Silverstone signed our 12th round of the season and the halfway point of the 2024 season. Time to take a look at the results, who’s been exceeding expectations and who’s not been where we expected them.

races

qualifying

Q1/Q2/Q3 results

qualifying results

4 drivers have always reached Q3 : George Russell, Lando Norris, Max Verstappen and Oscar Piastri. 2 more drivers have never seen Q1 : Carlos Sainz (went to Q2 once) and Charles Leclerc (went to Q2 twice).

Every single driver on the grid has made it to Q2 at least once. To be more specific, all of them have been to Q2 at least two times. 3 of them have never reached Q3 : Guanyu Zhou, Kevin Magnussen and Logan Sargeant.

If we look at the average qualifying position, as expected, Max Verstappen is leading with an 1.8, notably thanks to his 8 poles. His other positions are two P2s (Montreal and Barcelona), a P4 (Silverstone) and a P6 (Monaco).

Following Max is Lando Norris with an average qualifying position of 3.8. Lando has been on one of the two front rows on 9 occasions (75% of the time). His other qualifying positions are a P5 (Miami), a P6 (Jeddah) and a P7 (Bahrain).

After the top 2, the 4 drivers who have never been eliminated in Q1 share similar averages (between 5.1 and 5.5).

All the polemen so far this season had already scored at least one pole in the past. The grid has 7 drivers who have never started on pole in F1. 2 of them have won an F1 race (Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon) and 5 haven’t (Oscar Piastri, Yuki Tsunoda, Alexander Alton, Guanyu Zhou, Logan Sargeant).

racing

wins & podiums

races results

races statistics

So far, we have seen a total of 6 different race winners, that’s twice as more as in 2023. Sergio Perez is the only driver who won in 2023 but hasn’t yet in 2024. He’s currently sitting P6 in the overall standings. Oscar Piastri is the other driver from the top 8 of the standings (currently P5) who hasn’t gotten a win yet.

Max Verstappen is the only driver who has won more than once in 2024 (for a total of 7 wins). That said, he hasn’t been able to win more than twice in a row so far.

The smallest gap between P1 and P2 was 0.725 seconds in Imola (Max Verstappen and Lando Norris) while the biggest was 22.457 seconds in Bahrain (Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez).

Race	1st	2nd	3rd
Bahrain	Max Verstappen	Sergio Perez	Carlos Sainz
Saudi Arabia	Max Verstappen	Sergio Perez	Charles Leclerc
Australia	Carlos Sainz	Charles Leclerc	Lando Norris
Japan	Max Verstappen	Sergio Perez	Carlos Sainz
China	Max Verstappen	Lando Norris	Sergio Perez
Miami	Lando Norris	Max Verstappen	Charles Leclerc
Emilia-Romagna	Max Verstappen	Lando Norris	Charles Leclerc
Monaco	Charles Leclerc	Oscar Piastri	Carlos Sainz
Canada	Max Verstappen	Lando Norris	George Russell
Spain	Max Verstappen	Lando Norris	Lewis Hamilton
Austria	George Russell	Oscar Piastri	Carlos Sainz
Great-Britain	Lewis Hamilton	Max Verstappen	Lando Norris

Max Verstappen has the highest number of podiums so far (9 : 7 P1s and 2 P2s, that’s a podium in 75% of races). He’s followed by Lando Norris with 7 (1 P1, 4 P2s, 2 P3s) and both Ferrari drivers with 5 podiums each (1 P1, 1 P2 and 3 P3s for Charles Leclerc; 1 P1 and 4 P3s for Carlos Sainz).

Only two teams have managed to have both of their drivers on the podium at the same time :

• Red Bull : 4 times, all occurring in the first 5 races of the season. Sergio Perez has never been on the podium without Max Verstappen.
• Ferrari : 2 times, both times they won.

Out of those 6 podiums, 4 of them were 1-2s and they all occured in the first 4 races of the season. We haven’t had a 1-2 since Suzuka.

finishes

If he hasn’t won yet, Oscar Piastri has the merit of having finished every races yet, a feat that he only shares with Fernando Alonso. Alexander Albon has the highest number of DNFs (3) while 5 other drivers have missed the finish line two times.

We witnessed 5 teams having double DNFs at some point this season :

• Mercedes in Melbourne,
• Racing Bulls in Shanghai,
• Haas in Monaco,
• Williams and Ferrari in Montreal.

In 12 races, we managed to have two full grid finishes (Bahrain and Barcelona). The highest amount of DNFs occured in Montreal (5).

positions gained & lost

positions gained/lost during races

People often talk about how the size and regulations of the current cars have made it hard for drivers to overtake, underlying the everlasting importance of qualifying.

I consciously decided to not take DNFs into account even though you do get a finishing position in all cases. Would it truly reflect how the season has been going to say Max Verstappen lost 19 positions in Australia? I don’t really think so.

In any case, considering the amount of DNFs we’ve had per driver in 12 rounds, the average wouldn’t be that affected otherwise anyway.

When we look at the averages of places gained/lost, they don’t stir away from 0 a lot. Only 4 drivers have gained two places or more on average but they all had a low qualifying position to begin with (between 14.2 and 18.2).

Yuki Tsunoda has lost the most positions in total (20, with two complicated races in Jeddah and Montreal where he lost 6 positions) but he’s also mostly started in a good position considering his car (11.2 an average qualifying position) and still finished in the points 6 times. Then, Oscar Piastri lost 1.1 position on average but he always qualified high (average of 5.5) and was mostly hindered by his Miami result (P6 -> P13).

The highest amount of positions gained in one race is 9, by Lewis Hamilton in Shanghai (P18 -> P9). The highest amount of positions lost would be Oscar in Miami if we consider races finished, otherwise it’s Max in Australia (started on pole, retired first during the race).

overall

If we look at the results of the first half of the season, we can observe different tendencies :

• Negative dynamic

Red Bull : In the first 6 rounds, Red Bull scored all of the poles, 4 wins and 9 of the podium places (5 for Max, 4 for Checo). In the last 6 rounds, Red Bull scored 2 poles, 3 wins and 4 podiums (all Max’s doing). If Max no longer appears unbeatable like he did in the beginning of the season, he’s still performing well. Checo, on the other end, has had his issues that currently have him P6 in the standings. He’s been outperformed by both Racing Bulls drivers in certain occasions, something I talked about here.

Ferrari : Ferrari scored 2 wins (one for each driver) and 10 podiums (5 for Charles and 5 for Carlos). Except in Shanghai, they had at least one podium per race in the first 8 rounds. They have only scored one in the last 4 (Carlos in Austria).

• Positive dynamic

McLaren : After only one P3 in the first 4 rounds, McLaren has scored one podium in the last 8 rounds. After Lando’s first F1 win in Miami, a McLaren driver occupied P2 for the 5 following rounds. The series ended in the last race weekend in Silverstone where Lando got P3.

Mercedes : Until Monaco included (8th round of the season), the best Mercedes finish on Sunday had been a P5 (George in both Bahrain and Monaco)*. With seemingly working updates on the car, Mercedes drivers have revealed themselves in the last 4 rounds with 2 poles (both from George), 2 wins (one each) and one podium per weekend (Lewis x2, George x2).

* Lewis got P2 during the sprint in Shanghai (4th round of the season).

teammates battles

Team	Driver 1	Number of times higher in quali	Number of times higher in quali	Driver 2
Red Bull	Max Verstappen	12	0	Sergio Perez
Williams	Alexander Albon	11	0	Logan Sargeant
Sauber	Valtteri Bottas	11	1	Guanyu Zhou
Mercedes	George Russell	10	2	Lewis Hamilton
McLaren	Lando Norris	9	3	Oscar Piastri
Haas	Nico Hulkenberg	9	3	Kevin Magnussen
VCARB	Yuki Tsunoda	9	3	Daniel Ricciardo
McLaren	Esteban Ocon	8	4	Pierre Gasly
Ferrari	Charles Leclerc	7	4	Carlos Sainz
Aston Martin	Fernando Alonso	7	5	Lance Stroll

Two drivers have always beaten their teammate in the qualifying exercise : Max Verstappen for Red Bull and Alexander Albon for Williams.

The closest teammates are the Aston Martin drivers, Fernando Alonso having done better than Lance Stroll 7 out of 12 times (58% of the time).

Team	Driver 1	Number of times higher in races	Number of times higher in races	Driver 2
Red Bull	Max Verstappen	11	1	Sergio Perez
Haas	Nico Hulkenberg	10	1	Kevin Magnussen
Williams	Alexander Albon	8	2	Logan Sargeant
McLaren	Lando Norris	9	3	Oscar Piastri
Aston Martin	Fernando Alonso	8	4	Lance Stroll
Mercedes	George Russell	7	4	Lewis Hamilton
VCARB	Yuki Tsunoda	7	4	Daniel Ricciardo
Sauber	Valtteri Bottas	7	5	Guanyu Zhou
Alpine	Esteban Ocon	7	5	Pierre Gasly
Ferrari	Charles Leclerc	5	5	Carlos Sainz

Every driver has beaten their teammate at least once although two drivers only did it in races where their teammate had DNFs : Sergio Perez and Logan Sargeant.

Ferrari drivers have gone 50/50 so far this season. We saw earlier that they also managed to have the same number of wins and podiums. That said, Charles Leclerc has managed to score more points than Carlos Sainz, 4 to be precise (P3 in the standings with 150 pts and P4 with 146 pts).

sprints

Truthfully, I don’t really think it means much to draw numbers from the results of only 3 races. Part of me was tempted to put them together with the races but the fact is : they have their own qualifying session, they’re shorter, don’t involve a tyre/pitting strategy and don’t give the same amount of points as Sunday races. So, separate analysis it is.

sprints qualifying results

sprints results

Max Verstappen has dominated the sprint exercise so far with 3 poles converted into 3 wins. The results are pretty tight after him, with 5 drivers (Charles Leclerc, Lando Norris, Sergio Perez, Carlos Sainz and Oscar Piastri) having an average finishing position situated between 4.3 and 5.0.

Everyone crossed the finish line in Spielberg. Fernando Alonso DNFed in Shanghai, making Oscar Piastri the only driver who has completed every single race (both on Saturday and Sunday) in this first half of the season.

driver	race quali	sprint quali	difference	race finish	sprint finish	difference
Alexander Albon	13,0	19,0	6,0	13,2	16,0	2,8
Carlos Sainz	5,2	5,0	-0,2	3,8	5,0	1,2
Charles Leclerc	5,3	6,3	1,1	4,9	4,3	-0,6
Daniel Ricciardo	13,2	11,3	-1,8	12,6	10,0	-2,6
Esteban Ocon	14,2	12,7	-1,5	13,1	13,0	-0,1
Fernando Alonso	10,0	8,0	-2,0	9,8	16,5	6,7
George Russell	5,1	8,7	3,6	5,2	8,0	2,8
Guanyu Zhou	18,2	15,7	-2,5	15,1	13,3	-1,8
Kevin Magnussen	15,7	12,3	-3,3	12,9	12,3	-0,6
Lance Stroll	12,0	11,3	-0,7	11,3	12,0	0,7
Lando Norris	3,8	4,0	0,3	3,5	4,5	1,0
Lewis Hamilton	7,8	6,7	-1,1	5,9	8,0	2,1
Logan Sargeant	17,6	18,0	0,4	16,7	15,0	-1,7
Max Verstappen	1,8	2,0	0,2	2,0	1,0	-1,0
Nico Hulkenberg	11,7	13,3	1,7	10,2	13,3	3,2
Oscar Piastri	5,5	5,7	0,2	5,8	5,0	-0,8
Pierre Gasly	14,9	13,7	-1,3	12,6	12,0	-0,6
Sergio Perez	8,3	5,3	-2,9	5,9	4,7	-1,2
Valtteri Bottas	15,2	15,0	-0,2	15,5	15,0	-0,5
Yuki Tsunoda	11,2	16,0	4,8	11,6	12,3	0,7

Overall, most drivers have been pretty similar performances in sprints and regular races. Again, hard to draw conclusions with only 3 sprints but we can identify a couple of differences for some drivers.

• Worst qualifying results for the sprints

Alexander Albon has has never gotten out of SQ1 (average qualifying position of 19.0; worst than his teammate Logan Sargeant) while he’s has 3 Q3 appearances and 7 Q2 eliminations in regular qualifying sessions (average qualifying position of 13.0). Consequently, his average race finish is higher than his average sprint finish.

Similarly, Yuki Tsunoda has struggled in sprint qualifyig (P14, P15 and P19 for an average of 16.0) compared to what he’s been managing for races (7 Q3 appearances, 2 eliminations in Q2, average of 11.2).

Lastly, George Russell has always qualified for Q3 but he got eliminated in SQ2 twice (P11 both times) and then reached SQ3 in Austria. Both his qualifying and finish averages have been better on Sundays compared to Saturdays.

• Better qualifying results for the sprints

Contrary to the 3 drivers cited before, two drivers have been doing better qualifying for sprints.

For sprints, Sergio Perez has always qualified between P3 and P7, always reaching SQ3 when he’s missed on Q3 four times now (25% of the time). He’s managed two podiums in 3 sprints, and a P8.

Kevin Magnussen has also been doing better with sprints, getting himself out of SQ1 three times out of three (stopped in SQ2 twice and SQ3 once). His Sundays qualifying have been more complicated with 6 Q1 eliminations and 6 Q2 eliminations so far this season.

• Worst results in sprints

Along with George Russell and Alexander Albon, who qualified lower so it was expected of them to perform lower in sprints, two drivers have overall had a worse time on Saturdays compared to Sundays.

Despite an average finishing position of 10.2 on Sunday and 5 finishes in the points, Nico Hulkenberg has struggled more with sprints, scoring a P19, P7 and P14.

On the worst side of things, Fernando Alonso seems almost cursed by the sprint format so far this season, but only for the racing part. He’s actually qualified better for sprints (P3, P8 and P13 starts for an 8.0 average) but the results haven’t followed with a DNF in Shanghai, a P17 in Miami and a P16 in Spielberg.