How the F1 23 season unfolded, and how terrible it was to watch
F1 23 (2023)
F1 23 (2023)
I’m sure I’m not alone in this, but when I find a song I like I play the hell out of it, way past the point when it would get old for most normal people. If you fall in love with a new tune, and you’ve got some properly good audio equipment to really get the most out of it, then so much the better.
You can eventually ruin a song though, so much so that you feel the need to turn it off after you recognise the first half-note. Sometimes, a combination of two songs can do this to you as well. And anyone unfortunate enough to watch every race of the 2023 F1 season will know that listening to the Dutch anthem followed by the Austrian anthem, race after race after race, got very old, very fast.
Dominance is nothing new in Formula One. I’d say more than half the seasons have a runaway winner, or at least an unbeatable team of two drivers. This leads to an overplaying of a driver and constructor's national anthem after each Grand Prix. It would just help a little bit if the anthems were bloody worth listening to.
Yes, the Hamilton and Rosberg Mercedes days weren’t great for post-race tunes either; Deutschland Über Alles and God Save the Queen are both dirges. But at least they’re big-hitters in the anthem stakes, plenty of history behind them. And Schumacher’s victories, although way too numerous, often brought the jocular Italian anthem with them.
But Dutch and Austrian tunes? Leave it out, would you? And yes, I’m well aware that by insulting their anthems, I’m probably dumping on the legacy of a thousand soldiers who gave their lives for their countries, not to mention the millions of people living there now. But I don’t care. I’m sick of hearing the two, as of course we all are.
They say you shouldn’t shit on a team or driver for being dominant. Don’t hate, just congratulate, and all of that. True, but if I’m paying high prices to watch F1, I don’t want the season to be over after five races. That’s about how many races it took before we got to Miami, and Sergio Perez received the reality check of all reality checks, and his title challenge was terminado.
What followed was unprecedented dominance, win-streaks, point-scoring, podiums, records, the lot. And if you hate Max Verstappen as much as most people do, which is to say, if you’re not Dutch, then the season made for ghastly viewing indeed. This must be what it was like in the Senna days, although at least he had Alain Prost to challenge him. But Senna definitely wasn’t universally loved until after his death, trust me on that.
There weren’t exactly many standout races during the season either, which seemed to last about 30 weekends, and there’ll be even longer seasons coming in the following years. I’m sure North Korea, Libya and Yemen are due to host some Grands Prix soon. I shouldn’t laugh though, because even though they have starving populations, they’d still host a better race than Ireland.
Anyway, let me go into better detail with my 2023 season review. Bahrain was the season opener, a night race to kick us off. Always a good way to bookend the season, right? Starting and finishing in Middle Eastern armpits? At this race, the Red Bull domination was already apparent, but the Aston Martin team were looking mighty competent as well. We almost started to believe that Fernando Alonso wasn’t cursed.
There must have been some almighty cursing from the French duo of Gasly and Ocon during the Australian Grand Prix - just when the procession looked to be over, about twelve red flags were thrown to stop and restart the race. The net result of all this is that the two Alpine drivers smashed into each other down under, and that was that.
We went back to Miami again, the first of three US-based races on the 2023 calendar, and as I mentioned, it was time for Sergio Perez’s pollos to come home to roost. It’s a tale as old as time in F1, unfortunately - the number two driver heavily backs themselves for the upcoming season, saying that this’ll be their year, and all that. They even manage to get themselves into the title fight early on.
But no sooner had Perez began to believe his own hype, than the Miami Grand Prix smashed him back to earth. He started on pole, Verstappen in ninth, all other racers irrelevant - and he was passed on track for the lead, finishing behind the Dutchman by over 5 seconds.
For reference, this is a bit like starting a football match 3-0 up, and somehow losing it 5-2. Yes, he actually went backwards, and from there, Perez’s form deteriorated at a painful, sad-to-watch rate until even the most optimistic and hopeful of supporters recognised that the 2023 season was to be a walkover of unprecedented length.
In the F1 games, being on the other side of this kind of teammate dominance is the kind of thing that makes you want to exit out of the race immediately and turn the difficulty dial right down. This is necessary, because we both know that it’s not any fun unless you win.
No such luxury in real life unfortunately, we just had to wait for it to be over. Of the 17 races remaining in the season, Verstappen won 16 of them, including 10 in a row. In the good old days, 16 events was essentially the entire season.
I’d better give a mention to the inaugural Las Vegas Grand Prix. Well, it’s not the first time F1 has visited Vegas; they actually held a Grand Prix in the car park of the Caesars Palace casino back in the 80s, and I’m not exaggerating on that.
It looked like the whole 2023 Vegas event was going to be a disaster - massively extortionate hotel and ticket prices, a Saturday night start-time, and in the first practice section, a manhole cover absolutely obliterated one of the Ferraris. My missus, no stranger to Fremont Street and its environs, feared that there’d be mad drunkards wandering onto the track and causing a commotion.
In the end, the event went off well actually, but we’d better get ready for nine more years there. Yes, street circuits are getting massively long F1 contracts, while classic locations like Suzuka, Spa and Silverstone remain constantly under threat - welcome to modern F1.
In any case, Perez didn’t win in Vegas either. Or Austin. Or Mexico City. Indeed, he never came truly close to victory again, and finished the season with less than half the points of his teammate.
And I don’t wish to dig the guy out, I like him a lot actually. But Christ, is there anything worse than a number two driver who can’t get anywhere near the dominant man? At least run him off the road, put him in the wall or punch him in the face after qualifying. Have a bit of self-respect, man.
The one race not won by the Red Bull boys was in that weird, possibly mythical place in East Asia called Singapore. Carlos Sainz took victory for Ferrari that day, with a winning drive that combined speed, daring and a little bit of cunning as he held off the chasing McLaren and Mercedes drivers. Ferrari rewarded Sainz for his win by sacking him in favour of Lewis Hamilton, but we’ll see how that one transpires in 2025.
Anyway, that Singapore race gave us a little taste of what the season could have been, what F1 should be about. Nobody cares about the racing further down the order, not that much. We care about the winners, the drama at the top of the field. And when the race is decided after turn 1, that’s when we tune out.
I’ve lived through dismal F1 seasons before, though, and in those instances you just have to turn to the video game instead, and make your own fun. The satisfyingly titled F1 23 is alright for this purpose. It’s more of the same really - no microtransactions yet, even after the Electronic Arts takeover of publishing duties. There’s also a new chapter of the Braking Point story to play through.
You might like it, but personally I can’t say I care too much for a Formula One game with a plot - give me some classic cars and tracks any day. But this same thing has happened to every F1 fan in existence, you know - eventually we just get stuck on repeat, yearning for the good old days.
But don’t worry, I’m not entirely without self-awareness. So let me give you some advice: whenever we corner you at the bar, slobbering in your ear about the days of V10 engines and refuelling and tobacco sponsorship, just tune us out immediately, as you would a particularly overplayed song.
1 March 2024