Leclerc had another fantastic win in Texas, taking the lead perfectly at the start of the race and then never coming under threat afterwards. More races need to go this way.
2. Carlos Sainz-
Carlos also had a great United States Grand Prix, at times showing greater pace than eventual race winner Leclerc. Whilst the start did not go quite how he wanted, Sainz still used the natural pace of the Ferrari to finish in second, his best result since his win in Australia at the beginning of the year.
3. Nico Hulkenberg-
Whilst not maximizing qualifying like his teammate, Nico made up for that with a brilliant race to finish at the head of the midfield. Solid results in both the race and the main sprint have pushed Haas up to sixth in the championship, as they have firmly established themselves this year as a team that needs to be taken seriously.
4. Liam Lawson-
On his return to F1, Liam delivered a fantastic performance, running the alternative hard-to-medium strategy to climb from the back of the grid into the points. Most impressive was when he was faster on old hard tyres than his teammate Yuki Tsunoda (who has been in the car all year) was on his new hard tyres. If Liam wants to make the argument that he should be promoted to Red Bull next year, he’s started well.
5. Franco Colapinto-
Franco Colapinto had yet another fantastic race, to score another point for Williams. Like Lawson, he utilized the hard-to-medium strategy, which he had recommended to the team himself. It proved a wise choice and allowed for Franco to drag his car into the points. Franco is really making the case for a full-time F1 career, he is showing tremendous potential.
The United States Grand Prix was a good race. Not quite in the top tier, but fun battles, varying strategies and a Ferrari 1-2 all bolstered the entertainment last weekend. COTA is one of the better F1 circuits, with a steady flow of varied corners that promote battling and unconventional moves throughout the laps. A race at the Circuit of the Americas is often an entertaining watch, so when the result is also to my liking, I receive a welcome boost to my dwindling serotonin count.
Lando Norris delivered a great lap in qualifying to earn pole position after George Russell crashed during the final laps. But as fans have witnessed throughout this season, a Lando Norris pole usually results in someone else leading after the first lap. This time Lando had a woeful start, failing to cover the inside line from Max Verstappen despite having the space to. When you Verstappen an inch, he takes a mile, as he lunged into the first corner, pushing Lando off the track in the process. Whilst this worked for Verstappen, it resulted in the door being left wide open and Charles Leclerc wasted no time in waltzing through that door to take the lead. From there, in the car that showed the most race pace throughout the weekend, Leclerc was never at threat of losing the lead. Lando’s sloppy start placed a win straight into Ferrari’s hands.
Despite a relatively embarrassing start, Lando can take pride in not being the driver who humiliated himself the most at COTA. That goes to Lewis Hamilton. Lewis, the seven-time world champion, qualified in nineteenth, behind his former teammate Valtteri Bottas in the slowest car. If that wasn’t enough, Lewis then spun out on his own on lap three. This was an uncharacteristically terrible performance for a driver of Lewis’ calibre and by the time his career has ended, this may go down as his worst weekend. Whilst this sounds harsh, it’s only because Lewis is a driver who is rightly rated so highly that this performance is notable. I’m not devoting an entire paragraph to Zhou Guanyu’s equally embarrassing performance, since I expected it from him.
Throughout the race the Ferrari’s easily dominated. After Carlos Sainz undercut Max Verstappen to take second, Max’s only worry was finishing behind his closest championship rival, Lando in the McLaren. McLaren recovered from their poor track position relatively well, pitting much later than their rivals to hunt down Verstappen towards the race’s conclusion. When Lando Norris caught up to Max Verstappen, they had a cinematic battle, with Max judging his car positioning perfectly to ensure that Lando had as little chance as possible of finding a way past him. This battle was thrilling to watch, if only it wasn’t ruined by the stewards.
As Lando finally got a good run on Max Verstappen, he looked to make the move around the outside of turn 12. Yet, Max, ever the expert at pushing to the edge of the rulebook, completely outbraked himself, pushing himself and Norris off the track. Lando proceeded to still make the overtake outside the track limits and McLaren were convinced that they would not receive a penalty as Lando had nowhere else to go. Yet, the stewards had a different interpretation, arguing that since Max was ahead of Lando at the apex of the corner, that it constituted an illegal overtake by Lando. I feel that this was a poor argument, as the only reason that Verstappen was ever ahead at the apex was because he had no intention of making the corner. Yet for this, the stewards punished Lando with a five second penalty, pushing back behind Max at the race finish. This is an example of bad stewarding that fails to let the drivers race each other without risking a penalty. Even more infuriating was the fact that there were multiple very similar incidents throughout the weekend, yet the stewards came to completely different, inconsistent decisions each time. This is not good enough.
However, the bad stewarding didn’t stop me from loving another exciting win for Charles. Beyond that, the fantastic performances from Franco Colapinto and Liam Lawson made the case that the crop of young drivers we have coming into F1 is going to make one of the most talented fields we have ever seen. The race was exhilarating, and the result was what I wanted to happen, so I’m happy with the US Grand Prix.
This may be the best performance of Lando’s career yet. He took a commanding pole position and proceeded to drive away from the rest of the field. It was a truly dominant and faultless display, one Lando has proven he is capable of. If Lando became a more consistent driver and delivered on this potential every weekend, he’d easily be championship material.
2. Max Verstappen-
It feels odd to sing Max Verstappen’s praises for coming in second, so used we are to seeing him dominate the rest of the field. But, in a car that has not been performing well at all in recent races, Max got the absolute maximum out of it, qualifying just behind Lando Norris and finishing comfortably ahead of every driver not named Lando Norris.
3. Fernando Alonso-
Fernando had a quiet but commanding performance in Singapore to finish at the top of the midfield. These performances are becoming common in 2024 and whilst I wish that Aston Martin was closer to the podium, Fernando is still one of the most consistent drivers in the sport.
4. Nico Hulkenberg-
Nico Hulkenberg is probably regretting leaving Haas at this point in the season, because his stint with the US outfit has really revitalized his career. And yet again, Nico maximized, qualifying in sixth and finishing the race in ninth place to take two more points for the team. Haas is slowly catching up to RB and will probably catch them with a few more point finishes.
5. Franco Colapinto-
Franco Colapinto is continuing to impress in his rookie races for Williams. He made a fantastic divebomb at turn one to put himself into the points, after only being narrowly outqualified by his teammate. Whilst strategy made it so that Franco missed out on consecutive points finishes, he only finished just outside of the points in eleventh. For his third race, the hardest race of the year, this performance was fantastic.
I have little to say about the Singapore Grand Prix. The race at Singapore is only usually interesting if a safety car grants some strategic variety, as happened last year. However, as is becoming typical in 2024, there were no safety cars in Singapore, making the race quite boring. My personal frustration was only compounded by both Ferrari drivers screwing up qualifying and only recovering to fifth and seventh in the race, so I couldn’t even enjoy the result. However, there were a couple of topics throughout the weekend that I feel are worth giving my (belated) opinions on.
The first of these is the way in which Daniel Ricciardo has been treated. It’s not a secret that I haven’t been particularly impressed with Daniel’s performances this year. Whilst an improvement on his dreadful stint at McLaren, Daniel has been humbled by Yuki Tsunoda and it’s apparent that he is not the driver he used to be. However, he is a seven-time GP winner for the Red Bull team, so deserved a gracious farewell. Dropping him from the RB team with six races left to go in the season is not very respectful to his legacy. Not even telling anyone and leaving him in a position where he had no farewell, instead being resorted to being close to tears in interviews during the weekend, was completely abominable. In a year in which Red Bull has had its reputation thoroughly damaged, this was the worst possible look and made me, far from Ricciardo’s biggest fan, just want to give the man a big hug.
The second topic I’d like to discuss is the ridiculous swearing saga. Mohammed Ben Sulayem, the President of the FIA, recently requested that drivers swear less over the radio to make the sport more family friendly. This is already quite silly, as there is no requirement for the producers to play radio messages with swear words in, but they do because it sells. Rather than regulating F1’s producers, Ben Sulayem thinks that it should be incumbent on the people driving some of the fastest cars in the world not to swear if something goes wrong. Max Verstappen then proceeded to swear in the press conference, which resulted in the stewards ruling that he needed to complete community service. Almost all the drivers found this ridiculous, with Lewis encouraging Max to boycott this service. Max also implied that decisions like these will lead to him leaving the sport sooner. Why F1 feels it’s a good idea to alienate one of their biggest stars is beyond me. And it being all for something as trivial as swearing defines the Ben Sulayem leadership, one characterized by making unnecessary and unpopular decisions whilst proceeding to not make those fans are clamoring for.
Oscar did what his teammate has yet to do at Azerbaijan, win a race whilst not having the fastest car. After executing a fantastic overtake on Charles Leclerc for the lead, Piastri defended for dozens of laps against a Ferrari that was fundamentally faster on the streets of Baku. He described the race as the most stressful afternoon of his life, yet proved that for some characters, extreme stress brings out the best of them.
2. Fernando Alonso-
Fernando dominated the midfield in Azerbaijan, taking advantage of the retiring cars in front of him to finish in sixth and bag eight points for the team. Whilst that Aston has been firmly in the midfield after the first few races of the year, Fernando has turned his season around recently, returning to the form that saw him dominate Lance Stroll that appeared lost earlier in the year.
3. Alexander Albon-
Whilst largely finishing ahead of his teammate due to being on a preferred strategy, Albon was still able to show fantastic pace throughout the race, even keeping cars like Verstappen’s Red Bull and Norris’ McLaren behind him on old hard tyres.
4. Franco Colapinto-
Franco Colapinto has been one of the biggest good surprises in F1 for a long time and has fully justified Williams’ decision to drop Logan Sargeant. In only his second F1 race, in the upgraded Williams, Franco has already scored four points, three more than Sargeant could manage in a year and a half.
5. Sergio Perez-
As I said in my review, it was a real shame that Sergio Perez didn’t score in Azerbaijan after a collision that was not his fault. For the first time this year, he comprehensively outperformed Max Verstappen and was on his way to a first podium since twelve races previously in China.
The Azerbaijan Grand Prix was another thriller. Oscar Piastri, Charles Leclerc and Sergio Perez all fought valiantly for the win, with the three cars seldom separated by more than a second. Whilst the Australian crossed the line in first, all three drivers had a genuine shot at victory if the race had played out slightly differently. And for one of the drivers, not getting into the race lead kickstarted a chain of events that led to his retirement. And in all this, Verstappen was nowhere, being thoroughly outclassed by his teammate for the first time in forever.
On Saturday during qualifying, Charles Leclerc was mighty. He kept his foot on the throttle in corners where every other driver lifted and snatched pole by over three tenths of a second, a mighty gap when the top teams are so close. And Charles initially looked to have the race in the bag during the first stint, as he briskly pulled a six second gap to Oscar Piastri in second. In the first stint of the race, I was incredibly excited to see Charles take a dominant win and thought the fight for second would prove more dramatic than the fight for fist. The aforementioned fight for second was ignited on lap thirteen, as Red Bull brought in Sergio Perez in an attempt to undercut Piastri.
Whilst the undercut was powerful in Baku McLaren were able to efficiently play the team game to survive. After pitting, Perez found himself behind Lando Norris, who was running a long stint on the hard tyres after starting the race in fifteenth. At this point, McLaren requested that Lando slow down Perez in the tight and twisty middle sector, where it is impossible to overtake. Lando responded to this request and held Perez up, which when combined with Piastri’s pit stop being about half a second faster than Perez’s, meant that when Piastri came out of his pit box two laps after Perez, he retained second place. Given the subsequent events of the race and Red Bull’s superior top speed, it appears likely that if Perez had got past Piastri, he would have won the race. Whilst it was not to be for Perez on this occasion, it is worth praising his performance in Baku. Sergio has come under rightful criticism during his time at Red Bull for being consistently slower than Max and came very close earlier this season to being fired. Yet, in recent races he has begun to turn his season around, showing that there are circumstances where he can deliver a solid performance. Perez may have saved his seat for next season last weekend, an achievement I would make no effort to downplay.
After Leclerc pitted, his Ferrari proved to have issues with warming up the hard tyres. Whilst these issues were minor and the Ferrari still appeared to be the fastest car in the race, Oscar Piastri snatched his opportunity to take the lead, catching Leclerc napping to make a fantastic overtake on the inside of turn one. For the rest of the race, Leclerc harangued Oscar, but Piastri defended his lead perfectly, ensuring that Charles would never get the chance to take the inside line where it is easier to overtake. For both his overtaking and defending, Piastri deserves plaudits. He delivered an Oscar-worthy performance last weekend and has established himself as a top F1 driver. Oscar Piastri thoroughly deserved that win, even if I wish Leclerc had won it.
Whilst Charles tried his best to get past Piastri, the extent of time he spent pushing in dirty air had only one inevitable consequence. Thus, near the end of the race, Charles’ tyres began to fall off a cliff. Sergio Perez attempted to take advantage of this and looked to have a solid overtake lined up, but Charles was incredibly late to brake to ensure that Perez wouldn’t get past. This put Perez out of shape, allowing him to be overtaken by the fast-charging Carlos Sainz, who had slowly dragged his way into the battle for the podium places. Yet, as Perez attempted to come back on Sainz after turn two, Sainz failed to take of note of Perez and took the normal racing line. He promptly crashed into the side of Perez, taking them both out of the race and promoting George Russell into third. As Sainz made no erratic movements, the stewards deemed it to be a racing incident and did not penalize Carlos. Yet, even so, it showed an incredible lack of awareness by Carlos. Additionally, it made me feel awful for Sergio Perez. After his best weekend of the year, he had it all taken away from him on the penultimate lap. It was a real shame to see, and I really hope Sergio can bounce back in Singapore, another track that he has won at before.
In conclusion, it was another great race. The person I wanted to win didn’t and I felt so sorry for Sergio Perez, but still, it was full of great moments. A three-way fight for the win; Verstappen’s pace being non-existent; Norris charging from fifteenth to fourth; a double Williams points haul and even a lovely little tenth for Ollie Bearman. In reflection, a lot of good did happen in this race.
Wow. Silverstone really delivered an all-time classic. It’s always one of the best races of the year, but along with Canada, this race may go down as one of the best of the decade. We witnessed a fantastic battle for the win, involving five drivers and three teams. Many drivers looked like they had the opportunity, but it was Lewis Hamilton to take the checkered flag first. Whilst ending a two-and-a-half-year win drought with a home win in front of adoring fans was a great story to witness, a great story does not always translate into a great race. Yet, the race was worthy of the story it accompanied, as constantly changing climatic conditions ensured that fun and unpredictability was aplenty.
Saturday’s qualifying proved that the Mercedes thrives in colder conditions, as the team took a dominant 1-2. This was converted at the beginning of the race, as both Mercedes opened a gap to Verstappen in third. The McLaren also proved a stronger car than the Red Bull, with both McLarens using superior tyre wear to overtake Verstappen during the opening stint. But it was in the rain that the McLaren showed its true strength. In slippery conditions, the McLaren was by far the best car, with Norris and Piastri quickly overtaking both Mercedes to establish a McLaren 1-2. It was at this point that McLaren had an opportunity to take an emphatic victory. But as they have shown over this year, McLaren are experts in bottling wins.
The first mistake McLaren made came when it was time to switch to the intermediate tyres. Whilst Mercedes made the right call to bring both of their cars in on the same lap, McLaren decided to leave Oscar Piastri out for an extra lap, to avoid him being held up in the pit box behind Lando. This was an awful decision, as Piastri lost close to a whole pit stop in the subsequent lap. This destroyed Piastri’s chance of winning the race, something heavily disappointing for a driver who had appeared to be the fastest on track. Still, McLaren had Norris in the lead during the wet section of the race, who still had a great chance of winning. Though McLaren still had other ideas.
When Hamilton made the jump onto the dry tyres first, McLaren were slightly compromised. They had been effectively undercut and were guaranteed to come out of the pit lane behind Lewis. However, the team had an advantage available to them, an extra set of medium tyres. Whilst Hamilton only had softs, the mediums were evidently the best tyres for the final stint. All McLaren needed to do was pit Norris onto mediums, like they did with Piastri, and they would have won the race. They didn’t. They instead, asked Norris if he wanted to cover Hamilton with softs or Verstappen with mediums. As he had limited information and Hamilton was ahead of him, Norris chose the soft tyres. However, it should never have been his choice. Everyone knew that having a set of mediums was an advantage, including the commentators, though seemingly excluding McLaren. Thus, Norris went onto awful tyres that he couldn’t manage and instead of taking a dominant win, he fell behind Verstappen and finished third. The Norris title campaign has proven to be a joke, though one that is at least fun to watch.
The rest of the final stint consisted of Hamilton managing his soft tyres perfectly. Whilst Verstappen had superior pace, Hamilton stopped him from catching and took an amazing victory. The emotions ran high after the race, with Hamilton crying during the interview. It was amazing to watch, he had driven perfectly all weekend and deserved it. Whilst the primary reason for his victory was because McLaren’s strategy was awful, it was nevertheless amazing to watch. Unpredictable races where multiple teams fight for the win are the best type that Formula One has to offer and I hope we see more of them during the year.
As I said in my review, George drove a perfect weekend with no mistakes in Austria. Whilst the Mercedes did not have the pace of Max and Lando, Russell capitalized on the opportunity provided by the collision to take a well-deserved second win. He’s one of the most talented drivers in Formula One, when he has the car to win regularly, he’ll deliver.
2. Carlos Sainz-
Whilst not always being the fastest Ferrari driver, Sainz maximized his weekend by making no mistakes. While Leclerc made a mistake in qualifying that led to his race falling apart on lap one, Sainz drove calmly, had a good battle with Hamilton and took a podium on a weekend where it was completely unexpected.
3. Nico Hulkenberg-
Hulkenberg drove a fantastic race in his Haas, to take his best result since 2019 in sixth. He even kept Perez in a Red Bull behind until the end of the race. Albeit, the Red Bull was damaged, but this was still a fantastic performance that showed Nico’s talents.
4. Kevin Magnussen-
Magnussen looked the faster of the Haas drivers through most of the weekend, until qualifying and the race. After a fun battle with Hulkenberg, Kevin settled behind. However, he still finished in eighth, taking home an additional four points to give Haas as many points this weekend as they got throughout the entirety of last year.
5. Daniel Ricciardo-
It was another solid weekend from Ricciardo, outqualifying his teammate and driving a solid race to take a couple of points for the RB team. He has seen an uptick in form recently and whilst it has proven too late to steal that illustrious Red Bull seat, it shows that he still has the skills to succeed in Formula One.
The Red Bull Ring is always a fun track. With a simple layout and three DRS zones, the track encourages overtaking and battling throughout many laps. The Grand Prix this year was a good watch, providing entertaining battles and late race drama. Whilst the race felt like it was lacking a cohesive narrative and felt more like a series of disconnected events, the events in themselves were fun. Not fun for a Leclerc fan, but the action towards the end of the race distracted from that particular disappointment.
Before the drama at the race’s conclusion, there were limited moments of intrigue throughout the first two stints. In particular, there were some exciting teammate rivalries to ruminate on. The first example came when the Haas cars made their first stops, with Magnussen and Hulkenberg proceeding to pass and repass each other as their respective engineers begged for them to work together to save tyres. It took a few minutes of convincing and some colourful language from Magnussen to get there, but eventually the Haas boys calmed down and recorded their best finish of the season. The Alpine boys were not so quick to settle, as they engaged in yet another vicious battle. Whilst it was a tremendously foolish idea to ever make Ocon and Gasly teammates, it provides fans with the entertainment of watching two people who absolutely despise each other fight. As always, the way they raced each other demonstrated their feelings, as they were fighting through for multiple laps, whilst pushing each other off the track at every opportunity. Eventually Gasly passed Ocon, but the fighting likely lost both drivers time and tyres. However, the fact that at any track these drivers never stop fighting makes up for the lack of sensibility with a flurry of entertainment.
Whilst the first two thirds of the race were not boring, it was during the final third that the main spectacle came to pass. Red Bull had already made a mistake during practice, using too many medium tyres when these would prove the strongest in the race. Thus, they had to put Verstappen on an old set of mediums for his final stint. Combined with a slow pit stop and a lock up, this put Lando Norris right on Verstappen’s tail. For a number of laps, Norris tried to hustle his way past, in a battle that was as thrilling as it was silly. Both drivers didn’t show their best qualities during this duel. On Norris’ behalf, his hastiness to overtake Max led him to commit to some silly divebombs and opportunistic overtakes. This showed a lack of solid race craft during high pressure moments from Lando. On Verstappen’s behalf, he demonstrated his willingness to be too aggressive when he feels he can get away with breaking the rules. Virtually every time Norris attempted to overtake, Max would move in the braking zone to push Lando into backing out. The stewards repeatedly failed to intervene to stop Verstappen’s illegal tactics, despite the rule breaking being obvious to anyone watching the race. With Norris and Verstappen both getting increasingly angry at each other’s driving, there was only one way this battle could end.
Thus, on lap 64, as Norris tried to overtake, Max moved under braking again. But Norris didn’t back down and they collided in a dramatic fashion. This gave both of them punctures and was a fantastic example of why the stewards should punish illegal tactics before those tactics lead to the inevitable. One would have thought that the stewards would have learnt their lesson from the events of 2021, but instead they let history repeat itself. Whilst I often criticize Lando Norris, in this moment I have to praise his resolve. He showed Verstappen that he wasn’t prepared to be pushed around. Whilst Norris lost out more from the collision, as he had to retire whilst Verstappen finished fifth, this is still good if Norris wants to be in regular battle with Verstappen. Norris needs to carry the aggression forward throughout the season, as you can only beat Verstappen by meeting his aggression.
The collision between the leaders led to the biggest surprise of the afternoon, George Russell winning. This was the first Mercedes victory since Russell’s win in Brazil 2022 and whilst it fell into his hands, it was nevertheless well deserved. George has been fantastic this year, regularly outqualifying his teammate and proving that he can become Mercedes’ team leader. He drove a perfect weekend, making no mistakes where others faltered. I said that he needed to win another race during my Canada review, to prove his critics wrong. George delivered in the best way possible and I’m sure the Mercedes factory enjoyed their champagne Monday.
Max proved once again that he doesn’t need the fastest car to win. He maximized the opportunity the start gave him, passing Russell with ease and building a first stint lead that Norris was unable to overturn. Races like these remind all fans of the quality of Max Verstappen.
2. Lewis Hamilton-
Whilst this season has largely been a challenge for Lewis, he had a good performance in Barcelona, qualifying ahead of his teammates and the Ferraris. Whilst not having the start Russell had, Lewis was able to perfectly execute his superior strategy to take the third step on the podium.
3. George Russell-
Whilst not being on the preferred strategy, George showed his talents throughout the race, with a fantastic start to take the lead from fourth and great defending later on from Norris’ quicker tyres. Whilst he didn’t quite make the podium, Russell achieved the maximum result he could with his strategy.
4. Charles Leclerc-
Whilst having to handle an aggressive Sainz early on, Leclerc played the patient game, following Norris’ strategy to have quicker tyres throughout the second and third stints. During these stints, his race pace was apparent, almost equal to Verstappen and Norris. Whilst running out of time to catch Russell, Leclerc proved the more talented Ferrari driver of the weekend.
5. Pierre Gasly-
Gasly had a fantastic weekend in Spain, outqualifying and nearly beating the Red Bull of Perez. With Alpine starting to creep up the midfield, Gasly is beginning to appear like the Alpine driver in form at the point where points are finally on offer. However, with both drivers appearing close, I would not be surprised to see more collisions throughout the year.
Ryan's Lil' F1 Blog 