Unsurprisingly, the first two races of 2024 have brought with them continued Red Bull dominance. Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez have secured 1-2 podium victories in both Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. Speaking to F1 following the race in Jeddah, Verstappen said that “it has been a great start to the year and we don’t know the full potential of the car yet so now we want to keep the momentum going.”. While Perez commented: “I really feel like we have done the two steps forward that I was looking for this weekend, so we are getting closer to where we need to be.”
Ferrari managed to achieve a P3 position in both races to start the season. Carlos Sainz took third in Sakhir and Charles Leclerc got P3 in Jeddah. In addition, rookie Ollie Bearman performed well in his F1 debut when stepping in for Sainz following his appendicitis surgery.
The two Brits at Mercedes seem to be struggling to match the performance of Ferrari and McLaren, falling behind their biggest competitors in the constructors’ standings. Lewis Hamilton seems to be experiencing more issues than his teammate, George Russell, and is currently 10 points behind him.
The qualifying pace of Aston Martin has been promising, but this has not translated into race pace. Fernando Alonso has been starting strong, but then struggled to keep to the front in a full race length. The team also experienced some bad luck with Lance Stroll crashing out if the race in Saudi Arabia, causing him to DNF.
McLaren’s qualifying pace has been weaker than their ‘best of the rest’ competitors. However, both drivers, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, have been performing well in the races to score a good amount of points between them. Speaking after the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, Norris said:
“We took a little bit of a gamble, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t and today it didn’t, but it could have done! So, I’m still happy. I think today’s pace was pretty strong so there are some good signs there. On to the next one!”
Source: F1
All-French team, Alpine, have had a disastrous start to their 2024 season. In the first race, the two drivers achieved only P17 and P18 after a terrible qualifying session. Then, at the start of the second race, Pierre Gasly was forced to retire his car due to a gearbox issue, while Esteban Ocon failed to score points and finished in P13.
Underdogs, Haas, seem to be performing better than was perhaps expected. They have enjoyed some success in both qualifying and race sessions. But, in typical Haas unlucky form, they have struggled with a few issues. Nico Hulkenberg had a lap one incident with Lance Stroll in Bahrain and Kevin Magnussen picked up two separate 10-second penalties on the streets of Jeddah.
The RB team have had some dramas to start the season and are not delivering as well as the pre-season testing may have led us all to believe they would. Both drivers seem to be struggling to finish in the points. However, despite this, Alan Permane, Team Principal of RB, believes the team are moving in the right direction and said, following the race in Jeddah:
“Overall, we clearly made a step with our understanding of the car and qualified well, which is positive. We now look forward to a break for our team after a long three weeks away, and I have no doubt we’ll come back stronger in Melbourne.”
Source: F1
Sauber had been initially optimistic about their new C44 car, but have yet to make a real impression in the races. This poor performance is partly due to some bad luck, particularly for Valtteri Bottas. However, even his teammate, Zhou Guanyu, with better luck has struggled to score points.
Finally, Williams have not had the best start to the season in the midfield pack. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Alex Albon has been putting in a stronger performance than his teammate, Logan Sargeant. However, both drivers are still yet to score points.
Currently, the constructors’ championship standings are:
- Red Bull – 87 points
- Ferrari – 49 points
- McLaren – 28 points
- Mercedes – 26 points
- Aston Martin – 13 points
- Haas – 1 point
- Williams – 0 points
- Sauber – 0 points
- RB – 0 points
- Alpine – 0 points
And, the drivers’ championship standings are:
- Max Verstappen – 51 points
- Sergio Perez – 36 points
- Charles Leclerc – 28 points
- George Russell – 18 points
- Oscar Piastri – 16 points
- Carlos Sainz – 15 points
- Fernando Alonso – 12 points
- Lando Norris – 12 points
- Lewis Hamilton – 8 points
- Ollie Bearman – 6 points
- Nico Hulkenberg – 1 point
- Lance Stroll – 1 point
- Alex Albon – 0 points
- Zhou Guanyu – 0 points
- Kevin Magnussen – 0 points
- Daniel Ricciardo – 0 points
- Esteban Ocon – 0 points
- Yuki Tsunoda – 0 points
- Logan Sargeant – 0 points
- Valtteri Bottas – 0 points
- Pierre Gasly – 0 points
What are your impressions following the first two races of 2024? What do you predict for the next few races of the season? Comment below to let us know.
Written by Hannah.
Featured Image Credit: @F1Clapped on Twitter
About The Author
Leave a Reply