The 2024 Formula 1 season became so close and competitive it was hard to remember that after the first race it seemed little had changed following a year of Red Bull dominance.
“Business as usual” ran our headline after the Bahrain Grand Prix, where Max Verstappen cruised to victory, the nearest non-Red Bull 25 seconds adrift. Few thought his closest championship challenge would be Lando Norris, who took the chequered flag 48 seconds behind in sixth place that day.
But within a few months the competitive order was turned on its head and Red Bull suddenly had a fight on his hands. The championship hung on the question of whether Verstappen could fight a rearguard action to keep Norris from catching him.
But after 24 rounds and 30 races, who had the quickest car outright over a single lap in 2024? Verstappen won the drivers’ championship but should Red Bull have claimed the constructors’ title too? RaceFans crunched the numbers:
10. Sauber
Average deficit to fastest lap: 1.90%
Best ranking: 7th (x2)
Worst ranking: 10th (x11)
Sauber’s C44 was the only car which was slower than the field average at every round in 2024, and all their rivals were quicker than them in half of the races this year. Given that, it’s no wonder the team took until the penultimate round of the season to get any points on the board.
There was some cause for optimism by the end: Sauber finished the season on an upward curve and last weekend’s race was one of its most competitive showings. Valtteri Bottas claimed their best qualifying position of the year in Abu Dhabi with ninth place, but a pair of collisions during the race ended his hopes of avoiding a point-less season.
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9. Williams
Average deficit to fastest lap: 1.54%
Best ranking: 5th
Worst ranking: 10th (x5)
Williams began its second year under the leadership of James Vowles in a compromised situation due to the late completion of its latest car, a consequence of the restructuring which is taking place at the team as it looks towards future opportunities. The FW46 was initially overweight, and the team’s efforts to develop it were complicated by a series of crashes, one of which reduced them to running a single chassis in the Australian Grand Prix.
A delayed mid-season update brought some gains, but the team’s hopes of repeating its seventh place in the championship faded as more crashes forced further compromises on them over the final races. Nowhere was that more obvious than in Brazil, where Alexander Albon threatened to claim a place on the front row of the grid before crashing.
The team made a swathe of major technical appointments at mid-season and will expect to make significant progress next year, and when new regulations arrive in 2026.
8. Alpine
Average deficit to fastest lap: 1.45%
Best ranking: 3rd
Worst ranking: 10th (x4)
Alpine brought up the rear over the first four races of 2024, leading to yet more changes behind the scenes as several leaders members of its technical team were shown the door, then it changed team principals yet again. It did secure the services of David Sanchez, who briefly appeared at McLaren after leaving Ferrari.
The team made faltering progress, picking up low-end points places after a weight reduction programme, then slipping back, before rallying at the end of the season. Their double podium finish in Brazil was one of the biggest surprise results of the season. Pierre Gasly received the only examples of their final updates and used them to good effect as they clung on to sixth place in the constructors’ championship which flattered their pace compared to Haas and RB.
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7. RB
Average deficit to fastest lap: 1.28%
Best ranking: 4th
Worst ranking: 9th (x4)
For many teams, 2024 was the year of the ‘downgrade’. Extracting more performance from the current generation of cars proved challenging even for the likes of Red Bull.
Their second team RB endured perhaps the clearest example of an upgrade which backfired. CEO Peter Bayer described it as a “belly flop” and you don’t have to look hard on the graph below to spot its introduction at the Spanish Grand Prix. The team struggled to regain the lost ground, but were in better shape by the end of the season.
6. Haas
Average deficit to fastest lap: 1.25%
Best ranking: 3rd
Worst ranking: 9th (x2)
One team which bucked the ‘downgrade’ trend was Haas, who deserved sixth in the championship on pure performance alone, but had to settle for seventh behind Alpine. New team principal Ayao Komatsu tackled what he felt was a defeatist internal mindset when it came to upgrades, and the team made clear progress with its new packages at Silverstone and Austin – though the gain made with the latter wasn’t immediately apparent.
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5. Aston Martin
Average deficit to fastest lap: 1.19%
Best ranking: 2nd
Worst ranking: 10th (x2)
Aston Martin failed to build on the remarkable progress they made last year. If anything, their late-2023 dip in form persisted throughout this season, leaving them outsiders for points by the end of the year. They were slowest outright in Interlagos and Las Vegas.
The team showed technical director Dan Fallows the door having hired him from Red Bull two years ago. However its incoming recruit from the same team is none less than star designer Adrian Newey, of whom big things will be expected when new rules roll around in 2026.
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4. Mercedes
Average deficit to fastest lap: 0.55%
Best ranking: 1st (x3)
Worst ranking: 6th
Mercedes continued to struggle with the ‘ground effect’ regulations introduced two years ago, but despite falling to fourth in the constructors’ championship arguably produced their best car of the last three seasons. The W15, the product of a change in philosophy compared to its predecessors, looked close to unbeatable at times.
The problem was Mercedes were seldom able to make it consistently operate at its best. They hit a brief purple patch at the middle of the season where they won three out of four races, and ended the year in good shape, but were too often frustrated to see their strong performance early in a race weekend disappear for reasons they couldn’t fathom.
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3. Ferrari
Average deficit to fastest lap: 0.43%
Best ranking: 1st (x4)
Worst ranking: 7th
Another team which fell victim to a mid-season’ downgrade. Ferrari actually set the quickest time of all in the opening round – just fractionally ahead of Red Bull – but continued their 2023 trend of not quite being able to match their rivals’ race stint pace at this early stage in the season.
After losing their way with a floor upgrade, Ferrari engineered their way out of their dip, though not quite quickly enough to beat McLaren to the constructors’ championship. It was often nip-and-tuck between them for who had the fastest car over the final races, however.
2. McLaren
Average deficit to fastest lap: 0.27%
Best ranking: 1st (x9)
Worst ranking: 5th
Red Bull undoubtedly started the year with the quickest car and McLaren clearly set the standard later in the season. But when and how the two teams overlapped is key to understanding which team was fastest and when.
The raw numbers put McLaren very slightly behind on average over the year. But the gap – just 0.02% of lap times on average over the season – is so small it was more than enough for driver performance to tip the scales over the course of the year.
McLaren lagged behind over the opening races but the upgrade introduced in Miami – on Lando Norris’s car only to begin with – put them on the right path. It was not a ‘light switch’ moment, however – the Safety Car helped Norris to victory that weekend and they didn’t set the outright quickest lap time at a race weekend until Catalunya, four rounds later.
From then on they were usually in the hunt and on occasions they were simply untouchable, notably at Zansvoort and Singapore, which Norris dominated.
1. Red Bull
Average deficit to fastest lap: 0.20%
Best ranking: 1st (x8)
Worst ranking: 4th (x4)
Red Bull had the quickest car on average over the whole of 2024, despite the fact they only set the outright quickest time at any grand prix twice over the last 17 rounds. This is partly a reflection of how competitive 2024 was: At some events Red Bull weren’t quickest, yet they were still ahead of McLaren, who had the next-quickest car on average.
Much speculation surrounded the reason for Red Bull’s drop in form after the first seven races. It seemed too much of a coincidence that it followed the departure of Newey so closely, and the team will be watched closely for signs it has righted its course in 2025.
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Deficit to fastest lap time – season averages
While Red Bull had the fastest car on average, McLaren set the outright fastest lap time slightly more often: Nine times to their rivals’ eight. When McLaren were ahead, it was usually not by as large a margin as Red Bull enjoyed when they were at their best in the early part of the season.
However the defining feature of this year’s championship compared to previous years is less a matter of which of those two teams were ahead, but how close the season was for much of the time. Many will be hoping that trend continues into 2025. If it does, F1 could have one of its most open and competitive championships in years.
Deficit to fastest lap time – all races
The opening races of 2024 looked similar to much of the previous season. Red Bull were comfortably ahead, with a tight-knit group of teams behind.
That all changed around a third of the way into the season. The field began to converge and the fight for victory from weekend to weekend became much more interesting. Verstappen’s back-to-back wins in Canada and Spain were the last consecutive victories for any driver all year.
The data and its limitations
The analysis above is based on the fastest lap times set in every session at every grand prix this weekend. How well it reflects the performance of each car may vary for different reasons.
Fastest lap times are usually set in qualifying sessions. As track conditions tend to improve throughout qualifying, and cars are eliminated as the sessions progress, the slower cars’ deficit to the faster cars tends to be slightly exaggerated. Wet weather conditions can further distort the picture.
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2024 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix
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