The factors that explain F1’s uniquely conservative driver choices for 2024

Behold! The new season is upon us. Time for GP Racing to deploy well-honed analytical skills, scrutinise driver moves, evaluate rookies’ junior records and prognosticate on the risks teams are taking with new hires. Only we can’t.

Conservatism has swept the paddock, with every team retaining the pairing that finished 2023. Remarkably this is the first time these circumstances have come about since the
world championship began in 1950.

Were F1 powered by rainbows and fairy dust, one might assume a joyful inertia had taken hold: 20 drivers doing a bang-up job, teams thrilled to have them. The realities are a little more complex. Not everyone covered themselves in glory during 2023, and some movement was to be expected – but nothing happened.

Musical chairs without the music. Just one of those things? A statistical fluke? Well, no, not really.

This is season 2023b

The FIA has taken a rare break from tweaking the technical regulations between seasons. While that won’t necessarily stop all 10 teams reinventing the wheel, it does mean there isn’t going to be anything outlandishly different on the grid in 2024. Pirelli certainly hopes not – it’s planning
to bring the same family of tyres as last year.

This, combined with winter testing being a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it gambol around Sakhir, makes continuity quite attractive. It would be mid-season before a rookie figured out how to extract the maximum – while a retained driver should be hitting his straps before the Bahraini bagpipers have inserted their reeds. Unless you had a lightspeed replacement lined up, change was going to hurt.

Stability in the rules meant retaining proven commodities was deemed prudent

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

Formula 2 isn’t cutting it

Part of the problem – if, indeed, it is a problem – is that Formula 2 offers no one with their hand in the air, screaming ‘pick me, pick me!’ F2’s last two champions, Felipe Drugovich and Theo Pourchaire, were both third-season veterans,
and that doesn’t light any fires.

Top 10: The F1 feeder series kings who were overlooked the following year

It might seem unfair on two decent pedallers who, in a just world, would have been handed their shot –
but compare and contrast with the way in
which rookie champions Charles Leclerc and George Russell were ushered immediately into F1 seats, or the tug-of-love that had Oscar Piastri fending off unwanted suitors with the proverbial ordure-encrusted stick.

Rookies of that calibre don’t even have to win. Lando Norris and Alex Albon did enough to warrant their advancement along with Russell, because 2018 was recognised as a vintage year for F2. Recent seasons have been more of a table wine. And, while Mercedes has been incubating the talented Andrea Kimi Antonelli – who’ll be joining F2 this year – it was significant that Merc boss Toto Wolff diplomatically changed the subject when pressed on whether Antonelli could be a candidate for Lewis Hamilton’s seat in 2025.

The car that did a decent job of delivering F1-ish performance for Russell, Norris, Albon et al back in the day, was lightyears away from the ground-effect monsters of the current F1 regs

It’s not just the absence of a Next Big Thing. The F2 chassis and its GP2 predecessor have always aimed to have a degree of F1 relevancy in line with its status as F1’s finishing school – but the series sweats its assets over many years of use. There’s a new chassis for 2024, having finally retired the superannuated Dallara F2/2018 – but the car that did a decent job of delivering F1-ish performance for Russell, Norris, Albon et al back in the day, was lightyears away from the ground-effect monsters of the current F1 regs. Moving up to F1 is supposed to be a big step: it isn’t supposed to be a yawning chasm.

Mexican stand-off

Speaking of yawning chasms, the gap between Max Verstappen and team-mate Sergio Perez makes their continuing partnership 2024’s most surprising line-up – at least if you take uninformed, ill-conceived message-board hatred as a useful metric. Red Bull found itself in the always-awkward position of having five drivers for four seats after Liam Lawson did a tidy job subbing for Daniel Ricciardo. Historically, this would have been bad news for whichever Red Bull driver was currently tanking.

Defenders of Perez would point out he finished second in the drivers’ championship, bagged a couple of victories, and contributed to a record-breaking points haul that would have been enough to win two constructors’ championships. They also – and with rather more vim – would argue the problem is Verstappen. Perez couldn’t live with him in 2023, but would anyone else? Perez is out of contract at the end of this year, there’s a seat up for grabs in 2025, it’s likely to be a highly competitive one… and yet the pretenders to Verstappen’s crown all seem very busy committing themselves elsewhere.

Pourchaire didn't make a sufficiently strong case in winning the F2 title to reach F1, and will instead ply his trade in Japan this year

Photo by: Masahide Kamio

As for Red Bull, it’s worth asking the question: does it need the hassle of a new line-up? Fans might mutter darkly about the excruciating tedium another year of Verstappen hegemony will bring, but this is largely a problem for the other teams to fix.

Red Bull has experience of chasing victories and championships with drivers at each other’s throats and it’s exhausting.
The Verstappen-Perez partnership might be about as exciting as a warm drink at bedtime… but, given the choice of being tucked up with a mug of Horlicks, or being repeatedly hit over
the head with a blunt Mark Webber, Red Bull
can spot an easy option.

Not in the middle of
a chain reaction

Had Red Bull been shopping around for a Perez replacement, that may have started the dominoes falling. Not, admittedly, if it simply shuffled its roster, but certainly if it had looked beyond the stable and moved for Lando Norris, or dragged Carlos Sainz or Alex Albon back in.

Inertia at the other big teams had the same dampening effect: had Lewis Hamilton called it a day rather than signing a new contract – albeit one with an early exit clause – that would likely have triggered a sequence of moves. Instead, Ferrari signed Charles Leclerc up until the dawn of the next decade (if speculation in Italy is to be believed) and McLaren tied Lando Norris into a similarly vague “multi-year” deal beyond his current end-of-2025 contract – believed to be a response to Red Bull sniffing around.

Both these drivers were seen as candidates to replace Hamilton if he walked. Now neither are available for 2025, much to Wolff’s chagrin (“The timing here bit us a bit,” he mused in his post-bombshell press conference).

Absent an agent of chaos further up the grid, there wasn’t really a catalyst for change further down. If smugness could be converted to horsepower, McLaren would be a good bet for pole in Bahrain, with the long-term futures of Norris and Piastri secured. At Alpine, the close rivalry and forced civility of the Ocon-Gasly partnership is a handy distraction from the under-funded chaos of Enstone, and Sauber doesn’t seem inclined to rock its landlocked boat before Audi starts calling the shots.

One might assume the team holding the wooden spoon would be inclined to seek change. But it’s tough to imagine a situation where there’s a reasonably priced pairing more likely than Magnussen and Hulkenberg to help Haas
up from the foot of the table.

With several drivers locked down, the market lacked an agent of chaos sparking moves elsewhere for 2024

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

Over at Aston Martin, rumours of Lance Stroll’s desire to swap F1 for professional tennis had the rare consequence of dragging Stroll out of his usual press conference torpor. The Canadian isn’t the first driver put to bed by Fernando Alonso, just the first who knows he isn’t about to be replaced by someone quicker and more reliable – but all that means on a week-to-week basis is that the punishment beatings will continue.

Add-in Stroll’s default aura of Bassett Hound ennui, and the desire to construct a graceful exit strategy feels almost like a sympathy vote from the internet. The kernel of truth within the rumour
is the acknowledgement that he will depart
at the time of his choosing.

Mick Schumacher and Drugovich were mentioned in dispatches but ultimately it’s a stretch to assume either would be able to come in cold and out-perform a driver that’s had a year at Grove

And this leaves Williams. Logan Sargeant’s late confirmation for 2024 came from Williams’ desire to see a full season of data before pushing the button. In the data-driven, tech-bro world of James Vowles, this sounds more plausible than it would coming from the mouth of any other team principal – but would Williams have made a different decision with more options available?

It’s a moot point because there weren’t many. Mick Schumacher and Drugovich were mentioned in dispatches but ultimately it’s a stretch to assume either would be able to come in cold and out-perform a driver that’s had a year at Grove, understands the team and the car, and has grasped the correct way to pronounce ‘scone’.

Under these circumstances, change seems like far too much hassle. Unless, as with Toto Wolff, it’s been forced upon you…

Numerous factors conspired to ensure that changing drivers for 2024 was unappealing

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images