2024 Formula 1 season preview - What to watch
Yahoo Sports’ Nick Bromberg runs through the three storylines that he’s keeping an eye on as the campaign begins this weekend in Bahrain.
NICK BROMBERG: The 2024 Formula One season is here. And unless you're a Max Verstappen fan, you're really hoping this season is a lot more competitive than it was in 2023.
Verstappen enters 2024 as a three-time champion, after the most dominant season in Formula 1 history. He won 19 of 22 races and finished on the podium in 21 of those 22 races. His lone non-podium finish was a fifth in Singapore. He ended the season with an average finish of 1.3, a number that would have seemed unfathomable until Verstappen's 2023 campaign.
If Red Bull and Verstappen aren't going to be as dominant as they were in 2023, Ferrari and Mercedes are going to have to step up their games. The two teams were the closest challengers to Red Bull last year, but it was an incredibly wide chasm. Red Bull is still the massive favorite ahead of this season, but there's some optimism from pre-season testing that Mercedes and Ferrari are closer.
2024 will also be the last season for seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes. Hamilton shocked the racing world earlier this year when he announced that he was heading to Ferrari in 2025. His move to the Scuderia can make you wonder if the 39-year-old felt Mercedes was not going to return to the form that saw it win eight consecutive Constructors Titles from 2014 to 2021 anytime soon.
Hamilton's move to Ferrari means that there's an open seat at Mercedes in 2025 and Carlos Sainz is looking for a ride. Sainz was the only non-Red Bull driver to win a race in 2023, but his contract is up at the end of the 2024 season and Ferrari chose to sign Hamilton instead of signing him to an extension.
Is Sainz a candidate to replace Hamilton at Mercedes? And if he isn't, where will he go? The future of Sainz and Sergio Perez are two to keep an eye on over the course of the season. Perez probably needs to do a better job of keeping up with Verstappen at Red Bull to keep his seat for 2025.
