The three-way scrap that kept everybody guessing in F1 2024

The battle for the 2024 constructors’ championship was among the most exciting, keenly fought contests Formula 1 has seen in recent years. But in a sport where cash is king, the scrap did not end at the very top. Points make prizes for the whole grid, and the scrabble for sixth position really highlighted how important the team rankings are come the end of a hard-fought season.

Performances on track fluctuated against a backdrop of various issues away from the circuit. We saw drivers dropped, sponsorship wrangles, leadership changes and double podiums as those teams fighting for the minor points positions kept each other honest. Alpine ultimately came out on top of a three-way tussle, beating Haas by just seven points, with RB a further 12 points behind.

There were plenty of twists and turns for all three squads, which made for enthralling viewing. With no major regulation changes for 2025, the trio are likely to face another year of rivalry. Which way it goes could translate to an eight-figure swing in prize money between teams separated by mere tenths of a second.

Alpine emerges from early blues

Double podium in Brazil proved crucial to salvaging Alpine's season, and served as a last hurrah before Ocon was ditched post-Qatar

Photo by: Alpine

Alpine’s battle on the track came amid change and turmoil away from it, with plenty of issues to overcome as it looked to hold onto the sixth spot it had secured in 2023.

Another change in team principal resulted in the installation of Oliver Oakes at the helm from August’s Dutch Grand Prix onwards, a decision largely made by the return of Flavio Briatore. The 74-year-old Italian had made a controversial comeback to the team as a special advisor, having resigned from the Enstone squad in 2009 in the wake of the race-fixing scandal surrounding the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix.

Alpine locked out the back row of the grid in the season-opening Bahrain GP and its drivers, Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon, clashed in Monaco before the year was hit by more upheaval when Renault announced plans to pull its F1 engine programme. Protesting staff from Renault’s Viry-Chatillon factory arrived at the Italian GP after F1’s summer break with banners and T-shirts calling (unsuccessfully) for a reversal of the decision. Meanwhile, on track, Gasly and Ocon failed to score points from Monza to the United States GP – a run of four rounds.

The Brazilian GP weekend would provide 35 of the team’s eventual points total of 65

The fact that the team pitted Ocon in the closing stages at Austin to fit fresh soft tyres and send him out to claim the fastest lap, thereby stealing a bonus point away from the Williams of Franco Colapinto, showed where Alpine’s thinking lay heading into the final five races of the year.

The campaign was saved by a shock double-podium in the pouring rain of Interlagos, which resulted in the team leapfrogging from ninth to sixth in the constructors’ standings in just one race – a monumental result that was soon followed by the announcement that Alpine would become a Mercedes customer from 2026, initially using both engines and gearboxes. The Brazilian GP weekend would provide 35 of the team’s eventual points total of 65.

It wasn’t plain sailing from that point on, however, because Ocon – whose departure, and subsequent move to Haas for 2025, was announced in June – felt that Gasly now had preferential treatment. As the relationship between team and driver soured, Ocon was dropped for the final race of the year. That allowed Alpine to bring in Jack Doohan for his F1 debut in Abu Dhabi, rather than having to wait until the start of next season to get the Australian behind the wheel in a racing environment.

PLUS: Assessing Doohan's slow-burn debut at F1's Abu Dhabi finale

While Doohan was unable to contribute any points, Gasly enjoyed another strong weekend when he qualified sixth and ran as high as third in the race before finishing seventh – more than enough to keep Alpine clear of its challengers.

Haas improves but misses out

Haas finished bottom of the pile in 2023, but improved to put together consistent points scores to narrowly miss out on sixth spot

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

For Haas, 2024 could easily be summed up as ‘so near, yet so far’ when its leap forward in performance from the previous season came close to clinching sixth place for the Banbury squad. While the battle was tight, Haas seemed to be on top even if it could never open a meaningful gap over the other suitors for sixth, ultimately falling behind after Alpine’s brilliant Brazil showing.

Haas had finished dead last in 2023, scoring just 12 points over the course of the year with a car that never provided Nico Hulkenberg or Kevin Magnussen with the speed to compete against the rest of the field – at least in the races, when the VF-23 ate its tyres. Issues with the car were addressed over the winter and coupled with upgrades at times during the season. It was a year during which Haas – under the command of new team principal Ayao Komatsu, who replaced Guenther Steiner before the campaign began – joined the fight further up the grid.

PLUS: The subtle changes that helped F1 2023's worst team to make notable gains

Initial improvements meant Gene Haas opened his chequebook and stumped up for additional staff recruitment to keep the momentum going as its experienced driving duo set about scoring points. Magnussen missed Baku, suspended after collecting 12 penalty points. Illness also ruled him out in Brazil, meaning Ollie Bearman stepped in. The Briton claimed 10th place in Azerbaijan.

As with its rivals, not everything ran smoothly across the year. Haas was unable to depart Zandvoort following the Dutch GP. The squad was eventually able to take its cars and equipment to Monza after former sponsor Uralkali confirmed receipt of a refund payment believed to total $9million and an F1 car. Bailiffs and police had visited the team in the Zandvoort pitlane after Uralkali went through the courts, claiming that Haas had missed a July deadline for the refund of a cancelled sponsorship agreement.

A 24-race season will always bring highs and lows, and in October Haas announced a new technical partnership with Toyota and its Gazoo Racing division, with shared knowledge and specialities expected to help Haas speed up its development.

Hulkenberg, whose departure to Sauber was confirmed in April, picked up consecutive sixth-place finishes in Austria and at Silverstone. He and Magnussen then scored a trickle of points before a run of five consecutive points-paying races ended in Brazil.

The improvements ultimately weren’t enough for sixth, with a three-place grid penalty for Hulkenberg in Abu Dhabi demoting him from fourth after an impressive qualifying. He finished eighth in the race, while Magnussen’s final outing for the team ended with disappointment down in 16th after a clash not of his making.

RB slips back after initial promise

Ricciardo bowed out of F1 with a conciliatory fastest lap in Singapore as RB drafted Lawson back in to replace him

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

The 2024 season for the Red Bull junior operation began with another renaming as AlphaTauri made way for the catchily titled ‘Visa Cash App RB F1 Team’. Shortened to either VCARB or simply RB, the new name was heavily criticised by F1 followers as the squad set about improving on its previous year, during which four drivers had only managed to score a collective 25 points, AlphaTauri finishing eighth in the standings as a result.

Despite that poor year and the fresh look, RB retained the driver pairing that had ended 2023. Yuki Tsunoda and Daniel Ricciardo remained behind the wheel – for the first 18 rounds at least. By that stage, Tsunoda had taken seventh-place finishes in Melbourne and Miami, while Ricciardo had only managed an eighth in Canada. That said, RB was a consistent points threat in the first half of the year.

Even though the results were modest, both drivers went into the summer break hoping to earn a promotion to Red Bull, where Sergio Perez’s poor performances meant the Mexican’s position had come under threat. But Perez was handed a stay of execution and, four races after the restart, Ricciardo was let go by the team altogether. This was the result of his own struggles to replicate his previous form within the Red Bull stable.

Despite the change in the cockpit, RB’s season petered out badly

It was a low point for the team. Ricciardo headed to the Singapore GP as a dead man walking, with the decision already having been made but with the usually affable Australian unable to announce his departure. His sullenness was not helped by a poor race in which he ran in last place before what appeared to be a strategic call to help parent team Red Bull meant Ricciardo was pitted for soft tyres and subsequently set the fastest lap of the race, stealing a point away from Max Verstappen’s closest title rival Lando Norris.

Ricciardo duly left the team the following week and Liam Lawson was drafted in for the remaining six races. The New Zealander was more than happy to ruffle feathers across the Red Bull teams in an attempt to stay in F1 beyond December.

But despite the change in the cockpit, RB’s season petered out badly. Between them, Lawson and Tsunoda took just 10 points between them across the last four rounds.

Performance gains come too late for Sauber to kick on

Zhou scored the only points of a trying year for Sauber in Qatar, but it came far too late to change the team's fortunes

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

Most of 2024 was – in more ways than one – a pointless exercise for Sauber. As the de facto backmarkers of the year, you could almost always count on both Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu dropping out in Q1 and then settling in for a race that promised little and often delivered even less.

On track at least, the team is treading water ahead of Audi’s arrival in Formula 1 in 2026. While preparations to put the right staff in place led to the hiring of Mattia Binotto as chief operating officer and chief technical officer, the former Ferrari team boss has already conceded that it will take years for the Audi project to result in F1 success.

Speaking in September, Binotto admitted that the Audi project “cannot afford” for Sauber to be so far off the pace – fitting words given the later investment into the team from the Qatar sovereign wealth fund, reported to be worth $350million, amid the worrying financial waters at parent company VW.

The announcement that Nico Hulkenberg would return in 2025 came in April, meaning Zhou and Bottas were scrambling for the one remaining seat for much of the year, both ultimately losing out to rookie Gabriel Bortoleto. Results on track did not improve until a long-awaited upgrade arrived for the Las Vegas Grand Prix in November and, with just three rounds of the championship remaining, Sauber was able to finally mix it with the midfield.

The new floor upgrade came, as Bottas put it, “ironically” late for the departing duo, but at least it gave the team some hope that 2025 will feature further improvements, especially after Zhou took Sauber’s first points of a dismal year when he finished eighth in Qatar. That saved the team from repeating the unwanted feat of going all season without a point – as it had in 2014. But it remains to be seen what Sauber can do in the last year before Audi fully enters F1.

RB, Haas and Alpine provided plenty of entertainment during the season in their battle for sixth

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images