The three F1 drivers who unexpectedly lost to their team mates last year · RaceFans

Firstly of final yr we requested RaceFans readers which of the 20 drivers on the grid would beat their staff mates over the course of the season.

You appropriately named seven of the ten winners. However three drivers fell in need of your expectations.

Two of them are with out an F1 drive for 2025 and are seemingly on the finish of their careers. However the different faces one of many largest challenges of his profession to this point, amid claims his kind final yr reveals he’s not the drive he as soon as was.

The anticipated winners of 2024

Pierre Gasly vs Esteban Ocon

71.6% stated Gasly would win

There was little to decide on between the 2 Alpine drivers and long-term rivals once they first teamed up in 2023. Pierre Gasly pipped Esteban Ocon by simply 4 factors.

The second time round, extra of you had been assured Gasly would cleared the path, and he did, by 38 to 23. However that didn’t inform the entire story: Ocon scored the staff’s greatest results of the yr with second place in Brazil, and didn’t have entry to their greatest components on the finish of the season as he was on his strategy to Haas. Nonetheless, Gasly can take into account himself the slim winner in what regarded like a grudge match at instances.

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Charles Leclerc vs Carlos Sainz Jnr

74.3% stated Leclerc would win

Carlos Sainz Jnr out-scored Charles Leclerc of their first season collectively as staff mates at Ferrari and almost did so once more in 2023. Greater than 1 / 4 of our readers fancied his probabilities of doing so once more, however even factoring out his missed look in Jeddah this was a transparent 340-290 factors win for Leclerc.

Lando Norris vs Oscar Piastri

81.7% stated Norris would win

Oscar Piastri made a wonderful begin to his Method 1 profession at McLaren in 2023. He confirmed plenty of promise within the second half of the season particularly.

That emboldened fairly a couple of of our readers – virtually one in 5 – to foretell he would beat Lando Norris of their second season as staff mates. It didn’t come to go, nevertheless, partly as a result of Norris raised his recreation as he went up in opposition to Max Verstappen within the championship battle. Norris led Piastri 374 to 292 on the finish of the yr, the pair amassing sufficient factors between them for McLaren to win the constructors’ championship.

Nico Hulkenberg vs Kevin Magnussen

83.4% stated Hulkenberg would win

The Haas drivers solely made occasional forays into the factors throughout 2023, and Nico Hulkenberg’s sixth place end in Australia was the principle purpose he got here out forward.

Each drivers picked up much more factors final yr because the VF-24 proved far kinder to its tyres and Haas’s upgrades labored as meant. Hulkenberg led the way in which as soon as once more although, out-scoring Magnussen 41-16, as most of our readers anticipated.

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Fernando Alonso vs Lance Stroll

98.4% stated Alonso would win

The following three votes had been by far essentially the most emphatic and in every case the anticipated winner didn’t disappoint. Lance Stroll has not out-scored a staff mate since becoming a member of his father’s staff in 2019 and that didn’t change final yr, Fernando Alonso thumping him by 70 factors to 24.

Alexander Albon vs Logan Sargeant

98.9% stated Albon would win

Nearly nobody anticipated Logan Sargeant to out-score Alexander Albon. Positive sufficient, he failed to gather a single level earlier than his season ended early on the Dutch Grand Prix, throughout which era Albon picked up 4.

However what number of would have tipped Franco Colapinto to take action nicely as Sargeant’s alternative?

Max Verstappen vs Sergio Perez

99.5% stated Verstappen would win

Just one particular person tipped Sergio Perez to out-score Max Verstappen. To be honest to Perez, his season started comparatively nicely, then went off the rails badly and by no means recovered. His 437-152 defeat to Verstappen could be the ultimate phrase on his 15-year F1 profession.

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The sudden losers of 2024

Daniel Ricciardo vs Yuki Tsunoda

68.4% stated Ricciardo would win

It wasn’t simply the RaceFans readership who predicted Daniel Ricciardo would fare higher than he did at RB final yr – the Crimson Bull management clearly anticipated extra. However he by no means persistently had the higher hand over staff mate Yuki Tsunoda, and ultimately Crimson Bull realised the magic was gone, and minimize him unfastened, by which era he was 12-20 down on factors.

Lewis Hamilton vs George Russell

72.2% stated Hamilton would win

George Russell out-scored Lewis Hamilton throughout their first season as staff mates. Nevertheless that yr Hamilton bore the brunt of the staff’s early experiments to work out how they received the W13 so badly unsuitable, which arguably compromised his points-scoring.

This yr was a special matter. Heading for the exit at Mercedes, Hamilton by no means received comfy together with his automobile’s efficiency over a single flying lap and infrequently discovered himself taking part in catch-up in consequence. Even Russell’s disqualification at Spa, which handed victory to Hamilton and a large factors swing in his favour, couldn’t cease the youthful driver popping out on prime by 245 to 223.

What that claims about Hamilton’s skills as he heads into his fifth decade is likely one of the most intriguing questions for the upcoming season and his big-money transfer to Ferrari.

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Valtteri Bottas vs Zhou Guanyu

76.2% stated Bottas would win

Greater than three-quarters of our readers anticipated Valtteri Bottas would proceed to out-score Zhou Guanyu at Sauber. However whereas he was persistently their greatest performer over the season, Sauber had the slowest automobile on the grid on common and had been due to this fact on the mercy of their rivals’ efficiency when it comes to points-scoring alternatives.

In Qatar, one among their higher weekends, Bottas was hit by Liam Lawson, and Zhou grabbed his probability to attain the staff’s sole factors of the yr with eighth place. It proved moot, nevertheless, as on the finish of the yr each Sauber drivers had been dropped.