Welcome Drivers!

Pre-season testing starts tomorrow and there are ton of updates that are happening as the 2023 F1 season ramps up. We are here to give you the run-down on some of the headline F1 news heading into the weekend and our thoughts on the strongest teams before the start of the season.

These power rankings won’t necessarily have as much to do with where a team is currently in the standings, but more so to do with how the team has been performing in more recent weeks. We will be updating our power rankings after every race this season.

We will also give you a few things to look out for when watching the testing sessions this weekend.

We have more exciting updates and content planned as the 2023 season gets underway. We are excited to start the season and share these with you!

F1 News Around the Paddock

Before we get started on the power rankings, here is some of the main headline news around Formula 1

• Lance Stroll will miss the pre-season testing in Bahrain due to a bicycling accident that occurred while he was training in Spain

• Felipe Drugovich will take Lance Stoll’s place in the AMR23 for pre-season testing in Bahrain

• Max Verstappen and Red Bull were nominated for the Laureus World Sports Awards after their dominant 2022 season

• Alpine’s Otmar Szafnauer has revealed their goal of P4 this season and says “a good year for us is being a lot closer to 3rd”

• Lewis Hamilton says Mercedes came away with some “useful findings” after running the W14 during their two filming days

• Honda has come out and said they have been approached by multiple F! teams about a 2026 engine deal

• Esteban Ocon shocked no one by saying him and Pierre Gasly will “never be best friends”

• McLaren has added Aston Martin drivers Vandoorne & Drugovich to their reserve driver pool for the 2023 season

• Charles Leclerc has been impressed by new team boss Fred Vassuer in his first season in the role

• Lewis Hamilton is involved in the process of selecting Brad Pitt’s co-star in the upcoming F1 movie

• The FIA has banked $26.7m through licensing fees from all of the 2023 drivers and teams

• Max Verstappen agreed with Lewis Hamilton on wanting F1 to return to Africa in the future

• The F1 Commission has agreed to a new wet weather tire from Imola onward, relaxed radio rules, revised parc ferme rules for sprint races, altered DRS zones at some tracks and increasing the cost cap allowance for the 22nd and 23rd races

• McLaren CEO Zak Brown met with Red Bull on a potential engine partnership

The Apex F1’s Pre-Season Power Rankings

Our power rankings will be all about who is performing the best in the moment. While we don’t have any races to go off of right now, we can still make some judgements based on what we have seen and heard this offseason.

It will be interesting to see how our pre-season power rankings stack up with the final power rankings after the season finale. Lets get started, lights out and away we go!

1. Red Bull Racing

Red Bull takes the top spot until proven otherwise. They had a spectacular 2022 season and nothing indicates they won’t be racking up wins in 2023 either. They have the best driver on the grid in Max Verstappen and have a powerful power unit that makes them competitive in any race. Only concern is how the wind tunnel penalty and fines imposed by the FIA will hinder their development. For now, we are keeping them at P1.

2. Scuderia Ferrari

Ferrari slots in at P2 before testing gets underway. They have shown some of the upgrades they will be bringing in 2023 but the real thing that holds them back is reliability. They had DNFs due to this and also had to run lower power modes during parts of last season. Ferrari have said their issues from last year have been corrected and they should be able to max out their engine performance. Only time will tell here.

3. Mercedes

Mercedes still have some giant question marks surrounding the package they are bringing. Apparently they have an “Plan B” if their no side pods design continues to struggle. We can’t confidently move them up into the top two slots until we see the W14’s performance on track. They are still leaps and bounds ahead of the midfield and arguably have the best driver pairing on the grid with Lewis Hamilton and George Russell.

4. McLaren

McLaren falls into P4. We like the offseason moves they made ditching Ricciardo and snatching Piastri from the jaws of Alpine. Norris is one of the top 5 drivers on the grid and McLaren needs to act quickly to give him a competitve car. They flubbed the new regulations in 2022 but we expect them to make a rebound in 2023 and reclaim the best of the rest. We expect Piastri to have a stronger season than Daniel had last year as well.

5. Alpine

Alpine starts at P5 primarily due to the loss of Alonso and their continued reliability issues. They replaced Alonso with a solid yet unproven driver in Pierre Gasly who will be racing for a main team for the first time since his stint with Red Bull in 2019. Alpine’s biggest hurdle will be minimizing the reliability woes they have, which we are skeptical considering it has been a consistent issue over the years.

6. Aston Martin

Aston Martin has a remarkable amount of hype surrounding them this offseason. They brought in Fernando Alonso from Alpine and even Christian Horner said there were rumors of “big numbers” coming from their garage. Its too early to make any bold predictions here. We wanted to move them up further they need to prove to us the hype is legit. From the outside, it appears Lawrence Stroll is very committed to turning Aston Martin into title contenders.

7. Alfa Romeo

Alfa Romeo had an unnoteworthy offseason. This will be Alfa Romeo’s final season with the Sauber led team and they will want to go out on the right note. Bottas is a very capable driver and showed that he can perform when he has a reliable car. Zhou is still unproven but showed consistency last year and will likely have a better year in 2023. We still think Alfa Romeo will prove to be pretty uncompetitive this season barring any shocking jumps in development.

8. AlphaTauri

AlphaTauri will have another down year in 2023. Their drivers are a Yuki Tsunoda, who is in a critical year in terms of his F1 future, and Nyck de Vries, a rookie. They got the new regulations completely wrong last year and will start the season playing catch-up to the midfield. With their young drivers this is a recipe for a frustrating year at AlphaTauri. Tsunoda will have to step up big if they want to be competitive in the midfield.

9. Haas F1

Haas has been grinding in the trenches trying to pull themselves out of the gutter that was their 2021 season. They made the right moves in 2022 and further bolstered their driver lineup with Nico Hulkenberg. Between Nico and K-Mag Haas have two very experienced drivers and should be able to extract more out of their car. Their main snag his how much will they actually be able to develop given their financial constraints.

10. Williams Racing

Williams remains at the bottom of the barrel in F1. They have had consistent churn in their management ranks and not a lot will be expected of them this year. They have a stable driver in Alex Albon who should produce points when opportunities present themselves however we think these will be few and far between. Other teams seem to have more resources dedicated to improving the car which will leave Williams further behind.

Bahrain Testing: What to Watch For?

With testing starting tomorrow we will leave some quick bullet points on things to watch for. Lap times and raw pace are not really something to put much stock into as teams will likely be testing their aero packages or just out sand-bagging their performance to hide their true potential. However, there are a few things that are worthwhile to pay attention to:

• “Real” cars & bodywork: With only one testing weekend this year, all of the teams are likely to run the setup they expect to use in the first race of the season. All eyes will likely be on Red Bull as they have yet to reveal their true car.

• Any porpoising: Most of the teams struggled with this last year as a result of the ground effect regulations. It will be interesting to see if any teams are still being hampered by this.

• Reliability Issues: There only 3 days of testing before the start of the season so every lap is critical. If teams have to spend most of the day in the garage dealing with engine/hydraulic issues, it will be a massive blow when it comes to understanding the new car.

Upcoming Posts and Reader Feedback

If you like the post please subscribe to the newsletter. We publish multiple articles a week and will be doing in-depth breakdowns as the season moves along.

We are also posting content on Twitter (@TheApexF1news) and Instagram (@theapexf1news) if you are interested in following there as well. You can also follow the links in the footer to get to these pages.

Feel free to leave any comments or recommendations on topics you would like to be covered. Thanks for reading, we really appreciate the support!