I love the smell of a 1.6 liter hybrid turbocharged V6 in the morning.
It smells like victory.
While hybrid battery may not have the same “Je ne sais quoi” as napalm and there aren’t too many victories for most of the field, it is good to be back racing. A brief respite for the battle weary teams may do everyone good. Although can’t say this is a winning battle against dominant Red Bull.
The last big piece of news coming out before the summer shutdown was the rather unceremonious sacking of Alpine team principal Otmar Szafnauer and technical director Alan Permane. It caught most of the grid off guard, especially Otmar who put out a vaguely worded press release saying that he was not fired like a reverse Apprentice.
He is in fact gone, and rumored to be replaced by everyone’s favorite Mattia Binotto. An Italian team boss running a French team? Grazie millie for the upcoming shit show that will be.
Unfortunately for Alpine, they may be getting more Ferrari vibes than just the team boss. The Alpine CEO was quoted as saying “We say we are not aligned enough, right. But, there was no plan.” Ohhhhh got it, so this is supposed to be better because it wasn’t planned? Not sure about the logic in that.
Whatever Alpine/Renault have called themselves they’ve always struggled to find a path and stick with it. Their success seems to ebb with the cashflow. I suspect with the recent infusion from Ryan Reynolds and Co. they see themselves with the glitterati at the front of the grid while they still haven’t figured out if they really want to fight for a leading role or settle for being supporting actors.
This year’s campaign may have reached its apex, but the silly season war is just beginning. But it’s not the drivers who are the focus but the boffins as the Brits would say (rest of world: engineers)
Ramping up for the new regulations in 2025, F1’s cloak and dagger engineer swaps are in full swing - even if we can’t see it and won’t see results for years to come. This isn’t your regular Free Agency Transfer season. You can sign a big name, but their previous team can hold them back on “Gardening Leave,” essentially a long cooling down period to prevent trade secrets from passing.
Of course that’s all negotiable as we saw when Ferrari released Laurent Mekkies early to AlphaTauri in return for a to-be-named engineer from Red Bull. I need the technical Adam Schefter reporting in, “McLaren is trading three fluid dynamics experts to Aston for two mechanics in 2026 and cash considerations.”
In the age of salary caps every dollar and person counts more than ever. So it’s cool to see the technical gurus get their time in the spotlight. Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur hinted at big changes coming, including 25 new technical personnel coming aboard and a major figure joining in 2025. Could it be Schmadrian Schmewey??? A Ferrari fan can dream.
Of course there are still driver moves looming. Haas re-signed both Magnussesn and Hulkenberg for another year. It’s not sexy but the stability makes sense, especially as Haas’ future plans remain unclear. Leclerc, Sainz and Hamilton have all yet to sign extensions, which is sending everyone into a rumor frenzy.
Leclerc and Hamilton will get their mega-deals, but Sainz is the real domino. Could Sainz pull a quasi Riccardo and opt to leave for the new Audi team?
The dots are there. His father, legendary rally car driver Carlos Sainz Sr., is currently off-road racing in Dakar with Audi and previously raced six years with the parent company Volkswagen. It would give Carlos the lead of an Audi team flush with cash and get out of the shadow of Leclerc and the Ferrari machine.
But is that the smoothest path for this operator? I’m not sure. I think that Sainz is a stabilizer for Ferrari, they need him there to overcome the peakiness of Leclerc. When Leclerc becomes frustrated, pushes too hard, or makes a mistake, Sainz is there to recover. You could easily see a Rosberg v. Hamilton style championship battle where he comes out on top.
Frankly, Ferrari probably needs Sainz more than he needs them.
Elsewhere the unexpected hot commodity is Alex Albon. After getting the boot from Red Bull he’s led the charge back with Williams. A string of top ten finishes has put Williams in contention for an unexpected 7th place in the Constructors and him at the top of the wishlist for some teams.
There’s also the big what ifs surrounding Daniel Ricciardo and his return, rumors of Lando moving on from McLaren for the 2026 season, and also the very much in limbo Alfa Romeo team.
Finally on the long list of possible driver shake-ups, every team has to replace a driver with a rookie in FP1 this year. Leading the charge this week is Robert Schwartzman for Ferrari. Based on his resume (raised in Russia and Italy) definitely looks and sounds like the young apprentice who instantly betrays you in a movie. Just watch out Leclerc.
On to Zandvoort. Set into the sand dunes it’s a roller coaster of a track whose main appeal is the unique banked corners (more on that later) and the untz-untz DJs for all the Dutch fans. There’s even a corner called “Tarzan” after a vegetable farmer who would only give up his land for the track if they named a corner for him (Supposedly.)
The hometown boy has won the last three races in a row, but luckily for us it looks like there is going to be some rain all day Friday and Saturday. Then again there’s basically only three real corners and last year had just five overtakes. The war is lost but could a battle be won?
NASCAR may only turn left, but Zanvoort has found one thing to steal from its Amurrrrican racing brethren - the banked corner. Unlike a typical F1 track that is basically level with the ground, Zandvoort’s corners have up to 18 degrees of banking. Without going into too much physics, this means that gravity helps pull the car to the inside of the corner which in turn means less braking, less turning and more speed.
What does this mean for race day? A typical F1 corner only has one real racing line (or groove in NASCAR) through the apex of any corner. Banking gives us multiple lines and approaches. There’s the higher line which keeps you along the top of the track. It’s the widest, which means less braking to enter but also longest distance. The lower line is the inside of the corner which is tighter and requires more braking, but is shorter. More lines = more overtakes = better racing.