🇬🇧 F1'24: R12 - Plead the fifth

Minor editor’s note - this entry is late (sorry about that). The reason is I went to Silverstone on Saturday. See some images on Threads, and some reflections on LinkedIn…

Right, where were we? Right, F1, Silverstone, and the race for fifth place…

When was the last time we had six race winners in a season? The answer is 2021, where obviously nothing else notable happened that year. The title protagonists Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton obviously won the majority of races, with their teammates Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez also popping up in Turkey and Azerbaijan respectively.

But in 2021, we also had a couple of shock victories. Esteban Ocon was phoned by French President Emmanuel Macron after he took the chequered flag in Hungary, while Daniel Ricciardo’s faltering time in the McLaren will always be remembered for his shock win, and a team 1-2 in Monza that year.

And those shocks made it unpredictable. You don’t know what’s going to happen next and who is going to win - after all, Russia that year had Lando Norris almost winning, while third placed Ferrari did not win at all, somehow.

Fast forward to 2024, and we’ve had six winners so far. Verstappen and Hamilton again, with the Dutchman leading Norris in the championship by 84 points after the Silverstone round. George Russell was on mop up duty after the pair collided in Austria, and Ferrari are still a dangerous stalking if not prancing horse, with Charles Leclerc winning an emotional home race in Monaco and Carlos Sainz firmly placing himself into the shop window, coming back to win in Melbourne after an appendix operation.

Six winners, and none of them feel like a shock. We haven’t yet had that midpack driver taking a weird win that no one sees coming. The other problem is that outside of the top four teams, there doesn’t seem like that win is coming from outside those eight.

And while Sergio Perez and Oscar Piastri haven’t yet won a race this season, it feels like only the big four teams are going to pick up a victory in 2024. And, unless another team unlocks a breakthrough in the second half of the season, it feels like the podium positions will be swapped between those four teams this year.

Lewis Hamilton was the most recent winner and the Mercedes driver has added yet more records to the long, long list he possesses. No driver has won a race once they tick past 300 races in F1 until Sunday. No driver has won a race at one particular circuit nine times until Sunday - you get the idea.

@mercedesamgf1

Outta nowhere 😉😆 #WWE #Undertaker #Mercedes #F1 #Meme #Casket

But while Mercedes have picked up consecutive wins for the first since 2021, there is a gap - a huge gap - in the Teams’ Championship for fifth place, and three teams who could realistically fill it. 

Aston Martin scored 280 points in 2023 on their way to fifth last season and I guarantee no fifth-placed team is going to get that close this season. Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso’s team started 2023 with a bang, emerging as a threat to the established order without taking a win from a Red Bull side that won almost everything. However, they’ve fallen in stature since then and other teams have overtaken them in the development race.

The triple-header was not fruitful for the team, with just 10 points across the three race weekends - all of which were collected at Silverstone. At least one Aston driver should be found in the top 10 across the weekend and even though Alonso and Stroll occupy ninth and tenth in the standings, the Spanish driver has nearly twice the points of his teammate. Despite the negatives, fifth is Aston Martin’s spot to lose.

This brings us to the Racing Bulls. Team VCARB. The fun-loving sister team to Red Bull have had their troubles this season, most notably in China, but, despite a few bright spots, the season has been inconsistent. This sounds like a disaster, but compared to 2023, they might launch an open top bus parade. 

They scored 2 points before the summer break last season on a total of 25. This season they’ve bagged 31 so far. It’s not inconceivable, that with the drivers they have in Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda, that they could close the gap to Aston Martin. 

Doing so and finishing fifth would be the team’s best result under the Toro Rosso or Alpha Tauri names. One note of caution should be sounded though, with a triple header that only generated 3 points. Only Williams and Sauber scored fewer.

Directly below VCARB lies Haas, and a team that has made some upgrades. Nico Hulkenberg will be missed by Haas, who have started to confirm their future through Oliver Bearman (and probably Esteban Ocon). The Hulk is moving on to Sauber/Audi, so I personally hope they keep their green colour scheme, but scored two straight sixth places in the triple header and quietly has finished 11th - the worst place - five times, as many times as he has scored points this season. Hulkenberg is quietly having an exceptional season in the Haas, emphasising that during the triple-header by scoring more than Charles Leclerc and Sergio Perez.

Alongside him in Kevin Magnussen, who is the only driver of these three teams to be below The Bearman Line (this was/is a blog idea btw). With only five points, he’s struggling this season, but he was another beneficiary of the clash between Verstappen and Norris in Austria, picking up four of those five in Austria. In fairness to the Dane, not all the upgrades are on his car yet, so there is a chance that Haas could emerge for fifth, only to blow up the driver lineup and roll the dice with Bearman plus one.

I’ve not included Alpine or Williams here. With nine and four points respectively, they’re fighting among themselves for eighth, which is not as interesting a fight, especially when one driver has zero points in that particular fight.

With a week’s break after the triple-header, Formula 1 moves onto Hungary and traditionally one of the most difficult tracks to overtake on. 25% of the current grid have won there in the past (Verstappen, Hamilton, Ocon, Ricciardo, Alonso), but as the summer break approaches, it’s not just the front of the grid that’s drawing intrigue.