It isn't quite the summer break for Formula One, but in less than a week everyone will be on vacation. While we aren't there yet, we are at the halfway point of the Formula One season. Eleven races have been completed and 11 races remain.
Everyone keeps saying if you look beyond the top, it has been a quite a competitive season, and... there is some truth to that. It has been quite fun watching the fight for second, but nobody tunes in to watch the battle for second each race. How has this season been? Let's consider what has transpired and what is still to come this season.
Will we see a perfect season?
With each passing race it feels more likely so as Red Bull is 11-0 through the first half of the 2023 season, and these aren't just race victories, these are annihilations.
Five of 11 races have had margins of victory greater than ten seconds, four of which is have been greater than 20 seconds. Throwing out the Australian Grand Prix, which ended under messy safety car conditions, of the five races that were decided by less than ten seconds, three were Red Bull 1-2s and two of those were Sergio Pérez's victories this season.
Though we are seeing teams get closer in qualifying, and in the case of Hungary, we are seeing teams inch ahead of Red Bull, nobody is close to matching the race pace of Red Bull, and it does not look like anyone is going to come close.
Max Verstappen has won seven consecutive races on his own, and Verstappen is pulling away from Pérez. The Dutchman is two away from tying the drivers' record for most consecutive victories.
We are currently in unprecedented territory with Red Bull. Its 12 consecutive victories dating back to last season is the new record. Every streak eventually ends, but Red Bull's streak has no end in sight. These cars are not breaking down. There is no sign this group is prone to an unfortunate weekend that takes out its golden goose unexpectedly.
We are looking at possibly the greatest car ever built in Formula One winning an unfathomable amount of consecutive races. If it happens, it will not be a surprise. If it doesn't happen, it will just be history repeating itself, yet remain a glorious season for the team from Milton Keynes..
Who has the best chance to end Red Bull's streak?
The challenger has changed as the season has moved onward.
It was Aston Martin through the first six races. Then Mercedes picked up its game. Now McLaren has finished runner-up in the last two races. And yet none of them feel all that close.
The boring answer is Mercedes, a team that struggled for pace early in the season only to find it for races in the last five events only for it to disappear when Lewis Hamilton started on pole position at Hungary. The pieces are there, it is a matter of getting them to aligned. It was the same case last year, and it felt Mercedes would have it click to get at least one victory last year. It did in Brazil.
It feels like we are in the same place as last year, only Red Bull is further up the road. The truth is Mercedes has a reliable car, Hamilton has scored points in every race and George Russell has shown moments, but cannot quite match his senior teammate.
Like 2022, Mercedes feels too good of a team not to have its one weekend, but Red Bull could be out of reach already. Mercedes' best hope, along with the rest of the grid, is if Red Bull has its race where something fails or starts to sink because of wind tunnel restrictions, it is right there to capitalize on the gift provided.
What happened to Aston Martin?
It appears to be another case of shooting to be great out of the box and be unable to develop further as the season moves along.
Granted, Fernando Alonso is still third in the drivers’ championship and he is one of three drivers, along with Verstappen and Hamilton, to score points in every race this season. However, after finishing no worse than fourth in the first six races with five visits to the podium, he went from 93 points in the first six races, 24 points ahead of Hamilton to 46 points in the last five races and now only six points ahead of Hamilton.
Meanwhile, Lance Stroll's performance remains rather consistent. After scoring 27 points in the first six races, Stroll has scored 19 points in the last five races. Stroll has never been close to the maximum potential of this car, as we are seeing from Alonso. The one-man band element of Aston Martin has always had it as risk of losing World Constructors' Championship positions because the weight is not equally distributed over its two drivers.
Does anyone else have a shot?
Hey! McLaren is showing up to the party. After scoring 17 points through the first eight races, the team has added 70 in the last three. It has had at least one car in the top five in three consecutive races and both cars have been in the top five in the last two.
McLaren gave Mercedes fits at the last two races and it had Lando Norris finish second on each occasion. It is maintaining its own in the fight for second, but first is another animal. Is it likely McLaren could be in second the day a Red Bull fails within the final ten laps and Norris or even Oscar Piastri could scoop up a first career victory? Absolutely. I guess that is the best progress you can hope for at this point in the 2023 season.
And Ferrari?
It doesn't feel like the Scuderia is going to end up in the mix with Mercedes, Aston Martin and McLaren.
Ferrari has had its moments. Charles Leclerc was on pole position at Baku and was second in the sprint race there, only to finish third. Leclerc was second at Austria. However, that is really it for this group. Carlos Sainz, Jr. remains rather consistent, but on the periphery of the battle at the front. Sainz, Jr. has five top five finishes, but at no time has he felt a threat for a podium.
When Ferrari makes errors now, it isn't taking it out of first or second, it is taking the cars out of fifth or sixth and dropping them down to seventh or eighth. We should not think this group will have it ironed out and be a fourth player in the battle for second.
The One-Team Middle
That is Alpine! Or at least it could be Alpine. Alpine is 40 points behind McLaren, who is 80 points behind Ferrari, but Alpine is 36 points clear of Williams and Haas and Alpine has put 11 cars in the points out of 22 possible opportunities, which includes a podium finish at Monaco.
If that isn't the definition of a middle of the pack team then I do not know what is. The third in Monaco will likely be the exception to this team's capabilities, but we have seen Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly each finish in the points, however it cannot get much higher than eighth in a race.
Yet, there feels there is no threat from behind. Alpine should not be frightened as Williams and Haas each finished in the points three times through 11 races. Alpine might not be able to keep up with McLaren, but it isn't at risk of slipping below sixth. Not great, but there are worse positions to be in.
Can Daniel Ricciardo lift AlphaTauri off the mat?
While Williams and Haas are tied on 11 points, Alfa Romeo sits on nine points and AlphaTauri is last on two points, both those points coming in consecutive races in Australia and Azerbaijan. On top of the two points, Alpha Tauri has finished 11th three times and 12th twice.
Exit Nyck de Vries and enter Daniel Ricciardo.
Ricciardo's first race after a half a season on the sidelines saw him start and finish ahead of Yuki Tsunoda with Ricciardo starting and finishing 13th. AlphaTauri somewhat caught a break as Alfa Romeo had its cars start fifth and seventh in Hungary only for its cars to finish 12th and 17th. Alfa Romeo could have put some daylight between it and AlphaTauri and failed to so.
AlphaTauri only gets off the bottom if Ricciardo and Tsunoda are scoring points, and it is going to require more than tenth.
Is anybody else in jeopardy of losing a seat midseason?
Honestly? No.
Mercedes is not switching drivers, nor is Ferrari. Aston Martin isn't punting Alonso and Stroll is safe. Alpine isn't making any chances. Neither is Alfa Romeo. Haas is content with its lineup. Williams isn't going to make a change. McLaren is happy.
However, I think there is a world where Red Bull and AlphaTauri make one more change.
One of the reasons why it is believed Ricciardo was put in the AlphaTauri seat over Red Bull junior driver Liam Lawson is Lawson is competing for the Super Formula championship and he can focus on that while not having to split his attention.
However, the Super Formula season ends at the end of October. In all likelihood, Red Bull will have the constructors' championship clinched. In that case, if the team is unhappy with Sergio Pérez's performance, it could shift Ricciardo to Red Bull and introduce Lawson to AlphaTauri.
The Brazil round is the week after the Super Formula finale. That is the earliest it could happen, or it could wait for the final two races of 2023 in Las Vegas and Abu Dhabi. It is highly unlikely, but would you rule it out with Red Bull?
Has Logan Sargeant been respectable?
Kind of, but it is a lose-lose situation for Sargeant.
Through 11 races, the American driver has scored zero points, no improvement over Nicholas Latifi. Sargeant and Nyck de Vries were the only drivers without points through the first ten races. It does not help optics that Alexander Albon has scored 11 points with his best finish being seventh in Canada.
However, Albon is a veteran of 70 career starts and this is his second year with Williams. Sargeant is a rookie with one year of Formula Two under his belt. It would be foolish to consider Sargeant a polished production before this season started. He is still in the infancy of his career and is now learning in the most cutthroat environment.
Sargeant has shown respectable pace, starting with a 12th on debut in Bahrain and he finished 13th in Austria and 11th at Silverstone. Latifi did score points last year and he scored twice in 2021, but all three of those races were marred by weather. Latifi only finished in the top 13 once in the dry last year and twice in 2022.
Sargeant is doing as well as you can hope but until he steals some points and turn some heads, he is destined to end up on the curb sooner rather than later.
How does the second half play out?
At worst, Red Bull wins nine races. That is leaving room for one round where Red Bull suffers a mechanical retirement and another car slips through and at least one round where one team actually has Red Bull beat. That is a stretch, but there is a slim chance it happens.
Mercedes continues consistently finishing behind Red Bull with Hamilton and Russell. Aston Martin has a few good days with Alonso, but far below the start of the season and Stroll's record costs Aston Martin not only second but third in the constructors' championship. However, Aston Martin holds off McLaren by a sliver.
Alpine will be on its own in sixth, but never comes close to finishing on the podium again. Haas edges out Williams for seventh and Alfa Romeo distances itself from AlphaTauri, but Alpha Tauri does better on average to close out the season.
