Lewis Hamilton dances his last dance with Mercedes as Red Bull’s Max Verstappen fights for his third consecutive world title
The frightening sound of V6 engines revving up at the Bahrain International Circuit can only mean one thing: F1 is back.
The 2024 campaign will be the longest F1 season in history, spanning 24 race weekends. Red Bull Racing superstar Max Verstappen made headlines during his winter break last year after winning his third consecutive world championship. Here’s everything to watch in F1 this year.
The 2024 season begins with the Bahrain Grand Prix after three days of testing in the Middle Eastern country last week.
F1 race weekends are typically held from Friday to Sunday, but in Bahrain the first and second practices will take place on Thursday 29th February, with third practice and qualifying taking place on Friday 1st March. The race will take place on Saturday, March 2nd. American viewers can follow every step of ESPN’s record-breaking schedule. Qualifying in Bahrain begins at 11 a.m. ET, with racing starting the next day at 10 a.m. ET.
The Saudi Grand Prix, which will be held a week later, will also be held from Thursday to Saturday. Both race weekends were moved forward his 24 hours to account for Ramadan, the holiest month in the Islamic calendar, which begins on March 10th. Seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton’s 2024 season marks the end of an era.
Hamilton shocked the motorsport world when it was announced that he would be leaving Mercedes at the end of the year to join Ferrari for the 2025 season. “It’s been a crazy few days filled with all kinds of emotions. But as you all know by now, after 11 incredible years with the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team, it’s a new year in my life. “It’s time to start a new chapter and I will be joining Scuderia Ferrari in 2025,” Hamilton said on social media. Media earlier this month. “I have been incredibly lucky.
I have achieved with Mercedes what I could only have dreamed of as a child, and now I have the opportunity to make another childhood dream come true. I drive a red Ferrari.”
Speaking about the significance of Hamilton’s impending move, F1 broadcaster Will Buxton described it on social media as “the biggest driver transfer in the history of the sport”.
But before the British driver heads to Maranello to replace Carlos Sainz at the Italian team, he will need to focus on his 12th and final year with the Silver Arrows. “I want to help Mercedes win again,” Hamilton wrote. “I am 100% committed to my work and determined to collaborate with my team at a high level.”
Mercedes, which dominated F1 in the turbo hybrid era and won the constructors’ title for eight consecutive years from 2014 to 2021, was unable to adapt to the newly introduced technical regulations and lost the top spot to Red Bull in the 2022 season.
I was disappointed. this year. Ferrari have often looked like the team most likely to challenge Red Bull lately, with Mercedes’ only win in the past two years coming for Hamilton’s teammate George Russell in November 2022.
Hamilton himself has not won a race since the penultimate round of the 2021 season in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. A week earlier, on the final lap of the Grand Prix in Abu Dhabi, his eighth Drivers’ Championship title was brutally snatched away from him. Hamilton seems to have jumped ship at the right time, but the 39-year-old will be hoping to end his illustrious career at Mercedes on a high note.
Red Bull’s 2023 F1 season was their most dominant season to date. The team won 21 of 22 races, with Verstappen setting a new record 19 times en route to his third drivers’ title.
That was the Dutchman’s advantage, that no matter where Verstappen started the race, there was often a predetermined atmosphere at the weekend. “What’s particularly impressive about Max this year (2023) is that even though he didn’t always start at the top, he always had the confidence to be in the lead,” said CNN’s F1 correspondent and the host said. . Laurent Barrett. October Sports.
“That’s not only because he’s confident in his own abilities, but also because he’s confident in the quality of his car and team.”
The fact that Verstappen drove the RB19 was also a contributing factor. The RB19 was an incredible feat of engineering that many call the best F1 car of all time, resulting in one of the most powerful driver and vehicle combinations the sport has ever seen.
The debate over whether such dominance is a good thing for F1 will continue, but this year’s product, the radically redesigned RB20, could recreate that level of control over the rest of the peloton. There will be great interest in whether or not this happens.