At the beginning of last year we asked RaceFans readers which of the 20 drivers on the grid would beat their team mates over the course of the season.
You correctly named seven of the 10 winners. But three drivers fell short of your expectations.
Two of them are without an F1 drive for 2025 and are likely at the end of their careers. But the other faces one of the biggest challenges of his career to date, amid claims his form last year shows he’s no longer the force he once was.
The expected winners of 2024
Pierre Gasly vs Esteban Ocon
71.6% said Gasly would win
There was little to choose between the two Alpine drivers and long-term rivals when they first teamed up in 2023. Pierre Gasly pipped Esteban Ocon by just four points.
The second time around, more of you were confident Gasly would lead the way, and he did, by 38 to 23. But that didn’t tell the whole story: Ocon scored the team’s best result of the year with second place in Brazil, and didn’t have access to their best parts at the end of the season as he was on his way to Haas. Still, Gasly can consider himself the narrow winner in what looked like a grudge match at times.
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Charles Leclerc vs Carlos Sainz Jnr
74.3% said Leclerc would win
Carlos Sainz Jnr out-scored Charles Leclerc in their first season together as team mates at Ferrari and nearly did so again in 2023. More than a quarter of our readers fancied his chances of doing so again, but even factoring out his missed appearance in Jeddah this was a clear 340-290 points win for Leclerc.
Lando Norris vs Oscar Piastri
81.7% said Norris would win
Oscar Piastri made an excellent start to his Formula 1 career at McLaren in 2023. He showed a lot of promise in the second half of the season especially.
That emboldened quite a few of our readers – almost one in five – to predict he would beat Lando Norris in their second season as team mates. It did not come to pass, however, partly because Norris raised his game as he went up against Max Verstappen in the championship fight. Norris led Piastri 374 to 292 at the end of the year, the pair collecting enough points between them for McLaren to win the constructors’ championship.
Nico Hulkenberg vs Kevin Magnussen
83.4% said Hulkenberg would win
The Haas drivers only made occasional forays into the points during 2023, and Nico Hulkenberg’s sixth place finish in Australia was the main reason he came out ahead.
Both drivers picked…
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