This Year – Review 2024
Hello welcome to the season review of another incredible season and year, both on and off-track drama even before testing had even begun in Bahrain. We will go through the season first as well as looking at highs and lows for each team, looking at a season which became about the fall of Red Bull, the emergence of Lando Norris and one of the biggest moves in F1 history for 2025
Looking Back
2024 saw a record-breaking twenty-four rounds across five continents seven different winners from four teams, which is the most number in a decade while Max Verstappen retained his driver’s championship it was not as easy as it looked after he won four of the first five races most of the time you go onto win the championship.
But while Red Bull and Verstappen were winning early on, what would define the second half of the season was the struggles with the car which he was unable to drive around that opened the door for Lando Norris to start challenging him in Shanghai and Miami. Ferrari too was never too far away, the theme I kept writing about right to the end of the season which was a first for me in ten years of this where we had
This looking back was like 2010, from mid-season onwards, where you had four teams and five drivers all fighting for wins and you genuinely didn’t know race to race once Red Bull’s dominance was over. Yes, that was when McLaren was the most consistent but they were not able to sail away as Mercedes and Ferrari were able to fight for wins keeping them honest.
Mercedes had that run in July of three wins from four races, including Lewis Hamilton’s ninth Silverstone win after two and a half years without a win. What didn’t help, through out the middle part of the season for Norris in terms of fighting Verstappen for the championship, but we did see until George Russell’s retirement three Brits fighting for victory, record-breaking ninth win at any Grand Prix and first driver to win after a 300th start.
Hungary, was I think a difficult but important race for McLaren because of the use of team orders with Norris reluctantly giving the win to Piastri but not without a bit of a refusal/fight. The whole saga overshadowed the build-up to Norris’s second home race at Spa, when the English-Belgian driver stated he should have ceded position to his teammate sooner to avoid adding to the controversy. We would see that again in the Sprint in Sao Paulo when his championship in hindsight truly unravelled while Verstappen took Grand Prix victory.
A Ferrari victory at Monza is always a highlight as Leclerc said after the race he won both the races he wants to win each season. Red Bull truly struggled highlighting how they had fallen during the period between Spielberg and Mexico City we had the most unpredictable period I think since 2012, with seven different winners across the European/North American season.
Sao Paulo, was I think was the race of the season, not only because it was decisive in swinging the championship to Verstappen because it needed a level-headed driver as we know Qualifying didn’t take place until dawn on Sunday morning and the race moved forwards. All this needed All this needed a champion to keep his cool and coming through to effectively win his fourth title was a points score in Las Vegas, which he did.
But the constructors went all the way to Abu Dhabi between McLaren and Ferrari, the weekend was incredibly strong for McLaren in terms of results, and I think that they both had their best season since 2010 when we had that incredible season between the top four teams. With 2025 being the 75th anniversary season you need to hope in the final year of these regulations we will have another classic season.
One of the big themes I feel whether it was the top four or the midfield teams was how close the fight was for points though there were over three hundred points between Mercedes in fourth and Aston Martin in fifth. These regulations are working in some ways but until we see others fighting like in the top four that is when we truly know these regulations were designed to do this.
Towards the end of the year, we got news of a works entry in 2026 by Cadillac to be the eleventh team joining Ford to be a fifth power unit manufacturer from 2028. This is good news showing how the sport is growing in the US as we have often remarked in recent years about the growth and how the sport has gone mainstream.
Red Bull
The early months of the year were so turbulent off track with an internal civil war sparked by the dismissed allegations against Christian Horner, it really did feel like a crumbling empire given the futures of so many key people Horner, Max Verstappen and Adrain Newey all became key in the mid to late season when it looked like it was crumbling.
While Verstappen won the first seven out of nine Grands Prix it then started to get tough which we didn’t expect that middle part of the season was very tough I feel for Red Bull we knew by that point Newey had left the F1 programme. It was almost like they had lost their way a bit and the car looked very unsettled, and Verstappen was unable to use his brilliance to drive to stake a claim on the title in the crazy weekend in Sao Paulo was a champions drive.
But I don’t think the mid-season slump was only down to Newey, I think it’s the regulations where the team topping the championship at five ATR resets from June 2022 to June 2024 saw about 20% in wind tunnel time compared to the start of 2022. That to me proves the regulations are working, but finishing third means they will gain some of that back in at least the first half of 2025.
Verstappen given him now having to be mentioned up there with the greats now he is a four-time champion, he was consistent early on which was key in building that championship lead when Red Bull had the best car early on and we see that theme throughout the history of F1 the championship if a driver normally has a strong start they tend to go on to win the championship.
The fall from dominance following Barcelona was unexpected given how they were repeatedly losing races, but not to just one team but Mercedes, McLaren and Ferrari it would take another ten races before Verstappen would win again in Sao Paulo. But he kept picking up points and that added to his championship, and despite those issues which is testament to a champion he did everything he could to maximise points in his championship defence as you would expect.
In the last few days, we heard what seemed to be coming for weeks that following his poor season Sergio Perez would leave the team, I feel that this was coming as he couldn’t be the driver they needed when Verstappen was struggling. He has been OK but his combative drives in Austin and Mexico City appears to have convinced Red Bull Liam Lawson is worth a chance against Verstappen.
In June in a bid to turn around Perez’s season, Red Bull gave him a new contract, but his form didn’t recover and that heavily contributed to Red Bull’s failing to retain the Constructors’ Championship and finishing third behind McLaren and Ferrari.
Red Bull was well and truly caught showing that, while it did take two and a half years for the regulations to achieve what they aimed to I hope the sport will learn from this. The fall of Red Bull mid-season turned what appeared to be a boring easy run for Verstappen into a real championship fight. Perez ultimately paid the price for his poor form
Mercedes
Lewis Hamilton’s long goodbye to the team was underway from testing as he announced he would join Ferrari in 2025, it made much of the talk for the next eight months about who would replace the seven-time champion. But there was one goal for the team I feel which they achieved twice to get that last win, and the seven-time champion did it in the only way he could breaking records.
Silverstone was the highlight in what was I think another tough and difficult year for Hamilton, a ninth win just not the record for home wins but wins at any Grand Prix. It was his first win in two and a half years, which is still hard to believe given all the success he had.
It was an incredible but defining race looking back to how the second half of the year would go, Hamilton taking on his potential successor in terms of British success Norris early on before the mixed conditions saw McLaren lose second to his title rival Verstappen.
Thinking back to Bahrain and the start of the season, my feeling was that they were still a little bit in ‘no-mans land’ but had a good base to build from, with it being stronger than the last two years, and over the first ten races they steadily moved forwards and towards the end of the season started fighting Ferrari. But even then it didn’t feel great, while George Russell was excelling it was almost like Hamilton had ‘checked out’ and was focusing on his move to Ferrari.
Mercedes, I feel has had this big issue at the start of the year which has been a pattern there appears to be something not connecting and they have stood still over the winter not progressing. I thought given the strength of Mercedes they were always likely to recover and then they weren’t able to keep up following that strong patch mid-season.
This was an important transitional year for Mercedes in terms of what will be the post-Hamilton era, I was surprised that despite those two wins for Hamilton in July were the highlight of what was a very difficult season. Russell really stepped up and delivered results he won three races, though was disqualified and the victory went to Hamilton at Spa.
Mercedes, I think from what I saw had their strongest patch in the middle part of the season as we saw with the seven-time champions form to go and even heard him say ‘I’m not fast anymore.’ I was shocked by him saying that given he has the most poles in the sport’s history, accepting we know reaction times as we get older slow down I think while he may not be as fast in qualifying he still has the race craft. Ferrari have said they are not concerned about that remark it still concerns me as he is the most successful driver in terms of poles and wins.
Ferrari
One of the biggest news stories of the year came even before we turned a wheel in 2024, the announcement which started a chain reaction in the driver market, was the signing of Hamilton to partner Charles Leclerc in 2025. Again, the team made further progress and were until the final race fighting for the constructor’s championship against McLaren.
One of the things which soon became clear to me was they had made a big step in the problems we have seen over the last decade is their season didn’t implode and while it became unlikely as we reached the climax of the season as I think McLaren just had the better car and driver combination this season.
Melbourne was one of the highlights of the season, having gone into the season losing his seat for 2025 and missing Jeddah with appendix Sainz sixteen days later delivered a dominant win after sweeping past Max Verstappen and Leclerc who he held off to take a two-second victory. I think Sainz was hungry to fight for his future in the sport not that there was a serious risk of him being out of a drive next season. But what became the theme in the championship fight the weren’t consistent enough and McLaren had I think just the edge which they managed to retain.
Another one of the highlights was Leclerc winning in Monaco, in the real world having won in the virtual world in 2020, we know throughout his entire career he has had a tough time with multiple retirements, failing to score and crashes. But he was the first Monacan in ninety-five years to win the race, a feel-good story.
His second win at Monza was a highlight as is any Ferrari win in Italy. I think Leclerc really improved this season and how he fairs up against Hamilton over the next few years and if he refines his mojo he could show us whether Leclerc can take it to that next level.
Though Ferrari missed out on their first title since 2008, I think they under Fred Vasseur have undergone a huge transformation in form and we have repeatedly talked over the last decade about their season imploding. But it didn’t they didn’t lose the championship I feel by repeated mistakes rather that McLaren had the stronger and more consistent car and driver pairing. The fight was like the awaking of two sleeping giants, the two most successful teams in the sport’s history.
McLaren
McLaren’s years in the wilderness were well and truly over this season as they won their first constructors’ championship in a quarter of a century. Thinking back to where they were in Bahrain 2022, it has been an incredible turnaround given we are in a cost-cap era and the fact many of the investments come online until the second half of 2024. But it testament I think of the way Zak Brown has turned that team around and the strength of the two youngish drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, both winning multiple Grand Prix this season.
Think Shanghai followed by Norris’s maiden win in Miami was the breakthrough in a year where the Englishman became a champion in waiting, and he slowly began to challenge his good friend Verstappen. My only critique is they made the call too late to use team orders to favour Norris too late, I don’t like team orders, but they are a necessary evil, as maybe that could have given more of a chance to fight Verstappen.
Norris, I feel had his breakthrough season he is still young in terms of how we now see he is capable of fighting for a championship; however, my biggest criticism remains his self-critics where he was harsh even saying towards the end of the season “he didn’t deserve the championship because I’ve made too many mistakes.” I accept he is still young and has a long career ahead of him as does Piastri.
Piastri was no pushover and was pretty consistent in fighting with Norris, but it was clear that the Englishman was the best hope, he came out of himself admitting during 2023 given the way he came into the sport the previous year with the Alpine controversy. It was we know the right decision to go to McLaren given the difficulties the French manufacturer has had.
You heard after his win in Abu Dhabi the aim put down by Norris ‘to win the drivers championship next season.’
Also I think, though not the teams fault, during the ten races that Red Bull failed to win while they won most of them Ferrari and Mercedes were also picking up wins it was four wins for McLaren and three each for Ferrari and Mercedes. But the key thing like the latter they were throughout the year was up and down, whereas McLaren were always their abouts with consistency throughout the season.
Aston Martin
After the strong start to 2023, there was hope from the team of further progress to joining the top teams that didn’t happen as it almost was back to reality and that was not helped by the fact it became very tight between the top four in terms of competitiveness. But they are still in the rebuilding phase, their new factory came operational this year, and they will be a works team from 2026 and landed the biggest non-driver signings for 2025 onwards in Adrain Newey.
Newey’s departure was the biggest casualty of Red Bull’s internal civil war, they know that every team he has been in has gone on to win championships and with the amount of resources they have they could be the team to watch. Fernando Alonso still has it next year will be twenty-five years since he made his debut and twenty since his first championship with Alpine, as it is now known, and we still see flashes of what a great driver he is.
The other big story was the works power unit deal for 2026 with Honda, which surprised me given the difficult relationship Alonso had a decade ago at McLaren. But it feels like they were as we saw in the second half of last season come back to reality as they were out developed by McLaren, Ferrari and McLaren.
Alonso, I think along with Hamilton is one of these expectational talents and still even when they are not fighting at the front can deliver strong results and break teammates, he is still motivated to win and he has broken Lance Stroll. The Spaniard still wants that third championship but how long can he perform at this level as age will catch up with him.
We know Mike Krack said to F1.com that they fell significantly short of expectations. Krack said: “Yes, I think all in all a difficult season comes to an end. We had higher expectations. I think we started where realistically we thought we would be as a team. We wanted to close the gap to the teams in front of us. It went rather the other direction, we were caught by the midfield to which we had quite a substantial gap at the beginning of the year, so that is why we can’t be happy with how it went.”
“But we have also learned our lessons in terms of what we have to do differently going forward, and we are full steam [ahead] on next year’s car to make it a better contender [than] the one we have now.”
Stroll we know has a safe seat because his father owns the team, but that could in the future come when fighting for places in the constructors and the aim of fighting for championships. I don’t know what the solution is as I don’t see him being sacked though Alonso once he gets the better of his teammate is hard to beat.
Alpine
The team went into the season admitting they would probably be last, this would only be the start of what would be a very difficult season both on and off track. It’s hard to know where to start with their review given the difficult three quarters of the season they had struggled with all areas to fight for points which was not helped by Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon collisions.
We know a decade after returning as then Renault to be a works team, next year will be the last season of them building their own power units and that was just to me compounding a season where they struggled to get into the points for the majority of the season. There was also off-track dramas with turbulent with the failure to deliver results is not what you would expect from one of the most successful engine manufacturers’,
I feel that they were always going to choose Gasly over Ocon, as it looks like from the outside that most of the incidents was caused by Ocon and that Gasly in my view is the more consistent driver and is better at maximising results when he has the car to do so. Since joining the team in 2023 it has to me felt like he has been the more consistent driver.
But despite the difficult year, Sao Paulo was one of the moments in that crazy race Gasly and Ocon podium, which was huge leaping them from ninth to sixth in the constructors. That I feel doesn’t tell the full story of their season as for much as they underdelivered and remember they were three years after they were due to, according to their goals set out in 2016 when they returned as a works team.
One of the biggest surprises was the return of Flavio Briatore, who ran the team between 1994-1997 and 2000-2009, after his involvement in the Crashgate scandal which saw him sacked and given a lifetime ban at the time. This has been controversial as the whole truth about what happened that night in Singapore 2008, remains unknown but is one of the biggest incidents of cheating in F1’s history.
But I think it’s a drastic measure given how the team has gone backwards in recent seasons, I feel this again could be a case of aiming for 2026 to at least return to the midfield and Briatore won four titles in his first two stints with the team. They really need a good season next year without all the drama on and off track.
Williams
Williams had a tough and very expensive season thanks to multiple crashes by all three drivers this meant they were never able to spend much on bringing upgrades. Alex Albon was very much the team leader this year and has been very much unchallenged throughout his time at Williams which they need.
The team were clear through the season they are still in the building phase ahead of the 2026 regulation changes, they pulled off one of the surprising moves by signing Sainz after he was replaced by Hamilton for 2025. Sainz and the foundations that they have been able to put in place could in the coming years to return to the midfield if they get the regulations right.
Albon since joining the team has managed to rebuild his career after being badly damaged by his time at Red Bull up against Max Verstappen, he if he continues to give good performances he should get another chance with a top team. It is surprising that we weren’t talking about him in regards to a return to Red Bull as it seems to me he would have to look to another top team or he could be stuck in the midfield for his whole career.
Logan Sargeant, we know lost his seat after Zandvoort because ‘he reached the limit of his potential’ said James Vowles, I think that’s probably right I given you couldn’t really see the step forwards you need from drivers in a second season. His replacement Franco Colapinto made a good first impression by then towards his stint started to make mistakes towards the end of his stint.
There was even talk about the Argentine being given a seat at Red Bull alongside Verstappen up until those mistakes started. He does I feel deserve another chance though we know this sport naturally moves on very quickly and if he goes away from the sport he might not have a way back into the sport.
Those hugely costly crashes we know meant the team couldn’t bring as many upgrades because of time in producing replacement parts but also that comes out of the budget cap, thus less money to spend on upgrades. Albon did cause some of the accident damage but that seemed to be within the normal amount, but at times it held the team back by accidents.
RB
Yuki Tsunoda, I think really started to come of age this season, he drove really well and had the measure of Daniel Ricciardo when they were teammates. The Japanese Driver was constantly scoring points early on and that put more pressure on his teammate, it was good to see but is it enough to move up to the senior team? There are rumours that Red Bull is a bit weary of his fiery nature, but I think the way he has developed over the last year proves he deserves a chance with Red Bull or a top team.
RB was under new management this season with the departure of Franz Tost who was replaced by Laurent Mikes, so we can say this was also a transitional year and we know they are not seen as a ‘B Team’ anymore by Red Bull but they are still about developing talent, drivers, engineers and strategist etc.
As the season went on up until Ricciardo was replaced and later announced his effective retirement, that was very difficult to watch given a decade ago he was the next big thing beating then champion Sebastian Vettel. But he made bad choices to go to Renault, now Alpine, and McLaren where he became lost and was never able to recover.
Liam Lawson replaced Ricciardo from Austin onwards to ‘look at the best options for 2025,’ his performances were decent in the final few races which earned him a seat alongside Verstappen at Red Bull. But Red Bull have never been convinced that Tsunoda, who is at Racing Bulls at the behest of engine supplier Honda, had what it takes to be a suitable driver for the senior team.
They need a big step if they truly do want to be a midfield front-runner in the longer term, but we think with the budget cap that they should get more money, and we know they have opened a secondary base in Milton Keynes near Red Bull campus. But we have seen that doesn’t automatically bring success.
Sauber
Sauber had a difficult season, if not their worst season in their three decades in the sport but they are under new ownership having completed the sale to VW ahead of becoming the Audi Sauber team in 2026. They had two big signings Mattia Binotto, former Ferrari team principal, and Jonathan Wheatley, Red Bull’s sporting director, to be joint-team principal in 2026.
However, towards the end of the season, there were rumours that Audi might pull the plug, but I don’t know how true that is. They are another team investing heavily in the factory ahead of the changes in 2026, I hope over the remainder of the transition they start picking up points.
The German manufacturer has full control of the team from next year but it still being run as Sauber by that management, but they will still want to prove they are making steps towards ultimately joining the
The team has traditionally scored its bigger points early in the year but throughout the season they struggled with grip and getting heat into the tyres, they were never able to get the car to work. Also, when they were able to be competitive and score points they threw away opportunities with repeated mistakes at pit stops, this was not what Audi wanted to see.
Next season they will have Nico Hulkenberg returning ahead of the full Audi takeover for 2026, I think they need to focus on improving operationally going into 2026 as they will want to be in the midfield and heading towards the font. There are rumours there that Audi were concerned by the form this season, to the point where the whole project was thrown into doubt.
Haas
One of the biggest stories at the start of the year was the departure of team principal Gunther Steiner as his contract ended, they appointed Ayao Komatsu to replace him. Haas had a much better season the car by their standards was competitive but as we said with all the midfield/lower end of the grid they probably need to learn for 2026 why they were competitive so they can move forwards.
If I think they need to start delivering consistently as next season will be their tenth year in the sport, they did have a respectable season by their standards and they didn’t slip away. There looks to be progress but we head into the season before a regulation change meaning they could benefit by getting ahead but that failed in 2021-22, which makes it a hard call.
They did score two sixth places showing one of their better seasons but Haas will face an American challenge in 2026 with Cadillac, I think that could give them added focus. Kevin Magnussen, we know is leaving the sport having been with the team on and off since 2017, what hasn’t helped as we always know is the chopping and changing of drivers.
Hopefully over the coming years under Komatsu and the fact their didn’t appear to drop off massively rather that theme this year of competitive action and wouldn’t have helped them in scoring points. Could they possibly be a team on the verge in a few years of their big breakthrough if they get things right in 2026, to permanently be in the midfield.
Ollie Bearman, who will be driving for them next year, stood in at three races one for Ferrari and two for Haas, I think he did a decent job as a reserve driver despite his difficult F2 season. In two of three races he only had one practice session, and he did score points in Jeddah and Baku which are two difficult street circuits as well as the F2 three wins, in what was a hard season.
Bearman made his debut with Ferrari back in Jeddah finishing seventh despite never driving the car before, I was impressed by three his stand-in drives and he could be a driver to watch as part of the FDA he is still a Ferrari reserve and a member of their reserve pool of drivers and if he does what Leclerc did at Sauber in 2018 could be the successor to Hamilton, but its too early to say.
2024 top ten ranking
These are my top ten drivers ranking, not based on championship or results my gut feeling about how they performed over the course of the season compared to 2023, with the car and team they had, as well as their progress across the season.
| Drivers | Constructors | |
| 1 | Lando Norris | McLaren |
| 2 | Charles Leclerc | Ferrari |
| 3 | Oscar Piastri | Mercedes |
| 4 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull |
| 5 | George Russell | Haas |
| 6 | Carlos Sainz | Alpine |
| 7 | Lewis Hamilton | Aston Martin |
| 8 | Fernando Alonso | Williams |
| 9 | Ollie Bearman | RB |
| 10 | Yuki Tsunoda | Sauber |
Closing thoughts
2024 didn’t start out as shaping up to be a classic season but then it turned into an all-time classic with seven different winners from four teams. We didn’t expect that given the way Red Bull almost dominated eight of the first ten races, but the signs were always there as it was very close and once that glass ceiling was broken it was truly a fight between McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes for wins.
Lando Norris was my driver of the season as it was his breakthrough year and he was fighting for the championship following the fall of Red Bull, and it’s a remarkable turnaround over the last five years by McLaren who we know claimed their first constructors is a quarter of a century. As we heard in Abu Dhabi, he said “Next year will be (McLaren’s) Year,” I think all year he made himself a champion in waiting.
There are several moments as we will remember given the epic fight in the second half of the season. But Max Verstappen’s strength at the start of the year was key in securing his fourth championship, Lando Norris’s win in Miami, Charles Leclerc in Monaco and Lewis Hamilton’s ninth Silverstone win. Remember Alex Jacques’s commentary “its not a come back he been here before,” one of the all-time great races and so many records fell that day.
I think when we write the history in ten or twenty years time it surely going to be up there with 2010, 1999, 2009, 2012, as one of the greatest seasons of all time!