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Formula 1 2024 is over after a decently eventful Abu Dhabi Grand Prix season finale.
Among the multiple farewells and close championship battles, we pick out the biggest winners and losers from grand prix number 24 of the season:
Winner: McLaren
After the first corner must have induced a sweat, ultimately McLaren and Lando Norris’s pace was so good out front that he never really looked under threat for the win that would guarantee the constructors’ championship.
Since Miami, the McLaren has been much improved, but in recent races, the order has felt closer together with Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari all chipping in wins.
But this weekend was McLaren’s turn to have the dominant package, and thankfully for McLaren, Norris didn’t put a foot wrong.
Obviously Oscar Piastri being hit by Max Verstappen wasn’t ideal and smashing into the back of Franco Colapinto and going off later in the race means he was well bailed out by Norris. There could have been a much more serious inquest into his performance without that shiny new trophy heading to Woking. And he did score a point. - Jack Benyon
Loser: Red Bull
Second in the constructors was never likely, but two crashes on the first lap was certainly not how Red Bull wanted to finish a tough year.
Sergio Perez retired after his clash with Valtteri Bottas - Bottas was penalised - while Verstappen fought back from his 10-second penalty for hitting Piastri at Turn 1 to take sixth.
It’s no surprise both drivers are happy to see the back of this year. Verstappen was pushed hard by Lando Norris and Perez might well be pushed out of the exit door. - JB
Loser: Oscar Piastri
Piastri is maybe a little fortunate that his clumsy post-virtual safety car collision with Colapinto proved irrelevant to McLaren's constructors' pursuit - although, had that 10-second penalty come into play, more attention would've been placed on the first collision with Verstappen for which he wasn't meaningfully to blame.
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The 10th place paired with Norris' wins has considerably expanded the championship gap between them - and truthfully that is probably fair enough, even if Piastri's Abu Dhabi GP outcome clearly didn't reflect his pace during the weekend.
His first-order item coming out of the winter will be addressing the persistent qualifying deficit that's making Norris the obvious top dog at McLaren right now. - Val Khorounzhiy
Winner: Lando Norris
It was not the hardest win of Norris' season, nor the most emphatic, but there was real pressure on - especially in that early interruption, when he knew that Piastri had been ruled out of contention and, glancing at the TV screens, also knew that Leclerc had made massive progress and was on course to score big.
Dropping behind Sainz would've meant a 14-point swing that would've been just enough to give Ferrari the championship. But Norris held firm, managing the race well in the first stint and then opening the gap in the second after weathering the brief threat of the Sainz undercut.
For all of the questions over the moments in which he's come up short this year, the evidence from 2024 is pretty robust - this is a driver you can win with, and often win comfortably. - VK
Loser: Valtteri Bottas
You can certainly have a fair bit of sympathy for Bottas over the first penalty - if first-lap lenience doesn't apply to that kind of incident, it is even more shockingly useless a concept than it already seemed before - but the second one made up for it.
The deeply clumsy collision with Kevin Magnussen - one which effectively ended Haas's already-doomed challenge for sixth in the constructors' championship - has had the unintended side effect of making Bottas a less attractive reserve driver option, given a grid penalty now hangs over his head (as he retired from the race before the stewards could rule on the collision).
Otherwise, it was a fairly fitting end to a partnership that both Bottas and seemingly Sauber are happy enough to see the back of. - VK
Winner: Carlos Sainz
The ultimate performance in the SF-24 just wasn't quite there, but Sainz did his part to at least maintain the pretence of intrigue.
Charles Leclerc's Q2 lap deletion meant there could be no good team-mate comparison in qualifying. Leclerc's grid penalty meant there wouldn't be an accurate comparison in the race. But Carlos Sainz gave Ferrari one final reminder of why he had been such a valuable asset over these four years - whenever Leclerc was in any kind of trouble, Ferrari has generally been able to rely on Sainz to keep its weekend respectable.
Here it wasn't quite enough. But it's not on Sainz - who will head to his Williams gig with his head held high. - VK
Loser: Williams
Colapinto getting rear-ended out of contention and then parking up with an engine issue while Alex Albon's unorthodox strategy came up just short of points felt par for the course for this Williams season.
The Colapinto hype had injected some life into this campaign, but by Abu Dhabi - long before Abu Dhabi, really - the meaningful part of the season was long, long over.
It will hurt Colapinto not to have got one final chance to make his case for an F1 return, now probably in 2026, and it will have hurt Williams to miss out on a consolation point. But on Williams' side at least getting Sainz into the car next week will be some consolation. - VK
Winner: Pierre Gasly
Alpine's Interlagos miracle put in in a position to leapfrog not just Williams but Alpine and Haas, yes - but it's Pierre Gasly's assured form afterwards that ensured it wouldn't squander the Brazilian GP harvest.
Here again he was superb - just 0.389s off in qualifying, assured in his defence against George Russell early in the race before their strategies diverted, and ultimately too steadfast in his pace to give Nico Hulkenberg even half a chance of winning the 'Class B' battle.
It's hard to say, especially up against a rookie team-mate this weekend, but this might be the best version of Gasly F1 has ever seen. - VK
Loser: Haas
Sixth in the constructors’ was probably an outside bet for Haas going into the last race, but it was a possibility, and to not grab that will be a disappointment.
Nico Hulkenberg - dropped three places for overtaking on the pit exit in qualifying where he had managed fourth - was in the pocket of Gasly who knew he could just cover off whatever Hulkenberg did. They finished with Gasly seventh and Hulkenberg just behind.
Magnussen was the wildcard that could have added points to challenge Alpine, but he started 14th and was absolutely smashed into by an out-of-control Bottas in the second half of the race which caused damage.
Two ways of looking at this; for large parts of the season Haas was faster than the two teams that finished immediately ahead in the constructors. But on the plus side, with a leadership change at the start of the year, there was little hope Haas could even dream of the performance it has had this year. - JB
Winner: Lewis Hamilton
Basically any form of finish was going to be an improvement on a freakish qualifying where his team sent him out too late and he ran over a bollard.
But this was an excellent fight back through the field by Lewis Hamilton. This weekend as a whole he’s felt like the stronger Mercedes driver - there’s not many weekends you could say that this year, really - and he drove a really nice race.
He may have been flattered by being one of the few to go hard-medium on tyres instead of vice-versa. But he babied his hards for 34 laps when others around him were on fresher tyres.
Overall, one of his best weekends of the year in terms of his own performance, and a nice way to sign off with Mercedes. - JB
Loser: RB
It was a tough race for RB which did have a chance to fight for sixth in the constructors, but never really felt like a threat to leapfrog Haas and Alpine.
Liam Lawson had a pitstop issue where he was released without the wheel attached, leading to a penalty and another stop, and he ground to a halt right at the end of the race.
Yuki Tsunoda ended up in 12th one lap down, lamenting his team’s decision to leave him out without pitting early in the race with the most exasperated radio message of the year.
With both drivers in the frame to replace Perez, neither made a last-ditch effort to draw ahead with an Abu Dhabi sparkle. - JB
