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The 2024 Formula 1 season kicked off in Bahrain over the weekend with a commanding win for Red Bull's Max Verstappen – and we want to know what the big talking points were.
` Sport's chief F1 writer Andrew Benson answers your questions.
Who are the top candidates for the Mercedes seat vacated by Lewis Hamilton in 2025?
Andrew: Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff has already admitted that he negotiated a shorter contract than Lewis Hamilton wanted last summer because he didn't want to risk losing rising Italian star Andrea Kimi Antonelli, who has been part of Mercedes' young driver program for several years participates.
Antonelli is only 17 years old and is making his Formula 2 debut this season. His first race in Bahrain last weekend didn't go well as his Prema team had problems on track, but he is extremely highly rated and many insiders consider him to be the 'next Verstappen'.
If Wolff feels Antonelli isn't ready to graduate next season, Fernando Alonso is the obvious front-runner as a stopgap for a year or two, notwithstanding his troubled past at Mercedes, which dates back to 'Spy Gate'. Controversy dates back to 2007.
After that, the second row candidates would be Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon.
Of course, if the Christian Horner controversy resulted in Max Verstappen being available, that would change dramatically. Every team would want him – including Mercedes, of course.
Which team or driver will be the surprise package of the season?
Andrew: There are hardly any surprises at the moment – the field looks pretty similar to last year and there are no new riders. As Ferrari team boss Frederic Vasseur said after the race in Bahrain, it would be wise to wait a few more races to get a feel for how the season will really pan out. Then it's just a matter of who can develop their cars faster than the competition.
If Mercedes had given Lewis Hamilton a three-year contract with a release clause, would he have gone to Ferrari? So is he only going to Ferrari because Mercedes didn't want him?
Andrew: That's a question to which it's impossible to know the answer – and it's unlikely one will be asked in a few years.
What we can say is that a combination of circumstances made the Ferrari move possible. Firstly, Hamilton's trust in Mercedes was dented by their sticking with their flawed design philosophy until 2023, when he had begged them to abandon it. As a result, he had a car that felt exactly the same as the previous year.
Secondly, Hamilton was less impressed by being offered a short-term contract, as if he was being treated as a stopgap for Antonelli.
This made fertile ground for Ferrari to take action. And chairman John Elkann and especially team boss Frederic Vasseur pulled off a masterstroke by making an offer that convinced Hamilton to make the jump, including a longer-term contract and significantly more money.
Vasseur played a crucial role – Hamilton was effusive in his praise of the Frenchman, with whom he successfully worked together in the junior categories. This must hurt for Wolff, who has apparently developed such a close relationship with Hamilton over the last decade.
image source, Getty Images
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Lewis Hamilton and Frederic Vasseur worked together in the junior categories
Are you okay with the budget cap etc. or are you like me and want teams to have free reign again and be able to “spend whatever they want”?
Andrew: It's not my place to judge. What I can tell you, however, is that no one in Formula 1 wants to go back to the days of unrestricted spending. It has given all teams the chance to become profitable businesses – although teams like Williams still lose money because they invest in improving their infrastructure to the level of the top teams.
It is argued that the budget cap gives teams a season-long advantage because it prevents teams from spending to address their underperformance, as McLaren and Mercedes have done in recent years.
But the aerodynamic testing restrictions – which are a sliding scale of permissible aerodynamic research, with the least successful team allowed the most and the most successful the least – should regulate this over time. At least that's the theory.
What are the logistics of transporting people and equipment around the world for 24 races? It is an amazing organizational feat in itself.
Andrew: Formula 1 has created a sophisticated system that combines sea and air freight, transporting large blocks of equipment together around the world and allowing smooth customs clearance in most countries – although there are still occasional problems in countries like China.
It is indeed an amazing organizational achievement.
After that, in a more immediate sense, staff travel to the races – often with delayed arrival of vehicle upgrades – via a combination of commercial and private jets. In Europe, cars are taken from race to race and back to the factories in trucks.
Are we in for another season dominated by one driver?
Andrew: Yeah, it looks more like that.
Unfortunately, Andretti was prevented from leading a team in the near future. For example, could they make an offer to buy Haas and join?
Andrew: They could – but there's no sign that owner Gene Haas wants to sell; Quite the opposite. Andretti has tried to buy Sauber before – and was close to a deal a few years ago before collapsing at the 11th hour.
This option is now ruled out as Audi now owns Sauber before it enters the factory in 2026.
Andretti's only option to enter Formula 1 before 2028 – when Formula 1 has said it will reconsider his offer once General Motors has built its own engine – is to buy a team. The obvious candidate at the moment is Alpine, whose purpose many in Formula 1 question. But here too, as with Haas, there are still no signs that Renault is ready to sell.
If Mercedes adopted the zero pod design and failed, why did Red Bull adopt it? Can Red Bull make it work, unlike Mercedes?
Andrew: I'm afraid this question is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the new Red Bull. Despite what you may have read in some places, this is not a new iteration of Mercedes' zero sidepod design. Quite the opposite; It is an aggressive evolution of their own philosophy, launched in 2022.
If you doubt that, Mercedes technical director James Allison was asked a similar question in Bahrain last weekend. He gave the following scathing response: “What ideas do you think they adopted?” before making it clear that he disagreed with the premise.
The principles of the new Red Bull are the same as its predecessors – a heavily undercut sidepod to ensure the best possible airflow to the central edge of the floor to direct air from the underbody and to the top of the diffuser to create a low pressure area to do the same there to do.
The only thing that happened this year is that the undercut is even bigger than before. But the sidepod is still there. Yes, the Red Bull has a couple of vertical air intake louvers, and the old Mercedes had a much larger vertical air intake on its zero pod car, while most cars use high-mounted horizontal air intakes. But they are concerned with continuing to pursue Red Bull's philosophy and not adopting that of Mercedes.
image source, Getty Images
After Kenya, is there any chance that Formula 1 will ever be held in Africa?
Andrew: Formula 1 is very interested in a race in Africa, it's just proving a bit difficult to organize at the moment. Attempts to revive Kyalami in South Africa failed in the last year or so. A number of other projects have been discussed, but there are no serious candidates yet.
What went wrong at Alpine in the winter?
Andrew: Good question. Alpine finished sixth in the championship last year and started this year with virtually the slowest car on the grid.
The simple answer is: it's overweight, has no downforce and also has the least powerful engine on the grid.
Alpine claims they've adopted a completely new design philosophy and it'll take them a while to get it right, but that still begs the question: “Why?” If it's supposed to work, the car isn't faster than it is .
The simple truth is that other teams have made greater progress than Alpine. And that is the brutality of Formula 1. The level of competition is incredibly high. When a team falls short of its goals, it quickly falls behind.
The same thing happened to McLaren at the beginning of last year. They bounced back with an incredibly effective mid-season upgrade that catapulted them to the top of the grid. Unfortunately for Alpine, there aren't many who think they're likely to do the same.
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