Mark Hughes: Barcelona offers Russell the reset he desperately needs
Mark Hughes examines why Barcelona's high-energy demands could be the perfect antidote to Russell's Monaco misery, and why Leclerc's brake woes are harder to solve than they appear
Grand Prix Photo
Formula 1 burst back into competitive life in 2024: its biggest-ever season giving us seven different winners from four different teams, and a constructors’ championship battle that went down to the wire.
Predictable it was not, with McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes challenging the previously dominant Red Bull. The new order brought us heated battles for the lead, virtuoso solo drives and tension: for fans, within teams and even between George Russell and Max Verstappen.
While Verstappen claimed his fourth drivers’ title, Lando Norris emerged first as a grand prix winner and then as a title contender, although he was far from the only one to shine. Now we’re asking you to decide on the brightest stars of the year in our Season Review Awards.
Vote below for the best driver, team, overtake, race and image, along with one individual from F1 history who deserves to join our Hall of Fame to be in with a chance of winning an exclusive Motor Sport gift box.
For more information on each of the categories, click on the button underneath to jump further down the page.
Can’t see the form? click here
Click to jump to each category or scroll down for the full shortlist
| F1 photo of the year | F1 race of the year |
| F1 team of the year | F1 overtake of the year |
| F1 driver of the year | Hall of Fame |

The emotion of Lando Norris’s debut F1 victory in the Miami Grand Prix is clear as he’s held aloft by his joyous McLaren team; a moment that marked a turning point where Norris and McLaren became title contenders.

An airborne Lewis Hamilton crashes across the kerbs at Imola, airborne for the split second that’s captured in this image: an illustration of the difficulties that Mercedes had in slow corners.

Charles Leclerc is inch perfect at the Singapore Grand Prix. The Ferrari was flying at Marina Bay but an error in qualifying saw Leclerc start ninth and finish fourth in the race.

Pierre Gasly carves through the São Paulo rain on his way to a third-place finish in Brazil. Alpine called its strategy perfectly, benefitting from a red flag that helped the team to a double podium finish.

Despite the treacherous wet weather conditions, the Max Verstappen seemed to effortlessly glide through the field to win by a 19sec margin from from 17th on the grid — setting 19 fastest laps along the way!
Alpine’s Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly completed the podium — a result which saw the Enstone outfit jump from last to sixth in the constructors’ standings.

Leclerc overcame a McLaren front row lockout with a brilliant one-stop strategy and celebrated atop the podium above a sea of red. It was undoubtably one of the greatest sights of the season.

In a wet-then-not-again British Grand Prix that could have been potentially won by as many as four different drivers, it was Hamilton who found the pace when it mattered: making a well-timed pitstop with just ten laps remaining before streaking to his ninth British GP victory.

Oscar Piastri and Charles Leclerc ran within metres of each other for over 30 of the race’s 51 laps; Lando Norris tore through the field from 15th to fourth; and Sergio Perez was in the hunt too — until he tangled with Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari on the penultimate lap. It was pure racing cinema.

Some were due purely to the brilliance of Max Verstappen, but others were a team effort.
In Qatar, Red Bull looked nowhere in the sprint. But less than 24 hours later, its Dutchman won from the front row. Sums up their season really.

Five victories — including dominant displays in Hungary and Zandvoort — and 14 podium finishes saw the Woking outfit ultimately return to the very top: winning F1’s constructors’ world championship for the first time in 26 years.

13 point-scoring finishes and a mid-season technical partnership with Toyota has breathed new life back into the American outfit, and saw it challenge for sixth in the conductors’ standings right up until the season finale in Abu Dhabi.

15 podium finishes was the most secured by any other driver pairing?? But, at times, the red car was superlative to all, resulting in memorable victories in Melbourne, Monaco, Monza, Austin and Mexico City.
PIASTRI DOWN THE INSIDE TO TAKE THE LEAD! 🇦🇿🟠 pic.twitter.com/ZSTVEtXIsc
— Sky Sports F1 (@SkySportsF1) September 15, 2024
Oscar Piastri was hot on the heels of Charles Leclerc as the pair began lap 20 of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, but he wasn’t quite close enough to pull off a banzai late-braking overtake into Turn 1. Or so we all thought…
The Aussie ignored an order from his engineer to stay behind Leclerc, catching the Ferrari driver completely off guard with a move which would ultimately cement his second-ever F1 race victory.

Max Verstappen pulled off multiple overtakes during his storming run from near-last to first in Sao Paulo. But his late Turn 1 lunge on Oscar Piastri was perhaps his best of the entire season.
In slippy and treacherous wet weather conditions, the Dutchman judged his braking zone perfectly to five down the inside of the McLaren man for seventh-place.
Watch the move now on F1.com
DOUBLE OVERTAKE! 😮💨
What an overtake from Alex Albon who produces more magic in Montreal 🪄👏 pic.twitter.com/deXiA8ZMJp
— Sky Sports F1 (@SkySportsF1) June 9, 2024
Alex Albon slid his Williams through the eye of a needle at the Canadian Grand Prix — pulling off a gutsy pass that made everyone lean forward and ask “How did he do that?!”.
Heading down the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve’s main straight, he first pulled alongside and past Daniel Ricciardo’s RB before then slotting himself down the inside of Esteban Ocon’s Alpine at the tricky final chicane.

Yuki Tsunoda and his RB came alive at Suzuka, as the Japanese driver pulled off a brilliant move on Nico Hülkenberg on home soil.
After gaining on the German down the pit straight, Tsunoda continued to courageously pester the Haas for a way past as the pair went wheel-to-wheel through the winding Esses. Hanging it out around the outside of Turn 6 eventually sealed the deal, and ultimately earned Tsunoda a deserved points finish.
Watch the move at F1.com

Despite the up-and-down performance of his Ferrari, he was a near constant presence at the front end of the grid, scoring eight top-five finishes, nine podium visits and historic victories in Monte Carlo, Monza and Austin. He ultimately finished a close third in the 2024 drivers’ standings, but behind the wheel of a car as consistent as he was, Leclerc could have been at the very top.

Seven pole positions and victories in Miami, Zandvoort and Singapore were concrete proof that the Briton’s talent was more than just hype, as he showed blistering, weekend-long pace to beat the best of a closely-matched field.
Norris also didn’t walk away from 2024 empty-handed, as his nine podiums and five other point-scoring finishes ultimately aided McLaren in securing its first constructors’ title since 1998 — ending Red Bull’s two-year reign.

He inherited a victory in Austria and was unlucky to have his success at Spa struck out by a post-race disqualification. But a dominant display in Las Vegas, two podium finishes and seven further top-five finishes underlines what a year it has been for Mercedes’ new front man.
Outqualifying Lewis Hamilton 23-6 across grands prix and sprints is also no mean feat.

Seven victories from the first ten races of the season certainly helped Max Verstappen’s cause in securing a fourth consecutive drivers’ title. Still, even when Red Bull’s form took a mid-season dip, he fought off all challengers in his own unrelenting, dog-with-a-bone style to join only five others with at least four championships.

Which driver should be the latest to join our gallery of the greats?

It’s also brought a renewed appreciation of Button, who showed what he was capable of when his pace, tyre management skills and uncanny wet-weather talented finally had a car that they merited.
Seven more years in F1 with McLaren brought more race victories and he out-scored Hamilton during the duo’s time together as team-mates.

His methodical, intensive approach took him to the top of the racing world, but the dedication required was too much to sustain and Rosberg retired within days of being crowned world champion.

Indy 500 winner and two-time CART champion De Ferran was McLaren’s sporting director between 2018 and 2021, then returned as a consultant in 2023; a role he continued until his untimely death last December, aged just 56. But for all of his on- and off-track achievements, it was his warm, generous personality that’s best-remembered.

After two years of development, he was the man to cross the line for Renault’s first F1 victory at Dijon in 1979. He won again in Austria, in 1980, before a crash that broke his leg, and marked the decline of his top-level career.
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