The Drivers
Four teams, Ferrari, Red Bull, Toro Rosso and Lotus, have retained their driver pairings from 2012. Every other team, however, has seen new faces arrive and old ones depart. The most high profile change involves Lewis Hamilton, who has left McLaren after six seasons to move to Mercedes, replacing the now retired Michael Schumacher. Hamiltons motivations for leaving one of the sports best teams for a lesser one are unclear, but his departure has created a tremendous opportunity for Mexican driver Sergio Perez, who has moved from Sauber to fill Hamiltons seat at McLaren. Another Mexican fills the vacant spot at Sauber, with former test driver Esteban Gutierrez partnering fellow new signing Nico Hulkenberg, who joins the team from Force India. The arrival of the pair means that there is no spot on the grid this year for Kamui Kobayashi, who leaves the sport after three full seasons with the Sauber team. Hulkenbergs departure from Force India means that a seat has become available for former driver Adrian Sutil to fill after a year out. He and Bruno Senna were the two final contenders for the spot, with the German ultimately getting the nod over the Brazilian, who is without a race seat for the season following his departure from Williams, who have signed Finnish driver Valtteri Bottas, the 2011 GP3 champion, to replace him. At the back of the grid, Caterham have replaced the duo of Heikki Kovalinen and Vitaly Petrov with Dutchman Giedo Van Der Garde and Charles Pic, who moves from Marussia. Marussia have replaced him with fellow Frenchman Jules Bianchi, who will partner Max Chilton, a British newcomer who takes the place of Timo Glock. Finally, HRT have left the sport for financial reasons, meaning that Narain Karthikeyan and Pedro De La Rosa will not be seen on the track this year. To summarise, here is the full list of drivers that will compete in 2013: Red Bull Sebastian Vettel (1), Mark Webber (2) Ferrari Fernando Alonso (3), Felipe Massa (4) McLaren Jenson Button (5), Sergio Perez (6) Lotus Kimi Raikkonen (7), Romain Grosjean (8) Mercedes Nico Rosberg (9), Lewis Hamilton (10) Sauber Nico Hulkenberg (11), Esteban Gutierrez (12) Force India Paul Di Resta (14), Adrian Sutil (15) Williams Pastor Maldonado (16), Valtterri Bottas (17) Toro Rosso Jean-Eric Vergne (18), Daniel Ricciardo (19) Caterham Charles Pic (20), Gierdo Van Der Garde (21) Marussia Luiz Razia (22), Max Chilton (23)