2023 Formula 1 Season Review

With the last checkered flag on Abu Dhabi being waved this week, the 2023 Formula One season has come to an end. With a season marked with such dominance by Red Bull, what are the other takeaways? 

One big takeaway to come directly from Abu Dhabi was the final battle for second place in the Constructors’ Championship. Going into Abu Dhabi, Mercedes had only a 4-point lead on Ferrari, making the final Grand Prix still quite tense, despite the Constructor and Driver Championships having already been decided a few races prior. Ferrari’s Charles LeClerc placed second at Abu Dhabi, with Mercedes' George Russell not far behind in third place. This alone nearly sealed a second-place finish for Ferrari, but Ferrari needed a point finish for their second driver, Carlos Sainz. Unfortunately, Sainz dropped out in the first round of qualifying at Abu Dhabi, placing him at the back of the starting grid in sixteenth place. This made finishing in the points much harder for Sainz, and in the end, Sainz unfortunately had to retire the car, finishing in eighteenth place. Sainz’s DNF along with Hamilton’s tenth-place finish, firmly secured Mercedes a second-place finish in the Constructors’ Championship ending up with 409 points, while Ferrari ended with 406. 

Abu Dhabi also proved to be a great race for AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda, who had his best-ever qualifying run, starting sixth on the grid. Tsunoda also led the race for the first time in his career for five laps after the five cars in front of him decided to pit. Sadly, Tsunoda was unable to hold onto his sixth-place start, ending up in eighth by the time the checkered flag was waved. This finish was primarily due to the one pitstop strategy that Tsunoda used during the race, meaning that Tsunoda was easily outpaced by the other drivers with fresher tires in the closing laps of the race. Should Tsunoda have finished sixth, AlphaTauri would have secured a seventh-place finish in the Constructors’ Championship. Instead, they finished eighth, with Williams Racing taking seventh place. 

Remarkably, Ferrari was the only other team to score a Grand Prix win this season, with Red Bull winning the other 21 Grand Prix this year. Surprisingly, this is not the first time that this has happened to Ferrari. In 2015, Mercedes, with drivers Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton, displayed similar dominance to Redbull, winning sixteen out of nineteen races, and Ferrari won the other three. Ferrari’s singular win in Singapore gave Carlos Sainz the impressive title of being the only non-Red Bull driver to win a Grand Prix this 2023 season. 

So, for being the final race of a season where the main Championship titles had been decided over six races ago, Abu Dhabi proved to still be an exciting finish to the 2023 season. On the other hand, the driver side of the 2023 season has witnessed more than just record-breaking dominance by Red Bull. 

Fernando Alonso, one of the two drivers for Aston Martin and two-time Formula 1 World Champion, experienced his best season in a decade. Fernando Alonso first started in Formula 1 back in 2001, staying in Formula 1 till his retirement in 2018. This retirement was short-lived (although he did go on to win the prestigious 24 Hours at Le Mans race as well as the Daytona 500), as by 2021 he was back in the seat of a Formula 1 car. In the first half of the season, Alonso had achieved six podium finishes by the mid-season break. Post break, Alonso would rack up another two podium finishes, giving him fourth in the Driver Championship, the best ranking he's gotten since 2013. 

Lewis Hamilton, the seven-time former world champion, came in third for this year’s Driver Championship, but securing that third place proved to be a struggle for the seasoned driver. In the last three races of the season, Hamilton failed to get a top-five finish, putting a Mercedes 2nd place finish in the Constructors’ Championship into question. Abu Dhabi proved to be a bad finish to what has been a return to form for Hamilton after his sixth-place finish in the 2022 Drivers’ Championship, crossing the finish line in tenth place, barely within the points.

Lando Norris, the premier McClaren driver, over the course of this season, gained the unfortunate title of having the most podium finishes without a Grand Prix win. Norris, although finishing sixth overall in the driver championship, had seven podium finishes this season, tying him with Nick Heidfeld for thirteen podiums without a win. On the other hand, McClaren’s rookie driver Oscar Piastri won the Qatar sprint race this year, making him the only non-Red Bull driver to win a sprint race this season.

Logan Sergeant, the only American Formula 1 driver on the grid, scored a singular point this season for Williams Racing. While not an impressive feat on its own, in the context of Williams Racing, this singular point means more than just meets the eye. To provide context, Williams Racing is one of the most historically successful teams on the Formula 1 grid, having won the second most number of Constructors’ Championships, but with the rise of popularity necessitating competition with established automotive brands, Williams has struggled to find its footing in this new hybrid era of Formula 1. Other teams simply have more funding and better access to the industry. This has led to Williams for the most part being confined to the back of the grid, rarely placing in the points. This year has been a good one for Williams, finishing seventh in the Constructors’ Championship, a solid improvement from their tenth-place finish in 2022. Nonetheless, Williams has continued to produce some great drivers such as Alfa Romeo's Valtteri Bottas and Mercedes' George Russell. Russell, who raced for Williams from 2019 to 2021 and placed fourth in the 2022 season (two places ahead of Hamilton), failed to score a single point in his rookie season. So, with that, Sergeant’s singular point means a lot more than would first appear. This one point did cost a lot though, as by the end of the season Sergeant had cost Williams roughly $4.55 million in accumulated damages throughout the season. This makes Sergeant the most costly of any driver in the 2023 season. 

Finally, Max Verstappen, the undisputed star of this season, has set many records, but none more impressive than the record-breaking eleven consecutive Grand Prix wins, along with amassing a total of nineteen race wins in an only twenty-three race season. Passing the checkered flag at Abu Dhabi, Verstappen had scored a total of 575 points, beating the previous record (that he set), by 121 points. Verstappen is also the first driver to lead for over 1000 laps in a season, finishing in Abu Dhabi having led 1003 laps of the 2023 season. The dominance displayed by Verstappen this year has been unprecedented (considering his three World Driver Championship wins), and speaks to the caliber of his driving, putting him in contention as one of the greatest drivers to grace the grid. 

The 2023 season, while somewhat overshadowed by the complete dominance of Max Verstappen and Red Bull, has proven to be one still filled with surprises at every turn. Will Verstappen break more records? Will Hamilton come back into contention for World Champion? Will Norris finally win his first Grand Prix? Will Ferrari's strategy not suck? All answers will be revealed next season when the lights go out in Bahrain on February 29th. 

Side Note: There will be no change in the current driver arrangement as of December 1st, 2023, after Williams extended Sergeant’s contract for the 2024 season.

By Holden Gruel