The F1 2023 Driver Market Explained ... So Far

 

We all love driver transfers. Whether it is the speculation, the surprises or the silly season. Talking about which drivers will be with which team is a favorite past time of any F1 fan. The 2023 driver market keeps on throwing us curve ball after curve ball whether it is Vettel's retirement, another Alonso shock move or the Piastri situation. In this blog post I intended to breakdown everything we know about every team's lineup for next season. Now for the teams, explaining their line ups for next season seems to either be incredibly simple or like explaining 8 seasons of Game Of Thrones to your Grandma. So I will start with the simple ones.

Mercedes

Mercedes will go into 2023 with an unchanged line up from the 2022 season. George Russell joined the team in 2022 after much speculation and is rumored to have a contract that runs to 2024 where as the 7 time world champion Lewis Hamilton joined the team in 2013 and will be celebrating his 10th year with the team next year although his contract will run out at the end of next season 

Ferrari

While it is widely speculated that they may have a new team principle next year Ferrari will retain their driver line up from 2022. Charles Leclerc is the owner of the longest contract in Ferrari history which after this season may be seen as more of a curse than a gift. Leclerc is signed on to the team until 2026. His teammate Carlos Sainz will also be with the Scuderia for the long term singing a new contract in April this year which will see him with Ferrari until 2024

Red Bull

The uncrowned 2022 constructors champions will also have the same line up for the 2023 season. The current world champion Max Verstappen will be with the team to 2028 after signing a new contract in March. Where as his teammate Checo Perez accidentally leaked his new contract whilst celebrating his Monaco GP win. Perez will be with the team until 2024.

So far so simple but from here it gets a bit more confusing. 

Alfa Romeo

Lets start with Alfa Romeo as the simplest of the more confusing teams. Valtteri Bottas will remain with the team after joining last year on what is rumored to be a 3 year deal. His teammate is yet to be confirmed but it is looking like Chinese rookie Zhou Guanyu will remain with the team after a decent rookie year with Bottas saying "I think Zhou has been a good fit for the team, and at this moment I don’t see any reason why he shouldn’t be allowed to continue." and Alfa team boss Fred Vasseur adding "he’s doing a perfect job"

Aston Martin

So here is where the stuff hits the fan. Aston will retain the services of Lance Stroll for 2023 and unless there is a serious argument over the family game of monopoly this Christmas it seems he will be in that seat for a long time but the 2023 driver market really gets interesting when we discuss his team mate. Sebastian Vettel announced his decision to step away from Formula at the end of the 2022 season meaning that after 4 world titles and 53 wins we will not see Vettel on the grid next year. It also means that a seat was now available, a seat which was very quickly filled by 2 time world champion Fernando Alonso who will join Aston next year. 

McLaren

Now on the surface this seemed pretty simple going into 2023. Lando Norris committed his future to the Woking based team signing a contract that will see him in papaya until 2025 and his teammate Daniel Ricciardo has a contract with the team until the end of the 2023 season. Simple right? Wrong! After some disappointing results for Ricciardo over the past 2 seasons and a payoff rumoured to be between £8-15 million Mclaren decided to part ways with the Aussie before the end of his contract. Leaving Ricciardo without a drive for next year and giving Mclaren an empty seat. A seat that will be filled by 2021 Formula 2 champion and former Alpine reserve driver Oscar Piastri after Alpine offered the driver to McLaren, how kind of them.  

Alpine

It all seemed so simple for Alpine. Esteban Ocon is signed up until 2024 and although Fernando Alonso's contract is ending at the end of the year they would simply offer him a 1 year renewal with a lovely retirement plan into sports cars. Then they would simply call up their reserve driver Oscar Piastri to fill Alonso's space in the 2024 season. In the meantime Alpine would offer Piastri's services to other teams such as Williams and McLaren for the 2023 season so he could get a bit of experience. Simple. until it wasn't. 

Alonso did not like the idea of retiring again and when Sebastian Vettel announced his retirement Alonso jumped at the opportunity to leave Alpine and join Aston with a freshly signed multi year deal securing his future in Formula 1. Not to worry though Alpine would simply call up their reserve driver Oscar Piastri to race for them a year earlier than expected and this is what they announced at 5:11PM on 2nd August 2022 but by 7PM that same night Piastri released his own statement saying this would not be the case. 

After a short trip to the Contract Recognition Board that cost Alpine £530,467 and their chosen driver for 2023 it was announced that Piastri would be driving for McLaren for the 2023 season. 

So where does this leave Alpine? Well they supposedly have a list of 14 drivers who could fill their second seat. Ocon has stated that Mick Schumacher would be his choice for the second seat where as Formula E champion Nyck De Vries, Alpine junior driver Jack Doohan and former Alfa Romeo driver Antonio Giovinazzi are all rumored to be testing the 2021 spec car. While names such as 1997 world champion Jacques Villeneuve have also tested the 2021 Alpine although this was for TV work (or was it??????)

The most popular name for the second seat at Alpine is current Alpha Tauri driver Pierre Gasly but that opens a whole other can of worms. 

Alpha Tauri

It was announced in June of 2022 that Gasly would stay with the team for the 2023 season and then in September they announced that Yuki would also be staying with the team to have an unchanged line up for the 2023 season. Simple? Wrong! After the Piastri drama Alpine made it clear that Gasly would be a driver they would be interested in signing with Alpine CEO Laurent Rossi saying that "Pierre is a very good driver ... he would be a good candidate for us" this was followed up by Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko stating that he would be happy to let Gasly go from his contract on 2 conditions. 1) Alpine pay an exit clause 2) Alpha Tauri are able to sign IndyCar superstar Colton Herta.

Herta has been an impressive driver in IndyCar with 9 pole positions, 11 podiums and 7 wins from 65 races and finished a career best 3rd in the Indycar championship in 2020 but despite all of this he is apparently not good enough for Formula 1. 

The FIA super licence is a measure put in place to make sure that the drivers who get to Formula 1 have enough experience and don't just buy their way to a seat in Formula 1 (although this keeps happening). This is done by giving points to drivers based on how they do in racing series' outside of Formula 1 all aiming to get that magical 40 point needed to get into Formula 1. It is also worth mentioning that these 40 points can only be from the previous 3 seasons before going into Formula 1 

The issue with this method is when certain racing series' get treated higher than others. If you finish 1st, 2nd or 3rd in Formula 2 you will get the 40 points needed to get into Formula 1 where as to get those 40 points you must win the Indy Car Series. This is also very confusing when you take into consideration that Formula 2 is a junior series where as Indy Car is the highest class of open wheel single seater racing in America. 

Herta currently has 32 points on his super licence meaning he would not be allowed to join Formula 1. Alpha Tauri were hoping that the FIA would make an exception or address this clear issue within their system but the FIA have rejected this idea.

So Herta is a no go for Alpha Tauri but it does seem like they are still happy for Gasly to go to Alpine to make the all French line up for the French team so the question is who will drive for Alpha Tauri next year?

Initial rumors stated that Mick Schumacher would be the guy to replace Gasly but these were squashed by Helmut Marko. With new speculation now put upon 2021 Formula E champion and Mercedes reserve driver Nyck De Vries to fill the seat.

Williams

While Alex Albon is signed up with the legendary Williams team until 2023 the same cant be said for his teammate Nicholas Latifi who will be leaving the team at the end of the season. The final nail in the coffin seemed for Latifi seemed to be the 2022 Italian Grand Prix. With Alex Albon sidelined with appendicitis Mercedes reserve driver Nyck De Vries stepped up and drove the Williams to an impressive 9th on debut scoring 2 championship points for the team whilst Latifi's efforts were only good enough for 15th and left him still searching for his first championship points of the season. It was announced in September that Latifi would be leaving the team at the end of the season with De Vries the favourite to replace him.

The issue then comes from the idea that Alpha Tauri also want to sign De Vries and you would think he would rather drive the Alpha than the Williams as it is a much quicker car. Then the issues arises from Alpha Tauri who are yet to have any confirmation from Alpine to if Gasly will be joining them for 2023. So Williams have to see what Alpha Tauri do and Alpha Tauri are waiting to see what Alpine are going to do leaving us with this long trail of dominoes waiting for one to be pushed so they can all fall into place. 

So if not Latifi and if not De Vries who will it be for Williams? Well Alpine did offer them Piastri at one point but for reasons mentioned before i don't think that offer is on the table any more. Once again Mick Schumacher's name is thrown around as a person who may be searching for a drive next year as does the name of Daniel Ricciardo if he wouldn't see the Williams team as too much of a demotion for someone who has won 8 grand Prix and was once heralded as the future of Formula 1.  Then there is the American Logan Sargeant who is a Williams Academy driver many would put as the favourite especially with Formula 1's expanding audience in the U.S. 

Haas

The final team to talk about is Haas who has already had quite a bit of driver drama in 2022 with the firing of Nikita Mazepin and the re-hiring of Kevin Magnussen. Magnussen has a multi year deal with Haas F1 meaning he will be racing for them next year the same can not be said for his team mate. Mick Schumacher's contract will run out at the end of this year and the team are yet to publicly state if he will be with them for next year. With a mixed season for Schumacher failing to score any points for the first 9 races of the season whilst Magnussen was able to score points 3 times in the first 9 races. Schumacher also has had high points scoring points in Silverstone and the Red Bull Ring and also beating his team mate in 5 of the last 7 races as of writing. Haas could have a difficult decision to make. Personally i feel that Mick has showed enough in the second half of the season to get a drive next year. 

There are other names floating around the Haas seat with Ricciardo being discussed as well as the return of Nico Hulkenberg being spoken about with even Gunther Steiner saying Hulkenberg is on the shortlist and he thinks the fans would love to see it.

So that is every single teams driver market for next year there is a lot yet to be decided its looking to be very exciting and who knows when another twist could arrive?