FIA surprised F1 teams weren’t faster in 2023

The FIA was left surprised that the F1 field was not faster by the end of the 2023 season.

New regulations introduced for 2022 reset the field and kick-started a development race between teams as they rapidly find more performance.

That has seen Red Bull the class of the field, especially in 2023 when it won 21 of 22 races, while others have made good strides forward.

Aston Martin progressed from a mid-field team to a front-runner at times during the season just finished, while McLaren enjoyed a sharp upturn in performance from the Austrian Grand Prix.

However, the FIA’s director of single-seaters, Nikolas Tombazis was surprised teams hadn’t found more performance in the second year of the ruleset.

“I was expecting we were going to be a bit faster,” Tombazis told select media, including Speedcafe, in Abu Dhabi.

“How much, I couldn’t say because obviously we changed a bit the floor regulations.”

Ahead of 2023, changes to the floor were made to combat the porpoising experienced by teams last year.

That saw the throat of the diffuser raised, which had the effect of reducing the amount of downforce available to drivers.

Under the current ground effect rules, the closer the car can be run to the ground, the more grip it develops.

However, it also has greater potential to stall the airflow underneath the car, introducing oscillation as it attaches and stalls again.

At the start of the year in Bahrain, Max Verstappen recorded a pole time 0.85s faster than Charles Leclerc had managed a year prior.

Last weekend, the Dutchman was only 0.379s faster than he’d gone in 2022, with the annual figure (for comparable events) working out to 0.506s improvement over a qualifying lap.

Verstappen started from pole 12 times in 2023, while Leclerc was second best on a Saturday with five poles.

Sergio Perez and Carlos Sainz secured top spot twice, while Lewis Hamilton was on pole for the Hungarian Grand Prix.

F1 pole position times, 2022 vs 2023