Formula 1 in 2024 - one of the best seasons in history!

After Max Verstappen won in Bahrain by 20 seconds ahead of Sergio Peréz, I thought that we were going to see another season full of Verstappen's dominance, as 2023 was. Luckily, I was so wrong about this, despite Max winning the championship in the end.

Even after the race in Saudi Arabia, it looked like the Red Bull dominance would be there again. Additionally, Carlos Sainz used to have some problems with the appendix, so had to be replaced by a young driver from the Ferrari Academy - 18-year-old Ollie Bearman, who impressed Haas and signed him for the 2025 season. However, the removal of the appendix probably made Sainz faster, because he won the next race, the Australian Grand Prix, after Verstappen's DNF due to overheating of the brakes. With Charles Leclerc finishing second, it was also the first Ferrari 1-2 finish since the Bahrain 2022. Sergio Peréz, Verstappen's team-mate, managed to finish on the podium just four times, with the last one being the Chinese GP, which was the fifth race of the season. Considering his inconsistency, including unnecessary crashes, spins, and eliminations in the first part of the qualifying several times, Peréz is going to be replaced by Liam Lawson for the next season, which seems like a reasonable option from Red Bull. However, I think that Liam will not resist the pressure.

Miami GP was a significant race for Lando Norris, who won the F1 race for the first time there. Lando had solid chances of winning the championship this year, nonetheless, he either bottled the start and then wasn't able to catch and overtake Max (most of the time) or McLaren made poor strategy decisions. For example at the Hungarian Grand Prix. Lando had a poor start again and was overtaken by his team-mate Oscar Piastri, however McLaren swapped their positions thanks to the undercut of Lando. A normal person would let Norris win the race, mostly because he was in the title fight. Unfortunately, McLaren forced Norris to let Piastri through and Oscar won the F1 race for the first time that day. He wasn't happy at all. They both added more victories throughout the season and won the World Constructors Championship ahead of Ferrari. We have to remember also the title fight against Max Verstappen and, for instance, their collision in Austria.

Ferrari had mixed feelings throughout the season. As a Ferrari fan, I didn't expect them to secure 5 victories this season, including Charles' victories in Monaco and Mozna, both being his home grand prix (Monaco because he is Monegasque, Monza because of Ferrari). Besides the Australian GP, Ferrari finished first and second in the US Grand Prix as well, which was quite an unexpected result considering the not-ideal qualifying result. We can't forget the race in Mexico and the brilliant victory by Carlos Sainz. Overall, the biggest issue of Ferrari and especially Leclerc this season was a little inconsistency in the middle of the season. Between the Canadian GP and Hungarian GP, including these two venues, Leclerc scored just 22 points which might have cost him and Ferrari better results in both of the championships.

Last but not least, let's talk about Mercedes. For this successful F1 team, we must split the season into the first and second parts. It was a horrible season in terms of performance for this originally German team until the Austrian Grand Prix. After the collision of Max Verstappen and Lando Norris, George Russell driving in third place suddenly led and in the end also won the race. For the second time in his career, by the way. The fairy tale continued at the British Grand Prix, which was a precise victory of Lewis Hamilton, who broke a record in the number of wins on the same track (he won at Silverstone 9 times). Russell won the Belgian Grand Prix after the extraordinary strategy, nevertheless, he was disqualified, so it was second Hamilton's victory this season. Regardless of having the fourth fastest car, Mercedes secured one 1-2 finish in Las Vegas as well. After the season, Lewis left the team to join Ferrari. His substitution is a rookie Andra Kimi Antonelli, who hadn't raced in F1 before.

In conclusion, there are also other smaller teams and dramas, however, the goal was to include the most important stuff from this season - which was the front of the field. There is just one thing about next season - it will be huge chaos because we will have 7 brand-new drivers on the grid. And Max will not be dominant anymore…

Jakub Ondruš

Sources:

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Formula_One_World_Championship</p>

https://motorsporttickets.com/blog/every-max-verstappen-victory-in-formula-1/<br> 

https://www.news.gp/cs/lewis-hamilton-po-trech-letech-vyhral-velkou-cenu-velke-britanie-2024<br>