The defending champions and the current Drivers' and Constructors' Championship leaders are Max Verstappen and his team Red Bull Racing-Honda RBPT, respectively.
The following constructors and drivers are competing in the 2024 World Championship. All teams compete with tyres supplied by Pirelli.[3] Each team is required to enter at least two drivers, one for each of the two mandatory cars.[4]
Teams and drivers competing in the 2024 World Championship
Across the season, each team has to field a driver in one of the first two free practice sessions who has not competed in more than two races, on two occasions, once for each car.[4]
Drivers that took part in first or second free practice
Alfa Romeo ended their partnership with Sauber and left Formula One in 2023 as Sauber prepares to become the Audi works team in 2026.[35][36] The team was rebranded as Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber, with the constructor name Kick Sauber.[37][17]AlphaTauri rebranded as RB and relocated the aerodynamics operations of the team to Milton Keynes in the United Kingdom amidst a management restructure.[24][38][39]
Driver changes
The only change from the drivers contracted at the beginning of 2023 occurred at the former AlphaTauri team, who replaced Nyck de Vries with Daniel Ricciardo from the 2023 Hungarian Grand Prix onwards. All driver and team combinations that competed in the final round of the previous season remained unchanged for the start of the next season for the first time in Formula One World Championship history.[40][41]
In response to extreme weather conditions resulting in cockpit overheating during the 2023 Qatar Grand Prix, teams are now allowed to install a scoop to the car that is intended to cool down the driver and cockpit area.[49][50] Wheel covers aiming to reduce spray in wet weather conditions will be further tested during the season.[51] Teams will not be allowed to start wind tunnel or computational fluid dynamics work for the 2026 season, which will see major technical regulations rule changes, until 1 January 2025. However, teams may still do other preliminary research and development work not covered by these restrictions.[52][53]
Tyres
The "alternative tyre allocation" trialled at the 2023 Hungarian and Italian Grands Prix, where drivers were given 11 sets of tyres in an attempt to cut costs in the sport, was discontinued. Therefore, teams reverted to having 13 sets of tyres available per driver during every non-sprint race weekend with the allocation being 12 sets for a sprint weekend.[54] The C0 tyre compound (the hardest compound in Pirelli's dry tyre range), which was introduced but not used during the 2023 season, was dropped from the tyre line-up.[55] This compound was previously known as the C1, but was renamed at the start of the 2023 season following the introduction of a new C1 compound that slotted between the old C1 and current C2 compounds in terms of hardness.[56][55] A proposed trial for a ban on tyre blankets for this season and a full ban in 2025 was abandoned.[57]
Sporting regulations
Appeals process
The decision appeal process was amended for the 2024 season. The deadline to submit a right of review request was reduced from fourteen to four days after an event. In an attempt to stop potentially frivolous appeal attempts, the FIA will also introduce a fee for the process.[58]
Sprint weekends
The structure of the sprint weekends was changed for 2024, with the goal of rationalising sprint events and separating them from the rest of the Grand Prix weekend.[59][60][4] The weekend now begins with a single practice session, followed by the sprint qualifying session, which sets the starting grid order for the sprint race. The sprint will then be the first session to take place on Saturday, followed by qualifying for the main race. The Grand Prix itself remains on Sunday.[61] The FIA sporting regulations for the championship now refer to the qualifying for the sprint as "sprint qualifying", as opposed to "sprint shootout". The term "sprint qualifying" was previously used in the inaugural season of the sprint format in 2021 to refer to the sprint race itself.[62] Additionally, sprint weekends now have two separate parc fermé periods as opposed to one. The first lasts from the beginning of sprint qualifying to the end of the sprint, and the second lasts from the beginning of qualifying for the Grand Prix until the start of the Grand Prix itself.[63]
DRS usage
The rules for DRS usage in Grands Prix were adjusted slightly. Drivers are now allowed to use DRS one lap after a race start, safety car restart, or red flag restart, one lap earlier than in previous seasons. This was tested during the sprints of 2023.[64]
Power unit allocation
After being increased for the 2023 championship, the power unit allocation per season was again expanded from three to four per driver for the 2024 and 2025 championships.[65]
Maximum lap time
Prior to Thursday's two practice sessions at the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix, updated rules were introduced to discourage drivers from driving too slowly on in-laps and reconnaissance laps during qualifying. Drivers were initially required to not exceed a maximum time taken to drive through each marshalling sector. This was a change from 2023, when the FIA introduced a maximum time across an entire lap.[66] However, prior to Friday's third practice session and qualifying, the rules were reverted to the 2023 full-lap method, though the rule now applies on both in-laps and out-laps.[67]
Penalties
The standard sanction for a driver overtaking another driver off the track and gaining a lasting advantage has been upgraded from a five-second time penalty to a ten-second time penalty, although five-second penalties could still be awarded. The change was made as the five-second penalty was considered insufficient, with drivers regularly gaining more than five seconds through illegally overtaking slower cars off track.[68]
Red Bull Racing continued to show their pace at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix with Verstappen winning the race ahead of teammate Pérez and Charles Leclerc, with Verstappen securing his 100th podium.[75] While he led a majority of the race, a safety car caused by Lance Stroll's crash, which allowed a majority of the field to change their strategies, allowed McLaren's Lando Norris to inherit the lead temporarily before Verstappen overtook him. During the weekend, Sainz was affected with appendicitis, which resulted in his withdrawal from the event. In his place, Ferrari junior driver Oliver Bearman, who had secured pole position for the Formula 2 feature race that same weekend, stood in for Sainz while he underwent surgery.[76] Bearman qualified eleventh and went on to finish seventh. Gasly retired on lap one due to a gearbox problem.[77]
Verstappen's run of nine wins in a row ended at the Australian Grand Prix, where he retired on lap four from a dislodging of his brake disc, marking his first retirement since the 2022 Australian Grand Prix. Returnee Sainz inherited the race lead and took his third career victory, with his teammate Charles Leclerc finishing second for Ferrari's first 1–2 finish since the 2022 Bahrain Grand Prix. Norris completed the podium and succeeded Nick Heidfeld for the most podiums without a victory in Formula One, while Haas scored double points, and Yuki Tsunoda scored RB's first points, respectively. Additionally to Verstappen's retirement, both Mercedes drivers also did not finish the race, with Lewis Hamilton having an engine failure and George Russell hitting the wall heavily, ending his race on the last lap.[78]
Despite taking pole for the Chinese Grand Prix, Verstappen struggled in qualifying for the first sprint weekend of the season, only qualifying fourth behind sprint pole-sitter Norris, followed by Hamilton and Alonso. At the beginning of the sprint, Hamilton took the lead from Norris, who slid down to seventh at the first turn. The former would lead for nearly half of the sprint's distance before Verstappen overtook him and won the sprint from Hamilton and Pérez. Verstappen went on to win the Grand Prix the next day from Norris and Pérez, meaning Ferrari did not score a podium for the first time this season.[81]
Points are awarded to the top ten classified drivers, the driver who sets the fastest lap during the Grand Prix (only if one of the top ten), and the top eight of the sprint.[82][f] In the case of a tie on points, a countback system is used where the driver with the most Grand Prix wins is ranked higher. If the number of wins is identical, then the number of second places is considered, and so on.[84] Points are awarded using the following system:
† – Driver did not finish the Grand Prix, but was classified as he completed more than 90% of the race distance.
Rows are not related to the drivers: within each constructor, individual Grand Prix standings are sorted purely based on the final classification in the race (not by total points scored in the event, which includes points awarded for fastest lap and sprint).
Notes
^Ferrari entered rounds 1–5 as "Scuderia Ferrari".[10]
^In the event of a race ending prematurely, the number of points paying positions may be reduced, depending on how much of the race had been completed.[83]
^ abCooper, Adam (1 January 2024). "Renamed Stake F1 team reveals new logo". Motorsport.com. Archived from the original on 1 January 2024. Retrieved 2 January 2024. The new identity was originally flagged in the FIA entry last month as Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber. That remains its official full identity – including the Kick Sauber chassis name – but the Swiss outfit will use the short version on a day-to-day basis.
^"Williams retain Sargeant for 2024 season". Formula 1. 1 December 2023. Archived from the original on 2 December 2023. Retrieved 1 December 2023. Confirmation of Williams' full line-up means the 2024 grid is now complete, with the only change from the 20 drivers who started the 2023 season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix being Daniel Ricciardo, who replaced Nyck de Vries at AlphaTauri midway through the year.
^Cooper, Adam (7 December 2023). "FIA formalises ban on 2026 F1 aero testing". Motorsport.com. Archived from the original on 27 December 2023. Retrieved 27 December 2023. Following an agreement at a recent F1 Commission meeting, teams are not allowed to undertake any wind tunnel or CFD work for the new spec cars until January 1 2025, mirroring a similar arrangement that was made ahead of the last big rules change in 2022.
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