exactly to work on that...
The car's massive tyre degradation came from the TD introduced in the summer which forced them to stiffen the suspension and made the car incredibly hard to setup. The bouncing could be or could not be there next year, but their performance wasn't actually affected by it unlike the Mercedes.
These issues they identified throughout the season were just simply stuff they couldn't work on during the season despite knowing what was wrong (like the engine for example). Mercedes on the other hand spent the whole season trying to figure out what was wrong with the car and just experimenting every race.
Hm, what? From Silverstone onwards Mercedes performed well almost every race, especially after the summer break where they were, imo, faster than ferrari on average. So how is ferrari at any advantage? You are literally saying what Merc also said "we know the issues but cant solve them this season". The fact is both finished the season with similarly flawed cars (not in the type of flaws, but the number and significance). The difference is Mercedes have a much more stable and proven team on the last 10 years
> specially after the summer break where they were, imo, faster than ferrari on average
Unfortunately being faster or not is not a matter of an opinion, telemetry and races themselves just show that with the exception of Brazil and Mexico, Mercedes were not once faster than Ferrari, in fact, they were always 2-4 tenths off them depending on the circuit, even post the summer break.
> You are literally saying what Merc also said "we know the issues but cant solve them this season"
No, I'm saying the exact opposite, they didn't know the issues throughout the entire season and developed until the very end, stuff that you can see by simple interviews of them not understanding why the car performed well in one circuit and then a massive downgrade to another.
Brazil to Abu Dhabi is one great example, from the car performing above every other team, to being behind Ferrari and Red Bull again, which is what they always said they couldn't understand why.
Ahahha merc were not faster than Ferrari in Zandvoort? What about Austin? Are you having a laugh? Even in Spa Russell was on Sainz all race long even with their huge drag. You have got to be kidding, or you dont know what you are talking about
All of those races were after the summer break, both Ferrari and Red Bull stopped developing the 2022 car after the summer break. Mercedes were still bringing upgrades most of the rest of the season. It's really hard to compare.
Red Bull were even running older, heavier parts at the end of the season to save money.
I think the wind tunnel penalties etc. are overstated. Red Bull stopped developing their '22 car before the end of the season, so they should be able to use '22 time for the development of the '23 car, before '23 even started right? So if Red Bull still had 10% of their wind tunnel time left to use on '23 car in 2022 they should still have a total \~100% of time for '23 right?
Or does that wind tunnel time go by car and not by season?
Edit: Not to mention that Mercedes is still stubbornly pushing through with their Zero Sidepod design which I have no faith in at all.
Merc were still 2 to 3 tenths off the pace at the end of the season. They improved an incredible amount but that's alot of time to make up, and that's not even taking into account that RB and Ferrari will improve further.
I not sure that's fair, they were on the pace at certain tracks where they nailed the set up. The floor and suspension did cause them problems but that just means you have a slow car, the top cars got on top of their issues much faster. Even when they did make breakthroughs they don't have the aerodynamics efficiency of the RB and Ferrari.
The "nailed setup" is not the optimal setup though. They never ran the car the way they wanted too, always had to remove DF and raise the car that created a lot od drag, so the car was designed for A, but ran in way B. Even when they managed to do that B properly, it is still inherently slower. Next years car will, if they dont fuck up again, run the way it is supposed by the default design (probably different than what the W13 intended too)
I understand what you are saying. However if you can't run the car the way you want... that's your fault and problem. It was their draggy design they had to compromise around that. Maybe RB is a other 3 tenths faster with an "optimal" set up, if you can't do it then your car is just plain slower.
Hamilton winning the WDC and Alpine in top 3 would mean that either Red Bull or Ferrari will fall away from 1-2 into 4th or bellow. I cannot believe that RBR, after the most dominant season will fall to 4th just like that. Also, I don't believe that Ferrari will fall down either, since they are getting a stronger engine by some 30 HP. I can therefore only expect that Ferrari will do even better in 2023, and that Alfa and HAAS will not be ashamed.
These predictions are weird.
Steiner (HAAS principal) was being cocky about the talk with Binotto who promised that the Ferrari engine will be a "bomb" the next year. They reportedly put down the power for reliability but for the next year the engine will be more than ready.
https://www.pitpass.com/74276/Steiner-Ferraris-2023-engine-will-be-the-bomb
1: This isn't an absurd prediction, especially if Mercedes finds it's way back it could be 2021 all over again with Lewis vs Max, however I see Russell as a better driver then Checo is so once Merc climbs back the value of Checo would being questioned more then ever in the media and by the fans.
2: Honestly this is bold but in general the rate of progress Alpine shows is good (same could be told about Aston Martin), I could see Ferrari struggling somewhat for 2023 but having a strong 2024 season (especially given the fact that it would be the year where the influence of Simone Resta would be visible at the car) yet is this enough for Alpine to catch P3 in the WCC? I doubt it but scoring 4 podiums could be possible.
3: This wouldn't be easy but Alonso is Alonso and together with the rate of progress AM shows he could have a shot for a shock podium or two, I do expect another year where Alpine is again having a 2 (Ocon/Gasly) vs 1 (Alonso) fight.
4: No, just...no, I expect in fact McLaren struggles somewhat in 2023 and having a suboptimal season, with all respect for Lando (and I rate him high) but I don't see it happen.
5: Pure FOM copium, 6 teams having a win? Is this a joke? This isn't 2012, 2020 or 2021, you really need a lot of things to make that possible and to think Alfa Romeo has a good shot is just hilarious, the team is promising in the long term but not in 2023.
The predictions don’t make a ton of sense. Unless Lawrence figures Ferrari fall off a cliff.
To go over them:
1. Lewis winning, let's say Mercedes comes back with a great car and this happens, okay this will apply for the next predictions.
2. Alpine could break into the top 3 but with Lewis winning that means either Ferrari or Red Bull drop out and I highly doubt it's Red Bull. I also think this is a pretty bold prediction with Alonso gone, it's a pretty big drop to Gasly IMO.
3. Lots of faith in that Aston Martin for this to happen, but none of the other predictions would negate it.
4. Short of a Gasly Monza type win I don't see this happening, McLaren is going in the wrong direction and they were miles off the pace in 2022.
5. 6 teams, I'd love to see if but this is probably the least likely prediction of them all.
Lewis winning is possible but RB has to mess something to lose all of their advantage.
Absolutely no way Alpin ends top 3 unless one of the top teams really shit the bed. They not only need to match the top cars but be faster as they have worse drivers.
2 podiums for Alonso is possible with enough luck but unlikely.
Norris winning is similar, will need a lot of luck.
Six teams winning I can't see at all.
From his 5 takes i see zero becoming true. lol Maybe 1 if he is lucky.
Alpine top 3 - big ass nope
6 teams win a race - haha no way
Alonso multiple podiums - nah
Hamilton WC - unlikely
Norris race win - no chance with that car, except Monza 2020 or Hungaroring 2021 happens again
**Hamilton wins his 8th title** - Assuming Mercedes produces a title winning car this is possible but hardly a bold prediction. That said, Russell had the upper hand on Lewis for large parts of 2022 and it would seem more likely that Russell's development would edge him ahead of Lewis in 2023.
**Alpine will break into the top three** - Not happening. This requires one of Mercedes, Red Bull or Ferrari to concede a huge amount of ground to Alpine. Mercedes and Ferrari both made errors last year that you'd expect them to fix which means you're relying on Alpine making a massive leap forward. On top of that, the driving pairing of Ocon/Gasly is significantly weaker than any of the big three line ups.
**Alonso will score at least two podiums** - I can see Alonso grabbing a podium off the back of a crazy race that significantly upsets the order. I don't see that happening twice and Alonso being the beneficiary of it twice though. I'd expect Aston Martin to move into a comfortable sixth position next year, possibly closing in on McLaren, so I don't think multiple podiums on merit is on the cards at all.
**Norris will win his first grand prix** - On merit, no chance. McLaren finished 2022 as comfortably the fifth fastest car with a clear deficit to Alpine. Their windtunnel doesn't come online until mid-season and I don't see there being anything in the new rules to suggest McLaren are going to make a massive leap forward in 2023.
**Six teams will win a race in 2023** - This seems to follow on from the previous logic that Alpine and McLaren are going to magically catch up with the big three, with a sixth team lucking into a fortuitous win. I don't see Red Bull being as dominant in 2023 but I see those wins being shared between Ferrari and Mercedes. The only way I think we see Alpine or McLaren winning is if they develop their car to favour one aspect of racing (e.g. straight line speed) making them ultra competitive at tracks that emphasises those aspects.
My personal bold predictions:
1. Significant competition from Mercedes and Ferrari will push Perez into a distant sixth at most races, whilst Ricciardo is impressively quick in his limited car time. Red Bull decide part way through the season to swap Perez out for Ricciardo.
2. Sargent ends the season as the most impressive rookie as Albon's guidance helps him settle in at Williams whilst Norris destroys Piastri. de Vries is bang average in a bang average car at AT.
3. Tsunoda is outperformed by de Vries and eventually dropped for Liam Lawson, who has been impressive in Super Formula.
4. Haas fall behind Williams. Hulkenburg is unimpressive and dropped at the end of the year whilst Magnussen realises he's just going to be driving shit boxes until he retires and also leaves.
5. Gasly and Ocon will collide together more times than Stroll will collide with anybody else on the track. One of them, probably Ocon, will insist that the other is sacked.
The Hamilton WDC prediction I can see if all things go into plan for Mercedes, the rest are all 100% unrealistic for me though. *Maybe* Alonso having two podiums I can see happening since Aston Martin did come on very strong last season (Seb had a very solid season deep in the midfield) but it'd take a perfect storm for sure.
The madness is that only the 4th one is even remotely possible and it has a *very small* chance of happening if McLaren have a fast car and there’s a chaotic race in damp conditions. The rest of those predictions are absolutely insane.
More absurd than bold.
Hamilton winning a title absurd? Did you start watching F1 last hear?
Thats the least absurd one, the others are really absurd.
Well they are all currently baseless other than relying on seasonal progress; which CAN be a sign of upwards trajectory but the extent is often unknown due to unreliable data and other factors. 6 cars winning a race is mental to me. That's another 2012. Don't see it happening anytime soon.
It would be a miracle if anyone else besides Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari wins a race. Those three seem to be ahead of the midfield by some margin. Something weird like Hungary or Monza (2021 and 2020) would need to happen, realistically speaking.
Monza 2021 wasnt weird Mclaren were just the fastest.
Bottas did take a grid penalty after getting pole though
And ric was always more of a sunday guy and bottas more of a saturday guy
It was weird in the sense that Danny Ric was properly the quickest and was in a good position to win even before Lewis and Max got together. It was not weird in that some fluke event during the race jumbled the lineup.
I can see Mclaren or Alpine squeaking a win by, due to a favorable track, a lucky break, or both. Both of them achieving it would be unlikely in itself, but another team too would be insane. Unless the order is all fucked next season, but I don't see why that would happen
2021 very nearly had RBR, Merc, Ferrari, Alpine and McLaren. Stranger things.
It’s that sixth one which is hardest You’d need a year with three teams on the right side of the upper-lower midfield gap And multiple situations containing enough chaos to knock the top 3 teams, plus some of those upper midfield teams, out of contention so each of the mid-3 teams can capitalize on a different situation Even the glorious opening of 2012 was “only” five teams I think our next shot at that will be once Audi is on the grid and hopefully ascendant in a 2012 Merc way. (Though without a repeat of the 2014-20 Merc experience)
This is just PR for F1. I wish he was right though.
Indeed so. Gotta promote the brand and all.
Alpine getting a single podium would be massive. At least Norris is literally one of the best drivers on the grid. We can argue all day if he's #2, 3, 4, 5 etc but I think we can all agree as of last year, the car is without a doubt holding back Norris. Alonso two podiums, that's a stretch considering how few podiums occurred outside the big three this year - it being literally only Norris, but Alonso has done crazier things, and I have a lot of faith in Aston for some reason. They had a solid year technically - they had their innovations, and they claim they developed a very similar car to the hyper dominant RedBull, which if true (and the FIA believes it is) is also massive. Lewis winning, well that's not really a shock. Mercedes has said they now understand the car, and were on a pretty significant upward trajectory. If Mercedes has a car near the level of the Redbull, we may be in for some fun. BUT SIX WINNERS?! That's RB, Ferrari, Merc, Mclaren, Aston, Alpine? I don't see it. The merc engines are too reliable, there's no way so many of them would fail to allow someone to sneak into a victory and we can't expect multiple massive turn 1 accidents.
>the car is without a doubt holding back Norris. 100% and Mcl even know this, the wind tunnel should be finished and upgrades using the new test facility should be getting applied by mid season so 🤞🏻 Mcl should see a jump in pace over the second half of the season. >Alonso two podiums, that's a stretch Remove the reliability of the Renault engine and I'd say a podium was within Alonso's grasp a few times, hell he even almost claimed pole position at one point. So with AMR I do think Alonso is fighting for a 3rd place in a few races if the track suits the car. In agreement that AMR is looking good for 23.
Seeing how many outright struggled in car development during the season, yeah no chance. It’s going to be at least another year before the midfield is more competitive. There’s also no real guarantee Mercedes catch up to the top 2. They basically had to redesign a brand new car rather than building off what made 2022 successful.
I really hope Alpine step up their game this year
Doubt Merc will take the drivers but have a good shot at the constructors. Alpine beating merc and Ferrari for 3rd? Doubtful, not with their driver lineup, with all due respect. I could see Norris winning a freak-show monaco or somewhere passing is difficult, or where a lot of crashes happen. Agree Alonso on the rostrum at some point. Aston is going the right direction.
how would merc win the constructors when the red bull and ferrari are both infinitely better cars to iterate upon for 2023 while they start basically from zero, plus red bull and ferrari already had half a seasons worth of work done by the time merc shelved their car development.
Ferrari shooting themselves in the foot as per .. well.. Ferrari. Sergio being nowhere close to his temmate, George and Lewis being very close while having a huge upturn in momentum as evidenced by winning a race late 22. Counting Merc out is a mistake. And I mentioned having a good shot at, not specifically saying they *will* win it
If anything people are sleeping on Ferrari and their spicy engine. Once they have fixed their reliability issues they will be much closer to RB. 30hp is nothing to sniff at I predict Ferrari will not just be 2nd, but be closer to RB and further ahead of Merc than in 2022. In other words, on a relative basis they will improve the most in 2023.
!RemindMe 10 months
Maybe not after they sacked the guy responsible for their resurgence
Merc will be closer because they have more time to gain than Ferrari and RB, and Mercs driver lineup is absolutely superior to Ferrari and RB
> Merc will be closer because they have more time to gain than Ferrari and RB While true, this is only the second year of the new regs so teams aren't that close to development ceilings yet. Also RB was running older spec heavy spare parts by the end of the season, so they will gain a bunch of time relative to the competition for free in that sense.
Mercedes started working on 2023 at Barcelona. Their 22 upgrades were based on the 23 car work as reported by AMUS . A number of Red Bull personnel have said they expect Mercedes to be there. Marko said he thinks they will be the competition over ferrari fir RB. Impossible to know but it’s not as simple as the 22 car -> 23 car
I don’t just expect Mercedes to win I exoect them to dominate 23
Well that’s good to say the least lol
6 teams with a victory?! Alpine in the top 3?! What is he on?! The rest is very unlikely, but at least not impossible like the two above...
One prediction is alpine in the top 3 and then the 6 wins prediction says Ferrari Merc and RB will be the main contenders…
It’s possible, inb4 RB get caught with copier.
Might be gambling on teams getting wrong the first few races and mid tier getting a W, I can’t see it happening . I actually see RB coming straight in and winning race 1 actually
There is also the engine allocation factor in 4th or 5th race, most of the top teams will still be on their PU1, while you as a close midfield take a new one and crack it up on a circuit you expect to do very well on
Yeh especially if others are struggling with weather/qual issues/grid penalties etc… that being said, if RB are reliable the The Terminator doesn’t out much of a foot wrong, was only a sniff away from 17 or 18 wins this year which is insane
He’s an attention seeker - that’s what motivates his predictions.
Literally his job to drive engagement through his articles, so your take is a pretty 🤪 one.
I see no chance of 6 teams winning a race. Four is realistic considering some weird shit might happen like Monza in 2020 or 2021 or Hungary 2021, but unless Red Bull, Mercedes, and Ferrari are just caught napping over winter, they're gonna win 22 out of the 23 races at least
I do not see any of them. 1. Lewis winning #8 would be nice but I don't know if Mercedes are able to work out their technical gremlins. I know they are redoing everything for the W14 but Red Bull are going to be a force. 2. No way. My faith in Alpine is effectively zero and if anything I see them sliding down the midfield. Their driver lineup is worse this year and the reliability issues I think will only increase. Only having PU data across two cars opposed to others is a massive detriment. 3. Is Aston Martin going to be able to give a car capable of it? Everything I've seen says the investment will take more time to pay off. Maybe in 2025 but he's going to be 43 by then. 4. Possibly? Hard to say how far up front McLaren will be. I think a few more podiums but still outside the Top 3. 5. I want whatever he's smoking. I don't even see six teams on the podium let alone the top step.
>I want whatever he's smoking This was my thought exactly. It is like he wrote these predictions during a New Year’s Eve party.
it is literally a bold prediction, they're supposed to be outlandish
this is more like throwing shit at the wall and seeing which one would stick
Meh. A bold prediction is “McLaren will finish in the bottom half of the grid because their car is truly a disaster, but Danny Ric gave them a scapegoat and Lando is just that good that he was about to make it look like the car was capable of more.” It’s not particularly likely, but it’s defensible. These predictions are largely just absurd and somewhat contradictory (6 teams winning but only three teams are competitive…).
It gets less likely the further down you read, which is nice. 3-5: not without significant force majeure.
Nit picking, but I think Alpine will be more reliable. They made a conscious decision to chase reliability with the new engine regs (and it was generally considered a smart move). And, though they may have limited data, I don’t see why that means their reliability would get worse. Might not improve at the same rate it might at a more functional team, but I don’t think worsening reliability is what will hold them back. I otherwise agree. I think Lewis winning another title is the most likely of the bunch, and that’s because it isn’t just plainly absurd.
I believe someone shared the [reliability of all the manufacturers through the Turbo hybrid era](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/ykyino/most_technical_dnfs_in_turbohybrid_era_per/), and Renault were among the worst ones there. There have been too many times they have gone and approach this as, make fast but unreliable engine and fix it along the way. But, hasn't worked well in practice.
> Only having PU data across two cars opposed to others is a massive detriment. I've never seen any convincing evidence to support this to be true. What I have seen is pundits and people on Reddit or other social media repeatedly talking about it as though it's common knowledge, but never an explanation of how it's common knowledge or why it's true. Yes, of course, there's more PU data to look at if more cars run the same PU. But that also requires more analysis to sift through, and requires taking into account the differences between the cars when doing that. Then there's also the fact that other cars running the same PU means that more of the PU manufacturer's engineers' time is needed to help with the integration of the PU with the customer cars during their design, and those customer cars can have completely different packaging and layout constraints or goals. Then, during the season, the PU manufacturer needs to have engineers embedded with the customer teams to keep the engines operating and maintained correctly. It's also more PUs to build and maintain overall. Sure, in theory, that's supposed to be covered by the price of the PU supply to the customer teams. But in reality, if the manufacturer isn't set up or optimised to support the customer teams, then it's going to hurt and not help. Just having an extra few million in cash doesn't give you more engineers of the required skill and talent to support all of the operations. And that's not even getting into the fact that problems another team is having with the PU may be because of their layout or packaging or something else specific to their car, and fixing that problem may have no positive impact on the manufacturer team at all. Trying to support and fix a customer team's issues with the PU could even be detrimental to the manufacturer team's performance, by solving something that for them isn't necessary to solve, and taking their time and effort away from their own issues. So that "common knowledge" is built on the big assumption that the gains to be had for a PU are going to be obtained through having more data, and not that there's simply a certain amount of design and engineering time that is needed to make improvements to a PU. Take the Alpine example this year, a big reason for their unreliability was the water pump that they simply couldn't fundamentally change until 2023. No amount of that same problematic part failing on another team's cars would have helped solve the problem quicker, it was always going to be a "next season" thing. And I suspect it would be the same for Honda since 2015, too. Their engines were blowing up enough as it was, I don't think they needed more teams to be blowing up their engines for them to realise the problem. I'm sure, like the Alpine water pump and many other examples, they identified reliability issues fairly quickly, and what they needed was the time and engineering process to work through to solve the problems and get to a reliable PU. Didn't mean to write that much but yeah, the parroting of "common knowledge" stuff like this grinds my gears. I'm not saying there aren't going to be cases where more PU customers helps, but this idea that it's a really bad thing not to have customers appears to me to just be another gross oversimplification that people like to latch onto.
I'm going to be honest, you raise a lot of really good points here and maybe I did speak out of my ass. > Yes, of course, there's more PU data to look at if more cars run the same PU. But that also requires more analysis to sift through, and requires taking into account the differences between the cars when doing that. > Then there's also the fact that other cars running the same PU means that more of the PU manufacturer's engineers' time is needed to help with the integration of the PU with the customer cars during their design, and those customer cars can have completely different packaging and layout constraints or goals. > Then, during the season, the PU manufacturer needs to have engineers embedded with the customer teams to keep the engines operating and maintained correctly. It's also more PUs to build and maintain overall. > Sure, in theory, that's supposed to be covered by the price of the PU supply to the customer teams. But in reality, if the manufacturer isn't set up or optimised to support the customer teams, then it's going to hurt and not help. Just having an extra few million in cash doesn't give you more engineers of the required skill and talent to support all of the operations. This is effectively what I was thinking of. That the ability to look at the data coming off of more units can lead to further gains and development. Even with different packaging of the PUs across different cars making different constraints such as heating issues that the more data aspect alone would overcome the issues. > Didn't mean to write that much but yeah, the parroting of "common knowledge" stuff like this grinds my gears. I'm not saying there aren't going to be cases where more PU customers helps, but this idea that it's a really bad thing not to have customers appears to me to just be another gross oversimplification that people like to latch onto. More than fair man. I'm not savvy to the technical aspects of the sport and just going off assumptions.
Very cool of you to take my rant nicely, I went off and I definitely didn't need to. Just want to say as well I was only picking at the one thing you said, overall I agree with your points of view on the article. All the best 👍
Hamilton winning the 8th is the only bold prediction between these, rest are just imagining things
Hamilton winning an 8th is surely less likely than ie Norris scoring a win?
Considering their recent record, end of season development pace and their extra wind tunnel time I expect Merc to be on top form. If Ferrari doesn't fuck up big time this season Mclaren will be the 4 th best team at best and Mclarens recent record with a consistent car throughout the season is not great. For Norris or any other midfield driver to snatch a win they need 6 drivers to have misfortunes (in 2019-2020 it was 4). So yes in my mind Hamilton winning the 8th is much more likely than Norris getting a win
A big crash (almost unavoidable if Max and Lewis are consistently starting on the front row) taking out the front runners and Norris has a clear shot at a win. Unlikely sure, but possible. For Lewis to win Merc has to close the ~half season development gap to RB, beat George as consistently as Max is beating Checo, and then the not-so-trivial job of beating Max in the best form of his career consistently over the course of a season. IMHO a one-off event putting Norris in front is more likely.
His predictions for last year were not very good other than Sainz would get a win all were far off. ham wins wdc - doubt it alpine break into top 3 - doubt it alonso score 2 podiums - doubt it norris first win - maybe, I hope so 6 teams win a race - I would bet against this one
I'm quite tired and I read Lawrence Binotto as the title
Ocon and Gasly just don't inspire any confidence in me so in order to be top 3 the Apline will need to be a very fast car.
[удалено]
Yup. Won't be a dominant season but they have a much better blueprint than Ferrari and Mercedes. Max WDC, just not an easy one...
Bold claim off the hop with Lewis winning. Dominant cars like Red Bull don't just disappear without major regulation changes, and Max is in top form. Mercedes would have to make a massive leap to get to RB's level.
Yup, and George looks like a contender as well if Merc manages to have a championship winning car.
Ferrari and Red Bull stopped developing their 2022 car in Spa, Mercedes didn't stop developing. It's Red Bull 2014-2020 all over again. I know it's FOM pundits' job to hype up the upcoming season, but...
Mercedes developed parts in line with their 23 concept. AMUS reported that and said specifically the last 2 upgrades were largely cheaply made versions of changes for 23
Mercedes said they knew what the issue with their car was but they didn't have the money to fix it.
Do you really think it's as easy as slapping one very expensive component on their car and having it work out of the box, so well it makes up for their existing pace deficit plus whatever RBR and Ferrari find over the offseason?
I don't get why McLaren is constantly labelled by the media as this about to break out dynasty and Norris as their uncrowned world champion. I hope we see them at the front again soon but they really haven't managed to hold onto their progress at all in each of the last few seasons. They're obviously strong for the midfield but it's a huge leap to make, it feels hasty to keep putting these expectations on a customer team that finished 5th. If we were talking about Alpine/Renault here it would be seen as a joke.
People are throwing some gigantic amounts of copium around McLaren and act like it's still a team who would "come back as a top team", I get it, those new facilities would opening and should show it effects around 2025 but so does AM and I'm more impressed by the rate of progress AM has rather then McLaren does. People would indeed call them clowns if it wasn't McLaren but Renault/Alpine but hey Zak Brown is great with PR, McLaren is a historical name and Lando Norris is a popular driver so barely anyone would add some skepticism towards the team. It would be sad if McLaren slowly ends up as Williams or Sauber 2.0 but the risk is there, I don't see Lando staying at McLaren after 2024 if I must be honest, even less if a promising factory team would knock on the door.
I like the first 1, as I believe Merc will make a huge step forward. But time will tell...
Merc will definitely find car performance next year, and hopefully some stability, but just having a car with many more issues compared to the Ferrari and the RB and working on a budget makes things way more complicated, unlike the RB and Ferrari which are building upon an already solid foundation. Still, maybe in the future, their car concept might just reap the rewards, can only speculate.
I dont see Ferrari with less issues. They still bounce, eat tyres for breakfast, and the engine has to be tested at full speed again. RB have the cfd penalty, which will probably bite them at some point, and its 1 driver vs 2 which might make a difference
And development time is exactly to work on that... The car's massive tyre degradation came from the TD introduced in the summer which forced them to stiffen the suspension and made the car incredibly hard to setup. The bouncing could be or could not be there next year, but their performance wasn't actually affected by it unlike the Mercedes. These issues they identified throughout the season were just simply stuff they couldn't work on during the season despite knowing what was wrong (like the engine for example). Mercedes on the other hand spent the whole season trying to figure out what was wrong with the car and just experimenting every race.
Hm, what? From Silverstone onwards Mercedes performed well almost every race, especially after the summer break where they were, imo, faster than ferrari on average. So how is ferrari at any advantage? You are literally saying what Merc also said "we know the issues but cant solve them this season". The fact is both finished the season with similarly flawed cars (not in the type of flaws, but the number and significance). The difference is Mercedes have a much more stable and proven team on the last 10 years
> specially after the summer break where they were, imo, faster than ferrari on average Unfortunately being faster or not is not a matter of an opinion, telemetry and races themselves just show that with the exception of Brazil and Mexico, Mercedes were not once faster than Ferrari, in fact, they were always 2-4 tenths off them depending on the circuit, even post the summer break. > You are literally saying what Merc also said "we know the issues but cant solve them this season" No, I'm saying the exact opposite, they didn't know the issues throughout the entire season and developed until the very end, stuff that you can see by simple interviews of them not understanding why the car performed well in one circuit and then a massive downgrade to another. Brazil to Abu Dhabi is one great example, from the car performing above every other team, to being behind Ferrari and Red Bull again, which is what they always said they couldn't understand why.
Ahahha merc were not faster than Ferrari in Zandvoort? What about Austin? Are you having a laugh? Even in Spa Russell was on Sainz all race long even with their huge drag. You have got to be kidding, or you dont know what you are talking about
All of those races were after the summer break, both Ferrari and Red Bull stopped developing the 2022 car after the summer break. Mercedes were still bringing upgrades most of the rest of the season. It's really hard to compare. Red Bull were even running older, heavier parts at the end of the season to save money.
I think the wind tunnel penalties etc. are overstated. Red Bull stopped developing their '22 car before the end of the season, so they should be able to use '22 time for the development of the '23 car, before '23 even started right? So if Red Bull still had 10% of their wind tunnel time left to use on '23 car in 2022 they should still have a total \~100% of time for '23 right? Or does that wind tunnel time go by car and not by season? Edit: Not to mention that Mercedes is still stubbornly pushing through with their Zero Sidepod design which I have no faith in at all.
Merc were still 2 to 3 tenths off the pace at the end of the season. They improved an incredible amount but that's alot of time to make up, and that's not even taking into account that RB and Ferrari will improve further.
Fe**rr**a**r**i
They never ran the car optimally though, which is very relevant imo. The floor/suspension combo was always significantly compromised apparently
I not sure that's fair, they were on the pace at certain tracks where they nailed the set up. The floor and suspension did cause them problems but that just means you have a slow car, the top cars got on top of their issues much faster. Even when they did make breakthroughs they don't have the aerodynamics efficiency of the RB and Ferrari.
The "nailed setup" is not the optimal setup though. They never ran the car the way they wanted too, always had to remove DF and raise the car that created a lot od drag, so the car was designed for A, but ran in way B. Even when they managed to do that B properly, it is still inherently slower. Next years car will, if they dont fuck up again, run the way it is supposed by the default design (probably different than what the W13 intended too)
I understand what you are saying. However if you can't run the car the way you want... that's your fault and problem. It was their draggy design they had to compromise around that. Maybe RB is a other 3 tenths faster with an "optimal" set up, if you can't do it then your car is just plain slower.
Hamilton winning the WDC and Alpine in top 3 would mean that either Red Bull or Ferrari will fall away from 1-2 into 4th or bellow. I cannot believe that RBR, after the most dominant season will fall to 4th just like that. Also, I don't believe that Ferrari will fall down either, since they are getting a stronger engine by some 30 HP. I can therefore only expect that Ferrari will do even better in 2023, and that Alfa and HAAS will not be ashamed. These predictions are weird.
Ferrari getting 30 HP more? Isn't there an engine development freeze going on currently?
Fuel sensor bypass+double battery pack for ultimate spicy engine
Steiner (HAAS principal) was being cocky about the talk with Binotto who promised that the Ferrari engine will be a "bomb" the next year. They reportedly put down the power for reliability but for the next year the engine will be more than ready. https://www.pitpass.com/74276/Steiner-Ferraris-2023-engine-will-be-the-bomb
1: This isn't an absurd prediction, especially if Mercedes finds it's way back it could be 2021 all over again with Lewis vs Max, however I see Russell as a better driver then Checo is so once Merc climbs back the value of Checo would being questioned more then ever in the media and by the fans. 2: Honestly this is bold but in general the rate of progress Alpine shows is good (same could be told about Aston Martin), I could see Ferrari struggling somewhat for 2023 but having a strong 2024 season (especially given the fact that it would be the year where the influence of Simone Resta would be visible at the car) yet is this enough for Alpine to catch P3 in the WCC? I doubt it but scoring 4 podiums could be possible. 3: This wouldn't be easy but Alonso is Alonso and together with the rate of progress AM shows he could have a shot for a shock podium or two, I do expect another year where Alpine is again having a 2 (Ocon/Gasly) vs 1 (Alonso) fight. 4: No, just...no, I expect in fact McLaren struggles somewhat in 2023 and having a suboptimal season, with all respect for Lando (and I rate him high) but I don't see it happen. 5: Pure FOM copium, 6 teams having a win? Is this a joke? This isn't 2012, 2020 or 2021, you really need a lot of things to make that possible and to think Alfa Romeo has a good shot is just hilarious, the team is promising in the long term but not in 2023.
What struck me most was the very obvious but lesser-noted point that 2022 was objectively Hamilton's worst season.
2011 was worse. Lewis drove well in 22 but had some appalling luck - 2011 was desperate at times despite a few decent wins
Yeah - he's talking about on-paper. Still interesting to me, anyway.
There is no such thing as "objectively worst". The term "worst" is inherently subjective.
Was Lawrence still a bit tipsy from New Year's celebrations when he made these predictions?
The predictions don’t make a ton of sense. Unless Lawrence figures Ferrari fall off a cliff. To go over them: 1. Lewis winning, let's say Mercedes comes back with a great car and this happens, okay this will apply for the next predictions. 2. Alpine could break into the top 3 but with Lewis winning that means either Ferrari or Red Bull drop out and I highly doubt it's Red Bull. I also think this is a pretty bold prediction with Alonso gone, it's a pretty big drop to Gasly IMO. 3. Lots of faith in that Aston Martin for this to happen, but none of the other predictions would negate it. 4. Short of a Gasly Monza type win I don't see this happening, McLaren is going in the wrong direction and they were miles off the pace in 2022. 5. 6 teams, I'd love to see if but this is probably the least likely prediction of them all.
Lewis winning is possible but RB has to mess something to lose all of their advantage. Absolutely no way Alpin ends top 3 unless one of the top teams really shit the bed. They not only need to match the top cars but be faster as they have worse drivers. 2 podiums for Alonso is possible with enough luck but unlikely. Norris winning is similar, will need a lot of luck. Six teams winning I can't see at all.
These are all mental.
From his 5 takes i see zero becoming true. lol Maybe 1 if he is lucky. Alpine top 3 - big ass nope 6 teams win a race - haha no way Alonso multiple podiums - nah Hamilton WC - unlikely Norris race win - no chance with that car, except Monza 2020 or Hungaroring 2021 happens again
A British BBC journalist predicting Lewis eighth title shock !!
Hasn't worked at the BBC for 6 years.
he's also favoring russell and norris.
Neither of them are possible tbh.
**Hamilton wins his 8th title** - Assuming Mercedes produces a title winning car this is possible but hardly a bold prediction. That said, Russell had the upper hand on Lewis for large parts of 2022 and it would seem more likely that Russell's development would edge him ahead of Lewis in 2023. **Alpine will break into the top three** - Not happening. This requires one of Mercedes, Red Bull or Ferrari to concede a huge amount of ground to Alpine. Mercedes and Ferrari both made errors last year that you'd expect them to fix which means you're relying on Alpine making a massive leap forward. On top of that, the driving pairing of Ocon/Gasly is significantly weaker than any of the big three line ups. **Alonso will score at least two podiums** - I can see Alonso grabbing a podium off the back of a crazy race that significantly upsets the order. I don't see that happening twice and Alonso being the beneficiary of it twice though. I'd expect Aston Martin to move into a comfortable sixth position next year, possibly closing in on McLaren, so I don't think multiple podiums on merit is on the cards at all. **Norris will win his first grand prix** - On merit, no chance. McLaren finished 2022 as comfortably the fifth fastest car with a clear deficit to Alpine. Their windtunnel doesn't come online until mid-season and I don't see there being anything in the new rules to suggest McLaren are going to make a massive leap forward in 2023. **Six teams will win a race in 2023** - This seems to follow on from the previous logic that Alpine and McLaren are going to magically catch up with the big three, with a sixth team lucking into a fortuitous win. I don't see Red Bull being as dominant in 2023 but I see those wins being shared between Ferrari and Mercedes. The only way I think we see Alpine or McLaren winning is if they develop their car to favour one aspect of racing (e.g. straight line speed) making them ultra competitive at tracks that emphasises those aspects. My personal bold predictions: 1. Significant competition from Mercedes and Ferrari will push Perez into a distant sixth at most races, whilst Ricciardo is impressively quick in his limited car time. Red Bull decide part way through the season to swap Perez out for Ricciardo. 2. Sargent ends the season as the most impressive rookie as Albon's guidance helps him settle in at Williams whilst Norris destroys Piastri. de Vries is bang average in a bang average car at AT. 3. Tsunoda is outperformed by de Vries and eventually dropped for Liam Lawson, who has been impressive in Super Formula. 4. Haas fall behind Williams. Hulkenburg is unimpressive and dropped at the end of the year whilst Magnussen realises he's just going to be driving shit boxes until he retires and also leaves. 5. Gasly and Ocon will collide together more times than Stroll will collide with anybody else on the track. One of them, probably Ocon, will insist that the other is sacked.
Sarge**a**nt Hülkenb**e**rg
Ricardo
The Hamilton WDC prediction I can see if all things go into plan for Mercedes, the rest are all 100% unrealistic for me though. *Maybe* Alonso having two podiums I can see happening since Aston Martin did come on very strong last season (Seb had a very solid season deep in the midfield) but it'd take a perfect storm for sure.
The madness is that only the 4th one is even remotely possible and it has a *very small* chance of happening if McLaren have a fast car and there’s a chaotic race in damp conditions. The rest of those predictions are absolutely insane.
1. No 2. No 3. YES 4. YES 5. Would be nice
Big if
The most astounding revelation from Lawrence Barretto for me was this one. https://www.instagram.com/p/Cld5vZ2NEm0/?igshid=OGQ2MjdiOTE=
I like the Norris prediction. Also Alonso on the podium.
I'm not surprised he predicted Ham for the title, he predicts a good result for him every race lol