Formula One 2023 Winners And Losers

Dive into Formula One 2023, from Verstappen's exceptional achievements to McLaren's dramatic improvement, highlighting a promising future for Formula 1.

Formula 1 is littered with enthralling seasons that we remember for years to come, with the 2010 season being the one that sticks in my mind. The season culminated in a last-round championship showdown between eventual champion Sebastian Vettel, along with Fernando Alonso, Mark Webber, and Lewis Hamilton.

No matter if you liked it or not we have just witnessed a season in 2023 that will be talked about for years and even decades to come for a very different reason. The pure domination delivered by Red Bull Racing and Max Verstappen has been on a level that only comes around once in a generation. Domination of one team isn’t uncommon in Formula 1, especially in the last 14 seasons where all championships have been won by either Red Bull or Mercedes. Up until this season, these levels of domination have paled in comparison to Formula 1’s most dominant car, McLaren’s MP4/4 from 1988. Helping the domination was also arguably the greatest driver lineup of all time with Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost teaming up for the season.

Now Formula 1 has a new record holder as Red Bull’s RB19 has won 95.5% of the races this season. Max Verstappen claimed a record 19 victories with Sergio Perez picking up a further 2 victories for the team. With this level of domination, it is easy to forget that there are plenty of other big winners this year, along with some teams who lost some serious ground. Let us take a look at who I think this year’s big winners and losers are.

WINNERS - RED BULL RACING

I am starting off easy with the extremely obvious winners, Red Bull Racing. Their 2022 car was already the 10th most dominant ever, and they pushed it even further this year. They won all but one grand prix and scored 30 of a possible 44 podium finishes along with 14 pole positions. Many fans will say that it is only about the car and that many others could have won in that car too. While this may be the case we can see even within the Red Bull team that not just the car won them the title of the greatest car of all time.

Love him or hate him Max Verstappen was performing on a level that we have rarely seen before by any one driver. His performances compared to Sergio Perez were night and day, so much so that he could have won the constructors’ (teams) championship on his own. While the stats say that this car is the greatest ever, I believe that what allowed the dominance this year was not only the car design but the synergy created between Verstappen and the team.

LOSERS - HAAS & KEVIN MAGNUSSEN

Last year Kevin Magnussen was seen as the saviour of the Haas F1 team. Brought back from the abyss after losing his seat with the team in 2020 he scored a stunning 5th placed finish. Fast forward to this year and you could almost forget that he was even there. The Haas team runs with a different business model that uses far less resources and budget than the rest of the teams. The basis of their car design is usually fairly decent and because of this, it is not uncommon for them to start quite strongly. As the season progresses their lack of resources often means they tend to fall off as they cannot develop their car as much as other teams.

However, in 2023 we did not see a strong start from them, but to be fair they also never really fell behind from where they started the year. After looking through the results they consistently finished in the mid-teen finishing positions with a few top 10 points scoring finishes sprinkled in. With this in mind, it looks like this year’s car was not particularly good at many things. There were not really that many places that they excelled at, nor were there any that they were completely horrible at either. Unlike other teams such as Alpha Tauri or Williams there just was no track on the calendar that suited any design element of their car. These teams had drastically differing performances this season depending on the type of track, and this is what helped lift them off the bottom of the points standings. 

Another point to note is that this year’s fight between 7th and 10th in the constructors championship was closer than 2022. Although they finished last for the second time in three seasons, they were much closer to those ahead than in 2021 when they scored 0 points.

WINNERS - MCLAREN & OSCAR PIASTRI

After an extremely sluggish start to the year where they were struggling with one of the slowest cars, McLaren was this season’s biggest improver. They didn’t quite get a Grand Prix victory, but they did score themselves a sprint race courtesy of their rookie driver Oscar Piastri. On paper, it might not seem like they improved much as they finished 4th (up from 5th last year), but they did almost double their points score from 2022. For the first time in about 10 years we also started to see regular podium finishes from the team, with 8 podiums in the last 13 races by Lando Norris. If this level of improvement continues then McLaren could be a team to watch in 2024 and beyond.

Another big winner of this season was Oscar Piastri, who is emerging as the new pride of Australia. His performances this year and the speed at which he adjusted to being an F1 driver earned him praise from both inside and outside the paddock. The stats also don’t lie as he is the first rookie to score multiple podiums in a season since Lewis Hamilton in 2007, who also achieved this at McLaren. Is this a case of history repeating itself? I think it is very early to say, but it will be exciting to watch over the coming years.

LOSERS - NEUTRAL FANS

Over the last few years Formula 1 has been doing an amazing job off the track to bring in new fans, particularly younger fans. Many of these new fans have found their way to Formula 1 through the Netflix series ‘Drive To Survive’. The series goes behind the scenes at the race track and beyond to show fans the fast-paced and highly competitive world of Formula 1. However, those new fans could be forgiven in 2023 for thinking that they are watching the wrong sport as the season really didn’t match what the Netflix series portrays.

This season displayed a mix of a few different scenarios which resulted in less than entertaining viewing for the casual observer. Red Bull and Max Verstappen’s dominance robbed us of any kind of fight for race wins beyond the first few rounds. Also the performance gaps between the rest of teams became much narrower which sounds like it would make for closer racing, but has in fact had the opposite effect. These performance gaps between teams, particularly when they differ between tracks, conditions or even between qualifying and the race are what create passing opportunities. Therefore, the closer you are in performance to the driver in front of you, the harder it is to make a pass.

The cars are also larger and heavier than they have ever been which is another factor that can prevent more extreme and risky passing moves. Because of this the cars are nowhere near as agile as they have been before and so extreme wheel to wheel racing just is not possible like it has been in the past. Apart from Red Bull the rest of the field is closer than it has been in a while. However, this hasn’t necessarily translated into close racing as the less agile cars don’t allow drivers to force the passing moves you need to pull off in order to pass a car that is close in performance.

WINNERS - FORMULA 1 AND RACE PROMOTERS

This season has been another massive success for both Formula 1 and the promoters/organisers of the events in 2023. This season saw an increase in attendance of almost 10%, with an average per weekend of over 280,000. This gives Formula 1 the highest average attendance of any sporting league in the world by a country mile. Also, this year’s Australian, British, United States (Austin), and Mexican Grands Prix entered the top 20 list of most attended F1 events of all time. An impressive stat considering there have been over 1000 Formula 1 Grand Prix events.

This year also saw Formula 1 enter new territory as it took on the job of race promotion and organisation for the first time ever with the Las Vegas Grand Prix. With over 350,000 in attendance over the weekend the event was a huge success, and while it could have run more smoothly this is a great platform to build upon going forward. This was a risky but very worthwhile experiment for Formula 1 as it gave them a level of control over the Grand Prix weekend that they had not had before. The success of the Las Vegas Grand Prix may mean that this lays the foundation for how Grand Prix weekends are operated in the future.

HONOURABLE MENTION - WILLIAMS

This year also marked a massive improvement for Williams Racing and Alex Albon. Their car had a very specific set of characteristics that suited the high speed tracks of the season. Paired with the safe hands of Albon we saw Williams challenging regularly for top 10 points finishes, an impressive rise from where they have been in the past. Under the direction of former Mercedes technical director James Vowels I am sure we will see them continue to rise up in 2024.

Formula 1 2023 is now done and dusted. Whether you like it or not it will likely be talked about for years and even decades to come, as Red Bull’s RB19 has become F1s most dominant car. Like any year there are some pros and cons, but as has been the case for Formula 1 recently, there are definitely more pros. With McLaren and Ferrari both making gains on Red Bull late in the season it will be interesting to see how 2024 plays out.