With the 2024 F1 season done and dusted, FormulaRapida.net decided to draw out a ranking system in a new ‘Tier’ system, moving away from a traditional, individual ranked order.
The long 2024 F1 season had its share of strong performances from everyone on the grid, whether at the front of the field or at the back. For this reason, we decided to do away with the traditional system of an individual, ranked system of categorisation.
Darshan Chokhani – as part of FormulaRapida.net – decided on the Tier system where we have 10 F1 teams divided in four tiers. Here’s how they are stacked up –
Tier 1 –
McLaren:
Without any doubt, we start the 2024 tier list talking about the F1 constructors’ champion, McLaren. It took them 26 years, but they finally won the teams’ title after the last time in 1998. The win, though, never looked on when the season started back in February-March in Bahrain. Red Bull looked dominant by winning several races at the onset. It was not until Miami, when the Woking-based outfit started to show its pace. Lando Norris secured his career first win. Despite the updates, the wins didn’t come easy for them due to Ferrari, Mercedes and even Red Bull. They were consistent finishing on the podium, which helped their case in a four-way fight. Only in Azerbaijan, they managed to take the lead of the F1 championship, which they never lost eventually.
They had their moments, but they largely had it under control, which included a final race fight against Ferrari to win the title by 14 points. In all, they had only six wins, but the 21 podiums made the difference to go with two sprint wins and seven sprint podiums, along with eight pole positions and seven fastest laps. Both Norris and Oscar Piastri contributed well which made the difference too unlike Red Bull. On top of that, they stuck to their ‘papaya’ style of racing – which may have cost them the outside chance of helping Norris in winning the F1 drivers’ title – but it certainly earned them the constructors’ championship. They joined Mercedes and Red Bull to be only the third team to win the coveted prize in the hybrid era.
Ferrari:
The famous McLaren-Ferrari was re-ignited of sorts in 2024. The ultimate prize went to the British outfit, but the Italian manufacturer finally managed to take the fight until the end. After steaming off early in the past, they were on task this time despite the hiccup they had after Monaco. The one key mistake which dropped them off was the upgrade in Spain, which didn’t work and ultimately they lost good chunk of points. That was the difference of 14 in the end. It did frustrate Frederic Vasseur, but he was happy that the team could fight through the mini-slump they had and that they didn’t tail off like the previous times. Much like McLaren, they were chasing history in terms of winning a constructor title, which they won the last time in 2008.
Both Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz worked their magic as they also managed to beat Red Bull, whom they were eyeing too for long. They worked well even though it was well known about the Spaniard was to leave at the end of 2024 season to welcome Lewis Hamilton in 2025. In all, Ferrari secured fives wins and 22 podiums to go with three sprint podiums, along with four pole positions and four fastest laps. They missed the championship by just, but the fighting spirit certainly re-ignited the tifosi passion, which can work wonders if things go well in the season ahead.
Red Bull:
Having dominated the 2023 F1 season, Red Bull started off the 2024 season on a high with back-to-back wins. Little they knew that their potential downfall already kicked-in. Max Verstappen’s dominance masked those issues, which could be seen on Sergio Perez’s side from Imola onward. It didn’t affect them straight up, but slowly it started to create problems and it affected their results. Verstappen started to lose points, but he was not the problem for the team, the downturn of the Mexican is what hurt them in the constructors’ battle. In the end, the gap was over 200 points which pretty much sealed the title loss. All this while the Dutchman took his fourth drivers’ championship, which was all the team cared about when constructors’ loss became apparent.
The small turnaround in Austin was credited for the title but for 2025, it will be a huge task even though they have discarded Perez and taken in Liam Lawson. Since Red Bull dropped to third in the order, it became difficult to keep them in Tier 1, but since the Top 4 were more or less taking points off each other, it felt more to align them together. In all, Red Bull scored nine wins and 18 podiums to go with four sprint wins and sprint podiums, along with eight pole positions and four fastest laps. Despite scoring the maximum number of wins, the team couldn’t hold on to the championship mostly due to the lack of big points from the Mexican as noted above.
Mercedes:
It was a 50-50 season indeed for Mercedes in F1 2024 where they looked good around the summer break, but they couldn’t sustain the same level of performance throughout the year, which reflected in their results. It was another year where the German team couldn’t understand their problems. The moment they understood one problem, another one popped up which slowed their performance. It has been same for them in the new generation and that has cost them the services of Lewis Hamilton for 2025. They are to replace him with Andrea Kimi Antonelli to partner George Russell.
Much like Red Bull, they didn’t seem fit for Tier 1 but considering that they did perform well in pockets and were ahead of others in the pack mostly, it made sense to align them all under one shed. Overall, they scored four wins and nine podiums to go with two sprint podiums, along with four pole positions and four fastest laps. Considering their performances and the car they have, it will be an interesting watch in 2025, if they can better themselves and with a rookie in the car, that will add to the difficulties.
Tier 2 –
Haas:
The team started with lowest of expectations at the onset of 2024 F1 season after the background changes in 2023 where Guenther Steiner was let go and Ayao Komatsu made the team principal. They had an experienced line-up of Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg, who from the get go manage to put the car in lower rugs of points places. What looked like a season of difficulties, blossomed into a points scoring one as much they could, especially in the midfield fight outside the Top 4 teams. The systematic way of bringing in updates worked, as the car responded to them. They held on to sixth for major part of the season after early run from Visa Cash App RB.
All went well for them until the Brazil GP when Alpine’s double podium relegated them to seventh in the standings. The fight, which was between Haas and Visa Cash App RB, became a three-way tussle. The French outfit’s larger points haul made the difference, where they managed to beat the American F1 outfit for sixth by seven points. Haas did well all-through and they were the most consistent in the midfield than others, but it was not enough still. They managed a fastest lap courtesy Magnussen in the final race in Abu Dhabi when the Dane decided to go for glory. The bulk of scoring was done by Hulkenberg, though, who lost P10 to Pierre Gasly in the final grand prix.
Alpine:
Much like Haas, they started on the backfoot after discovering that the car built over the winter was way off pace. They immediately lost personnel and had to undertake an early revamp of the team, bringing in David Sanchenz, whose move to McLaren from Ferrari didn’t work. The recovery mode already got into motion in April-May, but the results didn’t come until the end of the year. They did chip in with few points here and there in the early part, but their major push came in Brazil after the updates in Austin. That set the tone and the string of points then after pushed them from ninth in the standings to sixth.
Esteban Ocon’s second and Pierre Gasly’s third in Brazil, followed by sixth and seventh in Qatar and Abu Dhabi from the latter aided Alpine to retain sixth by seven points over Haas. It also pushed Gasly to finish P10 in the drivers’ standings. The other side did suffer slight but did score goodish points when mattered. He got an early release which allowed the team to give Jack Doohan a chance. While they had sixth, unlike Haas, they were not consistent enough but still the recovery drive from nowhere to where they finished, allows them to be in Tier 2.
Tier 3 –
Visa Cash App RB:
With Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda, the team started off on a good note running sixth in the standings. They managed to keep the likes of Haas and Williams at bay, but as the season progressed, things started to slow down. The Australian was eventually replaced with Liam Lawson, but their fortunes didn’t really change hugely. The lack of points allowed Haas to pass them and post Brazil, they dropped to eighth after Alpine’s recovery. Even though they were firmly in the fight for sixth, they never looked toppling either of the two F1 teams considering the updates were not working as expected. There were some mistakes on the side of the team and the drivers too which held them back. The reason to end up in Tier 3 is lack of consistency and potential to be strongly in the fight.
Aston Martin:
Even though they ended up fifth in the constructors’ championship, Aston Martin never looked like a team in prime position. Their high of 2023 seems a distant memory now and all the experiments done towards the end of last year, brought some results at the start of 2024 when they scored chunk of points. But as the season progressed, they were mostly the seventh or eighth best team, as noted by both Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll. Even though they scored goodish amount of points to keep itself afloat in the Top 5, they were far off from the Top 4 and were always in the chase mode. The experiments returned in the second half of the year. The only shining light in their campaign was Alonso, who managed to retain ninth place in the drivers’ standings, ahead of all of the midfield drivers. Stroll, meanwhile, had handful of results but was lacklusture much like the team, who continued to sign big names including Adrian Newey. They did shuffle around a bit, moving Dan Fallows away from the design department due to a disappointing run.
Tier 4 –
Williams:
After some promising words from team boss James Vowles, it looked like Williams were onto something in 2024 F1 season. But it wasn’t to be. There were moments certainly where they looked good, but they were already behind on many things where crashes didn’t help. Not just Logan Sargeant, even Alexander Albon had his share of throw outs. This delayed a lot of development work. The situation became so bad that they were forced to drop Sargeant and bring in Franco Colapinto, who brought fresh air. That didn’t last long either, as his crash added to the toll where there were some doubts of them even getting a car ready for the final two races. They anyhow managed to, but were down on parts and even performance. They literally scrapped through the season and had more crash bill than points to show. It was not a good showing in front of Carlos Sainz as well, who has signed up for 2025 and beyond. They do desperately need inputs from the Spaniard to push the team forward minus the crash fest.
Sauber:
Despite having had some pace at the start of 2024 F1 season, Sauber couldn’t capitalise due to their pit stop problem. Even though they manage to fix it in the first part, it was too late for them as when the pit stop got fixed, their pace dropped and they were nowhere for major part of the season. It looked like that they will end up with zero points, until the last few races where they looked quick genuinely. And Zhou Guanyu capitalised in Qatar to score, while Valtteri Bottas did not have the luck to get it done. They were destined to finish last but fans expected a better fight which they showed only in the last phase of the season. The team is more waiting to see-through the current life before the Audi switch which starts in 2025 with all-new line-up of Nico Hulkenberg and Gabriel Bortoleto under Mattia Binotto and Jonathan Wheatley.
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