In 2022, the midfield teams did not really stand a chance of competing for race wins, with Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull proving to be a class above the rest, despite their struggles.
Lando Norris was the only driver that did not race for either of these teams to score a podium, coming in Imola after Charles Leclerc spun towards the end of the race.
With the 2023 season fast approaching, the spotlight has mainly been on these three teams, with Mercedes and Ferrari tipped to overcome their performance and reliability issues respectively to challenge Red Bull for the title.
When asked about who he expects to challenge his Red Bull team this season, team principal Christian Horner has named a few surprise names, claiming that the gap to the midfield teams could close significantly.
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“You never know, Alpine made progress in the second half of the year,” he said.
“Aston Martin… we keep hearing big numbers coming out of their expectations, so you just don’t know what the running order will be.
“McLaren might even get it together this year. Inevitably the grid should, with stable regulations, start to close up.”
The budget cap that was introduced in 2021 was brought in to bring the field closer together by limiting ever team to spending $145m a season.
In the first two years with this spending cap, the gap between the top and bottom of the championship has been massive, with the likes of Red Bull continuing to pull away from the rest.
Haas team principal Gunther Steiner has defended the cap however, claiming that it was always going to take a number of years for the effects of the cap to be felt.
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The Haas boss admitted that his team were not even able to reach the spending limit in 2022, hence why there remained some way off the top teams.
In 2023 however, Steiner has said that every team on the grid should hit the cap, meaning that the effects of limiting spending should become visible, allowing the grid to close up and become much more competitive.
With this in mind, every team will enter the 2023 season with high hopes, with no limit on what is possible up and down the paddock.