F1 News
Qualifying Comparison | Who made the biggest gains over the last 12 months?
12 months ago Formula 1 arrived at the Bahrain Grand Prix equipped with generation one cars for the new rules and regulations. Those new rules and regulations were yet to be exploited and plenty of different concepts rolled out of the garages. This meant the development potential through the 2022 season and recent winter break was extremely high.
Aston Martin claimed that 95% of their car was different from 2022 to their car launch for 2023. That figure was surprisingly large and perhaps taken with a pinch of salt. But now we can see that it is realistic. They have improved by 2.4 seconds, double the amount of time saved by the next-best Williams. It is a remarkable feat and brings them right into the mix for the best of the rest position in the championship. Perhaps it's not such a surprise given the new factory and the number of key engineers who moved from Mercedes/Red Bull to Aston Martin. It's early days, but Fernando Alonso finally seems to have pulled the best ball out of the bag when it comes to changing teams.
Williams sit in second place on this bar chart. An impressive amount of work by the Gove-based team over the winter could see them challenge for more points this season. But it's probably more of an indication of how bad they were in 2022. Nicholas Latifi qualified in last place.
Max Verstappen confidently claimed that "everything" is better about the RB19 during the Drivers Press conference attended by GPblog on Thursday. He now has every right to say that with Red Bull gaining one full second. Their development during the early part of last season was key to beating Ferrari. Mercedes were hoping they would make Aston Martin style gains, but it just hasn't happened for Lewis Hamilton and George Russell.
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The other side
On the other end of the scale sit AlphaTauri and Alfa Romeo. Disappointment will be the main feeling for those two teams as they start the season on the back foot. Though it has to be said Alfa Romeo started with a strong car in 2022. Valtteri Bottas qualified deep inside the top ten. They had a good platform but haven't managed to develop from there.
