Driver of the year
With a fourth consecutive world championship, Max Verstappen deserves to be recognised as one of the greats, a place he has earned not least with this year’s title, his most hard-fought yet. After opening in a dominant Red Bull, he executed clinically to take four of the opening five races, keeping his head even as the controversy surrounding the team principal, Christian Horner, consumed Red Bull. However, McLaren’s upgrades at Miami launched a fightback from Lando Norris and after the Spanish GP with the McLaren a quicker ride, Verstappen had to buckle down and make the best of an unbalanced car that he described as an “undriveable monster”. He did so with the commitment and determination of an Alain Prost or Michael Schumacher. Repeatedly grinding out decent points between Spain and Brazil was vital and ultimately enough to ensure he closed it out, a champion’s performance. It was, however, one marked by an aggressive, uncompromising attitude on track that did him a disservice and for which he was penalised. That side of his character was not enhanced by his ill-tempered late-season spat with George Russell, nor the absurd dive he made on Oscar Piastri at the season finale in Abu Dhabi that meant nothing to him but could have affected McLaren’s championship challenge.
Race of the year
After pushing through the mid-season with his car out of shape, the title was still in the balance for Verstappen at São Paulo and the race could have been a turning point in Norris’s favour. The Dutch driver was unlucky with a red flag in qualifying and was 12th, a setback compounded by a five-place penalty, leaving him 17th on the grid. With Norris on pole, a swing towards the British drive was anticipated. Verstappen was having none of it, however. With the race opening in wet, treacherous conditions, he sensed his chance. While all around him cars were careening off track, he was in complete control, scything tough the field to take 11th place by the end of the first lap. A masterclass in the wet followed, overtake followed by overtake; he was sixth by lap 11 and only 10 seconds behind the leader. The 27-year-old did benefit from a free tyre change when the race was red-flagged, just as the timing fell against Norris but his move to take the lead during the restart from Esteban Ocon was typical of a driver exhibiting a command of conditions like no other. At the same restart Norris slid off wide, perhaps defining the difference between their two seasons. By the end Verstappen’s lead was 20 seconds; it proved the decisive moment of the title fight and was one of the best performances of his career.
Team of the year
Norris might have underperformed on occasion and he held his hands up to making errors against Verstappen but McLaren, who took their first constructors’ championship for 26 years, can be rightly proud of delivering at the sharp end after so long. McLaren were 115 points off Red Bull after the Miami GP but with the machinery they needed, Norris and Oscar Piastri stepped up and put it to use. There were question marks in some poor strategy calls and while the decision not to prioritise Norris’s title charge sooner to be fair to both drivers was admirable, perhaps it was not quite the ruthless steel required when Verstappen is the opposition. The team principal, Andrea Stella, has been at the heart of this turnaround and he has seen it though with a calm, collected focus, while the restructuring and rebuilding of the team by the chief executive, Zak Brown, must also be considered no little success. If they bring this game next season, they must be contenders for both titles.
Sweetest success
McLaren had to persevere for longer to end their title drought, but Lewis Hamilton’s wait between grand prix wins had also been a torturous ordeal for the seven-time world champion. A total of 945 days had passed between his 103rd victory, in Saudi Arabia in 2021 and his 104th, this year’s win at the British Grand Prix. That it was an absolutely immense drive only made the moment more glorious to savour. It was vintage Hamilton, a drive of skill, control and pace in wet, difficult conditions. He took the lead, lost it to the fast McLarens, came back and made the switch to slicks at the perfect moment as McLaren called it too late and then held his nerve with precision to see off a late charge from Verstappen. He was in tears at the close and admitted he had feared he might not win a race again. The circuit rose to give him a standing ovation as he toured round, before climbing from his car, draping himself in the union flag and acknowledging the acclaim of his home crowd, who it seemed were almost as emotional as the seven-time champion.
Best overtake
With the field closing up and racing intensifying across the grid, the wheel to wheel cut and thrust followed – as is often the case as regulations mature. There was dash and verve certainly at the front – along with no little questionable and unedifying attack and defence – but for a moment of pure racing, little came close to Alex Albon’s breathtaking audacity and skill in Canada. Williams have improved again this season and, while still struggling, in Montreal their straight-line speed was a boon. Albon qualified very well in 10th and was in the hunt for points and in no mood to hang about when on lap 30 he came up on the RB of Daniel Ricciardo and the Alpine of Esteban Ocon. Barrelling up the back straight approaching the chicane, Albon’s pace showed, he went to the left of Ricciardo, then in an instant spotted a gap to Ocon’s right just before the turn-in. In a gap barely the width of a Williams he plunged through, braked, made the apex and had taken both places. Better still, in the words of Echo and the Bunnymen, he had done it clean. An object lesson after some of the shocking antics at the front of the field this season. “The overtake, pull a stunt like that again and we’re done,” was Ricciardo’s light-heartedly admiring response.
Biggest disappointment
Three seasons into the new regulations and still Mercedes have yet to get to grips with the changes instituted in 2022. This was by some distance their best season since then, yet they still failed to make the consistent step up of Ferrari and McLaren. They have returned four wins, four more than last season and only one fewer than Ferrari but whereas the Scuderia seem to have finally unlocked the consistency they require in their car, the same problems that have bedevilled Mercedes since 2021 remain. When the car is in the window it is fearsomely quick, witness George Russell in Las Vegas and Lewis Hamilton at Silverstone, but regularly replicating those mighty runs is a stumbling block Mercedes cannot seem to surmount. After a purple period in the middle of the season, upgrades proved detrimental and the new floor was eventually ditched which suggests that their mercurial car has still not given up its secrets with only one season of the current regulations remaining. When they have been in the mix it has been the Mercedes of old but their absence at the very front on a regular basis was missed. If they can finally crack it for 2025 a genuine four-way fight might be on the cards.
