Formula 1
By Vlad Roman,
General Manager, Smart Games
Here is the start of the 2023 season!… and it started the same way the previous one ended.
We have 10 teams with 2 cars each, some with modifications and innovations forced by the FIA rules, but it looks like Red Bull is alone in the fight for the title.
So today we have 1+2 categories in the constructors’ competition, we’ll see on November 26 in Abu Dhabi if I’m right.
The top teams.
Aston Martin – powered by the Mercedes engine is the no-compromise car, as Mike Krack says, it’s aggressive, powerful, looks good on the circuit and thanks to Alonso we’ll have a good chance this year.
Ferrari changed the sports director, after last year’s semi-failure they let go of Mattia Binotto and replaced him with the former Team Principal from Alfa Romeo – Frederic Vasseur who admitted that he did not have a big contribution to the realization of the new cars but thinks the engineers did a good job. This year’s car is superb, a lot of work has been done on the aerodynamics, the profile of the side nozzles, the front wing or spoiler. Noteworthy is the presence of Bitdefender as a team sponsor alongside big names such as Shell, Santander, Pirelli, etc.
Mercedes still hasn’t found the winning formula, they haven’t solved the problem of pressure on the rear axle, but at least they got rid of last year’s bouncing. Toto Wolf says he is not giving up, the car is still being worked on and there is a good chance he will return to 2020 form, but admits Red Bull and Aston Martin are the top teams this year. So far the only notable change to the Mercedes is the zero-pod concept for the sides and of course… the color.
The middle of the standings will be a fierce battle this year between the 6 remaining teams, but Alpine and Alfa Romeo will certainly fit in there, not necessarily in that order because we have new drivers that will make the games even more unpredictable.
Alpine looks good, the only Renault engine in the competition with two French drivers and an American Team Principal born in Romania, they have to defend the 4th position in the standings won last year and they hope for more podium finishes this year.
Andrea Stella, the principal at McLaren, is not happy but the result is not a step back but just the fact that they did not move very quickly, he set the goal for this season to be in the top 4 teams but at the moment they are not nowhere near there, however after 5th place last year, we can say they just got off to a bad start.
Alfa Romeo, 6th place in 2022, with a new sporting director in the person of Alessandro Alunni Bravi – former principal at Sauber Group, powered by the Ferrari engine and with the same drivers from last year must fight hard to keep his position. Again a superbly designed car with new graphics and a set of innovations that will perhaps bring some podiums to the team. Bravi stated at the presentation “the new car is the result of many months of work, but today is just the beginning of the journey, we must continue working with humility and dedication to see the performance”.
Haas keep Gunther Steiner at the helm and bring in ‘The Hulk’ alongside Dane Magnussen in the hope they can do more than 8th this year. The car is also powered by the Ferrari “power unit” unlike the AlphaTauri which, although it has a Honda RBPT engine, does not manage to come close to the big brother Red Bull, they even brought a Dutch driver… maybe, maybe.
Williams, the fourth Mercedes-powered team, does not seem to have found its old rhythm this year either, they landed Jost Capito and appointed the British James Patrick Vowles as team leader, who activated Mercedes-AMG Petronas. However, the history of the team closely linked to Sir Frank Williams totals 9 world titles and a presence of 45 years in the competition, maybe Alex Albon and the younger Logan Sargeant will manage to change something this year.
Now, back to the first sentence in the article, we started as 2022 ended, with Red Bull in first place and the constructors’ title almost assured. The Red Bull car has a lead of one second over the competitors and it is very hard to imagine that anything will change in the next races, maybe after Barcelona we will see new significant updates that will equalize the situation.
In the drivers Max has as his main rival his colleague Checo who has not forgotten the 2022 season when the same teammate denied him the 2nd place in the championship, now after the victory in Jeddah he is even more motivated, especially after he refused to slow down like this as the team engineer relayed to him. Christian Horner will have to find the optimal solution in order not to stop the competition between the two Red Bull drivers.
Fernando Alonso, on the other hand, is living his second youth at Aston Martin, he has achieved two podium finishes in the first two races and he will certainly not stop there even if at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix he was relegated to 4th position after the penalty of 10 seconds coming from the 5 second penalty… duh!
The 100th official podium and the first victory after 10 years will also come.
