The Formula 1 season resumes this weekend, with the Bahrain Grand Prix, contested on Saturday March 2 on the Sakhir circuit (start at 4 p.m.). In the turmoil of the Christian Horner affair, the Red Bull team, double world constructors’ champion, aspires to remain on the top of the discipline thanks to its triple world champion, Max Verstappen, already author of pole position, Friday. But Ferrari, to whom the upcoming arrival of Lewis Hamilton can give wings, as well as Mercedes, for the Briton’s last year at the wheel of the Silver Arrows, dream of returning to the top.
Red Bull and Verstappen still dominant?
Winner of 19 of the 22 Grands Prix contested last year, Max Verstappen is the big favorite for his own succession as the Dutch driver and his team have stunned the competition, allowing only one victory to escape the Red Bull fold (Carlos Sainz in Singapore). In a season without much regulatory innovation and where the RB20, the Austrian team’s new racing car, impressed the paddock during testing, the bull brand always seems to be one step ahead of its competitors. And this even if the first qualifying session seemed to indicate that the gaps were quite tight.
No change on the grid, waiting for 2025
Historical fact: all the drivers present on the grid during the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, closing the 2023 financial year, will be at the start of this new season, in the same garages. The only adjustments concern the teams, with Alfa Romeo becoming Stake and Alpha Tauri now being called Visa Cash App RB. But the big transfer window news of the offseason is the departure of Lewis Hamilton from Mercedes to Ferrari in 2025, which should launch a game of musical chairs during the season.
Longest F1 season kicks off
Between this start in Bahrain and the close in Abu Dhabi in December, the 2024 Formula 1 season will include 24 Grands Prix, a record. A marathon, to which must be added six sprint races, which therefore begins on the Sakhir circuit, Saturday March 2, a week after the winter testing phase, dominated by the Red Bulls and the Ferraris.