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Tag: Formula1

  • 2024 Season Review – Red Bull

    Downfall of the Champions

    It was a tough season for Red Bull, they went from being reigning champions to the third best team. You could however say that was largely down to the fact they only had Verstappen scoring the lion’s share of the points. Initially the team picked up where they left off in 2023, scoring a 1-2 in the first two races. It left everyone feeling that we were in for another season of RB and Verstappen domination. In the first five races Verstappen won four and Checo finished on the podium four times. By the time we got to Miami things for Checo at least started to unravel, he finished third in round five (China) and would not finish on the podium again. Verstappen would continue to challenge at the front and retain his crown as World Champion and barring an uncharacteristic Red Bull mechanical retirement in Australia, his worst finish was 6th. They took a “bold” and “aggressive” approach to their car, but it was a tricky one to drive and their development direction did not work and, in some instances, made the cars worse. Verstappen was clearly able to adapt to the car better than Checo underlining the raw talent that he has.

    The Team

    Obviously, the main talking point was the allegations that surfaced about Christian Horner and his inappropriate behaviour. The allegations came out before the start of the season, but it would be months before the talk died down. During that period, you had all sorts of people chipping in. Helmut Markko was sticking the knife in and then Jos Verstappen was also sticking his oar in. For the latter its very much a case of those in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. At the end of the day, he’s the father of the driver, it has nothing to do with him what goes on in the team, keep your beak out and opinions to yourself.

    Clearly however it was a power struggle between Markko and Horner, with the former clearly wanting control of the team. Horner however managed to ride out the controversy and remains as Team Principle.

    A couple of massive changes for Red Bull. Firstly, long-standing Chief Technical Officer, Adrian Newey announced at the Miami Grand Prix that he would be leaving Red Bull and seeking pastures new for 2025. This also seemed to start the downfall of RB’s dominance. Naturally after he announced his future departure, his involvement with the race team became minimal and as a result they struggled with the development of the car and wind tunnel correlation not matching what was happening on track.

    Later in the season Red Bull would announce the departure of equally long-standing Sporting Director, Jonathan Wheatley. He was placed on gardening leave later in 2024 and announced that he would be joining Audi for 2026 as Team Principle.

    The Drivers

    Verstappen won the Drivers’ Championship for the fourth consecutive year, as mentioned earlier he showcased his underlying talent by dragging performances out of a car that really was not a front running car. There were plenty of controversy with him along the way as you expect. He is a hard racer and sometimes I think he crosses the line of what is fair, and it does seem that sometimes his attitude is “if try to come past me we will either crash or you will back down”. Personally, I think he goes too far sometimes and when it happens to him, he cries to the team and tries to get others a penalty, which on occasions he has done successfully. When coming up against Verstappen, you know what he’d like, you must be prepared to get your elbows out and get aggressive. If you’re too nice you will come off worse.

    2024 looks like it could be the last time we see Sergio Perez. He started the season off strongly and it rapidly went from bad to worse. He was awarded with a new contract in Canada and RB had hoped this would give him some confidence to turn his season round and unfortunately it seems like it had the opposite effect. You could argue that his performances were more in line to where the cars performance was, but you cannot deny one of the main reasons RB went from champions to third is because Perez couldn’t drag the performance out of the car. At the end of the season his contract was terminated. He went out of the sport with a bang, but not in a good way it was the bang of a collision with Bottas in the final race which could be his final appearance in the sport.

    For 2025….

    Liam Lawson is the driver to replace Perez. For me the jury is still out on this young Kiwi, I am not sure he has proven he deserves that second seat, but he appears to be the chosen one so we will see how he performs. The team will be looking to challenging at the front of the grid again after failing to win the constructors.

    2024 Season Rating 7/10

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  • 2024 Season Review – Mercedes

    The Mercedes Ups and Downs

    It was a strange season for Mercedes, they noticeably struggled in pre-season and naturally that flowed into the start of the season. They had some difficult results, particularly for Hamilton who seemed to struggle more than Russell. Come the middle part of the season their fortunes seem to change for the better. Several podiums for both drivers included a win in Austria for Russell and two wins for Hamilton in Britain and Belgium. Russell did win the Belgium Grand Prix, only to be disqualified after the race after the car failed to make the minimum mandated weight. From then on until the end of the season it was a bit hit and miss, a podium in Baku and a 1-2 in Las Vegas being the only real highlight. Toto Wolff blamed the car even though Russell seemed to regularly extract the best results out of the car. In the end 4th in the constructors is the worse they have finished for several years, having lost ground to both McLaren and Ferrari.

    The Team

    There were no real changes to the team structure for the 2024 season. James Allison was the latest of the more notable members of the team, but he had already arrived for the 2024 season. They did however go with a different concept for 2024 regarding the car design. Not something that seemed to pay off, however when the car worked, it was clearly very fast. The team struggled to understand the car at times and subsequent updates did not always correlate to the track.

    The Drivers

    Obviously, the biggest talking point here was the announcement that Lewis Hamilton would be leaving at the end of 2024 for Ferrari. The announcement made before the 2024 season got under way, suggested it could be a year of struggles for Hamilton. I say this because the team will naturally start to shy away from sharing new concepts and ideas with the driver leaving and the knowledge, he would be a lower priority for any new developments coming to the car. That seemed to show with Hamilton’s early struggles, however he seemed to get over them, got himself a few wins and ended up 22 points behind Russell in the standings.

    Russell had a solid season all things considered, and he will be looking forward to 2025 where he will be the team leader.

    For next season Andrea Kimi Antonelli joins the team. The jury is still out on the rookie as his only outing in the Mercedes car during practice at Monza he put it into the wall. If Antonelli tries to go too quick too soon we could see the Merc in the wall a fair bit.

    For 2025….

    Mercedes will want to move back up the Constructors table, they finished 2023 in 2nd and 4th in 2024. They desperately need to put more pressure on McLaren and Ferrari. They need Antonelli to be more consistent than quick to start with and if they are not at the front, they should be in a good position to take advantage of any issues with the guys at the front.

    2024 Season Rating 6/10

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  • 2024 Season Review – Aston Martin

    The Midfield Front Runners

    Aston Martin had a relatively steady 2024, they finished comfortably in 5th place and are easily the team to beat in the midfield. The team however will look upon 2024 and see it as a bit of a failure. They never hit the same heights they hit in 2023 and ended the season without a single podium. One of the main reasons why they were not as successful this season was because the front 4 were that much better than everyone else and in 2023, they were helped by the abysmal first half of the season McLaren had. A 5th place for Alonso in Saudi Arabia would be the best finish they’d achieve.

    The Team

    The most notable change at the team was the announcement that Adrian Newey would be joining the team from March 2025. This is a huge coup for the team, what I did find strange though was the way they announced his arrival. The put on this showcase, like what they put on for the reveal of a new car, this is fine because we all know what Newey has achieved in F1, but at the time he was still under contract at Red Bull. Personally, I found it all a bit odd. This season however will be an important one for the Silverstone based team, they have invested heavily in the infrastructure back at base and with the arrival of Newey combined with demands of Lawrence Stroll, if we do not see some signs of improvements, we could see some heads start to roll.

    The Drivers

    Not much to say for the drivers, we had the same line up of Alonso and Stroll and Alonso scored the lion’s share of the points. I must wonder how long Lawrence Stroll will continue to keep his son in the car, if he really wants the team to be successful, which clearly, he does, then he must reconsider keeping Lance Stroll in F1. If Alonso wipes the floor with him again this season and with the influence of Newey increasing month on month. surely his patience must run out at some stage.

    For 2025….

    They must push on and try to break into the top 4. We won’t really see any influence from Adrien Newey until later this season if at all. It will be 2026 that we really see his influence, but they really need to be more competitive than they were last season else we could see Alonso fall out with the team. Alonso will be desperate to try and make it to 2026 in an Adrian Newey designed car.

    2024 Season Rating 5/10

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  • 2024 Season Review – Alpine

    The gift that kept on giving

    For a large part of the 2024 season Alpine were the gift that kept on giving. A poor start to the season led to early team changes which would continue at other parts of the season and would also include a driver change for the last race of the season. The team would eventually finish 6th in the Constructors, a position that largely flattered and was mainly thanks to a large points haul from the chaotic Brazilian Grand Prix. Let’s look in further detail.

    The Team

    After the team finished bottom of the pile in the first race the sword was wielded for the first time. Technical Director Matt Harman and Head of Aerodynamic Dirk de Beer were the two names to bite the bullet. Shortly after Advisor Bob Bell announced he was leaving to link up with Fernando Alonso at Aston Martin. By the time we got to May, Flavio Briatore, who used to run the team during its Renault days until the Crash Gate saga was installed back into the team as Special Advisor.

    This was a great move in my opinion, Briatore doesn’t suffer any fools and will not be afraid to do what he needs to, to sort out the team.

    Fast forward a couple of months and it was announced that Ocon would not be retained for 2025 and during the Belgium Grand Prix, it was announced that Team Principal Bruno Famin would leave the team with immediate effect.

    The team also announced that for the 2026 season they would not be producing their own engine and would instead become a customer of Mercedes, slightly embarrassing for a manufacturer backed by Renault to admit the engines they produce are not up to the job. I would like to think this is only temporary while they look to rebuild and start from scratch at within the engine department.

    The Drivers

    Alpine started the 2024 season with Pierre Gasly and Estaban Ocon and they ended the season with Pierre Gasly and Jack Doohan. There were some questions about the line up back in 2023 as it was well reported that Gasly and Ocon, despite being childhood friends no longer got on. Ocon also seems to have a bit of a history with falling out with his teammate. It happened when he drove for Force India and again at Alpine with Fernando Alonso. That relationship went very sour after initially being quite friendly between the two. Sparks started to fly, after the two made contact in Monaco, however after a 5-place grid penalty by the time they got to Canada, Ocon had taken the blame for the incident.

    Gasly and Ocon, were however the first pairing to claim the team’s first double podium under the Alpine name. They benefited by being in the right place in the right time after a series of unfortunate events at the Brazilian Grand Prix led both drivers to finish 2nd & 3rd. This leaped the team from 9th to 6th in the championship standings.

    Ocon was released of his contract after his DNF in Qatar and was replaced by Jack Doohan for the final race.

    For 2025….

    Doohan will partner Gasly at least for the start of 2025. Alpine however have signed Colapinto as their reserve driver. Colapinto impressed for Williams after he replaced Logan Sargeant. I think there are altera motives for Alpine signing him and unless Doohan is a close match to Gasly, he could be out of a drive sooner rather than later. On a whole though they have to do better than last season, technically the team (as Renault) are former World Champions and they have to start at least pushing to be the best of the midfield and cannot rely on lucky one off results.

    2024 Season Rating 3/10

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  • 2024 Season Review – Haas

    Early Changes

    Haas finished 2023 bottom of the pile with 12 points, before the start of the 2024 season, owner Gene Haas took the decision to replace long standing and very popular Team Principle Gunether Steiner. He was replaced by Ayao Komatsu.

    Expectations we’re low and the new Team Principal quickly started to downplay their chances for 2024.

    The Team

    Aside from the early changes at Team Principal level, Technical Director Simone Resta also left. There would also be some turmoil and off-track issues the team would have to deal with. At the Dutch Grand Prix Bailiffs and Police entered the Haas paddock area after a Swiss court ruled that the team owed former Russian sponsor Uralkali $9m. This also meant that the team would not be allowed to leave The Netherlands and head for the Italian Grand Prix. With the clock ticking down the payment was made, and the team were allowed to leave for Italy.

    Aside from the off-track issues, the team generally had a positive season, and they started off strongly defying expectations. Strong showings in Austria and Britain, set them up for a strong second half of the season, where from Italy they would score points in every race apart from Brazil. They would have finished above Alpine, had it not been for the large points haul in Brazil.

    The Drivers

    Haas started the season with the same drivers as 2023, Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen. Hulkenberg scored the lion’s share of the points, but some excellent team driving from Magnussen made sure that whilst he didn’t score points, Hulkenberg did.

    For 2025….

    It is all change however for 2025, Hulkenberg moves to the Stake team before it becomes Audi and Magnussen did not have his contract renewed. A new driver lineup of Esteban Ocon and Oliver Bearman making his debut in F1.

    2024 Season Rating 6/10

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  • 2024 Season Review – Racing Bulls

    Daniel Ricciardo (AUS) RB VCARB 01. 23.02.2024. Formula 1 Testing, Sakhir, Bahrain, Day Three. – http://www.xpbimages.com, EMail: requests@xpbimages.com © Copyright: Bearne / XPB Images

    Early Changes and Criticism

    Before the 2024 season started Alpha Tauri changed their team name to Visa Before the 2024 season started Alpha Tauri changed their team name to Visa Cash App Racing Bulls, VCARB for short and then just RB. Absolutely ridiculous. The team also came under fire again, from Zak Brown for being Red Bulls “B” team. I kind of feel as though the criticism is a bit harsh and undeserved. If RB we’re up there alongside Red Bull every weekend, then I could understand and you might be able to say that there is a much closer relationship than is allowed but the team is a firm and consistent midfield challenger and have never matched Red Bull on the track so I think it is safe to say they are not really benefiting from any extra relationship with Red Bull.

    There were some early changes for the team with long running Team Principal Frans Tost leaving at the end of 2023. It’s not always ideal to prepare for a season after losing such a long serving figure head. New people come in with new ideas and can upset the apple cart. They did, however, start the season with the same driver line up of Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda. Something which would change after Singapore.

    The Team

    On paper it wasn’t a bad season for the Red Bull Junior team, although they finished in the same position as they did in 2023 (8th), they did score almost double their 2023 tally with Tsunoda scoring the majority of the points. They leap frogged Williams, but also lost ground to Haas. They could have however finished above Alpine, if they hadn’t had a very fruitful Brazilian GP.

    In terms of in-season developments, like most midfield teams there wasn’t too many, however what they did bring, worked and didn’t affect their performance in a negative way too much.

    It’s always hard to judge the midfield teams because they are so closely matched and fight for only a handful of points.

    The Drivers

    We saw what as potentially the end of Daniel Ricciardo’s career as an F1 driver. He was a bit of a conundrum for me really. I have always felt that he ran away from Red Bull and shied away from the challenge of Verstappen. He never really seemed to hit the heights or consistency he had when he was at Red Bull and just as he started discovering some form he ditched Renault for McLaren, which turned out to be a disastrous move and start the beginning of the end for him. He was lucky to return to F1 in 2023, however from the start he was regularly outperformed by Tsunoda.

    Daniel Ricciardo would eventually be replaced by Liam Lawson after the Singapore Grand Prix. He seems to be the chosen one at the moment. For those six the races they had together Lawson out qualified Tsunoda once and didn’t really outshine him in any of the races, with Tsunoda scoring the more points. I personally don’t think Lawson has really done anything to earn the drive at the main Red Bull team, but it will be interesting to see how he gets on.

    For 2025..

    2025 will see Hadjar join Tsunoda. I personally think he will outperform the rookie and so he should. I also have a feeling this will be Tsunoda’s last season at RB, I think he will be looking elsewhere for 2026. The team however need to push on and move forward in that midfield battle, it will be hard however with a rookie. Hadjar needs to find consistency first over speed, else RB might be finding themselves with a lot of repair bills.

    2024 Season Rating 5/10

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