Transfers
- McLaren kept both Norris and Piastri
- Ferrari kept Leclerc but swapped Lewis Hamilton in for Sainz
- who left to replace Colapinto on Williams, to join Albon.
- Hamilton came in from Mercedes which had to get in Kimi Antonelli alongside George Russel.
- Perez was sacked from RedBull and replaced by Liam Lawson, the former teammate of
- Yuki Tsunoda at RB, who is now joined by the Rookie Isack Hadjar.
- Sauber kicked both Zhou and Bottas and replaced them with Bortoleto the F2 champion and Nico Hülkenberg, the former
- Haas teammate of Kevin Magnussen who got sacked. Haas continues with Bearman and Esteban Ocon who had to leave
- Alpine due to not getting along with Gasly. He is now joined by Jack Doohan who didn't drive competitively for a year.
- Aston Martin surprisingly did not swap out either Stroll or Alonso.
Conclusion of 2024
To really see how good the new lineups are we have to take a look at each drivers performance in the 2024 season.
Now just a short explanation of what is going on with these ratings:
It's generally simple, so the best one in each category gets a 1 and then it decreases relative to the compared performance.
- The first Category, "Point difference from Start to finish" just shows whether someone has lost, kept or improved his position during a race. For example, if you start 8th you would get 4 Points if you finish 8th. However, if you drop to 10th, you have lost 3 points from the start.
- "Average result" should be pretty much selfexplain, this just measures the average position you finished at. For those wondering why there is no 0 in here, simplified it is because there are almost never all 20 cars finishing the race.
- And last but not least " Qualifying gap to first". This shows the average time a driver has been slower than the pole position.
All numbers are relative relations to give every Category the same importance because 1. is about points, 2. is about results and 3. is about the time only so that it's as fair as possible (in my opinion)
Now to the data itself:
There's a clear but still heavily divided leading group with, Leclerc (2,65), Verstappen (2,41), Piastri (2,28), Hamilton (2,13), Sainz and Norris (1,85) from there on the differences become very small.
- Also notable is how good Albon (9th/1,49) performed with a bad car, to match Perez (1,53) and Russel (1,49) with far better Cars. However, with the Aston Martin Team, you can see that this group from Stroll (1,55) to Gasly (1,24) is really decided by margins because Alonso (18th/1,31) has the same gap on Stroll (7th) as Verstappen (2nd) has on Leclerc (1st) but Alonso is 11 positions behind Stroll and on the totally opposite side of the grid.
Teams
So just by looking at the traded ratings, one can see, that most teams lost rating points except for Ferrari and Sauber with a slight- and Williams with a huge increase. That is probably due to me rating every Rookie with the average newcomer performance of 1.16 (Average of Lawson, Colapinto and Bearman). So Haas, Alpine, RB and Mercedes have all lost rating points because they were trading new drivers in. To sprinkle more salt into the wound, Sauber have even increased their rating regardless of trading in a Rookie with Bortoleto.
And I think to give them a relatively low ranking is quite reasonable since 1. nobody knows how they're gonna perform because they've not yet raced in an F1 car competitively nor regularly and 2. Just like that they are very inexperienced and are likely to make mistakes.
However there is more to a driver than just a random guys rating.
So let's take a look at every drivers pros and cons
Drivers
(Divided by their new teams)
Aston Martin
The GOAT with its (rich) Bystander
Since the agreement is that Aston Martin has to keep Stroll and therefore his father spends money to buy a good teammate for him this team averages out but this way they can't ever really grow any junior-talents because Stroll can't be sacked and the experienced drivers probably only sign when they can drive guaranteed. I personally feel like the Stroll family really limits Aston Martins succes but that of course is always hard to realisticly argue. However due to their opponents making big changes and progressing further, I see them fighting against Alpine with the better ending for them thanks to one of the GOATs of this Sport Fernando Alonso. So 6th after all in the Constructors Championship
RB
Over all a young team with good brand value. However I feel like Hadjar would rather profit from a consistent driver next to him that could take away the pressure and teach him more. Maybe though he can benefit from Verstappen like that since he is on RedBulls junior team.
Regardless, this team is gonna have very inconsitent performances and will have problems with its driver hierarchy.
My prediction for them is 8th in the constructors championship
Alpine
The frenchman; after being just short of canceling their F1 project entirely, yet we're here
Generally similar to RB although I expect Gasly to be more consistent and rate Doohan a little higher, because he has just a little more experience, driving at relatively high competion levels. Since Ocon and Gasly couldn't stand each other, I belive it's best to go seperate ways, so this transfer really makes sense and I assume Doohan is one of the more promissing talents in Motorsports. Overall I believe that Doohan will benefit a lot from Gasly and that they will finish pretty consistently;
but unfortunately not all that often in the top 10, so I predict them to get 7th
Haas
The american low-budget Eagle
Honestly, to me this is the worst team on the grid. Despite being a generally good driver, I don't think that Ocon is really gonna help Bearman at all and while he seems like a decent talent, his team will have to fight to keep the car competitive whereas due to his lack of experience he can't really help the mechanics, find out what needs to be improved. With his irrational driving style, Ocon can make really expensive mistakes which, for a small team like Haas can pre-decide a damn lot.
I predict them to finish 10th but with points. :)
Sauber
or soon known as the "Qatari-sovereign-wealth-funded-Audi factory-team"
I feel like this team is just what Audi needes.
- On one side, with Hülkenberg they have a very experienced leader, a Driver that identifies perfectly with the german team and that fans can identify with. He can give well feedback on the car to help improve it as seen with the Haas las season.
- On the other side they have Bortoleto, a great talent for the future that comes in with loads of cinfidence, uninfluenced by the recent season of Sauber
I rate them pretty highly as you might have noticed but generally I think with a decent car they hve a very high ceiling, however with their floor we will have to see how they handle it when the car doesn't really perform the way they would want it to. I can see them on 9th due to very controversial car performances in recent seasons.
Williams
Well... I don't know, they just happen to always be there
I genuinely think, that, just like with Sauber/Audi, Williams has gotten exactly what they needed and by far the best they could've gotten.
Albon is still young but very good and is such an identification figure for the whole team now. With Sainz he now, for the first time, get's a teammate that can score points, challenge him and teach him at the same time.
Both drivers are also very popular and calm figures, raising popularity rather than controversies. I actually rank them as a suprsing 5th.
Mercedes
The star is at the front of, not inside the car
? - That's all I can say about this Antonelli transfer. Like it feels disrespectfull but I would never mean that. I am just so damn curious what they've seen in him. I mean to after just ONE F2 season, not even winning a lot, be seated in an F1 Mercedes car who finished 4th last time, filling the gap of seven time world champion Lewis Hamilton is such a horrendously huge task for such a young gun. But having Russeöl next to him will definitely help him, because Russell will score good points no matter what and will keep the atmosphere much more calm. However I am very sure that they will have absolutely nothing to do wih any title contention so they are a lone-wolf on 4th position for me.
RedBull
No need to ask where all that energy comes from
Red Bull dropped Perez because he didn't manage to take away enough points from Verstappens title-contending opponents. If they were looking for someone that can, they probably have not found it in Lawson. There are more than enough examples where young drivers where put too soon in this role (f.e. Gasly or Albon). However, Verstappen was able to do it, why shouldn't Lawson possibly do so aswell, despite not winning any junior competition. On the other side, if Red Bull wasn't looking for an on-track-Bodyguard for Verstappen. Maybe they were looking for a future prospect to build up next to a superstar to learn from. Its not like they have a junior team for that so they probably wanted that ;-).
Nevertheless I have them 3rd
Ferrari
Seems like italian sportscars age just as well as their wine
I am very much looking forward to this team. Leclerc is a great driver and an even greater one for the future while Hamilton is the pure and personified greatness of the past and still a great driver. Now it all comes down to the mechanics. If their car is halfway competitive this team will definitely fight for the championship titles. However there is one team on the Grid where I'm just a little more certain about their success, so I see them finishing as 2nd
McLaren
"The way to win a championship is not by yourself, it's with the team"
If you can count from one to ten entirely, you could've noticed that this is gonna be my number one and that is the case. I think they have two very good drivers that have both learned a lot during the last season. The only problem I can see is that they could get a hierarchy problem because I can really see Piastri over Norris next season which does not seem to be intended so we will have to see how the team manages certain situation. So yeah I predict them to get 1st. Congrats to McLaren for beating Mercedes with their own engine :)
(and shhh don't tell'em but Piastri is my personal underdog-favorite on winning the championship title)
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