Driver Swaps, Swearing, and a $140 Million Payday
Five storylines from the 2024 Formula 1 season (and where we go from here)
Welcome to Formula Flash, where your local sports column meets Cosmo wrapped up in a newsletter delivered to your inbox via the cool girl next door (i.e. motorsport and enviro journo Olivia Hicks). It’s like “Drive to Survive” without the sensationalism!
I recently chatted with Chloe Chambers about her 2024 F1 Academy season, growing up in a non-racing family and how her dreams are a little like “Drive to Survive” — featuring minimal on-track action — in a profile for Motorsport.com.
McLaren Back On Top
McLaren wrapped up the 2024 Formula 1 season with a $140 million payday. The team will take the World Constructors’ Championship trophy back to its headquarters in Woking for the first time in 26 years. Both drivers, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, visibly sighed in relief as team members embraced the two after the final laps of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. The win may have been two-and-half decades in the making, but the past two years have tested the team and its drivers. If you told Formula 1 fans at the Bahrain Grand Prix in 2023 that McLaren would win the constructors’ title just 21 months later, they likely would have laughed. Both McLarens didn’t make it across the checkered flag. By the British Grand Prix, things looked promising: Norris had made it to the podium, and, in Qatar, Piastri clinched a sprint race win. Despite the team’s turn of form thanks to a series of upgrades, it finished fourth in the championship order last season, 558 points off Red Bull’s pace.
McLaren went into the following season hungry and with the consistency other teams craved. In 2024, Norris finished in the top five in 18 of 24 races and won four of them. Piastri, who has competed in the sport for only two years compared to his British teammate’s six, finished among the top five in 15 races. Norris fell 63 points shy of Max Verstappen in the World Drivers’ Championship battle but showed promise for next year — going from zero career wins to four in just one season. Despite his insistence that 2025 will be his year, not everyone is convinced Norris will be fighting for a title next season. After Verstappen collided with Piastri in lap one on Sunday, presenter and broadcaster Will Buxton predicted that Piastri will be the four-time world champion’s biggest threat in 2025. Following Piastri’s tenth-place finish at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, he joined three world champions — Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton and Michael Schumacher — as the fourth driver in the sport’s history to complete all laps in a season. The 23-year-old Australian driver had a standout rookie season and continues to fall just shy of his more experienced teammate. However, most teams’ first and second driver format threatens to bring future conflict. McLaren routinely denied that Norris was the favored, or first, driver, but a series of team orders that commentators nicknamed “papaya rules” throughout the season left a bad taste in the mouths of McLaren’s fanbase — splitting spectators into factions. If Red Bull’s performance continues to drop off in the new year and Ferrari's new driver lineup fails to find speed, McLaren may have a title fight between two teammates.
Red Bull’s Driver Dilemma
When Verstappen rode his Red Bull to a fourth drivers’ championship title in Las Vegas, a matching constructors’ trophy was unlikely. The Dutch driver was practically alone in the teamwork standings come Sunday — carrying 437 points to Checo Perez’s 152.
Perez joined the big leagues in 2011 and signed with Red Bull in 2021. Over the 2024 season, whispers of termination have cycled before being squashed in the repetitive rumor mill. But now, Liam Lawson, driving for Red Bull’s sister team, has emerged as the likely replacement to race alongside Verstappen in 2025. Perez’s potential exit caused a flurry of headlines and controversy as Red Bull continues to weigh its driver options. The team has made several contentious decisions over the past few years, holding onto certain drivers, like Perez and Daniel Ricciardo, even as they underperform while also having a reputation for operating like a revolving door: promoting and demoting other drivers mid-season. But among Red Bull’s options, Yuki Tsunoda doesn’t appear to be a serious contender. The 24-year-old Japanese driver joined Formula 1 in 2021 as an AlphaTauri driver, the former name of Red Bull’s sister team, and has stayed rooted in place since, despite outperforming each of his teammates across 2023 and 2024: Nyck de Vries, Ricciardo and Lawson. Tsunoda’s hot-head reputation should make him a perfect fit for the energy drink brand known for bringing loose-lipped chaos to the sport. Instead, his personality has been viewed as a liability, bringing with it labels such as “immature” and “undependable.” Tsunoda’s team boss and engineers at Visa Cash App RB have praised his performance and encouraged a promotion, but it is Red Bull’s decision. If Lawson takes Perez’s seat, Tsunoda will likely be joined by Formula 2 driver Isack Hadjar. Measured alongside another rookie, Tsunoda will go into his fifth year in Formula 1 without a clear path or promotion at Red Bull on the horizon.
Shifting Eyes Off-Track
When Netflix released “Drive to Survive” in 2019, longtime fans bemoaned it turning heads away from track and onto the personal lives and relationships of Formula 1’s 20 drivers. In the series’ five-year run, petty inter-team drama has played out in nearly a million living rooms and surged interest in the sport. But the 2024 season’s dramatics weren’t postponed to a February release date. Instead, the season was defined by public off-track controversies rather than those on track.
Before the season began, Red Bull appeared to be imploding as high-profile inappropriate conduct allegations and staff turnover hit the team. Verstappen’s father said the team was at risk of being torn apart and hinted at courting other teams even before the car’s performance plummeted.
Then, the attention shifted to the sport’s ruling body. The FIA’s president, Mohammed Ben Sulayem, was accused of intervening with a penalty during the 2023 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix and attempting to stop the Las Vegas Grand Prix from going through standardized safety and regulation checks ahead of the inaugural race. He was cleared of any wrongdoing. The FIA’s penalty system came under question next after Verstappen and Charles Leclerc received community service and fines for swearing during a press conference. Ben Sulayem would close out the season under the microscope yet again. At the end of November, two internal auditors at the FIA were removed from office after they reportedly questioned the president’s plan to offer $1.5 million to international motor clubs that would vote for his reelection. The Sunday Times reported that, in February, funds allocated to the president for expenses added up to $1.5 million and a portion was allegedly used to maintain his private jet. The finance department and auditors questioned the funds and the lack of receipts. The investigation occurred while drivers and teams called for transparency from the ruling body amid million-dollar fines and miscellaneous penalties. Ben Sulayem responded by saying it was “none of their business” and doubling down on the FIA’s safety and grassroots spending. “You want to know how much we paid in grassroots? I'll give you: €10.3 million we invested in grassroots last year. I think that's a lot of money. In '24, up to now, over €10 million. Back in grassroots. In karting.”
While there were a handful of on-track controversies, from McLaren’s “mini DRS” performance boost to Red Bull’s ride-height concerns to Williams’ driver swaps, the bulk of the season seemed to operate in the paddock and behind closed doors.
The sport also saw a shift in how it grew. Most publications credit Netflix with the sport’s sharp rise in spectators. But 2024 saw a growing content creator community, a number of ways to get into the sport and an increase in female viewers: Several women and teen girls I spoke to for stories this season became interested in Formula 1 after seeing a TikTok edit of a driver, reading racing romance novels or through friends, family members and influencers. The 2024 season wrapped up with a record-breaking 750 million global fans, making Formula 1 the top annual sporting series.
Alpine’s Turn of Pace
Throughout most of the 2024 season, Alpine was a case study of how a team crumbles. Renault announced it would close shop as an engine supplier in the sport starting in 2026, ending an on-again, off-again era since it joined Formula 1 in 1977. The year began with five consecutive point-less finishes, a sour wake-up call after both drivers stood on the podium in 2023. Following high turnover, fans on social media joked that Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly would be the only two left standing at the team come the final race of the year. But then Canada and Spain happened. Both Ocon and Gasly finished within the points. The rest of the season looked hopeful and a new team principal, Oliver Oakes, stepped in as the second half of the season commenced. But it wasn’t until the final stretch that Alpine’s progress was obvious, thanks to a series of drastic aerodynamic upgrades. In a rain-soaked Brazilian Grand Prix, Ocon finished second and Gasly took third. Despite Ocon leading his teammate in São Paulo, Gasly was the clear standout in consistency and ended the season with 13 more points than Ocon: He finished fifth in Qatar and made it to the third qualifying session in a handful of races, qualifying third in Las Vegas and sixth in the final race of the year. Alpine bested Haas and Visa Cash App RB in the constructors’ championship — meaning millions of dollars in extra prize money.
The End of Eras and the Beginning of Others
At the end of the 2023 season, a lack of driver turnover caused a supply and demand issue in the Formula 1 economy. Driver academies were pumping out talented and young potential world champions but the sport’s old guard wasn’t leaving. Fresh-faced drivers either waited their turn in the wings as test and reserve drivers, hoping one day a seat would open up, or they moved onto IndyCar, Formula E, Super Formula or endurance racing. The 2024 Formula 1 season saw the opposite, from driver seat swaps — Logan Sargeant and Ricciardo — to a series of stand-ins, like Haas and Ferrari’s near-constant need for Oliver Bearman. As a new season looms, the driver market resembles the aftermath of a messy and cutthroat game of musical chairs. Both Haas — Ocon and Bearman — and Kick Stake Sauber — Nico Hulkenberg and Gabriel Bortoleto — will welcome an all-new lineup. Jack Doohan, Alpine’s reserve driver, will replace Ocon at the French team. But it was Hamilton’s shock swap to Ferrari that set the tone, followed by Carlos Sainz moving to Williams and Mercedes signing 18-year-old rookie Kimi Antonelli.
When Hamilton joined Mercedes in 2013, he had won 21 races with McLaren, sporting a Mercedes engine, and one championship. It was considered a risk at the time, with Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren all outperforming the team previously. By 2014, Hamilton had won the World Drivers’ Championship for Mercedes and the team took home a matching World Constructors’ Championship. In 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020, he would do it again.
The 39-year-old British driver is taking another risk by joining Charles Leclerc at Ferrari in 2025. The Italian team failed to match McLaren’s pace this season, but the team continues to outperform Mercedes. Hamilton finished seventh in the championship standings in 2024 and Mercedes fell short of McLaren, Ferrari and Red Bull with a fourth-place result. The switch took the sport by surprise, with most spectators anticipating a retirement over a team swap. But Hamilton said he wanted to know “what it would be like to be surrounded by red.”
“I think, ultimately, I’m writing my story and I felt like it was time to start a new chapter.”
While Hamilton’s switch after being supported by Mercedes for 26 years made most headlines, other drivers will leave the sport entirely. Kevin Magnussen will leave Formula 1 after 10 years and Kick Stake Sauber drivers Valtteri Bottas, Hamilton’s former teammate and a Formula 1 driver since 2013, and Zhou Guanyu, the first and only Chinese driver to race in the sport, will exit Formula 1.
Thanks for reading during the 2024 season!
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