The light shines on a new campaign

Alfa Romeo F1 Team Stake is ready for a new season, as the 2023 Formula One World Championship begins at the Bahrain International Circuit this weekend. After a wait of more than three months, it’s time for the action to start again: and while that taking place in Sakhir is a night race, this week feels like the birth of a new day.

Mornings have a special quality: they enclose the full potential of a day. Tiptoeing, barefoot, around a silent house, as if the furniture and the appliances were themselves asleep, the hushed quiet fills the air; outside, dewdrops make the grass glisten as the world awakens, but within the home it feels like time is standing still. A cup of coffee warms both body and soul, the cheerful sizzling of pancakes on a griddle is the soundtrack of great things to come. It’s there, in that precise moment, that the morning holds its greatness: it’s then, when one feels everything can happen and no target is unattainable, that the idyll of a new day is at its greatest and its brightest.

Not unlike this new dawn, is the start of a new championship. For a few days still, until the cars and the drivers throw themselves into the frenzied madness of the first qualifying session of the year, the magic still stands. It’s the magic of not knowing yet; of thinking, of hoping, of dreaming even. It’s that time when everyone still believes: it’s like that morning feeling of endless potential.

This sensation will not last long. Like those mornings, this feeling of potential is a fleeting one, one that quickly gives way to reality. The heady days of testing are gone, with their back-to-school feeling, the reacquainting with old faces, the sneaky – or not-so-sneaky – looks at those who wear different shirts from the previous year. Now, this is when it really matters: this is when points are at stake, when all the planning and preparation and the hours, weeks and months of work of everyone back at the factory come into play. It’s when you find out, finally, where you stand compared to your rivals.

But not just yet. For a few days still, we enjoy that quiet confidence that a new season, like a new day, offers. The house will soon stir and wake up, and the everyday bustle will take over. And then it’ll be up to us to turn that feeling into a reality.