re: 2023 Formula 1 season Thread

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But there is hope on the horizon. Haas has been working on a major upgrade for two months now, which should be ready by the home game in Austin. Team boss Guenther Steiner already announced it in Zandvoort: "We will be heavily modifying the car to better understand which direction we have to go next year."

The concept of the Haas VF-23 is closely based on the Ferrari. This is not surprising, as the US racing team buys the majority of the parts under the fairing from Ferrari. This defines the basic architecture of the car. The Haas technicians under Simone Resta have now realized that this concept has reached a dead end. “No matter what we do, we can’t find a lap time anymore,” regrets Steiner.

The high and wide side boxes with the cooling outlets on the top dilute the so-called “downwash” principle. The wishbones of the rear suspension stand in the way of the flow. This makes it more difficult to seal the underbody against the turbulence of the rear wheels and limits the diffuser effect. Ferrari has the same problem. The more downforce you add in theory, the further away reality becomes from the wind tunnel data.

While Ferrari trusts its simulation tools and is only making minor retouches to its SF-23 this year, Haas wants to know exactly. The expansion stage planned for Austin deserves the name B version. The converted Haas will look more like a Red Bull on the outside. The underbody, side pods and engine cover adopt elements from the fastest car in the field.

Because the chassis, transmission, radiator installation and suspension must remain the same, Haas engineers can only implement part of what they plan for 2024. The basic architecture of the car imposes certain compromises. But the team has to take this risk. “The risk would be even greater if we only discovered in Bahrain in 2024 that something was wrong with our new path,” confirms Steiner.

Haas wants to collect data for the next season and insights for the VF-24 in the last five Grands Prix of the season. Even if the step initially goes sideways. Such a big step rarely works right away.

But the technicians can already see that it offers significantly more potential than the current car. "McLaren has shown that you can make a big leap with a change of concept. It's no use just adding new parts to your existing car and still standing still," Steiner encourages himself and his team.

A radical step will follow in 2024. Then Haas will also build a new chassis and get the new transmission from Ferrari. Both components are heavily tailored on the underside based on the Red Bull model in order to have more aerodynamic freedom in the air flow above and below the base plate. The suspensions are then also adapted to this concept. It helps that Ferrari will be heading in the same direction.

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https://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/formel-1/haas-upgrade-austin-b-version-usa-red-bull-konzept/

Herta is vastly overrated.

COTA must have had some problems with selling General Admission tickets this year. Was in Costco. They must have had close to 1000 of these.



Online, a 3 day GA ticket is going for $475 + Fees and Tax from Ticketmaster. That's the official price.

On SeatGeek, they are available as low as $340. We are over a month out and prices are already lower that when they were first announced. Probably going to see those come down a lot more. I think maybe COTA overpriced them a bit this year.

A change made to the Singapore street circuit.

chicane changed to a straight

Was in Vegas this past weekend and saw the all the track construction going on. Initial thoughts were I have no idea how they will have all that finished by the time the race gets there. The massive paddock is maybe 1/4 of the way built and nobody was working on it the 4 days I was there.

Pretty much every Uber driver said they aren't expecting them to have everything finished. They obviously will have the important stuff done but a lot of people I talked to said that they aren't expecting all of the stadium/stands to be complete. One Uber driver said he is going on vacation that week because of the race Apparently the race is going to severely jack up traffic for almost 3 weeks, not just the race week.

I will say, the room we stayed in at the Virgin would have been a pretty sweet place to stay at during the race. No telling what the price would be.

Non F1 related, the sphere is pretty awesome.

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Not a fan of this change, that chicane has provided some drama as opposed to what will be 4 flat out straights.

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That chicane sucks arse, glad its gone

Saw a different less PG edit floating around the internets though

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"No, I'm not disappointed in that," Verstappen said about Wolff's comments ahead of this weekend's Singapore Grand Prix.

"I mean they had a pretty shite race, so probably he was still pissed off with their performance," added Verstappen, referring to the Italian Grand Prix where Mercedes pair George Russell and Lewis Hamilton finished fifth and sixth.

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What were Toto's comments?

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Pretty much every Uber driver said they aren't expecting them to have everything finished. They obviously will have the important stuff done but a lot of people I talked to said that they aren't expecting all of the stadium/stands to be complete.

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There's a reason they are uber drivers and not engineers, project managers, etc.