Text / Qiu Chao
Edited / Li Luyuan
With 104 days of off-season awaiting, the first weekend of March is the Bahrain Grand Prix, the 2023 Formula One World Championship opener!
This is the sixth season after Liberty Media Group took over F1, the so-called "five-year test", the F1 race that has broken through year by year under the power of the Americans, is bound to not stop; This is also the second season after the implementation of the new regulations, without some of the initial climbing and rolling, the competition between teams may start from the first second; This is also the second year of Chinese driver Zhou Guanyu in the paddock, and the German brand Audi is about to enter the game, and this year's performance is undoubtedly crucial for his future...
Here, we will take stock of the four highlights of the new F1 season for you to facilitate fans to better enter the race.
23 Grand Prix a record high,
F1's longest season is here
At the beginning of the acquisition, Liberty Media Group put forward the slogan of "making F1 bigger and stronger", but now it seems that this is not an empty shout, but a real use of real money to open the market. The most obvious change is to increase the number of Grand Prix, bring F1 to more countries and reach a larger fan base.
Although the French Grand Prix is no longer held, with the return of the Qatar Grand Prix and the addition of the Las Vegas Grand Prix, F1 reaches a record 23 races in 2023 – the previous record of 22 races in the last two years.
Of course, if it were not for the epidemic, the jump in the number of sub-stations in the F1 season from 21 to 23 would have arrived long ago.
2023 F1 calendar
The 23 Grand Prix races are held in 20 countries on five continents, including 10 in Europe, 6 in Asia and 5 in North America. The deep-pocketed Middle East will host five races this year, covering the key opener and finale; The number of races in the U.S. will increase to three.
The courage to increase the number of races comes from the confidence of the F1 Group (FOM).
According to the latest data released by FOM, F1's main revenue increased from $1.85 billion to $2.107 billion in the 2022 season, an increase of 14%. Revenue mainly comes from three aspects: competition hosting expenses (28.6%), media copyright fees (36.4%) and sponsorship expenses (16.9%).
But for Chinese fans, the 2023 season is still a regrettable year. On December 2 last year, the 2023 Chinese Grand Prix was cancelled, and then the domestic social environment was very open, and the Chinese Grand Prix organizers tried their best to hope that the race could resume, but unfortunately it did not succeed - which also led to a four-week spring break in April.
Since the 1,000th Grand Prix in F1 history was held in 2019, the Chinese Grand Prix has been separated from fans for four years.
First join the season and then cancel, Chinese fans should be used to it in recent years
Of course, the wait may no longer be far away.
2024 marks the 20th anniversary of the Chinese Grand Prix, and the race is expected to return to the Shanghai International Circuit – a series of hardware and software facilities have been updated, the track has been re-asphalted, and the gantry in the starting area has been replaced with a large electronic display to provide a better racing experience for drivers and fans, respectively.
In 2004, the first F1 Chinese Grand Prix was held, and Barrichello won the championship
If nothing else, the number of F1 Grand Prix will reach a new high next year, reaching 24 stops, in addition to the Chinese Grand Prix, South Africa's Karami circuit may also return, while the traditional European track Spa Belgium may be the last to host this year.
F1 under the Free Press will not stop its pace of expansion, and its goal is to increase to the maximum of 25 races under Concorde. Although the timing of this goal is uncertain, the trend is irreversible.
The "American Dream" shines into reality,
The Americanization of F1 racing is intensifying
Globalization is the general trend of F1, but behind it, the "American dream" has become a reality in this world's top motorsport.
The Las Vegas Grand Prix is signed to the calendar until 2032, resulting in up to three races in the United States throughout the year.
It's worth noting that the Las Vegas Grand Prix race time is also special – Thanksgiving weekend. In order not to collide with the NFL Sunday night game, the game will be played on Saturday night local time, which will be the first time since the 1985 South African Grand Prix that the main game will be played on Saturday.
In addition, Liberty Media is the organizer of the Las Vegas Grand Prix, which is another special feature of the race.
At last year's Miami Grand Prix, the free media was one of the organizers to learn from the necessary experience. In order to make the casino station more prestigious, they directly bought a piece of local land for $240 million, which will be used as a grand prix paddock and maintenance area facility.
Probably such a place Source: Autoracing1
Over the past few years, the free media has spared no effort to expand F1's presence in the United States. The Netflix-produced documentary "Drive to Survive" has been updated to its fifth season, and American audiences have gradually learned and become familiar with F1 through the documentary as a medium, and they are more likely to watch F1 Grand Prix.
This is exemplified by ESPN's sky-high contract extension last year - ESPN has been the exclusive F1 broadcaster in the United States since 2018, with an annual $5 million; In a four-year contract extension signed last year, the annual fee jumped directly to $75-90 million.
At the same time, U.S. companies are not content to be F1 or team sponsors, they want to be more deeply involved.
On February 3, Ford reached a strategic cooperation agreement with Red Bull to return to F1 from 2026 and cooperate with Red Bull to develop power units; This will be Ford's first return to F1 since 2004; On January 5, GM will partner with Andretti Racing to seek an entry into F1 under its brand Cadillac.
GM and Ford are household names in the United States, and their entry into the market may continue to accelerate the trend of F1 Americanization.
Audi is about to enter the game,
Zhou Guanyu has a long way to go in the second season
The trend of Americanization of F1 is unstoppable, and the enthusiasm of Chinese fans to support Zhou Guanyu is also growing.
Debut scored, 3 games into the points zone, Canada 8th place brought back... These achievements constitute the highlights of Zhou Guanyu's rookie season. Judging from the performance in the second half of last year, we deserve higher expectations for the second year of Guanyu, but the task is not unarduous.
Due to the different characteristics and racing strength of F1 teams, the competition between teammates has become quite important, and the qualifying comparison is the most intuitive - in the nine races after the summer break last season, Zhou Guanyu narrowly defeated Bottas 5-4 in qualifying; In the first 13 races of the season, Bottas had an absolute advantage of 10-3 in qualifying, including a wave of seven consecutive wins.
Bottas has a wealth of experience, winning 10 races, 20 pole positions and 67 podiums in his career. By adapting to the first half of the season and keeping up with the second half, Zhou Guanyu's progress was quite amazing, and he naturally obtained a contract extension.
Last year, Bottas also took the initiative to share data with Zhou Guanyu and provided necessary guidance
Entering his second year, Zhou Guanyu needs to continue to improve, maintain a pattern in the team that can compete with his teammates, and even surpass - after all, in Sauber's youth squad, last season's F2 runner-up Theo Boschel is in the eye.
From the pre-season test, Alfa Romeo's new car C43 strength is online, and the team naturally hopes that the two drivers will have more access to the points zone. Bottas scored 46 points in the first nine races of the C42 last season, helping the team to finish sixth at the end of the year with 55 points. This is Alfa Romeo's best year-end ranking since his return in 2019.
This is the last year of Arrow's partnership with Sauber, and the team will run the Audi F1 factory from 2026, and Sauber Group has hired former McLaren team leader Andreas Seidel as CEO during the winter break to take charge of the preliminary preparations for 2026.
This also means that there may be major changes in the Sauber team lineup in 2024. Among the Audi global market, China's share is quite high, and the Shanghai International Circuit is currently sponsored by FAW-Audi. If Zhou Guanyu can deliver a satisfactory answer to the team this year, he may be able to create a bright F1 future for himself.
For Chinese fans, this season's F1 spectators may be even more intense than last year.
Red Bull may ride the dust,
But the "head brother" loved by Chinese car fans is back
Finally, back to the game itself. 10 teams are ready for the new season after last week's pre-season test in Bahrain, and through these three days of testing and the data reflected by the teams, we can also find some clues for the new season.
First of all, the defending champion Red Bull Racing team played strongly, and the new RB19 showed its strength.
Over three days of testing, the RB19 was able to easily produce competitive lap times at any time, with Red Bull Racing delivering the fastest lap and the most consistent long-distance results. According to authoritative media calculations, Red Bull RB19 has an advantage of about 0.2-0.4 seconds per lap, and the long-distance advantage will be more obvious.
Perhaps the season has not yet begun, and it can already be summed up in advance.
Secondly, Scuderia Ferrari basically solved the reliability problem of last season's power unit, the aerodynamic efficiency of the SF-23 car was significantly improved, and the straight tail speed was stronger than the RB19.
But not everything is moving in an optimistic direction. The long-distance tyre wear that plagued the team last season remains, and the SF-23 balance window is still small – Ferrari can compete with Red Bull for lap speed, but has little chance at this stage in terms of long distance.
Finally, perhaps to make many Chinese fans excited, Aston Martin will become a dark horse, and "head brother" Alonso finally has the opportunity to regain his majesty.
The AMR23 car performed well over long distances in pre-season testing, and paddock experts predicted that Aston Martin could compete with Mercedes and even Ferrari. This is directly reflected in the practice sessions that have been completed at the Bahrain Grand Prix - Alonso drove the AMR23 to the fastest lap in two of the three practice sessions, only finishing second in the first - not to mention Mercedes and Ferrari, which are already wrestling with Red Bull.
I thought of it fast, but I didn't expect it to be so fast! Perhaps this year, the second season of the famous scene of "Head Brother vs. Hamilton" will return to the paddock.
On the evening of March 4, Beijing time, the Bahrain Grand Prix qualifying round will begin; A day later, the 2023 season opener officially "lights go out".
The joy of car fans all over the world is really coming back!