Welcome to the 2024
Formula 1
season .
Max Verstappen
will win his fourth consecutive title and will join the Frenchman
Alain Prost
and the German
Sebastian Vettel
on the list of winners .
Red Bull
will take its seventh victory in the constructors' championship, tie up the legendary
Lotus
of the 60s and 70s, and stir the curiosity of soon equaling the eight of
Mercedes
and
McLaren
.
There will be records of spectators in most of the
24 Grand Prix
that will spice up the year with the most races in the history of the highest category of world motorsport.
Some pilot will be ejected from his seat due to poor results.
Some team leader will experience unsustainable pressure from the team owners.
The
paddocks
and grids will be full of
celebrities
.
Prince Albert will dress up to present the trophy in Monaco to the winner.
The podiums in the Persian Gulf will not have champagne.
The
tifosi
will invade the asphalt of Monza to see the winner.
And the Las Vegas Strip will give more neon and fanfare to the most spectacular show.
Now, even knowing (almost) everything that will happen this year in Formula 1, the attractive power of the top category not only does not decrease but it
always finds a plus to gain followers
.
And as if the
glamour
, the vertigo of racing on the edge of a very hard
pole
and the millions of dollars that lubricate the gears of this perfect engine were not enough, the championship that will begin this Friday with the
Bahrain Grand Prix
qualifying has a special additive and unprecedented: fans already want this season to end because
what they only care about is seeing Lewis Hamilton dressed in Ferrari red in 2025
.
Nothing more, nothing less.
Nine teams know for one more year that they will race to see Red Bull win.
The DRS will be enabled from the second round to bet on entry overtakes.
And Shanghai and Miami were added to Sao Paulo, Spielberg, Lusail and Austin as Sprint race venues.
Nineteen drivers will compete to see if they can
win a Grand Prix from Verstappen: in 2023 only
Sergio Pérez
in Saudi Arabia and Azerbaijan, and
Carlos Sainz
in Singapore , could do so
.
All street circuits.
This year there will be many more kisses from
Kelly Piquet
to his boyfriend Max from him.
Don't miss out on romance for a perfect script for television.
And if we talk about the script,
there is no shortage of scandal
.
Nobody talked during the break about the aerodynamics, the design, the spoilers or the genius behind the Red Bull:
Adrian Newey
.
The black mark of the Austrian team was placed on the figure of
Christian Horner
, the master and lord who leads the Austrian team and who was investigated internally for alleged “inappropriate conduct” reported by a woman on the team.
It all culminated only last Wednesday with his acquittal.
The former pilot manages
that very high arrogance that usually overwhelms those in power
, as if they did not understand that just as it comes, it goes.
Let
Toto Wolff
, his Mercedes nemesis, say it, who after eight titles in a row saw how the
Silver Arrows
were surpassed like poles on the circuits.
And now he will experience a historic season with the unstoppable countdown of Hamilton's departure to Ferrari.
When a friend goes
Seen today, episode 6 of the sixth season of
“Drive to survive” , the excellent
Netflix
docuseries
that narrates the emotions and miseries of the Formula 1 business, seems like a joke.
But everything changes so quickly that the grotesque is understandable.
“A powerful knight is Don Dinero
,” satirized Francisco de Quevedo... at the beginning of the 17th century!
“My goal is to return to the top and win my eighth title, but the car is bad.
I no longer remember what the feeling of winning was like.
When the car is slow, I feel helpless.
Fernando (Alonso) made a good decision (going to Aston Martin).
Did Ferrari contact me?
No,” Lewis is heard saying in the middle of last season.
“More than a driver, Lewis is my friend.
This is his family.
I wouldn't want to have another driver on the team.
He is loyal.
The red Ferrari uniform wouldn't look good on him
,” says Wolff with a smug face.
And he tells Hamilton: “You are the one who leads this team.”
And Lewis closes:
“I don't think I will ever stop being a Mercedes driver.
“It is my home and my family
. ”
Tsunami of chanes
.
There is no way to follow this year of Formula 1 without imagining what the
tifosi
will be like in Imola and Monza when they live more to Hamilton than to
Charles Leclerc
and Sainz, a
“dead man walking”
who will surely have a seat in another in 2025 equipment.
The Monegasque will race all year knowing that “they got his ear wet” and that he will be compared in each race to what Hamilton does.
Beautiful pressure you will need to manage.
It might seem that
George Russell
will be more liberated, knowing that Lewis will no longer be his teammate in a year.
But this is Formula 1, friends.
And the morbidity grows because Mercedes will need a driver next year.
Youth or experience?
The range is so wide that it goes from the Italian
Andrea Kimi Antonelli,
who at 17 years old will debut in Formula 2, to Alonso himself, two-time F1 champion, the oldest on the grid (42),
owner of an overwhelming personality and of spectacular handling
that made Aston Martin bigger.
The Asturian was fourth in 2023, with eight podiums and 206 of the 280 points for the team of billionaire
Lawrence Stroll
, Lance's father, who took just three podiums in seven seasons.
“My situation is pretty unique.
There are only three champions on the grid and I'm the only one available in 2025, so I'm in a good position.
There has been nothing about a possible move to Mercedes.
Aston Martin will be my first priority, but if we can't reach an agreement,
I know I am attractive to other teams
.
“I'm not going to stay in Formula 1 just to have fun,” Alonso made clear with the knife and fork in his hands.
Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso, two of the three champions still active in F1.Photo Reuters
McLaren intends to recover its glorious past and fight for second place among the constructors.
It needs to continue the momentum of the last eight races of last season, in five of which it put its drivers on the podium, still untouched by victories.
Lando Norris
, a 24-year-old Briton, and
Oscar Piastri
, a 22-year-old Australian, have the money to finally win a Grand Prix this year.
They just need to be there when Red Bull fails.
The rest is decorated
The rest of the teams will navigate with their challenges and problems.
Alpine
must deal with those intimate enemies who are
Pierre Gasly
and
Esteban Ocon
, born in two cities in the Normandy region separated by just 57 kilometers.
Nothing remained of the friendship they had when they were rivals as children in karting.
If the first driver he wants to win an F1 race against is his teammate, the war is very hot in the French team after a disappointing season.
Williams hopes to improve with the help of that
nerdy
engineer who is
James Vowles
, raised under the wing of Wolff at Mercedes and more of a fan of data than of engines.
But since Formula 1 lives on “data”, he fits like a glove.
The drama is that
Alex Albon
drives competently but
Logan Sargeant
scored points in a single Grand Prix in 2023.
The second Red Bull team is talked about more for its sponsorship than for its improvement.
Visa entered into a global sponsorship in the sport for the first time in 15 years and that is why the former Toro Rosso and former AlphaTauri is now called
Visa Cash App RB F1 Team
.
Take mate
.
Zero chances with the likeable and histrionic Australian
Daniel Ricciardo
and the impulsive Japanese
Yuki Tsunoda
.
The legendary Alfa Romeo brand left this year and
Kick Sauber
has more impact due to its neon green and the mustache of the Finnish
Valtteri Bottas
, teammate of the Chinese
Guanyu Zhou
.
In
Haas
, the team that only scored points in four Grand Prix last year, follows its two temperamental drivers: the Danish
Kevin Magnussen
and the German
Nico Hulkenberg
.
Gene Haas fired that novel character, the Italian
Guenther Steiner
, but the former team leader took advantage of his fame for being a Netflix star, wrote the book
“Surviving to drive”
, which immediately became a
“best seller”
and He was short-lived without work: he became a special commentator on German television.
More Formula 1, impossible.
Welcome and welcome to the show.