Verstappen comes out top in 2023 poll of F1 bosses

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Max Verstappen has won another end-of-season accolade in recognition of his dominant 2023 campaign which secured him his third consecutive F1 drivers championship.

The Red Bull driver had already been voted ‘Driver of the Year’ by his fellow F1 drivers (with the exception of Lewis Hamilton, who didn't take part in the vote) and topped F1i's Driver Ratings of the year.

And now Verstappen is the top choice of F1 team principals conducted by the official Formula1.com website which awarded drivers scores based on the current F1 points system, the top driver earning 25 points down to one for 10th.

That system gave the Dutch driver a total of 240 points out of a maximum 250 possible from the ten team bosses, which is 33 points more than he picked up in 2022.

Those casting votes were Alessandro Alunni Bravi, Bruno Famin, Christian Horner, Mike Krack, Guenther Steiner, Andrea Stella, Franz Tost, Fred Vasseur, James Vowles and Toto Wolff.

Read also: Verstappen wins the vote of his peers

But there was a 'new' face in the runners-up position in the form of F1's most experienced driver Fernando Alonso who picked up a total of 128 points after a brilliant start to the season for Aston Martin.

That's a year-on-year rise of six places for the Spaniard, who was on the podium eight times this year and finished in fourth place in the final drivers championship standings.

Aston struggled to maintain their form across the second half of the season which saw McLaren in the ascendency, as reflected by a three-place rise for Lando Norris who is third in this year's vote.

The rise of Alonso and Norris pushes Ferrari's Charles Leclerc down two places to P4, and Lewis Hamilton drops one spot on 2022 after a second successive season without a win to finish in fifth just ahead of Carlos Sainz.

There are two new entries in the principal's top ten selection, with Oscar Piastri marking his rookie season with McLaren in seventh place, one ahead of Alex Albon who impressed team bosses with his sophomore campaign at Williams.

Albon picked up all but one point in Williams' successful season which saw them finish in seventh place in the constructors seasons, scoring points in eight of the year's races.

That sees the London-born Thai driver one place ahead of Mercedes' George Russell who is te biggest faller in the pole, dropping six places to P9.

And despite being the runner-up in this year's championship, Red Bull's Sergio Perez is another big faller and drops five places, only just staying within the top ten.

The top ten chosen by the team principals is broadly consistent with the points standings, with the exception of Albon getting the nod over Lance Stroll who was P10 in the official end of year results while ALbon was P13.

In the F1i ratings it was Perez who was missing from the top ten, his place having been taken by Alpine's Pierre Gasly.

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.