No, the Formula 1 season which has just ended has not been as spectacular as last year. This time around, Red Bull driver Max Verstappen’s title claim was beyond doubt. The Dutchman sealed the outcome of the race at the Japanese Grand Prix, with four Grands Prix to negotiate for the season.
A result that contrasted with 2021, when Verstappen won the first World Championship of his career by overtaking Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton on the last lap of the last race of the campaign.
“It was really nice to have a year like this. I know it will be hard to replicate, but it’s good motivation to try and do the same next year,” Verstappen summed up after his 15e win of the season, a record, at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix at the end of November.
And like a season without suspense, the reigning double world champion ended the year with a crushing victory, while Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc offered himself – to his great dismay – the honorary title of F1 runner-up.
Red Bull, the favorite to win the championship again in 2023, can therefore have a feeling of accomplishment. Even though the Austrian team failed to achieve the first double in its history, the Mexican Sergio Perez finishing three points behind Leclerc in the general classification.
It was a disappointing season for the Scuderia, whose hopes of returning to the top of F1 were torpedoed by numerous questionable decisions by team principal Mattia Binotto along the way. The prancing horse team also announced at the end of November that Binotto would leave the team at the end of the year after a lackluster four-year stay. He will be replaced by Frédéric Vasseur, who worked with Leclerc when he was learning at Sauber. A breath of fresh air for the Monegasque, who was brooding at the end of the last campaign.
“I really hope that next year we can take a step forward to fight for the title. We are going to work hard during the winter break,” Leclerc promised.
Small consolation for racing fans: it seems that Mercedes’ hegemony for nearly a decade has come to an end. The fall of the German team coincides with that of Hamilton, seven-time world champion who could not savor a victory during a season for the first time since entering the scene in 2007.
“I can’t wait to stop driving this thing”, had also railed Hamilton about his W13 mount, affected all season by a phenomenon of “porpoising”, after the qualifying session of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Dabi.
To add insult to injury, Hamilton, the F1 record holder for wins (103), pole positions (103) and podiums (191), to name a few, was overtaken in the final classification of the 2022 campaign by his young teammate George Russell (4e).
Hamilton, 37,’s deal with Mercedes will expire at the conclusion of the next campaign, and the German outfit have yet to confirm their willingness to strike another long-term pact with him. Another plot to follow carefully in 2023.
Aston Martin, against the tide
That sense of a changing of the guard has been amplified by the departure of Sebastian Vettel, one of Hamilton’s biggest rivals for over a decade.
The German, who had had a spectacular start to his career by winning four consecutive world championships (from 2010 to 2013) with Red Bull, has been a shadow of himself this season at Aston Martin.
Even though Vettel resulted in the 12e rank in the drivers’ championship this season, and that he sometimes seemed “detached”, the 35-year-old veteran nevertheless finished the campaign ahead of his teammate, Quebecer Lance Stroll.
“It’s disappointing to end the (constructors’) championship behind Alfa Romeo,” admitted the Mont-Tremblant driver, referring to the mid-pack team which has very few resources compared to that belonging to the Stroll’s father, Lawrence.
And as the exception often proves the rule, Aston Martin has decided to offer a multi-season contract to a driver even more experienced than Vettel to support Stroll in view of 2023. The British team hopes that it will be able to relaunch by betting on the Spaniard Fernando Alonso, a 41-year-old driver who won the World Championship in 2005 and 2006 and who has 32 career victories in F1.
“Aston Martin is not here to finish fifth or sixth, or even fourth in the constructors’ championship. They want to win the championship, and that’s what we will try to do in 2023 and 2024,” Alonso said confidently on the eve of the Brazilian Grand Prix.
Canadian representation in F1 will also be down for the first time since the 2020 season, which was cut short by the coronavirus pandemic.
Stroll will be the only representative of the maple leaf in 2023, since the Torontonian Nicholas Latifi, pilot with Williams from 2020 to 2022, disappointed and will be replaced by the rookie Logan Sargeant in 2023. The American is moreover one of the three rookie drivers who will be on the grid next season, along with Oscar Piastri (McLaren) and Nyck DeVries (Alpha Tauri).
Next season was to have 24 stopovers – a record – and run from March 5, in Bahrain, to November 26, in Abu Dhabi. F1, however, confirmed in early December that the Chinese Grand Prix will be canceled again in 2023, meaning it will be off the calendar for a fourth year in a row due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Of note, a new stage will be presented in Las Vegas on November 18. For its part, the Canadian Grand Prix will take place on June 18.
F1 also indicated last September that there would be six race weekends in sprint format, double the number of 2022. It did not, however, specify where these will take place – Imola, Austria and the Brazil have presented sprint races in 2022. Persistent rumors suggest that one of them will take place on the Gilles-Villeneuve circuit, but nothing is confirmed on this subject yet.