F1 | Which team has improved the most in 2024?

With stable regulations, the new season started in a very similar way to how the 2023 season ended. Behind the sovereign Red Bull, Ferrari appears the second fastest, maintaining its pace in qualifying but showing a huge step forward in the performance in the race, to leap above the chasing group.

After two races on very different circuits, the race between Mercedes and McLaren for third place remains very close, with the strengths and weaknesses of both cars on full display in Saudi Arabia.

Then there is Aston Martin, the revelation of the first half of 2023, which continued to improve, but not as much as its rivals, and therefore slipped to fifth place, while a chasm seems to have opened up behind it.

Qualifying improvements between 2023 and 2024

Compared to last year, Alpine is clearly the exception, the only team that managed to be slower in Jeddah than in 2023 due to a late concept change. On the other side there is McLaren, who can compete with Racing Bulls for the title of most improved team of the last 12 months.

In the case of McLaren, a good part of the approximately 1″2-1″3 it has gained seems to be the result of the work done in 2023, with several important updates in Austria and Singapore which allowed it to end the year as the second fastest team .

Racing Bulls also made big gains in 2023 thanks to floor development and a suspension change that made them one of the best teams in low-speed corners. But, listening to the comments of Yuki Tsunoda and Daniel Ricciardo, the Faenza team still has room for improvement especially when taking in a lot of fuel, the car lacking a bit of grip in race trim.

On the flying lap, Williams is the third most improved team, reinforcing the belief that results will come when they manage to complete “cleaner” race weekends than in Bahrain and Jeddah.

Among the four teams that closed the group last year, Sauber is the one that had the most disappointing start, managing to find a decent improvement in lap time, but not as much as its direct rivals, demonstrating how much it can the game of F1's unstoppable development race can be brutal.

Ferrari has improved its race pace, but has Mercedes really solved its problems?

Ferrari has taken a step forward in long-run pace

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

On paper, Red Bull, Ferrari, Mercedes and Aston Martin improved by a similar margin in terms of flying lap pace, but it was the race performances of Ferrari and Mercedes that were particularly problematic last year and therefore their performance over the race distance is much more indicative.

Ferrari has clearly managed to eliminate most of its long run weaknesses, with a much more manageable and practical SF-24 in various conditions, as demonstrated by Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc, both of whom took unchallenged podium finishes in Bahrain and Jeddah respectively .

Mercedes also produced a quieter car, but Saudi Arabia's smooth surface brought some worrying difficulties in high-speed corners and bouncing which hampered the fight with the Scuderia in both qualifying and race trim.

F1 is now a two-class championship

Alpine has fallen dramatically away from the top five teams

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

Alpine have often been in no man's land, having finished 2023 in sixth place in the constructors' standings, and the resulting misstep in an otherwise stable ranking order has further opened up the gap between the top and bottom five teams .

This means that, as a cynic would say, whoever beats Aston Martin's Lance Stroll will actually gain a point if there are no serious accidents.

Stroll dutifully finished 10th in Bahrain, but his crash in Jeddah paved the way for a huge battle for the final point, won by Haas' Nico Hulkenberg thanks to some unorthodox defending from teammate Kevin Magnussen.

This outlook seems unlikely to change anytime soon. Long run data from Bahrain suggested that Haas could give Aston Martin a run for their money, but the latter showed a much faster race pace in Jeddah, putting that theory to rest for the time being.

Magnussen's attempts to block effectively prevented us from understanding the real pace of Williams, Racing Bulls and Sauber in the Jeddah race, so at the moment it is difficult to judge whether or not one of them can close the gap when we go to bigger circuits. congenial to their characteristics.

Melbourne offers a third circuit with unique characteristics that will provide further answers, but many teams are already looking to the fourth round in Japan to have a clearer idea of ​​their position.

Not only is Suzuka an ideal track, with its challenging distribution of high, medium and low speed corners, divided by a long straight, but the Japanese Grand Prix also falls much earlier than last year's September date. This means we will be able to get a better picture of how teams developed over the winter, rather than comparing to 12 months ago.

“The way this year's calendar is structured, I think after four races we'll have a pretty good idea,” said Ferrari veteran Jock Clear. “There is also Japan, which is an exceptional circuit for testing a car. Many things will be discovered on that type of circuit…”.