Despite there being little to still play for, the first of the final two rounds of the 2023 Formula 1 season is one full of intrigue.

The Las Vegas Grand Prix will be unique in many ways, not only because of F1 itself acting as promoter, but because the race is a step into the unknown unlike ever before.

However, while F1 might think it is ready for Vegas, is Vegas really ready for F1?

Now, this weekend won’t be the first time F1 has raced in Vegas.

In fact, the ill-fated Caesars Palace Grand Prix of 1981 and 1982 saw to that, with an uninspiring layout in the car park of the famous hotel. At the time, nobody seemed to care and the sport continued on its crusade of strange events across the USA in a failed bid to crack the American market.

So what’s changed in the decades between F1’s unsuccessful attempt to crack Sin City and its anticipated return?

Ever since F1 was acquired by Liberty Media, the sport’s popularity in the United States has skyrocketed to heights that have surpassed expectations.

Aided by the advent of the Netflix behind-the-scenes documentary series Drive to Survive, TV figures have risen on US-network ESPN from an average of 554,000 people per race in 2018 to a record 1.21 million in 2022. 

The United States GP in Austin, Texas regularly sees weekend crowds of over 400,000 and the addition of Miami in 2022 shattered US F1 viewership records with 2.583 million average viewers.

This growth stateside saw F1 seize a commercial opportunity in adding Vegas to the calendar, seeking to reap the financial benefits of promoting a GP itself, but with potential upsides always come risks.

The Vegas event has grown into a financial behemoth, with ticket prices dwarfing the likes of all other events on the calendar and round-the-clock roadworks and infrastructure labour drawing criticism from locals.

What’s more, the race will get underway at 1AM ET, meaning a large portion of the US market will miss out on the action unless they top up on espressos.

But F1’s $240 million spend on an all-new permanent paddock facility means there’s no turning back now.

The prices of tickets for Vegas have been talked about at length throughout this year, with the cheapest three-day standing-only general admission tickets costing roughly $500. The likes of Suzuka and Imola offered prices below $500.

At the other end of the spectrum, ludicrous hospitality packages for high-rollers are being offered for seven-figure sums.

However, the bar may have been set too high as recent reports have shown a number of ticket prices have been slashed in the past week.

According to Tick Pick, the cheapest tickets on Thursday have fallen from $385 to $162 (-58%), on Friday prices have gone from $825 to £312 (-62%) and on Saturday from $1645 to $1087 (-34%). Hotel prices are also plummeting by a reported 58%.

So has F1 overplayed its hand?

The trouble F1 is set to encounter in Vegas may not just be commercial either.

Holding a night race in the Nevada desert in November comes with incredibly cool temperatures.

Estimates suggest that Vegas could be the coldest GP in F1 history at around five degrees Celsius – which coupled with a 3.8-mile circuit predominantly consisting of driving in a straight line will unquestionably make things more than challenging for drivers to generate heat in the tyres.

Incredibly, Ross Brawn has admitted that the series didn’t foresee the temperatures being that far on the cool side, which is an alarming oversight for a sport that prides itself on being at the pinnacle of engineering.

Meanwhile, unsurprisingly, reigning World Champion Max Verstappen, ever the traditionalist when it comes to Grand Prix racing, has been outspoken on the prospect of racing in Vegas.

“First of all, we are there more for the show than the race itself, looking at the layout of the circuit,” he said bluntly “I’m not actually that much into that, I’m more: ‘I’ll go there, do my thing and be gone’. I’ll deal with that once I arrive to the track. I mean, there’s still a lot to do.”

Asked whether the race would bring added value to F1, the Dutchman replied: “It depends for whom and for what. In terms of racing spectacle, maybe not, but maybe in terms of potential partners for F1, and the whole show around it – but again, I’m not into it.”

Disgruntled locals, outrageous ticket prices alienating the casual fans, a peculiar schedule cutting out the local television crowd and potentially dangerous track temperatures aren’t the best ingredients for a maiden GP.

Time will very shortly tell whether F1 can pull this latest Stateside gamble off.

Yuki Tsunoda produced another assured and underrated drive in the Sao Paulo Grand Prix, exhibiting that he has the credentials to warrant being taken seriously as a contender for a potential Red Bull seat as much as Daniel Ricciardo.

Since Ricciardo returned to the Red Bull fray earlier this year after being axed by McLaren, the Australian has persistently been linked with a return to the position within the senior team that he vacated at the end of 2018.

That speculation only heightened when Nyck de Vries was axed midway through his rookie F1 campaign with AlphaTauri in July and Ricciardo was granted a reprieve. And further still after he delivered the team’s best result of the year with seventh in Mexico City.

However, in between Ricciardo’s exploits at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez came a string of exceptional displays from team-mate Tsunoda to also vitally boost AlphaTauri’s bid to overcome Williams for seventh position in the championship.

Ahead of the United States Grand Prix, unsurprisingly the entire spotlight down at AlphaTauri was fixated on Ricciardo, who had been sidelined for the previous five rounds by a broken bone in his left hand that had occurred from a crash during Friday practice for the Dutch Grand Prix in August.

But while the 34-year-old was hamstrung by race rust upon his comeback in Austin, Tsunoda utilised the ever-evolving AlphaTauri AT04 car to bag an eighth-place finish and the bonus point for the fastest lap.

Unfortunately, exceeding the allocation yearly on power unit components relegated Tsunoda to the back of the grid in Mexico, during a weekend which transpired to be AlphaTauri’s most competitive of the season.

Even still, Tsunoda was piecing together an admirable showing that looked destined to yield another points finish before he clumsily collided with Oscar Piastri’s McLaren.

With Ricciardo demonstrating the calm tranquillity expected of a multiple-time grand prix winner and Tsunoda the impatience associated with an inexperienced and overeager youngster, it appeared no wonder the elder statesmen in the AlphaTauri ranks had been the one touted for a move.

But while the Tsunoda of previous years would have unquestionably let that misjudgement and the subsequent media pressure spiral into a prolonged rut, the 23-year-old has utilised his harsh experiences in the top flight to be in a position to come out the other side stronger from any mishap.

Having remarked that he “cancelled everything” following his costly mistake in Mexico, there could be no greater evidence of Tsunoda’s enhanced mental resilience than the way he rebounded in Sao Paulo. The Red Bull academy graduate emerged on top in the AlphaTauri intra-team rivalry – but more pertinently, he disbanded Ricciardo’s momentum before it could gather steam.

Of course, Ricciardo’s race prospects were immediately hampered from the outset when ensuing debris from a first-corner incident damaged his car, and the resultant repairs left him a lap down. But Tsunoda had already narrowly maintained the upper hand throughout the weekend prior to that.

Despite a compromised qualifying that eliminated both AlphaTauri drivers in Q1, Tsunoda avoided the early chaos to gain five places by the time the race settled down.

Whereas in Mexico he had professed to becoming too uptight about how his race would unravel later on if he failed to make an early move on Piastri stick, Tsunoda bided his time behind Esteban Ocon at Interlagos before mounting an attack on the Alpine that translated into a solid ninth-place finish.

Prior to that, Tsunoda had also upstaged Ricciardo in Saturday’s Sprint race encounter. Starting inside the top eight in a position more reflective of AlphaTauri’s pace, Tsunoda showcased cutting-edge racecraft that culminated with a pass on Lewis Hamilton for seventh place, accumulating AlphaTauri’s first-ever points in a Sprint event. Meanwhile, Ricciardo, usually the benchmark in overtaking, rued being caught out by the successive DRS zones that foiled his attempt to dispatch Carlos Sainz.

Throughout the three days in Brazil, Tsunoda assembled a weekend that comprised everything Red Bull expect from a potential option for its senior squad. Although Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner issued recently that Tsunoda remained on the team’s radar, the AlphaTauri driver has only vaguely been mentioned in relation to a promotion when his name has been raised.

Tsunoda, however, conceded ahead of the grand prix in Brazil that he could appreciate why Ricciardo’s outgoing personality aligns him more with the Red Bull brand.

That unique asset plays favourably towards his chances and is a factor that Tsunoda will be unable to equal. However, if Red Bull were to replace Sergio Perez, it would surely be on a performance basis, and that is an aspect that Tsunoda can certainly control to propel himself into genuine deliberation.

Asked if there was an element of annoyance that he hadn’t been more regularly included in the discussion, Tsunoda expressed: “Yeah obviously. It’s better than nothing but Daniel has experience, more fans, he’s more trusted and more valued so it makes sense.

“I just have to show my performance consistently to kind of show everyone that I can be that contender. Anyway, Checo [Perez] has next year’s contract and nothing we can do to change anything.

“I just need to keep showing my results now. He’s [Ricciardo] doing a good job, especially after coming back from McLaren. He seems really comfortable in the car especially compared to at previous teams. I think he’s got Red Bull energy, the Red Bull style.”

More importantly, though, Tsunoda retains the self-belief that he can overcome his more established team-mate. “But still, I’m not worried that I won’t beat him or whatever. I still have good confidence that I can beat him and still learn from him,” he added.

With Tsunoda and Ricciardo confirmed at AlphaTauri for 2024, the former will enter his fourth year with Red Bull’s second-string outfit. That means he will become only the fourth competitor to be allocated that amount of time with the Italian-based camp, which has notoriously scythed through drivers at a rapid rate under the discretion of Red Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko.

While Tsunoda counted himself fortunate to survive an inconsistent rookie year, he has warranted an additional season based on the progress he has shown across 2023.

Having comprehensively had the measure of de Vries, Tsunoda hasn’t been overawed by Ricciardo’s arrival and the fanfare that accompanies him. Nor was he perturbed in the slightest by Ricciardo’s stellar showing in Mexico, revealing that he intends to press on with his aggressive driving style despite his team-mate’s recent set-up breakthrough.

“So far I’m happy with my form and how I drive at AlphaTauri. I don’t think it’s not working, so I’m happy and won’t change anything,” he declared.

“At some point even next year it might be a completely different car for AlphaTauri. Right now, my driving style is working but you never know that it won’t work at some point. I don’t really worry that my driving style won’t work because I haven’t changed since karting, any car it’s been working.”

However, that stubborn approach shouldn’t be mistaken for a flat-out refusal to amend his ways, with Tsunoda already wary of things he could adopt from Ricciardo.

Expanding on his braking tendencies compared to other drivers, Tsunoda explained: “More like stronger [braking], I would say. Stronger and fast. The initial part is stronger. I’ve never seen a driver where the initial part is stronger than me. The releasing part, the later part he’s good at probably. I can learn something probably from that actually [Ricciardo’s style] as a driver.

Ricciardo still appears the heavy favourite for the Red Bull gig if Perez is dropped, and Tsunoda could end up in the exact same predicament as Carlos Sainz. Ironically, the Spaniard, now at Ferrari, had his Red Bull dream also dashed by Ricciardo’s presence.

In the circumstance where the door on a Red Bull move is also slammed shut for Tsunoda, he could potentially be in line to secure a switch to Aston Martin, courtesy of the Silverstone marque’s technical agreement to run Honda powertrains from 2026.

However, Tsunoda insists that he is entirely focused on Red Bull for the time being.

“Obviously, the main thing is I don’t want Red Bull to misunderstand something, like for example that I’m just focusing now on Aston Martin or anything. I’m at AlphaTauri, and I’ve been with Red Bull since I was 18 years old.

“If I perform well as a driver, hopefully they [Red Bull] consider me more and obviously, if I didn’t, I understand. But if I’m able to show my performance, I would like to have a bit more kind of rotation.”

On current form at least, Tsunoda should evidently be in the discussion along with Perez and Ricciardo for the vacant Red Bull seat alongside Max Verstappen in 2025.

Tsunoda will certainly face a much bigger threat from Ricciardo next year – and it will be one that he has to overcome to ensure he ushers his name to the front of the queue.

However, with the Faenza team set to enjoy an increased technical collaboration with Red Bull next year, Tsunoda could be equipped with the machinery to challenge for the sort of headline-grabbing results that ensure his efforts receive the acclaim that greet his veteran team-mate’s accolades.

Sergio Perez hoped that a welcome return home would inspire relief from his ongoing rut in Formula 1 – but the Mexico City Grand Prix only served to ramp up the pressure and provided possibly the greatest indication yet that time is potentially already ticking on his Red Bull stint.

Despite once again trailing a distant way behind team-mate Max Verstappen in the United States Grand Prix the weekend before, Perez was buoyed by his fifth-place finish, promoted to fourth when Lewis Hamilton – who crossed the line second – was disqualified for a technical infringement.

The Mexican had been on a torrid run before F1’s annual visit to Austin, only accruing five points in the past three race weekends, admitting he had become “lost” in the RB19.

However, an extensive three-day run in Red Bull’s simulator back at its Milton Keynes base and detailed analysis with his group of engineers culminated in a much improved showing at the Circuit of the Americas.

But Perez’s run Stateside was hindered somewhat by the interruption of the Sprint format only allocating all competitors one practice hour before being locked into a less-than-optimal setup direction. Therefore, aside from being greeted by the support of hoards of passionate locals, Perez was enthused by the opportunity to put his behind-the-scenes work into practice upon the sport’s return to its conventional format.

The 33-year-old could only manage fifth in Saturday’s qualifying, but Perez only wound up 0.15s away from Verstappen. Considering his team-mate had developed a trend for being a specialist at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez and qualifying isn’t Perez’s strongest asset, it was a tidy effort.

However, Perez’s optimism of translating that into a positive result was destroyed within 890m as an avoidable incident with Charles Leclerc caused extensive damage that curtailed his involvement in the race.

While both Ferraris were sluggish away, the two Red Bulls launched off the line to sandwich Leclerc on the approach to Turn 1. With Verstappen maintaining the high ground on the inside, Perez opted for the open outside space but came to blows with the Ferrari as he swept in, sending his Red Bull car crashing to the ground from the air.

Although Leclerc, who eventually took third, was resoundingly booed by the Mexican fans post-race, Perez rightfully admitted that the Monegasque had been an innocent party. The stewards swiftly determined that neither driver was “wholly or predominantly to blame” for the clash, taking no further action.

Ultimately, in isolation, Perez could be forgiven for attempting the move. He had executed a storming start, utilised the slipstream from the Ferrari ahead and possessed the overspeed necessary to carry such momentum around the outside of his team-mate and Leclerc into the first corner.

But it’s his retrospective comments afterwards that displayed a complete lack of disregard for his situation and warranted severely more criticism than his failed but understandable manoeuvre on the racetrack.

“But at the end of the day, this is just racing. I go very sad home, but I also go very proud of my time or myself. We gave it all. I knew that today, a podium was not enough for me, and I really wanted to go for the win. I saw the gap and I went for it,” Perez explained.

Having endured a miserable campaign that has comprised only two victories and eight Q3 absences in one of the most dominant cars ever assembled, Perez could not afford to place himself in jeopardy that early in proceedings by committing to a dangerous move that wouldn’t have guaranteed the race victory even if he had seized the lead.

Perez had been searching for a breakthrough result that he could use as a stable baseline to rebuild ahead of next year. However, with his all-out attempt to gain supremacy on the first corner of the first lap in Mexico, Perez threw away that mindset to end up with another confidence-denting outcome.

But beyond looking ahead to the future, Perez’s premature elimination could have tremendous repercussions in the short term.

Perez’s wildly fluctuating form has allowed Lewis Hamilton to steadily close up in an ever-improving Mercedes package. The Red Bull representative’s most recent spurned points haul opened the door for Hamilton, who charged through from sixth to claim the runners-up position, to close his deficit to Perez’s second place down to only 20 points.

Having outscored Perez by 72 points to 51 since the summer break, the seven-time World Champion is now on course to be right with Perez by the season finale in Abu Dhabi.

Hamilton’s own mishap at the start in Qatar, ironically a carbon copy of Perez’s Mexico misjudgement, and subsequent disqualification from second in Texas should have supplied an urgent wake-up call. Perez, it appeared, failed to heed that warning with his first-lap act of desperation on Sunday.

Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner has attributed Perez’s dwindling advantage to “misfortune”, but his latest episode was entirely self-inflicted. In Perez’s precarious position where his every move is being monitored intently, that wasn’t a time for the act of a hero, it was a time for consolidation.

He had managed the hard part, acing the launch on a low-grip track surface to mitigate his qualifying troubles. The wise thing to do would have been to accept that going on the outside of a three-wide affair into a tightening corner represented an unnecessary risk that called for margin.

In the worst-case scenario, he would have likely maintained third, leaving him on track for a podium. It might not have been the win he was rooting for, but it would have at least provided respite from the constant media scrutiny he has been privy to and a much-needed morale-boosting result to build on.

Instead, he has now ended up back in the headlines for all the wrong reasons.

While Horner asserts that Perez “wouldn’t be a racing driver” if he didn’t “go for it”, Perez was in absolutely no position to dictate what step of the rostrum he prioritised that early. The ex-McLaren racer hasn’t appeared on the podium since Italy at the start of September.

A return to the stage overlooking a crowd chanting his name would have been the ideal tonic to ensure he could end the campaign on a more positive note and ease some of the pressure that has been building since his Q1 crash in Monaco back in May. But Perez unwisely let his heart rule his head and chose the option that ended in heartbreak with him parked in the garage, landing another sizeable mental blow to a man who critically needed an uplifting moment.

However, Perez took an element of solace from perceiving that he hadn’t let the Mexican faithful down. “To be honest I would have let them down more if I didn’t go for it if I’m honest. I saw the gap and I went for it. I decided to take a risk, I knew it was going to be very risky, and I ended up paying the price. Yeah. Risk, reward, it was pretty high risk to take, but it was worth taking it.”

Although Horner protected his driver’s view, it’s hard to argue that Perez’s careless act didn’t go against the team’s best interests. Red Bull’s senior hierarchy have repeatedly issued Perez’s objective is to retain second place in the standings, but his preventable mishap means he can ill-afford to slip up again with Hamilton looming large.

Such is the all-conquering dominance of the title-winning RB19, which has been the class leader in every round bar one to date, it should have been a formality for Perez.

Failing to preserve that place would represent a catastrophic failure and would surely make his position within the team untenable beyond his current contract.

Perez’s woes were compounded by Daniel Ricciardo excelling in only his second appearance since returning from the broken bone in his left hand that delayed his comeback spell. The Australian managed to edge his AlphaTauri ahead of Perez in qualifying, converting that into a seventh-place finish that represented the Faenza squad’s best result of the entire season.

Ricciardo had promised that he would get his “elbows out” at the start but with caution, displaying the racing maturity expected of a veteran, multiple-time grand prix winner. By comparison, Perez showcased the spatial awareness associated with a rookie.

With Ricciardo openly adamant that he’s gunning for a return to the Red Bull seat he vacated at the end of 2018, his exploits – branded “remarkable” by Horner – coupled with Perez’s retirement could be a watershed moment if their respective showings in Mexico continue onwards from here.

Perez looks set to be afforded at least one more chance to take glory on home soil with Red Bull in 2024. But, at this stage, it can’t even be guaranteed that the Mexican driver will be behind the wheel of the RB20 this time next year after he wasted a glorious opportunity to cement his status on Sunday.

Inter Europol Competition driver Fabio Scherer spoke to Motorsport Week in-depth about the Centenary Le Mans 24 Hours, nursing an injured foot en route to the LMP2 win, and more.

A tale of perseverance and resilience propelled Scherer and Inter Europol Competition to become Centenary Le Mans winners and title-contenders for the final World Endurance Championship LMP2 title.

Scherer joined the Inter Europol Competition team in 2022 across a select number of WEC races, the full European Le Mans Series campaigns, and Le Mans inbetween.

His FIA silver licence was uprated to gold by the end of 2021, which meant that he could not continue with the WEC United Autosports team he was part of during his debut sportscar season.

This year has been the most successful for the Polish bakery privateer, most notably winning in a highly competitive LMP2 category at the Centenary Le Mans 24 Hours.

With an injured foot, Scherer won the race with Jakub ‘Kuba’ Smiechowski and Albert Costa in the team’s WEC #34 Oreca 07 LMP2 car.

“Working with Albert and Kuba has been great,” said Scherer.

“Albert is a quick driver, and Kuba has been a great silver because he doesn’t make any mistakes.” 

“I have seen a massive improvement from the whole team since last year.”

Scherer has competed in both European Le Mans Series and WEC campaigns for IE Competition, most notably at the 2022 4 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps when the team charged from last on the grid to second place.

Earlier this year at the 6 Hours of Spa, Inter Europol finished on their first WEC podium after a rain-soaked race, and without tyre warmers.

One of the highlights, for both Scherer and the Inter Europol team, has been the Centenary 24 Hours of Le Mans, which marked 100 years since the inception of the famed endurance race at La Sarthe.

Costa qualified the car in 13th position in LMP2, after his best attempts were unable to get the team through to the Hyperpole session.

Scherer, meanwhile, took the race start again this year in one of two Inter Europol Oreca 07s.

However, early in the race a very localised rain shower affected the first sector, as a mixture of the 62 cars opted for slicks or wet compound tyres.

“Driving at Le Mans start on slicks, we decided to be cautious,” he said, with the car amidst a fiesty LMP2 field.

“The race is not won on the opening lap or the opening hours.”

Unlike at Spa-Francorchamps, the rain at the start decreased in intensity.

Ten minutes after the safety car was deployed for Jack Aitken’s opening-lap incident — which caused debris at the first chicane on the Mulsanne straight — the team changed to Kuba as a “tactical decision” to start fulfilling his drive time.

At such an early point, it was during this pit stop when Scherer’s left foot was run over by the Corvette. 

It was only after the race when the full details of the injury became apparent: ligament damage and an incomplete fracture, which had caused him to limp in and out of the car for the majority of the race.

Following intervention from the team’s physiotherapist, while still uncomfortable, Scherer was well aware of the speed in the package; his determination was stronger than ever to continue pushing, with the car in winning contention.

“The adrenaline helped mask the pain during the course of the race, plus my professional background in skiing helped me find ways of coping with the injury.

“I still braked with my left foot, but instead of turning the ankle, I pushed my left leg, having never braked with my right foot so I did not decide to do so.

By the sixth hour, the team’s #34 Oreca 07 climbed up into the lead of 22 LMP2 cars which were running.

“We were fighting for a potential Le Mans victory, and I did not think much about the injury — just our target to win.”

It was, however, not until the night phase arrived when the rain became more present, and caused several cars to go off the track as others steadily nursed their slicks back around to the pit box for wets.

“Surviving and keeping the lead during the heavy rain conditions in the night truly earned us the win.

“The long safety car period meant we couldn’t keep tyres up to temperature, but we just wanted to make it through the most critical phase.”

Kuba and Costa primarily interchanged driving duties during the early hours of the morning, until Scherer got back in the car at approximately 6.30 am local time.

A quadruple stint by Costa preceded Scherer’s final stint to lead Inter Europol towards their maiden victory, albeit with Swiss compatriot Louis Deletraz catching behind for Team WRT.

“I was not able to fulfil my best potential nursing the injury, but I was able to do enough to keep [Louis] Deletraz from catching me in the final stint.”

By the chequered flag, Scherer finished 21 seconds ahead of second-placed Deletraz of the #41 WRT.

The #34’s quickest race lap time was a 3:37.180 by the Swiss driver set on Lap 158, enough for the fifth-fastest race lap in the LMP2 category by the end.

“Taking the chequered flag was an unbelievable high, a memory I’ll never forget.

“After showing potential for the win last year and encountering an alternator failure, it felt like we completed something we started a long time ago.

“Our reliability was fine throughout the race, apart from a brief trip through a gravel trap.

“Compared to the start, the car felt dramatically different after various weather conditions, components like the clutch and brakes were worn in, and the track was rubbered in.”

The team won from 13th on the grid, a feat never achieved in the LMP2 category before, and Scherer described the podium view over a record-high attendance of fans.

“Wherever you looked, there were people.

“The atmosphere was incredible at the Centenary Le Mans.

“It was amazing to stand on the top step of the podium, and share the celebrations with the team — it was a crazy, emotional positive from a small team from Poland against big names like JOTA, WRT and United Autosports.”

“After the race, we saw and stopped by some fans on a roundabout and decided to share the champagne with them and show them the trophy.

“Hearing (car) horns as others joined in celebrations, it was amazing to see how much the win meant to everyone else as well as our own team.”

The injury took three weeks to recover through bespoke training, although the time passed quicker than expected, according to Scherer.

After securing the full 50 points from Le Mans, the #34 crew scored fourth place and 10 points at Monza just four weeks after Le Mans.

Their title rivals, the #41 WRT crew, won the 6 Hours of Fuji in LMP2 whilst the #34 IE Competition team managed ninth place and two points.

WRT’s #41 crew of Rui Andrade, Louis Deletraz and Robert Kubica lead the LMP2 standings on 135 points, as the #34 crew sit on 102.

Most crucially, Inter Europol must win in Bahrain to narrow down the gap, if not also to defend their P2 spot from the #22 United Autosports team situated one point behind.

After a difficult 6 Hours of Fuji, Scherer consolidated on the team’s expectations into the 8 Hours of Bahrain finale on 4 November.

“We want to finish the season on a high in Bahrain, and Fuji was our low and consistency was lacking a bit.

“Bahrain will be full-risk with no opportunity to waste if we want to become LMP2 champions from P2 in the standings.

“We should be very proud of our performance this year regardless of the result.”

Scherer shared the disappointment for LMP2’s WEC departure in regards to IE Competition’s recent progression, but points out the expectations of a growing Hypercar class.

As winners this year, Inter Europol are automatically invited to next year’s Le Mans 24 Hours which will still feature LMP2 competition, even if not in the full-season WEC package.

Above all, Scherer’s ardour to win the Centenary Le Mans was so intense, that even a foot injury did not overshadow his perseverance having spent much of the year preparing for one of the most decorated editions of Le Mans since 1923.

Formula 1 descends on Mexico this weekend for the second part of the Americas triple header, and the focus will be on one man more than most: home hero Sergio Perez.

The Red Bull driver has had, in all fairness, a season to forget.

Whilst he remains on course for his best-ever championship finish in F1, second place won’t feel like much consolation given the way 2023 has unfolded for him.

Up against Max Verstappen, the fight was always going to be hard this year in trying to win the championship but having seen form largely desert him since the opening races of the year, this has been a season where speculation has mounted considerably over Perez’s very future in the sport.

A number of claims have been floating around the Mexican, to varying levels of plausibility.

Perhaps two of the most eye-catching, though, have been that he a) could be replaced by Red Bull at the end of the year if he does not finish in second in the championship or b) he could announce his retirement from the sport at his home race this very weekend.

Both, it must be said, have been dismissed categorically by team and driver respectively.

“It’s not something that we have discussed or even contemplated,” said Red Bull chief Christian Horner recently.

“Checo is our driver and we want to support him in the best way that we can.

“We believe that he can achieve that second place in the championship but he is up against tough competitors with a lot of racing still to go.

“We selected Checo in the first place because of his experience and his ability to be able to deal with pressure.

“He did a lot for us in ’21 and ’22, contributing to the constructors’ championship last year and this year with the victories he has achieved.

“We know what he is capable of and we haven’t seen that for the last couple of races. We want to support him to make sure he gets back to that early-season form. 

“It’s a tough season and tough being Max’s team-mate – we mustn’t forget the challenge that is mentally.

“We know what Checo is capable of and we know that qualifying tends to be his weakness, but when racing he comes alive on a Sunday afternoon. He’s demonstrated that time and time again. We have six one-two finishes this year, he’s won two Grands Prix and he’s still second in the world championship 30 points ahead of Lewis Hamilton. It’s not all been bad!”

Meanwhile, Perez has said: “I’m just laughing at [the speculation.]

“There’s nothing I can do [to stop the spread of the rumours].

“I’m fully focused on my job, but it really sums up my season – a guy says something about me and then all of a sudden it becomes true.

“I have a contract for next year. I have no reason not to fulfil that contract.

“I’m going to give my very best to it. I’ve made a commitment. But more than that, it will not be my final contract in F1.”

Perez’s deal runs to the end of 2024, and it sounds as though he won’t be finished with F1 come that point, even if Red Bull potentially are done with him.

He may well get another year with the team next season to try and extend things further, though.

Whilst Red Bull want two strong drivers next year for a Constructors’ fight next season that is expected to be far closer than that of ’22 and ’23, who they actually could get to replace Perez is hard to say.

Lando Norris has obviously been heavily linked, and there has been interest from Red Bull, but the Briton is happy to stick with McLaren for the rest of his own contract with the team at least, thanks in part to the fine improvement the team has enjoyed over the course of this season.

Yuki Tsunoda and Liam Lawson would be the next pair in line to be promoted from within, but neither seems quite ready for the job. Daniel Ricciardo has the personal clout to go up against Verstappen and represent Red Bull once more, but where is he actually as a driver at the moment? His recent hiatus thanks to a wrist injury hasn’t helped solve matters there.

Indeed, it seems right now that Perez could be on course for at least one more year with Red Bull next season – he will hope that the home crowd urging him on this weekend can kickstart both a strong finish to 2023 and perhaps one last hurrah in 2024.

The United States Grand Prix earmarked the arrival of Haas introducing its eagerly-anticipated upgrade package – but the modifications to the VF-23 failed to inspire a happy homecoming, leaving the American outfit on the brink of slumping to the bottom of the Constructors’ Championship.

Haas arrived back on home soil for the second of three scheduled rounds in the States as a team desperately in need of a strong result, having only amassed a solitary point across the previous eight rounds.

Consequently, the team’s stagnant progress had opened the door for fellow Ferrari engine customer Alfa Romeo to leapfrog Haas in the order with a double points haul in Qatar.

But, unlike its closest rivals, Haas had the promise of a highly revised car on the way.

Courtesy of its close technical collaboration with Ferrari, Haas persisted with the ‘bathtub’ sidepod concept into this year. But an aerodynamic imbalance saw Ferrari abandon the philosophy earlier in the campaign, culminating in the Italian marque returning to winning ways in Singapore last month.

After accompanying Ferrari in refusing to plough further resources into an idea that had reached its development ceiling, Haas rented a workshop in Austin ahead of the weekend to ensure it could deliver the changes that would ensure it became the final team on the grid to converge to the downwash sidepod solution pioneered successfully by World Champions Red Bull.

The VF-23, sporting a tweaked US-themed livery for Austin, brought improvements to the floor, engine cover, sidepod inlet, sidepods, quarter panel and padding gills.

The alterations were primarily targeted at rectifying Haas’ long-standing tyre degradation woes, which have repeatedly stymied the team from converting promising grid positions into regular points scores.

Although Kevin Magnussen wound up fifth in the sole practice hour ahead of qualifying at the Circuit of the Americas on Friday, the Dane then failed to advance to Q3. Meanwhile, team-mate Nico Hulkenberg, usually a one-lap specialist, couldn’t even escape elimination from the first segment.

Nevertheless, Magnussen remained optimistic about the Kannapolis-based squad’s weekend prospects at that stage, insisting that he retained the pace to reach the top 10, adding that the race would determine the true extent of the progress Haas had made with its latest developments.

“The real question is whether the car is better on the tyres, if the performance is better there,” Magnussen assessed post-qualifying. “That’s what we’re really looking for. Not really whether we’re a little bit better on one lap or not, that’s not the question.”

Fast forward a day and Magnussen’s pre-weekend excitement had dissipated into overwhelming concern. The 19-lap Sprint encounter on Saturday evening exposed a familiar tale of the sight of both Haas drivers being powerless to prevent their plight once tyre wear became a factor in race trim.

“It didn’t look too good, honestly. But we’ll investigate and see what we think,” Magnussen explained. “It’s just frustrating. [The tyre struggles] looked a little bit similar [to before]. The pace dropped off a lot.

“I got a decent start and a decent first lap, then stayed there for a few laps before the well-known cycle of getting overtaken and the tyres dropping off started.”

However, Hulkenberg remained slightly more upbeat about Haas’ unsettling predicament, citing how the Sprint format had afforded the team only one practice session to optimise its heavily transformative package before parc ferme regulations were enforced.

The German driver added: “First glimpse, obviously not a transformation, unfortunately. But it feels like it was the first real session, with this car, with this package.

“There’s more to explore, more to unlock, probably also to readjust the set-up. But we need time and track time and we didn’t quite have that yet. But it was expected to be tricky to bring an update of that magnitude and hit it on the head the first time.”

Subsequently, Haas elected to withdraw both cars from the starting grid to the pitlane ahead of Sunday’s grand prix, allowing the team to conduct further set-up changes.

Ultimately, the gamble would not yield a return to points-scoring ways, as Hulkenberg was pipped by Logan Sargeant in the closing stages for what transpired to be 10th place, with Magnussen trailing behind in 14th.

But Team Principal Guenther Steiner maintained that Haas made the correct choice in sacrificing its qualifying result to experiment further with its new package, leaving the side better placed ahead of the remaining four rounds of the season.

“I mean, today was better than yesterday,” he admitted. “Thank God we made the decision to go out of the pit lane with the changed aero set-up. Obviously, we now need to look at data and stuff like this to have a better starting position in Mexico with the setup.

“We were a little bit behind, knowing that we only had one hour. It’s not like saying that we did a bad job, it was just very tight, such a big upgrade, and going in here.

“But we knew the risk, and we took the race, but I think we know for sure a lot more now than we did before. And hopefully we can put it into performance in Mexico.”

Unfortunately for Haas, its turn to unveil radical upgrades failed to deliver the sort of instant, fruitful gains that McLaren profited from earlier in the year, with Lando Norris recording a fourth consecutive podium.

Whereas McLaren’s resurgence continued as the Woking camp displaced Aston Martin for fourth position in the Constructors’ table, Haas’ dire run continued. The ongoing rut for America’s sole F1 entry was compounded by a selection of its rivals taking advantage to make up ground in the points standings.

AlphaTauri managed to sneak into the top 10, stealing the fastest lap with a late dash, before Yuki Tsunoda was promoted to eighth once Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc were disqualified when post-race checks discovered that their cars didn’t comply with the regulations governing plank wear.

Meanwhile, their misfortune also elevated Williams into the top half with both cars – including granting Logan Sargeant’s first-ever F1 point to cement its hold on seventh place.

But more pertinently, AlphaTauri’s five-point haul marked its best return of the season to date and brought the Italian entity to within only two points of the struggling Haas side.

The Faenza squad were boosted by an amended floor for the US GP weekend, which supported the Red Bull-inspired upgrade it bolted onto the AT04 in Singapore. Since then, AlphaTauri has been a much-improved force in comparison to its lacklustre start and will also be backed by an increased synergy with the senior team from next year.

Tsunoda continued his quietly impressive campaign with another strong drive, while experienced eight-time grand prix winner Daniel Ricciardo is certain to contribute to the team’s endeavours once he overcomes the race rust that was evident in his return appearance from a broken hand injury.

On current form, Haas are the favourites for the F1 equivalent of the wooden spoon, which would entitle it to the lowest amount of prize money from the available pot. However, it would also be a sizeable blow to a team that effectively sacrificed the entirety of 2021, the last season under the previous regulations, to commence this latest technical cycle from a promising base.

But despite Haas being required to hit the reset button again, Steiner is convinced that Haas is now heading in the right direction towards a brighter future once more.

“I don’t know how good it is [the upgrades] yet,” the Italian added. “At least both drivers could race some people today, because the last five [races] we were just being overtaken, and at least we could overtake some people today. Are we good enough? No. We need to get more out of it. At least we’re moving in the right direction,” he concluded.

In the short term, the upgrades failed to reignite Haas’ torrid season and has positioned it at risk of bringing up the rear in 2023. But the true test of its latest overhaul will be whether the team can avoid its current slide from becoming another prolonged period rooted to the bottom.

After an eventful IMSA Petit Le Mans season finale, Motorsport Week has selected a series of ‘Winners and Losers’ out of the 10-hour sportscar endurance event.

Chaotic. Caution-ridden. Controversial. These words summarise the action-packed narrative of the 26th Petit Le Mans, with drama right from the beginning and all through to the checkered flag.

It was a memorable IMSA race for a mixture of reasons, inevitably making way for many ‘winners and losers’ from the third-longest race on the 2023 WeatherTech SportsCar Championship calendar.

An IMSA joint-record of 13 caution periods were deployed, as a concerning amount of penalties were awarded throughout the race, as driving standards were also below expectations for a major international sportscar championship event.

Winner – #60 Meyer Shank Racing (GTP): Tom Blomqvist, Colin Braun, Helio Castroneves

Unsurprisingly, the overall race winners feature on this list. Meyer Shank took a back-to-back Petit Le Mans win, although their victory was well and truly secured from drama elsewhere in the GTP category once again.

Blomqvist took their final qualifying honours for 2023, as MSR intend to commit more attention on their IndyCar project from 2024.

His fastest lap time of 1:15.847 put him on the second row, in fourth position, after being unable to match the other #10 Wayne Taylor Racing Acura ARX-06 of Louis Deletraz. The #10 retained their championship lead post-qualifying as the #60 was situated fourth in the standings.

At the race start, the attention was on Sebastien Bourdais in the #01 Cadillac V Series.R, and Deletraz. The pole-sitter was unable to stop Bourdais from taking the lead at the first corner, with a move around the outside of Deletraz as the pair gave each other a respective level of space, and Blomqvist took third off Philipp Eng’s #24 BMW M Hybrid V8.

On Lap 9, the Frenchman asserted a fastest race lap of 1:11.31, although the front-runners were close to one another still.

Despite the fact a caution was deployed after just two minutes since the opening green flag, Blomqvist’s pace was encouraging once things got going after the second caution, as he set a 1:11.533 towards the end of the first hour. Whilst he was not able to take on the front-runners, he kept within proximity to them.

Cautions disrupted the race, and the #60 fell back discreetly at the halfway point, after they served a drive-through penalty for working on their car outside the pit box.

Jumping to the penultimate caution period in the final 30 minutes, we were teased with what did not become a battle to the finish.

Despite this, the lead fight was now between the #01 of Renger van der Zande and the #60 of Colin Braun behind him, after the earlier clash between the #10 and the #31.

On the restart, Braun made a cunning move past the #01 on the inside of Turn 1, and held it during the most crucial 52 seconds of the entire race, before it finished under caution owing to drama elsewhere in GTD.

The #60 did not win the championship, and were unlikely to do so with their deducted Daytona points deficit, but earned their final sportscar in their last race before an indefinite hiatus.

Loser – #10 Konica Minolta/Wayne Taylor Racing (GTP): Ricky Taylor, Filipe Albuquerque, Louis Deletraz

The #10 expanded their three-point title lead in qualifying, to 11 points, and through a turn of misfortune, they were not able to convert their pole position into a race victory and a GTP title.

One of the main talking points from the race revolved around the clash between the #31 of Derani and the #10 of Albuquerque, and so WTR are a ‘loser’ on this list, however not necessarily for sole responsibility for their incident, as that would be subjective and difficult to call.

The consequences of the incident led the surviving #31 Cadillac to ease themselves through two caution periods – intertwined with the 52-second green flag stretch – to win the championship.

The stewards needed to assert themselves over teams and drivers, though ended up implementing a great number of penalties regardless.

Some may question the decision not to penalise the #31, which aggressively edged the Acura off-track and into the barrier. Others may implement responsibility on Albuquerque, who optimistically kept his foot down on Derani’s tail, which left him only to go off the circuit, where he had already been in an earlier minor altercation with an LMP2 car albeit at a different corner.

Nevertheless, IMSA concluded it as a racing incident, and the #31 simply had to make it through two cautions to win the championship title.

The top-two teams in the championship were ones who had clashed during the final hour, prosing whether either one of them earned the right to be classed as champions after the #60 ran a smoother race. But even this would showcase the flawed penalty of only a ‘points deduction’ from the #60’s Daytona win.

Without any doubt, if the #10 kept running, then it would have secured the championship. Above all, they did not, and lost a second consecutive chance at Petit Le Mans race victory.

Winner – #52 PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports (LMP2): Ben Keating, Paul-Loup Chatin, Alex Quinn

Keating and Chatin have ran an exceptional 2023 campaign together, and maintained their consistency right to the season finale.

Their close championship rivals were the #11 TDS Racing Oreca 07, whose full-season drivers were Steven Thomas and Mikkel Jensen.

Virtually speaking, both of these teams were side-by-side in the performance they had put on this year, and a rare mistake from Jensen, who was showing great pace, ended the show, in the seventh hour. He dropped the car into the wall at Turn 5, damaging the front-right suspension in the process.

As mentioned in our preview, the #04 Crowdstrike Racing by Algarve Pro Racing could have made ground if the #11 and #52 faced issues.

Whilst they did win their second race this season, and gave George Kurtz an invitation to next year’s Le Mans, and won the Endurance Cup title in LMP2, they were just 37 points away by the end.

The #52 won the team’s fifth championship, even though Quinn made some mistakes throughout.

At the race start, Thomas took the lead off Keating, who narrowly claimed pole position by two-tenths over the #11, and was soon back in the top spot after jumping the #11 during their pit stops.

Without time to waste, Keating built a comfortable 7-second lead with the soon-to-be troublesome #20 High Class Racing in second, and Thomas in third.

Surpassing the halfway point however, the #11 and the #04 got themselves ahead of the #52 through the various chaotic moments elsewhere which interrupted the race with caution periods.

It was Jensen who built a commanding lead over Nolan Siegel, until his accident ruled out the #11 making it to the end, let alone winning. That said, it was Scott Huffaker who got the fastest LMP2 lap in the #11 with a 1:13.071 on Lap 110.

The #52’s work was not done yet as the #04 proved to be an encouraging rival, and had asserted great pace during the latter part of the race.

By the end, the #04 crew did all they could and won in the LMP2 class, whilst the #52 finished third just over 7 seconds away and secured their title.

PR1 Mathiasen added to their impressive record of IMSA championship titles at Petit Le Mans, and now await their new partnership with Inter Europol Competition next year.

Loser – #83 Iron Dames (GTD): Rahel Frey, Michelle Gatting and Doriane Pin

It was a tough pill to swallow for the resilient all-female Iron Dames team, after a single issue threw ‘a spanner in the works’ for a potential first IMSA win in their maiden (Endurance Cup) season.

Doriane Pin had put on a stunning performance in qualifying their #83 Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 for second in the GTD class, and third in the entire GTD/GTD Pro field, with a 1:23.795.

She started behind the #14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus of Ben Barnicoat, and her start showcased her potential to extract the pace out of a car.

Amidst the tightly contested scrap for positions at the front of GTD, she passed both Lexus RC Fs and charged to a 10-second lead, marking a memorable opening stint on a circuit she thoroughly enjoyed driving for the first time.

Caution periods brought down the gap, but her momentum kept going after a prolonged pit stop at the end of the opening hour, which lost them 5-6 positions in the pitlane.

The major moment for them was at the end of the second hour – which was fairly early in a 10-hour race – when an LMP3 car hit their rear-right corner, causing an immediate puncture.

However, when the rear-right wheel refused to go back on, it emerged that suspension damage had been inflicted during the contact, and the Iron Dames mechanics performed a near-10 minute repair job on that corner before heading back out.

They are not a ‘loser’ by the definition of their own doing, especially to persevere and push through the challenges they faced, but rather down to the potential they could have reached in 10-hours.

With the performance the Dames showcased, it may not be too long until we see their pink Lamborghini win in GTD. Unfortunately, that day was never to be on their maiden Petit Le Mans.

Winner – #79 WeatherTech Racing (GTD Pro): Daniel Juncadella, Jules Gounon, Maro Engel

Whilst the #14 Vasser Sullivan team dominated the GTD Pro championship standings, the Endurance Cup was still up for the taking at Petit Le Mans.

Juncadella and Gounon found redemption last time out at Indianapolis, after the previous Lime Rock race was compromised by contact with the #9.

This weekend, the trio of drivers for the #79 Mercedes-AMG GT3 took on both the race win and Endurance Cup title, after their closest rivals – the #3 Corvette and the #14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus – faced their own calamities which made them score limited ‘endurance’ points at the eight and 10-hour intervals.

Gounon qualified third in the GTD Pro class, but eighth in the entire GTD classification as his lap time was over a second away from the fastest GTD.

Starting and finishing in third (in GTD Pro) was most important for their Endurance Cup title.

After the first two hours, the pit cycles and pass-around procedure during the cautions gave chance for the #79 to lead the GTD field.

By the fourth hour, however, they were sixth in GTD Pro and far down from the front, where the attention was between the #14 and the #3.

So at the first Endurance Cup points interval of four hours, the #14 received 5 points, the #3 with 4 points, and the #79 with 2 points.

Their success was short-lived, when the #14 had run into a sponsor banner and Ben Barnicoat ended up having to park his Lexus on the back-straight.

One hour later, the #3 ground to a halt on track with Tommy Milner behind the wheel as the Corvette C8.R succumbed to transmission issues.

Towards the end, the #79 did receive some pressure from Kevin Estre in the #9 for the GTD Pro win, but Juncadella managed to keep him at bay before building gap through well-executed tyre management, prior to the race ending under caution.

Whilst the #9 did earn some useful Endurance Cup points, they were nowhere near able to challenge the #79 in the Endurance Cup standings.

At the start of the year, the #79 WeatherTech Racing crew grabbed a prestigious win at the Daytona 24 Hours, and finished off the season with a Petit Le Mans victory having survived the chaos and demonstrated good reliability with the Mercedes-AMG.

Loser – #14 Vasser Sullivan (GTD Pro): Jack Hawksworth, Ben Barnicoat, Kyle Kirkwood

At first glance, it may appear unusual to situate the dominantly-run GTD Pro champions as losers, seeing as they ran a sterling campaign throughout the year so to become champions once the race had begun.

More specifically, their race was undone in the strongest case of misfortune at Petit Le Mans, when an off-track moment for Barnicoat at Turn 4 became a race-ending shocker.

He had run into a sponsorship banner, which was weighed down with sandbags, thus dragging with the front of the #14 Lexus RC F GT3 and clung onto the bodywork after a minor dropped curb, consequently tearing off the whole front end of the car.

A small off-track excursion had unexpected ramifications, costing them out of their GTD Pro race lead which was undoubtedly desired after they won the title.

Barnicoat had little choice but to stop on the back straight, and they did not continue any further.

This moment of misfortune should not overshadow their momentous IMSA campaign this year, and Barnicoat and Hawksworth deserve credit for being able to walk away with the championship in hand at the start of Petit Le Mans, but a potential Petit Le Mans victory left their grasp after their off-track incident.

This weekend, Lando Norris will reach the celebrated century mark for Formula 1 race starts at the United States Grand Prix in Austin, Texas.

It feels like only yesterday that he made his debut in the sport – but in the four and a bit years since, he’s become one of the most universally recognisable and popular figures on the grid and is also seen as one of its most talented drivers.

100 grands prix, all for McLaren, is a fine achievement in itself, whilst he has also recorded eleven podiums to date.

Of course, a win has eluded him so far, but then he’s not really been in possession of a car capable of challenging for victories – although he’ll be hoping that that is something that will soon change given the immense progress McLaren have made over the course of 2023.

Ahead of reaching his tonne, Motorsport Week spoke exclusively to the British ace – as he closes in on joining Lewis Hamilton, Alain Prost, Mika Hakkinen, and David Coulthard as the only drivers to have hit 100 starts for the Woking-based team – to discuss that milestone, and the highs and lows of his career so far.

“I think the hard thing for me in general with stats is there are certain ones I maybe like more than others,” Norris says when the A-list motorsport company he is about to join is put to him.

“If it’s got anything to do with wins and stuff like that I respect it when that time comes. I respect it in general, but it’s no target of mine.

“I’ve done five years already not being able to win a race because I’ve just not had the car to do so. Comparing to other people, you know, they’re in different situations – Lewis came into McLaren when they were winning races. So if anyone asks me, ‘are you trying to do what Lewis did?’ I’d go ‘no,’ because you can’t – it’s just not the same.

“I’m just trying to do my own stuff and maximise what I can do myself. When that time comes of ‘you’re now matching these guys’ or ‘you’ve got 30 wins,’ then I think that’s when I see it as a huge achievement to be alongside these people because I respect everyone that I race with, race against, and who has raced.

“Of course, I do think some people are better than others and things like that and maybe I respect other drivers more than some, but to go alongside names who have achieved race wins in the first place, because that’s never an easy thing to do, is great.

“I think if you asked 90% of people in Formula One, do you know Prost? They’ll say yeah, do you know Hakkinen? They’ll say yeah, maybe Coulthard not so much!” he laughs. “No I’m great friends with David! I think that’s a great achievement for everyone. It proves that they were in F1 a long time and they respected McLaren.

“So yeah, to have your name alongside any person that’s achieved things in Formula One I think is a great thing. It’s never something I go out to achieve but I respect it once I’ve achieved it.”

Of course, the wins and the championships are the stats he will want to see begin to swell in the coming years, with the Briton having showcased all the class and guile you need to achieve that with the multiple podiums he has accrued to date.

It makes sense, then, when we ask him to reflect on the high moments from the 99 grands prix he’s competed in so far.

However, it’s in discussing the lows that Norris provides a little more insight into the challenges a driver at the top level faces, in the typically candid style we’ve come to expect from him.

“The highs are the obvious ones. I think there’s been various races which have been extremely good, but just aren’t a P1, P2, or P3,” he contends.

“I see the high as a podium. I see more and more of that than just a good race, which is a P5, I don’t see that as a high necessarily. The highs are the moments you remember the most and that is therefore the podiums and the races like that.

“The lows – there’s definitely been less of them maybe in the last couple of years – maybe like the beginning of each season has just been a low because it’s been like you just have no idea how the season is going to play out and you never really had the most positive feelings that it’s going to get a lot better.

“Even the beginning of this year it wasn’t like, ‘yeah, we’re gonna be fighting top 10’ even. We knew we were gonna have some [upgrades] coming but even in previous years, we’re like, ‘yeah, we’ve got some upgrades coming,’ you put them on, and you go a bit quicker but you don’t gain four positions all of a sudden.

“So I would say, even at the beginning of this year, I wouldn’t say we were expecting to suddenly fight for easy Q3s and top fives and all of that stuff. And it’s a hard thing to imagine at the beginning of every season, when every season you almost think ‘okay, next year is going to be the year we can start off in a better way.’

“So I think every season has just started off on the downside and I think that’s the worst way you can start any season for everyone in terms of motivation and just spirit. It’s hard to go to Bahrain and go ‘yep, well, this is what we got for now.'”

Lows on the track are one thing, but Norris has been open about mental health and some of the challenges he has faced away from the circuit after being thrust into the sport at such a young age.

Indeed, he was again here: “I would say more personally my first few years of Formula One [were tough.] My first year was just because I was smaller, I understood less, and mentally I wasn’t as strong. I was affected by social media and stuff a lot more. Mentally I struggled a lot and was very tough on myself, so I would say the first year was the hardest by a long way, where I was just faced with certain obstacles and driving styles that I wasn’t natural to which I needed to be.

“And just when you’re on that big stage and you can’t do it within a couple of sessions, then I would beat myself up a lot about it for weeks and when I was at home and on my own and just thinking about that it killed me inside quite a bit.

“So personally it was more the first couple years and then almost the beginning of most seasons. Those were the lows but there hasn’t been as many lately!”

Any 19-year-old, as Norris was at the time when he joined F1, would find it tough going suddenly being the centre of so much in this digital age, in a world-famous sport, where everyone and anyone can express an opinion.

However, Norris reveals that over his time in F1 dealing with that side of the top flight has translated into one of his biggest strengths.

“I’d say [when] I started I respected everyone’s opinion too much and you just can’t work around life respecting everyone’s opinion,” he acknowledged. “It’s as simple as that.

“It’s not that you don’t care but it’s just you have to learn to really just believe and trust the ones around you, the ones who know what’s going on.

“They’re the ones you should trust and respect the most. And I always have, it’s just I, not believed, but I listened too much to people who had no idea. It’s just reading articles or headlines, stuff like that, where people make things up and that affects me a lot.

“So just dealing with those things and just general comments on social media. Even now, I still get a lot of stick from people, or [about] things that I say but I’m just saying things that I believe in. More often than not I say a fact and people hate that, if it doesn’t agree with their view they hate it, and then I get stick for that.

“But I’ve just learned that you can’t please everyone. Not everyone can please you, you have your things you like and you don’t like and your own opinions. And you just learn to deal with stuff your own way, the best way.

“I feel like I’ve figured out my own way of dealing with things and overcoming things. The main thing is just respecting and listening to the people who are around me and there for me. I still read all the rest of it but I just have a lot less interest and respect those things less.”

Clearly, on this route to 100 races in F1, Norris has developed, learned, and experienced a lot both at the wheel and outside of the cockpit.

What about the future, though? Norris was speaking to us over the weekend of the Qatar Grand Prix – one that saw Max Verstappen win a third straight world title.

Undoubtedly, the Dutchman is the driver to beat at the moment, but many see Norris as a potential contender for the crown if he is in the right car, which McLaren is working hard to give him.

Clearly, there is a healthy respect between the pair of them, and a similar outlook on life as well. Verstappen, who has now achieved so much in the sport in terms of race wins and titles, has said on more than one occasion that there is more to life than F1, hinting at an exit after his current contract ends with Red Bull at the conclusion of 2028.

We asked Norris for his own view on things, then, now he’s reaching the 100-race milestone – and he can understand what Verstappen is saying, though the focus and the goal for him is still very much centred on F1 – even if he has many interests outside of the sport.

“My goals are still the same – to win races, to win championships,” he outlined. “Once that time comes then I’ll have to re-evaluate but until that time comes that’s my only goal.

“Some things with me and Max I would say are completely different but in some things, I would say we’re quite similar just from what we enjoy doing.

“I mean he hates playing golf but we play padel together. We love racing, we love sim racing so there’s some other similarities. He enjoys other car racing and I really do too. I loved doing the Daytona 24 Hour before and I love driving other cars, not just Formula One. I’m a car lover, not just a Formula One lover.

“So if there were opportunities for me to do other racing, I would 100% love to do it. I’d love to do Le Mans, I’d love to do some of these bigger races.

“Even for me, I do see a life outside of Formula One. And I do want to achieve things in my life that are outside of Formula One but some of them will be probably be during my time in Formula One, like with my Esports organisation.

“I do try and keep myself occupied and have that life because I would hate that when things stop in F1 it’s like your life’s over because that’s all you’ve done your whole life. I want other things to continue to keep me occupied and other things to focus on.

“But my priority is Formula One – everything else revolves around achieving that one goal in Formula One. But it doesn’t mean you can’t do other things. You know, everyone thinks that if you’re a Formula One driver, you can’t do anything else because that’s just because that’s what someone said and somehow people want to believe it.

“Like Lewis, he’s proving that you can do other things at once. When people say, ‘oh, you get distracted,’ it’s just not true! People can do multiple things. Just like in every way of life, you can do different things at a time. And it’s not like he’s a sole guy in everything he does, he has people that look after different things and I have my team who run it for me and when they need me to do certain things I’ll do it. But everything revolves around Formula One.

“So I do like to do other things. I have other interests. I have a life and I can do whatever I want in a way. But my goal is Formula One, my priority is Formula One and it’s always going to be like that until I feel like I can’t achieve what I want to achieve.”

It’s been quite a ride for Norris so far in his F1 career, then, but you do get the sense he is only just getting started.

From this chat, It’s quite clear he’s learned a lot about himself, both as a driver and a person since his debut back in 2019, and before we wrapped up our chat with him there was just enough time to ask about some of the best things he does for a living.

In his answer, it became quite clear how aware he was of what he had achieved in his life so far and how different things could be, but also what he had sacrificed to get to this point.

“I think there isn’t just one thing, honestly, that’s why it’s such a cool job,” he expressed.

“The people you get to meet along the way, whether it’s different sports or business people, and the opportunities that come off the back of that.

“Also, I’d say getting a very easy life – it is an easy life, compared to a lot of other jobs – I don’t have a desk job 9-5.

“I have a lot of days off! We have more days off than probably most other people doing every other job.

“So I would say we do have one of the best jobs in the world. Just that ease of life, being what 23 and, I wouldn’t saying having succeeded at what I want to yet, but having earned already enough money to have my own place, buy some cars.

“Like I’m 23 and I get to do those things already, because of success. You know if I was a bad driver, I wouldn’t do any of this. If I hadn’t worked hard, I wouldn’t have got any of this.

“So by working hard, by putting the effort in, to make myself a better driver, because that’s what I’m dedicated to doing, and by making the sacrifices when you’re a kid at school and with friends at school and your life at school and all those things, I’ve been able to achieve this success.

“It is such a big world. It seems so small initially, but then it becomes such a big world. And just all of those things that come along with it are amazing.”

Tellingly, for someone who’s spoken so openly about his mental health, Norris is very self-aware of the privileged position he is in when he talks about jobs and having his own place, though it is of course all earned and, as he mentions, some serious sacrifices have had to have been made along the way.

He’s got himself into a very strong place on and off track in this first near-100 races, then, and the next century could well see all of that groundwork yield some serious results.

Amid Formula 1’s social media boom seemingly coming to a halt, the solution to some of the sport’s more modern problems could be found in the past.

Last month, a study conducted by social intelligence group Buzz Radar found a series of alarming statistics surrounding F1’s social outreach.

It’s no secret that the sport has been growing its fanbase in recent years, in part due to a significant increase in social engagement from both the sport itself as well as the teams and drivers within.

But after year-on-year growth peaked in 2022, social media mentions have declined by 70.7%, new followers are down 49.2% and overall social media reach has dropped 64.1% in 2023.

The study found that a lot of this data can be attributed to the lack of a title fight and predicts the downward trend may continue next year.

F1’s recent social media boom has been beneficial in drawing new eyes to the sport and thus contributing to its overall growth, but unless Red Bull and Max Verstappen’s significant advantage over the opposition is clawed back over the winter, 2024 could be another onesided title-fight, three years removed from the dramatic 2021 title saga between Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton that no doubt drew in a lot of new fans in the first place.

It’s hard right now to contemplate a team emerging from the offseason to start next year neck and neck with Red Bull, let alone sustain that over a record-long 24-race calendar.

But if the gap to Red Bull is closed somewhat, what other factors could be employed to help reign them in, or in the case of further dominance, curtail fans losing interest?

The answers, at least in the opinion of the one writing the words that lay in front of you, could be found in the past.

During Ferrari’s F1 dominance in the early 2000s, measures were put in place to try and halt the Scuderia.

Perhaps the most drastic of these was the implementation of a rule that prevented teams from using more than a single set of tyres in a Grand Prix during the 2005 season, save for circumstances such as a change in the weather or a puncture.

This affected those on Bridgestone tyres the most, which of course included Ferrari and the Italian giants won just one GP all year, the highly controversial United States GP in Indianapolis, where the Michelin runners famously withdrew at the end of the warm-up lap.

The rule lasted just a single year and most definitely did a fine job of halting Ferrari’s title run.

But, in the present era, such drastic action doesn’t seem favourable with Toto Wolff labelling a supposed balance of performance to slow Red Bull down would “ruin” F1.

An implementation of BOP, or something as drastic as no pit stops for tyres isn’t necessary to try and inject some spice back into the title race in the years to come, but one rule change made two years prior to 2005 could do the trick.

Changing the points system

In 2003, Formula 1 overhauled the points scoring system, allowing eight competitors to score points at any given GP – this saw the old system of 10-6-4-3-2-1 struck out in favour of 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1.

Not only had two more competitors been given the opportunity to score points on race day, but the margin between second and first had been halved, from four points to two.

Whilst other factors played into the title fight, the new points system helped contribute to a championship showdown in the season finale, with Kimi Raikkonen missing out on the Drivers’ title by just two points, despite having only one win all year to Michael Schumacher’s six.

The tight point differential helped Raikkonen stay in the fight by being consistent and didn’t allow Schumacher to suddenly stretch out a title lead when he started winning, in fact, Schumacher didn’t even take the lead in the title until after that year’s Canadian GP, the eighth round of a 16-round season.

Williams’ Juan Pablo Montoya was also in title contention until the conclusion of the penultimate round in the United States.

A three-way title fight was in stark contrast to what had transpired a year prior, with Schumacher wrapping up the 2002 title in July.

In modern F1, points are handed out to the top-10 finishers in the fashion of 25-18-15-12-10-8-6-4-2-1.

This system was introduced in 2010, with the seven-point differential between first and second said to increase the value of a win, which indeed it has done, but it also enables a significant gap to be created when someone goes on a run of victories, as Verstappen has done to devastating effect this year.

Perhaps a switch back to a smaller points differential would be beneficial to the sport, but what would this look like?

If one were to retain 10 points-scoring finishers whilst reintroducing a two-point differential from first to second and second to third, the points scoring system would look something like this; 14-12-10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1.

Whilst in the case of this year, Verstappen’s dominance over the rest of the field would be maintained due to his sheer number of victories even with a points overhaul, reducing the gap between positions could help encourage a closer fight next season, should the competition close the gap to the front runners.

But there are other factors that could be employed to ward off fan fatigue and dwindling social numbers.

Reduce the number of Grands Prix

Verstappen’s crowning moment came in Saturday’s Sprint at the Qatar Grand Prix, the 18th round of a 22-round season.

This means with everything wrapped up, there are still five races left to run, plus Sprints, with the odds looking like Verstappen won’t be beaten all too often until the season concludes in Abu Dhabi on November 26th.

In 2024, the calendar is growing to 24 races, with the season getting underway with Friday practice in Bahrain on February 29th and concluding with race day in Abu Dhabi on December 8th.

When Liberty Media acquired F1 ahead of the 2017 season, they were said to be hopeful of turning Grands Prix into a Super Bowl-style spectacle, but considering there’s only one Super Bowl a year and the fact that it is a season-ending, all-or-nothing championship game, Liberty may have missed out on what defines the Super Bowl as being special.

The 24-race calendar next year reeks of too much of a good thing and F1 risks losing the special feeling of a Grand Prix weekend if there is one being run practically every week of the year save for the dark days of mid-winter.

By reducing the number of rounds in the calendar, not only would the fatigue of countless Verstappen victories wear off due to the simple fact there would be fewer of them, but also fatigue amongst those working the paddock would significantly be reduced, as would the carbon footprint of the sport as whole by way of less travel.

Also, in the heart and mind of the nostalgic F1 fan writing this piece, a reduction in the number of rounds in a season would help make each event feel more special and more rarified.

The NFL season that culminates in the Super Bowl that Liberty has been trying to emulate all these years only has a regular season of 17 games and a Super Bowl-winning team would have played either three or four more games than that after the post-season.

So perhaps a rewind back to a smaller calendar, say 18 races would help reinject the special rarified feeling a Grand Prix encompasses.

The last 18-race calendar came in 2008 and that was an exciting year, to say the least.

Get rid of Sprints

Call me old-fashioned, but qualifying takes place on Saturdays and races take place on Sundays.

When it comes to Sprints, there wouldn’t be much of a loss if they were struck from the calendar altogether.

First of all, traditionally the way Sprints play out is similar to that of a long, drawn-out first stint of a Grand Prix and when overtaking is still at a premium, that doesn’t make for excitement.

Also, drivers haven’t exactly been unanimous in their appraisal of Sprints and their infrequent and haphazard placement throughout a Grand Prix calendar only serves to make Sprint weekends off and ambiguous and in a year of dominant race victories, who wants to see the same person win twice on the same weekend, which has happened on three of four of the Sprint weekends in 2023 thus far.

What’s more, with the revisions to the Sprint format this year having pushed Grand Prix Qualifying, often the most thrilling spectacle of a GP weekend, back to Friday, the majority of the working public miss out on the action.

Again, less is more should be the approach and Sprints, along with an elongated calendar, can be left out of the picture.

Make cars louder, lighter and smaller

It’s no secret the current age of F1 cars are rather on the large side, with the incoming technical revolution in 2026 seeking to mitigate this somewhat, but more needs to be done.

In ten years, F1 cars have gone from a minimum weight of 642kg to 798kg and currently stand at 5.63 meters in length and 2 meters wide.

One reason for the significant growth in F1 cars is the 1.6-litre V6-Hybrid power unit, which was introduced in 2014.

The extra weight gained from additional electrical components has had a part to play in increasing the overall mass of F1 cars and the current power units are here to stay in the near future, with just the MGU-H not being carried over into the 2026 engine regulations.

With the introduction of hybrid engines in 2014, not only did F1 cars gain weight, but they lost one of the most enthralling elements of the sport: sound.

Long gone are the days of loud, raucous V8s, or the even louder, earth-shattering, super high-revving V10s that preceded them.

V10s in particular, shrieking in their spell-binding song, would be heard long before being seen out on track and however fanciful, there is a pathway that would allow them back into the sport, in some form or another.

The recent developments of synthetic fuels, as demonstrated by Sebastian Vettel in his Race Without Trace show-runs, prove that naturally aspirated internal combustion power units can function in an ever-increasing environmentally conscious world.

F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali has promised that the 2026 engines will be louder, “because that’s part of our emotion.”

However, Domincali has also stated that “of course we need to be hybrid, we’re going to be hybrid for the future.” 

Whilst a sound improvement is beneficial, a return to the sounds of F1 cars from the early 2000s would help invigorate even the most disinterested fans in a season as one-sided as this year’s.

Add into the mix smaller, lighter, nimbler cars and the on-track action will also be more enthralling, if and when cars go wheel-to-wheel.

To conclude, it is worth noting how hypothetical and somewhat unlikely these changes will be implemented in F1.

The sport at the end of the day is a business and Liberty has found a supremely profitable way of running F1 that would put a stop to a lot of the theories being put forward, but let’s continue to dream shall we?

Perhaps F1 will continue to be one-sided, but maybe in an alternate 2024 future, a revised points system, a smaller calendar, and lighter and louder cars will all come together to create a spectacle that nobody could choose to ignore.

The Qatar Grand Prix saw Lance Stroll’s building frustration come to a head as Aston Martin’s encouraging 2023 Formula 1 season continued to unravel – but did the most recent race weekend further exemplify that the team’s potential will most be capped by its struggling driver’s presence?

Aston Martin began the latest campaign as the revitalised force in F1. With a massively revised car and the addition of two-time World Champion Fernando Alonso, things were looking rosy as the team swiftly established itself as the closest competitor to the runaway Red Bulls at the front.

After successive placings of seventh in the Constructors’ Championship since morphing into Aston Martin back in 2021, the British marque appeared to finally be delivering on the promise it had consistently talked up but failed to showcase on a consistent basis.

But since Alonso climbed atop the rostrum in Montreal for the sixth time in only eight rounds, he has only added a solitary top-three finish across the previous nine races.

Consequently, the Spaniard has surrendered third place in the standings to ex-McLaren nemesis Lewis Hamilton, while Aston Martin have rapidly slipped behind both Mercedes and Ferrari in the teams’ championship.

Aston Martin Team Principal Mike Krack has attributed its sudden regression to unexpected “side effects” from the raft of upgrades the side bolted onto the AMR23 in Canada. Despite the entire operation undertaking “crazy hours” to recover the lost ground, Aston Martin has thus far been unable to rediscover its early-season momentum, dropping into the clutches of a resurgent McLaren side on the track.

The 2023 season has been a tale of two halves for Aston Martin and McLaren. The Woking camp entered the year braced to be on the back foot after missing development targets with its MCL60 car, but an upgraded car in Austria has transcended the team into a consistent fixture at the sharp end.

Despite starting out of position due to deleted lap times for exceeding track limits in qualifying, Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris recovered a cumulative 11 places in Sunday’s Qatar GP to ensure McLaren scored consecutive double podiums for the first time in over a decade. Add Piastri’s Sprint victory from Saturday to the mix and McLaren outscored Aston Martin handsomely again at the Lusail circuit.

Heading into the weekend, Alonso reluctantly said Aston Martin would have to “accept” that McLaren would usurp them. 

It now appears a formality it will happen as early as the next round in Austin, United States based on the rate McLaren have slashed the deficit in recent weeks. Having been a resounding 137 points ahead of its Mercedes-powered counterpart after the British Grand Prix in July, Aston Martin now only reside 11 points clear of McLaren with five rounds remaining this season.

Alonso’s costly trip through the gravel, dropping him behind Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc to sixth, didn’t aid Aston Martin’s cause last Sunday – but he has been the least of the team’s problems. Amid Aston Martin’s plight down the pecking order, the Oviedo-born racer has been as dogged as ever, continuously extracting every last ounce of performance out of the car beneath him.

After Carlos Sainz’s early exit last weekend, Alonso remains the only driver to have progressed to Q3 in every qualifying and has scored points in all 17 rounds bar one. That relentless consistency synonymous with the unabating Spaniard has enabled him to retain fourth place, ahead of both Ferrari drivers and Mercedes’ George Russell.

Contrastingly, though, Stroll lies a colossal 136 points adrift of his team-mate and even on the brink of being displaced from the top 10 by the two Alpine drivers directly behind.

Stroll was eliminated from the first segment of qualifying for the fourth time in succession in Qatar, resulting in a meltdown that saw him throw his steering wheel away, shove trainer Henry Howe and then deliver a curt seven-word interview including a four-letter expletive. Those actions, which landed him a warning from the FIA, show his wretched run has begun to take its toll.

The unique situation of having his father outright own the team means Stroll’s seat is under virtually no pressure. However, this season has exposed the conundrum facing Lawrence Stroll in prioritising whether he is purely involved in F1 to see his son succeed or to see the Aston Martin brand thrive.

A cloned Alonso would currently have Aston Martin second in the Constructors’ Championship, with an extremely comfortable 40-point buffer to Mercedes. Of course, that is a simplistic view to take and there aren’t many drivers who could stack up to Alonso’s elite level. Nevertheless, the huge disparity between Aston Martin’s two competitors is among the biggest on the grid – and is a glaring weakness that rival teams have been able to gracefully capitalise on.

To be fair, Stroll can count himself somewhat unfortunate. The 24-year-old missed the entirety of pre-season testing after a cycling accident had left him with two broken wrists. That meant he was still finding his feet when Aston Martin’s 2023 charger was operating at its best and a run of bad results as the car’s competitiveness tailed away led to his confidence plummeting to rock bottom.

The Canadian has also occasionally been unlucky with circumstances aligning against him in races and small margins adding up to exaggerate his overall deficit to Alonso.

For example, Stroll only clocked a time at Suzuka a few tenths shy of Alonso. But while the former exited in Q1, the latter advanced through to Q3 and then bagged points. Aside from Red Bull and Verstappen cantering away, the field spread being so compact this year means disaster has never been too far off, especially for an individual like Stroll who has never been an exceptional qualifier.

However, moments like Japan have been the exception rather than the rule between the two. Far too often Stroll has languished miles behind Alonso on the timing sheets, most recently in Qatar when he wound up over nine-tenths shy of his illustrious partner in both the weekend’s qualifying sessions.

The ex-Williams racer has also been responsible for several avoidable errors, most recently exceeding track limits too frequently during the Qatar GP, dropping him from ninth to outside the points in 11th.

“I’m just struggling with the car and just getting to grips with the balance,” Stroll explained last weekend. “I’m just not able to extract performance from it right now, which is just difficult and frustrating. There’s high levels of understeer, snap oversteer, [and] a lack of grip.

“I feel like I can’t really lean on the car and drive it with confidence without dealing with snaps and understeer and just a balance that I really don’t particularly enjoy driving.”

Stroll claims the last time he felt comfortable inside the AMR23 was in Austria. Incidentally, that was the last time he edged Alonso in a competitive session. But his assertion does uphold an element of truth.

Alonso has arguably the largest operating window of any F1 driver in history. He inherently prefers understeer but is capable of conquering any behavioural challenges a car provides, which can often disguise deficiencies that drivers of a lesser calibre, like Stroll, get entangled trying to overcome.

As Stroll alludes to, that situation has unfolded at Aston Martin, placing him in a rut that, to this point, he hasn’t escaped.

“I think he has a particular driving style,” he added. “The way that he gets around the corners might be very different to mine.

“At the beginning of the year I think the car was giving a bigger window for different driving styles to work. And right now it has a lot of limitations that I don’t like that I think he kind of drives around and deals with and that doesn’t bother him as much.”

“I know we’ve changed the car a lot throughout the year and the characteristic of the car has changed a lot throughout the year,” he continued. “So maybe we moved away from something that suited me better at the beginning of the year.”

But while Aston Martin’s wayward car development has denied it any shot at placing second, it’s predominantly been Stroll’s lacklustre performance that is likely to cost the team even a top-four finish now.

Alonso extraordinarily highlighted at the start of the year that Stroll possessed World Champion potential, something he looks a million miles shy of at this moment in time.

Stroll can certainly point to the injury derailing his 2023 campaign from the outset – but, ultimately, he is in his seventh year in the top flight. There has been enough evidence to document his limitations as a driver and understand fundamentally how strong he is compared to the current crop.

As it stands, that level is nowhere near convincing enough for a side with championship aspirations, even in a secondary role alongside an established seasoned performer like Alonso.

With Aston Martin continuing to press on with moving into its new state-of-the-art headquarters at Silverstone, the British outfit could be poised to take a hard stance on Stroll’s seemingly untouchable status within the team if it wishes to transpire its current hopes of title success into a reality later on.