The five best F1 2024 this season: Canada only fifth, British GP beaten to No.1 spot

After a run-of-the-mill start to the season, as Red Bull’s 2023 dominance seemed to continue on into 2024, the championship has sprung to unpredictable life.

14 races are in the rear-view mirror for 2024, but there are still 10 to go in what has been an increasingly competitive season as the four leading teams are all neck and neck. No offence Max Verstappen, but we’re rather enjoying this unpredictability! Let’s pick out the five stand-out races of the year so far, shall we?

5. Canadian Grand Prix

It was in Canada that the feeling about Red Bull’s level of dominance began to shift. While circumstances such as Safety Cars and setup choices could be viewed as explanations for Max Verstappen failing to run away with the Miami and Imola races, and Monaco an idiosyncratic event in itself, Montreal’s race started to add weight to the theory that the RB20 wasn’t in as happy a place as it had been at the start of the year.

Failing to take pole position by 0.000 seconds as George Russell set his 1:12.000 before the Dutch driver managed it, Verstappen found keeping up with the Mercedes man difficult in the first stint of the race on Sunday.

But it was Lando Norris’ overtake, completely on merit, of the Red Bull that signified a turning point for the season – Verstappen truly was powerless to prevent the McLaren driver from getting past and, worse, he wasn’t able to keep up as Norris rapidly built up a big lead of eight seconds after he also sliced his way past Norris.

But the conditions meant a really tense race unfolded as Red Bull and Mercedes had much sharper response to the Safety Car intervention brought Verstappen back into play, with Norris dropping back down to third behind the Red Bull and Russell.

With the track starting to dry, Red Bull and Mercedes pulled the trigger on switching to the slicks a lap before Norris and, while the British driver emerged onto the track ahead of Verstappen after his own stop, Verstappen being on the dry line with warmed up slicks allowed him to retake the lead by the smallest of margins.

From there, Norris and Russell fought over second place with both making errors to allow the other through – but it was Norris who eventually came out on top. Despite all this, Norris finished less than four seconds behind Verstappen – the McLaren had appeared the faster car overall, with only Red Bull’s operational sharpness and Verstappen’s nous winning out in the end.

4. Hungarian Grand Prix

It can hardly be said that the race in Budapest was a dull one, particularly as Max Verstappen slowly turned apoplectic in the cockpit of his Red Bull.

McLaren locked out the front row with Lando Norris ahead of Oscar Piastri, but it was the Australian who got the better of his teammate on the run down into Turn 1.

Verstappen, too, went around the outside of Norris – only to take the position by going fully off-track, resulting in him complaining about Norris pushing him off.

With Red Bull advising the World Champion to give up the place or risk a penalty, Verstappen duly complied to restore a McLaren 1-2 with Piastri controlling things out front.

Of course, Verstappen’s race went from bad to worse from there as an unusually reactive Red Bull got caught out by undercuts from Mercedes and Ferrari to wind up in fifth and forcing Verstappen into an aggressive comeback – one that seemed doomed to its conclusion as the red mist descended for an understandably frustrated Verstappen.

But the real drama was up front, as McLaren fumbled the management of its race to turn what should have been a straightforward 1-2 into a mess. Norris, given the chance to undercut Norris at the final stops, ended up in front of his teammate and, having been given the position by his team, was in no mood to give up the place.

Seeing an opportunity to close up significantly on Verstappen in the title chase, Norris ignored the pleas of his increasingly desperate race engineer Will Joseph to leave McLaren sick with tension on the pit wall about whether or not he would obey team orders and correct their mistake by letting Piastri back through.

In the end, with three laps to go, Norris did yield – and claimed afterwards it was always his intention to do so, meaning the desperate radio messages were never needed. Did Norris’ conscience eat away at him, or was he telling the truth? Only the British driver knows – either way, the result was a McLaren 1-2 and an incredibly popular first win for Piastri.

3. Austrian Grand Prix

This was a great slug-fest of a race, with the battle between Verstappen and Norris being brought to the forefront in what turned out to be hugely dramatic circumstances.

Verstappen had bested Norris and Piastri in the Sprint race on Saturday, but the longer Grand Prix was much closer. The Red Bull had opened up a lead of a few seconds during the first half of the race but the Dutch driver’s rate of pulling away had begun to reverse in Norris’ favour by the time the pair made their stops.

With 20 laps to go, it was clear Verstappen was being reeled in by the McLaren and, after a few battles in which the Red Bull had come out on top, could Norris dig deep to overtake and beat his championship rival on track?

Of course, the ending wasn’t quite what everyone had hoped for. A few divebomb attempts from Norris had resulted in some borderline defending from Verstappen, but the fight ended in a clash that was simultaneously underwhelming and dramatic.

Approaching Turn 3, with Verstappen setting up a trajectory to slowly squeeze out Norris under braking, the McLaren driver opted against utilising all the space available to him and this resulted in an inevitable touch between the cars – resulting in punctures for both.

Verstappen managed to get his car back for fresh tyres and an eventual fifth place, even after a penalty, while Norris retired due to the damage his car picked up.

Rather than it being a slugfest battle of the titans, Austria’s race proved memorable for it being the first true flashpoint between the two close friends and, now, championship rivals.

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2. British Grand Prix

In terms of storyline, the ending of Lewis Hamilton’s race win drought after almost three years – his first race win since before his heartbreak at the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix – was enough by itself to make Silverstone memorable.

But, once the circumstances of the win are added into the mix, it’s clear why Silverstone 2024 has been one of this year’s classics.

Mercedes locking out the front row for a 1-2, with Russell ahead of Hamilton, set up the chess board for a fun race as the two McLarens and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen occupied the next three positions, particularly with inclement weather threatening the British circuit.

The changeable conditions resulted in equally changeable fortunes, as the McLarens surged forward in the moist conditions – their car’s ability to retain higher tyre temperatures coming to the aid of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri.

Verstappen appeared to be out of the fight with his Red Bull slowly but surely fading back to fifth – and almost sixth – but a perfectly judged strategy from his team brought him back into play to coincide with McLaren also being bested by Mercedes in the final tyres stops.

Undercut by Hamilton for the final, decisive stint, Norris was powerless to stop Verstappen from surging past to set up a Hamilton vs. Verstappen showdown in the final laps – a fight the Dutch driver ultimately lost, albeit not by much.

After almost a thousand days without a win, Hamilton was back on top – and he’d had to be perfect from start to finish to bring it home.

1. Belgian Grand Prix

No, this isn’t a case of recency bias – it’s just that F1 produced a true nail-biter from start to finish to round off the first half of the season.

In terms of narrative, all eyes were on Red Bull to see whether Spa-Francorchamps would see something of a return to the expected pecking order and, to a certain extent, it did – Verstappen and Red Bull clearly had the legs over a single lap.

But, with a 10-place grid penalty due to a power unit change, could Verstappen replicate the comebacks he produced in 2022 and ’23 in similar circumstances?

The answer, of course, was no – although he did slowly but surely move forward throughout the race. But the RB20 didn’t have enough pace in hand to bring Verstappen completely into contention, meaning it was Mercedes and McLaren who fought for the spoils.

A brave strategy call from George Russell resulted in an incredibly tense finish, with the one-stopping British driver eking out his tyres (too much, it later turned out) to make the flag just a nose ahead of his two-stopping teammate Lewis Hamilton – a single lap more could have produced a very different result.

There was also the big question mark of what Oscar Piastri might have produced had there been that extra lap, with the McLaren driver showcasing the confidence gained from his Hungarian win to join in the fight, resulting in the trio crossing the finish line nose-to-tail.

It had been 44 laps of question marks, with not a single predictable moment – even the difficulty in overtaking hadn’t spoiled the tension of what has been the standout race of the year so far.

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