Just a few hours to go and the engines of Formula 1 are about to roar back to life. Zandvoort marks the opening of the final phase of the season that is about to reveal its main verdicts. Max Verstappen is in search of his ninth consecutive victory and intends to do it in front of his passionate crowd; Red Bull, already holding the record for consecutive wins, aims to extend the streak and etch its name permanently in history. And behind? Mercedes, Ferrari, Aston Martin, and the lagging McLaren are all trying to win the “human” championship since the one for extraterrestrials has been decided for a while.
The chasing pack will live these last ten races suspended between the desire to secure second place and the need to work with an eye on 2024, to avoid showing up on the starting line again to fight for a meager prize like the runner-up spot. The championship winner within the championship will emerge from the balance between these urgencies.
There are various strategies that the aforementioned quartet of teams will adopt. On one side, we have Mercedes, Ferrari, and Aston Martin; on the other, McLaren. A recent focus has shown that the Woking team is the only one in the presented lineup that must necessarily push for updates, if only to fill the deficit shown with the low-downforce package. Monza is around the corner, and the MCL60 cannot be the same as the one seen in Spa-Francorchamps, where it struggled to offer adequate top speed.
The other three competitors, in general terms, will embrace the same approach: working towards 2024 while not losing sight of the ongoing championship, which will serve as a technical gym for solutions to be applied on next year’s models. This dual approach, present-future, has been confirmed by Frédéric Vasseur, Toto Wolff, and Mike Krack.
Coming in second doesn’t offer significant advantages in terms of development hours since the mechanism of the Aerodynamic Test Regulation penalizes those who finish higher up, but the dividends set by the Concorde Agreement are a good remedy to overcome any discomfort. And then there’s the matter of prestige: beating big-name rivals is always a pride one doesn’t want to resist.
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Currently, observing the Constructors’ standings and intertwining them with the dynamics seen on the track, it seems that Mercedes and Ferrari are the franchises most likely to fight for it. Aston Martin has been on the decline for many races and it doesn’t seem like the treatments administered to the AMR23 have had remarkable effects. McLaren, on the rise and making great strides, appears to have accumulated too much of a delay from the second spot to be able to insert itself definitively.
Ferrari and Mercedes Challenge Each Other from Afar
The Three-Pointed Star (P2, 247 points) and the Maranello team (P4, 191 points) therefore seem to be the most credible contenders. And for this reason, their representatives are openly declaring that their goal is the second spot. Charles Leclerc, after the Belgian GP that saw him as a prominent figure with a third-place finish behind the unreachable Red Bull RB19, issued a challenge in recent days:
“I think a realistic goal should be to try to finish second in the Constructors’, which will be a challenge because McLaren is back in the fight, and Mercedes is always strong. Aston Martin has dropped off a bit recently, but I have no doubt they’ll come back. So yes, this is our goal. We have some updates coming in the second part of the season that we hope will make a difference and help us achieve these aims.” These are Leclerc’s words.
The updates Charles Leclerc refers to should either be adaptations to different tracks or parts that will be tested with an eye on 2024. What Ferrari will truly do is continue on the path of optimizing the track-simulator correlation that has stuttered in recent times. Furthermore, the aim will be to maximize the car’s understanding by setting it up more effectively to extract the potential that engineers believe has remained hidden.
Whether this will be enough to mount the pursuit will be revealed in due time, but the alternatives are scarce. The leaders of the Prancing Horse don’t intend to spend resources on a disappointing car and are going all-in, once again, on the following championship.
More or less the strategy postulated in Brackley, which has almost exhausted all development efforts for the W14 that will undergo minor adjustments between now and the Abu Dhabi finale. Toto Wolff, in a not-quite-verbal showdown, seems to directly respond to the flagbearer of the Scuderia: “It’s nice to get back to work. The summer break is important for everyone to have some well-deserved time off, but we’re drivers and we love the thrill of competition.”
“We’re coming back fired up and ready for the second half of the season. There’s a lot to fight for, and we won’t give up. We’ll push hard in the battle for second place in the Constructors’ Championship. We’ll also continue development for 2024.” The two noble houses of F1 seem to have thrown down the gauntlet. Even for a second place, when honor is at stake, it holds a superior value.
Source: Diego Catalano for FUnoanalisitecnica
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