🏁 2023 Takes the Checkered Flag

PLP Season 1 Edition 10

90 Days Until the 2024 Season Opening Weekend

And that’s a wrap on the 2023 Formula 1 season. This year saw the most dominant performance by a driver in history. Name any record - Max broke it. Even so, 2023 delivered a bunch of exciting races and countless dramatic story lines. And while we all wish the competition was closer at the top, sometimes you just have to sit back and (begrudgingly) admire greatness when you see it. Here’s to hoping some other teams can close the gap and give Red Bull a fight in 2024. Until then, we’ll still be back every Friday with the regular going’s on around the F1 world, along with some special off-season features. Stay tuned for all the hot takes over the long, cold winter. Only 3 months to go..

Quick Quiz: There is an additional race added for 2024 that was not on the 2023 calendar. Where will it be held?

Find out below ⬇

Abu Dhabi GP Recap

Podium: 🥇VER - 🥈LEC - 🥉RUS

DNF: SAI

If you we’re following the battles for P2 in the Constructors’ and P4 in the Driver’s Championships, then Abu Dhabi did not disappoint. Graphics updating during the race showed Ferrari and Mercedes switching back and forth every few laps with only a few points separating the teams. Leclerc and Russell battled near the front, with Hamilton and Sainz jockeying in the middle of the pack for points. Clearly the tight contest was on the minds of the drivers:

Ultimately Carlos’ poor qualifying effort hurt Ferrari’s chances, with both Mercs finishing in the top 10. Charles gave it his all by making a unique strategy call- trying to give the penalized Checo the slip stream and let him pass in order to pull a +5 second gap ahead of George. But it wouldn’t phase the British driver who put in a strong effort to pull out a podium and P2 for Mercedes in the Constructors’. While Leclerc had a great race for P2, Alonso finished P7 and took the tiebreaker for P4 in the Drivers’.

Pain.

At lights out, Charles did challenge Max a few times on lap 1 which was exciting, but you can guess how that ultimately went. Russell and Piastri has some good battles, with Perez moving up the field in his own right. If not for contact with Lando on lap 47 that earned him the 5 second penalty, he would have secured P2 for Ferrari. A tough pit stop for McLaren saw Lando get overtaken by George in the pit lane, a positional switch he was not able to overcome. Based on pit stop timing and strategy Yuki actually led a few laps of the race, putting on a stellar performance for P8 and earning Driver of the Day honors.

And thus we concluded the 2023 campaign. Some amazing races and drives throughout the year. Let’s take a look at F1.com’s final power rankings for 2023, which takes machinery out of the equation:

No surprise at P1. While Lewis is one of the goats, it’s somewhat surprising seeing him P2. Shows why he’s one of the best ever, as he went about his business this season and got the most out of a mediocre car at best. Lando P3 makes sense, he had a sensational run beginning mid season, overtaking another pleasant surprise in Alonso who started hot. Albon did as much as humanly possible with his car and had a stellar year. Leclerc surged late, while Sainz took the only victory off of RBR in one of the best races of the season. A bit surprised at Russell P7 with only two podiums in a bit of an underachieving season, but to be fair he never had the car either. Piastri put in a great rookie campaign with a sprint win and two podiums, while Gasly had some nice weekends himself with a 3rd place sprint finish and a podium.

• 10 things we learned in Abu Dhabi

• Prize money: How much did each team earn in 2023? Estimate is $140M for RBR, and a measly $60M for Haas bringing up the rear. Pish posh.

Drive to Survive Returning to Netflix on February 23

Everyone’s favorite docuseries is back, releasing the 6th installment 6 days before the start of the opening Grand Prix weekend in February. While a criticism of the series has been it’s over dramatization of battles and rivalries that weren’t quite as hot in reality as portrayed on the small screen (somewhat fair critique, but what F1 fan doesn’t love drama?), you can’t argue with the boost the series has created for F1 interest in the U.S.

Even if the series does dial up the hype, it will be interesting to see the behind the scenes on the seasons biggest storylines. Max’s dominance, Aston’s blistering start, to being overtaken by a surging McLaren later on, Checo’s struggles, Piastri’s splendid rookie campaign, and of course the return Daniel Ricciardo (Still everyone’s favorite Australian. But we must admit the favorite Australian competition is heating up). We’ll be binging starting that Friday to get us extra jazzed up for the season. There’s also pre-season testing in Bahrain Feb 21-23 to take in (if you’re truly sick like us and just can’t get enough).

Las Vegas Pit Building Set to Become F1 U.S. HQ

It should have been obvious they weren’t going to let this 300K square foot bad boy sit idly by 51 weekends out of the year. The 3 football field length building will be transitioned into a new U.S. base of operations, open year round with karting, merchandise, food/drink, super cars, and an unannounced project with Neflix. (Hear me out: Drive to Survive, but with grade school kids driving karts. All the drama, except with juice boxes to celebrate instead of champagne)

It will henceforth be known as the “pit building” rather than the traditional “paddock”, to avoid references to the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooter of the same name. A welcome change, one that organizers should have thought about from the beginning. The confusion among locals not familiar with the term is understandable, and renaming the building is the respectful thing to do - with the simple “pit building” being free of horrific connotations.

With the new pit building open year round, surely they’ll take advantage of the 360 degree views of the city, strip, and of course the sphere. Have we mentioned the sphere here before? It’s simply lovely, as Max would say. (We are not paid by MSG, who owns the Sphere.. but maybe we should be)

Down the Grid

Tech Talk

• Did Alonso brake test Hamilton? Telemetry data says yes.

• Percent of laps completed by driver for 2023. Can you guess who has 100%? Max tops the list of course, with Ocon at the bottom with 83%

• Who took the title in the Destructors’ Championship? $$$$ value is estimated damage caused to their car for the 2023 season:

Off the Grid

• Watch Crofty put on a clinic as he takes you inside the commentary box

• “Goggle Gate”: Numerous teams summoned to stewards for pit crews failing to wear eye protection during pit stops

• With entry fees for next season based on points scored in the previous one, Red Bull will dole out $7.4 million - a small dent in their first place prize

• After doing all he could to try to secure P2, Charles Leclerc is denied the chance to do donuts by team. He replied, “Not even this for **** sake!”. Pain.

• Yuki was star struck meeting Jason Statham. He revealed that the AirDrop name on his iPhone is “Jason Statham’s Son”. 🤣

Welp, as we try to figure out what to do with ourselves for the next three months.. we’ll still be back each Friday a.m. to deliver whatever off track news that happens to percolate. See ya next week.

Questions? Comments? Did we get something wrong (never 😁)? Let us know ▶ [email protected]