🏁 Lewis Makes a Statement

PLP Season 1 Edition 12

76 Days Until the 2024 Season Opening Weekend

3 weeks down, 11 to go. At least this month brings some distraction via the joyous holiday season (I should probably buy some gifts instead of going on another aero deep dive). Christmas Day will see the theatrical release of Ferrari, which can only be interpreted as the Scuderia calling upon a higher power to help turn their F1 fortunes. But before Adam Driver (think that’s the reason they cast him?) hits the big screen, this week we’ve got some drama at the FIA awards, a Spanish GP rumor, and a look at Alpha Romeo’s season.

Quick Quiz: Before 2023, when was the last season in which only 2 constructors won a race?

Find out below ⬇

Lewis Makes a Statement at the Annual FIA Awards

The FIA held their annual prize giving event in Baku this week, honoring the year’s top performances and officially crowning 2023’s champions. It would be hard to outshine Red Bull and Max but Sir Lewis Hamilton made some noise of his own.

• Statement #1: The fashion one, duh. Note that this was a press conference ahead of the awards, he wore a traditional suit to the actual event. But man the guy sure can dress.

• Statement #2: Fresh off the FIA’s rescinded investigation debacle of the Wolff’s last week, Hamilton came to their defense saying “I think a disappointing week really to see that the governing body of our sport has sought to question the integrity of one of the most incredible female leaders we’ve ever had in our sport, with Susie Wolff, without questioning, without any evidence, and then just saying ‘sorry’ at the end. And that’s just unacceptable.” Strong words. Hamilton never afraid to speak his mind. Have to respect it.

• Statement #3: After the awards word got around that Hamilton ditched his P3 trophy, leaving it behind perhaps intentionally, or even gifting it to a fan. What protest! Turns out it was all a misunderstanding. Someone working the event asked if he could take the trophy, and Lewis obliged thinking it was a staffer that would transport the award back to team headquarters. This is all common procedure. Turns out, it wasn’t a designated trophy handler, but this guy:

This time Mercedes returned the favor and defended their driver, refuting reports that Lewis was performing any kind of objection. Once the truth came out matters have begun to be sorted, with news that the FIA is now back in possession of the trophy and will be returning it to Hamilton and Mercedes.

This trophy hijinks reads like a b-story in a 2010’s sitcom. Great stuff.

FIA Waves the Yellow Flag on Potential Spanish GP Move to Madrid

A story came out late last week of a potential move of the Spanish GP from the traditional Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya to a street circuit set up in Madrid. However the FIA came out soon after poured cold water on the news saying that a potential move was far off and still lacking vital steps, a main one being track homologation. Say what? If you’ve heard the word before it’s simply a fancy man’s term for the approval process a track must go through under criteria set by a sporting authority. Thanks wikipedia.

Although it may be a few years off (if it happens at all), that didn’t stop some potential track designs from floating around social media:

Option #1 is a neat layout. Some boxy sections that remind us of Baku, some sweeping corners like COTA, a tight almost 180 a la Monaco, and even a cute little roundabout section at the bottom:

Option #2 looks like what someone would give you for cutting them off on the New Jersey Turnpike:

We here at the Pulse are in favor of the change, but we’ll just have to wait and see how the plans develop going forward. We’re not particularly attached to the current Barcelona circuit (It’s fine! Just not in our top picks). But honestly, Alonso and Sainz should have a say.

Carlos Sainz Sr. is reportedly a fan saying “Logistically speaking it would be unbeatable”. With his son a race winner at the street circuit in Singapore, we have to think he’d agree with pops. And when Alonso was asked about the potential change, he said “I will be happy to race in Barcelona, I will be happy to race in Madrid- if I’m here in 2026. If I’m not here, I will watch on TV and it doesn’t change much”.

Who wants to bet he’ll still be here in 2026…

Alfa Romeo: Year in Review

I forgot who said it exactly - maybe someone in the Weekend Warmup crew on F1TV - but their one word summary of Alpha’s season stuck with me: Anonymous. They weren’t good qualifying, their race pace was meh, their car was near the bottom of the pack in pure performance, and there were very few memorable performances (or even notable mishaps) throughout the entire year. The only moment that stands out (besides the Bottass, of course) were their 5th (ZHO) and 7th (BOT) place qualifying performances in Hungary, where the team took advantage of the first one tire compound per quali round test. Unfortunately a terrible race start saw them move backwards and finish in P16 and P12 respectively.

The veteran Bottas mostly outperformed Zhou in his sophomore season in both qualifying and race finishes, though together they only managed 16 points as a team. While starting ok with a BOT P8 in Bahrain and a ZHO P9 in Australia, the car seemed to become possibly the worst in the field as the season wore on. The team would score double points in Qatar, with a few more P10’s sprinkled in between. The result saw the team move backwards from P6 in the contructors’ last year to P9, with Zhou matching his 2022 point total and Bottas dropping from 49 points and P10 last year to a P15 finish this year.

At this point in his career, you know what you’re getting with Bottas. He has the Merc pedigree from his days as Hamilton’s teammate (Just ask Checo what being the #2 to a champ role feels like) and he got what he could out of a bad car, putting in an overall average performance. Most would agree we would have liked to have seen more out of Zhou in his second year, but poor qualifying and not many highlights this season will put the pressure on to perform next year. Bottas is locked in with the team through 2025, while Zhou’s contract expires after the 2024 season.

• Highs: Hungary quali, Qatar, Bottas’s posterior, Bottas’s mullet

• Lows: Mid-season drought, lack of development, DNFs

• “We haven’t found anything big throughout the season… Meanwhile, some other teams, they have found big steps, new concepts, innovative things… but still we just did steady progress but, in this sport, that’s not always enough” - Bottas

• “Let’s see how everything goes over the winter but I’m quite optimistic about the new package we’ll have and I’m sure that will be a much bigger step” - Zhou

Down the Grid

Tech Talk

• Standout Tech from 2023 includes innovative brake caliper technology, Aston Martins big leap forward leading into 2023, McLaren’s hugely effective in-season upgrades, and Max + RBR’s biggest performance advantage. [F1 Unlocked Only]

• Spray Guard fix faces delay and possible abandonment. A wet weather package designed to reduce the huge amount of spray coming off cars in wet conditions may have to wait until the 2026 regulation changes, with the appropriate testing not yet complete.

• After the Hamilton and Leclerc DQs in Austin, the FIA seeks to simplify the underfloor plank rules for 2026

• Pit stops per race this season from @Big_Data_Master on X 🔽 Zandvoort at 71 saw a dry/wet scenario that caused max pit stop chaos, Qatar had 54 due to the mandated 18 lap tire maximum, and the season opener in Bahrain had 52 due to a track material composition that causes super high tire degradation.

Off the Grid

• The most creative helmet designs of the year

• Watch: RBR completes a pit stop in total darkness. Better than some teams in broad daylight..

• Alpine reserve driver Jack Doohan rejects other racing opportunities including IndyCar in hopes to secure an F1 seat in 2025

• Most positions gained from starting slot to race end in 2023 🔽 No surprise with Checo taking the top spot here - he consistently underperformed in quali in the best car, so come race day it was not uncommon to see him moving up the field. A similar story for Lance but to a lesser extent as Aston fell off through the season. With Max in 3rd all I can say is SERIOUSLY? Kind of unbelievable, but even when he didn’t take pole you KNEW he was going to move up. Zhou and Sargeant round out the top 5 which is a nice consolation to see - two drivers who struggled in quali but were able to eek out some upward movement depending on the race.

That’s it for this week, we’ll be back next Friday with the AlphaTauri year in review. Until then, I think some of us can relate to that Checo feeling 🔽

Questions? Comments? Did we get something wrong (never 😁)? Let us know ▶ [email protected]