Putting a wrap on F1 2023: We look at some of the season's biggest highlights and lowlights

From Max Verstappen's historic record-setting performance to Oscar Piastri's strong rookie season, it was a season fans, drivers and teams won't soon forget

It's too bad Formula One didn't end its season a month from now, because it would have been a GREAT Christmas present for F1 fans.

I mean, what a season it was.

No, scratch that. Correction: I mean, WHAT A SEASON IT WAS!!!!!!

There, that's better.

But the 2023 F1 season has indeed reached its conclusion with this past Sunday's season finale at Abu Dhabi. So let's look back on the 22-race campaign and look back upon some of our favorite topics of the year:

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Another race, another win for Max Verstappen, who won a record 19 times this season (only two other drivers won races). Photo: USA Today Sports / David Kirouac

Max Verstappen Dominance

It would be very easy to just skim over Verstappen's greatness this year and just talk about other things. I understand everything involving Verstappen is met with the words such as "record-setting", "historic", "greatness", " awesome", "winning", "boring", etc.

So instead of writing an entire article about how great of a season Mad Max had, let's just list the records Verstappen broke this year, and then we can continue with some other topics:

* Max didn't just have a two-for, he had a three-for: He had the highest percentage of wins in a season, paired with the most wins in a season, which also means he had the most points in a season. Verstappen also had the most consecutive wins, most podiums, and most laps led in a single season.

* He had the highest percentage of laps led in a season as well as the most consecutive wins from pole position, pairing with the most wins from pole in a season. And only two other drivers won races this year.

* Continuing with the biggest points gap between the 1st and 2nd finishers, along with the most consecutive races as championship leader dating back to last year. Also, he had the most consecutive points scored, most consecutive top-two finishes, as well as the most hat tricks in a season.

* Finally, he had the most pitstops by the winning driver in a race, the only driver to win 3 races in the same country and the only driver to lead 1000 laps in a season EVER.

In summary, the highest highlights of all: 19 wins and 21 podiums.

Let's move on.

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Oscar Piastri. Photo provided

Oscar Piastri's Wonderful Rookie Season

We are big fans of this Aussie. Moving to McLaren at the last minute and showing Alpine the door in a wild contract situation last year was the best decision the 22-year-old could have made.

In the last few years with McLaren, Lando Norris had dominated Daniel Ricciardo. Piastri headed into the team as a rookie going against Norris. No one expected Piastri to challenge as well as he did. Obviously, everyone knew Oscar was a talented driver but he took a year off beforehand and joined Norris who is one of the top drivers in the sport. Piastri went toe to toe with Norris the entire year and it's not like Lando had an off-year.

This year Piastri clearly proved himself as the best rookie and probably a top-half driver in the field. His rookie season garnered him 97 points including two podiums and a sprint race win. It's important to keep in mind that McLaren wasn't exactly the fastest for the first few races or he likely would have scored over 100 points. Finishing 9th in the standings and leading your team to 4th in the Constructors' championship is something not a lot of rookies can say -- or do. Compare his rookie season to Logan Sargeant and well ... you can see why he's rated so high.

Piastri was an easy pick to make Q3 for the entire second half of the season, which showed how consistent he was as a rookie. At the British Grand Prix he qualified 3rd and battled for the race lead with Verstappen until he ended the race in 4th. Oscar qualified in the top 5 a total of four times in 2023.

A couple of months ago Piastri re-signed with McLaren until the end of 2026, further showing their faith in the rookie -- soon to be a sophomore in 2024. Will he avoid auto racing's dreaded "sophomore jinx?" Only time will tell.

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Mercedes vs. Ferrari

The battle for 2nd in the Constructors' crown came down to literally the final lap of the season. Ferarri was leading Mercedes by just 2 points but due to Sergio Perez having a five-second time penalty, George Russell would slot into a podium finish and take those extra points. Charles LeClerc let Perez pass but Russell stayed within five seconds, which secured the 2nd place position for Mercedes by 3 points.

It's also important to note that Mercedes didn't win a race this year which seems to be something that has happened every year. Sainz got the only win for Ferrari this year that was a non-Red Bull win.

Looking back at the battle between these two teams, it's important to note that Alonso and Norris finished ahead of Russell and Sainz, yet not ahead of them in the Constructors'. It's also interesting to note that Mercedes customer teams (McLaren and Aston Martin) had drivers finish ahead of them in the driver's championship. That doesn't normally happen.

Realistically, Mercedes could have taken 2nd place a lot more commandingly if Russell had a better season. This year was plagued with mistakes for the Brit but he still grabbed points at a large portion of most races of the year. It's just the fact he could have easily had another 20-30 points without those mistakes.

However, the same can be said about Leclerc. Even though Leclerc finished 6 points ahead of Sainz, Leclerc had so many dropped points over the year. Sainz grabbed 200 but was always consistent and had very few races where his mistakes lost Ferrari points. At a lot of races this season, Leclerc dropped points and even podiums due to his own errors. This has been an issue for Leclerc, more last season than this, but it's still something that needs to be improved if he will ever win a driver's championship.

So at the end of the day, Sainz and Hamilton were solid rocks of consistent points for their teams, and Leclerc and Russell had mistake-driven seasons that could have swung things in favor of either team if they had better seasons. The big note here is ...

Ferarri had more race wins and more podiums, yet lost out to Mercedes.

It was more about those races where neither team had the pace and where Mercedes was able to get extra points here and there. The battle for 2nd was great this entire year and one of the best storylines of 2023.

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McLaren vs. Aston Martin

This was THE BEST battle between teams all year in our opinion. It may have something to do with the fact we love a good ole' midfield tussle and that we enjoy watching both of these teams. It's almost like comparing it to the NFL or MLB, these two teams are battling for the final wildcard playoff spot ... it's like that but in F1 terms, obviously.

This battle was such a great watch all year because of the constant form changes between teams. Now, we didn't really know these two teams were battling for 4th place until later on in the year. Aston Martin put all their marbles in the front half of the year while Mclaren got strong towards the middle, while at the same time, Aston Martin was falling back. It wasn't until the final few races that both teams were really strong and this became such an enjoyable battle.

In the end, Mclaren edged Aston Martin by 22 points but it didn't always seem like it was going to be that "large" of a gap.

After digging into some graphs, we find it really interesting how this battle went on because as mentioned, these teams were polar opposites in terms of speed at certain points of the year.

First, we want to start with how Aston Martin came out of the gate with super speed, mostly with Fernando Alonso, who started the first eight races with 6 podiums. He was second in the standings at that point. In those same 8 races, Stroll had a total of 37 points while Alonso had 117. Compare this to McLaren, where they had a slow start and they had just 17 points in the same amount of races. You can see what we mean when we say no one knew these teams would be battling for 4th. In fact, McLaren was one of the worst.

It wasn't until the upgrades came through for McLaren and at this point, they were somewhere between the 2nd and 4th best car on the grid while AM had dropped to the midfield. Between rounds 9 and 19, McLaren grabbed a total of 227 points (20.6 a race) while AM achieved just 61 points (5.5 a race). The difference here is absolutely insane and most accepted the fact that McLaren was going to get 4th quite easily.

Until ... Stroll pulled out some of the best races of his career to end this season. In the final 3 races, Stroll finished 5th, 5th, and 10th to grab some huge points for AM and Alonso did his job as well by getting 3rd, 9th, and 7th. In the final 3 races, AM put together a final push to get 4th by taking 44 points in those 3 races -- their best form since the beginning of the year.

All in all, McLaren was still able to get decent results to hold off AM with the help of a Norris podium in Brazil, but this battle was a story of two seasons for two teams that faced the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. We can only hope for another great upper midfield battle like this again next year.

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Resurgence by Williams & Alpha Tauri

We all know Williams aren't exactly as bad as they were in the George Russell era, but they still lack the aerodynamics to run in the points consistently. This is backed up by the fact the American rookie Logan Sargeant ended up with just one point and that was with the help of a few DNFs and DSQs.

Alex Albon is the rock of Williams (he out-qualified Sargeant 22-0) and in the middle of the year, he was grabbing points left and right for Williams. From Round 7 to Round 19, Albon got points in almost every race, and we're not just talking about one point.

Albon had plenty of P7s and P8s, while of course getting a few races where he finished 10th. But still, in this era of F1 where there are about 6 teams better than them, Albon finishing that high in the points is very impressive. In fact, Albon did so well this year that his name is being thrown around as one of the best bang-for-buck drivers and someone who is ready for a big team again. Albon's successes this year was good enough to put Williams in 7th, the highest they have been in quite a long time.

The same can be said about Alpha Tauri. For the majority of the year, Alpha Tauri was the worst team with Nyck De Vries and Yuki Tsunoda as their driver lineup. Things changed when De Vries got dropped from the team and replaced by Liam Lawson and ultimately Daniel Ricciardo. Things changed so much that Tsunoda actually led some laps in Abu Dhabi, albeit because he hadn't pitted yet.

From Qatar onwards, both Tsunoda and Ricciardo were qualifying in Q2 and Q3 and were all of a sudden putting themselves in points-placing positions. Ricciardo getting 7th in Mexico along with Yuki finishing in the points in 3 of the final 6 races meant that Alpha Tauri was going to grab enough points to pass both Haas and Alfa Romeo.

Basically, both Williams and Alpha Tauri looked like they were going to finish the bottom two but with late-season pushes they ended up finishing 7th and 8th, respectively.

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Daniel Ricciardo. Photo: USA Today Sports / Eric Bolte

Sergio Perez. Photo: Formula One

Important Seasons for Ricciardo and Perez

We want this section to be short because we think people are overreacting here. Now, we understand Perez isn't on the same level as Verstappen, but he has been closest to Verstappen than any of his other teammates besides Ricciardo, but Verstappen was a young driver who didn't have the same speed that he does today.

When Perez was struggling in the middle of the season and Ricciardo became a part of F1 again, all anyone could talk about was how Red Bull was going to swap the drivers or replace Perez with Danny Ric next season.

We think we can slow down on this now. Perez finished the season with a better mindset and even though he still didn't win any of the races past the 5th race, Perez still looks like the best teammate pairing for Max.

Ricciardo started off well but realistically it's hard to tell how good or bad his performances are given he had a slower car and an injury. If you compare him to his teammate, why aren't more people talking about Yuki going to Red Bull next year?

At this point, we'd be very surprised to see Perez dropped from Redbull, and we think the most likely case for Ricciardo is that he stays at Alpha Tauri for another year.

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Haas Finishing last in the Constructors'

This season was a distHAASter, to say the least. From a bird's eye view, you can easily just say that their car this year didn't have the pace, but that would be wrong. This Haas car reached Q3 multiple times and there weren't many times where Haas was the slowest car in qualifying. They had a great single-lap pace car.

The issue with this year's car came down to tire degradation, bad strategy, and an overall slow car on long runs. They put all the marbles into a car that was good over one lap but when an F1 race is anywhere from 50-70 laps on average, you need a car that is fast over the long run.

So, it was obvious that Haas and Guenther Steiner got the car wrong this year, but it's not just this year. In the standings for the last five years, Haas has finished 9th twice, 8th once, and dead last twice, including this year. The momentum from the early days when Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen were 4th and 5th in the season opener back in 2018 is long gone.

The future now for Haas is starting to be questioned. Gene Haas still backs this team but maybe it's time for some changes in management and some changes within the backend with car design, manufacturing, etc.

In 2018 Haas had 93 total points, meanwhile in the last 5 years they have achieved a grand total of just 80. Oh, the embarrassment!

Something needs to change for Haas because there is no reason a driver lineup that consistents of Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen should finish with just 12 points in a 22-race season.

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Logan Sargeant. Photo courtesy Formula One

Contracts for the Future

Once again this section will be short because the only driver left without a contract is Logan Sargeant at Williams. Would it be tough to give up on him after one year? Yes, but they have good reasoning.

Sargeant did have solid single-lap speed, especially when he qualified 6th in Las Vegas. But the only American driver in the F1 circus dropped any opportunities at points because of his lack of tire management and long-run speed. The question Williams has to ask itself now is if it's worth it to give up on Sargeant this early to just bring in another rookie. So we have to look at the options:

Liam Lawson could come to Williams since he proved what he could do at Alpha Tauri in the few races he did. Of course, the best option would be Theo Pourchaire, considering he just won the Formula 2 crown. But he is also prone to mistakes. In his favor, though, Pourchaire has more pace than Sargeant we would like to believe. It's really tough to comment on this now, but James Vowles refused to comment on the future of Sargeant at season's end. At this point in time, we would like to think Sargeant will be alright -- but there is no point in speculating this right now.

So, that's the highlights -- and a few lowlights -- for this year, and a busy campaign it was. Even though a championship battle didn't exist, all the battles elsewhere made this a great season to watch!

Which leaves us with just one question: What will the 2024 season do for an encore?