The progression war made the 2023 F1 season “fiercer than it’s ever been,” according to Bernie Collins.
The former Aston Martin strategist, who now works as a broadcaster and pundit, has an insight into F1’s no-holds-barred battlefield.
Speaking with Speedcafe on a recent episode of the KTM Summer Grill, Collins suggested the development race went up a notch last season.
“It’s been a year where the race to progress has been fiercer than in previous years,” he said.
“We see McLaren at the start of the year, with really poor performances compared to what I expected them to do in the first few races, and there have been some very competitive improvements, moving the car forward, which is, at the beginning of the end of the year, it’s almost on the podium.
“Then the opposite happens with Aston Martin, for example, where they started the year so strong, then it seemed that the improvements were not working and until the middle of the year there was a big crisis.
“So the progression race under those regulations is very close, and it’s very close between the teams that manage to get the right car and in the right race window, or the car that doesn’t work at all.
That was a key story throughout the 2023 campaign, with some teams proving more consistent than others, but none, aside from Red Bull, was a safe bet.
Aston Martin, Ferrari, Mercedes and McLaren can all boast of being the second-best car at some point in the year, while Alpine has also performed well at times.
It was a year marked by some uncertainty in the midfield, which had been significantly reduced by the end of the year.
“When you look back, from P2 to P5, P6, those groups had a race [where] one faster, one race and one faster.
“It’s that midfielder, or not even the midfielder, but he’s on the front lines of the war, excluding Red Bull and Max [Verstappen], who has been right all year.
“Until the end we didn’t know what the moment was in the constructors’ classification.
“If we look at that next year, it’s not going to be a very smart year because the battles have actually been hard-fought, much closer than we’ve noticed in previous years.
“I think the more we persist on this path, the more they will continue over the next two or three years. “
According to Collins, this is because F1 teams have an imperfection in their vehicles and in their development, leading to very public gains and losses.
“The number of teams coming out and saying they don’t even understand why it’s not working is a bit like, from an engineering point of view, a bit shocking,” she admitted.
This led to some changing direction mid-season, while others, such as Mercedes, had more deeply rooted flaws in their 2023 designs.
As a result, there is a real prospect of a new reset by 2024, as groups that make significant adjustments are likely to backtrack in their attempt to move forward.
“Are they going to get it right?” asked Collins and Mercedes’ plight.
“So far, they’ve tried twice this kind of regulation that we have now, this very superior functionality [to] decrease [the ride height], but they haven’t succeeded.
“How will Race 1 go this year?
“And as more people expand over the winter, are they going to be in the right direction or in the direction again?
“So between now and February we don’t know if what is being done is right or wrong,” he added.
“Race 1 is always exciting to see who’s ahead, who’s behind. And we don’t know.”
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