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 lineupsRed 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.html2022 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