Who is the youngest and oldest F1 drivers on the grid this season?

F1 sees new youngsters join the grid every season, especially in 2023, when there have been multiple rookies joining the top teams in motorsport. While these young lads make up a large part of the grid, there are also multiple-time world champions with decades of experience.

This gives a very wide age range to the F1 grid. Although the sport requires a lot of energy and willpower to face high G-forces, it hasn't stopped some of the oldest drivers of the sport. Surprisingly, they still remain competitive.

Focusing on the 2023 grid with many rookies now, the newest addition and 2021 Formula 2 world champion, Oscar Piastri, is the youngest driver on the grid. The Australian was born on April 6, 2001, being 22 years old as of May 2023. He is followed by Logan Sargeant, another rookie on the grid who will be 23 on 31 December.

The oldest F1 driver on the grid, as expected, is Fernando Alonso. The double world champion was born on 29 July 1981, meaning he will be 42 later this year. Although he announced his retirement after the 2018 season, he returned to the grid in 2021 and has been performing surprisingly well, standing at P3 in the standings this season.

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Is age a factor for F1 drivers' success on the track?

The most successful driver on the grid is, without a doubt, Lewis Hamilton, who turned 38 this January. Although Alonso himself has quite a reputation on the track, Hamilton has turned out to be one of the best in the sport with seven world championships. It is to be noted that both of these drivers are the two oldest ones on the grid.

It seems as if more experience equals more success in F1, however, there can be many examples that change that. Max Verstappen won the Spanish Grand Prix of 2016 at 18 years and 228 days old, making him the youngest Formula 1 race winner in the history of the sport. This same record was previously held by Sebastian Vettel at 21 years of age.

Verstappen has also won two world championships, with the first one being crowned when he was just 24 years old. Hamilton and Alonso, the remaining two world champions on the grid, were around the same age when they won their first world championships.

So while it may seem that experience helps out F1 drivers to win more and more championships, it is also true that the youngest ones show signs of winning with just raw talent.