2023 Season Preview + Predictions
The countdown to the 2023 season is on!
We’re getting amped up for the season and wanted to share what's changing this year (answer: A LOT) & our sauciest predictions. We run through new drivers, principals and rule changes before taking the hot seats ourselves. If you want the full backstory on each driver, principal and team history, check out our episode from last year: Breaking down the 2022 grid.
Three rooks and a Hulk aka our new drivers
We’ve got three rookies: Nyck De Vries at Alpha Tauri, Oscar Piastri at McLaren and Logan Sargeant at Williams. Then, there’s the return of the Hulk – Nico Hulkenberg, that is.
Let’s start with Nyck De Vries, who we’ve gone into greater detail on before. Tl;dr is we are big fans. He’s the same age and vintage as some of the more established drivers on the grid like Gasly and Verstappen, but he stayed in the junior series like F2 for longer and then went down the Formula E path. He was actually almost tapped for a McLaren seat back in 2019, but they ended up going with golden child Lando Norris instead – what could have been?
After being the Mercedes reserve driver in the wings (aka baby Toto), he finally had a breakthrough race as Albon’s reserve driver in Monza last year. We like to call him the non-rookie rookie since he’s won both F2 and Formula E and brings eons of experience to the seat.
Helmut Marko agrees, suggesting that De Vries might be the team leader over Yuki Tsunoda who’s coming back for his third season.
That backstory is in stark contrast with diva-Piastri, the change agent at McLaren. Oscar Piastri has the pedigree to be a contender for rookie of the year, having won F3 and F2 in his rookie seasons a la Leclerc and Russell. That said, he’s making the most dramatic entrance to F1 after bailing on Alpine for McLaren in a messy silly season pivot that even had Toto up in arms.
He’s also replacing Daniel Ricciardo, who McLaren paid ~$15million to release from his contract early. That makes Piastri effectively the highest paid rookie ever, which is why we’re now calling him Pressurized Piastri. He’ll be alongside Lando Norris, who steps into the senior driver role despite being… 23??
Then there’s Logan Sargeant stepping into Latifi’s infamous seat at Williams. He’s the first American driver on the grid since 2015, so Williams has him permanently installed in front of the Statue of Liberty.
He’s our wild card. He came in second in F3, fourth in F2 and fought his way to the very end of last season to get the points on his superlicense to actually be on the grid. So he's relatively untested versus the other two rookies.
He's also a Floridian. For any of our international fans, all weird things in America happen in Florida. Just look at Tom Brady's life. Logan even comes with his own complicated family money laundering story.
As we've said many times, it takes a ton of money to be in F1. Logan has two people in his family who are known to be wealthy Republican donors and bigwigs in Florida. His dad, Daniel Sergeant was indicted a few years ago for bribing officials to get business for his asphalt company. He ended up paying $16.6 million in fines as part of a plea deal. That pales in comparison with the tea on his uncle Harry Sergeant III who was implicated in Trump's impeachment inquiry amongst other things.
Logan is definitely driving on his own merits, but it's unclear how much the two men have been part of funding his ascent. Watch this space, we’ll keep you posted as more of that backstory comes to light.
Finally, Nico Hulkenberg is back.(!) He last drove for Alpine in 2019 alongside Daniel Ricciardo. He actually won F2 way back in the day, so he’s long been known as a meaningful talent. However, he literally holds the record for most F1 starts without a podium, which is just devastating but may be a perfect fit for his new home at Haas.
The Hulk’s also known for some Euro wonderful wedding photo fashion, worth its own deep dive at some point.
Front and center this year will be his dynamic with Kevin Magnussen. They had a hilarious confrontation back in 2017 at the Hungarian GP. KMag forced the Hulk off the track. Hulk confronted him in interviews, to which KMag said “suck my balls, mate”.
Will we see another revival of that feud this season? We can only hope.
New principals in the paddock
40% of the paddock got a facelift in their team principal. The musical chairs started with Ferrari ousting Mattia Binotto. Fred Vasseur filled that seat, leaving a hole at Alfa Romeo. They brought in Andreas Siedl as CEO from McLaren and appear to be going principal-less. McLaren elevated Andrea Stella from within. Williams cut Jost Capito, stealing Toto’s right hand man and head of strategy, James Vowles.
Starting with Ferrari, any change seems good. Especially Vasseur, who is known to have close ties with Leclerc and have worked closely with a lot of the Ferrari team. He's super seasoned, he's been around forever. He's known to be an amazing developer of talent, and he’s the genius behind Valtteri Bottas’ multi-year contract. He’s more of a businessman vs. Binotto’s engineering sensibilities.
Siedl steps up to CEO at Alfa Romeo which seems to be permanently rebranding to Sauber - Audi ahead of that transition in 2026.
McLaren elevated Andrea Stella, former engineer who was actually the performance engineer for Michael Schumacher and Kimi Raikkonen at Ferrari back in the day. Then he came over and was working with Alonso at McLaren. He’s been around the block for a long time. Granted, it seemed like McLaren's issues were more around their car than strategy, so we’ll see how much he’s able to change.
Quick note before we dive into Vowles (Williams) – To Jost: we’re big fans. We loved seeing you help the engineers move stuff in the pouring rain while all the other team principals ate coffee and donuts inside at Monaco. It just felt like you cared.
But Vowles is an exciting replacement pick. He's been with winning teams for two decades. He served as Mercedes Head of Strategy through their dominant era. He was often seen on the race radio asking Valtteri Bottas to abort fastest laps and whatnot. This seems like a great move for him. In turn, he brings that culture of excellence to Williams, which puts them on a very interesting trajectory.
Whew, that was a lot. Seem like a lot of change for one year? It is, and we think it’s because of the massive increase in eyeballs and investment in the sport. Case in point, it looks like Dorilton Capital shook things up at Williams faster than expected.
Anything else new?
We're finally at 23 races, including Vegas which is probably the second weirdest place in America.
The regs are mostly the same.
We're up to 6 sprints instead of 3 – let’s hope these are all as racy as Brazil.
We have another cost cap drop to $135m down from $142m last year. Love to see it but the bigger question is: will anyone abide by it?
It’s Predictions Szn
Q: Who will be most dominant this year? Which team and which drivers will be at the top?
B: Mercedes v. Red Bull again. I don't have a lot of faith in Ferrari, even with all the changes. Leclerc started so strong last year, but after a couple bad runs he didn't have the mental capacity or the strength to pull himself out of it. I hope he spent the off season going inward, building some stoicism and some Max-like sociopathic tendencies. If all that happens, maybe Ferrari. But I think the 1-2 is Mercedes-Red Bull. Red Bull is gonna have some weird team dynamics with what they're doing with their third driver, putting pressure on Checo.
Lewis is hungry – his Instagram is just him topless in the gym doing his thing. For Mercedes, a lot of their issues last year were car related which they started to sort out at the end of the season. I also think George is coming into his own, off his first win at the end of last season, which shoutout to George because I said it wouldn't happen. George challenging Lewis is going to make the whole team better. So I think Mercedes will win Constructors this year and Lewis gets his eighth Drivers, but he won’t stop til 10.
M: I'm going more traditional. I think Max is in his dominant era. Meanwhile, the George / Lewis dynamic is set up for a lot of drama, especially if it’s a breakthrough year for George. That will make it more complicated for Mercedes, whereas Red Bull will put everything behind Max. So Max on Drivers but potentially Mercedes takes Constructors.
Q: Who will be best of the rest?
M: There's so much pressure from McLaren to get it this year. It was pretty embarrassing that they lost to Alpine and they blamed it all on Daniel. So I'm gonna guess Lando and McLaren, but it's also going to be a make or break year for Lando in some ways.
B: You know, I love Esteban Ocon. So my dream scenario is Alpine and Este, but I will never bet against Fernando Alonso. I'm curious to see what comes of him going to Aston Martin because Vettel had some success with that car at the end of last year. If you have someone like Alonso, who will literally drive over someone, wreck his car and still end up high in the points, what can he do? He’s my wild card.
Q: Who will be the most overrated driver and team?
B: Team: McLaren. I have no faith in them. Daniel Ricciardo was unfairly painted as the scapegoat. Driver: I hate to say it, but Leclerc. Put it together man. Get it going. I know you can do it. I need to see him step up. I think he has everything he's ever needed to be a world champion. But last year he let it slip through his fingers and I need to see more from him. In a lot of ways, poor Carlos Sainz gets relegated to second driver but he’s a stronger driver mentally. Sainz has the killer instinct and ice in his veins.
M: My team is Ferrari because there will definitely be a transition year even with Vasseur coming in. They still have deep organizational problems that need to be resolved. I’m hopeful for Leclerc though, he’s just got to go inwards! On the driver's side, Checo’s about to get squeezed in every direction – De Vries, Daniel, Max’s mother on Twitter.
Q: What will be the best bromance on the grid?
M: I'm already missing Yuki and Gasly. Bottas and Zhou are frontrunners at this point.
B: I was gonna say Bottas and the rest of the world. Bottas seems unstoppable and he's in such a healthy, wonderful space that I think he's just going to have a ton of fun this year. Case in point: that peak mullet game he’s rocking. Valtteri is going to be in the best romance with the entire world in 2023.
Shade, shade, shade
Q: Which driver pairing will have the most drama?
B: Aside from Checo and his entire team? I could see Lando and Piastri butting heads because I don't think there's enough of a senior driver dynamic there for Piastri to respect Lando. My second guess is the Hulk & KMag could just be a disaster.
M: Ocon & Gasly are my picks. I’m still recovering from the infamous basketball game which they attended together, yet all the photos were just of Leclerc and Gasly. They actively cut out Ocon! Their old beef is just lingering and festering. And they'll be fighting for something meaningful too: potentially best of the rest. It's a similar dynamic to the Lando & Piastri. No one is the established senior driver. They're the same age, the same vintage driver. They've both only won one race. It's a potential firestorm.
Q: Will Alonso still be on Team Aston Martin in 2024?
B: I think so. I think that Alonso wants that money, that Stroll-Saudi money. Yes.
Q: Do we think anyone's going to replace Latifi as the king of crashing?
M: We still have Yuki.
B: Check out the F1 insta where they asked 4 drivers – Leclerc, Gasly, Sainz and Yuki – what their dream was. It was a perfect montage: Leclerc says world champion, Gasly says world champion, Sainz says world champion. Yuki goes: I want to own my own restaurant.
Q: Will Danny Ric be on the grid this year?
M: I think contractually, if Checo or Max is sick, Red Bull has to use their reserve driver. I don't think he will, because I don't even think he'll be at a lot of races, but I think he may be back on the grid next year. He's already in such a different head space and if McLaren looks bad at the beginning of the season, he's gonna have a really good case on his hands. To quote the great Shaggy “It wasn’t me.”
B: I could see him doing a sprint race. But yes, we have not seen the end of Danny Ricciardo. I think this is the best thing that could have happened to Daniel and Mick Schumacher. Those are two people we'll see grid rebounds from in the near term.
