🏁 Toto Renews Contract with Mercedes

PLP Season 2 Edition 3

41 Days Until the 2024 Season Opening Weekend

Another week down as we slowly turn up the heat in anticipation for the 2024 season. A heat that would certainly be welcome right now because boy has it been cold on the east coast. Got me wishing for 2023 Qatar race conditions as I sit here wrapped tighter than a soft tire in a warming blanket. Ok maybe not Qatar race heat.

This week we got a couple more launch date confirmations, a livery reveal (If teams can’t build a fast car they should at least try to make it look cool. This also doubles as a great life motto), and a Toto re-up at Mercedes. People were joking that Toto simply gave himself a contract extension as part owner of the team. Which is 1/3 true.. more on that below.

Quick Quiz!

Answer revealed at the bottom ⬇

Last Week: Bit of a tricky one since Toto is a huge f1 personality and has been Merc team principal for 10 years - however Horner has him almost doubled, taking the helm at Red Bull in 2005. 55% thought Toto was the longest tenured. Congrats to the 36% of respondents who got Horner correct:

Toto Wolff Signs 3 Year Extension

Mercedes team boss and resident F1 paddock renaissance man Toto Wolff will remain at the helm for at least another 3 years. As part owner in the team, it must have been easy to convince himself that he should remain in the role. However, he did need the sign off from co-owners Ola Kallenius of Mercedes-Benz and Jim Ratcliffe of INEOS respectively, who likely only needed slightly more persuading than Toto himself. Although Merc has slid a bit (by their standards, they are still a top team) in the past 2 years, 8 Constructors’ titles under Toto still speak for themselves.

“I’m not going to try to hang onto a position that I think somebody is going to do better than me” said Wolff. “I make sure that I have people around that can tell me otherwise. In the end the three of us decided: ‘Let’s do it again.’”

With the revolving door of team principals spinning incredibly fast lately, this brings some stability via the poster child man of F1 personalities. Hard to imagine Toto (or Christian Horner, for that matter) not at the helm of their two top teams.

Also announced this week: Mercedes technical director James Allison signed a new “long term” deal with the team. Another shot fired from the quiver of the silver arrows.

Singapore Scandal

Singapore, which has a top reputation on the global stage for doing the right thing™, saw it’s transportation minister S. Iswaran resign on corruption charges. What does this have to do with F1 you ask? Well, he allegedly accepted gifts from Malaysian billionaire Ong Beng Seng, - who helped bring F1 to the city-state and serves as sold shareholder of the GP - gifts valued at $119,000 that included race tickets. Officials insist the event is still on for 2024, (and is scheduled to continue through 2028) and maintain that the organization of the event was conducted legally.

Seems like the race is not in jeopardy, but a look into the underbelly is always fascinating. Also, apparently Singapore government officials are paid $800,000 a year to eliminate the incentive for this type of behavior. Not bad. Just let us know when we approach FIFA World Cup levels of corruption, then we can start hootin’ and hollerin’.

FIA Releases 2024 Race Times

All the readily available images of the 2024 race times were in GMT or UK time, and who wants to do math to figure out when we need to wake up for 24 weekends next year? Especially time zone math, based on some mystical 4th dimension construct. In any case, I converted them to American (EST) in what many are calling the most beautiful, sleek, informative chart they’ve ever laid eyes on.

Should we schedule a live watch party for the Chinese GP on 4/21? I tell ya one thing, I’ll be dialed in for Vegas again on 11/24. Better than the Superbowl.

McLaren: Year in Review

If you had to pick a counter to Aston Martin’s season, a papaya yin to green machine yang if you will, McLaren fits that bill. While clearing Alonso and co to finish P4 in the Constructors’ by a slim 22 points, that result seemed completely out of the question a few races into the season. The team brought arguably what looked like the worst car on the grid to preseason testing, then managed just 17 points through the first 8 races of the season - 12 from Norris and 5 from Piastri respectively - with 12 of those coming in the crash fest that was Australia.

While it looked like the papaya people were completely rotten through the first 1/3 of the season, the 9th race in Austria showed signs of a ripening. A solid race by Lando, followed by back to back P2’s in cracking performances in Great Britain and Hungary. Receiving the upgrade boost that propelled the team forward later than his teammate - Piastri showed signs of life soon after notching some great drives of his own, then scoring his first podium in Japan and a culminating with a Sprint victory and GP podium in Qatar. Lando finished incredibly strong, racking up 5 podiums in the last 8 races.

The story of the team’s year was the incredible development work done heading into mid season. Team boss Andrea Stella credits a restructuring of the team’s aerodynamic department as the “fundamental enabler” for the turnaround. A fully revised floor including updated fences, floor edge, and diffuser shape, along with redesigned sidepods were brought in Austria - the first race where we saw signs of life from Lando Norris. While closest competitor Aston failed to develop significantly, McLaren shot ahead and did not look back the rest of the year.

McLaren is the team to watch this year. While teams can ebb and flow a bit on competitiveness depending on the circuit, they were consistently Red Bull’s biggest threat the second half of 2023. If they can take another development step and build upon the confidence gain coming out of last season, they can give Red Bull and even bigger challenge in 2024. (This is of course, all relative… let’s make no mistake, Max and RBR will be STRONG again). While there was talk of increasing competitiveness between Norris and Piastri as the team found it’s footing, Lando pretty much put that talk to bed with his late season surge. The competition will still be fun to watch as Piastri shows promise, but Lando put himself in the top 3 driver conversation after 2023. Can he finally get a victory in 2024? We think so…

• Highs: Excellent development, Lando podiums, Oscar Sprint victory

• Lows: Abysmal start, poor Vegas showing

• “I think it’s been our best year as a team… the success that we’ve been able to have from after the start that we’ve had. I think there’s been a lot of great performances.” - NOR

• “I’ve never been fiery of like that really. I would say I’ve always been competitive but never really fiery, or outspoken or exuberant. I do things in my own way and I’m very happy with how it goes.” - PIA

Down the Grid

Tech Talk

• Ferrari have reduced weight of 2024 6kg - down to 798kg, with focus on the chassis, transmission, hub carriers, and battery. 6kg sure doesn’t sound like a lot.. but it reinforces just how tight the margins are in this sport. Trying to pick up a few tenths of a second by any means necessary. 

• Take a look at a rendering of the expected 2026 spec car from AMuS, a German automobile magazine 🔽 It’s tough to see here but the fenders on the front wing have moved inside the front tires in an attempt to prevent teams from creating dirty air via outwash. More compact and lighter cars ultimately feels like a good thing as well, and should allow for tighter racing and overtaking.

Off the Grid

• Former Indycar race winner and current F1 analyst James Hinchcliffe names PER, SAR, STR, PIA, and RIC as drivers who need to impress in 2024. Interesting he names Piastri after his great rookie season, but he’ll have to go toe to toe with Norris to put his name amongst the top drivers on the grid. I’d personally add ZHO to this list after a disappointing 2023.

• The next generation of F1: 20 exciting up-and-coming drivers to watch. The top 5 include F1 Academy champion Marta Garcia, Alpine junior Victor Martins, F3 driver Luke Browning, F1 Academy driver Abbi Pulling, and SF1TKSFAR (Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber Formerly Alfa Romeo 😁... think it will stick?) reserve driver Theo Pourchaire.

• McLaren became the first team to reveal their 2024 livery. Compare 2024 (Top) to 2023 (Bottom) 🔽 Definitely a cleaner look this year. More black on the sidepods, no light blue accents, and overall feels less busy than the last iteration. Nailed it ✔

Another one in the books! See ya next Friday. Hit the weekend with the swagger of these boys and you will be unstoppable 🔽

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