F1 2023 Pre-Season Testing (23-25 February)

[PURE PASSION]

Gazzetta claims that Ferrari had a lot of fuel in every session during testing:

They say that even the short runs were carried out with a constant fuel load, with top-ups of 35/40 kg. In none of the tests would Ferrari have dropped below 20 kg at the end of the scheduled laps.

Gazzetta claims that Ferrari used the actual fuel amount needed for a race distance in Bahrain during their longruns. They also write that Red Bull‘s individual stints were rather short in comparison, hence the tyre deg being a lot better.


https://www.gazzetta.it/Formula-1/27...-benzina.shtml

some good news

Ι would like SO much to believe it (i read it too) but ...........
2ndly about fuel loads would see something in this,if the teams only run single stints of 10-20 laps. And someone could say that we where runnng heavier in those stints. But other teams run full race sims so it is for certain that an their 1st stint they where on full tank.AND if we watch the 1st stint of RB amd unfortunately even AstonMartin ,they where way better then us on C3s . Alonso was so impressive that his last laps was better then his 1st so he run conservatively,he could run a lot faster and still dont have degr problems.
To me the more i read i see that we have a genuine balance problems that seems to start from the front. We cant generate enough load in the front SO once again we start make compromise set up and we start losing out path. And its lke we dont have clear answer to this (for now at least !!!

The new born in Maranello does not have its weak point in the rear, as it might initially seem, but the problem is to be found at the front. Leaving aside the first day used to collect data on the track, to be compared with those coming from the factory instruments, the second and last day were used to optimize and extract the potential of the SF-23. Despite working a lot in terms of setup, it turned out that the new Italian car suffered from understeer on entry and in the middle of the corner, which turned into oversteer on exit. With the current front wing it was not possible to solve the problem, given that"Even at maximum clicks, we didn't get rid of the understeer, especially in the hottest hours of the day" a technician from the Italian team let us know.

[PURE PASSION]

Alonso: "The last day we did a race simulation, we put fuel for 57 laps. Ferrari was doing the same program as us and we were faster"

[brucewayne]

If true, great start…

[PURE PASSION]

If true, great start…

the say a new front wing is in the pipe line BUT ,when we will have it and IF it will solve our problems no-one knows !!!! Unfortunately another year where we will have to way and see !!!!

[stefa]

Somehow I don't feel any hype about season start....

[stefa]

Great
https://twitter.com/FanaticsFerrari/...YJlDcc_GQ&s=19

[patrese86]

We'll see how we fair the first few races. No point worrying yourself till the lights have even gone out.

[Tony]

Seems there's a lot of indications that unintended or maybe intended problems have emerged (given that they say the data correlated to the wind tunnel). We'll see what happens this weekend, a new front wing solution is being developed, so hopefully it will be ready soon enough.

[ferrari1.8t]

Great
https://twitter.com/FanaticsFerrari/...YJlDcc_GQ&s=19

Looks like Binotto has designed this years car to suit our slower, # 2 driver. It seems making Santander happy was/is more important than winning titles. Binotto and his team tried to manipulate races last year in Saniz’ favour, and looks like he has left more damage for this year. No wonder Leclerc looks upset and stressed in all of the videos and pictures that have surfaced during testing.

If we finish third or fourth after RedBull, Aston and Merc this weekend, blow the team up and regroup for 2026. Yes, it seems doom and gloom, but the rumours are never far off. The testing pecking order could indeed be the real order…time will tell. I hope I have to put my foot in my mouth if Leclerc wins on Sunday.

[JacKy]

I’m confident that we are faster than Mercedes and Aston Martin. And i believe the qualifying pace is still there.

[brucewayne]

Looks like Binotto has designed this years car to suit our slower, # 2 driver. It seems making Santander happy was/is more important than winning titles. Binotto and his team tried to manipulate races last year in Saniz’ favour, and looks like he has left more damage for this year. No wonder Leclerc looks upset and stressed in all of the videos and pictures that have surfaced during testing.

If we finish third or fourth after RedBull, Aston and Merc this weekend, blow the team up and regroup for 2026. Yes, it seems doom and gloom, but the rumours are never far off. The testing pecking order could indeed be the real order…time will tell. I hope I have to put my foot in my mouth if Leclerc wins on Sunday.

Ferrari can’t be this incompetent, but who knows. Let’s see how the car treats it’s tires, it was a priority to fix this problem. If we still created an understeering car, we will start 2023 on the back foot and I struggle to imagine a scenario where we can even challenge RB.

[Aziz]

Ferrari can’t be this incompetent, but who knows. Let’s see how the car treats it’s tires, it was a priority to fix this problem. If we still created an understeering car, we will start 2023 on the back foot and I struggle to imagine a scenario where we can even challenge RB.

Are we that bad

[stasera]

we can be the fastest car here. but the problem is we still cant get the both titles.

here is why

everyone knows that perez cant keep up with verstappen in terms of race pace. RB also knows it, thats why they build a car that suits not even %100, more than %100 for verstappen. its to unleash all of his potentials. they dont want to operate %90 of verstappen but %100 of him if its possible more than his %100

but we use %80 of Leclerc, leclerc is not a robot, he is one of the drivers who can challenge with verstappen like alonso or hamilton, he has a natural ability to keep up with verstappen. so under these conditions, leclerc can not challenge with verstappen, its not a fair challenge for him.


sainz is a good guy, i love spain and spanish people, thats why i learnt spanish even by myself. alonso is one of the best drivers in the history of formula one. but sainz cant keep up with verstappen's pace. it doesnt mean sainz is a bad driver, but verstappen and RB marriage isnt something everyone can challenge.

there are only a few drivers to challenge verstappen for example alonso, leclerc and hamilton, somehow might be russel and may be norris with the same car but not too likely. but half of these drivers would lose this challenge because keeping up with him is not mean you will win this challenge.

if you remember british GP, verstappen's car got damaged and he lost his pace drastically, mick was faster than him. but verstappen didnt let him to overtake, he beat mick, i mean he really beat him by punching him with his car.





we need to unleash leclerc's %110 potential if we want that title. some guys dont know what we are facing and battling with. f1-75 was a car that can get the title dominantly in any casual season. its pity that we couldnt do that, its because we have a tremendously dominant rival, last year's RB was the most dominant RB ever in this sport. probably our new car sf-2023 will have the same destiny. a potential championship car that loses the title.

[brucewayne]

we can be the fastest car here. but the problem is we still cant get the both titles.

here is why

everyone knows that perez cant keep up with verstappen in terms of race pace. RB also knows it, thats why they build a car that suits not even %100, more than %100 for verstappen. its to unleash all of his potentials. they dont want to operate %90 of verstappen but %100 of him if its possible more than his %100

but we use %80 of Leclerc, leclerc is not a robot, he is one of the drivers who can challenge with verstappen like alonso or hamilton, he has a natural ability to keep up with verstappen. so under these conditions, leclerc can not challenge with verstappen, its not a fair challenge for him.


sainz is a good guy, i love spain and spanish people, thats why i learnt spanish even by myself. alonso is one of the best drivers in the history of formula one. but sainz cant keep up with verstappen's pace. it doesnt mean sainz is a bad driver, but verstappen and RB marriage isnt something everyone can challenge.

there are only a few drivers to challenge verstappen for example alonso, leclerc and hamilton, somehow might be russel and may be norris with the same car but not too likely. but half of these drivers would lose this challenge because keeping up with him is not mean you will win this challenge.

if you remember british GP, verstappen's car got damaged and he lost his pace drastically, mick was faster than him. but verstappen didnt let him to overtake, he beat mick, i mean he really beat him by punching him with his car.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmcZ...ula1racesclips



we need to unleash leclerc's %110 potential if we want that title. some guys dont know what we are facing and battling with. f1-75 was a car that can get the title dominantly in any casual season. its pity that we couldnt do that, its because we have a tremendously dominant rival, last year's RB was the most dominant RB ever in this sport. probably our new car sf-2023 will have the same destiny. a potential championship car that loses the title.

Pretty much on point. RB uses all ressources for Max, we won’t compete for titles if we don’t do the same with Charles.

[Greig]

Great drivers will be fast in any car.....

[brucewayne]

Great drivers will be fast in any car.....

Great teams build great cars in sync to their best driver... Let's see if Ferrari is a great team.

[Greig]

Great teams build great cars in sync to their best driver... Let's see if Ferrari is a great team.

Great teams build the fastest race car.....

[stasera]

Great drivers will be fast in any car.....

you get it wrong as usual. I am telling that its not a fair challenge. because we fight against a team built around a driver like a monster. they gave him everything to unleash all of his potentials. but we dont do it, so our way makes leclerc more stressful, and alone against Max that behind the full support of the whole RB team.

its a basic math. %80 of leclerc, behind the %50 support of Ferrari, can't beat %110 of Max behind the full support of the whole RB including their second driver Perez.
but our team gives %50 chance and power to its drivers. there is no favoring for any driver in our team.

there is no problem being fast, leclerc still will be fast, even will be faster than sainz. It will hurt Leclerc's performance. if RB does the same thing to Verstappen and if they make a room for Perez, Max's performance would have been reduced. but they never do what we did and do.

BUT I am saying here that this will not be enough to beat RB and Max its so simple because we dont race at the same conditions, we prefer splitting the team on the other way they prefer to unite the team. and we saw that their strategy annihilated us last year, and will annihilate this year.

[stasera]

and not to forget, last year thanks to god Mercedes sucked, we didn't have any rival to fight for second place. but this year merc will not suck that much, Aston will be strong too. we might not be that much lucky this year to keep second place like last year. but still we were about to lose it despite of having a championship car. if we keep that strategy this year, we will not be only annihilated by RB we will be annihilated by also Mercedes too. Because i think that if merc can fight for second place, toto would not be disturbed for using up Russell for Hamilton.

[Greig]

you get it wrong as usual. I am telling that its not a fair challenge. because we fight against a team built around a driver like a monster. they gave him everything to unleash all of his potentials. but we dont do it, so our way makes leclerc more stressful, and alone against Max that behind the full support of the whole RB team.

its a basic math. %80 of leclerc, behind the %50 support of Ferrari, can't beat %110 of Max behind the full support of the whole RB including their second driver Perez.
but our team gives %50 chance and power to its drivers. there is no favoring for any driver in our team.

there is no problem being fast, leclerc still will be fast, even will be faster than sainz. It will hurt Leclerc's performance. if RB does the same thing to Verstappen and if they make a room for Perez, Max's performance would have been reduced. but they never do what we did and do.

BUT I am saying here that this will not be enough to beat RB and Max its so simple because we dont race at the same conditions, we prefer splitting the team on the other way they prefer to unite the team. and we saw that their strategy annihilated us last year, and will annihilate this year.

No you don't get it, Red Bull made their car faster and it suited Max as he is a great driver which is a big difference to just making the car suit him, Max was still beating Perez regardless, but you can make all the excuses and made up maths all you like before a race is even run.

[brucewayne]

No you don't get it, Red Bull made their car faster and it suited Max as he is a great driver which is a big difference to just making the car suit him, Max was still beating Perez regardless, but you can make all the excuses and made up maths all you like before a race is even run.

Just like Charles, he still did beat Sainz in the second half of the season. AD was a masterpiece, but it's still not enough if we can't handle the tires because of an understeering car. To maximize our resources, and there is no way around that with a budget cap, we have to build a car more suited to Charles. We won' compete with RB/Max otherwise, that's for sure. If we can achieve that, we are automatically faster, just like RB was in the second half of 2022. So let's see what kind of car we have this year.

[JacKy]

2022 Bahrain Test , Day 3 , Race Sim.

Verstappen C3 Avg. Lap time : 1.37.800
Leclerc C3 Avg. Lap time : 1:38.437

So , i still believe in our Cars.

[tifosi1993]

2022 Bahrain Test , Day 3 , Race Sim.

Verstappen C3 Avg. Lap time : 1.37.800
Leclerc C3 Avg. Lap time : 1:38.437

So , i still believe in our Cars.

You should.

Red Bull and Astron Martin are overhyped, especially the latter. Had Alonso actually been doing 1:35's or high 1:34's during his so called "race sim", then sure, I would have understood the hype.

Ferrari will surprise a lot of people here. But I also think Mercedes are a lot, lot closer. Mercedes always like to play the underdog card, we just have to see past their usual BS. I think this year they have a pretty good car.

[brucewayne]

You should.

Red Bull and Astron Martin are overhyped, especially the latter. Had Alonso actually been doing 1:35's or high 1:34's during his so called "race sim", then sure, I would have understood the hype.

Ferrari will surprise a lot of people here. But I also think Mercedes are a lot, lot closer. Mercedes always like to play the underdog card, we just have to see past their usual BS. I think this year they have a pretty good car.

AM should not be our opponent, RB is the benchmark an we have to compete with them. So let's see what we will put on the table in Bahrain.

[stasera]

No you don't get it, Red Bull made their car faster and it suited Max as he is a great driver which is a big difference to just making the car suit him, Max was still beating Perez regardless, but you can make all the excuses and made up maths all you like before a race is even run.

You didn't get it right, Red Bull built their cars faster according to and to suit Max's wishes, to his driving style.

younger generations love and get used to driving the car that has oversteer. older generations tend to get used to driving car that has understeer, they are used to driving like this, and they can't change their driving style without losing their pace.

if you have two drivers, one likes to drive with understeering and another one likes oversteering. then you have to decide to improve your car according to the wishes of the fastest driver, as RB does.
or you have to sack a driver and find another driver who can suit your fastest driver's style for example Mclaren does.

you can't make both of your drivers comfortable if they are separated over the topic of understeering and oversteering.

we have 3 options:
Give oversteering car to Charles, and make Sainz his Perez (or make the opposite, but it's not logical because Sainz is not faster than Leclerc)
Sack Sainz, and find another young driver who can drive an oversteering car, then don't determine the first or second driver. let them fight
Or what we will do here in this year is: make a car and find a level in the middle of the oversteering and understeering, that doesn't suit both of the drivers perfectly. this is what we will do this year.

[FerrariF60]

AM should not be our opponent, RB is the benchmark an we have to compete with them. So let's see what we will put on the table in Bahrain.

yeah, but don;t underestimate Alonso, give him a half decent car and he will put that car in places taht it doesn't belong....2012 and an average Ferrari ring a bell??? he almost won that year with a sub par machinery

[JacKy]

Duchessa :

Talking with a source extremely close to RedBull, confirmed me: “we know where is Mercedes (more or less), we know where is Aston, we really don’t know where will be Ferrari!”

[Greig]

You didn't get it right, Red Bull built their cars faster according to and to suit Max's wishes, to his driving style.

younger generations love and get used to driving the car that has oversteer. older generations tend to get used to driving car that has understeer, they are used to driving like this, and they can't change their driving style without losing their pace.

if you have two drivers, one likes to drive with understeering and another one likes oversteering. then you have to decide to improve your car according to the wishes of the fastest driver, as RB does.
or you have to sack a driver and find another driver who can suit your fastest driver's style for example Mclaren does.

you can't make both of your drivers comfortable if they are separated over the topic of understeering and oversteering.

we have 3 options:
Give oversteering car to Charles, and make Sainz his Perez (or make the opposite, but it's not logical because Sainz is not faster than Leclerc)
Sack Sainz, and find another young driver who can drive an oversteering car, then don't determine the first or second driver. let them fight
Or what we will do here in this year is: make a car and find a level in the middle of the oversteering and understeering, that doesn't suit both of the drivers perfectly. this is what we will do this year.

If they built their car for Max then how come they never started the season with such a car?? They made the car faster and Max is good enough to use it, Perez is not. Red Bull did not say oh let's make it faster for Max, they just made it faster. Not sure why you can't understand that. You are talking as if Ferrari have made the car for Sainz or something lol they are working to fix the front end, you don't even see the car running set up for the weekend yet but you are deciding facts already.

[stasera]

If they built their car for Max then how come they never started the season with such a car?? They made the car faster and Max is good enough to use it, Perez is not. Red Bull did not say oh let's make it faster for Max, they just made it faster. Not sure why you can't understand that. You are talking as if Ferrari have made the car for Sainz or something lol they are working to fix the front end, you don't even see the car running set up for the weekend yet but you are deciding facts already.

not only this season since max is in the first seat of RB, but they also prioritize everything for Max, not even for alex albon, ricciardo or now for perez. yes making the car fast is not a topic here, making a car according to their primer driver is the key here. you can make a car in line with your budget, the car might be a slow car, but as a team, you build that car in line with your fastest driver's wishes. F1 car must be fast, this is not the case here. the case here is the comfort of your driver in the car when he is racing.

2019 ferrari car was the fastest car, but was not the quicker in the corners our drivers were not comfortable inside that car. making fast car is not everything in this sport. there are many key points you have not to miss.

you get me wrong again i dont think that ferrari builds a car for sainz. i want to say that ferrari have to build it for Charles. ferrari have to do what RB does to max. if they wanna that title.

[stasera]

additional:

Alex Albon believes that Red Bull designs its cars to suit the requirements of its star driver, Max Verstappen, but the two-time F1 world champion strongly disagrees with that assertion:
https://f1i.com/news/467244-albon-sa...disagrees.html

VERSTAPPEN: A CAR CANNOT BE FAST WITH UNDERSTEER:
https://www.grandprix247.com/2023/01...th-understeer/

Red Bull admit that car development has had impact on Perez form:
https://racingnews365.com/red-bull-a...-on-perez-form




he says he never drives understeering car. but here some guys say that RB doesnt build a car for him, just they build a fast car and verstappen adapts himself to that car. but this is not true. he says that he never experienced that type of car that is fast. because RB never risks his performance. even he believes that an understeering car doesn't have an opportunity to be fast.
I try to explain this
we cant beat this man while he has these opportunities