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Boring or brilliant? How did you rate the 2023 F1 season?

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Boring or brilliant? How did you rate the 2023 F1 season? | Top Gear

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The dust has settled on Max Verstappen and Red Bull’s dominant year. Time to pour a cuppa and reflect

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Boring or brilliant? How did you rate the 2023 F1 season?

# data.attributes.metatag[].attributes.content
The dust has settled on Max Verstappen and Red Bull’s dominant year. Time to pour a cuppa and reflect

# data.attributes.metatag[].attributes.content
Boring or brilliant? How did you rate the 2023 F1 season?

# data.attributes.metatag[].attributes.content
The dust has settled on Max Verstappen and Red Bull’s dominant year. Time to pour a cuppa and reflect

# data.attributes.metatag[].attributes.content
Boring or brilliant? How did you rate the 2023 F1 season?

# data.attributes.metatag[].attributes.content
Boring or brilliant? How did you rate the 2023 F1 season?

# data.attributes.metatag[].attributes.content
The dust has settled on Max Verstappen and Red Bull’s dominant year. Time to pour a cuppa and reflect

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There’s no easy way of putting this, so here goes: the raw numbers make the 2023 F1 season the most one-sided in the sport’s history. Which is another way of saying ‘Well that was dull, wasn’t it?’

The RB19’s 21 wins from 22 grands prix is a record; a win ratio surpassing even that of the great, iconic McLaren MP4/4. Max Verstappen’s 19 victories is also a record - both as a total and percentage - knocking Alberto Ascari off the perch he’s been sat on for the last 71 years. He even strung together 10 wins in a row at one point: yep, that’s Sebastian Vettel bumped too.

Verstappen’s points total was so large that he could’ve won the constructors’ title on his own. Looking back, he’d hauled enough to win his third world championship by July. Roughly the time Red Bull stopped adding bits to its car and opened up a new folder marked ‘RB20 2024 PLANZ’.

Remember the current aero and cost cap regs were ushered in on the promise of ultra-close, wheel-to-wheel action. Apparently Adrian Newey didn’t get the memo. Give that man a Lifetime Achievement award. Oh wait, we have.

In fact the only area Red Bull didn’t completely dominate was qualifying, racking up (sarcasm alert) a mere 14 pole positions over the course of the season. It lost one race on pace - the Singapore GP - and one sprint race in Qatar. The only blots on a sparkling copybook.

So… did you enjoy it? Some of you from outside the UK will no doubt be rage-scrolling to the comments section right now to bash out ‘Hypocrite Brits, you weren’t complaining when Hamilton was winning’ or similar. But with typos of course.

Whatevs. Much as we’d like to see a different winner every week, watching Verstappen take his machinery to the limit and keep it there has been so, so impressive. It’s easy to forget how difficult it is to always be on your A game, even when you’ve got the best car. Just look at what Sergio Perez has done with the same kit.

[node:field_onward_journey_card-themed]

And if you’re a proper F1 fan, you’ll get your F1 kicks no matter how predictable the outcome. One of F1’s great strengths lately has been getting fans hooked on the drama further down the grid; the main reason Drive to Survive was so successful from the off.

This year alone we’ve seen Fernando Alonso’s resurgence at Aston Martin, Lando Norris wringing the neck of that massively improved McLaren, Oscar Piastri’s maiden (sprint) race win, Sainz’s tactical rope-a-dope in Singapore, Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly’s surprise podiums, Alex Albon single-handedly dragging Williams to seventh in the constructors’, the super-sub that was Liam Lawson, Lewis Hamilton pushing Verstappen all the way in Austin (and then getting disqualified)...

Heck, even a dull track in the middle of the gambling capital of the world was exciting. Who’d have thunk it?

Over to you: will you look back on 2023 fondly, or have you already banished it from memory? Any highlights from the season? Hopes for next year? Post ‘em below.

Then start gearing up for 2024…

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There’s no easy way of putting this, so here goes: the raw numbers make the 2023 F1 season the most one-sided in the sport’s history. Which is another way of saying ‘Well that was dull, wasn’t it?’

The RB19’s 21 wins from 22 grands prix is a record; a win ratio surpassing even that of the great, iconic McLaren MP4/4. Max Verstappen’s 19 victories is also a record - both as a total and percentage - knocking Alberto Ascari off the perch he’s been sat on for the last 71 years. He even strung together 10 wins in a row at one point: yep, that’s Sebastian Vettel bumped too.

Verstappen’s points total was so large that he could’ve won the constructors’ title on his own. Looking back, he’d hauled enough to win his third world championship by July. Roughly the time Red Bull stopped adding bits to its car and opened up a new folder marked ‘RB20 2024 PLANZ’.

Remember the current aero and cost cap regs were ushered in on the promise of ultra-close, wheel-to-wheel action. Apparently Adrian Newey didn’t get the memo. Give that man a Lifetime Achievement award. Oh wait, we have.

In fact the only area Red Bull didn’t completely dominate was qualifying, racking up (sarcasm alert) a mere 14 pole positions over the course of the season. It lost one race on pace - the Singapore GP - and one sprint race in Qatar. The only blots on a sparkling copybook.

So… did you enjoy it? Some of you from outside the UK will no doubt be rage-scrolling to the comments section right now to bash out ‘Hypocrite Brits, you weren’t complaining when Hamilton was winning’ or similar. But with typos of course.

Whatevs. Much as we’d like to see a different winner every week, watching Verstappen take his machinery to the limit and keep it there has been so, so impressive. It’s easy to forget how difficult it is to always be on your A game, even when you’ve got the best car. Just look at what Sergio Perez has done with the same kit.

And if you’re a proper F1 fan, you’ll get your F1 kicks no matter how predictable the outcome. One of F1’s great strengths lately has been getting fans hooked on the drama further down the grid; the main reason Drive to Survive was so successful from the off.

This year alone we’ve seen Fernando Alonso’s resurgence at Aston Martin, Lando Norris wringing the neck of that massively improved McLaren, Oscar Piastri’s maiden (sprint) race win, Sainz’s tactical rope-a-dope in Singapore, Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly’s surprise podiums, Alex Albon single-handedly dragging Williams to seventh in the constructors’, the super-sub that was Liam Lawson, Lewis Hamilton pushing Verstappen all the way in Austin (and then getting disqualified)...

Heck, even a dull track in the middle of the gambling capital of the world was exciting. Who’d have thunk it?

Over to you: will you look back on 2023 fondly, or have you already banished it from memory? Any highlights from the season? Hopes for next year? Post ‘em below.

Then start gearing up for 2024…

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The dust has settled on Max Verstappen and Red Bull’s dominant year. Time to pour a cuppa and reflect