The F1 2024 season is finally on the horizon, and our writers have put their heads together to predict the order of this year’s Constructors’ Championship.
In among our broad range of F1 2024 predictions, some of which will no doubt age like fine wine and others like milk left out of the fridge, each of our writers predicted the outcome, in order, of the Constructors’ Championship – based on what competitive clues we have been able to gather from the year so far.
To form our table, we have taken each person’s predictions, added them together (awarding 1 point for predicting 1st place, down to 10 for 10th place), to create our combined table for this year’s Constructors’ standings. Interestingly, no single writer predicted this exact order from 1-10 outright, so this does create a true ‘average’ standing.
Immediately, and this is the only draw we had when taking all of our predictions together, Sauber and Haas came out with exactly the same combined score from all seven of our writers for as to who would come out with the wooden spoon for the season ahead.
This left us in need of a tie-breaker, but we’ve settled on our colleague, Thomas Maher’s observations from trackside in Bahrain as a decider as to what swung the balance.
In putting the Hinwil-based team bottom of the standings this term, he wrote after testing concluded that the C44 looked “visibly a little scary to drive” up close, with a noticeably wagging rear end on corner exit.
This left Haas as the other early contenders at the bottom end, but with new team principal Ayao Komatsu having spoken positively about potentially knowing the root cause of the tyre wear issues that plagued last year’s car, the conversation could switch to the outright pace of the VF-24 instead.
With Haas having placed so much focus on long-run pace, not much is known about how it goes over one lap yet, but their hopes remain modest for the season in front of them for now.
Team Enstone kept a low profile throughout testing, with Pierre Gasly acknowledging they’re starting with a “brand new piece of paper” in terms of the A524 being a completely new car concept.
Early worries have emerged about the pace of the car however, and although it’s a long season ahead and anything can happen, our average has put them down in P8 in our pre-season predictions.
Having risen to their highest Constructors’ placing for quite some time last year, Williams have been backed by our writers on average to maintain that placing this time around.
The FW46 looks a stable platform for their drivers once again this year, and they’ll be hoping to continue the significant progress they made last season.
Perhaps the biggest unknown heading into the season, but with their increased collaboration with ‘big brother’ team Red Bull, RB look to have a strong package in the VCARB-01.
Daniel Ricciardo admitted as much in saying he has a “decent car” underneath him, but erred on the side of caution when wondering whether or not it will be able to compete in the upper echelons of the midfield or compete for a podium this year.
One to watch, that’s for sure.
Aston Martin team principal Mike Krack spoke glowingly about how successful the team had been in executing their run plan over three days of testing in Bahrain, the proof now would simply be about where they are compared to their rivals.
“It was a very, very good test for us,” he told media including PlanetF1.com after the running was completed. “Three days, I think the only interruptions we had was with the red flags, so I think we can be quite happy.
“The car was in a really good state when it arrived here. Very reliable, high-quality parts, so we could do all of our work that we had scheduled every day.
“Very happy, now it’s about digging, getting through the whole days to understand all the results that we have achieved, and we’re looking forward to going to the first race. It will be soon.”
A positive sign from Aston, but the key will be about how the AMR24 matches its competitors – and our average placing puts them in the same position as last year for now.
Just nudged out by the next team ahead of them in our averages, it’s clear that the front wing in particular on the Mercedes W15 looks like an excellent piece of innovation – one that has garnered plenty of praise and will almost certainly spark copies further down the line.
Both Lewis Hamilton and George Russell offered positive feedback around the W15 compared to its predecessor too, but in what is likely to be a packed fight behind the leaders, they will have a tough battle on their hands to hold onto P2 this season. They’re more than capable of doing so, but our early predictions don’t have them there for now.
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Continuing on their upward trajectory and narrowly beating Mercedes in our average placings are McLaren, who appear to have a solid platform and completed mostly trouble-free running with the MCL38.
Oscar Piastri said he hopes to see the team around the battle towards the front in the early part of the season, while team principal Andrea Stella said their new car has “significantly evolved” compared to this time last year.
If they picked up where they left off at the end of 2023, McLaren could well be a threat this year.
Top of the timesheets on two of the three days of testing (albeit a stat that should always be taken with a huge pinch of salt), the Ferrari SF-24 has looked strong since its on-track debut.
Such has been the faith placed in the car so far, five of our seven writers put Ferrari in P2 in the Constructors’ standings, with Sam Cooper believing McLaren would be ‘best of the rest’ and our resident Tifosi member, Michelle Foster, placing Ferrari P1 – perhaps more in hope than expectation. (Sorry, Michelle.)
Both Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz have spoken to the improved driveability of the car, though, and that should be an improved platform from which to work moving forward.
Given everything we have seen on track so far, it probably didn’t take much working out as to who would feature as number one on our list, but the Red Bull RB20 looks to be right at the top of the pile at the moment.
Max Verstappen goes into the season as the hot favourite to win a fourth consecutive Drivers’ title, but the impetus is on everybody else on the grid to see if they can stop him.
Everybody starts from zero in Bahrain this weekend, and we have a long season ahead – anything can happen next.
(Combined average placing from our writers in brackets)
1: Red Bull (1.14)
2: Ferrari (2)
3: McLaren (3.43)
4: Mercedes (3.58)
5: Aston Martin (5.29)
6: RB (5.85)
7: Williams (7.43)
8: Alpine (7.71)
9: Haas (9.29)
10: Sauber (9.29)
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