TIL #83: Down The Grid
Catching up with the midfield
The Installation Lap is a weekly Substack column dedicated to helping Americans develop a deeper appreciation for Formula 1.
It feels like just yesterday that we were incessantly clicking refresh as we eagerly awaited the 2025 car launches. Now, here we are, nearly halfway through the Formula 1 season. I’m not sure what it is, but this year in particular feels like it is flying by.
There has been a lot going on this year in F1, especially at the front of the field. Red Bull, after building the most successful Formula 1 car of all time in 2023, has quietly slipped off the top of the pyramid. McLaren has decisively become F1’s best team, and Oscar Piastri has upped his game from 2024 to outshine teammate Lando Norris in the first part of the season. George Russell is having his best ever season in F1, while he and Mercedes are dragging their heels in inking a new deal for the Briton. Kimi Antonelli has been an exciting replacement for Lewis Hamilton in the second Mercedes and looks to be getting more comfortable with each successive weekend. Ferrari, after two very promising years of development, has slipped backward down the field and appears to have returned to their status quo of the last eighteen years, where we see drivers and team personnel shrugging their shoulders and shaking their heads.
While the top teams have been wrestling with physics and trying to manage their various challenges in order to put up a fight for F1’s twin crowns, the F1 midfield has also seen a lot of close racing this year and TIL has to take some responsibility for giving the teams at the back short shrift in our coverage of the season. Therefore, this week, we’ve decided to do a catch-up on what’s been going on for our friends further down the pecking order.
Alpine
One simply cannot make this shit up.
Just week’s after we published TIL #77: The Meat Grinder which attempted to understand the chaos we’ve seen at the French manufacturer over the last few years, as the squad has hemorrhaged leadership and was, at the time of publication, swapping out Jack Doohan for Franco Colapinto; we got another bombshell just last week.
In our column, we quoted Karun Chandhok (who was quoting David Croft) as he asked the ultimate question about what Renault/Alpine could possibly be up to with all this leadership turnover.
“…to me, I actually rewind back to our friend David Croft in Melbourne 2019, I believe, where we sat down, and he went ‘What is the point of Renault in F1?’ And that’s what it comes back to. What are they trying to achieve?” —Karun Chandhok, Sky Sports F1
In that article, TIL laid the blame for all the chaos and turnover in Alpine F1 management on the desk of Renault CEO Luca de Meo.
“That final question surely must land on the desk of Renault CEO Luca de Meo. It may be unfair to lay 100% of the blame for the state of the Alpine F1 squad on de Meo’s back, but anyone else who might have shared some blame has been fired or quit. So Luca, what in Juan Manuel Fangio’s name are you trying to achieve?”
In the first week of June, it was announced that Luca de Meo had resigned as Renault CEO and taken a position with the Kering group. This is from France24,
“According to Le Figaro newspaper, de Meo will become the new chief executive of French luxury group Kering, owner of Gucci, Yves Saint-Laurent, Balenciaga, and other premium brands.”
Kering, it has been reported, is expecting de Meo to turn around the fortunes of Gucci in particular. Perhaps Luca will have better luck reviving a brand whose products have no moving parts.
Honestly, what in the world is happening over there at Renault? Is there a rock bottom within sight? Or will Renault continue to overachieve in their never-ending quest to underachieve?
Kick Sauber
For the past few years, Kick Sauber has been running at the back of the F1 grid. The big story for them seemed to be that they were waiting for Audi to take over in 2026 and flood them with money, resources, and people. Kick’s biggest news recently has all been about personnel signings ahead of the Audi takeover. They brought in Mattia Bonotto, former Ferrari Team Principal, who is now acting as COO and CTO for Sauber. They’ve also brought in rockstar signing Jonathan Wheatley, former Red Bull Sporting Director, who is now Sauber Team Principal. Audi committed to both Nico Hulkenberg and F1 rookie Gabriel Bortoleto as their drivers for these early years of the Audi F1 project. [Full disclosure: My wife and I own a little Audi A3 and we love it.] Sauber, for most of their history, have been the little racing team that could. They’ve always been small, they’ve always been underfunded, but they’ve kept showing up, kept racing and fighting, and that has earned them some respect on the grid. Then, all of a sudden, they bring an upgrade to their car for the Spanish Grand Prix, and Nico Hulkenberg finishes P5! The sight of Hulkenberg’s Sauber passing Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari in that same Grand Prix was vertigo-inducing. That sort of thing only happens in video games.
Couple that result in Spain with a P8 in Canada, and Kick Sauber has suddenly leapt off the bottom of the Constructors Standings and is sitting P9 with 20 points, just two points shy of Aston Martin in P8. Amazing!
Sauber and their Spanish upgrade are yet another data point in the mysterious nature of these cars. Is every team on the grid one upgrade away from completely changing the course of their season? It feels that way sometimes.
I’m excited for the future of this little team. Sauber deserves a season in the sun, and Nico Hulkenberg, after 238 starts in Formula 1, deserves his first podium. With a little luck, a new paint job, and some more upgrades, maybe this perennial backmarker is finally coming of age.
Aston Martin
Just like Sauber, Aston Martin got themselves a few upgrades at the Spanish Grand Prix, and the indomitable Fernando Alonso capitalized straight away. Fernando scored a P9 in Spain and then a P7 in Canada. Points make prizes.
Much like Sauber, Aston Martin has appeared to be waiting for a deus ex machina to launch them out of the mire they’ve been in for the past few seasons. With the deus of Adrian Newey designing his very first Aston Martin machina for next year, expectations for Aston are sky high.
2025 was always going to be a year of anticipation for Lawrence Stroll’s team, even if things were going well. Which they are not. From the Japanese Grand Prix to Monaco, a six-race stretch, Aston Martin had both cars finishing in double-digit grid positions. The only exception to that was Lance Stroll’s DNF in Monaco. Aston Martin may be enjoying the greatest influx of money, facilities, and personnel in their history, but they are still short on both milk and honey. While the goal for Aston Martin has always been the 2026 regulation change, the last few seasons have not inspired confidence that a massive turnaround in performance is forthcoming. Remember, Lawrence Stroll and his team are not just trying to improve their car and snatch a few podiums. Their stated goal has been to dominate Formula 1. Stroll wants championships. Bringing upgrades to your car and having them work is a big deal, and an undeniable step in the right direction. But sitting behind Racing Bulls, Haas, and Williams in the standings must feel incredibly frustrating for a team with such big ambitions.
At minimum, I think Aston would like to see more performance-enhancing upgrades bolted onto the car for the remainder of the 2025 season. That would be a clear sign for both the team and the rest of us that, at the very least, they’ve begun to understand how their car works. If they can’t do that, then I don’t know how they are going to become world beaters in 2026. Remember, Adrian Newey is not a silver bullet. His presence is no guarantee of success. Just ask Red Bull from 2014 to 2021.
The Fat Middle
Racing Bulls, Haas, and Williams have been the stars of a very close midfield this year.
I’ll keep the Williams propaganda brief.
In a season that Williams Team Principal James Vowles has said the team is essentially writing off to focus on 2026, the team has scored 55 points and sits in P5 in the Constructors’ standings. For reference, if you add up Williams’ points totals from 2018 until the end of the 2024 season, the team scored a combined 84 points. That is 84 points in seven years versus 55 points this year — a year in which they have stopped developing the car. That is pretty damn impressive. While it is entirely possible that we will see Williams begin to slide down the order in the second half of the season, as Haas, Racing Bulls, and Aston Martin bring upgrades to their cars, TIL still believes that this Williams renaissance is on, and we’re not the only ones.
This past week, James Vowles inked a new, long-term deal to stay on as Williams Team Principal. While this isn’t Earth-shattering news, it is yet another vote of confidence from the money people at Dorilton Capital in the direction Vowles has been steering the team.
Meanwhile, our friends at Haas have been, rather quietly, having a pretty good season for themselves. The crash between Ocon and Bearman that we deemed “inevitable” has not yet manifested. That’s a win all by itself. While the team has had some scruffy weekends, particularly the Saudi Arabia to Imola three-race stretch, which saw Bearman DNF in Miami and Ocon DNF in Imola, the team has been on one of its best-ever points-scoring runs with points in five of the last ten Grand Prix. While the teams around them, like Williams and Racing Bulls, have garnered more headlines, Haas has been quietly putting in the work and reaping the rewards.
Haas, being one of the smaller teams in terms of both personnel and finances, has always struggled with developing their cars throughout the course of a season. If Haas can bring some upgrades (that work) to their car, they could be in a position to grab some serious points in the back half of the season. Williams are vulnerable to being out-developed this year, and that could create some opportunities for Haas to creep up the order. I hope they can do it. I’m liking this Ocon/Bearman/Komatsu Haas team. There’s potential there.
As for our friends at Racing Bulls, all the news has been about Red Bull’s larger driver drama, or it’s been about what a good rookie season Isack Hadjar is having. Both are true. In fact, one is feeding into the other. Hadjar’s performances, 21 points, scoring in five out of ten races, have sent the rumor mill swirling as to when he will be promoted to Red Bull and promptly have his career ruined by Red Bull’s second car. Nico Rosberg said during the Canadian Grand Prix weekend that Hadjar should refuse the Red Bull seat at all costs. That really does look like the smart move as we collectively watch Yuki Tsunoda wilting before our eyes. Moreover, Liam Lawson still doesn’t appear to have bounced back from his two-race stint with Red Bull’s cursed machine. He has scored four points to Hadjar’s 21, and all four of those came from a P8 in Monaco. As we prepare for the Austrian Grand Prix, Red Bull’s home race, Liam Lawson needs a good result if he wants to stay in Formula 1 beyond 2025.
This week’s Austrian Grand Prix will kick off the European leg of races with Austria, followed by the British Grand Prix and then Belgium at the end of July. These three tracks have a reputation for exposing vulnerabilities and producing good races. Let’s see what the picture looks like when the dust settles.
Williams continues to impress but I'm hoping Haas can bring helpful upgrades this year and overhaul them in the end.
My step daughter got a nice college scholarship from the Gene Haas Foundation last month, very cool moment. She has a lead foot and is off to study mechanical engineering in the fall.