2024 Formula 1 preview: Are Max and Red Bull beatable?

The 2024 Formula 1 World Championship begins in Bahrain tonight being a special Saturday night meeting. Last year was, in some ways, a disappointment – but it was a record-breaking year of complete domination by one team and its star driver.

While Red bull dominated, there was however a rise in the performance of a couple of teams and, with the destabilisation of the Red bull Racing’s management, the door is ajar … Auto Action’s F1 man on the spot, Luis Vasconcelos looks at who might step up to challenge Max and his team …

VERSTAPPEN AGAINST THE WORLD! 

Max Verstappen testing the Red Bull Racing RB20 at Bahrain. Photo by Steven Tee / LAT Images

There’s no point beating around the bush – Max Verstappen and Red Bull head into Bahrain as the hot favorites to win this year’s titles and it will take a giant leap from one of the team’s closest competitors to topple the partnership that completely dominated last year’s Formula 1 World Championship.

Very much like Mercedes understood the 2024 Technical Regulations better than any other team – in this case with particular emphasis on the way the innovative Power Units would work – Red Bull hit the ground running at the start of 2022, when new regulations for the chassis design came into effect.

With Mercedes and Ferrari insisting on keeping their failed 2022 concepts at the start of the following year, RB even managed to extend its dominance in the second year of the life of those regulations.

Now, at least, those two teams have completely redone their cars, accepted they’ve been going down a couple of dead-end alleys, copied what they reckon was worth copying from Red Bull, and gone down their own routes in the areas they believe have better concepts than the Austrian team.

 Therefore, while they may need a bit of time to fully understand their new cars, they should, in theory, start 2024 closer to Red Bull than was the case this time last year.

But clearly, Red Bull hasn’t stood still and has continued to develop a concept that clearly worked, refining the car’s design and pushing the boundaries, as is Adrian Newey’s trademark.

Look at the combination of the nosecone and the front wing of the RB20 and it’s not difficult to understand why the car failed the frontal crash test’s first attempt!

With a couple more layers of carbon fibre skin added to it, the structure withstood the test, but the extra weight on the front of the car won’t make it ideal for Verstappen’s driving style, as it will make the front end of the RB20 less compliant with the first steering input – which, on the other hand, will play into Sérgio Pérez’s hands nicely.

Shades of 2023, before the team optimised the car design, making the front end extremely sharp.

From then on, Verstappen was in a world of his own, so it won’t be a surprise if the internal battle at Red Bull will go exactly the same way this time too.

Even more so now that the team has no restrictions on its aerodynamic development time, unlike in 2023, as its penalty was served by the end of last October.

THE BATTLE OF THE BRITS

Lewis Hamilton will start his final season for Mercedes. Photo by Steve Etherington / LAT Images

While there’s no doubt the Red Bull-Verstappen combo is the odds-on favorite, Mercedes and Ferrari have both made it clear this is not a transition year and the goal is, clearly, to challenge the Austrian team and fight for the title.

Both the W15 and the SF-24 feature some innovative and unique solutions that, if working as expected, could give them some edge on a few areas – and all four drivers from these teams have something to prove in 2024.

For Lewis Hamilton, finishing his long partnership with Mercedes by winning a record-breaking eighth world title would be amazing and, in his and the team’s eyes, just reward for the injustice they were dealt at the end of the 2021 season.

While George Russell had the upper hand in the first half of 2022, when Mercedes was chasing all possible routes to try and find the potential of the failed W13, from the moment the team opted to simply maximise what it had, Lewis Hamilton has been the most effective of the two British drivers.

Particularly in race management, he’s still a more complete driver than Russell and will want to make sure he leaves Mercedes on a high, remaining the clear team leader until the end.

Russell, on the other hand, wants to put the disappointing 2023 season behind him and assert himself as the new team leader before a new challenger (possibly  teenage sensation Andrea Kimi Antonelli) lands on his shores, to get an early edge over his future team-mate. 

Given there was never any love lost between Hamilton and Russell, I’d expect more on-track clashes between the two as none of them will want to lose this battle.

LECLERC ON THE ATTACK

What can Charles Leclerc do in the Ferrari SF-24? hoto by Sam Bloxham / LAT Images

Like Russell, Charles Leclerc needs to show the Ferrari management he can be their team leader before Lewis Hamilton arrives in Maranello with all the weight of being the most successful driver in the sport’s history.

The Monegasque is probably the fastest qualifier in the field, but has made it clear that plenty of pole positions and just a couple of wins per year are no longer enough to satisfy himself and the team.

This year he’s out to challenge Verstappen and has proved in the past he can beat the ruthless Dutchman in wheel-to-wheel battle, so it will be fascinating to see them go head-to-head if they have identically competitive machinery.

For team mate Carlos Sainz, the two goals of the year are to prove Ferrari was wrong by letting him go and putting Hamilton in his seat, as well as showing the other teams he’s World Championship material and can lead a new challenge next year.

The Spaniard is never a quick season starter, but works well to get to the front after a few races, a luxury he won’t have this season as he needs to make an immediate impact to prove both his points. A strong-minded man, Sainz may be more difficult to control from the pit wall than in the last three years, so Vasseur and his team may have a job in their hands to make sure the team comes first in the battle between its two drivers.

HOW FAR CAN McLAREN GO? 

Oscar Piastri in the new McLaren MCL38 at Bahrain International Circuit. Photo by Simon Galloway / LAT Images)

In the second part of last year, McLaren proved it’s possible for a ‘customer’ team to beat its Power Unit supplier – but without taking any merit away from Andrea Stella and his people, Mercedes has been underperforming since the start of 2002, so McLaren and Aston Martin took advantage of it. 

This year, with stable technical regs, big leaps in competitiveness will be more difficult to achieve but, still, McLaren built a strong foundation in 2023 and is expected to capitalise on it.

The British team also has one of the strongest – if not the strongest – driver line-up in the field.

Yes, Lando Norris is yet to win a Grand Prix but he has shown on plenty of occasions that he’s capable of beating the best, given the right car to do it.

Anxiety got the better of him on a few occasions in 2023, particularly in Qatar where he threw away two pole positions and compromised his race results, but he’s worked over the winter to overcome his issues and should be a strong contender right from the start of the year.

Now on his second Formula 1 season, Oscar Piastri has all it takes to establish himself as a regular front-runner.

When last year’s MCL60 became competitive, the Australian was instantly on the pace, from Silverstone onwards and, making fewer mistakes than Norris in qualifying, set himself for a sprint win and a solid P2 in the main event in Qatar. 

Race management, particularly on tracks that were very demanding on the tyres, was where he was lacking but experience helps a lot and that’s why I expect Piastri to be a season-long match for Norris and making sure there will be two McLaren up there at all times.

Aston Martin should be part of this battle at the front, the lessons learned from last year’s very competitive car now integrated on the first chassis fully designed and built in the new factory.

In Fernando Alonso, the British team has a formidable leader who will squeeze everything out of the AMR24, in search of that elusive 33rd Grand Prix win.

But unlike Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren, Aston Martin doesn’t have a balanced line-up, as Lance Stroll doesn’t belong in the same class as his direct rivals, leaving Alonso alone on most occasions, and, therefore vulnerable on strategic battles.

AIMING TO JOIN THE TOP TEAMS …

Daniel Ricciardo driving the VCARB 01 on day three of F1 Testing. Photo by Rudy Carezzevoli/Getty Images/Red Bull Content Pool

Four other teams start the season aiming to mix with the best: Alpine, Red Bull’s second team – whatever you want to call it now – Williams and Sauber, now rebranded as Stake.

The French team was on its own all 2023 and will continue to battle with a weaker engine, but it made some breakthroughs on chassis performance and could close the gap to the front.

Daniel Ricciardo’s team should benefit from a much closer technical cooperation with Red Bull, but its move to the front of the grid will surely come with a political backlash as the rest of the field will try to force the sale of the team to make it a level playing field for all.

Still, until that happens, the Aussie and Yuki Tsunoda will also battle it up between themselves, both targeting Pérez’s seat for 2025 and under pressure from having Liam Lawson waiting in the wings to replace them.

Williams was one of the sensations of 2023 and, in Alex Albon, has a potential Grand Prix winner who can take the car to positions it shouldn’t be in. So if the new car is quick, the Thai will deliver. Logan Sargeant, on the other hand, has one year to prove he’s Formula 1 material, but I believe he’s got the necessary talent and will run Albon much closer than in 2023.

Down at Sauber Stake F1, everyone has to prove their worth: the team underperformed badly last year, Valtteri Bottas rarely showed the form seen for five years at Mercedes and Zhou Guanyu didn’t make the progress expected for his second season, so it’s a case or win or bust for all of them in Hinwill.

Finally, by its own management’s admission, Haas is likely to start the year at the back – and I can’t see how it will move forward, as the concept the team operates with is inadequate for the current Formula 1 format.

Without Gunther Steiner the team will be less mediatic but in Ayao Komatsu it will have a capable Team Principal, more technically minded and more adept to find a positive way to motivate Magnussen and Hulkenberg than giving them Steiner-style tough love!

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