Following his sensational lap in Saturday's qualifying which saw Charles Leclerc claim a shock pole position for Ferrari, the Monegasque endured a heartbreaking result at the Hungarian Grand Prix despite his impressive pace during his first two stints of the race. F1Technical's senior writer Balazs Szabo delivers his latest analysis in his column branded as F1MATHS.
"Right now, it’s about extracting the maximum potential from the car; there’s a certain need in terms of balance. Leclerc has opted for a slightly more oversteering car for a few races, and it’s worked well. Hamilton has recently taken the same direction and made things work. Ultimately, I think it’s an aspect of the current regulations; we see a lot of nervousness at the core, and I think that’s due to the regulations and their performance limitations. It’s a reality; I think the cars are twitchy, and the drivers, to some extent, need to be able to manage that."
Aston Martin has spent the past few years having essentially unending update failures. Just an unceasing regression over a season, every single time, reliably. The only thing more reliable than a failed Aston Martin update was the setting of the sun.codetower wrote: ↑10 Jul 2025, 18:57What people fail to understand is that it's never about one person. It's not about Newey, not about Fred, not about Horner or Toto or Verstappen. It's the collective mix of ingredients that make success. Newey/Horner alone won't make a championship team, neither will Verstappen alone. Mercedes didn't have either during their run, neither did Ferrari. And McLaren doesn't have either of them today. If Ferrari hire Horner, he might build a winning team, but odds are that he wont. And I personally don't believe Newey alone will turn Aston into a championship team either. Maybe I'll be proven wrong, but thats not how things work. It takes more than any one single ingredient.
I think Ferrari needs to keep improving the areas where they are falling short, and right now I don't think it's the TP.
Totally agree. It seems like there’s an ability - likely gained through sheer experience - to look at how a car is performing and understand the issue / tweak it to maximise performance. It’s somehow being able to see the wood for the trees, irrespective of what the numbers in the wind tunnel say. That’s an invaluable skill, especially since no one else still in the sport (Rory Byrne’s occasional involvement notwithstanding) who can do it - imagine if Ferrari could have avoided the last few seasons’ missteps?Seanspeed wrote: ↑12 Jul 2025, 23:41Aston Martin has spent the past few years having essentially unending update failures. Just an unceasing regression over a season, every single time, reliably. The only thing more reliable than a failed Aston Martin update was the setting of the sun.codetower wrote: ↑10 Jul 2025, 18:57What people fail to understand is that it's never about one person. It's not about Newey, not about Fred, not about Horner or Toto or Verstappen. It's the collective mix of ingredients that make success. Newey/Horner alone won't make a championship team, neither will Verstappen alone. Mercedes didn't have either during their run, neither did Ferrari. And McLaren doesn't have either of them today. If Ferrari hire Horner, he might build a winning team, but odds are that he wont. And I personally don't believe Newey alone will turn Aston into a championship team either. Maybe I'll be proven wrong, but thats not how things work. It takes more than any one single ingredient.
I think Ferrari needs to keep improving the areas where they are falling short, and right now I don't think it's the TP.
Newey joins, and now Aston is suddenly seeing some advancement, even when Newey's only direct involvement is some casual input direction.
All while Red Bull spent decades with a reputation for confidently bringing updates and just having them basically always work, and without ever A-B testing them like many other teams would do. Just pure confidence. And then as soon as Newey stops being listened to and especially after he leaves, their updates start to fail.
Can this really be written off as some coincidence? I get Newey alone isn't an auto-win button, but I think even his direct input on direction is clearly valuable, and if you let him have the technical structure he wants, he's absolutely going to do good things for you. Newey's record of build top-flight chassis across many teams is undeniable. He is a rare exception where 'one person' genuinely does have an outsized impact on the end result.
Ferrari should have given the guy what he wanted. You can do worse than make a gamble on the absolute GOAT, ya know?
Fully agreed!codetower wrote: ↑10 Jul 2025, 18:57What people fail to understand is that it's never about one person. It's not about Newey, not about Fred, not about Horner or Toto or Verstappen. It's the collective mix of ingredients that make success. Newey/Horner alone won't make a championship team, neither will Verstappen alone. Mercedes didn't have either during their run, neither did Ferrari. And McLaren doesn't have either of them today. If Ferrari hire Horner, he might build a winning team, but odds are that he wont. And I personally don't believe Newey alone will turn Aston into a championship team either. Maybe I'll be proven wrong, but thats not how things work. It takes more than any one single ingredient.
I think Ferrari needs to keep improving the areas where they are falling short, and right now I don't think it's the TP.
And that's really it!
I disagree, it was good to stay away from Newey even though the man is the most successful designer ever.Seanspeed wrote: ↑12 Jul 2025, 23:41Aston Martin has spent the past few years having essentially unending update failures. Just an unceasing regression over a season, every single time, reliably. The only thing more reliable than a failed Aston Martin update was the setting of the sun.codetower wrote: ↑10 Jul 2025, 18:57What people fail to understand is that it's never about one person. It's not about Newey, not about Fred, not about Horner or Toto or Verstappen. It's the collective mix of ingredients that make success. Newey/Horner alone won't make a championship team, neither will Verstappen alone. Mercedes didn't have either during their run, neither did Ferrari. And McLaren doesn't have either of them today. If Ferrari hire Horner, he might build a winning team, but odds are that he wont. And I personally don't believe Newey alone will turn Aston into a championship team either. Maybe I'll be proven wrong, but thats not how things work. It takes more than any one single ingredient.
I think Ferrari needs to keep improving the areas where they are falling short, and right now I don't think it's the TP.
Newey joins, and now Aston is suddenly seeing some advancement, even when Newey's only direct involvement is some casual input direction.
All while Red Bull spent decades with a reputation for confidently bringing updates and just having them basically always work, and without ever A-B testing them like many other teams would do. Just pure confidence. And then as soon as Newey stops being listened to and especially after he leaves, their updates start to fail.
Can this really be written off as some coincidence? I get Newey alone isn't an auto-win button, but I think even his direct input on direction is clearly valuable, and if you let him have the technical structure he wants, he's absolutely going to do good things for you. Newey's record of build top-flight chassis across many teams is undeniable. He is a rare exception where 'one person' genuinely does have an outsized impact on the end result.
Ferrari should have given the guy what he wanted. You can do worse than make a gamble on the absolute GOAT, ya know?
He was chef technical officer he was the one responsible for shaping the concept of the car and the direction the car went, and for how well the mechnical and aero platform worked together, he still needed Pierre, Rob, Ben, Paul, and other's, But ultimately it was Neways critical decisions which made the RB19 a dominate car.Fakepivot wrote: ↑13 Jul 2025, 10:46funniest thing was British media hyping and giving pretty much all credit to Adrian for rb19 and at the start of rb20, I remember watching susuka last year after race discussion and that ted bbc guy was like drooling at Adrian giving him compliment after compliment and Adrian himself felt awkward. oh well, they never mentioned it as Adrian's car now, instead it all the fault of others now. can you imagine British media attitude if Adrian had joined Ferrari, i could hardly imagine the cringe takes..
I feel like if the 2024 Imola upgrades had worked as intended and the Monza package was developed as a true upgrade rather than a fix, Leclerc might have won the WDC and the WCC would have been a formality.Seanspeed wrote: ↑13 Jul 2025, 01:18And that's really it!
Ferrari feels so close to nailing a top car, but always stumbles somewhere here or there.
I have the feeling that if our technical department were either led by or at least consulted with Adrian Newey, we wouldn't have had these problems and maybe could have ensured our direction was consistently forward towards a regular race winning car.
Why? It’s about competence, not luck. Thinking that Ferrari can make a better car than McLaren right now is crazy.
