Ahead of the new season of Formula One, here is a look at the drivers’ nationality, age as well as their position and points from last season of Mercedes, Alpine, Haas, McLaren, Red Bull, Aston Martin, Alpha Tauri, Ferrari, AlfaRomeo and Williams.
Red Bull
Engine: Honda-Red Bull Power Train
Team Principal: Christian Horner (GBR)
— Max Verstappen (NED) 28, world champion/454 points
— Sergio Perez (MEX) 33, 3rd/305pts
Regardless of how Max Verstappen and Red Bull perform this season it will be hard to match their annus mirabilis of 2022. A fluttering Ferrari challenge and a misfiring Mercedes left the road clear for Verstappen to romp to a record-breaking 15-win title defence with Red Bull collecting their first constructors’ title since 2013, the faithful and tactically astute adjoint Perez adding two further wins.
Verstappen barely had a stumble along the way, the driven once surly Dutchman all smiles, for most of the time at least. There was the tetchiness he displayed when refusing to obey team orders and allow Perez to pass him in Brazil, the spiky spat over exceeding the 2021 budget cap generating a war of words in the pits, a $7 million fine and a reduction in future wind-tunnel testing.
And more profoundly, the passing of Red Bull founder Dietrich Mateschitz, who turned the energy drink into a worldwide success and pumped money into a title-winning F1 team and several football clubs. He died in October, just weeks after Verstappen had claimed his second successive title at Suzuka, four races before the end of the season.
With a record points haul of 454 his closest pursuer, for want of a better term, was Charles Leclerc, a forlorn 146 points behind.
Ferrari
Engine: Ferrari
Team Principal: Frederic Vasseur (FRA)
— Charles Leclerc (MON) 25, 2nd/308pts
— Carlos Sainz (ESP) 28, 5th/246pts
It was all going so well for Ferrari and Charles Leclerc when they left Melbourne in April. Two wins out of three, leading the championship, at last a first title since 2007 in their sights. Then the wheels fell off the Scuderia’s championship charge, a mix of unreliability, driver error and pitlane clangers let Red Bull charge clear with team principal Mattia Binotto the inevitable fall guy.
In Frederic Vasseur they are entrusting a renewed and more sustainable assault on the dominance of Red Bull, and a Mercedes garage itching to put last year’s difficulties behind them.
Listing his “technical strengths as a trained engineer with a consistent ability to bring out the best in his drivers and teams” Ferrari believe they have found the man to end their long trophyless barren years.
Leclerc frequently cut a frustrated figure after races that had slipped away in a car that had shown it had the power to mix it with Verstappen. The stats in this case tell a damning story – Leclerc took nine poles to Verstappen’s seven, but only three wins to his Dutch rival’s 15. Sainz enjoyed one moment of personal glory when securing his maiden win at Silverstone.
Mercedes
Engine: Mercedes
Team Principal: Toto Wolff (AUT)
— Lewis Hamilton (GBR) 38, 6th/240pts
— George Russell (GBR) 25, 4th/275pts
A torrid and tortuous 2022 ended seven-time champion Hamilton’s proud record of winning a race in every year since his startling rookie season in 2007.
The German constructors failed to come up with the right recipe to tackle the changed technical landscape that was introduced last term, the car suffering most from the bouncing or so-called porpoising effect for the new ground effect era.
Hard as the Mercedes mechanics tried they were always playing catch up. “I’m glad it’s done” was the British motor-racing legend’s succinct summing up after a season struggling with a car that was variously described as “capricious” and “a box to drive”.
The Mercedes men dug deep to sort out the problems and subsequently enjoyed a far better second half of the season, with Russell cock a hoop at bagging his maiden win in Brazil.
Alpine
Engine: Renault
Team Principal: Otmar Szafnauer (USA)
— Esteban Ocon (FRA) 26, 8th/92pts
— Pierre Gasly (FRA) 27, 14th/23pts
There’ll be no language barrier in the Alpine garage this season with Gasly’s arrival from the Red Bull family where he made his debut in 2017 making it an all-French drivers’ line-up with Ocon at the former Renault team in a move the 26-year-old described as “emotionally very special”. Ocon won Alpine’s debut race in Hungary last year while Gasly’s sole success to date came in the Italian Grand Prix in 2020. Alpine, rebranded in 2021, pipped McLaren to fourth place in the constructor’s standings.
More than any driver Ocon values his place on the F1 grid, his family sacrificing their home and living in a caravan to help finance his climb to the top of the motorsport tree. Ocon secured his best finish in the driver’s table last term in 8th with 92 points, 11 clear of former teammate Fernando Alonso.
McLaren
Engine: Mercedes
Team Principal: Zak Brown (USA)
— Lando Norris (GBR) 23, 7th/122pts
— Oscar Piastri (AUS) 21 – rookie
A largely forgettable 2022 with Norris picking up just the one podium and the bulk of the team’s 159 points that dropped them behind Alpine in the constructor’s table. That brought the axe down on Daniel Ricciardo’s F1 career for this season at any rate, and the arrival with much fanfare and not a little controversy of Piastri. No sooner had Alpine proudly announced their highly rated reserve driver as successor to the Aston Martin-bound Fernando Alonso than Piastri issued a denial, leading to angry words from Alpine, a contractual dispute judgement from the FIA, and Piastri’s confirmation as successor to his Australian countryman Ricciardo alongside Norris.
Managed and mentored by fellow Aussie and former Red Bull driver Mark Webber, Piastri won the 2021 F2 title and has set the pulses racing amongst the British team’s fanbase with the last of McLaren’s 20 world championships coming back in 2008.
Alfa Romeo
Engine: Ferrari
Team Principal: Alessandro Alunni Bravi (ITA)
— Valtteri Bottas (FIN) 33, 10th/49pts
— Zhou Guanyu (CHN) 23, 18th/6pts
With the Swiss Sauber team running again under the Alfa name this term, preparing to be powered by Audi engines from 2026, the role of team principal has been relaxed, with Bravi taking over the job as circuit ‘representative’ from Ferrari-departed Fred Vasseur, whilst ex-McLaren team chief Andreas Siedl oversees the operation as CEO.
After his move from Mercedes, Bottas appeared to enjoy his first season as lead driver after years playing second fiddle to Lewis Hamilton. The reliable Finn’s 49 points helped lift the team up three places in the standings.
Zhou won’t forget his rookie campaign in a hurry as the Shanghai-born driver became China’s first F1 racer. He made headlines when scoring points on his debut in Bahrain, and again after a horrendous opening lap crash when his Alfa hurtled upside down and vaulted the trackside barrier and landing in the ditch separating the circuit from the fans at Silverstone, his car’s halo safety device attributed with saving his life.
Aston Martin
Engine: Mercedes
Team Principal: Mike Krack (LUX)
— Lance Stroll (CAN) 24, 15th/18pts
— Fernando Alonso (ESP) 41, 9th/81pts
Bankrolled by Canadian businessman Lawrence Stroll, who had a net worth estimated by Forbes this year of almost $3 billion, Aston Martin are tackling year three of a five-year plan “to win the Formula One world championship”.
Stroll’s son Lance has a predilection for wet weather racing, and has swerved any suggestions he owes his place on the grid to his family name with deft racecraft.
He made his debut in 2017, a best-placed sixth last term with a total points haul of 18 is there to be improved upon. A pre-season cycling accident has cast doubt over whether he will be fit to start in Bahrain – Brazil’s F2 champion Felipe Drugovich stood in for him at pre-season testing last week.
With Sebastian Vettel’s retirement Stroll has an equally talented new teammate in grizzled 41-year-old two-time former champion Fernando Alonso, who wasted no time in getting on the phone to Stroll once Vettel announced his retirement in late July. The Spaniard’s arrival “is a clear statement of intent from an organisation that has committed to developing a winning Formula One team” said Aston Martin of Alonso’s unexpected switch from Alpine, in part motivated by frustration at lack of a long term contract at the French outfit.
Haas
Engine: Ferrari
Team Principal: Guenther Steiner (ITA)
— Kevin Magnussen (DEN) 30, 13th/25pts
— Nico Hulkenberg (GER) 35 22nd/0pts
F1’s resurgence in popularity is due to various reasons, including the Netflix Series ‘Drive To Survive’ where Steiner’s charisma and character make for compelling viewing. In charge of the youngest team on the grid, the all-American squad based in Kannapolis, North Carolina, and Banbury in the UK was launched in 2016, Haas enjoyed a small resurgence in 2002.
The return of Kevin Magnussen, after replacing Russian driver Nikita Mazepin, produced a stunning fifth place in Bahrain at the season-opener, followed by a wonderfully exhilarating first ever pole position for the Dane and his team in Brazil.
The Dane, 30, is joined by Hulkenburg, 35 – the German taking the drive vacated by Mick Schumacher, son of seven-time world champion Michael who was let go after a pointless season but snapped up as a reserve driver by Mercedes.
Hulkenberg, who won the Le Mans 24-Hours with Porsche in 2015, returns in hope of finally gaining a podium finish after 181 Grands Prix.
AlphaTauri
Engine: Honda-Red Bull Power Train
Team Principal: Franz Tost (AUT)
— Yuki Tsunoda (JPN) 22, 17th/22pts
— Nyck de Vries (NED) 29, – rookie
Tost, 67, is entering his 18th season as team chief.
Tsunoda, 22, is in his third term with the Red Bull-run team. Awarded a contract extension on the back of what Tost said was “clear evidence of a steep learning curve, which proves he deserves a seat in F1”, the driver whose feisty character comes across loud and clear in his no-nonsense soundbites on the team radio failed to build on his 2021 season when he scored 32 points and was 14th in the championship.
Replacing Alpine-bound Pierre Gasly is Mercedes reserve driver De Vries, the 28-year-old Dutchman and former F2 and Formula E champion. He had one shot at making it to the 2023 grid, thrown in to the F1 deep end as a stand-in for appendicitis-hit Alex Albon by Williams in the Italian Grand Prix. He passed the test with flying colours, qualifying alongside Verstappen on the fourth row of the grid and scoring points on his debut in ninth.
Williams
Engine: Mercedes
Team Principal: James Vowles (GBR)
— Alex Albon (THA) 26, 19th/4pts
— Logan Sargeant (USA) 22 – rookie
The iconic British marque hired Mercedes strategy chief James Vowles as only the third team principal in their 46-year history after legendary late founder Frank Williams and Jost Capito. Vowles’ aim? To reignite the fortunes of the 16-time world champions after a single-figure points haul left them last of the 10 constructors in 2022. A significant influence behind six of Lewis Hamilton’s seven world titles the team will be hoping he can bring some of that magic to the Oxfordshire-based outfit.
Albon, 26, whose mother is Thai and father British, debuted in F1 in 2019 with Toro Rosso and Red Bull, joining Williams last season.
Albon finished 19th in the driver’s standings in 2022, just ahead of Nicolas Latifi, the Canadian who has made way for Sargeant.
The 21-year-old graduate of the Williams Academy arrives full of promise, but raw, with just one season in F2 under his belt, only securing enough points to earn his top-tier licence at the last throw of the F2 dice in Abu Dhabi in November.
He is the first F1 driver from the United States since Alexander Rossi in 2015.
(With inputs from Agencies)
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