It's time for the SPECTACULAR, SEASON ENDING, CHAMPIONSHIPS DECIDING, Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Take your seats, strap in tight, for a roller coaster of high quality sporting action, which will keep you nervously watching until the final lap to see who will be the 2023 World Champion driver and team.
Or...
It's the last race of one of the dullest season in F1 since the days of Schumacher/Ferrari dominance. One driver and one team has wiped the floor with every other team, with both titles pretty much decided after the first race of the season when Max Verstappen beat his team mate by nearly 12 seconds. Over the next few races Perez managed to snatch a couple of wins, but as the season went on he struggled with how the car was developed and slowly dropped away from his team mate, often not even managing to get in to the final qualifying sessions,
So what has 2023 shown us? Love him or loathe him Max Verstappen is, undoubtedly, a superb racing driver. It remains to be seen if any of the other the "post Hamilton" generation can challenge Max, and this will very much depend on the car that the teams can prepare for their drivers. From a dismal start to the season McLaren have managed to drag their car closer to the front, with regular podiums and a sprint race win for newbie Oscar Piastri.
Ferrari have a car which is almost there. Carlos Sainz managed the only non-Red Bull win in a Grand Prix by using the old trick of driving as slowly as you can and still finishing first. Team mate Charles le Clerc has been good over a single lap when qualifying, but the car isn't able to maintain the performance for a whole race.
Mid-year Mercedes had a move around in their technical department, with James Allison coming back to a day to day role, replacing Mike Elliot. Shortly after, the design concept the team had struggled with for best part of a season and a half was dumped and the Merc looked pretty much like every other car on the grid, except painted black. The car got a bit better, but still isn't at the level Mercedes have performed at over recent years, and although second in the Constructors Championship they are so far behind Red Bull it's a bit embarrassing.
Aston Martin hired Fernando Alonso to driver alongside Lance Stroll for 2023, and the Spaniard bought his fabled six tenths to the team, with Alonso very much "best of the rest" behind the Red Bull's in the early part of the season. Performances dropped a little as the season progressed, and hit a low at Austin when the team didn't have time in testing to sort the upgrades bought to the car due to the truncated practice sessions because of the sprint race. At subsequent races they managed to work things through and the car came back towards the front, with Alonso stealing second place in Brazil from Sergio Perez right at the end of the race.
Red Bull B team, Alpha Tauri, started the season with now "veteran" Yuki Tsunoda and rookie Nick de Vries, who impressed with a one off drive at Williams in 2022. The car wasn't great, but de Vries certainly wasn't getting the best out of it and by Hungary he had been dropped in favour of Daniel Ricciardo, who was trying to rebuild his reputation after a dreadful time at McLaren last year. Three races in an Daniel broke his wrist participating for the Dutch GP which forced Red Bull to parachute in Liam Lawson, who put in some very creditable performances and showed that he is ready for F1. Ricciardo came back to the team in Austin and has been getting about the same level of performance out of the car as Tsunoda, but still the talk is of him returning to the senior Red Bull team in 2024 to replace Sergio Perez.
Super French team, Alpine, based at Enstone in Oxfordshire, have managed a couple of podiums but otherwise it's hardly been a stellar year. There have been various changes in team personnel during 2023 and investment from a number of celebrities, which whilst probably quite good from a PR perspective doesn't seem to have done much to make the car go any faster. Will 2024 be any better? They recently appointed a new Technical Director, who is ex-Mercedes and Ferrari, so who knows.
Alex Albon in the Williams has been the revelation of the season for me. Having had the life blood drained from him when partnering Max at Red Bull he seems to have found a good place at Williams. Logan Sergeant has been less impressive, it will be interesting to see if he gets a second season or if Williams look around for a different pay driver to help the team out in 2024. Team principle James Vowels has been the only person who Sky have spoken to on the pit wall this season who has actually added anything to the TV coverage, and after many years in the doldrums Williams do seem to be getting things sorted. Perhaps one of the new manufacturers sniffing around F1 might want to reinvigorate one of the sports former leading lights.
Alfa Romeo and Haas continue on, although I'm not sure exactly what either team gets from the huge amount of money they must be spending. It was very interesting in the Brawn documentary, when discussing engines, that all the power unit suppliers made an offer to supply the team in 2009 after Honda withdrew. Ferrari was dismissed almost immediately as the team knew that if they got close to the factory cars then the engines would suddenly become less powerful. Who at Brawn would have had that sort of insight? I wonder if Alfa Romeo and Haas have watched this show? Whatever the details, both teams have given us some interesting mid-field battles but the chances of them moving further up the field are very limited.
So there's my season review. We are now left with this final race, which takes place at night, in the desert, so that a European audience can watch it at prime time. No point in having races in Europe when there are oil dollars to collect from sports washing, despotic regimes, in the Middle-East is there?
Or...
It's the last race of one of the dullest season in F1 since the days of Schumacher/Ferrari dominance. One driver and one team has wiped the floor with every other team, with both titles pretty much decided after the first race of the season when Max Verstappen beat his team mate by nearly 12 seconds. Over the next few races Perez managed to snatch a couple of wins, but as the season went on he struggled with how the car was developed and slowly dropped away from his team mate, often not even managing to get in to the final qualifying sessions,
So what has 2023 shown us? Love him or loathe him Max Verstappen is, undoubtedly, a superb racing driver. It remains to be seen if any of the other the "post Hamilton" generation can challenge Max, and this will very much depend on the car that the teams can prepare for their drivers. From a dismal start to the season McLaren have managed to drag their car closer to the front, with regular podiums and a sprint race win for newbie Oscar Piastri.
Ferrari have a car which is almost there. Carlos Sainz managed the only non-Red Bull win in a Grand Prix by using the old trick of driving as slowly as you can and still finishing first. Team mate Charles le Clerc has been good over a single lap when qualifying, but the car isn't able to maintain the performance for a whole race.
Mid-year Mercedes had a move around in their technical department, with James Allison coming back to a day to day role, replacing Mike Elliot. Shortly after, the design concept the team had struggled with for best part of a season and a half was dumped and the Merc looked pretty much like every other car on the grid, except painted black. The car got a bit better, but still isn't at the level Mercedes have performed at over recent years, and although second in the Constructors Championship they are so far behind Red Bull it's a bit embarrassing.
Aston Martin hired Fernando Alonso to driver alongside Lance Stroll for 2023, and the Spaniard bought his fabled six tenths to the team, with Alonso very much "best of the rest" behind the Red Bull's in the early part of the season. Performances dropped a little as the season progressed, and hit a low at Austin when the team didn't have time in testing to sort the upgrades bought to the car due to the truncated practice sessions because of the sprint race. At subsequent races they managed to work things through and the car came back towards the front, with Alonso stealing second place in Brazil from Sergio Perez right at the end of the race.
Red Bull B team, Alpha Tauri, started the season with now "veteran" Yuki Tsunoda and rookie Nick de Vries, who impressed with a one off drive at Williams in 2022. The car wasn't great, but de Vries certainly wasn't getting the best out of it and by Hungary he had been dropped in favour of Daniel Ricciardo, who was trying to rebuild his reputation after a dreadful time at McLaren last year. Three races in an Daniel broke his wrist participating for the Dutch GP which forced Red Bull to parachute in Liam Lawson, who put in some very creditable performances and showed that he is ready for F1. Ricciardo came back to the team in Austin and has been getting about the same level of performance out of the car as Tsunoda, but still the talk is of him returning to the senior Red Bull team in 2024 to replace Sergio Perez.
Super French team, Alpine, based at Enstone in Oxfordshire, have managed a couple of podiums but otherwise it's hardly been a stellar year. There have been various changes in team personnel during 2023 and investment from a number of celebrities, which whilst probably quite good from a PR perspective doesn't seem to have done much to make the car go any faster. Will 2024 be any better? They recently appointed a new Technical Director, who is ex-Mercedes and Ferrari, so who knows.
Alex Albon in the Williams has been the revelation of the season for me. Having had the life blood drained from him when partnering Max at Red Bull he seems to have found a good place at Williams. Logan Sergeant has been less impressive, it will be interesting to see if he gets a second season or if Williams look around for a different pay driver to help the team out in 2024. Team principle James Vowels has been the only person who Sky have spoken to on the pit wall this season who has actually added anything to the TV coverage, and after many years in the doldrums Williams do seem to be getting things sorted. Perhaps one of the new manufacturers sniffing around F1 might want to reinvigorate one of the sports former leading lights.
Alfa Romeo and Haas continue on, although I'm not sure exactly what either team gets from the huge amount of money they must be spending. It was very interesting in the Brawn documentary, when discussing engines, that all the power unit suppliers made an offer to supply the team in 2009 after Honda withdrew. Ferrari was dismissed almost immediately as the team knew that if they got close to the factory cars then the engines would suddenly become less powerful. Who at Brawn would have had that sort of insight? I wonder if Alfa Romeo and Haas have watched this show? Whatever the details, both teams have given us some interesting mid-field battles but the chances of them moving further up the field are very limited.
So there's my season review. We are now left with this final race, which takes place at night, in the desert, so that a European audience can watch it at prime time. No point in having races in Europe when there are oil dollars to collect from sports washing, despotic regimes, in the Middle-East is there?
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