Max the master, Red Bull turmoil

Max Verstappen may have clinched his fourth straight world drivers' title but the 2024 Formula One season proved, against all the odds, a refreshingly unpredictable thriller.

AFP reviews a year that began in Bahrain in March and culminated on Sunday with a record 24th race in Abu Dhabi.

Max rises above turbulence

After coasting to the past two world titles Verstappen was seen as a shoo-in for a fourth consecutive title, a sequence begun with his controversial defeat of Lewis Hamilton on the last lap of the season in 2021. After winning seven of the first 10 races it appeared plain sailing again for the uncompromising Dutch driver. Those wins proved the 27-year-old's steely ability to cancel out all the off-track noise swirling around his team since before pre-season testing when the Christian Horner affair hit the headlines. The team principal's days appeared numbered as he fought off accusations of inappropriate behavior towards a female colleague. A secret inquiry cleared the beleaguered Briton and Horner was on the pit lane for the season opener. An internal power struggle at the Austrian giant simmered away though, then came the bombshell that its technical genius Adrian Newey was quitting to join Aston Martin from 2025. None of this appeared to faze Verstappen. It was business as usual — at least up to his win in Spain in June. Little did he know then but that was to be the last time he was to climb to the top of the podium until last month, when he ended an 11-race losing run in Brazil. He then extinguished Lando Norris's slim chances of seizing his crown under the lights of Las Vegas with two races to spare. As he leaves Abu Dhabi his thoughts will already be on a fifth title on the trot — a feat only achieved by one other driver in the history of F1 — Michael Schumacher.

Hamilton gambles on red

Lewis Hamilton won six of his seven titles at Mercedes, but the British driver stunned the paddock when announcing pre-season his move to Ferrari. He is pinning his hopes of the Scuderia red providing him with a record eighth world crown. Hamilton will be hoping the gamble proves as fortuitous as his equally shocking move when he quit McLaren in 2012 for Mercedes. Ferrari's uptick in fortunes under French team principal Fred Vasseur, with whom Hamilton has a strong relationship, augurs well for a golden drive into his F1 sunset.

McLaren ends wilderness

McLaren pipped Ferrari to the constructors' crown on Sunday — taking the title for the first time since 1998. That title may not be the most burning topic for F1 fans but for the teams the end-of-year-standings are crucial — one place representing a difference of millions of pounds, with the champion Red Bull in 2023 estimated to have won $140 million, the last and 10th placed outfit collecting $60m. This was the British marque's 21st world title, and the confidence it will generate aligned with the extra cash puts Zak Brown's outfit in a tremendous position for 2025.

Farewell Daniel

The drivers merry-go-round, that usually starts spinning in the midsummer break, began this year in February with Hamilton's decision to quit Mercedes for Ferrari. He replaces Carlos Sainz, who, after much soul-searching, moves to Williams. F1 bade farewell to one of the sport's most likeable and popular actors — Daniel Ricciardo, let go by Red Bull's sister team RB in favor of Kiwi Liam Lawson in September. Other familiar faces leaving the grid are Sauber duo Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu, and Kevin Magnussen of Haas. Despite his poor season Sergio Perez remains Verstappen's teammate at Red Bull, for the time being at least. Exciting newcomers are Andrea Kimi Antonelli, who replaces Hamilton at Mercedes, Gabriel Bortoleto at Sauber, and Jack Doohan, son of former MotoGP star Mick Doohan, who takes over Haas-bound Esteban Ocon's seat at Alpine.

2024 — a vintage year

If F1 were a wine, 2024 would be bottled as vintage. A champion under pressure, white-knuckle racing, intrigue on and off the track, scandal, the awakening of former giant McLaren, the emergence of exciting new driving talents, the reeling in of Red Bull by the rest of the grid after the Austrian outfit's mastery of the changes in the technical landscape in 2022. There is every hope next season can prove just as gripping as the one just ended in Abu Dhabi.