Why a power shift in F1 2023 could open fresh intrigue

One of the defining advantages that Red Bull had as it marched on to the 2022 Formula 1 championship double was its edge in top speed. Time and again Max Verstappen’s rivals knew that they would be sitting ducks if that Red Bull managed to hook itself up behind them before a straight.

After years where top speed had been Red Bull’s Achilles heel, the way the RB18 was so strong in that area this year proved a critical element in many of the great drives we witnessed.

For Red Bull’s rivals, a great deal of head scratching has gone in to trying to work out just where its advantage came from. Some of it was certainly aerodynamics, with Red Bull having again produced its downforce very efficiently to make such a brilliant car that didn’t really have any weaknesses. There were also ideas that Red Bull was using some clever suspension concept that would push the back end of the car down when it hit a certain velocity – reducing the drag of the rear wing as the car’s rake changed and therefore further improving its speed.

What cannot be ignored, either, is the fact that F1’s engine war has become a super close affair with the differences between the manufacturers right now really hard to pick out. And while Honda may have officially quit F1 at the end of last year, its continued involvement with the Red Bull project has ensured that there are no concerns on the bhp stakes right now. Where once Mercedes was king, which helped lay the platform for its early turbo hybrid success, Red Bull Powertrains/Honda looks to have taken its crown for now.

In fact, Mercedes’ straightline speed deficit last year prompted a lot of debate about whether it was engine or aero holding it back. The recurring focus on its poor straightline speed performance in the end focused more on aerodynamics, with the team believing that too high downforce choices with its wings were to blame.

It was clear Mercedes had not done as good a job with its power unit for the start of 2022 as it had hoped, which is why a great deal of working was done into improving its settings over the course of the campaign. In this latest era of F1, though, the divide between engine and aero is not as distinct as it was in the past – so Mercedes’ barn door rear wings were never going to help either.

One of Red Bull's advantages as it marched on to the 2022 Formula 1 championship double was its edge in top speed

Photo by: Erik Junius

As Mercedes engine chief Hywel Thomas says: “What's becoming clearer and clearer as we have gone through that is the link between the power unit and the chassis is that you can't develop them separately, especially if you want to get the performance from it from this development of non-hardware and the PU, you have to match the PU even more beautifully to the chassis.

“That's where I would say, especially the second half of the season, is where some of the gains have been coming and that's a great thing for the future as well.”

Renault engine chief Bruno Famin echoed those sentiments by saying that his focus for 2022 after the revamp for Alpine was not exclusively on horsepower. Instead, it was on integrating the car/engine better as a whole to help boost lap time.

"There are no more significant differences between the best and the worst PU on the grid. I think it [the difference] has been divided by three or four compared to last year" Bruno Famin

Even so, he thinks Renault made a big step forward with its all-new design for 2022 and does not think there is much difference between the car makers at the moment.

“We really closed the gap,” he says. “I think there are no more significant differences between the best and the worst PU on the grid. I think it [the difference] has been divided by three or four compared to last year. And we are very happy with that.”

On Ferrari’s front, it started the year very strongly and faded away, with it emerging late in the campaign that its mid-season reliability problems had forced it to wind down its engine power to avoid repeat troubles.

However, modifications made for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix meant it was finally able to turn things back up again – lifting confidence about it being back on the attack in 2023. What will be interesting to see though is what shifts there will be in performance between the different car manufacturers over the winter.

Ferrari's Abu Dhabi improvements have been a precursor to rumours that more gains could be on the table for 2023

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Despite an engine freeze, manufacturers are allowed to make changes for reliability reasons; even if such tweaks deliver ‘unintended’ performance gains. What is really intriguing though is where Ferrari stacks up, as the Abu Dhabi improvements have been a precursor to rumours that more gains could be on the table for the start of the 2023 season. There has even been talk of 30bhp improvements.

This idea has been fuelled by the fact that then-Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto adopted the philosophy of going as aggressive as he could with the performance of the launch-spec 066/7 power unit – knowing full well that during the freeze any reliability niggles could be sorted.

Ferrari may even have run its power unit in a detuned state at the beginning of the year because of this, and then further wound it down after that run of failures around the Spanish/Azerbaijan Grand Prix time. It could have been in this detuned state that it was 30hp adrift of what was theoretically possible.

If a decent step is unleashed from Maranello’s dynos, then it could deliver not only a bit of a twist in the championship battle – and the fight with Red Bull – but could also open up a bit of a political debate about performance gains from reliability changes.

It was telling that as F1 headed for its winter break, Famin suggested the FIA needed to get a bit stricter with teams.

“What is a pure genuine reliability issue? It's a question we can’t answer because behind the reliability issue you have often a potential performance gain of course,” he says. “The limit is not always super clear.

“If you have a water pump issue as we had in 22, I think it's quite clear it's a pure reliability issue right: there is nothing to gain in having a different water pump. But if you need to change the material of the piston rings, you will be able to have something stronger, to have more knock, to have more performance, then where is the limit? It's not obvious.

“I think the process in 2022 with the FIA and the other manufacturers has been quite good. It has been transparent at least, so everybody was aware of the request of the others, and this is very good. It has been well managed by the FIA, I think. It has been quite tolerant in 2022. I think it was quite normal because everybody was affected by reliability issues: not only us, clearly, because I think we had 30/40/50/60/70 requests from different manufacturers, so everybody was affected by this kind of problem.

“I am expecting the FIA to be a bit stronger in the future, but I have no information.”

All eyes on those speed traps in Bahrain... 

The season opening Bahrain Grand Prix will be the first test of next year's competitors

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images