After the traditional waltz of pilots this winter, Formula 1 resumes its rights with the Bahrain Grand Prix on Sunday.
Will there be suspense this season? After a year 2022 dominated in the large widths by Max Verstappen and Red Bull, the Bahrain Grand Prix will launch, on Sunday March 5, a new exercise where the Dutchman will still be the favorite. 19 other drivers will be on the starting grid, determined to challenge the hegemony of the reigning double world champion. During the three-month break, the drivers who changed seats got to know their new car and prepared for an extended season (23 races). Franceinfo: sports takes stock of the changes in winter, before returning to the circuits.
Gasly-Ocon, 100% French duo at Alpine
Pierre Gasly changes air and embarks on a new adventure at Alpine. After five years in the Red Bull teams (Toro Rosso 2017-2018, Red Bull 2019, Toro Rosso 2019, AlphaTauri 2020-2022), the Frenchman joins his compatriot Esteban Ocon to form a 100% French duo. The two pilots know each other well. They were born the same year (1996), they are from Normandy and started on the karting circuits at the age of 10.
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“We both have the same goals, we want to fight up front and I’m sure together we have a great story to write with this team.“, assured Esteban Ocon during the tests at the start of the season. The two Habs will try to take Alpine to the top, they who have never done better than 7th (for Gasly) and 8th (for Ocon) in the general classification.
The waltz of pilots and managers
Fernando Alonso in an Aston Martin, ghost Nico Hülkenberg driving a Haas, the new faces of Oscar Piastri (McLaren), Nyck de Vries (AlphaTauri) and Logan Sargeant (Williams)… There’s something new to the dawn of the first Grand Prix of the season. With the arrival of Pierre Gasly at Alpine, six teams have experienced change in the off-season.
The top teams (Red Bull with Max Verstappen and Sergio Pérez, Ferrari with Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz, Mercedes with Lewis Hamilton and Georges Russell) have decided to play the stability card. Four drivers leave the grid: the quadruple world champion Sebastian Vettel, the disappointment Mick Schumacher, the whimsical Daniel Ricciardo, in difficulty at McLaren, and the regular at the back of the grid, Nicholas Latifi.
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On the management side too, things have changed this winter. The emblematic Italian Ferrari team is counting on Frédéric Vasseur to do better than Mattia Binotto. The Frenchman’s departure forced Alfa Romeo to appoint a new team principal in the person of Alessandro Alunni Bravi. McLaren had to face a blow: the end of the adventure with Andreas Seidl, who left to join Sauber as CEO of the group. Andrea Stella took over. Finally, former Mercedes chief strategy officer James Vowles has decided to take up the Williams challenge, where he becomes team manager.
23 Grands Prix, with Las Vegas but without France
This season should have been punctuated by 24 dates, but, due to the health crisis, China took the decision to cancel its Grand Prix on the Shanghai International Circuit, for the fourth consecutive year.
Conversely, American spectators are the big winners this year. After Austin and Miami, the brand new Las Vegas circuit joins the 22 other Grand Prix that will punctuate the season until the end of November. Originality for this meeting, the race will be held on a Saturday evening (local time), November 18.
Despite this record number of meetings this year, the French Grand Prix has disappeared from the calendar. Back on the driver’s program since 2018 after 10 years of absence, it has been organized in recent years on the Castellet circuit, in the Var.