Author: Prix

McLaren v.s. McLaren – The two McLaren drivers, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, have been closely competing since the start of this season in Australia and it was no different in Hungary. Piastri was ahead of Norris the whole beginning of the race but what determined the winner in the end came down to strategy. If Norris did the traditional strategy, the one Piastri did, he probably would’ve finished second. But since he is battling Piastri for the championship he needed every point he could get. Because of this, he chose to take a risk and do a one stop instead of a two stop, like most drivers did. In the end this gamble paid off and he beat Piastri. Though if there had been just a couple more laps it is likely Piastri would’ve passed Norris for the win.

Aston Martin’s Great Performance – After having an underwhelming first half of the season most were surprised when Aston Martin got both their drivers in the points this weekend. They had a great qualifying for both cars, making it into Q3 and then managed to execute a good race. Fernando Alonso finished best of the rest in fifth while Lance Stroll finished a bit behind in seventh.

Notable Drivers in Hungary – Some other drivers who deserve credit are Gabriel Bortoleto and Liam Lawson. Bortoleto, a rookie, did an amazing job qualifying and out-performing his teammate, Nico Hulkenberg, who has been in F1 for many years and has been a little behind on qualifying pace lately. Bortoleto finished seventh in Q3 and in the race he went for the one stop, like Norris, managing to pull it off and finishing sixth. Meanwhile Lawson finished eighth in the race. He managed to finish ahead of Max Verstappen and Yuki Tsunoda, who both race for Racing Bulls’ senior team Red Bull. Recently, Lawson appears to be getting more comfortable with the RB car during the last few races and it showed in Hungary.

There are still five seats available in the 2025 grid and there are many people wanting to start their rookie season next year. Here are a few who deserve a shot at a seat next year.

Jack Doohan – Is currently a reserve and test driver for Alpine. He competed in F2 for two seasons, finishing sixth and fourth. He is the son of Mick Doohan, a motorcycle racer.

Liam Lawson – Filled in for Daniel Ricciardo when he got hurt in 2023. He raced for five races and scored 2 points for Alpha Tauri (now RB). He finished ahead of Yuki Tsunoda four out of five of the races he participated in. (Though Tsunoda had one DNS and one DNF.) He is now a Red Bull and RB reserve driver.

Paul Aron – Is currently racing in F2 with Hitech. He used to be part of the Mercedes Junior team. He is currently third in the F2 standings but at one point was leading the championship. This is his first full season in F2 and he is out performing people who have been racing in F2 for a year longer than him.

Will any of these drivers be in F1 next year? Well only time will tell.

Hammer time is back! Hamilton got his first podium in the season this weekend in Spain. He hasn’t had a good season so far for him but it seems to be looking up for him. Hamilton was fourth in the last race (Canada) and it appears that the car is a lot more competitive ever since the update in Canada. He finished ahead of his teammate for only the third time this season. Hammer time is looking to be back but will it stay that way or not and can Hamilton start out-performing Russell?

 

Leclerc finally won in Monaco. Leclerc got pole on Saturday and led all of the race. He has been close to winning or at least had a chance of winning in Monaco multiple times but had no luck. Back in 2021 he got poll but crashed in qualifying. The team fixed the car but unfortunately the gearbox had an issue due to the crash. He didn’t even get to start his home race. In 2022 Ferrari, by mistake, pitted him an extra time and while his teammate was pitting this meant he didn’t win. Finally in 2024 Leclerc finally had luck on his side. He got poll beating Piastri and Norris. He then led every lap of the race thanks to a red flag on lap one.

 

The Australian GP was full of surprises, from Verstappen retiring to Sainz winning and to Russell’s last lap crash.

Ferrari had a very smooth operation in Australia. Sainz over took Verstappen on lap two to take the lead of the race. Leclerc finished second making it Ferrari’s first 1, 2 since Bahrain 2022. So far Ferrari is looking to be Red Bull’s closest competitor this year.

Red Bull had one of their worst races, if not their worst, in the last two years (excluding Singapore 2023). Verstappen, who had not been particularly pleased with the car all weekend, retired on lap 5 out of 58 due to a brake problem. He was trying to win his tenth race in a row, which he has done before once in 2023. Funny enough Verstappen hadn’t retired from a race since the 2022 Australian Grand Prix. Perez also had a bad race compared to the first two races of 2024, he finished fifth behind both of the Ferrari and Mclaren cars.

Mercedes had a terrible weekend, with a double DNF. Hamilton, who hasn’t been very comfortable in the car all season, had an engine issue and retired on lap 17. Russell at least looked like he was going to get a decent seventh but then on the last lap crashed. The stewards blamed this crash on Alonso, who was right in front of Russell, even though they didn’t touch. The reason being is Alonso was defending from Russell and tried a new technique in corner six on the last lap. He braked very early closing the gap to Russell and causing Russell to lose down force all of the sudden. Losing down force caused Russell’s car to crash.

Williams was down to one car in Australia due to the fact that Albon crashed in FP1 and they didn’t have a spare chassis. Williams made a hard call to put Albon in Sargeant’s car as they then only had one car. They thought it was the best possibility to score a point or two. Unfortunately for them they didn’t score any points and probably should have just left Sargeant in the car.

It was a crazy weekend with a smooth operator Sainz, a bad strategic call from Williams, and a terrible weekend for Red Bull and Mercedes. And I can’t wait to see what surprises the Japanese GP will bring next weekend.

 

This is the second part of this article. Part one was mainly about the front of the pack and part two is mostly about the rest of the pack.

Kick Sauber looks to be off to a decent start. Almost scoring points in Bahrain, with Zhou finishing in 11th. In Saudi Arabia they looked to be a little further behind in 17th and 18th. If their development is good this year and into 2025 and when they become Audi in 2026 they could really move up the field.

RB’s car seems a little underwhelming as people in preseason testing talked it up a lot. Also Tsunoda seems to be faster than Ricciardo but Ricciardo is the one everyone thinks might go to Red Bull. If Ricciardo really wants to go to Red Bull he needs to start out performing Tsunoda, who at the moment is looking like the more competitive of the two.

Haas scored their first points in over 20 races in Saudi Arabia. They had a clever strategy where they used Hulkenburg, who had two ten second penalties but was running in the points,to hold up the field, allowing Magnessen to score a point for Haas. Haas didn’t have good development last year so it’ll be interesting to see if they have fixed that problem for this year.

Williams is looking a little more behind than last year but they said that they are focusing more in the long term. Albon very nearly scored points in Saudi Arabia with 11th and Sargeant a few spots behind in 14th. Sargeant definitely needs to up his game this year, as he was out-qualified by his teammate Albon every time last year. Sargeant has shown sometimes he does have the pace and he just needs to work on showing it more often.

After the first two races of the season people are wondering who is looking good and who looks like they have some problems to fix.

Red Bull yet again looks to be leading the field by a lot. Verstappen seems to be ahead by quite a bit. He has won both races this season by over a twelve second gap to Perez (second place) both races. It appears that Perez has stepped up his game from last season, with two second places in the two first races. Last time Perez got second before this season was the 2023 Italian Grand Prix. Perez has had a good start to the season, but the big question is can he keep up the good work.

Ferrari looks to be Red Bull’s closest competitor but is still not very close to them. They are the only team aside from Red Bull to have finished on the podium. We have only got to see Sainz race once as he couldn’t compete in Saudi Arabia due to appendicitis. Though he did look pretty good in Bahrain finishing third ahead of his teammate Leclerc. Leclerc finished third in Saudi Arabia and is also looking pretty fast but he doesn’t look as fast as Sainz.

Third in the pack is probably Mclaren who has had a decent season so far, at least it is much better than last year’s start. Mclaren was probably wishing for a little more this year since they were consistently scoring podiums after their upgrades last year. Though it’ll be interesting to see if their updates are as good as they seemed to be last season.

Mercedes has had a disappointing start to the season to say the least. After the season ended last year they thought that might have found a way to make their car faster but it hasn’t seemed to work. Mercedes said they were going to try some new stuff in Australia, if it will help though I’m not sure. Another hot topic around Mercedes is Hamilton going to Ferrari at the end of the season. The big questions are who will be Russel’s teammate in 2025 and can Mercedes solve their problem with the W15?

Aston Martin is doing okay but was probably hoping for a little better after how well they started the 2023 season. Stroll needs to pick up the pace and close the gap to Alonso. Though Stroll probably isn’t going anywhere due to his dad owning the team, he still needs to up his game. Aston Martin could definitely have a chance to pass Mercedes in the standings if Stroll starts performing better. Alonso is doing great at Aston Martin and in the car.