Ferrrari, McClarren, Aston Martin, Alfa Romeo and Alpha Tauri Have All Launched Their 2023 Cars.
With the 2023 Formula 1 season almost a month away, five more teams have revealed their 2023 cars, with some of the teams having a new driver line up as well, what are you looking forward to most about the upcoming season?
Alpha Tauri
Fashion met Formula 1 in New York City as Scuderia AlphaTauri launches its 2023 car alongside drivers Yuki Tsunoda and team newcomer Nyck De Vries at New York Fashion Week.
Premium fashion brand AlphaTauri also celebrated its debut in the US market with the two drivers dressed in outfits from the collections.
Scuderia AlphaTauri kickstart their 2023 Formula One season with rookie Nyck De Vries, 28, joining the driver roster alongside Tsunoda. De Vries becomes the second Dutch driver on the grid alongside two-time world champion Max Verstappen.
The Dutchman already has considerable experience under his belt, earning his F1 seat off the back of winning the Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0, Formula Renault 2.0 Alps, FIA Formula 2 Championship and Formula E titles. He then claimed an impressive ninth on his F1 debut last September with his first race start with Williams Racing, substituting for a sidelined Alex Albon at the 2022 Italian Grand Prix.
De Vries said: “I’ve loved attending my first event as a Scuderia AlphaTauri driver. The opportunity to represent the brand at New York Fashion Week has been extremely special for me and really showed me what the brand is about. The livery looks great, and you can see how the sleek A/W collection has inspired it, so I can’t wait to see it on track.”
Japan’s Yuki Tsunoda, 22, returns for a third season with Scuderia AlphaTauri. The former F4 Japanese Championship winner and Formula 2 frontrunner races alongside a new teammate for the first time, following two seasons partnered with Frenchman Pierre Gasly.
Of his prospects for 2023, Tsunoda revealed: “My main goal is to perform more consistently in every race, independently from the car’s performance, and to score points more reliably. I want this year to be my best performance of the three years in terms of getting to Q3 and scoring points.”
McClaren
In 2023, McLaren will mark 60 years since legendary New Zealand racer Bruce McLaren founded the team and, as an initial tribute, opted to jump straight from last season’s ‘MCL36’ to ‘MCL60’ with the naming of their latest car.
McLaren CEO Zak Brown and new Team Principal Andrea Stella – who steps up from his previous position of Racing Director following the departure of former team boss Andreas Seidl to Sauber – were both on hand for Monday afternoon’s launch, along with Lando Norris and his new team mate Oscar Piastri, who arrives as an F3 and F2 champion.
In addition to papaya orange, blue elements remain on McLaren’s livery – colours first carried by the outfit in the 1960s, before making a popular return in 2018.
When the new season begins, McLaren will be looking to arrest a recent decline in their F1 fortunes, having fallen from third to fifth in the constructors’ standings in the space of two campaigns.
Speaking as the MCL60 was unveiled, Brown said: “We are delighted to launch our 2023 Formula 1 team with Lando and Oscar at the wheel as we celebrate 60 years of McLaren Racing.
“This year’s driver line-up is extremely exciting as Lando, an intelligent and confident driver with excellent pace, is joined by one of the biggest up-and-coming talents in motorsport with Oscar. “2022 was a challenging season in our continued effort to push towards the front of the grid. We learnt a lot which has been taken into the off-season as the entire team works hard to prepare for another year.
Aston Martin
Aston Martin unveiled their 2023 Formula 1 car, the AMR23, at their new Silverstone headquarters on Monday – their third F1 can since the famous British brand returned to the sport in 2021.
It will be driven this year by Lance Stroll, and new recruit Fernando Alonso, who joins from Alpine.
The team have called the AMR23 a “considerable evolution” of last year’s AMR22, which saw them finish seventh in the constructors’ championship, but equal on points with Alfa Romeo. Aston Martin noted the new car has a “heavily revised” front wing, new sidepods and a new engine cover with a bigger inlet on the roll hoop.
The AMR23 will take to the track on February 15 for a filming day at Silverstone, where Stroll will run the car in the morning and Alonso will take over in the afternoon.
“The design team was adamant that it wanted to tackle these regulations without compromise,” said new Technical Director Dan Fallows. “We want to move up the grid and start challenging the teams at the front – and you can’t do that by sitting back and being conservative.
“AMR23 is a significant development of the car we refined in the latter half of 2022 – and we have improved it in every critical area. It optimizes the solutions we felt would offer us the most performance, and it embodies the joint vision we have embraced and have built together over the recent months.
“Now we need to focus on delivering an ambitious yet efficient program of updates for the first race and across the remainder of the season.”
Two-time champion Alonso added: “I have always said that I could see the ambition that shines bright at AMF1. And, as we launch the car in this brand-new factory, I think everyone can now see the scale of the ambition and determination at the heart of this organization.
“Just as important is the car – and the AMR23 looks incredibly neatly packaged and highly efficient. I was pleasantly surprised when I sampled last year’s car for the very first time, and I think there is plenty of performance we can unlock together. I can’t wait to get started.”
Ferrari
Ferrari have kept the F1 launch season moving at speed by unveiling their latest challenger, the SF-23, during a special Valentine’s Day presentation from the team’s Maranello headquarters.
Following Monday’s reveals from McLaren and Aston Martin, it was Ferrari’s turn to show off their 2023 creation, which unsurprisingly sports another red-dominated livery design.
Ferrari’s new car initially went by the project number ‘675’, before being given its official SF-23 moniker, which continues the naming convention introduced by the outfit in 2015.
Present to oversee launch proceedings was new Team Principal Frederic Vasseur, who arrived at Ferrari from Alfa Romeo over the winter – starting work in early January – as the replacement for Mattia Binotto.
With the new season on the horizon, Vasseur will be working to address the problems that ended Ferrari’s hopes of beating rivals Red Bull to title glory in 2022, with unreliability, strategic blunders and driver errors all contributing to their downfall.
Ferrari last won an F1 world title back in 2008, when they claimed the constructors’ crown, while their last drivers’ championship was achieved with Kimi Raikkonen during the previous season.
The team are currently conducting a shakedown with the SF-23 at Fiorano, before they pack up and head to Bahrain for pre-season testing from February 23-25, with the opening round to be staged a week later.
Alfa Romeo
Alfa Romeo showed off their look ahead of the new F1 campaign by presenting the C43 – bedecked in an eye-catching red and black livery – to the world.
Ongoing team mates Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu were both present at the squad’s Swiss headquarters on Tuesday to pull the covers off the car, which from a technical perspective has been described as an “evolution” over its predecessor.
Alfa Romeo head into 2023 looking to build on a P6 finish in last year’s constructors’ standings, doing so with a new CEO in Andreas Seidl and a new Team Representative in Alessandro Alunni Bravi after Frederic Vasseur moved to Ferrari.
