'Max Verstappen and Red Bull aside, F1 2023 was everything fans want it to be'
If 2022 was the year in which Max Verstappen and Red Bull announced themselves as best-in-class, the 2023 season saw them ascend completely into a league of their own.
That's how it felt throughout the season. George Russell said after the first race that Red Bull would probably win every race - and we all laughed, because surely that is a pipe dream in a 23-race season? Except he came very, very close to being right.
It was 22 races in the end - flash floods in Italy saw the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix called off - and Red Bull won all but one of them. The anomalous result came at the Singapore Grand Prix as the team simply struggled to set up their cars. Verstappen finished fifth - one of only three times all year he failed to win and the only occasion on which he didn't finish in the top two.
Red Bull broke more records and achieved something new by having their drivers finish first and second in the championship. Yet, Sergio Perez ended the year with an uncertain future ahead owing to the fact his team-mate scored more than double the points he did and that it too him so long to secure second place despite having a car that was miles quicker than anyone else's.
Many fans have complained about the lack of competition at the very top and it is absolutely true that it is not good for the sport to have no title race. F1 chiefs will no doubt be quietly praying for other teams to close the gap to Red Bull next term, but insist the rules will not be tweaked to help them do that. And that absolutely is the right call - the champions should not and cannot be punished for building a car much better than any other.
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Those who claim that Formula 1 is not competitive, though, are plain wrong. Dominance from Verstappen and Red Bull has somewhat masked just how close things were behind them. For much of the season, particularly in the European section of the calendar, the balance of power among the four teams directly behind the runaway leaders was changing on a weekly basis, creating some thrilling racing.
At first it was Aston Martin, emerging from midfield ambiguity to start the season as the team with probably the second quickest car. Fernando Alonso was certainly getting the most out of it, standing on the podium six times across the first eight races. He managed two more in the remained of the campaign, evidencing his ongoing desire for success as much as it did his team's ebbing competitiveness as they lost out to their rivals in the developmental war.
Try as their might, neither Lewis Hamilton nor Charles Leclerc could get close to Max Verstappen in 2023 (AP)It was Lewis Hamilton who ended the season as 'best of the rest' behind the two Red Bull drivers. With the car he had, it was truly the best he could have hoped for - and yet much of the talk about the seven-time world champion and, indeed, from him was negative. Mercedes admitted making the mistake of persisting with their 'zeropod' aerodynamic concept for too long and paid the price for it.
Hamilton ended the season on a whimper, rather disappointingly, and looked to have checked out mentally after a draining year in which his now-two-year winless run persisted. But, for the most part, he got the most out of his car. George Russell is the first to admit he did not do that and was very disappointed with eighth in the drivers' standings. He wants to usurp Hamilton as top dog at Mercedes and next year will be crucial to his hopes of convincing everyone that he can do that.
Russell wasn't even the second Brit in the standings thanks to a superb surge from McLaren, who started the season awfully but developed their car so well as it went on. Every upgrade brought a significant performance jump and both Lando Norris and stellar rookie Oscar Piastri so often got the most out of the packages they had. Norris may enter 2024 as Verstappen's chief rival, while the sky is the limit for his very talented Aussie team-mate.
Ferrari got on top of their engine reliability issues this year and made far fewer strategy mistakes than they did in 2022, when it derailed their title hopes. They were the only team other than Red Bull to win a race, when Carlos Sainz took advantage of the situation in Singapore, and overall Frederic Vasseur can be satisfied with his first term in charge.
But third place will never satisfy those in the boardroom at Maranello - even if their championship drought has now been extended to 15 full seasons. Also perhaps slightly worrying is the fact Charles Leclerc hasn't converted any of his last 12 pole positions into a race win. His career record is just four victories from 23 poles, pointing at a clear issue. The Monegasque's talent is unquestionable, but he must become more prolific on a Sunday.
Just 129 points separated Mercedes in second place and Aston Martin who eventually slumped to fifth. If they can all close the gap to Red Bull and create genuine championship intrigue, we're primed for the most open title race the sport has seen for a long time. It is a big 'if', though, given Red Bull's dominance this year meant they also got a significant head-start on their rivals in terms of their 2024 car development.
Alpine were sixth by the end of the year and some way off joining that party. It is their goal to compete with those five teams above them but, as we've seen before with Renault politics, their biggest enemy seems to be themselves. This was another rocky year with team principal Otmar Szafnauer and long-serving sporting director Alan Permane shown the exit door for telling their Renault overlords that their expectations were not realistic.
McLaren look well-placed to be Red Bull's closest challengers in 2024 after a fine show of progress throughout this year (Getty Images)Bruno Famin took over as interim team principal for the rest of the season and remains in charge. The Frenchman looks likely to begin the 2024 season still in that supposedly temporary role despite plenty of speculation linking former Ferrari chief Mattia Binotto with the job. On the plus side, they have two strong drivers in Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly who, despite all pre-season predictions, managed not to kill each other.
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New Williams boss James Vowles insisted he didn't care where his team finished this year but will still have been delighted with seventh. F1's sleeping giants have a long way to go before they can even begin to hint at a return to their former glory, though, and will need Logan Sargeant, perhaps lucky to get a second year in F1, to start pulling his weight and help Alex Albon who had a phenomenal year, and is on the radar of plenty of top teams as a result.
AlphaTauri were rock bottom all year until fresh impetus from the returning Daniel Ricciardo and a sudden performance jump thrust them up to eighth. At least they showed some fight, unlike Alfa Romeo and Haas who spent a long season toiling for little reward and both look to be in desperate need for something new.
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