2023 Formula 1 Season Outright Betting Preview – JP
2023 Formula 1 Season Outright Betting Preview
The 2023 Formula 1 season gets underway this weekend, with the Bahrain GP, the first of a record 23 race calendar. In this preview we will take a look at regulation changes, team news from over the closed season and look for any pointers from last week’s pre-season test. James Punt found Max Verstappen at 3.00 last year, hopefully he can land some more nice winners in 2023.
2023 Formula 1 Season: Rule Changes
Unlike the great re-set of the regulations last year, this season sees relatively few changes. Rule stability usually means a degree of performance convergence but as this is only the second year of the major changes, and most teams are still trying to get the most out of last year’s designs, I would be surprised if we saw a dramatic move to a more bunched field.
The main changes are some design regulations to reduce porpoising. The ‘bouncing’ phenomenon was big problem for many teams last year, especially Mercedes. Teams gradually reduced it and there was a regulation change mid-season in 2022 to limit it. The floor edges are to be raised by 15 millimetres, the diffuser intake is to be raised, and the floor side is to be stiffened and widened by 15mm. Raising the back of the car was an effective way of reducing porpoising last year, but came with a reduction in downforce.
Ground Effect
The very essence of ‘ground effect’ designs was to have the floor very close to the ground. So, having all the teams running a bigger gap between the floor and ground means a move away from the ethos of ground effects, which was supposed to allow the cars to follow each other more closely, making overtaking easier. We shall have to wait and see how that works out but it is expected that fast corner downforce will be reduced and the cars will be a couple of tenths slower as a result, depending on the circuit.
The fact that one of last year’s big changes was a success handicap in terms of wind tunnel/CFD time allowances is of more interest. The winning constructor, Red Bull, gets less wind tunnel time than the second-best constructor, all the way down to the constructor in last place getting more than anyone else. The idea of this is to lead to medium to long term performance convergence. It is likely to be too soon to see any major changes, but Red Bull have been handed further time limits due to an overspend in 2022.
Double Handicap Red Bull
Red Bull now have a double handicap in terms of wind tunnel/CFD time allowance, which is a real concern for the team. Luckily for them, they had a very sorted car in 2022 and with so few regulation changes for 2023, the loss will not hurt as much as it would have last year for example. It is however, a negative for Red Bull.
Sporting Regulation changes include more Sprint races for the 2023 Formula 1 season. There will now be six. Azerbaijan, Austria, Belgium, US GP, Qatar and Brazil.
Two race weekends will see an experimental change in tyre allocations for qualifying. Q1 will see all teams running the hardest compound, Q2 the medium and Q3 the softest (if dry). These two race weekends will also see the tyre allocations reduced from 13 sets to 11. The long-term plan is to reduce the number of tyres used to increase sustainability.
New Pirelli Tyres
Pirelli will have a new tyre for the 2023 Formula 1 season, with the main aim to give the front tyres more grip. These heavy cars are understeering more than the older generations and the new tyres should help reduce that understeer. That sounds like good news for Max Verstappen who hates understeer and likes his car to have a strong front end.
Pirelli have also introduced another compound, making it six different dry weather compounds in their range. They thought that the performance difference between the hardest C1 tyre and the C2 was too great. The old C1 will now be called C0, with the new compound slotting in between the old C1 and C2. Pirelli Are also considering having races where they do not bring three consecutive numbers to a race. They could have the C1, C3 and C4 for example.
The budget cap will be reduced to $135 million, further putting the squeeze on how the teams allocate their resources, and making sure that any money is not spent on projects which may be deemed illegal under the regulations.
2023 Formula 1 Season: Team News
Red Bull
The team face an additional 10% loss of wind tunnel and CFD time as explained above. That should not be a massive problem, unless they try going down a new design route, and with no great regulation changes, why change a winning design concept? Many teams had gravitated towards much of Red Bull’s design by the end of 2022 which says a lot.
Personnel wise, the team has good continuity in and out of the cock pit for the 2023 Formula 1 season. This is a big plus. There may be some friction between the two drivers, which is not unusual, but it is clear that Verstappen is the number 1 driver and Perez should be wise enough to accept that, in return for the chance to win the odd race here and there.
Honda Power Unit
It has been confirmed that Honda are back as the named power unit supplier. After they ‘pulled out’ at the end of 2021, Red Bull had set up Red Bull Powertrains to maintain and assemble the power units at their Milton Keynes base but it was still Honda doing the lion’s share of the work in 2022. RBPT was supposed to take over for this season, but now it has reverted to Honda doing the work for both Red Bull and Alpha Tauri until the end of 2025. More good news in terms of continuity.
Red Bull have one great weapon in their armoury. Adrian Newey. The best designer in the business and a bone fide genius. That he had worked on and understood ground effect cars in the past gave him knowledge others didn’t have, and accounts for why the Red Bull didn’t struggle with porpoising to anywhere near the same degree as their rivals.
Gold Standard
His 2022 design was the gold standard and everyone else is playing catch up. Despite having less wind tunnel/CFD time than the rest of the field, Red Bull are starting with a great car and can concentrate on refining it, and there will be areas to improve.
Newey is no longer involved on a day-to-day basis. He is free to work on other projects and the team’s technical director is Pierre Wache, but Newey retains the title of Chief Technical Officer. This has been the case for a few years now, but the car’s DNA is his work and he is on hand to work on development.
Circles of Dominance
Formula 1 tends to go in circles of dominance. One team dominates for a period, before someone else comes up with a better car, or rule changes reset the order. Only five different teams have won the constructors title this century. Mercedes have won eight, Ferrari seven, Red Bull five, Renault two and Brawn one.
Are we into the second period of Red Bull dominance? History suggests that it would be a surprise if they didn’t go back-to-back. Brawn was the only team this century not to win back to back championships, and that was due to the fact that they only existed for a single season.
The cost cap and success handicap of reduced wind tunnel/CFD does change things. It should be harder for a team to dominate like Mercedes did for so long, but there is no doubt that Red Bull and Verstappen have to start the 2023 Formula 1 season as the favourites.
Comfort Zone
The new Pirelli front tyres are expected to move things further into Verstappen’s comfort zone and should be especially noticeable in qualifying. Perez had been much closer to Verstappen at the start of last season. The Mexican can live with an understeering car better than Verstappen. However, as the team shed weight from the car, this reduced the understeer and Perez’s performance suffered relative to Verstappen’s. Perez says that he has worked with the team to get the new car more to his comfort zone.
That seems a little bit naive as the team is very much built around Verstappen and his needs. He will be working on the car set up to try and get the car feeling better for his driving style. He likes a strong rear end on his car, Verstappen a strong front end. I suspect Verstappen will get the car he wants, and Perez will have to find a workaround to get it closer to how he likes it. However, the two drivers need different things and Perez will be the one looking for a compromise. For compromise, read slower.
Weight Saving
One area where all the teams will have continued working on is weight saving. You will have noticed that many of the cars last year started to remove a lot of paint on the cars. This year’s reveals showed that trend continuing and black is the most common colour on the grid. Basically, the raw carbon fibre body work without any paint. This saves some weight and that in turn improves performance.
Red Bull were rumoured to be introducing a lightweight chassis during the latter part of 2022 but it never materialised. All teams had weight reduction programs in place, but this was thought to be a bigger step. Will the new Red Bull be that lightweight car? Yes! According to Verstappen, this year’s car is under the minimum weight limit and the winters diet plan has worked. Shedding excess weight is a big gain time wise and a big plus for the car.
2023 Formula 1 Season: Red Bull Summary
The outlook remains very good for Red Bull. Continuity is good, they had the best car in 2022, the start of a new era in F1, and that means everyone is playing catch up while Red Bull can concentrate on refining an already good design. They were not having to sort out problems over the winter, but more able to spend their budget on getting quicker. They won seventeen races last year, had eight pole positions and finished 146 points ahead of Ferrari and 149 ahead of Mercedes.
Constructors Championship Odds – 1.67
Max Verstappen – 1.67
Sergio Perez – 26.00
Ferrari
It was inevitable that the axe had to fall on Ferrari’s team principle, Mattio Binotto. Ferrari had a car that started the 2022 season with two wins and five podiums from the first three races. From a position of great promise, the team, drivers included, tripped up at every possible opportunity.
Race strategy was a particular weakness, but Binotto defended his strategists rather than taking steps to improve the team’s performance. It was part of his desire to remove a culture of blame which has blighted Ferrari for years. Mistakes would be excused in the hope that people felt the need to be more radical in their areas of responsibility. It was a good idea, but badly executed.
Changing the team principle is not new to Ferrari but it is a negative. Like a football team that keeps on sacking their manager and going nowhere. Stability at the top tends to go hand in hand with success and Ferrari have been notable underachievers given their resources. Binotto has been replaced by Fred Vasseur, the former principle at Alfa Romeo/Sauber.
Learnings
Vasseur has as his first task, to learn Italian. There will be no immediate axe wielding as he will be learning what went wrong with the team last year. After that he will make changes. People will be working with the sword of Damocles hanging over them. Nice.
This is the problem with changing the boss. He needs to learn the team (and Italian) before he can start to make the changes he sees fit. That is one season gone. By the end of the next and nothing has improved, the boss gets changed and the cycle of failure resumes.
Vasseur is an experienced team principle, but he is moving from one of the smallest teams on the grid to one of the biggest, and the team with the greatest expectations thrust upon it. The pressure on the Ferrari principle is that much greater than for any other boss and partly explains the high turnover.
Unreliable Power Unit
The Ferrari power unit started the season as the benchmark, but unreliability meant that they spent most of the second half of the season with the power unit detuned. Fixing the problems will have been a big part of their winter work and we should expect a significant increase in power for Ferrari from the start of the 2023 Formula 1 season.
Rumours suggest an increase of around 30 BHP is expected and that the unit will also be lighter. The problem was caused by part of the energy recovery system, the bit that recycled heat back into power. Dyno testing suggests that this problem has now been fixed.
What is not so easily fixed is decision making. It wasn’t just bad luck that the Ferrari strategists made such huge errors at times. Vasseur will have to understand the decision making processes at Ferrari and decide if the system needs to change, if the people need to be changed and so on. Not the work of a moment.
Radiators Tweaked
If it is now more reliable, Ferrari will be in the mix more often than in 2022. It is rumoured that Ferrari have been able to reduce the size and weight of the radiators, allowing a more compact siting and a slight reduction in drag. It will be worth watching how they perform in hot conditions.
The new car shown at the launch looks like a clear development of last year’s car. That is no surprise. Last year’s car was quick, at least at the start of the season and in qualifying. The power unit problems held them back and the mid-season anti porpoising regulation changes went against them, but the design was competitive.
There is a new Red Bull inspired nose to improve air flow along with a new front wing. The front wing was sporting four fins running along the top end of the wing. This was deemed illegal when Mercedes tested something similar, so we shall have to see if they remain when it comes to the actual races.
The team have tried to make the car have a bigger sweet spot, a good all-rounder. The biggest change is the front suspension. This will give a greater range of set up choices. It also helps with aerodynamic performance and certainly, they have done plenty of work on the front end of the car.
Top Team
Ferrari are a top team. They have top class facilities, top class engineers, excellent resources and they have everything in place to win races and compete for the championships. The problem is making all the parts work effectively. There is a history of underachievement at the team, and it remains to be seen if Vasseur is the missing piece of the jigsaw.
Backing them to win the championship means taking a leap of faith. That the culture of failure can be banished. Ferrari’s biggest problem is Ferrari. The Todt, Brawn and Schumacher era was Ferrari at its best, but that was a long time ago now and while everything is in place for success, that doesn’t mean it can happen.
There is plenty of low hanging fruit for Ferrari to pick. They have a decent starting point in terms of last year’s design. The biggest instant gains will come from the power unit output and reliability. No other power unit manufacturer will be picking up a few tenths, and a faster and more reliable engine will give them a leg up. If they have improved the handling and have got a better all-rounder, then the only thing stopping Ferrari winning more races, is being Ferrari.
2023 Formula 1 Season: Ferrari Summary
Ferrari are always a real puzzle. They have a lot going for them. They have great facilities and resources. Top class personnel and great drivers. Their car looks sophisticated and well designed. They started the ground effect era in fine style, winning two of the first three races, having two pole positions from the first three and two fastest laps.
Sadly, the season was not three races long. It was all in place for a proper tilt at the titles. But then they went all Ferrari. Reliability went out the window, strategy calls went very wrong, and drivers made silly mistakes. Everything unravelled and they were lucky to finish second.
They have sacked another team principle over the winter which is a negative. Apart from that, continuity is decent. The driver line up is good. Leclerc is a top talent and a great qualifier. Sainz is a solid driver, good in the wet and will score plenty of points.
Good Base
Last year’s car was pretty good. A bad car doesn’t score twelve pole positions. They have a good base to work from. Power unit reliability was the big issue to address over the winter. If that has been done, that one lap pace is likely to extend into the races. Reducing drag and improving straight line speed was the aim of the winter’s work in terms of body work.
Despite having to bed in a new boss, I am optimistic that Ferrari will be more competitive in the 2023 Fomula 1 season. However, having a competitive car may not be enough for the two drivers. Operationally, Ferrari are far from top class. It has been a long time since they had a car and team to deliver titles.
Constructors Championship Odds – 5.00
Charles Leclerc – 8.00
Carlos Sainz – 26.00
Mercedes
The team has remained largely unchanged. Their chief strategist, James Vowles, has left to become team principle at Williams which may be a slight negative but nothing of great significance. He has been at the team for a long time but he was one of nine people working on strategy so a replacement will not be hard to find. Mercedes have been very good at succession planning and lost arguably more essential personnel than Vowles in the past without too much bother.
The driver dynamics at Mercedes are interesting. George Russell joined the team last year and ended it 35 points ahead of the seven-time World Champion, Lewis Hamilton. Hamilton was derailed by having a poor car for the first time in a long time, while Russell was enjoying being much further up the field than he was used to at Williams. Hamilton had his share of unreliability, but he eventually got his mojo back late in the season and finished the season the stronger of the two.
Russell Established
Now Russell starts the 2023 Formula 1 season not as a newcomer, but an established team member and race winner. He is still improving and should be able to perform better after a year within the team. Hamilton isn’t getting any better, he can’t get much more experienced and his capacity to improve is less than Russell’s. It may be that his ability will be enough to slap Russell down, but he now has a teammate who can give him a contest.
Having two ‘number 1’ drivers should be good for the constructors table, but perhaps not for the driver’s championship. Hamilton and Rosberg used to take lumps out of each other, but Mercedes were so far ahead that it barely mattered, it was always going to be a Mercedes driver that won, and at least gave the fans something to watch. Now, with Mercedes no longer the runaway leaders, it is likely that they would rather do without any inter team drama.
Car Quality Crucial
Mercedes’ chances of a title in 2023 will depend on their car rather than drivers. The W13 was a poor car. It was a radical design but not one that worked well. Its tyre warm up problems hurt in qualifying and while being easy on its tyres had its advantages in some races, it was a car with a very small sweet-spot and a poor all-rounder. It only won a single race and that was late in the season after a lot of upgrades.
Reliability was excellent but they were just starting too many races behind the Red Bulls and Ferraris and their race pace wasn’t enough to do more than pick up fairly regular podiums, but that was never going to be enough. They did close the gap to Ferrari as the season went on but that was as much to do with Ferrari struggling in the second half of the season and the mid-season regulation changes to reduce porpoising.
Zero Sidepod Design Issues
If Mercedes stick with their ‘zero sidepod’ design they may well struggle again, compared to Red Bull and Ferrari. Yes, the car got better as the season went on, but it was still a very difficult car to set up. Some tracks suited it more than others, but they very rarely looked competitive in terms of race wins.
With the budget cap, it is much harder for teams to just bin a bad design and start again. In the pre cost cap days, this is what Mercedes would have done, developed another design and made a choice. Now, they are more likely to try and fix what they have. Their job this winter will have been to find the key to unlock the potential the team see in their design. The key word being potential. We know the Red Bull is good, we know the Ferrari is good, but the Mercedes only has potential.
If the W14 starts the 2023 Formula 1 season still well behind the big two, and there are reasons to think that Ferrari will be a stronger proposition in 2023, where do Mercedes go? Should they have ditched the design and tried something different for 2023? Lewis Hamilton did seem keen for a new design for much of 2022 and if they continue to be third best, how will that affect his motivation?
Sprint Races A Plus
Having six sprint race weekends could be a plus for Mercedes if the 2023 car is another that is slow to heat up the tyres. It was a sprint race weekend in Brazil which landed them their sole win.
The W13 was a draggy car, losing out on the straights, and it was very prone to porpoising, even at the end of the season when it faced long, fast corners. They had not solved its problems, just made them less severe.
Sticking with the same concept means more work just to address the underlying problem, while others can refine already proven designs. The departing James Vowels admitted that they didn’t know everything about the W13 by the end of the season, and even achieving that during the winter might be asking too much.
Regulation Changes To Help
The regulation change requiring the floors to be raised will help Mercedes with the porpoising problem. But they could do that last year. It meant giving away downforce and pace but made the car drivable. Now everyone will have to give up some downforce which might bring the field to Mercedes, rather than Mercedes catching the field. That is one positive for them.
Mercedes’ problem was exacerbated by having very stiff suspension, making the bouncing even worse. They found the operating window occasionally, but they need to have a car that can operate on a wider variety of circuits if they are to be challenging for titles.
The suspension has been redesigned for 2023 and we shall soon find out if they have dialled out the stiffness. There is a rumour that the revised suspension was a problem at their shake down/filming day, to the extent that it will have to be redesigned using heavier components.
The launch of the new car saw the zero sidepod design in evidence and it appears that they are sticking with the 2022 concept, for now.
Suspension Altered
The front and rear suspension has been changed and bodywork changed to reduced drag. The ‘paint job’ is an all-black affair, and like most of the teams sporting predominately unpainted carbon fibre black liveries, this is to save weight, suggesting that the car is still a bit of a porker.
Mercedes has some positives for 2023. More sprint races, all cars running higher floors, decent continuity and arguably the best driver line up. The fact is that last year’s car finished in 3rd place and 244 points behind Red Bull. That is a big gap to close, especially with a new car that is a development of last year’s design.
Reliability was the team’s biggest strength last year. That allowed them to take advantage of retirements from Ferrari and less often, Red Bull. That reliability is likely to remain, but if Ferrari have improved theirs, then Mercedes is going to need to improve their relative performance to stay in the hunt and that may be difficult if their concept is flawed.
Upgrade Planned
The team say that while they do not believe that the side pods are all that important, they do have an upgrade planned for this part of the car. That suggests that they are not completely sure that the zero pods are going to deliver what they need. There is a risk that they are sticking with a basic design that was flawed in 2022.
The W14 is not a clean sheet design. The team were worried that by starting from scratch they would drop even further behind, especially given the constraints of the cost cap era. That underlines how important it was to get last year’s car right. It is so much harder to spend your way out of trouble nowadays. Mercedes must hope that their design really is worth sticking with, but the fact that nobody else has gone down the same route may speak volumes.
Playing Catch Up
Mercedes ruled the roost when the 2014 regulations turned F1 into an engine/power unit formula. They started with the most powerful and reliable power unit, and it took a long time for others to get to parity, and that was before the cost cap. The 2022 regulation changes moved F1 back to being an aerodynamic formula and Mercedes have taken a unique approach to the new regulations. They are now playing catch up. How long will it take to reach parity?
If they stay in third place, Mercedes may have to admit defeat and change tack, in which case they could be out of the frame for a number of years. The fact that they have said that the sidepods are an area of the car targeted for an in-season upgrade suggests that they may be preparing to bite the bullet and go the way of the other teams’ designs. If so, 2023 could be another frustrating season.
The acid test is the car. Will the ugly duckling become the beautiful swan? Or are they trying to polish a turd?
2023 Formula 1 Season: Mercedes Summary
After dominating the sport for so many years, the end of the turbo-hybrid era and the start of the new ground effect era was always going to be a threat for Mercedes. They had an uncompetitive car from the start of the season. It was a very different design philosophy which they struggled to make work.
They look like starting 2023 with that same basic design philosophy which begs the question, why? There is no plan B? Hamilton described the W13 as the worst car he had ever driven. Using that design as a platform for the W14 seems high risk. When they found the car’s sweet spot, it was reasonably competitive in terms of race pace, but it was a poor qualifier and suffered more than most in terms of porpoising.
Good Drivers
Continuity in the team is generally good but they have lost people in recent seasons to other teams. The driver line up is very good and if the engineers have solved the multiple problems of the W13, then they can start to close the gap to Red Bull, but it was a big gap.
It is hard to think that Mercedes could be any worse than they were in 2022 but they are being overestimated by the bookmakers. They are still thinking that this is the turbo-hybrid era Mercedes. It is not. The game changed in 2022 and Mercedes dropped the ball. They must be better, but championship challengers? That seems optimistic.
Constructors Championship Odds – 4.25
Lewis Hamilton – 8.00
George Russell – 17.00
McLaren
McLaren finished the 2022 season in 5th place, exactly 600 points behind Red Bull. It was also one place lower than in 2021 with fewer points scored. From a steady rate of recovery in previous years, the team fell back, not just stalled. Can they get back on track in 2023?
They have got rid of Daniel Ricciardo and replaced him with a rookie driver, so that is a negative in terms of continuity. We shall have to wait and see, but the rookie may still be able to score more points than the very disappointing Ricciardo did in 2022.
Piastri In
His replacement is Australian driver Oscar Piastri, who was involved in a tug of love situation at the end of 2022. He was contracted to Alpine and was that team’s first choice to replace the departing Alonso. However, Alpine had forgotten to extend his contract and that allowed McLaren to swoop and pluck the driver from under their nose. Alpine were not best pleased and many in the paddock did not like the way Piastri had acted.
Alpine had backed his development through the junior ranks, investing a lot of money in him, only for the driver to jump into bed with a rival team. The young Aussie may have drawn a bit of a target on his back. Much is now expected of him and rather than having a reasonably low profile first season in which to bed in, he has put himself in the spotlight.
Seidl Gone To Sauber
Much more importantly, McLaren have parted ways with team boss Andreas Seidl. He was seen as the man to lead McLaren back to the top level, but he has been lured to Sauber as part of the Audi takeover there. This was not in the script. Bedding in a new person at the top of the tree is not easy. First, you need to find a replacement of at least the same quality. Then, they have to learn the team’s structure, build relationships and that is not the work of a moment.
McLaren are still under resourced in terms of their wind tunnel and simulators. They do not have state of the art facilities in those respects. Last year’s car was derailed from the very first test when they discovered their brake design was a major problem.
Resources had to be spent on fixing it and that hurt them in 2022. According to outgoing boss Seidl, it will still hurt them in 2023, such was the size of the resource allocation. The development of the 2023 car had to take a back seat and it may be a bit undercooked coming into the start of this season.
Lacking Engineers
Organizationally, McLaren lacked enough engineers to fix the 2022 car and develop the 2023 car. A recruitment campaign was carried out at the tail end of 2022 but that is too late for the 2023 car, at least in the early stages of the season. They now have lots of new engineers to bed in, along with a new team boss, with a car that is already likely to be behind schedule and less than ideal tools at their disposal. Challenging to say the least.
This is a team that finished 3rd in 2020, 4th in 2021 and 5th in 2022. With teams like Alpine and Aston Martin heading in the right direction, just staying in 5th place might be seen as an achievement. How well Oscar Piastri performs is going to be very important for McLaren’s place in the constructor’s championship and prizemoney earned.
It may be that he will be able to contribute a lot more than Ricciardo did in 2022, but it is asking a lot to think he will rock up and match the performance of Lando Norris, the team’s prized asset who signed a long term contract last year.
Norris Committed
Norris has committed to the team until the end of 2025. That was a vote of confidence in the team from their star driver, but Norris signed up under the leadership of Seidl. Does he now regret signing such a long deal?
He says that he is prepared to wait ‘a few more years’ for the team to be fully competitive. He hopes that 2025 will be the year that he will finally have the car he needs. That is not a sign of confidence for this season and smacks of simple optimism that things will eventually get better.
McLaren, along with Mercedes and Alpha Tauri, missed the boat in terms of designing a good car for the new 2022 ground effect era of cars. The cost cap meant they had to spend too much on fixing their brakes rather than develop the whole car.
The cost cap means that every team is carrying forward more parts than used to be the case, but you don’t want to be carrying forward and bad design. Cost cap issues could see teams with disappointing or fundamentally flawed 2022 cars, carrying baked in problems form last year into this.
Multiple Problems
McLaren didn’t just have brake problems last year. They decided to change their sidepod design mid-season, moving to a more Red Bull like solution. They seem to have carried more Red Bull like features into the 2023 Formula 1 season. The team said they were not entirely happy with the car they launched. They have a number of upgrades in the pipeline and new boss Andrea Stella warned fans not to expect too much from the car in the early part of the season.
All this suggests McLaren are on the back foot, recovering from a poor 2022, playing catch up and getting stung by the realities of the cost cap. Another rebuilding year? It looks like it. Lando Norris has talked about the need to be patient and has ruled out any hope of mixing it with the big three.
2023 Formula 1 Season: McLaren Summary
I have to expect another underwhelming season for McLaren. Continuity is poor, in terms of top tier management, a driver change and new staff being bedded in. There is no great buzz about the team and after a few years of a more resurgent nature, the new ground effect era got off to a bad start for the team. They have fallen down the pecking order and are not in a place to bounce back just yet.
Constructors Championship Odds – 301.00
Lando Norris – 251.00
Oscar Piastri – 1001.00
Alpine
Last year saw Alpine designing their power unit to maximise power over reliability, knowing that they would be able to make changes under the regulations allowing redesigns that related only to reliability. That means we should see better reliability for the French outfit. Their power unit was finally on a par with Mercedes and Ferrari, but it needed work over the winter to fix the reliability. This was planned and team boss Otmar Szafnauer says that solutions have been found. The water pump was the main offender and that has been redesigned and sited in a different part of the car. Piston rings have been strengthened to extend the life of the power units. Dyno tests have left the team satisfied that performance and reliability now look good, but the acid test is when the car hits the track.
Gasly On Board
Pierre Gasly has joined the team, ending his ties with the Red Bull teams. The French team now has two French drivers, but the two are said not to be great friends. Will Gasly turn out to be a suitable replacement for Alonso?
On the face of it, no. Alonso is a two-time World Champion and regarded as one of the most talented drivers on the grid. Alpine were not expecting to lose Alonso and they then lost their preferred replacement, Oscar Piastri, to McLaren. That makes Gasly their third choice, which is hardly a ringing endorsement.
On the other hand, Alonso is getting long in the tooth, not getting any faster and not cheap to employ. He is also regarded as poor team player. Gasly is an experienced driver and like Ocon, is a race winner. However, he is new to the team and will face a season of learning the new car and settling into his new team.
Driver Dynamics Key
Gasly says he is excited by the prospect of racing for a works team again but now he gets on with Ocon will be interesting. Their careers are very similar and both know each other from their younger days karting in France. It is said that they are no longer close, and a rivalry looks likely. That can be good, or destructive. We shall have to wait and see how the two gel, but Ocon has form for clashing with teammates on and off the track.
The prospects for the team are reasonable. A more reliable, but still powerful, power unit bodes well and with question marks over close rival McLaren, they will be aiming to secure their fourth place in the constructor’s championship.
The fact that they were 342 points shy of Mercedes in 2022 tells its own story. Narrowing that gap is the target, closing it completely, very unlikely. Continuity at managerial level is better than in recent years, but they do have to bed in a new driver, albeit an experienced one.
Moving in Right Direction
Last year’s A522 was an improvement. The A523 should be another step in the right direction. There is low hanging fruit in terms of improved reliability, but the car has improved suspension and aerodynamics. The front suspension has been modified to improve airflow from the front wing feeding down the sides and into the rear of the car.
The rear suspension has changed from a push rod to a pull rod set up. This reduced weight by a considerable amount, has improved mechanical balance and allows for a better airflow. New rear wings have been designed to reduce drag via greater efficiency.
The team say that they have saved weight with the new car coming in under the minimum weight of 798kg. This is underlined by the fact that they are one of the few teams to have a car that is largely painted.
There will be a ‘Pink Panther’ livery for the first few races, before switching to the all-blue design. Not every car will be underweight, so that is a nice little gain for Alpine. They will have to add ballast to bring the car up to 798kg, but that gives the engineers better set up options on a track by track basis.
More Gains To Come
The car’s in season development will largely be around the floor. The designers worked hard on this last year and believe that there is still a lot of performance to be gained. They also say that they have recovered the downforce lost by the FIA mandating a rise in the ride heights.
The team’s ambitions are to close the gap to the big three, and the occasional podium finish is now considered a realistic prospect for a team who are quite bullish about the gains made over the winter. Definitely a team to keep onside punting wise.
2023 Formula 1 Season: Alpine Summary
Alpine are heading in the right direction, but what is the limit to their potential? It is a works team, but not one on a par with Ferrari or Mercedes in terms of resources.
Continuity has been better than in recent years management wise, but Alpine are having to bed a new driver into a two time World Champion’s seat. The driver line up is not stellar and could be combustible.
Car wise, I like Alpine’s prospects. They can pick up more points with improved reliability and they are working to a clean plan. Their problem is that the gap to the third best team was 342 points. That is a different formula.
Constructors Championship Odds – 201.00
Esteban Ocon – 501.00
Pierre Gasly – 501.00
Alfa Romeo
The team that started 2022 with a weight advantage compared to most of the field, but wasted it with poor reliability. As the other manufacturers shed weight, so Alfa Romeo became less competitive. They only scored four points in the last thirteen races, and fifty one from the first nine.
Since then, they have lost team principle Fred Vasseur to Ferrari and their title sponsor, Orlen, has walked. That sponsor has been replaced by Stake, an online casino. That raises a few problems as various countries have restrictions on gambling advertising, including Switzerland, where Sauber are based.
Seidl Added To Team
McLaren’s Andres Seidl joins the team as CEO of the Sauber group and Italian Alunni Bravi will take over Vasseur’s role for race weekends. Seidl is expected to formally take over as team principal in due course. Hardly a smooth transition, but this is about preparing for Audi’s forthcoming takeover of the team. Bravi has been with the team since 2017 so at least he is an insider and knows the ropes.
Alfa were not a serious team in 2022 and won’t be a serious team in 2023. Bottas and Zhou remain as the two drivers. Bottas scored 49 of the teams 55 points in 2022 and Zhou was a big disappointment. It is only fair to give him another year to prove himself, but he will be under more pressure in 2023.
There is a three year transition process, changing from an Alfa Romeo branded car to the fully fledged Audi works team. This year will see a recruitment drive with the emphasis on the future rather than striving for greatness in 2023.
No Audi Benefits Yet
The new car will have been designed under the limited budget of the Sauber ownership and won’t have benefitted from any Audi investment. It can show progress only if reliability has been significantly improved. Cooling problems were the root cause of many of the reliability issues and the new car has changes to the cooling systems to try and address the problems.
They will continue to run the Ferrari Power units and they should benefit from the expected increase in power for 2023. Ferrari have also worked on reliability and again, Alfa Romeo should benefit from improvements in that respect.
Last year’s car was not a great all-rounder, being decent on slower tracks but poor in fast corners, and this is one area that has been addressed, or at least efforts have been made to have a wider operating window.
Focus On Rear End Changes
Most of the changes to the car are said to be at the rear end. There is a new gearbox, built in-house. There are nods to last years Red Bull design and there is some Ferrari mimicry there as well. The new cooling system has allowed the design to copy the Red Bull side pods.
The car shown at the launch featured floor edges with multiple ridges running along its edge which looks quite strange. That floor was not on the car when the Alfa took to the track for its shakedown/filming day. The team say that the front end of the car will be developed throughout the season.
Alfa Romeo finished 6th last year but they were 104 points off McLaren in 5th place. They ended up tied on 55 points with Aston Martin and while Alfa Romeo ground to a halt in the second half of 2022, Aston Martin were improving.
It looks like it will be hard for Alfa Romeo to hold on to 6th place. They do have lots of low hanging fruit to pick in terms of simply improving reliability, and gains from an improved Ferrari power unit, but this is a team very much looking at the years ahead rather than 2023.
2023 Formula 1 Season: Alfa Romeo Summary
Continuity is not good with a change at the very top. This is clearly a season of preparing for the takeover by Audi. Their limited resources are likely to be spent on longer term ambitions rather than fighting for success in 2023.
The car looks decent, they will benefit from an improved Ferrari power unit, but they need to improve general reliability. The driver line up is unchanged, but it is not one to set the pulse racing. Bottas has his strengths, but Zhou failed to impress in 2022 and he needs to start delivering more points. I would be surprised if they can hang on to their 6th place from 2022.
Constructors Championship Odds – 501.00
Valtteri Bottas – 1001.00
Guanyu Zhou – 2001.00
Aston Martin
The big change at Aston Martin came with the retirement of Sebastian Vettel and the arrival of Fernando Alonso as his replacement. It is a long time since Alonso was World Champion (2006) and ten years since he won a race. He is now 41 years old and that, by any stretch of the imagination, is pushing it for a competitive F1 driver.
Is he a suitable replacement for Vettel? In terms of giving the team (and their blue chip sponsors) a big name driver to match their ambitions, yes. In much the same way as signing Sebastian Vettel was. They need a star driver to help them look credible.
Will he deliver race wins? Very unlikely. Will he be able to put together the odd great result, such as nicking a podium or two? Probably, in the same way as Vettel did. Races with high attrition, or bad weather, allow for the older, more experienced drivers to cash in.
Alonso Not A Team player
Alonso is known not to be a good team player. He wants what is best for himself. How he will get on in a team that employs one of the owners’ son as their second driver will be interesting. Lawrence Stroll tends to get more involved than he should do in the operational side of the team, rather than purely the business side. He wants Lance Stroll to be successful, while Alonso’s first job will be to establish dominance over Stroll, otherwise his place in the team is pointless. If Daddy gets involved, sparks could fly.
Talking of Lance Stroll, his season got off to the worst of starts before it had even begun. He fell off his bike and has a wrist injury, possibly a fracture. It was enough to rule him out of the one and only pre-season test. He was only going to get one and a half days at most in the new car, which is not a lot.
Now he goes into the first race weekend with just a few laps at the shake down/filming day under his belt. If Stroll is not fit for the first race, Aston will have to draft in a reserve driver. They can’t use super sub Nico Hulkenberg anymore as he is driving for Haas. Their test driver and reigning Formula 2 champion Felipe Drugovich is first in line, but his lack of experience is a negative.
Looking To Future?
Alonso says he has come to try and build a team. The results won’t come this year, but hopefully in the years to come. With the greatest of respect, you don’t want a 41 year old to build a team around. When Aston Martin sign a bright youngish thing, like a Charles Leclerc or Lando Norris, you would see that they were serious. But a driver in the twilight of his career?
We shall have to wait and see just how competitive the 2023 Aston Martin is. This will be their first car designed under Dan Fallows, the former head of aerodynamics at Red Bull. It is a completely new car and it has got people talking up Aston Martin’s chances.
The team are in the process of moving into a brand-new factory. That means state of the art facilities are coming online, but moving house is not always straight forward.
Mixed 2022 Season
Aston Martin had a very mixed 2022. Their car wasn’t ready for the start of the season and it was very uncompetitive. This led to them adopting a different design philosophy in mid-season and just binning their first effort.
A hard thing to do under a cost cap, but it paid off as the car became more competitive in the second half of 2022. However, the damage had been done and they ended up just 7th at the end of the year. Bearing in mind, this is the team that used to be Force India, the best bangs for bucks team there was, scrapping for the minor points was a step backwards, despite the increase in investment.
Stability Key
If Aston Martin can summon up the Force India spirit and make best use of the improved resources, they could be one of the most improved teams of 2023. They were at least pointing in the right direction by the end of 2022 and another poor year would be unacceptable. However, there has been a lot of change for the Silverstone based team in recent years and that process is ongoing.
A period of stability is needed and that makes the choice of employing Alonso look strange. It was interesting that their old boss, Otmar Szafnauer, says that he expects 2024 to be the year that Aston Martin make a step forward, citing that they are still bedding in a lot of new people and the benefits of that will not be seen in 2023.
The new car has generally got a thumbs up from paddock watchers. Aston Martin deputy technical boss, Eric Blandin, says the 2023 Formula One season car has some “clever innovations” taking advantage of certain rule loopholes. The car is 95% new compared to last year. Most teams are carrying over more parts than used to be the case, due to stable regulations and the constraints of the cost cap so Aston Martin are a bit of an outlier in this respect.
2023 Formula 1 Season: Aston Martin Summary
Like Alpine, Aston Martin are building for the future. The start of the ground effect era was not good for them, but at least they realised they had gone down the wrong path and changed tack. Their momentum was improving in the second half of 2022 and they should be more competitive from the start of this season.
Continuity is not great. A big change in the driver line up being the most obvious. They are not getting a ‘like for like’ change in terms of Alonso for Vettel. Both may be quick and very experienced, but Alonso will be harder to handle. As a team that are trying to build themselves into a top team, they continue to recruit more people and they also have a move into new premises to complete.
Aston Martin should easily move ahead of Alfa Romeo in the constructor’s championship and it looks like they will be able to get above McLaren. Aston Martin have finished 7th in their first two seasons under their new name. As Racing Point Force India they had two 7th place finishes, but as Force India they finished 6th in 2014, 5th in 2015 and 4th in 2017 and 2018. That 4th or 5th place is where they should be. Alpine may be harder to catch but this should be a better season for Aston Martin.
Constructors Championship Odds – 67.00
Fernando Alonso – 41.00
Lance Stroll – 501.00
Alpha Tauri
Pierre Gasly has left the team to drive for Alpine, and he is replaced by Nyck de Vries. De Vries made a good impression when he stood in for Alex Albon for Williams at Monza last year, finishing 9th. De Vries has been on the periphery of F1 for a while and while he has some experience of the cars, he is still effectively a rookie and that is something of a negative.
He is a very experienced ‘rookie’ and is highly rated. There is even talk of him being a possible replacement for Sergio Perez at Red Bull as soon as next year.
Disappointing Tsunoda
The driver line up of a relatively inexperienced De Vries and an underwhelming Yuki Tsunoda is not great. Gasly may not be a top class driver, but he was an asset to Alpha Tauri. Tsunoda has had two years to learn the ropes at the team and as an F1 driver. Has he made any great progress?
Having a poor car last year didn’t help but he was easy to overlook. Only three drivers scored fewer points and two of them drove for Williams. He still seems to be coming to terms with the demands of F1 but now he will be required to deliver better performances, more often. He can do a decent job in qualifying but his race pace often disappointed.
Tsunoda as the senior driver in any team is a ridiculous proposition and while the Honda situation gives him some leverage, he is not a driver on any other teams shopping list.
2023 Formula 1 Season: Alpha Tauri Summary
2022 was a poor season for the team. To finish just 9th was a disappointment for a team that may be small but is the Red Bull B team. Traditionally, they would finish 7th and occasionally 6th. They should have the beating of Williams in 2023 but their target should be to regain that 7th place and that means beating Alfa Romeo, who finished 18 points ahead in 2022, and Haas who were just two points behind Toro Rosso last year.
The loss of Pierre Gasly is a negative and we don’t know how good De Vries will turn out to be, but if he was something special, why did he not reach F1 before now? The thought of Tsunoda as the team leader is ridiculous and unless the car takes a big step forward, I expect they will struggle again.
Constructors Championship Odds – 751.00
Yuki Tsunoda – 2001.00
Nyck De Vries – 2001.00
Haas
The only team to have finished last in the last five years that wasn’t Williams. They basically gave up on 2021, putting all their limited resources into the 2022 car and the new generation of ground effect cars. Last year saw them finish in 8th place, so giving up on 2021 did pay off.
They still only scored 37 points, but that was enough to finish ahead of Williams and Alpha Tauri. All but two points were scored in the first eleven races and that highlights the potential of starting the season with a reliable car, especially in a season with big rule changes. The fact that they faded away as the season went on is a worry.
Tough To Compete
As a small team they are never going to compete with the midfield proper but given a bit of luck they have a good enough package to pick up minor points from time to time. They have been increasingly close to Ferrari in recent years, even having an office at Maranello. Strangely, team principle, Gunther Steiner, is now saying that Haas is striving for more autonomy.
Things like building its own gearbox and suspension are options for the future, but for the meantime, Haas have close links with Ferrari. More power and better reliability should come from the 2023 Ferrari power unit which could help them at least stay off the bottom rung of the ladder.
The team parted ways with Mick Schumacher at the end of 2022. He wasn’t really a chip off the old block and was costing the team a lot of money for repairs. Into his place comes veteran Nico Hulkenberg. The Magnussen – Hulkenberg line up is a very experienced one and arguably their biggest asset.
New Sponsor
Perhaps the most important news about Haas is that it has a new title sponsor. Moneygram are investing enough money into the team that they will be able to spend right up to the cost cap for the first time ever.
Dallara will still make the chassis and Ferrari will supply the power units, hydraulics, gearbox, suspension and much of what is under the skin of the car. All this allows for them to employ relatively few people (around 200) but while that is good for keeping costs down, with 23 races on the calendar, it puts a lot of stress on the travelling staff. They do not have the luxury of rotating the staff that travel to the races and that will take its toll.
There seems to be no reason why Haas cannot now move back into the midfield proper. They are never going to be more than a midfield team but occasionally they can shine and grab the headlines and they can provide some good punting opportunities at decent odds.
2023 Formula 1 Season: Haas Summary
It was a much improved season last year at Haas, but that was not going to be difficult. They have another driver change, this time the hugely experienced Nico Hulkenberg in for the disappointing Schumacher. That should be a positive and their driver line up is much better than Williams, Alpha Tauri and Alfa Romeo.
If the car is decent there is the prospect of a relatively good season for Haas. They will have the improved Ferrari power unit for starters and an improved driver line up. The team is small but continuity is good. They have only been in F1 for seven seasons, this will be their eighth, and their best ever was to finish 5th in 2018. They have been 8th three times and that will be the target.
Punting Perspective
From a punting point of view, Haas are always worth considering for a points finish. They are unfashionable and underrated. However, if you are backing them, be aware that they usually score the bulk of their points in the first half of the season.
The exception was that 2018 season, when they were more consistent all the way through. Kevin Magnussen scored 23 of his 25 points in the first 11 races in 2022. Maybe having more money will help Haas to do more in-season development and they are a team to keep on side betting wise.
Constructors Championship Odds – 1501.00
Kevin Magnussen – 1001.00
Nico Hulkenberg – 1001.00
Williams
The perennial backmarkers have seen plenty of changes over the winter. They have a new team boss. Mercedes former chief strategist, James Vowles, takes over from the departed Jost Capito. They have a new number 2 driver. Logan Sargent, an American driver promoted from F2 and a product of the Williams driver academy. They have a new sponsor, Gulf International, the oil company that was seen on the McLaren for the last few years.
The team held a new livery launch in early February, so there was no new car on display. The team say that the real thing will see heavily revised side pods, front suspension changes and aerodynamic changes.
Last year’s car started off with the Mercedes style zero side pod design. That proved to be a bit of a disaster. A redesign was ready in time for the British GP and was a more conventional, Red Bull style inspired look. Cost meant that they couldn’t go as far as they would like, and the winters work will have been to complete that midseason redesign.
Progress Made?
Simulator work has given the drivers optimism that progress has been made but they are not sure until the real thing hits the track. It should be a step in the right direction, but how big a step?
The problem for Williams is that they are small team with modest resources. The hoped for uptick in form following the move away from the Williams family ownership to new investors, Dorilton Capital, in 2020, has not happened. In four of the last five seasons, Williams have finished last.
They finished 8th in 2021, the first year under new ownership, but that was due to George Russell being classified as finishing second in the Belgian GP. That was the race that never was, just a few laps behind the safety car. Russell had got lucky in a wild and wet Saturday qualifying and that was enough. In 2022, it was back to being last again.
Increased Wind Tunnel Time
The team do have the advantage of having more wind tunnel/CFD time than anyone else, thanks to finishing last in 2022. Whether they have the resources to make the most of that is another question.
Vowles is the man set with the task of reaping the rewards of Dorilton’s investment in the team. They have stabilised the team’s finances but not its performance. Turning around the team’s fortunes is not the work of a moment, but the only way is up if you are normally finishing last.
The fact that Vowles is a Mercedes man and Williams use Mercedes power units suggests that the two teams could become closer technically. In the same way as Alpha Tauri and Red Bull work? Maybe not that close, at least not yet, but it makes some sense for both parties.
2023 Formula 1 Season: Williams Summary
The only way is up for Williams, or they could remain rooted to the foot of the championship. Continuity is poor with a team boss change and a driver change. Getting shot of Nicolas Latifi has to be a positive. They have signed up another North American driver to replace him.
Logan Sargeant is an American driver and that might be a good move sponsor wise as F1 grows in popularity in the USA. He finished 4th in F2 last year, winning a couple of races but his career in the junior series he has raced in could not be described as any better than OK. 3rd in F4 and 3rd in F3 shows that there have been better drivers every time.
Alex Albon was good enough to be a Red Bull driver, if only for a short time, but he is a decent driver and will pick up the odd point, more if the car is up to it. He is no George Russell however and there is little to get excited about at Williams.
Constructors Championship Odds – 2501.00
Alex Albon – 2001.00
Logan Sargeant – 2001.00
The 2023 F1 Season Calendar
This was supposed to be a 24 race calendar, but once again the Chinese GP has been cancelled. That still leaves a marathon 23 races and a lot of back-to-back races weekends. There will be no French GP, not a great loss as the tracks used for the race over the years have been poor. Germany remains out of the loop as the sports owners move more races to the USA and the middle east.
The USA will now host three races, including the new Las Vegas GP, the Miami GP, and the US GP at the COTA in Texas. Two Mickey Mouse tracks and Texas. Quantity over quality is the order of the day.
Bahrain once again hosts the opening race of the season, followed by the Saudi Arabian GP. The third race in the Middle East comes in October with a return to the underwhelming Lusail International circuit, used for the 2021 Qatar GP. Italy once again gets two races, one at Imola and the other at Monza.
The teams will still only be allowed three power units for the entire season, so there will be an even greater premium on reliability.
The six sprint race weekends will help any car that has tyre warm up problems and there are usually one or two.
Pre-Season Testing
Pre-season testing was cut to just three days running at the Shakir circuit, the venue for the opening race of the season in Bahrain. One car, two drivers and three days. That puts a premium on getting plenty of laps in to capture as much data as possible.
By and large, that was achieved by most teams. Alpha Tauri got the most laps in with 456, Followed by Williams with 444. Most teams were around the 400 lap mark but McLaren only got 312 laps completed, two more than Aston Martin who had the least with 310.
Predicting the cars relative pace based on testing is not an exact science and there was no team that stood out as being a total basket case. Last year’s testing was all about porpoising and it was clear that some teams were going to struggle more than others, but the regulation change in terms of the floor height does seem to have worked. The Bahrain track is very bumpy and it can give the impression that the cars are porpoising but mostly it was just the car hitting bumps.
Red Bull Impressive
The Red Bull looked very good. There is nothing massively different, just detailing improvements, but it was fast, reliable and left its drivers very happy. The factory to track correlation is said to be very good. They remain the team to beat.
Their best time of the test was faster than last year’s pole position time and that was with Sergio Perez behind the wheel. Ominous. Last year’s championship winning car has got better. Quick over sprints and long runs with good tyre management. Very much the team to beat.
Ferrari More Reliable
Ferrari got plenty of laps in, reliability was good and that was important. The car looked quick, seemed to be well balanced and handled well. There was some concern about tyre wear. Their tyres looked in worse shape after long runs.
They appear to have improved straight-line speed and lost a bit of cornering pace, but closing that gap on the straights was important. It looks Ferrari will be Red Bull’s closest rivals but whether they have closed the gap is not clear. The car was one that was showing some signs of porpoising but that was said to be because they ran a very low set up on one day.
Mercedes Shortcomings
Mercedes was the car that everyone was watching. Firstly, the bouncing had all but gone. That is a big step forward. However, the car was not without its shortcomings. There was clearly a lot of rear end instability, especially under acceleration out of slow corners. The rear wheels were spinning up, leaving a rubber trail on the track. Not good. There was also some problem with the aero performance of the front suspension.
Body language can be telling and while Verstappen was very smiley, the Mercedes drivers were a little flat. The car is better, but it still has problems. Russell said that they will not be contending for the race win in Bahrain. Where are they in the pecking order? Sill in third is the consensus. More work is needed.
Hydraulic Failure
Russell also suffered a hydraulic failure on day 2 and he only managed 26 laps on that day. It was not a great test for Mercedes, the car is not yet ready to challenge Red Bull and even the gap to Ferrari may not have improved. The team never really understood the W13 and this evolution of that car looks equally confusing. Optimists will cite Hamilton’s 2nd place on the time sheets on day 3, pessimists will point to day 2 when they were all over the place.
The big three look like they will still be the big three, but can anyone make it a big four?
Aston Martin Most Improved
The testing award for most improved car went to Aston Martin. They put in the fewest laps with 310, but there was nobody talking about that. It is a completely new car and Alonso was putting in quick lap times. Faster than Mercedes? Yes, on day 1 and 2 but not on day 3.
Times are fairly meaningless as the fuel loads, time of day and tyre compounds are all factors, but the paddock watchers were getting quite excited. Their long run pace was the thing that was eye catching. It was managing the tyre wear very well, and much better than Ferrari.
Alonso was more conservative saying that it is a good car, easy to drive, but the big three will remain the big three. He expects Aston Martin to be closer, but the gap from where the team was last year to the big three was huge and bridging it in one season is unrealistic.
That said, the chance of them picking up podium finishes does seem to have improved. It was far from ideal that Lance Stroll was not able to take part in testing. He would have been able to quantify just how big an improvement the new car is, but Alonso can only compare it to last year’s Alpine.
Red Bull Similarities
Aston Martin remind me of Red Bull. The current world champions started out by buying Jaguar and head hunting key staff. Their best signing was Adrian Newey, poached from McLaren. Aston Martin bought Racing Point and they have invested money in a new factory, lots of new employees and made some key signings.
Is Dan Fellows from Red Bull their Adrian Newey? He will have worked alongside Newey and it was no coincidence that after Fellows started work at Aston Martin last April, it wasn’t long before the team changed the design mid-season to a more Red Bull like one.
New Car From Scratch
This year’s AMR23 is the first Fellows designed car starting from scratch and he is assisted by ex-Mercedes aerodynamicist Eric Blandin. There were rumours during the winter that the numbers coming out of the wind tunnel suggested that the car was going to be quick. That has been largely borne out in testing. With Mercedes still having a very unpredictable car, there could be an opportunity for Aston Martin to move ahead and replace Mercedes in the big three.
The ultra-optimists are talking about a repeat of 2009 when Brawn rose out of the ashes of Honda and won the championship with Jensen Button. That may be pushing it a bit. That Brawn was effectively a Honda works car designed by Ross Brawn with a different paint job. It was the car that was supposed to win Honda their first title and it had a lot of money spent on it.
McLaren Struggles
The team closest to being a basket case was McLaren. They had a bad test in terms of losing track time. The front wheel fairings came loose on day one and running repairs had to be carried out. The problem resurfaced on day three and it was all very downbeat for the team.
Last year it was brake problems which ruined their season. This season they have started off with another problem with the front wheel fairings. The car didn’t look great on track either and there was a spin for new boy Piastri.
It just looks like the car is not ready and maybe not that good. With the likes of Aston Martin and Alpine looking to have made good steps forward, it looks like McLaren are going fall back into the midfield. How far back? Seventh might be about right, pessimists would say eighth.
Alpine A Team To Watch
Alpine are one of my teams to watch in 2023. On the face of it, testing wasn’t great for them. They were only 8th in terms of laps completed and their car never higher than 10th on the timesheets. It looked very stiff out on the track and the drivers were taking a beating on the bumpy track. All very underwhelming.
However, the team personnel were said to be perfectly happy and upbeat. The long run pace was said to be good, and the team say that they have a significant upgrade for the first race. Their pace will be very interesting at the first race. The body language says they should be up there with Aston Martin as best of the rest, but we shall have to wait and see how much performance they have been holding back.
Power Unit Problems for Alfa?
Alfa Romeo topped the time sheets on day 2 and were 3rd on the final day. Low fuel runs? Yes. They are not going to be challenging for the front row in qualifying. Bottas, sporting his 1970’s porn star ‘tache, caused a red flag when his car broke down. It was said to be power unit related, but it sounded like a broken gearbox. That will be a worry as their big job over the winter was to improve reliability. The jury is still out on that one.
Bottas was positive about the car, saying it was nice to drive and its fast corner instability has been cured and the mood is said to be positive. They are still a midfield outfit but one that might about to move ahead of McLaren, reliability permitting.
Unremarkable Alpha Tauri
Alpha Tauri is a team that are easy to forget about. This season’s test was unremarkable apart from the fact they completed more laps than anyone else. Last year they set the fast time but ended up slow come the race. This year they pounded in the miles and did some decent low fuel runs but the thing it did have was understeer. Not as much as last year’s car, but there was little to get excited about.
Haas had a tidy test. Plenty of laps showed the car to be reliable and it all looked respectable. The midfield will be a busy place and Haas look capable of being in the hunt for the minor points. Another team good enough to worry McLaren.
Williams Lacks Downforce
Perennial backmarkers Williams appear to have improved the car, but it lacks downforce. They completed plenty of laps, will have generated plenty of data and they have more wind tunnel/CFD time than anyone else to make the most of the data. Budget and personnel allowing, they should be able to improve the car but there was nothing to suggest that they are going to move off the bottom of the table.
Market Movers
Testing did have some interesting effects on the betting markets. Before testing Red Bull were 2.10 favourites to win the constructors championship. Now they are 1.67. Mercedes were 2.40 but have drifted to 4.25. Ferrari are in from 7.50 to 5.00.
The biggest market move was Aston Martin who were 351.00 but are into 67.00. Alonso has been cut from 201.00 to just 41.00 for the drivers’ championship, which may be the worst value bet on offer.
McLaren have gone from 151.00 to 301.00 and they are still poor value. Norris can now be backed for the drivers’ championship at 251.00 having been 126.00 last week. Alpine have drifted out a little to 201.00 from 151.00 pre-test.
That is interesting as most of the ‘experts’ are still ranking Alpine quite highly, but the betting markets saw testing as a negative for the French outfit. That suggests there will be some value around the Alpine drivers in the early races.
2023 Formula 1 Season: Ante Post Selections
The ante post markets are not awash with value and side markets are limited. There is not a lot of competition around and nobody seems keen to take a bet. Such is the way of betting on F1 these days.
The build up to a new season can be very interesting, as it was last year with the introduction of the new ground effect cars. There were plenty of unknowns and lots of head scratching. This season it is all a bit predictable looking.
You won’t find any sane person who is saying that Red Bull are not going into the first race as the team to beat. They tick all the boxes. This has not gone unnoticed by the bookmakers. I thought that their odds for the Constructors Championship would have collapsed post testing, and they have been cut from 2.10 to a best of 1.67.
Cycles
Formula 1 tends to go in cycles with one team at the top until something changes the pecking order. Last year it was the move to the ground effect regulations which dethroned Mercedes and looks to have ushered in Red Bull for their second spell as the dominant team.
The last team not to defend their Constructors’ Championship for at least one year was Brawn in 2010. The reason being that Brawn didn’t exist in 2010. Before that it was McLaren in 1999 and Benetton in 1996. Since 1981 the Constructors’ Championship has not been successfully defended for at least one year just three times. History suggests that Red Bull are short odds on to defend their title and there is little to suggest that it will any different in 2023.
Odds of 1.67 are hardly sexy, but they are too big.
2023 Formula 1 Season Tip: 5 points Red Bull to win the 2023 Constructors’ Championship @ 1.67 generally available
Max Verstappen is the 1.67 favourite to recapture his Drivers Championship but a much more interesting bet is in the ‘without Verstappen’ market.
Last year that was won by Charles Leclerc. With a just a little help from Verstappen, Perez should have been second, but he refused to help Perez as he believed that the Mexican had deliberately crashed during qualifying in Monaco to deny Max a final run for pole position. Perez won the race and Verstappen held that grudge. The two are said to have thrashed the matter out since and I suspect that Red Bull will be very keen to get their first ever 1-2 in the drivers’ championship.
2023 Formula 1 Season Tip: 2 points Sergio Perez to win the WDC ‘without Verstappen’ @ 7.00 with Betfair/Paddy Power, Pokerstars
The final bet is a simple seasonal match between the two Alpha Tauri drivers. Nick de Vries is the new man in the team and usually, new drivers struggle against an incumbent. However, Tsunoda is not a great driver. He is a sop to Honda for providing the power units. He has been in the team for two seasons and lost to Pierre Gasly in both by a combined margin of 106 points.
Tsunoda only had four points finishes in 2022 from 22 starts. De Vries only had one race and finished 9th in the Italian GP as a late stand in for Alex Albon. That suggests that he knows what he is doing and will be on the pace from race one. He is a former Formula 2 and Formula E Champion and has been a reserve driver at Mercedes and McLaren.
2023 Formula 1 Season Tip: 3 points Nyck De Vries to beat Yuki Tsunoda @ 1.73 with Betfair, Paddy Power
If any bookmakers come up with any more interesting side markets, this page may be updated before Friday’s first practice session in Bahrain.
