In an interview granted for f1ingenerale.com by Paolo Filisetti, the F1 journalist and engineer addressed various topics, including the balance of power in the current Formula 1 season. Although the initial dominance of Red Bull seems unquestionable, according to the Italian journalist there is the possibility to see some races in which the winning will not be a given. Furthermore, Paolo Filisetti shared his thoughts on the difficulties encountered by the Ferrari SF-23 project, the upcoming updates and why interrupting the development of the F1-75 turned out to be a mistake.
Given the first races of the year, the 2023 season seems to have only one clear favourite and that is Red Bull. Do you think we will see their rivals win some races or, as stated by George Russell, will the RB19 triumph at all circuits?
“Honestly, I don’t entirely agree with Russell. From my point of view Red Bull is not doing anything in particular compared to what they were expected to do after winning 17 races last season. To imagine it suddenly becoming an uncompetitive car, I don’t know what kind of dream or what nightmare it could have been.”
“However, I don’t see Red Bull as dominant as some cars of the past. Taking a dip into recent seasons, I am reminded of the 2016 Mercedes which, in my humble opinion, was even more dominant than Red Bull is now. It must also be said that the RB19 has already shown some reliability problems. Even on the radio we hear Max Verstappen complaining about issues with the downshift, noise and things like that”.
“We must also imagine that the RB19 has been committed to at most 80% of its current potential. At the moment it has rather weak or in any case rather distant opponents. When you’re in a fight, everything becomes functional to performance and performance instead becomes inversely proportional to the reliability of the car. I can expect that when the opponents get close and Red Bull is forced to push to express its performance to the maximum, I have some suspicions that it could have some small problems“.
Let’s analyze the opponents: Ferrari seemed to start with very different expectations but didn’t turn out to be so brilliant in the race. What are the main problems and what will be the way of development?
“In qualifying, at least until Jeddah, Ferrari was one and a half tenths behind Red Bull and this shows that the performance was there over the flying lap. In the race this is not the case due to tire degradation and the car balance which is far from optimal. I can imagine that Ferrari’s development during this F1 season goes towards a better balance. We talk about the rear suspension, the floor and the sidepods, but the latter is consequential to the other two and, honestly, it’s not the most important thing. Clearly I don’t know if they will be able to solve the tire degradation problem 100%, but I can imagine seeing a much more competitive Ferrari than the one we have seen now.”
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Tires are a problem we had already seen on the F1-75.
“Ferrari’s 2022 project was not wrong, although I think it was a disadvantage to have stopped the development of the F1-75 in the middle of the season. Not so much because this would have represented a substantial increase in the performance of that car, but the engineers would have had real data obtained on the track and not simulated in the tunnel or in CFD. I believe that in part such data has disappeared and it can be seen at this precise moment. This car has the classic problem of a single-seater that can’t balance the front with the rear and it’s something you can fix when you find the right aerodynamic balance.”
“In a nutshell, it means having the center of aerodynamic pressure behind the center of gravity of the car which becomes less subject to pitching. This ensures that the single-seater remains more ‘horizontal’. Red Bull and Aston Martin have succeeded very well in this.”
Speaking of Aston Martin, we have seen how they have managed to make a big leap in performance compared to 2022. What is the technical key to their project?
“As I said before, the AMR23 stays horizontal as well as the RB19. Although the suspension of the two cars are different in layout, the front suspension of the Aston Martin has a steeply angled upper wishbone. So with a very pronounced anti-dive scheme, like that of Red Bull. This type of solution guarantees a lower longitudinal load transfer and, therefore, the car remains flat. The consequence is being able to optimize the lower aerodynamics of the single-seater”.
Mercedes, on the other hand, seems oriented to change the W14 project. If this were to be the case, it would represent an open declaration of failure of the zero-sidepod philosophy. What is it about this car that is not working as they expected?
“If we look at the last two races where, among other things, the W14 was ahead of Ferrari, we could say to ourselves ‘this car is not totally a project that has to be thrown away’. I honestly disagree on this. I believe it is a car with a concept from which extracting performance is very complicated and it is only possible in certain and very rare situations. It is not only and exclusively a matter of sidepods. The W14 is an extremely long car and Hamilton complains about the positioning of the cockpit, considered advanced compared to other cars and contributing to the imbalance of the single-seater“.
“I wouldn’t call this year’s project a courageous choice. I would rather dare to say that it was an almost obligatory choice. Coming from the last races where last year’s car had been developed, it was quite likely that they would continue with that project. It must be said that the one-two in Brazil has an extremely ephemeral value, for the simple reason that it also corresponded to Red Bull’s worst ever race from the 2022 F1 season. So if we look at and balance the two things, we couldn’t imagine that Mercedes had returned to being the competitive single-seater we knew until the year before. So in my opinion it is a single-seater that will change”.
“I would not compare the situation of Mercedes to that of Ferrari. Mercedes was an extremely problematic car and by totally changing it they might be able to make some progress. It will certainly be a fairly competitive car but from there to being a car in the fight for the world championship I wouldn’t say at all“.
“In all cases, I am quite convinced that, although Max Verstappen is clearly the favorite to win the World Championship, I am also quite convinced that in a few Grands Prix we could see a more lively championship than what we have seen so far“.
