With three days of testing now wrapped up and a shift of focus to the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix this weekend, Formula One will at last roar into competitive action ahead of what’s going to be a record-breaking 24-race season.
The curtain raising uniquely with a pair of Saturday Grands Prix in the Middle East, with the Ramadan fasting period in effect through March, before the championship returns to Melbourne for another adventure around Albert Park.
2024 sees the Japanese Grand Prix moved to April 7 too, with the Azerbaijan race now shifted to September 15.
Shanghai is set to make its long-awaited return to the schedule for the first time since it hosted the 1000th championship F1 race in 2019, while the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix will feature too after its cancellation last year due to severe flooding.
Sprint weekends will see a tweak as well, with the agreement to stage the 30-minute dashes on a Saturday morning and revert to qualifying for the grand prix at the traditional afternoon time. Qualifying for the Sprint will be on a Friday evening, following a solitary practice session.
China and Miami are the fresh inclusions to the Sprint roster for 2024, complimenting Austria, Austin, Brazil and Qatar.
24 races will in itself be testing, on not only the drivers but all the team personnel and travelling crews associated with bringing the circuit to life week-by-week. Even the likes of Sky Sports F1 commentator David Croft has announced that he’ll be missing three races.
The grid of 20 drivers comes into the new season unchanged in a surprising first, however, team identities have changed during the off-season. Alfa Romeo’s association with Sauber ended in 2023, with the Swiss outfit taking on title sponsorship from the likes of Stake and Kick to be known as Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber.
Not as much a mouthful as the Visa Cash App Racing Bulls, colloquially dubbed VCARB – who were formally AlphaTauri.
With a striking livery, featuring smatterings of metallic blue reminiscent of their former Toro Rosso identity – the Red Bull sister team seems more under the spotlight for their inherent relationship with the world-beating Milton Keynes outfit, from which they’ve acquired multiple componentry as provisioned in the regulations.
There will be renewed ambition up and down the order, with teams like Ferrari, McLaren and Mercedes all hoping to close the gap to the already-ominous-looking Red Bull. Mercedes at last is fully committing to a new car concept following the dire outcomes of being trapped in the delusion of making their zero-sidepods work.
Not that whatever they achieve in 2024 will convince their seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton to stay, as it was confirmed in early February that he’d make the high-profile switch to Ferrari next year.
Lewis Hamilton. (Photo by Michael Potts/BSR Agency/Getty Images)
The hope is that the likes of Hamilton can at least break his drought of wins, dating back to the end of the 2021 season before swapping black for red. As will be the case for any of Red Bull’s rivals – especially after they romped to 21 wins out of 22 races last year.
It feels too, that the second half of the field will be even more competitive with the likes of Williams and VCARB having lifted from the bottom of the order. How close to the top five Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda will be remains the question, as they target Q3 appearances for VCARB – though the closer they get, the more intense the scrutiny from rivals will be.
Stake will need to deliver progress, given their impending Audi takeover in 2026. The expectation from the German automotive giant is that they’re competitive from the outset, so there will be an onus on the Hinwil outfit to make strides on the chassis side under the technical directorship of James Key.
But it does feel likely they’ll be consigned to the rear of the field with Haas, who made the high-profile split with long-time team boss Guenther Steiner as the eponymous team owner seems content on his current investment and pushes to maximise their existing infrastructure.
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Whatever unfolds, whatever dramas present themselves – Formula One is back. The Roar once again will have live blog coverage across the 2024 season, starting with the Bahrain Grand Prix from Sunday 2am AEDT.