Official Formula One and General Motorsport Thread for 2023! Simply UnVerstoppable! Vettel heartbreak DLC included!

[Robbo-92]

Hello once again, despite thinking I was later getting this thread finally written out, I’m actually a few days earlier than last year despite the fact I thought I was woefully late! I’m solely blaming Pokémon Scarlet & Violet, which has taken up far too much of my free time in the off season

As with the previous few years, unless this year turns into another season of Ferrari heartbreak and Red Bull domination I imagine F1 will be at the forefront of our discussions, lets start with the driver line ups, again in WCC order from 2022.

Team lineups

Red Bull Racing - Max Verstappen (1/33) & Sergio Perez (11)
Ferrari - Charles Leclerc (16) & Carlos Sainz Jr (55)
Mercedes - Lewis Hamilton (44) & George Russell (63)
Alpine - Esteban Ocon (31) & Pierre Gasly (10)
McLaren - Lando Norris (4) & Oscar Piastri (tbc)
Alfa Romeo - Valtteri Bottas (77) & Guanyu Zhou (24)
Aston Martin - Fernando Alonso (14) & Lance Stroll (18)
Haas - Kevin Magnussen (20) & Nico Hulkenberg (27)
Alpha Tauri - Yuki Tsunoda (22) & Nyck de Vries (45)
Williams - Alex Albon (23) & Logan Sargent (tbc)

2023 F1 Calendar - https://www.formula1.com/en/racing/2023.html

2022 season recap and thoughts

This season could have been an absolute cracker and after the opening rounds it was gearing up perfectly to be a season long scrap between Ferrari, with their first almost dominant car in years and then Red Bull, whose car to start with looked fast but very fragile. Thats exactly how the opening rounds went, with 2 retirements in 3 for the reigning champion and Leclerc winning 2 (Australia in dominant fashion) and getting a 2nd place in the other it truly looked like it was Ferrari’s to lose for the WDC at least, as the other Ferrari driven by Sainz looked far from reliable much like the Red Bull. It wouldn’t be right to talk about the early part of the season without a brief mention of everyone’s favourite side effect of the new regulations, porpoising! Although it was very rarely an issue once the teams realised major changes weren’t going to be made outside of g forces being monitored, so they seemingly got on top of things fairly quickly afterwards. After a troublesome opening couple of rounds, Norris got a singular podium for McLaren after Leclerc had the first of many messy weekends at Ferrari’s home race round Imola, spinning near the end after trying to overtake Perez and promoting the Brit to third. It was already at this early point in the season where a diehard Ferrari fan could already see the title slipping away, mechanical issues, operational issues, driver errors, everything sadly turned against them and turned the tide solely in Red Bulls favour, for better or worse.

With all this talk of Ferrari and Red Bull, you may be thinking, what about Mercedes? Well, its safe to say the W13 had some dire issues under a very sleek looking body with some of the smallest sidepods seen for seasons, they suffered hugely from porpoising as their concept needed to be ran as low as possible but with the side effects it just wasn’t possible, it wasn’t a complete right off for the previous WCC champions, they got to see how good Russell could be (when he wasn’t crashing into other drivers, but as any good driver knows for insurance purposes, you never admit fault!) for them and still managed to get a pole position and a 1-2 towards the end of the year at Brazil, almost sealing Binotto’s fate as they next team principal to be axed from Ferrari.

From the midpoint of the season, Red Bull looked dominant, they could win from pole or they could win from 10th even in Hungary, even 14th in Spa, the RB18 could seemingly do no wrong after the early issues were solved. Even in the mid point of the year there were still a few highlights even if they were few and far between, a first pole position and win for Sainz in a thrilling British Grand Prix that could have even gone Hamiltons way, a pole position for Russell too. We also had the sad news that Vettel was calling it a day on his time in F1 as well, despite his impeding retirement we saw some stellar performances from him even if the end results didn’t show it other than his 6th in Suzuka and what could have been better than 8th in Singapore. His second best race, after Suzuka came at the Circuit of the Americas, Vettel was on fire round here, running well up the order before an awful pit stop dropped him out of the points, but he certainly wasn’t out of it and fought back to a very well earned 8th place. There isn’t many drivers I’ll genuinely miss but Vettel is certainly one of them. I should also note that Verstappen won his 2nd WDC at Suzuka as well, personally I couldn’t think of many better tracks to win a WDC at than Suzuka

Towards the back end of the year the order seemed to stabilise somewhat, Red Bull out in front, Ferrari behind them, continuing to mess up in some way or another and then Mercedes constantly closing the gap to Ferrari, even to the point where they got a 1-2 in Brazil and could have nabbed another win at Mexico. The season once again ended in Abu Dhabi, this year there was no drama after the race unlike in 2021

Think that about wraps my recap up, probably not as good as last years but then again the 22 season wasn’t a patch on 21 for the most part, but that’s how it goes sometimes! Hopefully we’ll have another cracker this year

First question of the year though which driver should I support now Seb has retired?

Second question, been up to much in the off season? Pounding round various digital tracks in your games? Obsessed with Pokémon like myself? I need to get back on Assetto Corsa and Assetto Corsa Competizione before Forza Motorsport 8 comes out, just bought the recent DLC for ACC so looking forward to spending a bit of time driving round some American tracks

Previous years threads,

2019 - ‪https://grcade.co.uk/t:the-official-formula-1-and-general-motorsport-thread-for-2019?f=7&hilit=2020+F1+2020+Formula+One+2020‬
2020 - ‪https://grcade.co.uk/t:the-official-formula-one-and-general-motorsport-thread-for-the-2020-season?f=7&hilit=2020+F1+2020+Formula+One+2020‬
2021- ‪https://grcade.co.uk/t:the-official-formula-one-and-general-motorsport-thread-for-the-2021-season-mercedes-domination-set-to-continue?f=7‬
2022 - ‪https://grcade.co.uk/t:the-official-formula-one-and-general-motorsport-for-the-2022-season-has-the-2nd-era-of-red-bull-begun?f=7&p=4916325#p4916325‬
2023 - https://grcade.co.uk/t:official-formula-one-and-general-motorsport-thread-for-2023-simply-unverstoppable-ferrari-heartbreak-dlc-included?f=7

[Robbo-92]

The 2023 thread is a go go go!

[LewisD]

LN4 WDC.
Believe

[Victor Mildew]

Hamilton to get that 9th title!

[Robbo-92]

To be honest I’d be delighted if either of them win! Already seen that Perez thinks he can win it Only way Red Bull do that is it Max has 10 dnfs

[False]

first

[False]

strawberry float

[GrinWithoutaKat]

I've already seen talk the 2023 McLaren is not so hot

Going to Spa in July, which will be my first in person F1 race. It's never appealed to me that much as I imagine the only way you really know what's going on is watching a screen anyway, but we're going to Amsterdam for a stag the weekend after it, so me and mate just thought why not go to Spa and make a week of it all. Got the cheapest weekend tickets, so no seats. It's going to piss down.

[Cuttooth]

first

strawberry float

Lando Norris, Russia 2021.

[Robbo-92]

Spa being in July just feels wrong. It’ll be a great experience though, very different to watching on TV, even if you’re sat near a screen to try and keep up with the order it’s still not ideal as I found a bit of sun on the screen and you couldn’t see it anyway! Just make sure you take your own chair if you’ve got GA tickets, going for full weekend or just the race?

[Vermilion]

Looking forward to getting my green Aston Martin Kimoa cap.

[GrinWithoutaKat]

Spa being in July just feels wrong. It’ll be a great experience though, very different to watching on TV, even if you’re sat near a screen to try and keep up with the order it’s still not ideal as I found a bit of sun on the screen and you couldn’t see it anyway! Just make sure you take your own chair if you’ve got GA tickets, going for full weekend or just the race?

Full weekend tickets, but we're traveling the friday so not sure we'd make it there in time. The plan was to go saturday and sunday, then they changed it to a sprint weekend with friday quali.

[Robbo-92]

Spa being in July just feels wrong. It’ll be a great experience though, very different to watching on TV, even if you’re sat near a screen to try and keep up with the order it’s still not ideal as I found a bit of sun on the screen and you couldn’t see it anyway! Just make sure you take your own chair if you’ve got GA tickets, going for full weekend or just the race?

Full weekend tickets, but we're traveling the friday so not sure we'd make it there in time. The plan was to go saturday and sunday, then they changed it to a sprint weekend with friday quali.

Sprint weekend at Spa?

I was going to say if you were there for every session, spend Friday scouting out a good position for the race, see where gets really busy and the slightly less busy spots, I think Friday was my favourite day when I went to Silverstone, was just great walking round the track, seeing the cars from so many different corners, plus it wasn’t as busy.

[False]

first

strawberry float

Lando Norris, Russia 2021.

too soon

[Tomous]

first

strawberry float

Lando Norris, Russia 2021.

[Robbo-92]

Poor Lando

I do hope McLaren have a better year, been too long since they were actually front runners (2012!), I’d love to see Lando get his first win.

Looking forward to getting my green Aston Martin Kimoa cap.

I suspect if I buy anything this year it’ll just be a wooly hat, the Aston one was really nice that I got back in 2021.

[Robbo-92]

I should add, you’ll be free to change your votes in the poll until the end of the first qualifying session in Bahrain on March the 4th.

[Drumstick]

First question of the year though which driver should I support now Seb has retired?

I'm going to root for Ocon, he's my tip for breakout driver of the year.

[False]

my big brain predics:

start of russell villain era
tough year for norris - car + piastri drama
sainz ascendant arc
punished leclerc
verham come together 3 times
verstappen clan do a racism
albon sargent equal points
de vries schools tsunoda who then goes on to open a chain of franchised food stalls
gasly ocon come to blows gasly comes out on top
merc constructors rb drivers
am do a literally who, rumours abound about stroll to sell

[Memento Mori]

my big brain predics:

start of russell villain era
tough year for norris - car + piastri drama
sainz ascendant arc
punished leclerc
verham come together 3 times
verstappen clan do a racism
albon sargent equal points
de vries schools tsunoda who then goes on to open a chain of franchised food stalls
gasly ocon come to blows gasly comes out on top
merc constructors rb drivers
am do a literally who, rumours abound about stroll to sell

Is this your pitch for Drive to Survive?