F1 season set to start in Bahrain amid seismic shake-up of drivers and team bosses

After the rules revolution of 2022 this was supposed to be a season of relative calm – well as calm as Formula One ever gets.

Instead the sport launches into the new year in Bahrain on Sunday on the cusp of a seismic shake-up, coming to terms with widespread upheaval the length and breadth of the grid.

Every team in the pit lane is experiencing change as no less than 18 key figures find themselves in different uniforms or posts.

Some are on the move, others noticeably moving up or out as the sport’s heartless meritocracy grinds on. Still more have been left in limbo, their future hanging in the balance.

Twelve drivers, that’s over half the grid, have been shuffled in an unusually busy winter driver merry-go-round. And six of the 10 team bosses have shifted jobs in the last nine months.

And it’s not only new faces who have a spring in their step while bringing a fresh look to the 2023 paddock assembled in the desert 30 kilometres south of the capital, Manama.

The oldest driver on the grid, 41-year-old Fernando Alonso, finds himself in the best position since he quit Ferrari in 2014 and even being talked off as a potential winner.

His move to Aston Martin brings the double champion under the aegis of highly rated designer Dan Fallows, lured last year from Red Bull.

Testing suggests the green machines will be best of the rest behind Red Bull and Ferrari and that four-time champion Sebastian Vettel left the sport at just the wrong time.

Lance Stroll has been given the green light by doctors who have said the wrist injury he sustained in a cycling accident has healed sufficiently to race. His impressive testing stand-in Felipe Drugovich will have to wait a bit longer for his big break at Aston.

While Pierre Gasly, frustrated