JANUARY 14, 2024

Looking forward in 2024

Five things to look forward to in 2024

By Luis Vasconcelos

1 - How will the FIA/F1 war develop?

The sport is going through its tensest political battle in the last 15 years, with the FIA and the Commercial Rights Owner at loggerheards with no common ground in sight. Formula 1 got used to running the sport on its own during the 12 years Jean Todt was the FIA president and when his former partner Ross Brawn took over the running of the championship, the Frenchman simply handed over all power, to the extent of allowing Brawn and Pat Symonds to essentially write the current technical regulations.

Alarmed by the FIA's financial situation, with a 20 million Euros yearly deficit left by Todt, new president Mohammed Ben Sulayem has been using the powers that the rules still give the federation to try and force Formula 1 and the teams to hand the FIA a bigger share of the sport's huge profits.

So far the Emirati has been facing a united front, with the Commercial Rights Holder and the ten teams sticking together and has also made a couple of huge mistakes – nominating a former journalist that was universally ridiculed in the paddock as Formula 1 Commissioner, starting and closing an investigation on Toto and Susie Wolff's dealings in the space of 48 hours, publicly devaluing the sport, among other blunders – that have undermined his own position.

If Ben Sulayem manages to divide the teams, as Mosley so often did during his 18 years in power, then he stands a chance of getting what he wants. But he needs to avoid any further mistakes, lie low for a good period of time and use political pressure only if and when necessary to get what he wants – and, frankly, the FIA needs. Otherwise, he incurs in the serious risk of seeing Liberty Media and the teams refuse to sign a new Concorde Agreement, which would mean the previous version of the document would be back as valid, costing the Federation a lot of money, as the current deal is the best one the FIA has ever had since Mosley's ruinous deal with Ecclestone.

2 - Will aero penalty finally catch Red Bull out?

Red Bull's domination of the 2023 season led a lot of people to believe the Austrian team hadn't been hurt at all by the penalty imposed by breaching the budget cap in 2021, with ten per cent of its wind tunnel time and CFD capacity being slashed.

But the RB19 project was alreay nearing completation when the penalty was imposed, in the last days of October, so the penalty had no influence on the design of Max Verstappen's car and very little influence on its development.
However, the entire design process of next year's RB20 was done with the team losing ten per cent capacity of its aerodynamic development tools and that's why the full effect of that penalty will only be obvious at the start of next season.

Of course since the end of October Red Bull has regained its full allocation of wind tunnel time and CFD capacity, but given the team is the World Champion, it still has a smaller allowance than its most direct rivals, meaning Mercedes and Ferrari – but McLaren even more – have been able to catch up during the winter.

On the other hand, after making one big upgrade in the car at the start of the European season, Red Bull didn't really develop the RB19 during 2023 and put all its resources into the design and development of next year's car, so maybe one thing has made up for the other, but that's something we'll only start to find out when all ten cars roll out at the start of testing in Bahrain.

In theory, with less margin for development – the closer you are to perfection, the smaller your margin for improvement – and less aerodynamic tools capacity, Red Bull should have made smaller progress than Mercedes, Ferrari, Aston Martin and McLaren. But none of these teams has Adrian Newey thinking of their cars' aerodynamic platform, so I wouldn'd hold my breath whiel waiting for the rest of the field to catch up with his team…

3 - How far will Piastri’s progression go?

There was a lot of expectation surrounding Oscar Piastri's first Formula 1 season and the young Australian didn't disappoint. A winner of consecutive Formula 3 and Formula 2 championships before having one year off racing as he tested for Alpine, Piastri arrived in Formula 1 with the same pedigree as Charles Leclerc and George Russell before him, and quickly showed he's as promising as the Monegasque and the Brit.

The fact he managed to outqualify and outrace the highly rated Lando Norris in the second part of the season, winning the Sprint Race in Qatar and then challenging Verstappen in the main event shows the kind of progress the youngster made and even if the final few races of the year were not so successful for him, Piastri made a huge mark on his first Formula 1 season.

Next year, though, expectations will be even higher, including his own and the team's, so the pressure will certainly be bigger than it was this year. Of course the most impressive feature Piastri has is his calmness – he was not even once flustered while racing in 2023 and always spoke in a matter of fact way even in the heat of battle – and that will be tested to the limit this year.

If he continues to improve and gets on top of tyre management from early on, then he'll change Norris' status and will become the man McLaren will be building on for the near future. He'll also become a very attractive proposition for Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull, replacing the Brit on those lists.

That's how high the stakes are for the young man from Melbourne and I, for one, believe he's more than capable to pass yet another tough test.

4 - Can Ferrari challenge for the title?

For Frédéric Vasseur, 2023 was his Year Zero at Ferrari. Arriving in Maranello way too late to be able to have a decisive influence on the way the season started, stuck with a car and procedures that had been defined by the previous leadership. All the Frenchman could do was to start changing people, structure and mentalities, while, at the same time, going on a massive hiring drive that will only start producing effects on January 1st, when his first hirings with arrive in the team.

Of course it won't be before the start of 2026 that Vasseur will have in Maranello all the people he has already hired, including the future Tecnhical Director, believed to be Red Bull's Pierre Wache, but at least the 2024 car was already conceived, designed and developed by the new structure he has put in place, with the aggressive mentality he has be instilling in the team and by a team of people Vasseur knows and trusts.

In terms of the driving line-up, Ferrari actually is better served than Red Bull, as Charles Leclerc is arguably the fastest qualifier in the field and in the final races of 2023 took a clear step forward in managing races, almost to Verstappen's level, while Carlos Sainz is clearly more solid than Pérez and is probably the most intelligent driver in the field, as it was abundantly shown in Singapore, where he won without being, by any means, the fastest on track.

The operational side of the team also improved a lot but there were still some questionable pit calls all the way to Abu Dhabi, so that's the area where the Scuderia still has to improve the most to take the fight to Red Bull.

With 2024 being Year One for Vasseur, the Frenchman is gambling his future in Maranello last year, having overcome the orchestrated negative campaign mounted around him by those close to his predecessor during a tough 2023 season.

5 - Tsunoda/Ricciardo fight decisive for both

Sérgio Pérez has probably already figured out he'll need to look elsewhere if he wants to stay in Formula 1 for 2025, as his days at Red Bull are clearly numbered – unless he performs an unlikely turnaround in the first part of next year.

Christian Horner openly wants a return of Daniel Ricciardo to Red Bull Racing, to the point he opened an internal war with Helmut Marko – something he would have never dared to do in Dietrich Mateschitz's lifetime!

Trouble is, Yuki Tsunoda actually outperformed Ricciardo in the final races of 2023 and was terribly unlucky to be forced to serve a grid penalty in Mexico, where the AT04 was at its most competitive all year.

He also helped the Australian to shine in qualifying, giving Ricciardo precious tows in Q1 and Q2 before throwing away precious points in his rush to pass Piastri and go after his team mate on the last stint – and that was after starting from last!

If the Japanese driver picks it up in 2024 where he left it off in Abu Dhabi, Ricciardo will have a tough time ahead of him and with Liam Lawson already promised a race seat at AlphaTauri – or Racing Bulls, as the team will be known from next year – for the following season, there's room for only the Australian or Tsunoda in the Faenza-based structure in 2025.

That's why the next season will be a do or die for both of them, meaning Peter Bayer and Laurent Mekies will have a tough task ahead of them to prevent the internal battle between their drivers to hinder their team on their first year in control.