Karun Chandhok's 2023 F1 review: best bits & the race that tested Crofty

For Chandhok, it makes his choice for driver of the year straightforward.

“With Max, people have to give him credit where it’s due,” he says. “He is an outstanding talent and he’s driven that ’23 Red Bull extremely well.

“[His team-mate] Sergio Perez’s average qualifying in the second half of the year was 10th. If the car was that outstanding, he would be second every time.

“It’s [therefore] a no-brainer really to choose Verstappen. His qualifying lap in Suzuka, seven-tenths ahead of the pack, was his best moment. At that track he was sensational, on a different planet to the rest of the field. That was the qualifying lap of the season.

“He just gets on with it – whether it be the chaos at Zandvoort, or starting ninth in Miami and then just picking people off, whatever’s thrown at him he finds a way.

2023 F1 driver of the year – runners-up
Fernando Alonso and Lando Norris

Despite the Verstappen whitewash that has characterised much of 2023, it’s been widely acknowledged that behind him the field has been fiercely competitive – picking other outstanding candidates is no easy task.

“It’s much harder to choose who’s the second-best driver,” muses Chandhok. “If you look at the car performance spread across the whole grid in qualifying at Abu Dhabi, it’s the closest it’s ever been: 1.6%, when last year it was 2.7%.

“I landed on Fernando Alonso, because I think he just maximised his package every single time.

“Early on when he had those chances to score podiums, he did. When there were only points for the taking, he did.

“Alonso doesn’t look like the oldest driver on the grid. Brazil was amazing, but even in Abu Dhabi he just hustled and made things happen. In third I’d go for Lando Norris.”

2023 F1 team of the year
Red Bull

Key for Verstappen in his year of dominance has been the RB19 car at his disposal and the brilliant Red Bull team around him, operating at unparelleled heights this year.

Though from time to time the public manner of driver and team boss Christian Horner causes controversy among fans, Chandhok says there’s no denying the organisation’s brilliance.

“Christian Horner obviously does a good job of empowering people to do their work properly – that’s what these things are about,” he emphasises.

“Nobody draws every part of the car anymore, but between Christian and technical director Adrian Newey, they’ve set up a good structure throughout the organisation.

“Fair play to Christian: he’s ‘hated’ by a lot of people on the outside, who watch Netflix or TV and form an opinion, but he must be a good people person – you didn’t see them losing loads of employees during the lean years. He kept it together and now they’ve bounced back – the times are good again.

“There’s just no weakness in that team. Stops were good; strategies were good; car design off the shelf was good obviously; power unit too.

“The drivers have been good also – well one of them… but there’s no real chink in that armour. That’s the thing.”

2023 F1 race of the year
Singapore GP

Red Bull’s almost unmatchable performance had many wondering if it would match Ferrari’s record of 1952, when the Scuderia won every single round of the traditional world championship grand prix season (excluding the Indy 500).

Ultimately its winning run was ended this year in spectacular fashion in Singapore, when Carlos Sainz held off a three-car attack of Lando Norris, George Russell and Lewis Hamilton – the thrilling race was Chandhok’s pick of the year.

“It has to be Singapore, you just didn’t know who was going to win for the first time this season – watching the last part of that GP with the four cars fighting for the victory,” he says.

“Zandvoort was good as well, just because the weather was bonkers. In the commentary box, you could just see the rain coming and coming and coming, and it hit just when the race was starting on the first lap.

“The strategies were fascinating, the way you saw some people panic and some others just calmly deal with it.”

2023 F1 Unsung hero
Alex Albon

From rookie Oscar Piastri becoming McLaren first sprint winner, to Lewis Hamilton pushing Sergio Perez for second place in a much-inferior Mercedes, several drivers perhaps didn’t get the full credit they deserved this season. However once again, the choice is clear for Chandhok.

“Alexander Albon was the underrated driver of the season,” he says. “People don’t really talk about him, but I think he did an outstanding job this year.

“His races in Canada and Silverstone particular were superb. Zandvoort was excellent, with the Williams strategy calls [running on softs for 44 laps] he made it work.

“Albon’s got that tenacity and grit about him”

“Williams is in a better place this year than last, the car’s better, but I think Albon’s just driving well too.

“He’s in a good environment. The team treat him well, they look after him. They ask him for his wants, his needs, which is important.

“He feels valued at Williams which I think maybe wasn’t the case at Red Bull, because he was the number two – he’s now stepped up to that position of being the number one driver.

“I think Albon’s quite a shy sort of character, which is why he goes under the radar. But he’s got tenacity and grit about him, meaning he gets the job done.”

2023 F1 commentary moment of the season
Qatar GP weekend

2023 provided some moments which will be featured in F1 compilations for years to come. Fernando Alonso thrilled spectators with his last-lap overtake on Sergio Perez in Brazil, while Lando Norris elicited a deafening roar from the British GP crowd when he snatched the lead from Max Verstappen when the lights went out.

For Chandhok though, an entire weekend of chaos at the Qatar GP is his pick for ‘commentary moment’. When it became clear that drivers were experiencing huge tyre degradation at the Losail circuit, an 18-lap limit on stints was imposed for the grand prix, turning the race into a flat-out blast in searing temperatures, with several drivers experiencing heat sickness.

This followed a breathless Saturday sprint which had seen teams agonise over the soft or medium compound, with Oscar Piastri taking a brilliant win after battling with George Russell – and negotiating three safety car periods.

“Qatar, because of all the tyre stuff, we had to be really on it in the race,” Chandhok remembers. “We didn’t have anyone else at ‘race control’, neither Bernie [Collins] or Anthony [Davidson].

“It was just Crofty and I in the commentary box, plus one of our producers – we were trying to keep on top of things that whole weekend.

“It was a really intense with the weather, the sprint race and the tyre rules changing, and the extra session time.

“With so much was going on, I enjoyed it.

“I think the feel-good moment of the year came from there also when you saw Oscar Piastri win the sprint. I like to see rookies do well, and he’s excellent – a real top-quality driver.”

F1 2024’s dark horse
McLaren

As emphasised above, the field behind Red Bull is closely matched like almost never before. Charles Leclerc managed to take five poles this year, while McLaren went from being the worst team at the season-opening Bahrain race to then being Red Bull’s main challenger for much of the season’s second half.

It’s the Woking team Chandhok singles out for success in 2024, alongside the usual suspects of Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes.

“I’d like to see McLaren’s progress because now they got the new wind tunnel up and running,” he says. “They’ve also got new people coming in, [former Ferrari engineer] David Sanchez and [former Red Bull chief engineering officer] Rob Marshall will be there from January.

“I’m intrigued to see just where it can go to – McLaren had an amazing second half of the year.”