What team has the best chance at taking home the F1 Constructors’ Championship in 2024?
Formula 1 has reached its summer break.
While the grid is quiet at the moment, it will roar to life again later this month, with the 2024 Dutch Grand Prix. That race will kick off the unofficial second half of the F1 season, and if the first half of the campaign is any indication, it will be a second half to remember.
Perhaps the biggest question facing the grid? Who takes home the Constructors’ Championship. When the year began it looked as if Red Bull was going to stroll to another title, but as the grid hits the summer break the Bulls find themselves with just a 42-point lead over McLaren.
And both Ferrari and Mercedes are lurking.
Which team is in the best position to take home a title? Let’s rank the four contenders.
Charles Leclerc’s emotional victory in the Monaco Grand Prix not only exorcised hometown demons for the Montagesque driver, but also pulled Ferrari to within 24 points of Red Bull at the top of the Constructors’ Championship standings.
Since then, Ferrari have fallen off the pace, and seen McLaren leap ahead of them and Mercedes inch closer to them in those standings.
Upgrades the team brought to Barcelona for the Spanish Grand Prix, including a new floor, have not only failed to improve performance but created a “bouncing” effect for the SF-24. Speaking ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix Carlos Sainz Jr. went as far as to say that the SF-24 was “undrivable” as a result.
“In high-speed tracks we might have to run the floor of this [older] package because if not, the other one is undriveable,” said Sainz.
“I trust the team will make the right calls circuit-to-circuit until a more solid package, which is not bouncing in high-speed and good in low-speed, arrives and then we will start thinking about battling the top three teams again.”
A podium finish for Leclerc in the Belgian Grand Prix, made possible by George Russell’s disqualification, is evidence that the car is still quick enough to keep Ferrari in the conversation. But absent a stunning turnaround, a title seems a difficult task this season.
Based on their recent form alone, Mercedes could top this list.
The Silver Arrows entered the summer shutdown on a hot streak, having won three of the final four races ahead of the break. Upgrades that the team started rolling out at the Miami Grand Prix have truly improved the performance of the W15, giving both George Russell and Lewis Hamilton a chance at a podium — or better — each week.
And when the 2024 season is all said and done, Hamilton’s emotional victory in the British Grand Prix may go into the books as the most magical moment of the year.
However, as impressive as their recent form has been, they face a steep climb to the top of the Constructors’ Championship standings. At the moment Mercedes trail Red Bull by 142, and sit 100 points behind second-place McLaren. Even their gap to Ferrari, which clocks in at 79 points, is large.
The Silver Arrows have the pace to win more races down the stretch, and certainly put pressure on Ferrari for that third spot in the standings. However, their slow start to the season makes the prospect of a title challenge seem unlikely. But they can absolutely end the year strong, putting themselves in a great position for the final year of the current regulations.
That all adds up to a great environment for welcoming in a driver to replace the soon-to-be-departing Hamilton.
Perhaps a rookie in Andrea Kimi Antonelli?
This season’s British Grand Prix might ultimately tell the story of Red Bull’s 2024 season.
The team got everything right with Max Verstappen in that race. They got the timing right with the switch back to slicks after the rain eased, and the RB20 came alive during Verstappen’s final stint on a set of hards, allowing him to rocket by Lando Norris — on a set of softs — and make a charge to the front. They got everything right ... and yet Verstappen finished second.
That result is perhaps the biggest sign yet that this is not 2023.
Last year Red Bull could get everything wrong in a race and Verstappen could still win by ten seconds. But this is not 2023, and the pace of Red Bull’s rivals means that even on days when they are perfect, a win might still be out of their grasp.
Add to that Sergio Pérez’s current struggles, which opened the door to yet another debate over his future with the team, and you have a team truly in a title fight. Yes, they have Verstappen, and yes they enter the second half of the season with a 42-point lead over McLaren. But that is a gap that could, mathematically, be erased over a single race weekend.
Teams can put pressure on them now, forcing Red Bull to be perfect to win.
And sometimes, even that is not enough.
In many ways, McLaren is ahead of schedule, and dealing with growing pains as a result.
When I spoke with Zak Brown last October and asked him whether a title fight in 2024 was possible, the McLaren CEO indicated that perhaps 2025 was a more reasonable goal. But they are indeed in that fight, and Brown just this week conceded that it was a “surprise” to find themselves challenging for the top spot in the standings.
“If I were to sit here and say I’m not surprised, that would be disingenuous,” Brown told BBC Sport this week. “Red Bull had such an advantage over everyone and Mercedes has been so dominant.
“I felt like we’d continue to close the gap. Did I think we would be here at the summer break, one race away from getting the lead?
“That race would have to be first and second and fastest lap, and do I think it’s going to happen like that? No. But if we keep the same trajectory we’ve been on the last six, seven races, we’ll be where we need to be by the end of the year,” continued Brown. “I thought we might get where we are now by 2025. I didn’t think we would be where we are now in 2024. But I’m not complaining.”
However, a word on those growing pains. With a title fight comes learning what it takes to survive at the front of the field. Whether it is on the micro level — such as Lando Norris learning what it takes to race at the front — or the macro level, with the team learning how to balance two very fast drivers in Norris and Oscar Piastri as well as the strategy decisions equal with a title-winning team, McLaren is doing some learning right now.
Can they learn those lessons?
Whether they do or not might tell the story of their title fight. But at the moment they have a fast car, two high-performing drivers, and momentum. Since Miami, no team has scored more than McLaren:
The trend is their friend.
