The NEED FOR SPEED

Formula One action blasts back onto our screens this month and we're expecting one hell of a championship battle. Our resident MAXIM Motorhead predicts the storm ahead...

- STEWART BELL

It doesn't matter whom you talk to in Formula One at the moment, there's a real buzz that this forthcoming 2023 season could be one for the ages - as good, and as close, as 2021, when Max Verstappen lifted his maiden title at the final round (albeit in highly contentious circumstances). Of course, as we now know, the Dutchman went on to steamroll the opposition last year in his mighty Red Bull RB18, with a record-15 of 22 races won for his second-straight crown. And if that wasn't enough, his veteran teammate Sergio Pérez nabbed two more for Red Bull Racing's first title double since 2013.

It was a bitter pill to swallow for its main rivals Ferrari, which dropped the ball with reliability issues and strategy errors, forcing top man Mattia Binotto to be jettisoned, and Mercedes, which finally produced a lame dog of a car after eight-consecutive constructors' crowns and had to play catch-up. Both are desperate to gallop back into winning contention this season, meaning that we could be in for a three-way (six-driver) stoush - in this the second year of Fi's "new era" regulations, which saw the cars reboot their aerodynamics for closer wheel-to-wheel racing and more overtakes.

The big question though, is will the Silver Arrows or the Prancing Horse be able to hold a candle to top dog Red Bull, with its RB19 an evolution of its dominant 2022 car? The murmurs from both rival camps are that the gap to Red Bull has been more than bridged. Have they done their sums right?

THE EXPERT OBSERVATIONS

These are the questions that everyone in the FJ paddock - and down your local pub - should be asking ahead of lights out in Bahrain...

Will Ferrari's new team principal Frédéric Vasseur (formerly of Sauber) be able to focus the Scuderia into a razor-sharp racing operation?