The big winners from the 2023 F1 season

There is a scope with a season review special of Winners and Losersto expand and select maybe five winners to include in this firstpart of the analysis. But sticking to the traditional three winnersas is normally (except in outstanding circumstances) the case helpsraise the bar and threshold to who actually qualifies to be awinner. While the overall championship storyline was basically overafter Lap 48 in Miami and the remainder of the year was MaxVerstappen putting 16 further cherries on top of his cake,elsewhere there was some great on-track battles, controversy andproof to the big teams that the gap between them and the uppermidfield is closing bit by bit. Part two - Losers of the seasonwill follow on Monday 18th December. Winner - Max Verstappen, RedBull There has, on occasion, been criticism of this analysis on agiven Grand Prix weekend for not including Max Verstappen wrappingup another pole or routine win. The reasoning behind that has beenvery simple. The idea is to bring you the stories from up and downthe grid that make their efforts outstanding. For example, ifVerstappen turned up, dominated practice, stuck it on pole and ledall but four laps of the race on his way to a win where he wasn'tseen after Turn 1, that does not necessarily make him a winner.There is nothing to say about his race. In contrast, say a driverhad a terrible Friday, suffered a shock Q1 elimination, but thenroared back to fifth-place by the flag, that counts as a winner.But, it would certainly be amiss to not include Verstappen in thispiece. Perhaps the trait that best summed up Verstappen's thirdWorld Championship was his sheer bloody-minded to drive SergioPerez into the dirt and not allow the Mexican up for air at anypoint. In the past, Lewis Hamilton has been guilty of easing offafter winning the championship, by that final 0.1% that can makeall the difference - but there's no chance with Verstappen. Six ofhis 19 wins came after the title was sealed in the Qatar Sprint, ashis desire just to win and be the best shone through. It must besaid that underneath him was statistically the greatest F1 car ofall-time in the RB19. But by the same token, that was the same carunderneath Perez - who won two races to Verstappen's 19. You canhave the best car in the world, if the driver is not able toextract the maximum from it everytime it is on track, you will getnowhere near the title. Winner - McLaren Red Bull has simply donethe best job on the grid, and the onus is on Mercedes and Ferrarito get their acts together and do better. That might seem simple,but a spanner has been thrown in the works through the resurgenceof pesky McLaren and Aston Martin who had their turns as Red Bull'sclosest challenger. It's hard enough trying to catch Red Bull as itis, trying to do so while defeating two upper midfield teams is aproblem Mercedes and Ferrari can do without. But why McLaren forthis piece instead of Aston Martin? Well, it's because the Wokingsquad was able to be consistent throughout the year and ended theyear with the most important feeling: momentum. After its earlyseason run of six podiums in eight races, Aston Martin stalled withthe AMR23 and went backwards, becoming the fifth-fastest team in ahandful of races. Some Fernando Alonso brilliance bagged twopodiums after the summer break, but they were firmly Alonso podiumsrather than Aston Martin ones. Moreover, if Lance Stroll hadn't hadsuch a rotten run of form when the car was as its worst, Astonwould have finished fourth in the Constructors' - but that went toMcLaren. There is a lot to be positive about McLaren at the moment.It has arguably one of the best driver pairings in Lando Norris andOscar Piastri, a CEO in Zak Brown who had turned the team aroundfrom its knees in five years, new technical infrastructure and ateam boss in Andrea Stella who won many paddock plaudits for hisapproach. Crucially though, after admitting it got the launch-specMCL60 wrong, every time an upgrade was bolted to the car, inAustria and Singapore, it worked as intended and lofted McLarenfrom also-ran to podiums to best behind Red Bull. There are stillproblems that must be ironed out with the fundamental DNA of thecars, especially in low-speed corners, but McLaren is nowofficially back and a team on the up. Winner - Alex Albon, WilliamsOf the clutch of four teams fighting over seventh to 10th in theConstructors', there was little to really separate them over thecourse of the year, except one thing. Williams had Alex Albon. Ofthe 10 drivers who drove for Williams, AlphaTauri, Alfa Romeo andHaas, the highest points scorer, bar Albon was Yuki Tsunoda with 17- with 14 of those coming once the AT04 received a big upgradepackage in the United States. Albon finished with 27 points, andsingle-handily earned Williams seventh in the Constructors', withteam-mate Logan Sargeant bagging just one point in a mixed rookieseason. If 2022 was about Albon blowing away the cobwebs andre-establishing himself as a Grand Prix driver, then 2023 was abouthim kicking at the door of a return to the top table with someexceptional performances. Seventh in Canada was one of the drivesof the season, placing the car just so on the entry of the hairpinso that the chasing Esteban Ocon could not use DRS to pass. Albon'sefforts in helping Williams secure seventh - its best result sincefifth in 2017 - is worth about an extra $30 million when the prizemoney is awarded from FOM. With the exception of 2021, Williams hadfinished last every year since 2018, but this injection of around$30 million is priceless to a team slowly being moulded into a21st-century Grand Prix team and not one stuck in its old ways.What is vital for the team is to keep hold of Albon if it can. Heis the public face and figure-head of the rejuvenation, and itwould be a shame for Williams if he departed.