The 2024 Components 1 season ended with Lando Norris’ win in Abu Dhabi securing McLaren’s constructors’ championship in 26 years.
Ferrari duo Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc completed in second and third, with Lewis Hamilton simply pipping team-mate George Russell to fourth in his last race for Mercedes.
BBC F1 correspondent Andrew Benson solutions your questions after the season finale in Abu Dhabi.
Has this weekend’s controversy made it much less probably Max Verstappen will go to Mercedes in 2026? – Tom
This can be a reference to the over their experiences within the stewards room in Qatar. And the reply isn’t any.
Verstappen’s future past the top of 2025 stays very a lot open.
He has a contract with Purple Bull till the top of 2028, however there are methods he can get out of it if he desires.
He has a variety of choices.
Mercedes is the apparent one – given the chance, Toto Wolff would signal Verstappen in a heartbeat, no matter whether or not it was to be as team-mate to Russell or Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Lewis Hamilton’s alternative subsequent yr.
However Verstappen being Verstappen, he can be in demand all over the place.
At Ferrari, for instance – what if Hamilton doesn’t go effectively there? A gap would possibly emerge.
At Aston Martin, Fernando Alonso is beneath contract to the top of 2026, however Verstappen would possibly fancy ready till 2027 after which becoming a member of up once more with Honda and Adrian Newey after that if the automobile goes effectively that yr.
He is in no rush. He’ll take his time, see how 2025 develops after which resolve.
Who has had the higher of one another over the three seasons – Lewis Hamilton or George Russell? – Lohit
In some methods, this reply comes all the way down to fundamental statistics of qualifying and race, though there may be some nuance.
In qualifying, they had been evenly matched by means of their first two seasons collectively in 2022 and 2023 – in 2022, Hamilton had the sting by 0.05secs on common, in 2023, Russell was sooner by a mean of 0.004secs over the season.
That has modified this yr, when Hamilton has actually struggled in qualifying, and in 2024 Russell has been 0.17secs sooner, and Hamilton has out-qualified him solely 5 instances on benefit.
The large query is: Why? Not even Hamilton appears to know. However the reply seems to be that he’s not snug with the automobile, and generally over-drives.
Within the championship, Russell has completed forward two instances out of three – in 2022 and 2024. The general factors complete was 697-695 in favour of Hamilton.
That is the place the nuance is available in.
In 2022, the stand-out Mercedes drives had been predominantly by Hamilton, except Russell’s win in Brazil – consider Spain, Silverstone, Hungary, the Netherlands and the US Grand Prix. And in 2023, Hamilton was comfortably the higher driver general.
Even this yr, though Russell completed forward by 22 factors, there have been races when Hamilton has been far more spectacular – for instance, Las Vegas and Abu Dhabi, when he began many locations behind Russell however closed in and both completed proper behind and even overtook him.
In fact, there have been different races the place Russell was extra spectacular than Hamilton, too.
The purpose is that, whereas Hamilton has are available for some criticism this yr, it might’t be ignored that Russell is exceptionally good, so being crushed by him isn’t any disgrace in any respect, even for a seven-time champion.
In Las Vegas, I interviewed Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin for a characteristic on the top of Hamilton’s time at Mercedes. I requested why Russell had the sting this yr, and he began the reply by saying: “George is a very robust driver and he’s notably robust on a Saturday.”
The truth that Hamilton went into this season already figuring out that he was leaving for Ferrari on the finish of it additionally needs to be thought-about as a contributory issue.
As : “It has been in all probability the longest yr of my life, figuring out from the start I used to be leaving.”
Because the elder statesmen of the game now, do Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton get alongside after the trauma of their McLaren partnership? – Ed
At McLaren in 2007, their drawback was not a lot with one another, as with the administration and the best way they dealt with the season.
However so far as I’m conscious, the connection between Alonso and Hamilton has not modified a lot in recent times.
It is fairly easy. They’re by no means going to be finest pals. There seems to be some type of character conflict there, they usually every have fairly totally different views of the world, even when in some methods they’re in all probability extra comparable than both wish to admit.
As Hamilton put it in an interview with BBC Sport and a few different retailers in 2022: “We’re a lot, a lot totally different individuals and with a lot totally different values.”
However they’ve a excessive respect for one another’s capacity they usually rub alongside effectively sufficient on a superficial stage after they find yourself in the identical neighborhood, it appears.
Nonetheless, as has been seen in recent times, the inherent conflict of personalities there does escape into the open generally, particularly after they have an on-track contretemps.
Did McLaren err in not permitting Lando Norris to change into the primary driver earlier, which might probably have put them as driver and constructors’ champions? – Tracey
It is debatable – to say the least – whether or not favouring Norris earlier would have made him world champion, as there have been really only a few instances when McLaren might have, as normally he was forward of Oscar Piastri.
The apparent ones are Hungary and Monza.
In Budapest, Norris was on pole however Piastri took the lead on the first nook, after which there was the difficulty of whether or not Norris ought to let Piastri again previous after
It will have been very harsh on Piastri to maintain Norris forward – he had earned the win. However for instance they’d finished it – that is seven extra factors for Norris.
In Monza, there’s a robust argument to say McLaren shouldn’t have allowed them to race on the primary lap, as a result of Piastri’s sensible passing transfer on Norris at Flip 4 ended up with Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari nipping forward of Norris into second place, from the place he went on to win.
It is not possible to know whether or not McLaren would have gained had this not occurred, as a result of Ferrari should have tricked them with the one-stop. However even when Norris had gained slightly than completed third, that is an additional 10 factors.
Verstappen completed 63 factors forward of Norris. So it is exhausting to argue that staff orders in these two occasions would have made Norris champion – they would not.
However that is to not say that McLaren do not feel there’s something to be taught from the best way they dealt with this season.
McLaren Racing chief government officer Zak Brown was requested earlier than the race in Abu Dhabi final weekend whether or not he thought it could have been higher to favour Norris earlier.
He mentioned: “No. I do not are likely to remorse issues. I are likely to be taught and go, ‘I’d have finished that in a different way.’ In any other case you reside in a sequence of regrets.
“It was exhausting, as a result of Oscar was by no means that far behind Lando [in the championship]. We began getting noise that we should always favour Lando midway by means of the season, which was actually early.
“I believe what we discovered, like, in Monza was we went into Flip 4 first and second and got here out first and third, however the instruction we gave them was extra obscure. It was subjective, it was: ‘Do not take dangers.’
“So Lando was considering, ‘I needn’t block that arduous as a result of I needn’t take a danger.’ And Oscar was considering: ‘Hey, door seems to be fairly open to me.’
“In hindsight, we might have been extra definitive in, ‘the way you enter Flip 4 is how you’ll want to come out of Flip 4. Clear everybody after which go race.’
“I like that we let our guys go race. But when I take a look at Monza, that is what we discovered. That we must be extra definitive, as a driver’s view of what is dangerous is subjective.”
Have Purple Bull engineered their automobile to this point in the direction of Max Verstappen that no different driver might make it aggressive? – David
To the primary clause of this query, the Purple Bull engineers would say no. However the actual reply is, ‘no however, sure, type of’.
Purple Bull would say that they do not engineer the automobile to favour Verstappen; they design the quickest automobile they will, after which develop it in a route that, from the expertise of racing it, suggests the place it may be improved.
Nonetheless, it is inevitable that if one driver is demonstrably, persistently sooner than the opposite, any staff is probably going to provide extra weight to their suggestions than to his team-mate’s.
So, if Verstappen feels he can go sooner if the automobile has a extra responsive entrance – which he normally does – they’re extra more likely to develop it so it has extra entrance downforce and grip than if his team-mate was saying that he wished extra rear stability, for instance.
Alex Albon would say this was the state of affairs wherein he ended up when he was Verstappen’s team-mate in 2020 – Albon likened the steering response of the Purple Bull to a pc video games controller turned as much as most sensitivity.
However that is a normal reply. Particularly, this yr, that’s not what Purple Bull’s drawback has been.
The problem for them has been that the automobile’s steadiness has not been “related”, as drivers put it lately – ie the entrance and rear behave in a different way, generally from nook to nook, generally inside a single nook. Aston Martin have had an identical drawback.
This makes the automobile very tough to drive. And in that state of affairs – in any state of affairs, frankly – an amazing driver similar to Verstappen is at all times going to adapt higher than a merely good one, similar to Sergio Perez.
The second a part of the query is whether or not another driver would have the ability to deal with this example higher.
It is a fairly secure guess to say that the perfect – Lewis Hamilton, Charles Leclerc, George Russell, Lando Norris, Fernando Alonso – positively would.
Would that reach to Liam Lawson or Yuki Tsunoda, the 2 drivers Purple Bull are contemplating to switch Perez in 2025?
Properly, as issues stand, it seems to be like we will discover out, and that Lawson would be the newest experiment.
Why does dangerous driving (a collision) that severely disenables one other automobile by no means lead to disqualification? – Graham
As a result of it is typically not thought-about a critical sufficient offence for that punishment.
Drivers might be disqualified, however it tends to occur just for essentially the most egregious flouting of the foundations, or ignoring of officers’ orders.
A easy error in a racing state of affairs – even when it is a notably clumsy one, as a pair had been in Abu Dhabi on Sunday – doesn’t meet the brink.
