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The 2024 Formula One Season

IanW said:
Seems a bit contradictory in the statement:

1. F1 are worried that Andretti F1 will not be competitive to start with.
2. Andretti is not adding enough to F1 but with a GM engine in 2028 it probably would be.

I see the 2 statements as contradictory as starting with a competitive engine is far better than an unknown engine (everything else being equal).
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I have read a fair bit about this yesterday and while they are all opinion pieces the underbelly seems to be that
  • F1 felt the car would not be competitive or anything close to it early on (can't see how they can know that with any large degree of certainty really).
  • F1 were concerned about an engine supply for the team in the first few seasons (not sure why as the majority of teams buy in their engine and surely one of the current manufacturers can step in - that said I know Renault were touted, but they also want permission to enhance their engine to make it competitive and they are not getting it... suspect this is all caught up in that scenario).
  • Andretti were seriously underestimating the cost and effort involved in building a car for the current regulations (2025) and then another for the new regulations (2026) (possibly the case as it does seem a little crazy to me, a long time F1 fan who has at least some understanding of the costs and effort involved in bringing even a back of the grid car to the sport, but that said Andretti know far more about it than I do... they are, after all, a world renowned racing team).
  • Andretti were going to get a lot more benefit to being in F1 than F1 were going to get having Andretti at this point in time (does seem plausible, but so what... give them a few years and the tables will likely turn... they will need a few years be it now or whenever so there's no real loss).
  • F1 felt that they would be better waiting until 2028 when GM will have an engine and they would be further down the road to being ready and understanding the complexities of F1 (may be the case, but F1 seem to have been very condescending to Andretti - they are one of the most successful racing teams in the world competing in the IMSA SportsCar Championship; IndyCar Series; Indy NXT; Formula E; Extreme E; Supercars Championship; Super2 Series).
Further more IMO at least some of the decision has been about the show and not the sport, but that's the way it's headed of course.
 
@tiggers Interesting additional information, thanks for summarising.

I have some inside information, so will not comment directly on Andretti F1, but will talk a bit about Haas and their entry into F1 to illustrate what has changed.

When Haas joined F1 they linked up with Ferrari in as close a deal as was possible. In fact their business model was to do as little as possible and pay Ferrari to do as much as possible for them. The key area was the use of the Ferrari wind tunnel in Italy, which they could use as often as Ferrari would allow them. Which then enabled them to swap Ferrari and Haas aero staff at regular intervals. This meant that their first few cars were good cars, whilst helping Ferrari be more competitive as effectively they had more time in the wind tunnel. Paddy Lowe at Merc F1 went to the FIA and got the rules changed to reduce collaboration possibilities, once it was clear that this had happened, so this is not possible anymore. Then McLaren and Renault went to the FIA after the Racing Point copying approach gave them a fast car for one season until the car aero rules changed, and got this approach banned.

The Haas approach had big advantages in enabling the team to achieve very good results for a new team, even finishing 5th in the constructors in 2018, but then they went backwards and look like the team who will struggle to not be last in 2024.

In summary, if you are a new team coming in, you need to be doing something clever and different to have a chance against the other teams in your early seasons, as there are no really weak teams now (compared to when Manor and co joined F1) as they all have a stabilised and consistent development process, based on lots of joint experience, which a new team cannot have.
 
If the Hamilton move to Ferrari is true then he will be frozen out of this seasons Mercedes car development to protect internal secrets etc

The race day plans for team running will be moved away from Hamilton to the other driver.

Mercedes could implode this season.
 
I would have thought Lewis would have at least tried for his eighth title with Merc in 2024 and announce is move to Ferrari late in the season, unless he feels this years car has no hope of beating Red Bull!
 
wow&flutter said:
I would have thought Lewis would have at least tried for his eighth title with Merc in 2024 and announce is move to Ferrari late in the season, unless he feels this years car has no hope of beating Red Bull!
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His career is dead with Mercedes , while a driver has to prove themselves pretty quickly in F1 otherwise they get the boot, I guess the team and the engineers also have to as well, he dosent have time on his side like George to keep working at something that has been failing and he dosent need to prove anything, he just needs the apparatus to win again.

He has always said he would love to drive for Ferrari before he ended his days, so I figured this would happen, but I kinda hoped he would stay with Mercedes personally.

Probably a last hurrah, being an (8)(bite) times world champion already, but he just needs that piece of paper to solidify that 8th/9th and I guess its worth a punt to race in red for the final years.

As Neil Young once said, "it's better to burn out than fade away"..
 
I really did not see that coming. Not quite sure how I feel about it. I mean he was clearly unhappy with the Merc performance, maybe initial testing was poor as well and that triggered the decision. I liked the loyalty he had been showing but that Ferrari lure is still there. Even Senna said he wanted to drive for them at some point and Senna was HAM's childhood driver hero.
 
cutting42 said:
I really did not see that coming. Not quite sure how I feel about it. I mean he was clearly unhappy with the Merc performance, maybe initial testing was poor as well and that triggered the decision. I liked the loyalty he had been showing but that Ferrari lure is still there. Even Senna said he wanted to drive for them at some point and Senna was HAM's childhood driver hero.
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I would imagine that he just feels that time is not on his side... Russell can afford to wait, Hamilton can't. Plus who wouldn't want to have at least a couple of seasons in the most iconic of F1 teams... it's a gamble for sure, but a lot will depend how he approaches it. If his attitude is go there and see what happens and even if it doesn't work he'll have driven for Ferrari then I think he will be fine with that, but if he goes there expecting WC number 8 he's going to have to be prepared to possibly be deeply disappointed.

The one winner in all of this is of course Verstappen. Arguably the three outright fastest drivers at the moment are Hamilton, LeClerc and Verstappen and two of them are going to be in the same team taking points of each other even if the car is competitive... happy days at Red Bull :D
 
I guess it makes sense on a lot of levels. LH used to drive for Vasseur in F3 and GP2 and they remain on very good terms. Vasseur has got a tough 2023 out of the way and has made some changes, it looks certain that Saint is going and (IMO) Leclerc still has a lot to prove. LH has complained that Merc didn't implement changes he wanted, perhaps he's not convinced they've made enough progress.

I'm quite excited at the prospect but will the FIAs historic desire to help Ferrari outweigh their wish to stiff LH?
 
Bananahead said:
But

7. Our assessment did not involve any consultation with the current F1 teams.
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Best not to take their statement at face value. F1 can gauge prevailing sentiment without formally consulting with teams.
Speculative, of course.
 
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Enfield boy said:
I'm quite excited at the prospect but will the FIAs historic desire to help Ferrari outweigh their wish to stiff LH?
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Ain't that the truth!

But Ferrari are 'old' now, they have their new fave bringing in the fans and the dollars, so they probably won't even raise an eyebrow.
 
Mercedes dog of a car v Ferrari strategic nous. It’s like asking if you want to be shot or stabbed. :)

Not going to be giving the Red Bull package much of a headache. Their biggest threat will be the FIA reacting to audience boredom by sticking their thumb on the scales when viewer interest wanes.
 
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