Hey everyone, my name is Anthony and welcome to the countdown of the year.
F1 2023 season has finally came to a close after an ok Abu Dhabi GP, so what about this year itself? Well honestly, it was probably a pretty bad year that we had to dealing with, ranging from entertainment industry are screwing over to making a union strike, Elon Musk being Elon Musk, AI ravaging our hobbies and… Velma… Just… Velma. But il save them for my honorable mention before reaching at Number 1. So what about this season itself you asked?
Well, this season is average, just a second year of Red Bull’s domination, but this time, Max Verstappen is all over the place to win after win, after and after win, with the exception of some, but still its all about Max Verstappens wins many times, though I’ve nothing against him, but its just that we’ve seen it many times since last year. But of course, there are a couple of moments that are interesting in this year’s F1, but there’s also some shit moments that made me question “What were they thinking?!”. Similar to the movies of the year, I split up to two parts, one good and one bad, but il start the latter out of way.
Just to give you guys a real talk, last year, when I had a new computer, I was originally to do a countdown of best and worst moments in F2 2022, but my computer got broken down that not only I had to get a new one, but I wasn’t able to have time to finishing to redo the countdown, but skip to movies. So this is my second attempt, but in 2023 season.
So this, is my Top 9 Worst moments in F1 2023.
Lets get started, shall we?
A questionable ending in Australian GP
Since last year, I was happy to see the racing in Australia again after the pandemic, along with re-figuration corners to make the track faster for heavy cars, the last year’s race is a welcome return, but this year’s Australian race, was a completely different story.
This race itself went from ok to WTF. Aside the unnecessary red flag from Albon crashed on the wall for oversteering and some drivers had no clue what they’re doing in a formation at restart, all hell went loose at Lap 57 after another no reason red flag when Kevin Magnussen from Haas bumped at the wall with a tyre flew away, Max Verstappen is always taking to the lead, but then from behind, Fernando Alonso from Aston Martin got bumped and ran by Carlos Sainz Jr. from Ferrari, then two Alpine drivers (Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon) both crashing each others and Lance Stroll (also in Aston Martin), being Lance Stroll, is trying to overtaking Verstappen, but launched himself off the track, causing… You guessed it, another Red Flag! Normally, after the incident, the positions are meant to be change forward what we witnessed, but for some stupid reason, they revert back to the previous lap, meaning we’ll never be able to having Carlos Sainz to the podium, which means Alonso took the 3rd behind from Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton from Mercedes, along with Lance Stroll in 4th?? WAT???
While the race itself is ok, but everything about the ending as a complete Cluster-Eff for the crashing and the changing direction during the red flag. Oh yeah, did I mention this is the first time we had 3 RED FLAG?! Talk about being over sensitively safe that they possibly borrow the rules from Indycar or NASCAR.
But then again, its not the worst race ever, minus the ending, which is why im putting this in a lower list.
Austrian GP: The Fixing Race
Since I love watching Austrian GP, aka Red Bull’s home race, its no stranger that watching Austria GP is always fun to watch for challenging overtakes and few other things that are fun to watch, especially its one of my favorite track, but then there’s the biggest elephant in the room of this track’s problem: Track Limits
In many races, we’ve seen many drivers who are warned by the officials for track limits, the most commonly to having that problem is in the qualification, one wrong turn, you gotta retry before you’re in history in elimination zone. But alas, the violation rule also be the same in the race.
While the sprint is alright at best, but the main race itself is nothing but an endurance. While Max Verstappen made a teeny tiny mistake, cause he’s too good for either his car or his overly skilled racing (probably due to binge playing on sim racing as his own training), there are nearly everyone got themselves either a warning flag (aka black and white flag) or even 5 seconds for the same violation, which is downright annoying that its just a minor mistake, it happens all the time, but FIA are pretty taking it way too strict that if you doing it 3 times, you get a time penalty. I mean, I don’t understand how they’re taking it seriously when its just a mistake, but maybe even some don’t deserve it!
And in the end, I pretty much feel that the FIA are pretty much fixing this race for throwing every warnings and every 5 seconds penalty at everyone than Verstappen. If you think 2021 Abu Dhabi is the fixing race, but I think this year’s Austria is anything but fixing up the rule that we should take it all back and shut up about this stupid final race from two years ago!
But as far as im concerned, Austrian GP isn’t the only one, cause there are other GPs that also has a similar problem, but im not gonna keep it going, I hope this will never happen again in next year’s Austrian race.
The swapping performance Part 1
This one is gonna be a tie with two teams that I wanna talking about, Aston Martin and McLaren. But the reason why I add Part 1, its because I split to two parts both good and bad.
We’re gonna start off with in the first half of the season. The season opens in a big surprise, Aston Martin was on top of the gain to have an epic battle between the green Mercedes vs Red Bull, this is especially with Fernando Alonso who’s been in a podium since he used to be in Alpine two years ago, but for Stroll… Well, he’s just… Being Lance Stroll, being useless and as we always said, money won’t buy you winning. Like I said, im always routing for the two times champ that he deserves more for not just surprising performance, but also in a podium, and also F(bleep) Stroll. So in a nutshell, we have a veteran doing the job right, while the rookie is a complete waste with nepotism, which is a mixed start for Aston Martin.
But what about McLaren? Ohhh boy… Where do I begin?
When they first started before British GP, they had a TERRIBLE start with their car performed pretty start that pretty much give me a flashback of McLaren Honda since 2015 to 2017, it was embarrassing to see their rocky start of very low performance, especially this is the season debut of new kid from Down Under, Oscar Piastri, while Daniel Ricciardo was gone to be a reserve driver for Red Bull and Alphatauri (more on that later), sure they finished on Top 10, but again, its their low performance got themselves an embarrassing start that only Lando Norris can do the job for legendary British team, kinda.
Those are how they started, but things are gonna get interesting when we get to the second part in a best moment of F1 2023, so tune it next time.
Toxic fandom (not just F1, but any medias)
Oh hello there you mind wasting freaks, its me again, Anthony!
You folks are always love to wasting your brain IQs for doing those tribalism like Mercedes vs Red Bull, especially with Mercedes fandom, if you’re one those, then you people are nothing but a sickening to my stomach that you constantly moaning and whining how Lewis Hamilton should’ve been 8th time and calling Verstappen a 2 times, like Eat of Bag of Freakin DICKS for your “La La Land”, Mercedes Crybabies.
And lets not forget when Red Bull fans believing about Verstappen’s teammate Sergio Perez going to be sacked out for being useless. I mean, I understand he’s not as strong skilled as Mad Max, but there’s no excuse for making conspiracy rumors to making him look bad, but Checo can help Red Bull to scoring more for constructors’ championship for three time, especially when Verstappen gave a respect to his teammate for teamwork, but we can accept that Checo is good to be a runner up than “being useless”. Like im so sick and tired of those rumors of Checo’s “be gone” BS, he’s currently under RB’s contract that maybe he’ll be the next big thing next year, or next couple more!
But of course, its not just F1, but I’ve seen plenty of other entertainment with tribalism like Disney vs Dreamworks, DA user vs DA user, Microsoft vs Sony or many others out there that im getting old of hearing of, where you guys not just like obsessing of tribal vs tribal, you guys also did ranging from defending your idol or the brand that you said “i met them”, when you’re just a goddamn nobody, another kind of nobody for constantly begging for request for purpose of friendship (in looking at you, Drew Jones, you big fat furry toxic attention seeking fanboy…!) when you barely read the rules, and then you harassing a curtain people on the internet to left someone offline when this person criticized the AI content for stealing the voice without permission.
Guess what, Shit-faces? This is the second I called you guys out since my two years prior countdown called “Top 11 Controversial moments of 2021”, im sure some of you will be very proud of your careless, egotistic, greedy and hypocrite for being yourself against everybody, but of course, thank you so much for making internet into Cluster-F***, you time wasting clowns.
PS: im not calling out for all of my friends with all due respect to get off my chest.
Emilia Romagna GP's cancellation
I wanna start off by saying that Imola is one of my favorite track in Italy next to Monza. Sure, Monza is iconic for being the original Italian GP, but sometimes it could be overlook and simple design in my opinion, but the Imola circuit is a pretty fascinating track, despite the track is also being cursed from the tragedies and such, but that’s a different story.
However, despite I had a high-hope to see this, but we would’ve been excited without a natural disaster. Once the officials, the drivers and the teams arrived at Emilia-Romagna region, they got themselves in a disaster thanks to a heavy rain that flooded the region, including at the paddock, I was hoping if they’re gonna clean it up, but it will be impossible to dealing with the mess, as a result, it was announced that this, along with F2 and F3 is canceled from a flood, they stated that, while we can agree for their safety from a disaster, but they also said quote “logistically viable calendar slots”, which pretty much means they were gaslight by weather that they’re setting up, but ended up in a disaster, which is something they should’ve verify if the rain isn’t going to be strong.
It was a pretty bad situation what it would’ve been that we wanna see the race in Imola, but once nature struck the region with a ugly raining, it ruined the anticipation that they had to skip over Monaco, which the Monaco GP itself went from ok to something interesting when raining hitting in. But yes, im aware the officials and even Ferrari themselves had to donate to the safety and even the fundraiser, along with we see a picture of Yuki Tsunoda came for helping the people in the region.
Lets pray it will never happen again in 2024.
US Marketing Overhype and Las Vegas's bad start
In fairness, I maybe enjoy watching US GP like taking place in Austin, Texas since 2012, but this year, its pretty crazy to knowing that this is the first time we have three races in United States since 1982. But unlike 82, this years three American tracks, are anything but treating as “the most exciting things you’ve ever see!”, when in reality, it was all boringly BS that we just want to race, not hyping up for both ticket buyers and even TV views (myself included of course).
It all started with Miami GP for the second time since a year prior, they’re hyping up with introduction names before the race, so how’s the race went? It was BORING! It feels flat and nothing special, well except when Checo was in a lead, until the at the near end that Verstappen took it after the trade wins from Bahrain to Azerbaijan. Like is there something best part? Well, there’s Leclerc’s spun out of crash at the near end of Q3 in qualification, but that’s it. Its boringly flat that this track needs to go.
The US GP in COTA is good, sure its boring and stupid for the latter that has Sprint, but hey, at least its good with many moments with bumps and illegal overtakes. But lets not forget both Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc from Ferrari are both disqualified due to their skid block (aka the plank bellow the cars) infringement. That is until both Hamilton and Leclerc got their karma in Mexico City GP by going back to the podium.
But then came the inaugural Las Vegas GP… Where do I begin…?!
As I know, when it was first announced yester-year to be taken place in strip city, people are both unhappy and concern for the setup. Especially around many months before the Race Week, it cause a Buttloads of traffic and some stuff are forced to shutdown, including a small river where you’re in a boat is emptied with stand seats, I think. But the worst part is that if you don’t buy a ticket, they put covers from our view, which is pretty unfair that some people, including F1 fans who didn’t buy a ticket, wanted to see it so badly, if they don’t have either a TV or a TV broadcast apps. Speaking of F1 fans, they also screwing over their fans, during a long hours delay to get into FP2, the officials calling the fans to get out while waiting, which is so bad they some fans are threatened to sue the officials. And lastly, a plenty of complains and displacement from non-F1 fans, I mean sure, there are some tracks outside of Vegas or even USA are fine and get used to it, but here, it wasn’t helping very much that, again, some of them are even threatening to sue the officials.
As for the race itself? First of all, before the practice session, they decided to go all in to make a presentation show to the fans, as well as after the race, they brought both Verstappen, Leclerc and Checo into a luxury car behind the fountain for post-race interview, back the luxury car and then going to the podium on top of rectangular on the track. Jeez guys, this is F1, not a Vegas show! We want to see… You know… Racing. Which is exactly was Max Verstappen felt that he said Vegas GP feels like “99% Show and 1% Racing”, which I can’t blame him how they’re pulling out. As for the race, it was ok, its a nice race with one tricky turns and easy overtakes, but even though im not a fan of the track and, again, they treated this GP as “The greatest show you’ve ever seen”, its just plain exaggerated that we want racing than a show. And yet somehow, we’ll see it again next year… I hope they don’t pull the same mess from what we saw.
Overall, the trip in USA is a complete overhype that they gave us a boring result for the racing and even the exaggeration of presentation, especially for the Vegas GP. Lets hope they’re gonna tone down and focus on racing than a overhyping presentation.
Logan Sargeant
Look, im not trying to blasting American, its just that for half decade, we always wanted to see an American driver going into F1, unless if you’re Colton Herta to wishing for being in F1, based on Red Bull’s plan to having Herta to be in Alphatauri, but FIA completely rejected their request based on a strict super license when he’s in Indycar, saying that if you won more, you get a best points in your super license, if not, you get bug off, which is both unfair and dated, leaving Red Bull’s plan (along with Alpine) pretty much hopeless. That is until when Williams finally brought a new American boy in a town since Alexander Rossi in 2015, who happens to be… An American racer who finished 4th in 2022 season of F2 named Logan Sargeant.
Now, despite finishing 4th which an ok finish in F2 (maybe they could’ve give to either Felipe Drugovich or maybe even Théo Pourchaire, except for Liam, he’s on Red Bull program, but I digress), you think if Logan will make a promising start with Williams after Latifi’s retirement and maybe even competing against Alex Albon in 2023 season, right…? Right…??
Well no, predictably, Logan is just like one of those sad, wasted opportunity to be in F1, by finishing pretty much outside of Top 10 that he’s pretty much slow performance and, pretty much in Williams fashion, wasn’t helping that they’re no longer the same what they used to back in the late 90s or even 2000s. But the only driver who’s worth of performing is Albon, he did a better and lucky job of his performance by finishing from 10th to 7th places that he’s able to score more, while Sargeant, pretty much jacking mess from slow to even losing his race with crashing both qualifying and in the race. Well, except for Qatar when he’s unable to finish the whole thing due to his risk of heatstroke from Qatar’s humidity, more on that later.
But sure, Logan has able to claiming 1 point in Austin, Texas when, as I said before, when both Hamilton and Leclerc are both DQ’d, that’s good for him since Michael Andretti in 1993, but the damage is already done and he’s pretty much the same, by finishing no score after US GP. He finished with only 1 point behind everyone, including replace driver Liam Lawson who finished with 2 points (more on that later too), while Albon collected 27 points, Williams is pretty much like Aston Martin, but in a backmarker.
And in the end, im sure Williams will figuring out how Logan is worthless that they’ll fire him out and replace with new kid for 2024 seas--
AZ-06 Ayla: Um, Anthony, I hate to burst your bubble, but your prediction will never happen.
Anthony: Uhh, what do you mean?
AZ-06 Ayla: Before you posted, on the first day of December, it was announced that Logan is gonna stay for next year’s season.
Anthony … FFFFFFFFU--
Qatar GP: A painfully hottest night
Now, this is a tough choice for which one is the worst GP or sprint this season, its either two American tracks like Miami or Las Vegas, Austrian GP or others, but nothing can get over with return on Qatar.
After been absent for last year’s FIFA (which it ended very well, right??), Qatar is back in the second time since 2021, you think this is gonna be promising after the 2021 is average at best, right? Well, aside Fernando Alonso’s first and only podium in Alpine.
Well, when we went back there, it is… The worst weekend ever…! The first problem is that the track surface design when drivers hit the track, it was nothing but difficulty from all of turns to get through without spun out or track limiting, like this track is obviously made for MotoGP since 2004, the bikes are much easy to go than an open-wheel cars like F1, not only that, the track surface barely help from the extreme heat.
Which leads to the second problem, the temperature is nothing overheated both the track and the air. I know in many countries’ nights, the temperature are going down, but Qatar is anything but opposite that it still hotter, which it wasn’t help much that many drivers are struggling to drive in extreme heat both driving from a hot surface and overly sweating from the air, in fact for the latter, you can see some drivers opened their visor to having a breeze to break their sweat, but some unable to keep going from the heat, like the aforementioned Logan who’s unable to finish the whole race, which is so bad that after parked in the garage, he was carried by his crew members to be checked by doctor for heatstroke. Not to mention, even when the race is over, Oscar Piastri, who finished in second, is laying on the ground in a cooling room before the podium. And lets not forget that the FIA had to changing the rules because of the temperature, by having pitstops after 18 laps due to a heat temperature means, the good’ol fashion tyre failures. Yeah, its one of the race occurrence that when there’s a tyre failures, they had to change the rule.
Speaking of Oscar Piastri, yes, its a big surprise that Oscar took his very first victory in his F1 career for his great start, but this one took place on Sprint, while the main race, Verstappen finished in the lead like a dozens of times. Oh yeah, did I mention Max Verstappen has won his 3rd championship in Sprint? Yeah, its not a good way to finish the drivers’ championship for both bad temperature, a bad placement to have a championship ending on Sprint and waste of time to end the championship, since Verstappen scored more than 400, like the championship should’ve ended in Japan than having in Qatar in a bad timing.
In the end, its easily the worst GP ever in a combination of heating temperature, rule changing of concerning tyre failures, a boring main race that wasn’t even worth it for causing drivers a near head exhaustion at the end of the day and even a championship took place in a very stupid timing. But yes I know, the Sprint in Qatar is actually good to have Oscar Piastri beat George Russell to claiming his first victory, but this whole weekend is anything but disastrous weekend that this needs to go, and yet they’re still keeping it for next year…! I feel like FIA and Liberty Media are too busy of shoot themselves on their feet to keeping bad tracks like nothing happened…
But before we get to the top of the biggest worst moment of F1 2023, lets took a break with Dishonorable Mention, in a short way, but I save the last one to be the big point.
DeviantArt’s Purge
Based on a rule changing has gotten very sensitivity, I’ve got some users with mature content got themselves a false flagging to unfairly suspension, which is why many users (myself included) are protest for our freedom of creations than censorship than treating them as a real world problem. I really hate those excuses.
AI ravaging the hobbies and industries
This one annoyed me and many people so much that some people had the audacity to using AI Generated for the personal gains both hobbies like in social media and business industries, im always spoken against those AI contents that it could only works on your own for practice than posting for personal gains, otherwise, there will be a strike (more on that later).
Velma
F(bleep) this show for ripping off Harley Quinn…!
Elon Musk killed off Twitter
F(bleep) you, Elon…!
OceanGate's disaster (HM)
Do I really have to say about this submarine disaster when they used a gamepad?
Actors and Writers on strike (Main HM)
Oh yeah, now we’re getting the biggest farce of the year in my view and also being a fan of watching movies and sometimes a shows!
Remember I mentioned the AI Generated stuff are ravaging the industry? Well, that’s exactly what happened if your business using it as a replacement over the people, and we all know its all Bullcrap to screwing over the employees, especially with Hollywood what AMPTP (Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers) were thinking about the AI contents. When it happened, both writers and actors are disgusted from what they’ve heard. Though the same could be said when it comes to streaming platforms.
It all started that as I mentioned from the start, when AMPTP not only cared so much about streaming platform, but also suggesting AI generated content for replacement, and WGA (Writers Guild of America) were not very please, they went on strike on May 2nd for the sake of getting proper paid, a working environment for more writers and push away from AI writing, sure it cause a delayed projects, but they have the right for solidarity.
But of course, the same could be said for the actors, when AMPTP wanna do the same idea for the use of AI voice to replicating actors from the past or modern, in other words, exploiting actors. and SAG-AFTRA (Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) were also pissed for their plan, leaving them follow suit with writers on July 14th, striking for a similar solidarity with getting proper paid, a better working environment and no exploitation over actors. And yes, im aware this strike also cause a mass delays of many other films, which clearly reminding us the pandemic back in 2020, but this is all about solidarity than either stay home or wear a mask, just saying.
With two strikes, it was known as Hollywood Labor Disputes (or Hollywood Double Strike) from writers and actors are picketing to change for their sake of solidarity that they need the money to pay the bills, the stuff to live in their home and even visas when some of them are traveled to USA, to AMPTP and some other studios are pretty much doubling down at them with a poor excuses like not giving respect of businesses, their fault or one of the worst excuse came from CEO of Disney Bob Iger called the strikers as “Unrealistic”. I mean when it comes to the latters, come on, there’s no excuse to make the strikers look bad when they (or just AMPTP) are planned to have AI contents more than actors, which is both disrespectful and risking at their careers,
But in the end, im glad it lasted less than a year, which the strikes only lasted 191 days. The writers strike ended on September 27th, while the actors ended on November 9th. They both eventually reconciled for the deals to hopefully it will never happen again, as well as going back to the business to finish the projects.
So now we’re done with Dishonorable mention, lets ended off with my top pick of the worst moment in F1 2023.
Alphatauri's worst final year
When it comes to which teams had a worst experience of this year, I was expecting to be either Alfa Romeo, the first half of McLaren or even Haas. But then we have Alphatauri, which you think Red Bull’s secondary team would make something better than last year, right? WRONG! Everything about this team was an utter disaster for not only having a worst performance, but also a worst way to end Franz Tost’s lifespan in F1 as a principal of Toro Rosso/Alphatauri. So where do I begin with this mess…?!
For starter, the car performance itself (AT04) is somehow worst compare to last year for the best of luck to be in Top 10, they always starts from the bottom outside of Top 10 and its all about luck if one of them is able to finishing in Top 10 spot, one of them who can do a lot to be in Top 10 is Yuki Tsunoda, which we can all agree that Yuki is the only saving grace of the team that he’s able to score than his teammates, Yuki only finished between P10 to P8, which is fine that he can score well, for the most part.
But the second problem is the replacement of teammates (Yeah, its one of those), after having a promising finish at 2022’s Italian GP in Williams, Nyck De Vries is chosen to be Alphatauri’s teammate that we had a high- hope to see this F2 and FE champ to take a debut dive in F1, but instead, based on giving him a bad car performance, it was a freakin’ nightmare run for him, pretty much finishing no points and had one incident in Baku City. At first, I was thinking himself its just a rough start that it can’t be that bad, but with more and more non-points finish that he wasn’t help because of team’s worst car, he’s unfortunately got sacked by his team after British GP, which some people believe he’s just like another one of those wasted driver to be in F1, but some, like Marko Helmut, find it to be unfairly that he could’ve stayed before getting removed after Belgian GP, just saying for the latter. So, they hired Daniel Ricciardo as a replacement to finishing the rest of the season, but The Honey Badger’s return didn’t last long after Belgium and Hungary when he got himself a wrist injury during the practice session at Dutch GP, cause yet ANOTHER replacement, this time with reserved driver Liam Lawson.
Liam was only shown in five GPs when Daniel is on recovery, which Liam actually made a decent performance like Tsunoda, including his best run at Singapore. But sadly, the anticipation of Liam didn’t last long, before Ricciardo’s return, it was announcer that not only Yuki Tsunoda will be staying next year, but Liam will never be able to be in full-time, because they chosen Ricciardo to be a full-timer, I know Ricciardo is a beloved racer both his performance and his personality, but the problem is that we’re focusing on the new kids to showing their promising performance (for the most part) when runner-ups or champs are probably done, especially for Liam himself from his promise of his run in Singapore, but nope, they kept Liam in a shelf of reserve driver once Ricciardo came back in Austin, Texas. Sure, Ricciardo was able to score in Mexico City thanks to his jaw-dropping qualifying, but Alphatauri’s sad performance was already done.
Sure, they outscored both Alfa Romeo and Haas by having 25 points in Constructors Championship above Alfa’s 16 points and Haas’s 12 points, but its the craziness that the team had been in a final year before they not only relocated their headquarter and lazily changing their name as “Racing Bulls” next year, but its their chaos in 2023 season with sad car performance, changing teammate like 2 times and a not so-good drivers’ lineup for next year that Liam would’ve been a focus from his promise to be pretty much left in a toilet.
Again, I know Alphatauri has beaten both Alfa Romeo and Haas, but its their chaotic nature that it made themselves fell apart for me, that’s why I considered Alphatauri’s final run is the worst moment in F1 2023.
So this ends of this countdown, but tune it next time we’re gonna take a look at the positive side in this season.
As always, if you guys have your opinion or any suggestions, let me know at comment bellow and support me on KO-FI.com/blackevil.
Thanks for reading, and im Anthony, signing out.
