With the new Formula 1 season already upon us, our grand prix editor Mark Hughes and columnist Johnny Herbert join Motor Spor t editor Joe Dunn to talk team changes, tech updates, driver rivalries, venue additions and whether Max Verstappen’s dominance can be curtailed

Ferrari’s SF-23 is a subtle F123 evolution of its 2022 car. Inset right: Mark Hughes and Johnny Herbert – champing at the bit

JONATHAN BUSHELL, FERRARI

Joe Dunn: I think we are all looking forward to a mammoth season - 23 races! But what are you particularly hoping for in terms of racing?

Mark Hughes: The big hope is that we’ve got at least two teams, preferably three, with nothing between them at the front. It was a season of dominance last year, which I don’t mind really, but each season is different isn’t it? It would be fantastic if we had a competitive Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari that are separated by a tenth of a second. That would be the dream, but let’s see.

Johnny Herbert: Yes I agree. Last year we thought we would have a three-way battle and it didn’t quite materialise. It started off with Ferrari doing well, then that sort of petered off and then came the domination of Red Bull – and Mercedes just didn’t get it together. I hope Ferrari and Mercedes have sorted it this year.

MH: You’d think there’s more low-hanging fruit for Mercedes and maybe for Ferrari with the power unit than there is for Red Bull. For Mercedes, although there were lots of symptoms that weren’t good to see, they all seemed to come from the same source. So if they can attend to those problems then they should be somewhere close. For Ferrari, post-Baku after their power unit failures, they ran in significantly detuned form. Now they should be able to dial it back up.

JH: There’s rumours that detuned figure was around 30bhp.

MH: It’s a very sensitive subject. In theory, you can’t do performance developments [because of the freeze in the regulations], but you can do reliability developments. And when it’s more reliable, you can run it harder.

Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz will have more bhp for ’23

JH: But 30bhp? That’s big.

MH: Yeah. They were implying that they were two-tenths short after Baku to protect the engine. That’s been translated as 30bhp. But it’s not that simple with a hybrid unit, so maybe it’s not 30bhp. But it will be significantly better than it was – perhaps back to pre-Baku levels when it was clearly the fastest and the best engine. But there’s no point in that if it doesn’t last.

VASSEUR’S CHALLENGE

JD: It’s not just reliability for Ferrari. Mercedes was almost the inverse of Ferrari last year in that they had problems with the car, but made the most of what they had. Ferrari had a very good car, but conspired through strategy errors and reliability for it not to work out. Do you think those things will even out in 2023?

MH: That would be the hope. There’s still potential for things to go wrong and it’s not inconceivable that Mercedes hasn’t properly nailed the root problem. It’s conceivable that Ferrari hasn’t properly sorted the reliability problems or the structure problems too. It’s still up in the air, which is why this is always such a fascinating point of the year.

JH: The strategy calls that were wrong last year, Mattia Binotto defended. That’s got to be different now with Fred Vasseur replacing him. He’s got to get hold of that and make sure that they are on top of it. Because Red Bull and Mercedes always are. They don’t make many mistakes.

MH: Yeah. Binotto was trying to protect the team publicly.

JH: It’s very hard to protect that when it’s so obviously going wrong. Vasseur has got to change the mindset.