The European summer has come and gone and as always, it leaves me with a sad feeling, especially since in central Europe, it was a very nice one. Although a passionate skier, I’m no friend of the dark season which will soon be upon us, but that also means we’re entering the final straight of the 2023 F1 season. In my last update just before the summer, fresh out of a bull fight in Madrid as I was at the time, the analogy with the charging bull Fernando Alonso was a rather obvious one. A few months later, it’s clear some things have changed while others have stayed the same. The bull analogy is still working, but the green bull has been replaced by its red cousin, which wasn’t doing too bad at the beginning of the season either.

The way Red Bull has dominated the 2023 season almost makes you forget the pretty significant updates to the cars we saw before last season, aiming at making the races more exciting, and very much succeeding in doing so last season. This year, Max Verstappen has won 12 of 15 races and been on the podium in all but one. By the time of my last update though, Sergio “Checo” Perez had won in Saudi Arabia and Azerbaijan, which made me speculate that Perez may, just maybe, be good enough to challenge Max for the title. Well I was wrong, because since early summer, Max’s winning streak has continued while Checo has faded significantly, as has Alonso on Aston Martin. Instead, we’ve seen a slow but steady return to form of three other teams and drivers: Ferrari, Mercedes and McLaren.

Looking at them in that order, the biggest change in Maranello is probably that with the arrival of Cédric Vasseur as team head, Ferrari now has a strategy when they start a race, something that seemed to be missing most of last season. Nowhere was this more visible than in the fantastic race in Singapore a week ago, where it was the strategy, next to Carlos’ sublime driving that gave him and Ferrari their first win for the season. The end of the race was the most exciting this year, with Sainz managing to keep his first follower Norris behind him but within DRS distance for something like five laps so that the two chasing Mercedeses that were both quicker wouldn’t be able to pass Norris, and thus threaten himself. It was highly impressive driving, and a very deserved win!

Mercedes on their hand have clearly progressed in the last races with Russell and Hamilton still forming one of the best duos among all the teams. They’re also quite close result-wise, with Hamilton still having the edge, being third in the championship. The biggest progress is however to be found at McLaren. Lando Norris still dominates the young Oscar Pilastri, but the latter is progressing fast in his first full season and in the last races, both have enjoyed a car that’s quicker than both Mercedes and Ferrari.

It’s thus pretty clear that Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren are the three teams that will finish second-fourth when we round up the season (but not necessarily in that order). It’s also not impossible that whilst no one will challenge Max for the title, should Checo’s recent difficulties continue, both Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso could challenge him for second place, if all the stars align. That would however require Alonso and the Aston Martin returning to the form of the first half of the season.

Further down the field it’s especially Alex Albon who continues to surprise positively, managing to regularly place the not-very-fast Williams in the points. He seems to be enjoying his time at Williams, but there are of course limits to how fast the team will ever get. That unfortunately goes for the other teams in the second half as well, with both Alfa Romeo Racing and Haas failing so far to progress in any way. Given the experience in the driver line-up of both teams (Bottas on Alfa Romeo, Hulkenberg and Magnussen on Haas), there’s really no doubt the cars, or rather the development budgets, are the real problem.

Things look somewhat better at Alpine (Renault) whereas they look somewhat worse at AlphaTauri, where Tsunoda swears far more while driving than he collects points. AlphaTauri have also replaced Nyck de Vries with our favorite Aussie Daniel Ricciardo, who without wanting to be mean has a great talent for picking teams on their way down rather than up. With AlphaTauri however there’s only one way to go, and Ricciardo will be there for all of 2024, so maybe, just maybe, things will start to look up both for the team and him again. That’s all relative though, since the chance of AlphaTauri or any of the small teams clinching a podium are all but inexistant.

As we enter the last straight of the 2023 season, Red Bull is thus as dominant as ever, and Max is in a league of his own. It’s also obvious that he’s gained a new level of maturity in his driving, being far calmer and, by the looks of it, in perfect harmony with the car. Most probably, the season will end with a Red Bull one-two, since although Checo has had a streak of bad luck and seems to be out of form, it should still be enough to hold on to second place.

The other top teams have come somewhat closer but the difference to Red Bull is still significant, and the question is perhaps not if they catch up this year, but rather if they manage to do so next. It’s interesting to listen to Lewis Hamilton in this regard, being very open about what he still sees as a very wide gap to Red Bull, and the Mercedes car still suffering from issues, notably in terms of rear downforce. Leclerc is just as open in terms of Ferrari’s progress but what still remains a significant gap to Red Bull. That doesn’t really bode well for an exciting 2024 season – but let’s perhaps finish 2023 before we worry about that, and hope we get some excitement for second place in the championship!