Formula 1
Who is heading F1’s midfield battle?
Pre-season indications suggested that RB would comfortably lead Formula 1's midfield fight in 2024 - but it has faced stern competition in a tightly fought battle
Jake Boxall-Legge
Published: Jul 17, 2024, 3:15 PM
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Alex Albon, Williams FW46, leads Pierre Gasly, Alpine A524, and Kevin Magnussen, Haas VF-24
Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images
RB had looked to be on a lonely road to sixth in the 2024 Formula 1 constructors' championship, but its midfield rivals have improved as its own fortunes declined with a Barcelona upgrade package.
There are now just four points between RB and Haas in the standings, while the American team's grasp on seventh had been challenged only a few races ago through Alpine's brief resurgence after a tough start to the year.
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In the meantime, Williams has also scored a handful of points as it seeks to make further gains over the second half of the season; although its FW46 has been a clear improvement over its predecessors with greater all-round performance, the team has not made the same strides as its rivals with upgrades.
For the time being, Sauber looks rooted to the bottom of the constructors' championship. A solid if unspectacular car had not been capitalised upon at the start of the year amid a litany of pitstop gaffes and, now that the other teams are improving, the C44 has looked increasingly limited.
Regardless, the battle between the five teams is closely fought, and Aston Martin has been pulled into it on occasion by dint of its Imola updates not working as the team had expected.
Lance Stroll, Aston Martin AMR24, passes Logan Sargeant, Williams FW46
Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
Aston Martin has a healthy buffer to the bottom five teams in general, even if its path ends up intertwining with some of the teams below it on occasion, so the Silverstone squad serves as a decent benchmark when it comes to assessing which of the five teams are in the best position heading into the season’s second act.
At the Bahrain opener, Haas had been the stronger of the bottom five teams, although the distribution of the field at the time had made it increasingly difficult for these to score; without a retirement or misfortune to take effect, there was little chance for anyone other than Red Bull, Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes, or Aston Martin to score.
This had come amid suggestions after testing that RB was poised to close in on the top five teams, while Haas played down its own expectations and expected to be “towards the back of the grid”. Expectations were further subverted when Alpine turned up for the new year with an overweight car and struggled to perform, while Williams had the same issue – but didn’t reveal that fact until later into the season.
Sauber’s qualifying pace had not looked particularly strong, but its consistent race pace had been largely undone by issues with their revised pit equipment. The Swiss squad could have been off the mark by now, had the stops not been somewhere between laboured and glacial.
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Regardless, there has been plenty of overlapping in performance across the following rounds, as seen from the graph below. This uses the supertimes metric (an indicator of outright pace at a given event, produced through a team’s overall fastest lap over the weekend) to chart the evolution of each team on pace throughout the year. This also demonstrates how far off each team falls versus the fastest team over a full weekend.
Supertimes
Photo by: Uncredited
Alpine’s development through the year had lifted it off the bottom and, now the car is no longer overweight, its reach has extended into the lower points positions. Williams is also shedding weight, and a strong showing at Silverstone – Alex Albon collected ninth place - has hinted towards progress.
There are two clear standouts, however: RB and Haas. Of the two, Haas is the team in form, having collected two excellent sixth-place finishes in the Austrian and British rounds courtesy of Nico Hulkenberg’s starring efforts. This has coincided with RB’s lapse in form, as its upgrade package for Barcelona failed to deliver the returns expected.
The team has had to mix and match its old and new parts in practice to understand which items worked and which ones require further study. RB has nonetheless scored in six of its last seven races but has been outpaced by Haas of late.
Under Ayao Komatsu’s leadership, Haas has appeared to be much more on the ball with upgrades and in prioritising a more united front across its two bases in England and Italy. This has served the team well, giving it a bit more freedom to explore ideas while remaining in constant communication.
Kevin Magnussen, Haas VF-24, Daniel Ricciardo, RB F1 Team VCARB 01
Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images
Haas had also recognised the issues with last year’s package, whose late-season upgrades were restricted in scope by the chassis architecture. It has been able to learn from those findings to benefit this year’s car, which the team has found to be much more accepting of developments over the year.
Its Silverstone upgrade appears to have addressed a weakness in higher speeds, and the team now believes that it can take the fight to RB over sixth in the championship. Is fifth possible? Aston Martin might be a touch out of reach.
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Alpine, however, is not giving up the fight; new executive technical director David Sanchez believes that the team has the resources and the expertise to produce a McLaren-like rise through the order. The focus on reducing weight has restricted the work that Alpine could do with its aerodynamics, and the attention has shifted to adding downforce to the car now that it is under the weight limit.
As mentioned, Williams has faced the same issue, although it is aiming to make improvements to the car and demonstrate progress under team principal James Vowles. The battle for eighth – and possibly higher – between Alpine and Williams is likely to be hotly contested.
Sauber, meanwhile, has a job on its hands to deroot itself from the bottom. A dismal trio of races at Imola, Monaco, and Montreal cost it considerable ground to the teams around it, and a slow, steady upgrade cadence has not really helped the team close in. It feels that the team is very much “in waiting” as the Audi project comes fully online in 2026, and that’s replicated in the results.
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