As the commentators say in F1, “Lights out and away we go! We are racing in 2024!” The winter break is over and the 2024 Formula 1 racing season has officially started.
More fans are tuning in this year than last and we have Netflix to thank for this. In 2019, the first season of Netflix’s F1 docuseries, “Drive to Survive,” was released and since then came a new season covering each racing season every year. Every new season of “Drive to Survive” introduced more people to the bright lights and fast paces of the F1 world, a class of racing known as the one of the fastest forms of motorsport racing. With the new fans comes more questions about the sport. So let’s shift down to the basics.
Twenty-four grands prix, as car races are known, in this year’s season last about 10 months, split up by a two-week summer break. The races span all over the world reaching the Middle East, Asia, Europe, North America, South America, and Australia. The racing season opens up with the Bahrain Grand Prix and then closes with the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
On the grid are 10 different teams. The grid is the part of the track where each car lines up in the spot that they earned in qualifying and starts their race from there on Sunday. Some of them have familiar names such as Mercedes, Ferrari, Red Bull, McLaren, and Aston Martin. Twenty drivers are on the grid, two racing for each team.
Each race takes place over the weekend, hence why it’s called race weekend. Media Day is Thursday when drivers attend a press conference and give interviews for different media outlets.
Friday is when the drivers have three practice sessions on the track, each an hour long. Saturday is qualification day, the drivers see whoever can set the fastest lap. Whoever does qualifies P1 or Pole position which is at the very front of the grid. Whichever driver gets the second fastest lap qualifies P2, the third fastest qualifies P3, and so on. Depending on which race it is there may be a sprint race before the actual qualifying laps but that is only for specific races.
The long-awaited Sunday is race day. Where the drivers finish at the end of the grand prix is important not only because they want to win but also because there are points appointed to the top 10 of the grid. P1 gets 25 points, P2 gets 18, P3 gets 15, and continues down to P10 receiving one point. If the drivers finish outside of the top 10 they don’t receive any points.
Points are integral for each driver because there are two championships that the drivers and the teams are working for. The Drivers Championship rewards the driver with the most points at the end of the season. After a driver wins the Drivers Championship they are known as a World Champion. The Constructors Championship is the championship for the teams. It rewards the teams for building the best cars and for the two drivers, combined, accumulating the most points compared to the other teams.
At the end of every race, a celebration is held for the drivers who made it to the podium. The driver who won the race has their national anthem played and each driver on the podium gets a trophy for their place. Then the celebratory spraying of champagne commences, where each driver is given a bottle of bubbly which they then shake, open, and spray it on each other in a fun, good-sportsmanly celebration.
The current reigning World Champion is Max Verstappen, a 26-year-old Dutchman, who Races for Red Bull Racing. He won his first Grand Prix at only 17 years old and became the youngest driver to compete and win in F1. Verstappen won his first World Championship in 2021 and has won it every year since. He just beat out the previous reigning champion, Lewis
Hamilton, for his first World Championship.
Hamilton is a seven-time World Champion and shares the record for most championships with the F1 racing legend Michael Schumacher. Hamilton races for Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team. Making the rivalry between the Mercedes and Red Bull teams fierce.
Many F1 fans have begun to complain about the Max Verstappen and Red Bull domination of the last three years. Some even joke that the Dutch national anthem, which is played when Verstappen has won, has been played so often that now it can be considered the new theme song for F1.
But after seeing the performance of the drivers in the first race of the 2024 season some F1 fans may have hope for a new World Champion. Verstappen did win the Bahrain Grand Prix with his fellow Red Bull driver, Checo Perez placing P2, but they did have to fight for it. Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz made it to the podium by placing P3. This surprised many fans because Ferrari’s cars have been very uncompetitive these last few years, with lots of malfunctions and design flaws. Some say this is Sainz’s way of showing his team what they will be missing because Ferrari has signed Lewis Hamilton to race for them in the 2025 season. Leaving Sainz without a seat in F1 next year.
Ferrari’s other driver Charles LeClerc just missed the podium by placing P4. But still impressing fans and his team alike. McLaren also made a splash at this year’s opening race with their drivers Lando Norris placing P6 and Oscar Piastri placing P8. This means good points for the team and the car seemed very competitive. This gave hope to many McLaren fans because, like the Ferrari car, the McLaren team has had a rough few years. Their luck turned around halfway through last year’s season when they made upgrades to the car that had the McLaren drivers placing high at the end of the races. McLaren’s good design and strategy look to carry on through this season.
With the first Grand Prix of the 2024 season under our belts, the anticipation only continues to grow. The fight for both the Constructors and the Drivers Championship might be a very close and nail-biting one. Will you be tuning in?
