Welcome back! As I promised, in this entry we are gonna talk about teams, their drivers and all announced circuits for this year. So let’s get into it.
Formula One Teams and their drivers
Drivers in F1 are not just driving for themselves but also for their teams. Each Formula One team employs about hundred of technicians, employees, designers, social media creators and support staff.
We have ten teams, each team has to official drivers and some teams also have a reserved driver. According to the rules for the season, a maximum of cars is 26. This means that there is maximum of 13 teams with 2 cars (each team is allowed to only field two cars).
A Formula One team comprises all the entities that design and produce the cars and they also own the intellectual rights. It means that chassis is designed by one company and the engine itself is supplied by another. There two take their names and merge them together to become participating team.
Here is the list of F1 teams for 2023 season and their drivers:
Driving in race is hard not just physically but also mentally. Drivers are as fit as most of the athletes in any sport. They have high stamina and perfect reflexes. Drivers dedicate a lot of time during the season and maintain their physical well being.
All the F1 drivers lose some weight after the race. You ask how? Well, lot of energy is spent during the race, well when you have to take care of throttle, brake and concentrate on the whole race it for sure take some weight. They also experience something called G-force. Drivers experience those when they accelerates or the car is going around a corner or bend on the track. You can experience a force of 2G to 6G, which means that the drivers are pulled by a force equal to 6 times their weight. Driver’s legs and neck are free to move during the race, that is the reason why they assign a high priority to strengthen those parts of their body.
Okay, so we have teams, we have drivers, let’s take a look at our circuits for 2023 season.
What is actually a circuit?
A F1 circuit is a loop of road that is approved by FIA as a race track. Circuit usually starts with a straight stretch and has many turns and corners. Most of these circuits run in a clockwise direction. Those who are not clockwise give drivers a lot of trouble because of the strong G-force.
The average time of the race is 2 hours and the average distance is about 305 km. Of course the distance varies in the length of the track from circuit to circuit. One round around a circuit is counted as one lap. Races are specified by the numbers of laps.
Let’s look at the list of circuits:
As you can see, for 2023 there were announced 24 races, but unfortunately The Chinese Grand Prix has been again called off so we are left with 23 races, which is quite a lot. Season usually starts in March and ends in December. This season includes a debut race at the new street circuit in Las Vegas.
Each race week starts on Friday with some Practice Sessions. On Saturday there is Practice Session and Qualifying Race. Qualifying race decides the standing of drivers at race on Sunday. Sunday is a Race Day! Of course not all race weeks are the same. For example this year in Azerbaijan, Austria, Belgium, Qatar, USA and Brazil. On Friday, we have Practice no. 1 and Qualifying because on Saturday there is Practice no. 2 and Sprint Race. Of course on Sunday there is a Race Day.
At the end of the season we have the World Drivers’ Championship and Constructors’ Champion awards. The Drivers’ Championship is decided by points the drivers has collected in that season. The Constructors’ Championship goes to the team where total of points of both drivers is the biggest.
In 2022 season the winner of Drivers’ Championship was Max Verstrappen with 454 points and the Constructors’ Championship was won by Red Bull Racing with 759 points.
In my next entry we will look at some F1 Slangs and Terms used in F1 Universe.
See ya, and remember….Lights out and away we go!!
Natalie Kika
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