The Formula 1 driver who needs to improve most in 2023 is…

The 2023 Formula 1 season will get underway in Bahrain in just under two months. Though it is exciting times as we look forward to what promises to be an exciting year, not everyone will have their confidence shooting through the roof.

Over at Red Bull, the team and champion driver Max Verstappen are riding a wave of success, while at Ferrari, the Italians and Charles Leclerc would have used the time to ponder over strategies and ways to make life for the 2022 champions (Red Bull and Verstappen) hell.

While this is all good and dandy, it still leaves an important question begging for an answer: Just who needs to improve the most in 2023?

Pulling up his socks

With George Russell arriving at Mercedes-AMG after sharpening his skills with backmarkers Williams, the British driver immediately extracted maximum performance from his very problematic W13 F1 car. Yet, his illustrious teammate, seven-time F1 champion Lewis Hamilton, could not do so.

Hamilton had a challenging time in 2022, and Russell having his number probably did not sit too well with the team's poster child. "Still we rise", as Hamilton would always say, but car developments and trying to understand the W13 yielded no victories. It was also Hamilton's first season since debuting in 2007 that he would not win a single race in the pinnacle code of motorsport.

But Russell did. In Brazil. With Hamilton second.

Last year was one of Hamilton's worst season's in F1, and he will be the first to admit it. And the only way to rectify the matter would be to assert himself in the title battle and reestablish himself as the sport's golden child in 2023.

The Mick factor

Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff has made it public that the mutual feeling between the team and Hamilton is that they