*** As with last season's thread, we'll be talking freely about races without spoiler tags, so please beware if you watch races on a delay! ***
How to watch in the US:
- ESPN carries races live both on their various broadcast channels, but also on their various apps as long as you’ve got a TV provider login with the appropriate access to ESPN.
- F1TV is an official streaming service that offers two tiers. The “Pro” tier lets you stream races live for about $80 a year, but you can get on demand streams of all races for a much more reasonable $26 a year if you don’t mind watching on a bit of a time delay, and don't care about some of the extra programming that's part of the pro tier. There are also month to month subscriptions available, and there might be promos available as we approach the start of the season.
- The official F1 YouTube channel doesn't offer full replays, but they do have great highlights packages for every practice, qualifying, and race session throughout the year, as well as good interview and analysis coverage throughout race weekends, and a variety of other miscellaneous interesting video clips in between.
Can I get a concise overview of where the sport stands at the start of the season?
Here's a link to the Official F1 season intro video (the embedded player is blocked on this one): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYhq...
And here's the Shift F1 season primer episode in video form -- it assumes zero former knowledge of the sport, so it's a great place to start.
I'll update with any other good season overview videos if I encounter them.
When and where are the races?
I mean, who could really say? 
This year the schedule should be a bit more predictable, but COVID still exists and who knows which authoritarian regime might be the next one to start a war that manages to be unpalatable enough for the west to actually care?
Anyway, the latest updates should always be available on the official website here: https://www.formula1.com/en/racing/2...
But here's how the schedule looks as of mid February:
Who are the teams?
Car launches are complete, so here's (mostly) what the grid will look like this year:
Of course, small changes may happen (sponsors drop out, teams decide they need to save a bit more weight by having less paint on the car, etc), but I doubt we'll see anything as dramatic as last years changeup with Haas dropping their relationship with Uralkali.
And, here's a nice infographic detailing driver lineup changes for 2023:
Other Useful Links:
Official Site
Drive to Survive, Netflix's excellent documentary series about the sport, an great way to introduce yourself to the sport. You'll learn all about the sport in general, meet the current drivers, and get an abridged recap of the 2018 through 2022 seasons of the sport.
Shift-F1, a podcast about F1 hosted by video game media personalities Drew Scanlon (Cloth Map, formerly of Giant Bomb), Danny O’Dwyer (No Clip), and Rob Zacny (Waypoint). (They are now also doing video versions of the show -- Youtube link below.)
Fantasy Formula 1
F1 Reddits: Formula 1 , Formula 1.5 , Formula 1 Posters, Inspector Seb
Good youtube fan channels:
Chain Bear
The F1 Word
Shift F1
I didn't get around to making the thread this year until after the car launches, but here's a series of videos from one of my go-to F1 YouTubers summarizing each car launch:
Great summary!
I'm excited for this year's rookie class and I share Martin Brundle's annoyance with all the black added to the liveries for weight reasons. It will make the field look uglier.
I will also keep dreaming about a three-way title fight until the results show me it's just not gonna happen.
I'm excited for this year's rookie class and I share Martin Brundle's annoyance with all the black added to the liveries for weight reasons. It will make the field look uglier.
Yeah, on many of the cars it just makes them look unfinished or obviously stripped back, and thus lazy. Like, late last season it was understandable as they started peeling off bits of paint here and there without a new design to account for it. But, for a new year, maybe let the designers do some work if you need to keep reducing paint to save weight, right?
Just at a glance from the launches, I feel like Alfa Romeo, Aston, and Alpine are maybe the worst offenders. McLaren and Williams are slightly better, but still could have done better.
Meanwhile, Haas and Ferrari both may have managed to turn it into an aesthetic improvement, Red Bull and Alpha Tauri seem to have avoided it, and the Mercedes should never have gone back to the silver livery anyway, and is f*cking spectacular in black.
Did not enjoy last season. I hope this year's is more fun to watch.
Feels like Drive to Survive is going to really need to lean into the dramatic music this series.
Max won lol *THUNDERCLAP*
Feels like Drive to Survive is going to really need to lean into the dramatic music this series.
Max won lol *THUNDERCLAP*
I've never watched DTS but I may give it a shot this season. I just find it really difficult to watch when the season started and the show is about the prior year.
I feel like there was enough drama for the show even if the title was boring, though. You had the porpoising issues. Ferrari's reliability issues. Russell beating Hamilton. Ferrari's strategy errors. A small Checo v Max kerfuffle at the end. Danny Ric without a seat for next year. Ferrari's strategy errors. The Piastri negotiations. Seb's retirement. Ocon v Fernando. Ferrari's strategy errors. The Stroll / Latifi incident in Canada. Mick driving for his seat. The Max v Hamilton incident in Brazil. Ferrari's strategy errors...
Day 1 of testing is nearly done, so (not terribly meaningful) timing sheets coming soon. Obviously they won't mean much, but there are promising signs that the Mercedes is at least not terrible, so we might get to start with some closer racing between the top three, continuing from where the season ended last year.
Also, some nice like for like photos of all the cars on track today:
I've never watched DTS but I may give it a shot this season. I just find it really difficult to watch when the season started and the show is about the prior year.
I feel like there was enough drama for the show even if the title was boring, though. You had the porpoising issues. Ferrari's reliability issues. Russell beating Hamilton. Ferrari's strategy errors. A small Checo v Max kerfuffle at the end. Danny Ric without a seat for next year. Ferrari's strategy errors. The Piastri negotiations. Seb's retirement. Ocon v Fernando. Ferrari's strategy errors. The Stroll / Latifi incident in Canada. Mick driving for his seat. The Max v Hamilton incident in Brazil. Ferrari's strategy errors...
What was the incident in Montreal between Stroll and Latifi? My Google Fu isn't pulling anything and I shamefully don't remember anything happening between them even though I was there live. I do remember the weather though.
Might have missed the Ferrari blunders also. Essentially Ferrari f*cks up^10.
They'll have an entire episode dedicated to Binotto wagging his finger at Charles after Silverstone.
For me, the only reason I watch DTS is for the great hi-res footage of the cars.
I feel like this year's Drive to Survive has a more interesting soundtrack than years past. Enjoying the spectacle of the show more than the actual 2022 season.
A fun Reddit post summarizing various different pundits' predictions for how things will start out this year based on testing:
McLaren worse than Williams is going to hurt some people.
BRING THE CHAOS
Does the high opinion of Aston factor in Lance being out this weekend? Or because of it?
Does the high opinion of Aston factor in Lance being out this weekend? Or because of it?
Not particularly -- or at most, tangentially.
Basically, Aston came into testing confident about their car, the first two days of testing indicated that it was maybe even slightly better than they were expecting, and then on the last day Alonso did a race simulation run that looked VERY strong -- competitive with the similar simulation runs that Ferrari were doing, at the very least.
So, in as much as part of the confidence is based on people reacting to what Alonso was able to do do with the car, yes, it's partly to do with the fact that Stroll wasn't there. Drugovich was doing respectable work driving throughout the test, but it's very hard to correlate that much from it given his rookie status.
So anyway, I think it's safe to say that this LOOKS like the most competitive car Alonso has been in for at least a decade (at least to start with). Whether it will REALLY pan out to be that good in practice, and especially whether Aston will be able to keep up with the upgrade race is another question.
(Lots of rumors that Mercedes already has VERY big expectations for their first upgrade package this year, which is why internally they maybe aren't as gloomy about their chances as the press seems to be.)
I love when a sh*tpost elicits an extremely thoughtful response. Thanks @zeroKFE!
That's my specialty.
FP1 in Bahrain:
Alonso Hype Train! CHOO CHOO!
Alonso Hype Train! CHOO CHOO!
It seems so?
FP2:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwzH...
You know what?
If Alonso wants to come in and steal Verstappen's candy, I'm okay with that.
/r/formuladank has been lit all day, but numbers don't lie.
Let me guess, that chart starts at 2017 because Rosberg didn't lead FP2 in 2016?
Yessssssss... Now that's what I'm talking about!
Let me guess, that chart starts at 2017 because Rosberg didn't lead FP2 in 2016? :P
NUMBERS DON'T LIE!
If there was deja vu here, then Mercedes felt it too but of an altogether more disagreeable variety, as the team were forced to admit that they have once more chosen the wrong concept for their car and will now be playing catch up for the season as they chase a new design.
Yeesh. There's falling off, and then there's this.
zeroKFE wrote:Let me guess, that chart starts at 2017 because Rosberg didn't lead FP2 in 2016? :P
NUMBERS DON'T LIE!
Clearly, we're on the way:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJ4B...
Also, race highlights for anyone who doesn't plan to watch the whole thing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9j8...
(F1 blocks the embedded player, annoyingly.)
Not an absolute barn burner, but there was a at least a bit of excitement between Aston and Mercedes.
It does look like Red Bull could win every single race but we can still have fun races in the rest of the pack. It's a bummer that F1 keeps jumping from one team absolutely dominating to another.
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