A new season beckoning, fresh line-ups, and new faces.
All 10 teams have confirmed their driver line-ups for the 2023 season. After 3 drivers stepping away from the sport, 1 retiring it made space for some interesting moves throughout the grid when it came to driver replacements.
Formula One is arguably in its best shape ever when it comes to all 20 drivers performing at their highest level every weekend. Now with multiple changes to the aero regulations the cars have introduced some much closer racing that has allowed some of the teams lower down the grid to be within the fight and their drivers to prove that they can get the best out of their underperforming cars.
Williams – 6/10 (Alexander Albon & Logan Sargeant)
The Grove based team has a new driver pairing again for next season, after Alex Albon’s brilliant performances in the first half of the season he has proven to himself and to the sport that his comeback was justified and therefore earning his right for Williams to have extended his contract for the following season by the summer break.
With a hard-fought 10th place finish in Australia and 9th place finish in Miami, Alex has been dragging that car as high as he possibly can to 3 points before resigning his deal. Right back from the summer break and he grabbed another 10th place in Belgium before being deemed unfit to race at the Italian Grand Prix where he was admitted to hospital with appendicitis. That weekend Mercedes test and reserve driver Nyck De Vries stood in for Albon and on his debut finished 9th ahead of experienced teammate, Nicholas Latifi, with that said there is nothing to say that Albon couldn’t have done the same or better.
After that race and being beaten convincingly throughout the weekend by De Vries who hadn’t raced in formula one yet and was in the Aston Martin on the Friday, it symbolised the final nail in the coffin for Latifi’s future in the sport and with almost immediate effect, Williams stated that they will not be renewing his contract for the following season.
As De Vries was snapped up elsewhere, Logan Sargeant was the most likely option for the team to take on as a rookie. The young American finished 4th in the championship in Formula 2 and was already a member on the Williams academy when he was in F3. The team boss Jost Capito stated closer towards the end of the season that if Sargeant can get enough track time in FP1 sessions leading to the minimum number of super licence points; he will be confirmed a full-time driver for the team in the new year.
This line-up brings a good amount of experience with Albon on board who previously drove for and worked with world championship winning Verstappen and the Red Bull team prior to joining Williams. Sargeant has worked with the team leading up to his drive, getting simulator work in and now practice sessions, I believe he has enough talent to have a great start to his campaign wherever the car stacks up next year.
AlphaTauri – 6.5/10 (Yuki Tsunoda & Nyck De Vries)
The underperforming Red Bull junior team last season only managing 9th in the constructors’ standings seemed to have got it all wrong. Going from a car in 2021 that was competing with Alpine for 5th and at some circuits the 3rd fastest car on track it’s a massive step back from what the Italian team can be capable of. 2 points behind Haas and their best finish being Pierre Gasly’s P5 finish at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. Both drivers in 2022 have had their hands behind their backs when trying to put in the best possible performances for the team. With Gasly Alpine bound for the new year replacing Alonso, Yuki Tsunoda is left the team leader in his 3rd season, with Nyck De Vries taking the other seat after scoring points on his debut in Italy in the Williams.
As for Tsunoda, it’s going to be an important season for the young Japanese driver as he will be wanting to right any wrongs that he has done in his career so far. Yuki in his rookie season last year was a very unpredictable racer, some weekends he was flying and others he was last or clumsily out of the race. In 2022 despite the car performance being a lot worse than before, he has been a little more dependable, on a closer level with Gasly in qualifying and the races. He is still prone to a big shunt or a wheel banging collision with another driver, but he has proven that he is capable to keep his seat for the new season. With Liam Lawson finishing third in Formula 2 last season and only getting closer to Formula One doing FP1 sessions this season in Verstappen’s Red Bull along with the AlphaTauri car. If Tsunoda underperforms; the group of drivers that Helmut Marko manages can be switched around and leave someone without a drive at all.
27-year-old, Nyck De Vries getting a seat after winning the F2 championship in 2019 and Formula E title last year finally has the chance to prove that he is here to stay. He has a lot of experience without even a full season in the sport, joining the McLaren driver academy in 2010, and getting test runs in the various cars along with names such as Nobuharu Matsushita and Lando Norris in 2017 and 18. Later moving to the Mercedes test and reserve role which has seen him in the overalls of all the customer affiliated teams some point this year. He did his first practice session of the year in Spain for Williams, then the Mercedes in France later the Aston Martin in Italy before he took to the Williams again for the rest of that weekend. And even in Mexico he was seen in the McLaren garage getting his seat fit for next year with the AlphaTauri team. After his first race standing in for Albon, and should he have the car to do it he could be aiming for points every weekend which can pose another threat to Tsunoda’s seat if he can get the better of him.
Haas – 7/10 (Nico Hulkenberg & Kevin Magnussen)
Managing to clinch 8th in the constructors by 2 points, Haas have showed signs that they can work wonders with their smaller budget facilities and be a competitive outfit. After a woeful campaign in 2021, last in the championship without a single point to their name and signing a pay driver to fund much of their season, it has been a constant uphill battle since before Bahrain this year. Due to the Russian invasion in Ukraine and many individuals with links to Vladimir Putin being sanctioned, Nikita Mazepin and his oligarch father forced apart from the team that eventually saw Haas needing to find new investment and a new driver.
Kevin Magnussen returned to the team after leaving them at the end of the 2020 season. Having a year out taking part in sports car racing with Chip Ginassi, taking a win at the Detroit Grand Prix in a Dpi car. He also raced in the 24hrs of Le Mans, alongside his father Jan Magnussen, finishing 17th in the LMP2 class and 29th overall. He filled in for injured Felix Rosenqvist for Arrow McLaren SP in the race at Road America where he qualified 21st and retired from the race with mechanical failure. After announcing that he would be racing in the Peugoet sport team in the 2022 World Endurance Championship and that he would also be a third driver for Chip Ginassi Racing, he was released of his contracts with those teams and would return to Formula One with the Haas team.
In Spanish Grand Prix testing, the car barely had any running and looked off the pace when it did eventually go out on track without issues. However, in Bahrain testing Magnussen set the fastest time on the final day and really blew the timing sheet wide open. He would score a 5th place finish to mark his ‘Viking comeback’ to the sport.
Mick Schumacher going back to the start of his time with Haas last season was dominating Mazepin literally every weekend, the cars performance was an absolute joke to the next place team in the title. This season Mick hasn’t really had the same level of excuses for how unpredictable the car is to drive when having huge impacts at the Saudi Arabian and Monaco Grand Prix’s costing the team millions in damage costs. For the rest of the season Mick has been there or thereabouts, a little bit unpredictable where he could finish in a race respectively to his teammate, but I believe he has underperformed and it’s probably fair that he loses his seat.
Nico Hulkenberg will replace Schumacher for 2023 and beyond; the man who has been out of a full-time drive since 2019 will return with Haas for the next season. Entering the opening Bahrain Grand Prix and the following race in Saudi, finishing 17th and 12th Nico got his first taste of the 2022 cars with Aston Martin due to Sebastian Vettel being ill with covid. Hulkenberg has been known to be the ‘super sub’ for the team since Sergio Perez caught covid and missed both races in Silverstone and later Lance Stroll falling ill also and missing the Eifel Grand Prix in 2020.
I believe that there were other options to go with for Haas when getting reliable drivers in their line-up, or even this year’s F2 champion Felipe Drugovich. Although understandably the team is looking for experienced drivers that know what to expect from the team, know how to score points, and don’t clumsily crash and cause unnecessary amounts of damage costs.
Aston Martin – 7/10 (Lance Stroll & Fernando Alonso)
After the announcement of Sebastian Vettel’s retirement from the sport just before the summer break in Hungary; Fernando Alonso kicked off the storm with shock announcement that he would leave Alpine and replace Vettel at the Silverstone based team on a multi-year deal that supposedly sees him right into his mid 40’s. Alonso on his return to F1 since leaving the McLaren team in 2018 has been a completely different change to what the old Fernando would do in certain situations.
Still driving out of his skin he would finish his comeback season 10th in the championship, ahead of his race winning teammate Esteban Ocon that year.
The driver pairing the last two seasons was hit and miss, Seb moving to a new team and managing to get reasonably comfortable with his machinery early, especially getting that podium in Azerbaijan and being flawless all weekend running in the top 5 before the red flag. The ambition for Aston Martin to become a world championship contending outfit is in the works but the question was for how long could the 4x champ wait before he decides to step away.
For the new season, Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll are a good pairing for the team. Although realistically it is unlikely that Stroll will go anywhere with his father owning entire Aston Martin brand, a lot of the fans were hoping that Felipe Drugovich could get a seat alongside the two-time champ to make the team push for what they’re aiming for.
Lance Stroll still gets mixed reactions from F1 fans around the world for his entry into the sport and if he is doing enough to earn his place, despite the car’s performance being mediocre this year I’d like to think Lance has done an average job. He still has a mistake in him especially when wheel to wheel battling with drivers like Alonso at COTA this year which ended in the Alpine going airborne into the barrier and Stroll ending his race.
Alfa Romeo – 7/10 (Zhou Guanyu & Valtteri Bottas)
Since Valtteri Bottas stepped from the constructor champions Mercedes to the 9th placed team this year; he’s brought a lot to the table when showing his strengths in the red and white colours of the Alfa Romeo. First race of the season finishing 6th place and continuing to impress in qualifying and the races all season.
Bottas’ new environment has had its difficulties, but the Zurich based team has proven that it is capable to finish comfortably in the top 5 in some weekends also with the number 77 car coming home in Imola to a brilliant P4 finish. Despite the points drying up towards the end of the season with others mastering any issues they had earlier in the season, Valtteri and Alfa Romeo were fast starters and coped well with the pressure of not losing that 6th place finish in the title as they were level on points with Aston Martin.
Zhou Guanyu has had an unexpectedly brilliant start to his F1 career, scoring points on his debut after a lot of criticism for how he got the seat above others. He has had a difficult time within the midfield/lower end battles down the grid before and hasn’t really made any silly mistakes or incidents that have cost the team, other than the monstrous crash into turn 1 at the British Grand Prix where the car hopped over the tyre barrier through no fault of his own. Towards the middle part of the season was when he started challenging his experienced teammate a lot more, in qualifying and the races, finishing just outside the points when behind Valtteri or just ahead in others where the car wasn’t as good went under the radar a little bit considering a lot of rookies are under a microscope when they join the sport.
I believe that both drivers going into their second seasons with this team could be somewhat of a solid pairing and aiming for the lower end of the points if the car can do it. Bottas’ first season with the team has had its highs and lows but he seems to have fit in very comfortable with his new team. As for Zhou, this is an impressive rookie season to say there are only a small number of points to show for it, he’s kept himself out of trouble and tried been there or thereabouts in comparison to his 10x race winning teammate.
McLaren – 8/10 (Lando Norris & Oscar Piastri)
Missing out on 4th in the constructors to Alpine, Lando Norris has been the breadwinner for the Woking based team in 2022. Scoring almost 80% of the team’s points and dominating his 8x race winner teammate Daniel Ricciardo. Despite missing out Lando still managed to finish best of the rest 7th place in the drivers’ championship, the man is going into his 5th season at just 23 years old. With Daniel Ricciardo taking a third driver role at Red Bull and left without a full-time drive on the grid next year, Oscar Piastri will be the one that takes the honey badger’s seat.
After the chaos in the summer break of Piastri denying that he will be going to replace Alonso at Alpine it was a waiting game to see who he would sign a deal with. After the Arrow McLaren saga in IndyCar with signing Alex Palou to their team it seems like the same thing had happened between Alpine and Piastri when trying to force him into that seat for the new season.
Oscar Piastri after winning the 2021 F2 championship in his rookie season and missing out on a seat this season he finally gets the chance to show how good he is alongside a proven talent in his teammate. McLaren have successfully got the best out of Lando since his rookie season in 2019, he started a little slower than he would’ve liked but started ramping it up and scoring points consistently towards the end of the year to finish 11th overall in the standings. Since then, it has been leaps and bounds of improvement from that side of the garage, however, can they do it again with Piastri? I believe they certainly can make Oscar just as good as Lando in the other side of that garage, he had a much better F2 campaign and has shown how confident he can be when he’s fully adapted to a car which could make this a very dangerous line-up after the young Aussie gets his first season under his belt.
Alpine – 9/10 (Pierre Gasly & Esteban Ocon)
After beating McLaren to 4th in the constructors’ standings easily in the end, they made it hard for themselves at some parts in the season. The Enstone based team has had a year of ups and downs, but it was much more predictable this year based on the improved performance of the car and what the drivers have been able to get out of it at some of the weekends where they have got some important points hauls to get back into the fight for 4th and especially overtaken their rivals with just one race to go. Despite McLaren only having one driver in the fight most weekends against both Alpine’s, they have had some horrid luck and reliability at points this year that has gone against Alonso and Ocon especially when they were in a point paying position.
With Alonso going to Aston Martin and Gasly replacing him it’s a strong line-up that can light a new fire within the team to aim for the top of the table. 2 fairly recent brand new race winners in f1 with bundles of experience in the tank and more to earn it’s a fast pairing that shouldn’t be overlooked, especially if the new car is fighting closer to the front it could pose a bit of a headache to the usual top 3 teams.
Pierre Gasly has been in the best form of his life after winning his first race at Monza in 2020. Ocon arguably has been also putting in some quality performances for his team since his maiden victory in Hungary last year. Although the AlphaTauri as mentioned has been much worse this year than before, Gasly has still managed to get the best possible results he could.
This line-up could be rated like the remaining ones could be, but just because the last time Pierre Gasly moved teams from Toro Rosso (now AlphaTauri) to the Red Bull team alongside Verstappen in 2019, he struggled to get to grips with the car and felt under pressure to perform just as good as Max. If this happens again and Alpine aren’t patient with Pierre, he could put his career in jeopardy for anyone else to sign him in the future, but if they are, he could become just as good if not better than Ocon in equal machinery, which would be amazing for his confidence especially if they are fighting for higher positions.
Mercedes – 9.5/10 (George Russell & Lewis Hamilton)
Compared to previous years the Mercedes W13 is an absolute disaster for the 8-time world champions. Starting with the bold design with the air intakes being the main talking point, it soon shifted to why were Mercedes so slow compared to the Ferrari and the Red Bull being so far out front. It took a little bit of luck getting there after both Red Bulls retired with a fuel pump issue just before the end of the race, the cars came home with a 3rd place finish for Hamilton and 4th for Russell in his first race for the silver arrows.
Looking at the constructors’ standings it has been a wild ride for the reigning champions, level pegging with Alpine on performance for many races at the start of the season and managing to snatch a few podiums when it goes wrong for either of the Ferraris or Red Bulls. It was around the mid part of the season when they were earning the podiums more on merit at circuits that the car was more suited to and not bottoming out as much.
George Russell going all the way to that lap one crash at Silverstone with Zhou Guanyu to end his streak of 9 top 5 finishes with the team. Throughout the rest of the season George had grabbed some top qualifying performances compared to the capabilities of their rivals that went a little unnoticed. At the Brazilian Grand Prix, he won the sprint and then the race on Sunday for the first time in his career which was an emotional moment for George and the team especially because Lewis made it a 1-2 for the team, something they hadn’t dreamt of all seasons.
As for Lewis Hamilton, will 2023 be the final season before he hangs up his helmet for good? Mercedes have always known how to come back from difficult times before, despite them not being as difficult as this season due to the team not finishing as low as 3rd since the 2012 season. Being his worse season in all his 16 seasons of his career, Hamilton could be the deciding factor for the new season, if this year is anything to go by, it could in the future symbolise the beginning of the decline of Lewis and his great career. Unless next season Mercedes come out the blocks with the fastest car by a country mile and he can come back to win the record-breaking 8th world drivers’ championship.
Ferrari – 10/10 (Charles Leclerc & Carlos Sainz Jr)
Could next year be Ferrari’s year? The same thing was asked last year and now the season is over, it was another campaign forget if you’re part of the Tifosi. From the start of the season, the positivity and the hype train down at Ferrari was unrivalled to any other season they have been so strong in pre-season testing. Although expectedly the Red Bull was close behind all weekend at the opening race in Bahrain, it was a tale of two halves when Verstappen and Leclerc were fighting for the lead of the race because the straight-line speed of the RB17 was incredible.
Leclerc showed in Bahrain and Saudi that he had the composure and confidence to attack Verstappen’s Red Bull and despite the DNF he was firmly in front to seal that first race win of the season. Throughout the season Leclerc and Sainz have been plagued with poor reliability, poor strategy decision making and even themselves have had poor weekends at some circuits where Verstappen increased his championship lead again and again.
Sainz started this season with a treasure trove of misfortune, although he was backed to go closely up against Leclerc when he beat him to 5th in last years title, it looked like a completely different guy at some points all year. Spinning out of Australia, being crashed into in Imola, and all the way until Austin where he was taken out in the first corner. This season he managed to grab his first pole position and win his first grand prix.
I believe that both two n their day is an incredible line-up when it comes to speed and talent, although both has cracked under the pressure before and still can sometimes, they both have what it takes to push Verstappen for a title if everything else goes fine.
Red Bull – 10/10 (Max Verstappen & Sergio Perez)
The now 5-time constructor champions have no doubt a top pairing on the grid, after Perez’s heroics at the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix that helped teammate Verstappen catch up to the back of Hamilton and with late drama win the race on the final lap and the world title, Sergio has been much better in the new season. The Red Bull being a usually difficult car to understand for the likes of Albon and Gasly in the past because the dynamics were built around Verstappen’s driving style. Sergio Perez in 2022 has shown moments where he can get his new RB17 by the scruff of the neck and work wonders with the car.
When he set an absolutely blistering time at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix to take the first pole position of his career and dominating the Monaco Grand Prix when he took the lead of the race from Ferrari’s mishaps and won in a comfortable fashion even with Sainz right behind him all the way to the end. 5 one-two finishes and even in some of the weekends pushing Max to find that extra tenth in qualifying and the races has only been a positive to add to the Red Bull team.
When it comes to interterm rivalries, Red Bull usually will make Max the one who’d be overtaking his teammate through team orders, however, since Sergio has been getting much faster and faster in races like the Brazilian Grand Prix where he could’ve secured 2nd in the drivers championship if Max let him through he could’ve managed it but there was a bitter response after the 2 time world champion declined to let him by despite having a damaged car after contact with Hamilton and slowing his teammate down massively. In the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix season finale, Charles Leclerc would overtake Perez on track and for that second place in the title.
Max Verstappen’s stand out season has spoken for itself how dominant it really was. A record of 15 wins in a season, there was no stopping him once the momentum had really started to pick up. Despite having some reliability woes at the beginning of the season where the Ferrari looked as if it had the upper hand, as soon as the car was more reliable and in a good window of performance, Max was so dominant on some weekends he was almost cruising to victory. Winning his second championship down in Parc Ferme after the Japanese Grand Prix it symbolised a completely different end to another successful campaign with the team, he is contracted another 6 years with.
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