Red Bull’s RB20 have been the strongest car over a single lap so far in 2024, followed by Ferrari and McLaren, the two outfits that have already won races in the current season. F1Technical’s lead journalist Balazs Szabó analyses teams’ qualifying performance in the opening stages of the season.
Since the introduction of the new ground-effect car in 2022, Red Bull have been the dominant force in Formula One. The Milton Keynes-based outfit used to display dominant pace in race trim in the previous two years, but they slightly struggled for qualifying pace with Ferrari having displayed impressive one-lap pace in low-fuel configuration.
For the current season, the picture has slightly changed as Red Bull have lost its utterly dominant form in race pace, but they have been unbeatable in qualifying at the start of the season.
However, Ferrari managed to up their game in Monaco which saw Charles Leclerc secure his first pole position of the season before George Russell took his and his team’s first pole position in Montreal.
These results represented a significant change after the opening seven qualifying sessions that were all dominated by Red Bull’s Max Verstappen. Interestingly, all qualifying session took part in dry conditions, even if rain threatened the Saturday’s most important session in Montreal.
It is no surprise to see Red Bull on top of the field when it came to the qualifying performance so far this season. As shown on the diagram provided by Formula Data Analysis, the Milton Keynes-based outfit has been only 0.09 per cent off the pole position time which is not surprising given that Verstappen took seven of the nine pole position and he was tied with George Russell in the qualifying session in Montreal.
It means that he was only slower than the pole position time in Monaco where he finished only sixth, three tenths of a second adrift of Charles Leclerc’s pole position time.
Ferrari and McLaren have been tied all through the season in terms of performance. Both teams’ have been 0.41 per cent off the pole position time in average. Curiously, there are key differences between the two teams though.
McLaren’s best effort saw them set a qualifying time that was only 0.1 per cent of the pole time (Canada) while they were 0.7 per cent off the best time when they displayed their worst qualifying performance.
By contrast, Ferrari were closer to the pole position time on a more regular bases than McLaren, but they were a way off the benchmark in China which was explained with the cold conditions. Ferrari’s boxplot-like diagram was widened by their dismal performance in Montreal which saw the Scuderia struggle for one-lap pace.
Mercedes has been consistently between 0.5 and 1.0 per cent off the pole time, but their pole position in Montreal has significantly widened the ‘boxplot’.
Aston Martin find themselves in a no man’s land this year. Their qualifying performance has been comparable to that of Mercedes, but their dismal showing in Imola and Monaco widened their ‘boxplot’ in the negative direction.
The top five teams are followed by RB, Haas, Williams, Alpine and Kick Sauber in this order.
RB has been the most consistent outfit so far while the ‘boxplot’ of Haas has been heavily influenced by Nico Hulkenberg’s eye-catching performance in Miami and the same can be said of Williams‘ statistics which has been significantly modified by Alexander Albon’s strong showing from Monaco and Montreal.
Alpine’s performance has established quite a wide ‘boxplot’. Their start to the season was extremely tough which followed by performances that were comparable to those of their direct rivals, Williams, RB, Sauber and Haas. With Gasly qualifying in the top ten in Monaco, the ‘boxplot’ was further widened.
Speaking of the current pecking order, seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton said: “I think everyone’s obviously taken a step hopefully closer to the Red Bulls, and I think that’s been really positive. But incredibly proud of everyone back at the factory, just how hard everyone’s working and how resilient everyone is.
“Everyone’s just staying very focused, head down. The morale’s really great in the team, so I’m hoping that we can get closer to these guys and start actually competing at the front with these.
