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After the previous two Formula 1 seasons of Red Bull dominance, we wanted competition and we got it right until the final chequered flag of the 2024 season.
But championships are won or lost across the whole year of 24 grands prix and six sprints. To understand how it all happened, let's crunch the numbers and look at things team-by-team, in final 2024 championship order.
Gary's number-crunching explained
As well as the season-long totals, I've broken the data up into six-race blocks to get a clearer picture of the shape of the season and the ups and downs.
There are two measures I'm using both for teams and drivers.
The first is total points scored across the season and in each of the four quarters. You'll find where each driver ranks in the brackets below their points total for either all races or one of the quarters.
The second is our 'supertimes' metric. This takes the fastest single laptime set by every team and driver on a race weekend and expresses it is a percentage of the quickest time overall. Once again I've ranked these by teams and drivers.
1 McLaren
McLaren started slowly and that allowed Red Bull to capitalise and build an early points lead.
Slow starts to seasons have been a trend for McLaren over the past few years, which is unfortunate because the start of the season can often be when rivals aren't prepared. So there's a big opportunity to score points while others find their feet or hit reliability problems, just as Red Bull did in Melbourne when it was Ferrari that capitalised.
Even so, McLaren's Miami upgrade package meant it soon became the team to beat. And while it was never dominant week-in, week-out, over the final three-quarters of the season McLaren was the most consistent team, ultimately scoring 58% of the available points across 2024.
Lando Norris
Oscar Piastri
The McLaren drivers are at similar stage in their careers. Lando Norris has a few more seasons under his belt but like Oscar Piastri is still battling to establish himself as a consistent winner in F1.
Although Norris outperformed Piastri over the season, they will be biting at each other's heels next year, so McLaren needs a plan to manage that and it needs to be in place from race one.
2 Ferrari
Ferrari lacked the consistency of performance that McLaren benefitted from.
The problem was the floor upgrade introduced at the Spanish Grand Prix, the race after a double-DNF in Canada. That added downforce but triggered porpoising problems and it wasn't until the new floor that arrived at Monza six races later that it got back on track.
That recovery was impressive and got Ferrari back on track for the final part of the season. Stabilising after problems like that is what you need to do to win championships and team principal Fred Vasseur's calm leadership was likely what allowed everyone at Ferrari to focus on solving the problem rather than panicking.
It's important not to introduce upgrades then keep them on the car just for the sake of it and Ferrari responded well.
Charles Leclerc
Carlos Sainz
Ollie Bearman
Both Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz had a slump mid-season, but that was down to the car.
Overall, they were relatively close in terms of overall performance although Leclerc had the edge overall. That still reflects well on Sainz, who maintained his focus and commitment even after learning before the season started that he was being replaced by Lewis Hamilton for 2025.
Ollie Bearman was a competent stand-in and perhaps deserved to be a couple of places higher in Jeddah, but to finish seventh on his grand prix debut was still exceptional.
3 Red Bull
Max Verstappen walked away with the drivers' championship, but that doesn't hide Red Bull's decline.
The car's competitiveness began to slip away well before mid-season and it's a surprise drastic action wasn't taken sooner. I suspect Red Bull spent too long believing it was simply a question of set-up optimisation as opposed to having taken the wrong development route.
Max Verstappen
Sergio Perez
For the drivers, the numbers say it all. Verstappen kept pulling rabbits out of the hat while the hole Sergio Perez was digging just got bigger every race weekend.
He's not a bad racing driver, but he struggles to adapt his style while Verstappen can get the speed out of almost anything.
4 Mercedes
This was another year of ifs and buts for Mercedes. There was progress as far as out-and-out speed was concerned, particularly following the introduction of the revised (flexible) front wing across the Monaco/Canada weekends, but there is still that problematic lack of consistency.
That's a big problem because only if you can get on top of can you prove that you really understand your development direction and how to get the most out of the car. Next year will be a test of whether lessons have really been learned.
George Russell
Lewis Hamilton
George Russell showed that he could lead the team, with Hamilton's departure making for what must have been an interesting working relationship between the two. One driver usually gets the priority in terms of updates, but Mercedes appeared to play it fair to the end.
The last race of the season, when Hamilton overtook Russell for fourth position, was probably Hamilton staking his claim that on equal terms he still has the upper hand.
5 Aston Martin
Aston Martin was, in the right circumstances, a potential race winner at the start of 2023 but has fallen away ever since.
I'm surprised that hasn't led to more dramatic repercussions given Lawrence Stroll is not renowned for his patience. Technical director Dan Fallows has been moved off the F1 project, and Adrian Newey and Enrico Cardile are coming in, but at least Stroll has realised that everything doesn't have to be ripped apart and started again.
It's no longer building for the future because that future is right round the corner, and at some point you must prove you know what it takes to move forward.
Fernando Alonso
Lance Stroll
As ever, Fernando Alonso is at the wrong team at the wrong time. It's good for the bank balance and he's performing well, but at the moment he looks further away from winning races than ever.
In the other car, Lance Stroll is of no help. When the car is in the sweet spot, he can bring home a result but that's so infrequent. If Lawrence Stroll really is building to be a future world-championship-winning team, you must invest in two drivers who can deliver that.
By the time the team is in a better position to possibly achieve that, Alonso will be long gone and I'm afraid Lance will have to be as well. It's now time to invest in that rising wave of new talent coming through the ranks.
6 Alpine
Alpine had a torrid start to the season. I watched the car in pre-season testing with Edd Straw and the car just had no grip, no balance and every time the drivers came into a corner it was a new experience for them.
The team said the car was overweight, but it wasn't just that; it also had major mechanical and aerodynamic problems.
But Alpine fought back hard and you can see the progress it made by the end of the season. You could say it had a lucky 2-3 at Interlagos, but in this game you make your own luck.
Pierre Gasly
Esteban Ocon
Jack Doohan
Driver-wise, the war between Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon continued, with the Monaco clash (almost) the last straw for Alpine. Gasly then became the main focus and he more often than not was the one who scored the points. Ocon's season dropped off, save for that second-place finish in Brazil.
It was interesting to see Ocon replaced by Jack Doohan for the last race. You could say Doohan did more or less the same job, but I suspect Alpine was hoping for just that little bit more.
Hopefully that doesn't affect Doohan's 2025 prospects, because we all know that Flavio Briatore doesn't hold back when he wants to make a decision.
7 Haas
Haas is a relatively small team, but reacted well to last year's problems with the car eating the rear tyres. Even so, after qualifying well the cars were often in fairly early for the first pitstop, but most importantly the car could now stay up in the points after starting there.
The statistics show the consistency as far as one-lap performance is concerned. This means the race team has successfully got the most out of the car and given the design engineers the chance to see where they stand.
That allowed for positive development progress, including a decent package for Austin that ensured Haas continued to score points regularly. The car remained well-balanced and consistent from testing all the way to the end of the year.
Nico Hulkenberg
Kevin Magnussen
Ollie Bearman
Nico Hulkenberg was the main bread winner, while Kevin Magnussen was too inconsistent - although he did improve late on once the car gave him the braking stability he wanted. Bearman, who stood in for Magnussen twice, will have given some useful feedback about the comparison to Ferrari.
8 RB
Yet again, Red Bull's second team fell short of what looked possible and finished eighth in the championship having been in contention for sixth. The car still has a visibly different aerodynamic concept to Red Bull and really it should be following the same path.
It's not about copying, as that would be illegal, but it would at least give an understanding of what the other team is trying to achieve. And that benefit can work both ways to avoid anyone heading off on an unproductive tangent.
Yuki Tsunoda
Daniel Ricciardo
Liam Lawson
I have no idea how Yuki Tsunoda kept his head up over the season. He was constantly being measured against different drivers and with the mothership team in some turmoil as far as drivers are concerned, there appeared to be little interest in what he was doing. But he dealt with it well and now he seems able to brush off situations where he might otherwise have spit the dummy.
As for Daniel Ricciardo and Liam Lawson, I didn't see any major move forward when the change of driver was made. I don't think Lawson is ready for his promotion and it could be a very short-lived career at Red Bull Racing.
9 Williams
Williams struggled from start to finish - first just to get two cars ready for the start of the season, then with those cars being overweight, which compromised its performance.
There was some development progress mid-season, but a spate of accidents late on meant the final part of the campaign became a constant struggle simply to get enough parts to get two cars out there.
When accident after accident happens, the cars tend to get just that little bit heavier and that knocks the performance.
We can see that late in the season Williams's performances dropped away. I'm sure there are lots of reasons for that but survival and getting to the races is critical.
Alex Albon
Logan Sargeant
Franco Colapinto
Alex Albon led the team, usually an arm and a leg faster than Logan Sargeant - who the data shows didn't have what it takes to be in F1.
My only reservation on Albon, who I genuinely believe is a very talented driver, is that I saw a little bit of panic coming into his driving when Franco Colapinto joined the team. From no-one expecting very much from him, suddenly Colapinto was in the mix and it was only James Vowles who believed he was right for the job.
Unfortunately, it's all good when you are fast but you need to recognise the limits and I don't think Colapinto did that as quickly as he should have. He had some serious crashes that would be difficult for even the top teams to cope with. Albon also joined that club, making the end of the season a nightmare.
10 Sauber
Sauber had a terrible season. The excuse is that it's in a building process to become the Audi works team but you need to show you are making progress and there wasn't enough of that in 2024.
Valtteri Bottas
Zhou Guanyu
Valtteri Bottas is a grand prix winner who hasn't forgotten how to drive since leaving Mercedes, so the team hasn't given him the machinery to do the job. For Bottas to finish the season with zero points is incredible.
There was a minor upswing very late in the season when Zhou Guanyu scored Sauber's only points of the season, but it was way too little too late.
Next season
With the technical regulations for 2026 not being released or at least reacted to until the ban lifts in January 2025, teams will need to make a big decision as to how they divide up their technical groups during 2025.
Basically, this means the bigger teams as always are at an advantage. They have the workforce to have one group still focused on the 2025 car and its developments while another group will concentrate on 2026 and the new rules. As the season progresses, the 2025 group will diminish and the 2026 group will strengthen.
There are basically four choices for your development strategy:
1. Put 100% effort into 2026 and live with however 2025 turns out. For a competitive group of people, that is very difficult to do and during that period it would be very easy to lose motivation if the results were poor.
2. Teams like McLaren and Ferrari, who finished the season strongly, could just dot the i's and cross the t's on what they finished the season with. They could be joined by Mercedes and Red Bull, but their inconsistency means that would be more of a gamble. Haas could bite the bullet and join that club, save some cash and focus on 2026.
3. Aston Martin, Alpine, RB and Williams need to prove they have an understanding of where their problems lie, so a B-spec version of their 2024 cars is an option - which means more or less revising everything you see.
4. Sauber must more or less build a new car. It can't keep being bottom of the pile or Audi will start to ask questions.
