F1 Season 1 Month Away: 2023 Livery Reveals & More

Welcome Drivers!

We are officially less than one month from the 2023 season opening race in Bahrain and things are beginning to pick up across all of the teams. 

News Around the Paddock

Here are a few bits of news around F1

• FIA chief Sulayem to relinquish his "hands on" involvement of F1's governing body

• Red Bull reserve driver Daniel Ricciardo insists that he is not after Sergio's seat and that he "wants the time off"

• Albon and Verstappen express their concern on the new FIA politics ban saying they are confused on the rules and they should be able to speak

• Sergio Perez "pushed Red Bull in a certain direction" for the RB19

• Mclaren announce that this years car will be called MCL60, in honor of the 60 years since Bruce Mclaren founded the racing team

2023 Car Launches

Red Bull, Alfa Romeo, Williams and Haas have all revealed their liveries for the upcoming season. This leave the remaining 6 teams listed below to reveal theirs. We don't expect much from the tops teams as they will likely be trying to hide any updates but it should be interesting to see if the midfield or back marker teams decide to show their real car.

• AlphaTauri - February 11

• Aston Martin - February 13

• Mclaren - February 13

• Ferrari - February 14

• Mercedes - February 15

• Alpine - February 16

We we do a quick run through of all the 2023 car launches that have occurred so far and or thoughts on each of them. We will also touch on some of the other things going on across the paddock. 

Red Bull RB19

In typical fashion, Red Bull revealed absolutely nothing about the real RB19 and basically used the exact same show as last year. They always keep their cards close to their chest and we did not expect any different this time around. We are disappointed in they way they went about revealing the RB19. They launched in NYC and had numerous Red Bull athletes show up to get more people to tune in and watch. They built up a lot of anticipation only to have a very dull reveal. Would have expected more from a company like Red Bull. 

The more important and more interesting news that came from the car launch was Red Bull's partnership with Ford for the 2026 season. Ford's last season in F1 was back in 2004 with Jaguar. It will be interesting to see how this relationship will play out. Ford will be helping Red Bull build the hybrid powertrains for the new regulations coming in 2026. 

We think the move makes sense for Ford. F1 popularity in the United States has grown rapidly over the past few years and we expect to see a lot more brands trying to find their way in (we are talking about you Andretti). The new regulations will level the playing field for any new entrants trying to make big splashes early on. 

Red Bull has both of their drivers, Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez, returning in 2023. Last years campaign was a dominant display for the team and they are hoping to continue that dominance into 2023. The main concern regarding the drivers is how the will get along after last years incident in Sao Paulo where Max refused to yield position to Checo on the final lap. There was a tense radio exchange where Checo was quoted saying, "It shows who he really is." After the race Checo continued his frustrated comments by stating, "If he has won two championships it is thanks to me." Horner was adamant that the two drivers had made amends but it will be a focal point at the beginning of the season. 

Red Bull now has Daniel Ricciardo as a third driver in a reserve role. He is expected to primarily work at the factory in the simulator and the be on the press tour. It is very strange to see him back in Red Bull gear and not suiting up for race day. We will do an in-depth look at Daniel's role at Red Bull in a later publication. We do not expect to see Daniel on the track this season unless things go horribly wrong for Perez.

Alfa Romeo C43

The first thing to note about Alfa Romeo is that they have no team principal for the 2023 campaign. Fred Vasseur, Alfa's 2022 team principal, departed for the opening at Ferrari and Alfa has elected not to replace him. They will instead be going with a 3-man management structure. Personally, I think this is a bad idea. This gives way to much room for placing blame on others. It could also lead to divides within the team on who they think is the best leader. There has to be one man in charge making the final call. We will see how this unfolds.

Romeo's 2023 livery is now red and black in contrast to the red and white look that they have been running for the past 4 years. They have also made major updates to their 2023 car. Most notably, they have revamped the rear of the car to promote a less disrupted path for airflow. This involved substantially changing the rear suspension. They also adopted a more Red Bull style sidepod shape and moved other parts around for a more aggressive bodywork. 

The Sauber led team is in the final year of their contract with title sponsor Alfa Romeo. In 2026 they will be teaming up with Audi to take on the new regulations similar to Red Bull and Ford. 

Alfa Romeo have both of their drivers returning in 2023 as well with Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu getting behind the wheel. Valtteri impressed us in his first year away from Mercedes. Admittedly we loathed him while he was at Mercedes because we thought he was just a product of a superior car. He showed his talent in the C42 but was hampered by poor reliability with 6 DNFs on the year. After his performance last year, we believe bottas has the talent to finish as high as a best of the rest 7th place. That will be dependent on the quality of car his is provided. 

Zhou had an outstanding rookie season and should be hoping to improve as well. He finished with 6 points in the drivers championship season but we feel like he performed much better than what the points show. He had 5 DNFs last year including the scary crash in Silverstone in lap 1. Jury is still out on Zhou but if Alfa can get a more consistent car we think he can be competitive in the midfield. 

Consistency will be key for Alfa Romeo's success. They finished a distant 6th in the constructors championship in 2022 and were tied on points with Aston Martin despite having a much better car in our opinion. They need to clean up their reliability issues first before they can think about climbing the constructor ranks.

Williams FW45

Unlike Red Bull and Alfa Romeo, where things have remained somewhat constant year over year, there is a lot of change going on in the Williams garage. A rookie team principal and driver will have a large learning curve as Williams tries to buck the trend of finishing last in the constructors championship. The once distinguished Williams Racing team has finished last in the constructors championship 4 of the past 5 seasons and have scored a total of 39 points in that timeframe. 

The FW45 will have an evolved sidepod concept. They were able to do this by re-arranging parts of the power unit. The front suspension layout and other major aerodynamic surfaces were also modified in attempts to achieve greater efficiency than the FW44. They also have a new partnership with Gulf. Similar to most other F1 fans, we would love to see another Gulf livery on the track in 2023 after seeing the Mclaren livery last year. Williams will run their shakedown in Silverstone on February 13th. We should have a better idea of all the modifications when that occurs. 

All eyes are on Logan Sargeant, one of three incoming rookies in 2023, to help the team rise up into the midfield. Sargeant will be the first American driver on the grid since 2007. The Florida native won the World Junior Karting Championship before debuting in Formula 4 United Arab Emirates where he finished 2nd in the championship. He then came in 3rd in the British F4 Championship and competed in the Eurocup and Northern European Cup. He spent 3 years in Formula 3 and fought fellow F1 rookie Oscar Piastri for the 2020 F3 crown. In 2022 he moved into F2 with Carlin finishing 4th in the drivers championship. 

Sargeant made his F1 practice debut fittingly at COTA in Austin, Texas. The following day Williams announced that he would be their second driver in 2023. While Sargeant has had plenty of success in the lower levels, we think Williams is trying to capitalize off of the growth of the sport in America. If they can have success with an American driver at the helm it should bring in more partnership revenue for the team. All the best to Logan and we hope the Williams team will be able to find their form again. 

The returning driver is Alex Albon who had a solid 2022 season, outshining his former teammate Latifi at every turn. Albon is excited to see what the FW45 can do and is looking to optimize the cars performance this season. It will be challenging for him to make significant moves up in the standings as Williams will likely be near the bottom of teams on pure performance. 

It is safe to say that Williams is not aiming for a championship in 2023. Their primary goal should be not finishing last and making improvements each year. The top finish we see for them is P7 if things go well. Its going to be a slow grind to be competitive in the midfield and only then will they be able to think about making the jump to compete for championships.

Haas VF-23

Haas was the first team to reveal their livery for the 2023 season. They have a new title sponsor MoneyGram for this year and have changed their livery to represent them. The car that was shown at the launch was very generic and likely is not the final version of the VF-23. Haas has a shakedown scheduled for February 11th so we expect to get a little more information then. For now we can take a look at their new driver lineup. 

Haas had a tumultuous 2021 season with two rookie drivers followed by a much improved 2022 campaign. They scored 37 points last year (compared to 0 in 2021) led by Kevin Magnussen who scored 25 of those 37. Haas was fortunate to have a Ferrari powered engine. It seems like Ferrari has a much more powerful engine than other PU providers with exception to Red Bull. They look to capitalize on the improved form and with more experienced drivers leading the team they will be hoping to be competitive in the midfield. 

Magnussen took a 1 year hiatus from F1 when Haas decided to go for the money grab with Nikita Mazepin. Safe to say that ended poorly and right before the 2022 season Magnussen was brought back into the fold. He had a very strong year for Haas and proved to be the leader of the team and a mentor to former F1 driver Mick Schumacher. 

Magnussen will hilariously be paired with Nico Hulkenberg. If you have been following F1 for a while you know that these two have a viral interaction in the media pin after the 2017 Hungarian Grand Prix. Hulkenberg walked up to K-Mag and said he was the most "unsporting" driver on the grid where K-Mag famously replied, "Suck my balls mate." This obviously went viral immediately afterwards. We are sure this single encounter will have no affect on the teammates relationship this year but it is still funny none the less. 

It will be Hukenberg's first season back as an F1 driver as he spent 2020-2022 as a reserve driver for Racing Point and Aston Martin. Hulkenberg has a ton of experience and should help Haas progress even further if they make improvements to the car. 

All in all Haas is taking the right steps to become a consistent team in F1 again. It seems like they are happy with a new title sponsor and they have found solid drivers for the near term. It will all come down to how they develop the car through the season. In 2022 it seemed like they made very little improvements as the season went on and it definitely cost them. Hopefully they allocated resources to 2023 and they can come out strong. 

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Our next post will be on Daniel Ricciardo's role at Red Bull and how we feel bittersweet about seeing one of the prominent figures in F1 taking a step back this season and potentially beyond. 

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