Five red lights go out, and F 1 2023 season lights go out.
According to the pre-season test performance, more people will guess the champion team this year, and the scope has changed from last year's "three teams" to "four teams". Waving the check flag in front of the finish line, aston martin's first performance this year brought us full of surprises. Perhaps, you will guess that Red Bull won the first two races, Ferrari's "unpredictable" stability and Mercedes-Benz's "hidden strength", but Alonso brought a new pattern to the new season with his superb performance.
Red Bull VS Mercedes-Benz VS Ferrari VS Aston Martin, will this year's world champion be produced in these four teams? Let's take a look at their performance at the first stop.
Bahrain International Circuit
First competition: 2004
Single lap length: 5.412km.
Number of laps: 57 laps
Race distance: 308.238km.
Lap speed record: 1:3 1.447 Delarossa (2005).
At 23: 00 Beijing time, the first stop of the 2023 season F 1 officially started. In the initial stage, leclerc made a strong start, surpassing Perez to come to the second place, forming a staggered ranking of Red Bull and Ferrari, while the rear traffic was relatively stable, Aston Martin ushered in "infighting", Botas squeezed into the top eight, but teammate Guanyu Zhou suffered a sharp decline in the ranking; After five laps, the "Four Battalions" played a stable role and the overall scene tended to be stable.
/kloc-after 0/3 lap, the leading team began to complete the first stop; 16 lap, the "first show" of F 1 Pierre Terry retired due to racing problems, becoming the first driver to retire in 2023. In leading the camp, aston martin continued to struggle with Mercedes-Benz, while Botas benefited from the advantage of early pit stop and cut, and overtook to the sixth place; On lap 18, Perez, who was temporarily ahead, finally finished his first pit stop, leaving the station three seconds behind leclerc, ranking third. It is worth noting that only drivers such as Vestapan, Perez, Alben and Sargent used hard tires, and the difference of tires will also bring some variables to the tactical choice in the last 40 laps. Subsequently, after leaving the station, Perez continued to refresh the fastest lap and quickly approached leclerc, which ranked second.
The turning point of the race took place on lap 26, when Perez "easily" passed, and Red Bull Racing formed a stable situation of first and second. On the 30th lap, Botas still took the lead in completing the second pit stop, and Guanyu Zhou also came to the 10th place and entered the integral area. Subsequently, the major teams have completed the second pit stop, and the top eight rankings have also been taken over by the "four major teams"; On lap 37, Alonso and Hamilton began to compete with each other as "old drivers". After some struggle, Alonso overtook sainz at the "impossible" corner 10, and the gap was less than 3 seconds.
On lap 4 1, the race situation changed suddenly, and the leclerc car stopped on the track with stability failure, which immediately triggered the virtual safety car; Sainz came to the third place, followed by the "head brother" alonso; After three laps, Alonso overtook the front car at 1 s. With the advantages of DRS and the car itself, Alonso overtook sainz and finished third.
The final scene of the game tends to be stable In the end, Vestapan and Perez won the first and second place without any doubt, and Alonso, the "first brother", squeezed into the third place and won the podium position, which was the 99th podium in his personal career. The fourth to tenth places are sainz, Hamilton, Stoll, Russell, Botas, Gasley and Alben; China driver Guanyu Zhou ranked 13, and because of the advantage of the last tire, he set the fastest lap in this field. However, because I didn't enter the top ten, I couldn't get this fastest lap 1 minute.
After watching the wonderful first race of the season, let's take a look at the changes of rules, drivers and teams in 2023.
Changes of season rules in 2023
Last season, F 1 just ushered in a very big change in technical rules. Brand-new aerodynamic rules make the "ground effect" return, and also bring more scenes of following cars and overtaking. E 10 fuel, larger rims, brand-new suspension, "weight gain" and the influence of reducing diffuser efficiency on car following all make the design of racing car in 2022 more challenging. From the final result, the change of technical rules also ushered in a new era for the team ranking.
However, the technical rules of F 1 in the 2023 season have not changed much. Judging from the release of new cars, all teams basically follow the mature design in 2022. However, in order to solve the problem of "rabbit jumping", in 2023, the edge of the bottom plate will be raised by 15mm, the throat height of the diffuser will be increased, the edge stiffness of the diffuser will be increased, and sensors will be added to monitor the bouncing phenomenon more effectively, so as to prevent the team cars from approaching the ground like last year and reduce the bouncing effect. Considering the safety hazards that Guanyu Zhou encountered in the British station last year, the safety standards of F 1 racing roll cage have also changed this year. The top structure of the roll cage needs to be modified to reduce the possibility of being inserted into the ground in an accident.
Calendar 2023
With the confirmation of the extension of China Station, the 2023 season will eventually be reduced from 24 stations to 23 stations. So, it leads to an interesting phenomenon. There will be a "spring break" for nearly a month between the third stop Australia and the fourth stop Azerbaijan. The advantage is that the team can adjust in time according to the first three races, and the disadvantage is that there will be a wave of "back-to-back" devil races.
In 2023, the sports schedule will be more compact and the Las Vegas Grand Prix will be added, so the United States will also hold three races; Qatar Grand Prix returns; The French Grand Prix withdrew; The sprint race has increased to six stops, namely Azerbaijan, Austria, Belgium, Qatar, Austin, the United States and Brazil.
Driver lineup
In the 2023 season, the driver lineup also ushered in tremendous changes. The "three major teams" Red Bull, Mercedes-Benz and Ferrari have not changed, and Alfa Romeo has also retained its existing lineup; Ricardo, Vettel, Mick Schumacher and Latifi left the main driver position; Welcome the return of Pi Astri, Defrees, Sargent and "old acquaintances" Hockenberg; Alonso's switch to Aston Martin is a surprising change. Gasley switched to Alpine and Aokang to realize the "French combination".
Team new car
Tire replacement
This year, Pirelli's series of inflatable tires, which can be used for dry tires and bald tires, have six formulas. The six formulas are from the hardest to the softest, from zero to five, and the letter C stands for tire formula. You need to choose three formulas for each game. Last year's C 1 tire became the C0 formula tire of the 2023 season, which is the hardest formula in the whole tire series. This year's C 1 tire will be a brand-new formula, and its hardness is between last year's C 1 tire and C2 tire.
In Bahrain Grand Prix, Equation C 1 will be used as P zero white hard tire, Equation C2 will be used as P zero yellow neutral tire and Equation C3 will be used as P zero red soft tire. The team will get two sets of hard tires, three sets of neutral tires and eight sets of soft tires for each car, as well as the usual number of Cinturato wet tires and all-rain tires.
Team leader replacement
In the 2023 season, Ferrari, McLaren, Alfa Romeo and Williams replaced new team leaders, and the overall changes were still great.
Among them, Binotto, who worked in Ferrari for 28 years, left the most interesting place as a test engineer, engine engineer, engine supervisor, technical director and team leader, and was replaced by wasser from Alfa Romeo; It turned out that Vasseur's position was handed over to Andreas Cedell, who was responsible for the CEO of Sober Group; Andreas Cedell, head of McLaren, left, and Andrea Stella took his place. James Voss, the chief strategist of Mercedes, went to Williams and became the new team leader.
Pre-season test
On the third day of the test, Perez used C4 tires to rank first with the fastest lap speed of 1:30.305, Hamilton ranked second with the fastest lap speed of 0.359 seconds, Botas ranked third with the fastest lap speed, and two Ferrari drivers ranked fourth and fifth. The six to ten drivers on the fastest lap list were Hideki ODA, magnuson, Russell, Alonso and De Legowicz.
In terms of test mileage, Perez, Botas and Alben all broke through 100 lap. On the third day, Alben scored 136 laps.
Chinese element
20 15 won the second place in F4.
20 18, F3 European Championship Bocheng won the championship.
In 2020, he became the first China driver to win in F2.
In 2022, he became the official driver of Alfa Romeo F 1.
The Bahrain Grand Prix, the opening match of the 2022 season, scored points.
* * * 6 points in the 2022 season.
In the 2022 season, he was elected as the best rookie award of Autosport.
In 2023, Guanyu Zhou, with one year's experience in F 1, will usher in its second F 1 season. Facing the management changes of the team next year, his performance this year will be related to his position in the team next year. As the first China driver of F 1, he will continue to challenge the limit of F 1. From the pre-season test, the performance of this C43 car is also very competitive in the midstream team, which also makes us have higher expectations for Guanyu Zhou's performance this year!
A new competition
Starting from 2023, in order to train young female drivers to enter a higher level, F 1 will launch an all-female driver's race-f 1 Academy race, including W series women's formula, F3 championship, F2 championship and F1World championship. The race will consist of five teams operated by the current F2 and F3 teams, each team will have three cars, making a total of 65,438+05 drivers. The first season will include 7 games, 3 games each, totaling 2 1 game. The racing car driven by the driver consists of Tatuus T42 1 chassis, Autotecnica turbocharged engine (165 HP) and Pirelli tires.
Two weeks later, the second stop of 2023F 1 will move to Jeddah circuit in Saudi Arabia. Can Red Bull continue to lead? Can Alonso's strong performance continue? What will be the ranking of the four major teams? Can Guanyu Zhou get more points? All suspense will be revealed in Jeddah, so stay tuned.
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