What to Watch for When F1 Returns From Its Summer Break

If you made predictions for the 2024 Formula 1 season, go back and check them out. Unless you had a crystal ball, you probably pinpointed Max Verstappen as a runaway champion. Maybe you predicted a Ferrari ascendancy or another damp squib from Haas. And if you’re a big F1 fan, you’ve probably never been so happy to be oh, so wrong.

F1’s summer break is winding down, and the final 10 races of F1’s 2024 season are coming up fast. But before we dive headfirst into Zandvoort, Monza, and everything that follows, let’s get up to speed and make sure we know just what to watch for.

The F1 2024 Story So Far

The 2024 Formula 1 season started off exactly as you’d expect: Red Bull Racing secured a 1-2 at the Bahrain Grand Prix, with polesitter Max Verstappen leading every lap and taking the fastest lap in the process. The stage was set for yet another Verstappen runaway title.

At least, it looked that way until Australia, the third race of the year. On the fourth lap of the race, a dislodged brake disc saw Verstappen retire for the first time since the same race back in 2022. Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz Jr. took a shock victory after missing the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix with a nasty case of appendicitis.

It was the first true sign that something was amiss at Red Bull Racing in 2024. Yes, Verstappen still took wins in Japan, China, Imola, Canada, and Spain… but new challengers have arrived.

Lando Norris took his maiden F1 victory with McLaren at Miami after Verstappen struck a bollard. Charles Leclerc took a home victory in Monaco. George Russell secured a win in Austria, with his teammate Lewis Hamilton following suit—first at the British Grand Prix, and then in Belgium. And a young Oscar Piastri, too, took his debut Grand Prix win in Hungary.

Seven different winners in the first 14 races. If I’d had that on my F1 2024 predictions, I’d be out buying a lottery ticket right now.

What to Watch for in the Final 10 Races

The final 10 races of the 2024 Formula 1 season will wrap up the European swing before we dip off to Asia, the Americas, and the Middle East. We’re racing old tracks, new tracks, and street tracks—and there are sure to be more surprises waiting for us ahead.

But the number one thing to keep an eye on as we round out the year? Car upgrades.

Every year, the car that a team starts its F1 campaign with will be dramatically different by the final race, and that’s due to the slate of season-long upgrades that the team will implement based both on its weaknesses and on the weaknesses of its competitors.

McLaren and Mercedes have been on top of the upgrade game this year, which has resulted in better performances. Meanwhile, Ferrari implemented an updated performance package in Spain that turned out the be a disaster, as it worsened the Scuderia’s ongoing “porpoising” problems.

Red Bull, too, has suffered in the counter-upgrades department. As the competition brings better and better equipment, the Milton Keynes team has failed to respond. The RB20 is no longer the far-and-away most dominant car of the season. If you want a clue about how any one race weekend will go, keep an eye on the teams bringing upgrades; they may very well tell you all you need to know.

Specifically, you’re going to want to keep an eye on McLaren and Mercedes. The latter likely isn’t going to make a last-minute rush for a World Constructors’ Championship, but Merc has certainly turned up with a revitalized strategy game, better upgrades, and the confidence that it can continue to perform. That’s not likely to change.

But McLaren—now there’s a team that could unseat Red Bull at the top of the WCC. Just 42 points separate the British team from Red Bull; there’s plenty of time for McLaren to bridge that gap.

If McLaren can take down Red Bull, then there are sure to be repercussions for both Sergio Perez and the driver market as a whole.

Prior to the summer break, Red Bull heavily implied that if Perez couldn’t seriously improve his performance, then the team would drop him during summer break. Perez didn’t manage to close the gap to his teammate in Belgium but Red Bull announced it’d be keeping the Mexican racer after the break nevertheless.

With Red Bull, though, nothing is ever certain. The team has historically dropped and swapped drivers partway through the season in the past, even after the team has promised to keep them. And if Perez does last through 2024, there’s no guarantee he’ll remain in 2025, despite signing a new contract.

If that’s the case, an already chaotic silly season may get even wilder. Driver swaps began before the season itself when Ferrari announced Lewis Hamilton would replace Carlos Sainz in 2025. Sainz is moving to Williams, Esteban Ocon to Haas, and Nico Hulkenberg to Sauber.

But there are still empty seats waiting to be filled at Alpine, Sauber, Mercedes, and VCARB—and if Perez loses out, potentially one at Red Bull. There are also still plenty of current drivers also scoping out a place on the grid: Daniel Riccardo, Zhou Guanyu, Valtteri Bottas, Kevin Magnussen, and Logan Sargeant.

Finally, we’re also going to be keeping an eye on the midfield and backmarkers. Aston Martin, VCARB, and Haas are duking it out for fifth place in the standings, while Alpine, Williams, and Sauber are all trying desperately to avoid being ranked last in the WCC.

Haas has proven to be something of a surprise this year. Ayao Komatsu has proven that he’s a worthy replacement for Guenther Steiner—if not for his snappy quips, then for his ability to guide the team from the bottom of the leaderboard. Hulkenberg has primarily been leading that charge, and there’s no reason not to expect continued growth throughout the season.

Williams, too, has been slowly clawing back the smallest smidge of performance, though we can expect more to come in 2025, when Carlos Sainz replaces Sargeant.

Two big question marks remain on Alpine and Sauber—teams whose leadership structures have been thrown into chaos all season long. France’s Alpine has a long history of swapping key players in and out with the hope that they’ll land on just the right team principal, the person who can completely change their fortunes. So far, those big dreams haven’t paid off, and now Alpine is rumored to be seeking support from Cadillac to bolster its power unit program.

Sauber is the only team that hasn’t scored a point in 2024, and it seems to be existing in a kind of fugue state until 2026 when it will face a takeover by Audi. It has signed Hulkenberg for 2025, but most of its plans still seem to be up in the air.

It’s been a compelling season, full of surprises and shocking competition. More than anything else, 2024 has taught us to expect the unexpected—and isn’t that really what we love about motorsport?

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