Talented rookies, more sprint races and goodbye porpoising: What’s new in F1 in 2023

All the rule changes, new drivers and added features for the 2023 F1 season

The 2023 Formula One season is just around the corner with this year’s racing boasting a sprinkling of new faces, locations and features.

Testing in Bahrain is complete with the Middle Eastern venue hosting the first race of the year this weekend.

Here is what’s new in F1 in 2023...

New drivers

Oscar Piastri was caught in a driver tug of war between Alpine, who announced the Formula 2 champion had joined them as a replacement for Fernando Alonso, and McLaren, who eventually won his services. Also new on the grid are Logan Sargeant at Williams and Nyck de Vries at AlphaTauri.

New location

The Las Vegas Grand Prix is the newest addition to the calendar, with the race scheduled to take place in November on a new street circuit along its iconic Strip. It is the first F1 race in the city since the 1982 Caesars Palace Grand Prix, and it will be F1’s first Saturday race for 40 years.

Double the sprint races

Last season, there were three sprint races. After occasionally testy negotiations between the FIA and F1, that number has been doubled: Azerbaijan, Austria, Belgium, Qatar, United States and Brazil.

Getty Images

An end to porpoising

Formula One are confident that the issue of significant porpoising, which hampered teams — Mercedes in particular — will become a thing of the past. To do so, innovations have included a new sensor added to the cars, as well as their floor edges being raised.

New roll hoops

Zhou Guanyu amazingly walked away unscathed from his accident at the British Grand Prix in which his car slid across the track upside down. But now a rounded top has become compulsory on the roll hoop above a driver's head to reduce the chance of it digging into the ground in an accident.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in