Formula 1 is waking up and the 2023 season is beginning to take shape. In the coming weeks the ten single-seaters will be presented. The pre-season tests will be held from February 23 to 25 in Sakhir and the first GP of the season will be right after, on March 5 in Bahrain. From there, 23 races to crown the world champion. Verstappen defends his title, Ferrari aspires to fight him and Mercedes, to return to the position of honor that he gave last year. Meanwhile, this is all that changes in the season that is about to begin.
technical changes. There are slight technical variations in the single-seaters by regulation. To consolidate the elimination of ‘porpoising’, the FIA forces the cars to be raised 15 millimeters and reinforces the ends of the flat bottom in order to avoid these oscillations. Although it is a somewhat outdated rule: most teams resolved the rebound of the cars in the last third of last season. There are also slight tweaks and clarifications to the front wing and roll structure. The minimum weight of the cars is lowered slightly and that of the engine is increased.
Sports changes. This year there will be six sprints instead of the three in 2021 and 2022. The circuits chosen for this Saturday race are Baku, Spielberg, Spa-Francorchamps, Losail, Austin and Interlagos. The tracks from Austria and Brazil repeat. In this way, there will be more points at stake in the fight for the championship (eight for the winner in each short race and one less for each classified up to eighth place). The medium-term trend will be to increase the number of sprints.
New races. On the calendar, the main novelty is the Las Vegas GP (November 18) on a Saturday night. The penultimate race of the year can be decisive in the championship, but surely it will not leave anyone indifferent in terms of the show around the event. Qatar is not new, it was already played in 2021 (with victory for Hamilton and podium for Alonso), but it returns in 2023 in Losail after a one-year hiatus forced by the World Cup.
Transfers. There are quite a few novelties in the team lineups. Alonso makes his debut with Aston Martin, Gasly will be an Alpine driver, De Vries makes his debut full-time in F1 with Alpha Tauri and Piastri and Sargeant will be ‘rookies’ with McLaren and Williams, respectively. Ricciardo will be missing, absent from the grids after more than a decade of professional career and with the aim of returning. Also Mick Schumacher, Mercedes reserve, or Latifi. And above all Vettel: there is one less champion on the asphalt. In the walls, winter also left changes: Vasseur is the head of Ferrari instead of Binotto, Seidl changed McLaren for Sauber and Stella takes over at the Woking house.
Presentations. Of course, cars change. In the coming days the 2023 cars will be presented. For now they have confirmed: Haas (January 31), Red Bull (February 3, points to decoration) Williams (February 6, decoration only), Alfa Romeo (February 7 ), Alpha Tauri (February 11, decoration only), Aston Martin and McLaren (February 13), Ferrari (February 14), Mercedes (February 15) and Alpine (February 16).