2024 F1 Season Team-by-Team Preview

The 2024 F1 season, at twenty four races, will be the longest ever. Will it be a case of quantity over quality? Last season was a simple procession for Red Bull and Max Verstappen and a longer version of that would be a bit of a turn off.

I am going to split this season’s preview into two halves. This first part is looking at the teams and where they are going into the new season. Part two will focus on how the cars looked and performed in the pre-season tests and we’ll try to find some good value ante post bets, if there are any to find, because so far, there are none.

No major Regulation Changes

The 2024 F1 season will not see any major regulation changes, which saves a few pages for this preview. There will be a restructuring of the timetable for sprint race weekends. Drivers will be allocated four power units per person rather than three, and the DRS can be activated after one lap of the race, rather than the current two.

But very little else has changed from last year, which is unusual. The proposed tyre warmer ban has been put back, and in terms of performance influencing changes, there is very little write about.

To help the power units last this record long season, the manufacturers have been allowed to make changes in the name of reliability. The likelihood is that the engineers will have tried to eke out a bit more performance while they were there, but it is not a night and day change.

Ground Effect

The Ground Effect Era is now in its third year. With very little in the way of regulation changes, we will see more convergence in terms of design, and that convergence will be in the direction of the Red Bull design.

They have proved that their approach was the best by some margin, and the likes of Mercedes and Ferrari have had to bin their early ideas and try to imitate the Red Bull.

This convergence around a Red Bull design style will be the theme of the ‘new’ 2024 cars. We can’t see what is under the car and that all important floor, is a huge influence on performance. We really are going to have to wait and see which cars actually go well on the track rather than speculate on launch cars and renders.

With stable regulations, it is hard to think that anyone is going to come up with a new idea that is going to be a game changer. Red Bull will simply refine what they already have, McLaren are ahead of the rest in terms of a well-developed ground effect car and the rest will have spent the last few months trying to fix known weaknesses, or in the case of Mercedes, pretty much starting from scratch.

2024 F1 Season Team-by-Team Outlook

Red Bull

It is unrealistic to think that Red Bull can be toppled in 2024. Their margin of victory over the second placed team in 2022 was a very impressive 205 points. In 2023 it rose to a staggering 451 points. That was forty five points more than the second and third placed constructors put together.

Max Verstappen scored more points than any other team, never mind another driver. It is no exaggeration to say that Red Bull were in a different formula to the other nine teams.

To add a bit more perspective, the previous record for the biggest winning margin in a Drivers’ Championship was 155 points. That was by Sebastian Vettel in 2013. Max Verstappen won by a margin of 290 points. Max had three more races than Vettel did, but the point remains. Last season was a non-contest.

Refine

There are no major regulation changes to think that Red Bull’s line of travel will have needed to change. All they have to do is to refine what they already have and that is very likely to be more than enough to stay well ahead in 2024. Let’s be honest, if they just rolled out last year’s car, I’d still back them to win this year.

Such was their level of domination, Red Bull stopped developing their 2023 car last summer. They were coasting for a large part of the season, while the other teams were frantically trying to close the gap with developments, some very late into the season.

Red Bull had to operate with an additional limitation on their wind tunnel and CFD simulations having breached the cost cap regulations in 2022. Those further limitations will not apply for 2024.

Less Tunnel Time

As the Constructors’ Championship winners, they will have less wind tunnel/simulation time than anyone else, but the fact is that Red Bull were able to spend a lot more of their 2023 time/ budget on the 2024 car, such was their level of dominance. They effectively have a head start on their opponents and they are starting with a huge performance gap to their nearest challengers.

Red Bull have lost some important staff, but the same can be said of Mercedes and Ferrari. However, they have not lost Adrian Newey, Christian Horner or Max Verstappen. The Holy Trinity at the top of the tree is still there, but more about that later.

The death of team owner Dieter Mateschitz failed to unsettle the team’s performance and the loss of a few key members of staff is unlikely to do so either, in the short term at least.

Any Weak Links?

It is hard to find a weakness in the team. Sergio Perez is arguably one, but he still managed to finish second in the Drivers’ Championship, despite a pretty wretched season. Being Max Verstappen’s teammate would be soul destroying for 99.9% of drivers.

Perez made the mistake, after starting the 2023 season with two wins from the first four races, of thinking that he had a chance to become World Champion. His expectations were ahead of his ability.

The rest of the season was one of torment for the Mexican. He had completely lost his confidence after Monaco, especially in qualifying, and it seemed likely that he would be dropped by the team for 2024. That or retire.

Onside

However, the team have kept Perez onside. They know that Verstappen can, and has, won both titles by himself. Their second driver is just that, secondary. They may as well honour Perez’ contract and bed in someone else in 2025 before the start of the all-important 2026 season.

The other weakness in last year’s car was on street circuits and slower tracks/corners in general. They lost in Singapore, where the car just couldn’t cope with the bumpy surface combined with the slower speeds. One lap pace was a comparative weakness compared the their race pace, but how many points do you get for qualifying?

2026 Concerns

2026 is the big threat to Red Bull, they will lose the Honda power units, but for the next two seasons, they should continue to dominate. Verstappen to win another Drivers’ Championship looks extremely likely, as does another Constructors’ Championship.

Another 1-2 in the Drivers’ Championship is the only thing that they may not achieve in 2024. McLaren will be stronger from the start and Perez may be beatable by a number of drivers.

The RB20 was the last of the cars to be launched and while the other teams have been gravitating to RB19 themes, Adrian Newey and his design team appeared to throw in a bit of a curve ball. They have something that looks not unlike Mercedes ‘zero pod’ design.

Changes

It isn’t actually the same thing and is said to be an extension of last year’s path of development. There is a vertical inlet which looks Mercedes like, but the sidepods are still there. The RB20 has an engine cover which again looks similar to Mercedes’ old one and it shows that the team have made changes, and not just tweaks.

However, we shall just have to wait and see what the actual car looks like in Bahrain. It is fair to say that the RB20 has caused some scratching of heads. Everyone else is moving towards a RB19 style design, and Red Bull pop up with something that echoes Mercedes failed concept. Interesting.

Longer Nose

The new car is also sporting a longer nose, just as Mercedes and others have moved to shorten theirs. It begs two questions. Has Newey had a bang on the head and decided to copy a failed concept?

He has designed poor cars in the past, so we cannot rule it out. Or, was Mercedes’ concept a good one which they could not make work. Have Red Bull found a way to unlock the potential of the design which Mercedes could not? If they have, the irony would be off the scale.

The bottom line is that, if the new car turns out to be as bad the old Mercedes, Red Bull can just revert to the RB19, and still win. If it is an improvement, the others can just go back to the 2026 drawing board and bide their time.

Horner Issues

The team was rocked by a news story regarding ’inappropriate behaviour’ by Christian Horner towards a member of the Red Bull staff. An investigation is ongoing and that is unlikely to be finalised much before the start of the season.

The amount of speculation has been both unreal and unrealistic. The Hamilton fan boys have self-combusted in fits of schadenfreude. Adrian Newey will inevitably now follow Hamilton to Ferrari and build a new era of dominance. Bollocks of course.

Power Struggle

There clearly is a power struggle within the Red Bull empire and various people are trying to take control. Horner looks like he may be a casualty, guilty or not. However, that does not mean the car is going to be slow.

The car is built, the design finished and upgrades are already in the pipeline. Even if Adrian Newey left today, the car is still going to be the class of the field. Morale may be dented in the short term, but if the car is winning, that will soon be lifted.

If Horner has to leave, the effects are only going to show later, maybe in 2025, but much more likely in 2026, which was always going to be the end of this period of Red Bull dominance in any case.

If and when he goes, it is likely that others will follow, such as Frenchman Pierre Waché (technical director), who is rumoured to join Lewis Hamilton in Maranello. He has turned down Ferrari last year, but the rumours are that he may now jump ship for 2025.

Overall 2024 F1 Season outlook

Pros

Very likely to be the standard setter once again. Verstappen is at the peak of his powers. A well drilled, winning team.

Cons

Internal power struggle is a distraction. Perez is a weak link.

McLaren

Finished the 2023 season in fine form, scoring seven second places. Over the course of the last ten Grand Prix, McLaren scored 171 points, bettered only by Ferrari (200) and Red Bull (321).

McLaren had begun the season with a car that wasn’t ready. They only really started with a 2023 spec car in Austria, nine races into the season, after that, McLaren had the second best car on the grid.

McLaren had a number of in season upgrades and each one worked. They knew what they were doing in other words. They understood their car and how to develop it effectively. It was dynamite in fast corners, but it was not a great all-rounder. There are gains to be made in slow speed performance.

Management Restructuring

2023 saw the start of a technical management restructuring under the newly promoted Andrea Stella as team principle, and that will continue in 2024 with the arrival of Rob Marshall, from Red Bull, and David Sanchez, from Ferrari.

The team will now have three technical directors. One for design, one for production and one for on track performance. Too many cooks, or a realistic way to address what are very complex cars and production processes?

These new technical directors will have all the latest tools at their disposal. It wasn’t long ago that McLaren was skint and it required an injection of Bahraini investment (It is expected that the Bahraini sovereign wealth fund will soon buy out the team’s minority shareholders and become the outright owners) to get them out of that hole, and to allow the facilities at Woking to be brought up to date.

New Wind Tunnel

The biggest new toy is the new wind tunnel but that alone would not be enough, so McLaren have spent money on all aspects of design and production, as well as recruiting more staff. There is a new state of the art simulator, the latest production processes and all the ‘hardware’ upgrades will bring rewards and keep the momentum of the team heading in the right direction.

The car has been designed with a Red Bull like philosophy. It seems very sensible to try and go down the same path as the car that smashed everyone out of the park for the last two years. The results were there for all to see, and while they will never be able to copy everything on the Red Bull, at least they are barking up the right tree.

Unlike the other Mercedes’ power unit customer teams (Williams and Aston Martin), McLaren build their own gearbox and suspension, which allows them to plough their own furrow to a greater extent.

Best Driver Pairing

Another big plus for McLaren is that they may have the strongest driver pairing on the grid. Two young drivers who are fast and smart. We know all about Lando Norris but last year’s rookie, Oscar Piastri, made a very good impression.

He is very cool under pressure, he has that ability to give himself time to think even when going flat out. He has that extra bit of mental capacity which marks out the greats from the very goods.

Team principle, Andrea Stella, has said “We should now be able to make a leap forward. I’m optimistic of that.” However that was tempered by his comments regarding Red Bull. “I expect a big step from Red Bull. They hardly developed their car at all last year.”

Positive Vibes

It all looks positive for McLaren. They have had a successful recruitment drive to beef up engineering and managerial staff. They have solved their financial weaknesses, they have a very strong driver line up and their capital investments mean they now have state of the art facilities.

Their car will be much stronger than it was this time last year and it is realistic to think that McLaren could finish in second place in 2024. I will go as far as to say that they will finish second in 2024.

Norris Tied Down

Lando Norris has signed a long term contract with the team and that is a very big hint that McLaren are going places. As one of the most sought after drivers on the grid, Norris had plenty of suitors and to throw his lot in with this team for the long term is a massive vote of confidence in McLaren. In much the same way as Lewis Hamilton leaving Mercedes is a massive vote of no confidence.

McLaren kept their cards close to their chest in terms of the car launch. They simply released pictures of what they say is the new car, but with very little in way of details. They didn’t show anyone what they have got. That will come during testing and at the first race.

Overall 2024 F1 Season Outlook

Pros

Already on the right path development wise. Excellent driver pairing. Improved infrastructure on stream, key personnel recruited and in place.

Cons

Piastri remains inexperienced. McLaren have been a long time out of front line competitiveness.

Mercedes

Finally moving away from the flawed 2022 and 2023 Zero Pod concept. Mercedes get a bit toey when people refer to the ‘zero pod concept’, but it is an easy to understand point of reference for their design adopted for the ground effect car regulation which came in in 2022. Whatever word they wish to call it, good would not be one.

That they carried on with the design into 2023 was very poor. It was clear that the 2022 car was bad, but hubris or pig ignorance carried the day and it wasn’t until halfway through 2023 that they bit the bullet, moved the designer, Mike Elliott, aside and brought back James Allison to oversee a review and to find a new path. The 2024 car will be the first ground up, product of taking that new path.

Red Bull Design

It is expected that Mercedes will follow a Red Bull like design, as indeed most other teams have already done. The new car will look different but how it looks is less important than the things we can’t see.

It has to be a positive that Mercedes have admitted that they did a bad job with the design of the car for the last two years and that they have belatedly changed tack. The negative is that Red Bull are two years down that path and others a year or so ahead of Mercedes. To hope that their first stab at a Red Bull like concept will hit the bullseye with the first dart is optimistic. They have many more ‘learnings’ to do.

Well Resourced

Mercedes are a very well-resourced outfit and well placed to catch up faster than any other team, but surely any serious challenge to Red Bull will not come until 2025 or 2026.

They have lost some key staff in the last year or two and some have blamed the ‘brain drain’ on the team’s poor response over the last couple of years. There may be some truth in that, but they are not alone in losing key staff members.

Continuity has not been perfect but Toto Wolff has signed a new three year deal and they have retained the same driver lineup (as have every other team). Their best designer, James Allison, has also signed a new three year contract and his return to head up the design of the 2024 Mercedes is a huge positive.

Long way Off in 2023

A big and hugely successful team like Mercedes are well placed to improve and perhaps quite dramatically. However, the reality is that they were a very long way off the Red Bull in 2023 and believing that they can close that gap in a single stride is for the fairies.

Their first task is to become best of the rest, get regular podiums and perhaps win a race. In their way will be a resurgent McLaren, who are already well down the path that Mercedes are taking. In Red Bull, they are chasing a moving target and success for Mercedes will be having a car they can finally understand and develop.

Hamilton Leaving

The team was rocked by the announcement that Lewis Hamilton is to leave the team at the end of this season to go and drive for Ferrari. Obviously, that doesn’t affect this year’s lineup, but it will change the team dynamics. Despite whatever Toto Wolff may say about both drivers being treated equally in 2024, they won’t, they can’t and they shouldn’t.

Hamilton is moving to a direct rival and he will not be allowed to be involved in the car’s development plans. He will have to be kept as much in the dark as possible.

Yes, the team will need all of his points and he may get the same package as Russell, but the car will not be developed around Hamilton’s needs. Russell is their man going forward, and it is he who should be the focus of attention. Russell is canny enough to flex his muscles now, start to demand number1 status, and the team would be wise to give it to him.

Distractions

The management are now going to be distracted by planning for a new driver and coping with the loss of their talismanic team leader. Not only will Hamilton be leaving, he will likely take other staffers with him.

When do they go? Will they leave mid-season to see out any ‘gardening leave’ that is in their contract? It is all a bit messy. It was inevitable his time would end at some point, but it was not expected now.

Morale is going to take a hit and let’s be honest, Hamilton leaving is a massive vote of no confidence in Mercedes. Two poor cars in a row has exhausted Hamilton’s patience and I suspect that if this year’s car was going to be a real contender, he would have stayed put.

He has been tempted by a huge salary, but Hamilton wants to win races and titles. Money is not the issue. He sees Ferrari as the better bet, be that for 2025, or more likely 2026.

Stable Rear End

News from the simulator drivers is that Mercedes will have a car that feels like a proper car for the first time under the new regulations. That doesn’t mean it will be the same as when on the track, but it is a positive indicator. The design is aiming for a more stable rear end as a priority, so we should get a better idea of whether that has worked during testing.

We know that they have introduced push-rod rear suspension around a new gearbox design to help improve things. Overall aero efficiency is another target to improve straight line speed. The new design has allowed the cockpit to be moved back, something Hamilton had said was much needed.

New Concept

The new Mercedes is perhaps the most interesting of the 2024 cars. It is a new concept, whereas the other top teams are introducing ‘evolutions.’ This means the car could be anything. They are attempting to finally join the ground effect era with a fully competitive car.

The process started with the return of James Allison last summer and they are coming from 451 points behind Red Bull at the end of last season. They did still finish the 2023 season in second place, by just three points from a fast finishing Ferrari.

They were also behind McLaren in terms of form in the final ten races of 2023. However, just one race win in the last two seasons indicates just how far away Mercedes are from the top.

In The Mix For Second

Mercedes are very much in the mix for second place again, but Ferrari and McLaren are ahead of them in terms of having a solid 2023 base to work from. This is a big season for Mercedes. They have already lost the faith of their number 1 driver. If this car fails to deliver? Heads may roll.

Having to start from the ground up with a new concept is expensive and, under the cost cap regulations, Mercedes need to get it right first time. Otherwise, finding fixes would mean their budget will not see a proper series of in-season developments, alongside working on the 2025 (and more likely 2026) car. If the car doesn’t hit the ground running, it could signal a difficult season.

Overall 2024 F1 Season Outlook

Pros

Know how to win. Strong driver pairing. Excellent reliability.

Cons

Had to go back to the drawing board after wasting the first 18 months of the ground effect era. Playing catch up and not just to Red Bull. Imminent departure of talisman driver will hurt morale.

Ferrari

It is hard to say whether the 2023 season was a success or failure for Ferrari. Obviously, for a big team like Ferrari, not winning the World Championship is a failure, but in reality, Ferrari are a big team only in historical terms.

They were the only team other than Red Bull to win a Grand Prix in 2023 but they have not won a World Drivers’ title since Kimi Raikkonen won it in 2007. Their last Constructors’ Championship was in 2008.

One Lap Pace

Much of the success they had in 2023 was based on the car having good one lap pace. Leclerc and Sainz were bettered only by Verstappen in terms of the average qualifying positions. Leclerc scored four pole positions, Sainz two.

The pace was there, but the tyre degradation was too high over a race distance and that pace was often wasted. It was a big enough problem that it could not be addressed during the season. It was a baked in design problem and very hard to fix under a cost cap.

No doubt, addressing that problem was the main aim of the 2024 design and a team of Ferrari’s size really should, at the very least, improve the situation. But they are spending time and money fixing a problem, while Red Bull are spending theirs improving on one of the greatest cars in F1 history.

Continuity At The Top

Another success for Ferrari was not firing their team principle. The team have a habit of blaming the boss, firing the boss, getting a new boss, and firing that boss before he has time to improve things. Continuity is a virtue in F1, but one that Ferrari have historically been blind to for a long time.

In terms of resources, Ferrari should be competing for race wins every year, and at least occasional Championships. However, the expectations on the team are unrealistic. Unrealistic expectations are rarely met, and a vicious circle is started.

Lewis Hamilton announcing that he is to join Ferrari in 2025 is a bit of a coup for the team and cements Frédéric Vasseur’s place as team principle. He worked with Hamilton in the junior ranks and Ferrari are not going to ditch Vasseur after he has helped land the big fish.

How it all works out in 2025 remains to be seen but we know that Carlos Sainz is out at the end of this year and that is not going to do his 2024 chances any good.

Thumbs Up For New Car

As for the new car, early simulation runs have been given the thumbs up. Ferrari finished 2023 with back to back 2nd places for Leclerc. He ended up finishing fifth in the World Drivers’ Championship, tied on 206 points with Alonso (who scored more podium finishes). They were making progress, albeit with Red Bull having downed tools on their 2023 months earlier.

Technical director Enrico Cardile said “With the SF-24 we wanted to create a completely new platform and in fact, every area of the car has been redesigned, even if our starting point was the development direction we adopted last year. A big departure compared to 2022/23.”

Special attention has been given to improving DRS efficiency. Red Bull had a big advantage in this area last year.

Basic?

Impartial observers have called the new design ‘basic’, ‘conventional’, ‘underwhelming’, and ‘lacking ambition’. That of course doesn’t mean slow. Car launches are a bit shit to be honest. Half the time the car launched is not the one that turns up for testing and ultimately, the proof of the pudding is on the track.

Ferrari are alone in not going full on Red Bull copyists. A stroke of genius, or just plain dumb? They are sticking with their rear suspension lay out which the rest have rejected. Given their 2023 car’s tyre munching proclivities, I was expecting something different.

Own Worst Enemy

A rare level of continuity within the team and a 2023 car which is a decent basis to build on does bode well for Ferrari. However, they have been their own worst enemy over the years and how they would cope in a real Championship battle is open to question.

Their driver line up is good but Sainz is making way for Hamilton at the end of the season which means he will be out of the loop to some degree.

So long as Red Bull do not open an even bigger gap in 2024, Ferrari look well placed to improve on their sole win in 2023 and it looks like we could have a close contest for second place, between Ferrari and McLaren.

Overall 2024 F1 Season Outlook

Pros

Stable management in place. Good driver pairing. Have a decent base to work from.

Cons

Remain operationally suspect. Under massive pressure to deliver results. New car design has not wowed anyone.

Aston Martin

2023 was a strange season for Aston Martin. Out went Vettel, in came Alonso and the car hit the ground running. They were Red Bull’s nearest rivals, picking up six podiums from the first eight races, but as the competition improved their cars, so Aston Martin got bogged down.

Their in season developments didn’t work. The car’s design had gone down the Red Bull route mid-2022, but while it was quick out of the box, perhaps the team didn’t really understand it. Whatever it was, they floundered from the middle of the season and fell from second only to Red Bull, to finish fifth in the Constructors’ Championship.

For the last ten races of the season, Aston Martin scored at a rate of 8.7 points per GP, compared to 13.9 for Mercedes, 17.1 for McLaren, 20.0 for Ferrari and 32.1 for Red Bull.

Most Improved

That said, Aston Martin was the most improved team year on year, compared to 2022. It may be nit picking to say that their second half of the season was poor. From 55 points in 2022 to 280 in 2023 is a massive improvement.

However, the fact remains that they ended the season very much a midfield team. They were overtaken by McLaren, who had started the season in the doldrums, and Aston Martin were fighting more with the likes of Alpine for minor points in the latter part of the season.

The momentum had stopped dead and that rings alarm bells. Alonso did score a podium in Brazil late in the season, and they had double points finishes in the last three races, so perhaps they had found their way again in what was effectively a series of tests for the 2024 car.

Momentum

Aston martin may only have finished 7th in 2022, but they finished the end of that season in decent shape, the momentum was already there for 2023. That that momentum was lost in mid-2023 is a negative in my book.

They started 2023 on the front foot thanks to changing their design in mid-2022. Could it be that that they are now going to start 2024 on the back foot having lost their way in 2023? They do have a technical director, Dan Fallow, who joined Aston Martin from Red Bull in 2022, so they do have insights into what made the early ground effect Red Bull so good.

New Factory

Aston Martin have been investing heavily on their new ‘Campus’. The new factory to you and me. State of the art facilities never go amiss and the Aston Martin engineers will soon have what they need to compete with the best, but it is still all very new and it may take a bit more time to bed in and work its way through the system.

The new wind tunnel has not yet been commissioned, for example, so they are not yet a state of the art team. Aston Martin will continue to use Mercedes power units, gearboxes and suspension and will do until the end of 2026, after which, they will become the Honda works team under the new regulations.

Push Rod Suspension

A switch to a push-rod rear suspension was dictated by Mercedes making that move, and it is one of the common themes of the 2024 F1 cars. Red Bull and McLaren have shown that is the way to go, and while it is not a simple thing to change, the other teams have largely had to do just that.

The AM24 is said to be an evolution, a strong evolution (whatever that means) of last year’s car. Everything has been refined and improved. There is a new, shorter nose, very much along the lines of Red Bull and McLaren.

Improving straight line performance is an important area to focus on and there was some relatively low hanging fruit which should improve performance. Doing a better job of in season development is another area that can be improved.

It is likely that the car will see relatively early upgrades. The short winter break wasn’t long enough for Aston to get everything they wanted to do done in time for the start of the season. If these early upgrades work, they are on the right road.

Lawrence Stroll Losing Interest?

There are rumours that team owner, Lawrence Stroll, is losing some enthusiasm for the project. It was, after all, aimed at making his son World Champion. That isn’t going to happen, short of buying Red Bull and sacking Verstappen to replace him with Lance, and even then, it might not happen.

Their driver line up is not the team’s greatest strength. Alonso was at the top of his game in 2023, he still has the skills, fitness and enthusiasm to do a great job. However, is he really committed to Aston Martin?

He made comments at the car’s launch to the effect that he wasn’t ruling out a move to Mercedes as a replacement for Hamilton next year. Alonso is a free agent at the end of the season. He had the chance to say that he wasn’t interested in Mercedes, but he choose not to.

Alonso is a bit of a tart when it comes to loyalty. He has driven for six different teams in his time and he has not always made good choices. He is very self-centred and if he thinks the grass is greener on the other side, he will jump the fence.

Not Delivering

Lance Stroll has some merits. He is good in the wet, he is one of the best first lap drivers there is, but ultimately, he didn’t deliver the required goods. Yes, he started the season with significant injuries following a cycling accident, but he is not a driver who would make many peoples’ top 10 drivers on the grid.

Aston Martin remain a hard team to place. They improved greatly in 2023, but the fact that things fizzled out midseason is a concern. They were flattered in 2023 by the fact that Ferrari, Mercedes and McLaren all started 2023 poorly.

Aston Martin found themselves in the right place at the right time, but the reality was that they ended as a midfield outfit. Will they have been able to rediscover their momentum over the winter break?

The team has made big investments in infrastructure and staff, continuity is good and most things are pointing in the right direction, so progress should be made. However, progress is relative to their opponents and Aston’s success will be as much down to how the likes of McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes perform.

Overall 2024 F1 Season Outlook

Pros

Improved infrastructure coming on stream. Excellent number 1 driver.

Cons

New infrastructure bedding in. Ordinary number 2 driver. Poor development in 2023 has cost them performance.

Visa Cash App RB

That is not a typo. This is the catchy new name for Alpha Tauri, the Reb Bull B team. To save time, I shall refer to them simply as Visa RB.

Being a closer relative to the RB19 is the key design feature of this year’s Visa RB. If this is the case and it makes big gains as a result, expect much wailing and gnashing of teeth from the other eight teams.

The regulations mean it cannot be a direct copy, but this will be as close as the regulations allow. The car is a Visa RB design, but they are permitted to use the same gearbox and suspension (for 2024 the Visa RB will use the full Red Bull suspensions, rather than just the rear suspension of last year), and they already use the same power unit.

Last year’s Red Bull was pretty handy, but that doesn’t mean that this Visa RB is going to be as good. It will have a different chassis, aerodynamic surfaces and floor, for example, but we shall just have to wait and see.

New Leaders

The team has new leaders. Peter Bayer as CEO and ex-Ferrari man Laurent Mekies as team principal. Other recent recruits include Tim Goss, formerly of the FIA and McLaren, plus former Red Bull aerodynamicist Guillaume Cattelani and ex-Renault and Alpine sporting director Alan Permane. A negative mark for continuity? Perhaps, but it is also a sign of ambition to move forward.

Long time team principle, Franz Tost, will still be available on a consultant basis in order to ensure as smooth a handover as possible. Mekies is returning ‘home’ as he started his career at the then Minardi F1 team, which has morphed into Visa RB after various (and far better) name changes.

Red Bull Ties

The closer ties between Red Bull and Visa RB are said to involve more of the former Alpha Tauri team being moved from their Italian base to England and closer to Red Bull’s operations. This has caught the attention of the other teams and the FIA, but so long as no rules are broken, then it is all OK.

If the Visa RB is as poor as last year’s car, then it will be forgotten about, but if it shows a marked improvement, fingers will be pointed. There is an advantage for two teams under the same ownership umbrella but Alpha Tauri and Red Bull are not alone in having what is effectively a B team.

Dodgy Drivers

Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda kept their seats, but it is not a great driver line up. There were no great signs of a return to form for Ricciardo after he replaced Nyck DeVries mid-season, and Tsunoda’s improvement in 2023 was limited at best.

The team was firmly in the third division last season and they have been disappointing in this ground effect era. There was talk about Red Bull selling the team, their results were not justifying the costs, but the synergies of having a B team do bring benefits which are hard to put a value on, so Red Bull have decided that it is worth the cost.

A 7th place finish in the Constructors’ Championship would seem to be the best they can do, unless they can produce something relatively close to last year’s Red Bull, in which case 5th or 6th?

The new car does look good. They have Red Bull front suspension which is new, and there is plenty of homage to last years Red Bull. It looks more sophisticated, but the acid test comes in Bahrain.

Overall 2024 F1 Season Outlook

Pros

Closer integration with the World Championship winning team.

Cons

Lack of continuity in terms of management and moving staff from Italy to the UK. Uninspiring driver line up.

Alpine

A works team but just how interested are Alpine/Renault in Formula 1? They sold off a chunk to a group of celebrity investors last year. That will inject some much needed capital into the team, but a lack of money is only part of the problem

The team’s performance has slipped in recent years, the management structure was unusual and ultimately ineffective. The team needs more money to invest in infrastructure, so selling off chunks makes sense, but the team does need more than just money.

It needs a restructure, a proper management hierarchy and perhaps the fact that the team has two geographic bases needs to be addressed. Half the team is in France, the other half in England. Brexit has made that operation even more difficult.

Chaos

It is safe to say that the team was in chaos last season, sacking the top management at very short notice mid-season, and with no real alternative in place. Bruno Famin was brought in as the ‘interim’ team principle but he was confirmed as permanent at the launch He is also heading up Alpine’s Hyper Car World Endurance racing program, so he has a lot on his plate.

Famin, an engine and gearbox man by trade, has little F1 pedigree and only joined the team in the summer of 2023. He has appointed two COO’s, one in the UK and one in France. They are ‘back office’ operators and not really F1 people. Again, it seems Renault/Alpine have chosen a leftfield management structure. In terms of management continuity, Alpine is bottom of the pile.

Driver Issues

Alonso walked at the end of 2022 and the team completely messed up the signing of Oscar Piastri, who was free to join McLaren instead. Alpine could have had an Alonso/Piastri driver line up. Now they have an unstable management structure, low morale and a driver pairing of Ocon and Gasly, who are not exactly soul mates.

Alpine finished bottom of the second division in 2022 and their only saving grace for 2024 is that the gap to the 7th placed team, Williams, was 92 points. I suspect that it will be smaller in 2024, but surely Williams can’t overcome that gap?

Not Much Positivity

It is hard to be in anyway positive about Alpine’s prospects. The whole idea of running a F1 team to promote a relatively low volume, low value Renault owned sports car brand is weak.

Yes, the cost cap era makes it more viable, but are Renault really that interested in F1, outside of being a power unit supplier? At times, it doesn’t look like it. Perhaps a change of owner makes more sense than just a change of management.

The Renault power unit is still the least powerful on the grid and while not by the same margin as in the past, it is another negative. The new car, the A525, is said to be an all new car, a brand new concept to see them through this and next season.

Buzz Words

There are the usual buzz words like ‘strong’ and ‘aggressive’. A platform for development blah, blah, blah. It is hoped that the car will have a bigger sweet spot than the previous one. There is revised rear suspension, modified brakes, a new front nose and wing and of course, the all-important floor is new.

The plan is for the team to have a steeper development program than in 2023, which makes it sound that what we get at the start, isn’t quite finished?

The nose of the car is very bulbous which goes against the general trends, and the general view is that the car doesn’t have much to suggest that it will be anything special in its release guise.

Overall 2024 F1 Season Outlook

Pros

I’m struggling here.

Cons

Management structure remains ungainly. Power unit is relatively uncompetitive.

Stake F1

Another change of name for the team waiting to become Audi in 2026. This year the Sauber/Alfa Romeo team will be called Stake F1. The title sponsor is Australian online Casino/bookmaker Stake.

This may cause some problems in jurisdictions with anti-gambling legislation, so we will see the livery and name tweaked for some races, a bit like at the end of the tobacco sponsorship era.

The last two seasons under the ground effect rules have seen Sauber struggle. The first year saw them start with one of the few cars to be underweight and they picked up some decent results until the others went on a diet.

After that, there has little to write home about. The 2023 car was not competitive, scoring just 16 points and finishing ahead only of Haas.

Something Different?

This year’s car might offer something different. The team have decided to have a change of concept. The old car wasn’t doing it so they have decided to start from scratch. The team recruited James Key from McLaren and he is behind the new car. Key is not the only new face at Sauber as they build up to becoming a works team with Audi, so we should see something different.

The new car has some noticeable changes. They have changed the front suspension to a Red Bull style pull rod lay out. The bodywork is all new and the car is said to be virtually ‘all new’.

The floor is a new concept and while it is good that the team have moved away from a poor design, that is a lot of change. We shall just have to wait and see if it all works and how much improvement they can make relative to the rest. There is also the matter of how much of their budget is left for development during the season.

Messy Management Structure

The management structure is a bit messy, ex McLaren man Andras Seidl is the CEO and a former driver manager, and former Sauber managing director Alunni Bravi is the ‘team representative’. It remains unclear if either is in Audi’s long term plan, or if this just a temporary arrangement until Audi take over.

The newly designed car should be an improvement, but this is a team in transition and a little hard to get too excited about right now. The Bottas/Zhou driver pairing hardly gets the pulse racing either.

Overall 2024 F1 Season Outlook

Pros

Clean slate design should be an improvement.

Cons

Management structure is messy. Very much an interim set up. Driver line up not great.

Williams

There were real signs of improvement in 2023, under the leadership of ex-Mercedes man, James Vowles. They have proper management for the first time in a long time. The appointment of the hugely experienced Pat Fry to head up the technical side of things is another big positive for Williams.

Money has been invested in the team. It takes time for capital investments to produce better results, but at least it is a start. The finances will have been improved by adding more sponsors to the roster, as seen on the new livery.

Vowles has said before that 2023 and 2024 were going to be restructuring years, building the team up in terms of personnel and infrastructure. Years of underinvestment had dragged the team to the bottom and it will take time to get back, just to midfield level, but they are on the right path with a long term plan, and that is getting ready for the 2026 regulation reset.

Lopsided Lineup

The team have a very lopsided driver line up. Alex Albon is a quality driver. He took some time to get back the self-belief required after his bumpy ride with Red Bull and Torro Rosso. He is thriving as the team leader at Williams and he is capable for getting the most from whatever car he gets.

Logan Sargeant, on the other hand, looked out of his depth in F1. The 2023 car was not great and hard for a rookie to get the measure of, so the team have decided to give Sargeant another go. He was very close to being let go, so he will have to show a real improvement if he is to stay in F1.

Upwardly Mobile

Willams moved from bottom of the pile in 2022 to finish ahead of Haas, Alfa Romeo and Alpha Tauri in 2023. That was a good result prizemoney wise, but it meant they only went top of division three.

The gap to the underperforming Alpine in sixth place was ninety two points. That is a chasm. More progress looks likely. Williams should close the gap to Alpine, but overtaking them would require Alpine to nosedive, which is not impossible.

Overall 2024 F1 Season Outlook

Pros

New management is working well. Strong recruitment, better investment. Direction of travel is positive. Number 1 driver an asset.

Cons

Coming from a long way back. Driver pairing too lopsided.

Haas

Having sacked long term team principle Guenther Steiner in January and also parting company with tech director Simone Resta, Haas have a new team boss in Ayao Komatsu. The Japanese race engineer has worked his way up the team since joining in 2016, the team’s debut season.

One of Komatsu’s first jobs is to try and improve how the team works from its three operational bases. They have a site in Italy at the Ferrari factory, another in England, and the head office in the US.

Like Alpine, Haas are realising that having multiple bases is far from ideal. The new boss says that improving communication between the different bases will be one of his key aims. Management roles will be reorganised, mostly from within, and the team need a new technical director at their design office in Italy

Financial Weakness

The team’s biggest weakness, however, is money. They have not had the funds to develop their cars in season. They have tended to start with a reasonable car, capable of picking up some points early in the season, but then they flounder as others out develop them and Haas almost inevitably sink to the bottom. A new boss isn’t going to fix that in a hurry.

Komatsu is already talking about no radical changes and that this will be a long term project and a gradual process. That does sound like we shouldn’t expect much to change. Komatsu is an engineer at heart, more so than Guenther Steiner was, but he also knows how to work closely with drivers.

Haas are planning to appoint a UK based Chief Operating Officer to manage sponsorship and marketing, leaving Komatsu to concentrate on the technical and engineering aspects of being a team principle.

Tyre Degradation Issues

Last year’s car had creditable qualifying pace, but high rates of tyre degradation meant that scoring points was very difficult. They only managed twelve and eight of those came in the first five races.

In last year’s preview I said that Haas were backable in the early races but the same may not apply this year. How they develop the car in 2024 remains to be seen, but past form suggests they will struggle.

The first challenge for the team is to have redesigned the cars suspension to cure the horrible tyre degradation. That may not actually be in their hands as the suspension is supplied by Ferrari, who also suffered with high tyre degradation.

Ferrari Suspension

That is the problem with a ‘budget’ F1 car, you don’t have total control of design of all the car. No doubt Ferrari will have worked to improve the situation, but the design of the suspension is for the Ferrari. Haas will have to hope that it also works on theirs, which will have different aerodynamic surfaces. It is not a one size fits all system.

The new car has more of a Red Bull look to it, which is going to be a bit of a theme for this year’s cars. Gone are the bulky Ferrari style side pods but the suspension, the Ferrari built suspension, has remained a pushrod front and pull rod rear set up, the same as last year. It is an evolution of the upgraded car they introduced in Texas late last year.

The new boss is not exactly over selling the new car. “The Austin package means the VF-24 launch car may not be as advanced as it could be, but at the same time we have better confidence in what we’re putting out on track now. We’re all realistic that our launch car in Bahrain will not necessarily turn heads, but our concentration and focus is to work with the VF-24, understand the car, and then define the correct pathway to upgrade the car.”

Bottom Dwellers

Haas peaked in 2018, finishing fifth in the Constructors’ Championship, but in two of the last three years, they have finished last. It is hard to see Haas being in anything other than a fight for ninth and tenth place.

Perhaps the team’s greatest strength is the driver pairing of Hulkenberg and Magnussen. Both are probably wasted with such a struggling team, but if the car has any pace, they will be able to exploit it, as they showed in qualifying last season.

Overall 2024 F1 Season Outlook

Pros

Experienced drivers.

Cons

Poor continuity management wise. Lack of money. Lack of ambition.

2024 F1 Season Summary

As we embark on the longest Formula 1 season in history, it would be great to think it could be a classic, but I doubt that it will.

It is very likely that Red Bull will still have the best car by a big margin, and who knows, they might be even further ahead. They have the best designer and the best driver, coupled with a team that knows how to win and keep on winning.

Red Bull Strong

It is very hard to see any weaknesses in the team and those that are there are small and likely to be fixable, such as slow corner performance. Only something extraordinary can stop Verstappen picking up his fourth World Drivers title. Motor racing remains dangerous and a serious injury cannot be ruled out, but thankfully that is much less likely in this day and age.

Of course, many will see the issues surrounding Christian Horner as a crisis, but while it is not ideal, in the short term, i.e., this season, they already have what they need to win.

Battle For Second

The battle for second place will be much more interesting and let’s hope that the oddsmakers show some imagination and offer up a bigger range of markets. Not just the usual drivers and Constructors’ Championship markets, or intra team H2Hs.

Part Two of the 2024 Season Preview will be posted after the conclusion of the pre-season testing in Bahrain. That will concentrate on what we learned in testing and focus on trying to find any ante post betting value, if indeed there is any to be found.

-JamesPunt