Formula 1 lived up to its “F1 Circus” nickname in spades this summer break with too much drama to adequately report on in one single article. Drivers’ contracts were the main talk of the show, coming in left and right. Four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel announced his retirement from F1 at the end of July. The fan favourite, Daniel Ricciardo, was let go from his contract with McLaren Racing. A contract war between Alpine Racing and McLaren fighting to see who had rights to Formula 2’s current champion, Oscar Piastri, gripped the centre stage.
Fernando Alonso ignited the summer drama with his abrupt announcement regarding his departure from his current team (Alpine Racing) at the end of 2022 to join Aston Martin in 2023. Alpine responded with an announcement that their reserve driver, Oscar Piastri, the current F2 champion, would be driving for them in 2023. The young Australian immediately denied this claim. At the time, Piastri was rumored to be taking Ricciardo’s now vacant seat at McLaren alongside Lando Norris next season. This has since been confirmed.
This caused a great contract war between Alpine and McLaren that lasted throughout the month of August until the Contract Recognition Board (CRB) decided on September 2 that McLaren’s contract with Piastri was the only valid contract. The CRB’s ruling left Alpine in an embarrassing light. Losing world champion calibre drivers, and now having to pay both McLaren’s and Piastri’s legal fees, the French team is scrambling and has yet to choose their driver line-up for 2023 with limited options left.
Now, to what the sport is all about, the races. After a month away from the smell and taste of burnt rubber and fuel, racing fans got to embrace the impact of the revving engines on August 28 at the Belgium Grand Prix, kicking off three glorious back-to-back-to-back racing weekends. Max Verstappen and Red Bull Racing destroyed the competition, starting in the 14th position due to grid penalties after taking power unit upgrades to his RB-18. The Dutchman had a brilliant drive through the grid to end in first and to win the Belgium Grand Prix with more than 15 seconds between him and his teammate, Sergio Perez, who finished second.
Red Bull and Verstappen repeated a win on September 4 at the Dutch Grand Prix in one of the more exciting races of the 2022 season. Both a virtual safety car and an actual safety car saw some action, bringing in some drama near the end of the race, along with more Ferrari blunders. Ferrari’s idiotic (at best) strategic moves, pit stop decisions, and race day antics have all but kissed theirs and Charles Leclerc‘s chances of being the F1 Drivers and Constructor’s champions goodbye. Ferrari’s terrible race day decisions have been the topic of the freshest F1 memes posted daily across social media platforms, much to F1 fans’ joy and sadness. However, it was Mercedes who had the most bogus strategy decision on the grid today, losing out their best chance to win their first race of the season.
With Lewis Hamilton in first and teammate George Russell in second, Mercedes chose to box both drivers at the end of the safety car but allowed George Russell to change onto soft tires, losing a position to Verstappen, and put Hamilton onto fresh and colder mediums with less grip to defend his position. Red Bull chose to change Verstappen onto soft tires themselves, and with better grip, Verstappen easily overtook Hamilton at the race restart to go on to win the Dutchman’s home race.
Even though the F1 Season is not at its end, at this point, Red Bull’s brilliant principal strategy engineer Hannah Schmitz, as well as Max Verstappen, have allowed Red Bull to run away with both the Drivers and Constructors Championships.
Teryn Midzain is an English Major with ambitious goals to write movies and a full-time nerd, whose personality and eccentrics run on high-octane like the cars he loves. More importantly, Teryn loves sports [Formula One], and doesn’t care who knows. When not creating and running deadly schemes in his D&D sessions, Teryn tries to reach the core of what makes the romantic and dramatic World of Sports, the characters and people that make the events so spectacular.
