Renault gain unlikely ally in power unit battle as Horner ignores comment – F1 news round-up

Sam Cooper 24 Jul 2023 11:59 PM

As the dust settles on the 2023 Hungarian Grand Prix, eyes quickly turn to the upcoming race in Spa.

F1 races are coming thick and fast this week with teams given just a few days to transport all their gear from Hungary to Belgium for the final race before the summer shutdown.

There were plenty of storylines coming out of last weekend’s race most notably with an F1 Commission meeting coming up this week.

Here’s all the stories you may have missed:

Red Bull backing for Renault

Following their very public falling out in 2018, the idea that Renault would receive any kind of support from Red Bull would have seemed unlikely and yet Christian Horner may have extended a much-needed olive branch.

Engine developments are frozen now until 2026 but Renault have long been under the impression that their PU is down on their competitors.

Otmar Szafnauer said the team were “significantly down” compared to the others and ahead of an F1 Commision meeting this week, Horner suggested he would be open to looking at that.

“I think it’s a matter of seeing, what are the deficits?” he said, when asked about the F1 Commission meeting.

“I think the FIA have all of the data, and they should present exactly what the differences are.

“I think it’d be fascinating for everybody to see. If there is a deficit under homologation, it’s something that we should be sensitive about.

“否则,你锁在了两年,所以我wouldn’t be averse to a sensible discussion.”

Logan Sargeant comes in for criticism

Now that Nyck de Vries has departed, the tag of most underperforming driver has to be handed to someone and David Coulthard has a clear candidate in mind – Logan Sargeant.

Even if Sargeant brings in some financial backing, DC believes teams should only ever look at the lap time.

“This is a stopwatch championship, so you either deliver the lap time or you don’t,” he said on Channel 4.

“He [De Vries] was on average within about two-and-a-half tenths of Yuki Tsunoda, which actually, the worst-performing person on average is Logan Sargeant in the Williams, he’s half-a-second away from Alex Albon.

“He’s bringing money to the team and given a bit of space, American, that fits I guess the overall growth of Formula 1 right now.

“So I think we should only ever look at the lap time rather than…this isn’t a personality competition.”

Conclusions and driver ratings in for the race in Budapest

As with every race this season, PlanetF1.com will be providing you with some of the key takeaways from the action in our Conclusions feature. If you missed today’s offering,you can catch up here.

We also rate all 20 drivers for every race andyou can read what score each driver was given here.

Christian Horner ignores Toto Wolff’s F2 car comment

Following the race in Hungary, Wolff had suggested every team was driving an F2 car in comparison to Red Bull’s F1 vehicle but perhaps a little out of character for Horner, he chose to ignore the open goal.

相反,他称赞他的团队“离开没有石头unturned” in their pursuit of perfection.

“I think, at the moment, that is just the way that the team is working, it’s all about the details,” he said.

“I think we’re leaving no stone unturned at the moment. The strategy was strong, the pitstop today was 1.9 seconds that the guys put in for Checo [Perez], and very quick stops again for Max.

“You’re seeing a whole team just operating at such a high level. There’s no silver bullet in Formula 1 and I think it’s always a combination of factors that have to come together to achieve these kind of results.”