At first of final 12 months we requested RaceFans readers which of the 20 drivers on the grid would beat their workforce mates over the course of the season.
You appropriately named seven of the ten winners. However three drivers fell in need of your expectations.
Two of them are with out an F1 drive for 2025 and are doubtless on the finish of their careers. However the different faces one of many greatest challenges of his profession so far, amid claims his kind final 12 months exhibits he’s not the pressure he as soon as was.
The anticipated winners of 2024
Pierre Gasly vs Esteban Ocon
71.6% mentioned Gasly would win
There was little to decide on between the 2 Alpine drivers and long-term rivals after they first teamed up in 2023. Pierre Gasly pipped Esteban Ocon by simply 4 factors.
The second time round, extra of you have been assured Gasly would cleared the path, and he did, by 38 to 23. However that didn’t inform the entire story: Ocon scored the workforce’s greatest results of the 12 months with second place in Brazil, and didn’t have entry to their greatest components on the finish of the season as he was on his method to Haas. Nonetheless, Gasly can think about himself the slender winner in what regarded like a grudge match at instances.
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Charles Leclerc vs Carlos Sainz Jnr
74.3% mentioned Leclerc would win
Carlos Sainz Jnr out-scored Charles Leclerc of their first season collectively as workforce mates at Ferrari and practically did so once more in 2023. Greater than 1 / 4 of our readers fancied his possibilities of doing so once more, however even factoring out his missed look in Jeddah this was a transparent 340-290 factors win for Leclerc.
Lando Norris vs Oscar Piastri
81.7% mentioned Norris would win
Oscar Piastri made a superb begin to his Components 1 profession at McLaren in 2023. He confirmed plenty of promise within the second half of the season particularly.
That emboldened fairly a number of of our readers – virtually one in 5 – to foretell he would beat Lando Norris of their second season as workforce mates. It didn’t come to cross, nevertheless, partly as a result of Norris raised his recreation as he went up in opposition to Max Verstappen within the championship battle. Norris led Piastri 374 to 292 on the finish of the 12 months, the pair amassing sufficient factors between them for McLaren to win the constructors’ championship.
Nico Hulkenberg vs Kevin Magnussen
83.4% mentioned Hulkenberg would win
The Haas drivers solely made occasional forays into the factors throughout 2023, and Nico Hulkenberg’s sixth place end in Australia was the primary cause he got here out forward.
Each drivers picked up way more factors final 12 months because the VF-24 proved far kinder to its tyres and Haas’s upgrades labored as meant. Hulkenberg led the way in which as soon as once more although, out-scoring Magnussen 41-16, as most of our readers anticipated.
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Fernando Alonso vs Lance Stroll
98.4% mentioned Alonso would win
The following three votes have been by far essentially the most emphatic and in every case the anticipated winner didn’t disappoint. Lance Stroll has not out-scored a workforce mate since becoming a member of his father’s workforce in 2019 and that didn’t change final 12 months, Fernando Alonso thumping him by 70 factors to 24.
Alexander Albon vs Logan Sargeant
98.9% mentioned Albon would win
Virtually nobody anticipated Logan Sargeant to out-score Alexander Albon. Certain sufficient, he failed to gather a single level earlier than his season ended early on the Dutch Grand Prix, throughout which era Albon picked up 4.
However what number of would have tipped Franco Colapinto to take action nicely as Sargeant’s substitute?
Max Verstappen vs Sergio Perez
99.5% mentioned Verstappen would win
Just one particular person tipped Sergio Perez to out-score Max Verstappen. To be truthful to Perez, his season started comparatively nicely, then went off the rails badly and by no means recovered. His 437-152 defeat to Verstappen could be the ultimate phrase on his 15-year F1 profession.
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The surprising losers of 2024
Daniel Ricciardo vs Yuki Tsunoda
68.4% mentioned Ricciardo would win
It wasn’t simply the RaceFans readership who predicted Daniel Ricciardo would fare higher than he did at RB final 12 months – the Purple Bull management clearly anticipated extra. However he by no means persistently had the higher hand over workforce mate Yuki Tsunoda, and finally Purple Bull realised the magic was gone, and lower him free, by which era he was 12-20 down on factors.
Lewis Hamilton vs George Russell
72.2% mentioned Hamilton would win
George Russell out-scored Lewis Hamilton throughout their first season as workforce mates. Nonetheless that 12 months Hamilton bore the brunt of the workforce’s early experiments to work out how they acquired the W13 so badly unsuitable, which arguably compromised his points-scoring.
This 12 months was a special matter. Heading for the exit at Mercedes, Hamilton by no means acquired comfy along with his automotive’s efficiency over a single flying lap and infrequently discovered himself enjoying catch-up consequently. Even Russell’s disqualification at Spa, which handed victory to Hamilton and a large factors swing in his favour, couldn’t cease the youthful driver popping out on prime by 245 to 223.
What that claims about Hamilton’s talents as he heads into his fifth decade is likely one of the most intriguing questions for the upcoming season and his big-money transfer to Ferrari.
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Valtteri Bottas vs Zhou Guanyu
76.2% mentioned Bottas would win
Greater than three-quarters of our readers anticipated Valtteri Bottas would proceed to out-score Zhou Guanyu at Sauber. However whereas he was persistently their greatest performer over the season, Sauber had the slowest automotive on the grid on common and have been due to this fact on the mercy of their rivals’ efficiency by way of points-scoring alternatives.
In Qatar, considered one of their higher weekends, Bottas was hit by Liam Lawson, and Zhou grabbed his probability to attain the workforce’s sole factors of the 12 months with eighth place. It proved moot, nevertheless, as on the finish of the 12 months each Sauber drivers have been dropped.
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