Four Races, Four Takeaways

We've had a quartet of races so far and with that, we wanted to come together and give you all some of our biggest observations in the young season. There are a lot of things that could be talked about (Williams lack of spare chassis, Sauber forgetting how to do a pitstop, Alpine having an implosion, etc) but it might be interesting to revisit some preseason narratives that have since changed their tune. We'll start with the presumptive 10th best team of 2024, who have seen a massive turnaround.

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‍Haas' Resurgence

There are three teams that through four races have yet to score a point. If you had polled 10 people before the season about which three teams would have yet to score a point, I imagine that most people would have guessed Haas, Alfa Romeo, and Alpine. But, it’s Williams, not Haas, who has yet to score a point. Hulkenberg has continued his solid qualifying form and Magnussen, questionable defensive tactics aside, has shown the ability to make moves and score the odd point. They are sixth in the championship and it's quite possible they can maintain P6 throughout the season.

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Mercedes Struggles

Mercedes is having the opposite problem of Haas. While Haas has shown improvements from season to season, Mercedes has seemingly dropped further and further back each season during the new regulations. The zero side pod idea didn’t work out and they have had to change their concept completely, setting them back even further from the top. They won a race in 2022, fell further back, and had their best chance in Singapore in 2023, and now they are battling for seventh in races in 2024.

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Daniel Ricciardo’s Sloppy Start

Many were on the Daniel Ricciardo hype train during the preseason. More than once we heard “Oh, he’s gonna get Perez’s seat, it’s a matter of time”. Those people have gotten really quiet after the first few races. For the record, I was not one of those people, though there isn’t any written record of that so you’ll have to trust me! Yuki has out-qualified Ricciardo at every single event so far and finished ahead of him in three of his four races. And the one race was assisted by team orders. If that wasn’t bad enough, his crash on the first lap of the Japanese GP was certainly not helping his case.

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Ferrari Stability

Throughout the history of Formula 1 Ferrari have continually over promised and under delivered, broken up by intermittent spells of absolute domination. So far in 2024 though they have done exactly what they said they were going to do. The SF-24 is a much more driveable car that has a good balance and good performance across a wide variety of circuits. What’s more Ferrari have clearly overcome their previous struggles with tyre wear as highlighted by Charles Leclerc’s brilliant one stopping drive at the Japanese Grand Prix. The team as a whole appear more stable and more responsive and the results show this with five podiums and a race win from the first four races.        

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