Final reports and grades

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Pauwe

Posted on 24/8/2023, 18:27

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The season is over, the lights go out on a very intense year which saw 10 riders win at least one GP; if it's not a record, we're close.
During the year there were two distinct moments, and in particular after the 3rd transfer market, a completely new tournament began, with different protagonists.
Here are my personal assessments of the season that just ended.

Vote 10 at the Gladiators Team who found unexpected consistency in Katayama at the beginning of the season (2 victories) and completed the work with Patrese (147 points in 9 races). A deserved title, the Renault engine made the difference.
Not to forget the contribution of Belmondo, then fired, but still capable of bringing good points.
Patrese's contribution made it possible to recover 80 points in 9 races to the AGRT (only Mistral did more,187 vs 161) but even in the first part of the season the Greek team seemed to have a very solid foundation.

Vote 9.5 at the AGRT. Definitely the team that made the best choices at the start of the season, with an unexpected and sensational Barbazza, capable of 3 victories and 4 second places in the first 9 races, but above all his irresistible ninja-style showed in his comebacks in the final stages of the races (thanks to GoodYears) were remarkable. A sensational stat regards his trend is that he finished out of points only in a single GP. Those who expected his vertical collapse in the second part of the season were partially disappointed, as the Italian still collected 51 points from the 10th race onwards (compared to the 165 obtained in the first 9 races). Curiosity: even if he wouldn't scored any more points after Silverstone, he would still have won the well-deserved title.
Some doubts remain about the "non-choice" during the 4th transfer market; perhaps by replacing Bailey (still appreciable, 64 points) 3 races earlier, they could have also obtained the Constructors' title. Anyway, probably not the fastest team (0 pole position, for example), but certainly one of the most consistent in terms of race pace. Really good job.

Vote 9 at the Mistral. Serious candidates for the title right away, with the Williams-Honda combo that seemed to be able to destroy the opponents. The drivers didn't prove to be up to it, but the potential was there, and it was enough to put Jean Alesi in the car (second in the standings with 155 points in 9 races!!) to totally overturn the standings. The frenchman may even consider himself unlucky (how strange...) given that he lost two races because of the lapped drivers.
There was a time where it seemed really capable of recovery even on Barbazza and battle with him for the title. 4 victories and 5 pole positions, an incredible result for him. The team finished with a fantastic one-two finish in Australia, and finished third in the constructors' championship.

Vote 8 for Ghost Racing which loses the challenge with BHB in the constructors' championship (but Stefano Modena is 5th in the drivers, and has been among the very first for a long time), but with that Hart engine it was really impossible to do more. As the races went by, the impossibility of developing the chassis-engine combo heavily affected the team, but we saw good consistency throughout the season. Something more was expected of Berger in the last few races, but perhaps he hasn't adapted well to Williams. Very bad Oscar Larrauri (0 points), rightly replaced.

Vote 7.5 at the BHB. Fourth place in the championship is the bare minimum for a team that started very strong but was greatly penalized by Ferrari's reliability. 2 victories for Hitoshi Ogawa (he appeared really fit in some races), but a really dull season finale for the Japanese. Van de Poele does what he can (even a nice third place at Silverstone), while the replacer Johnny Herbert gets by without infamy and without praise. Maybe in the end it's the team that disappointed the most compared to the initial post-market premises, but credit must be given to the opponents.

Vote 7 for Agip CWF which at the beginning were good and bad weather, with Boutsen in top form (only 1 win, but 4 pole positions in the first 9 races) but also capable of throwing everything away with beginner's mistakes. In the second half of the season, new life arrived thanks to the entry of Ayrton Senna (in place of Barilla, 7 points), with the Brazilian capable of taking a Pole and two podiums, but above all, 74 points against only 4 for the Belgian. In the end, the duo finish separated by just 6 points, with a car that is distantly related to the one we admired at the start of the season. The question is, what would they have achieved with a super driver in the first half of the season?

Vote 6.5 for the Viper. It is difficult to evaluate this team given that Alain Prost finishes 4th in the championship, and apart from some inexplicable empty passes, he has been protagonist of a decent season. The team's problem was certainly the averageness of the package; neither the chassis nor the engine were top-level. The Frenchman took some time to patch it up, but it wasn't enough to go beyond 7th place in the constructors' championship. The difficulties in making the car fast enough become clear if we compare Prost's results with those of his teammates (Chaves and De Cesaris) who only got 5 points in two (4 for the Portuguese, 1 for the Italian).

Vote 6 for CB Racing, definitely penalized by the "Ilmor affair" at the start of the season, with the English engine that didn't maintain the premises of the seasonal tests also due to a technical error found on it, but which was not never got out of a certain mediocrity race after race. The arrival of Nigel Mansell at the end of the season brought at least one victory and some good placements, while Palmer, after a decent start (24 points in 9 races), did not score any more points. Montermini, replaced mid-season, had done much worse (only 2 points). Perhaps more than the chassis, the engine was missing.

Vote 5.5 for Wombats. A crescendo finale for the Italian team, which reaps the late fruits of the Ferrari chassis development and allows Nelson Piquet (who replaced a very dull Aguri Suzuki after race 9, 0 points for the japanese) to catch a victory (with Pole Position) in Barcelona and two fourth places. Roberto Moreno did what he could in the beginning (remarkable 4th place at Silverstone), but was then outclassed by his much more famous compatriot, especially in terms of race pace. This team lacked engine developments (Lamborghini) and chassis developments perhaps came too late.

Vote 5 at Miles Prower, a really frustrating season for the Hungarian team, which despite having a good car, has collected very little, due to terrible reliability (Yamaha). Perhaps in hindsight it would have been better to develop the reliability of the engine before debuting the B191 model. In the last few races, Damon Hill's entry brought the team one step away from the podium, but mechanical problems were always around the corner. At the end of the season there were 15 DNFs due to mechanical breakdowns. Way too many!

Vote 4.5 for Scutigeras. Let's make a due premise. We have not understood the initial market of the Vadso' team, and perhaps we will never understand it. The choice of the Porsche engine (combined with a chassis that was anything but strong) immediately seemed as poetic as it was inconsistent, and in fact, apart from some good results, obtained mainly thanks to the misfortunes of others and Goodyear tyres, the team never really gave the impression of being able to fight for the podium, and even slipped completely out of the points already from the 8th race onwards. The choice of drivers certainly didn't help, with an Alboreto at the end of his career (21 points, "distorted" from the 12 obtained in the chaotic Argentine GP) and a Rydell perhaps still too immature for these stages. Who knows, maybe it's all a strategy, once they "smell" the impossibility of having a season as protagonists.

Vote 4 to Cesario. Can a team that had Schumacher and Hakkinen as drivers at the end of the season finish third from bottom in the championship?
Yes, if it's Cesario. The Ford engine (the same as the Viper, 112 points more in the end) developed immediately, the GoodYear tires which were supposed to guarantee fantastic comebacks, a top driver (Hakkinen)...in short, there were the ingredients to do well, and instead it turned out to be a disaster. Something went wrong, but we still don't quite understand what. The arrival of Schumacher (in place of the embarrassing Perez-Sala, 0 points) didn't help, probably because that the gap with the other teams had become too big. Not having been able to develop the chassis in any way was perhaps the biggest limitation of this team.

Vote 3 at the Passion de la Vitesse. 16 withdrawals due to technical failure, many of which occurred after a few km. A disastrous Foitek, always last.
The budget that has never been positive, except for the very latest market, due to the enormous costs of repairing the Renault engine.
If they had managed to develop the engine, perhaps they would have had a few more chances, but we are talking about hypotheses. The memorable moment lived in Canada remains, when a stoic David Coulthard literally snatched a 9th place which gave the team great joy, but it was only a single moment. In the end, the relegation was quite unavoidable.

Vote 2 to Nintendo Brontolo. A season with a big question mark, with a more competitive driver than Johansson could they have achieved something more? Or perhaps it would have been more appropriate to focus on two paying drivers and postpone all hope to the mid-season driver market?
No one can know, the fact is that the Italian team is the only one that hasn't scored a single point, and leaves the First Series with the reputation of the most insulted team, above all because of Taki Inoue, so bad as to not even be able to be lapped.

Edited by Pauwe - 14/11/2023, 10:48

0 replies since 24/8/2023, 18:27 28 views