Magnificent seven – A look at F1’s most competitive season since 2012

Oscar Piastri’s Hungarian Grand Prix victory made him the seventh different race winner in 2024, the most in a Formula One season since 2012.

Here, the PA news agency takes a look at the most competitive campaign in over a decade.

Magnificent seven

Max Verstappen, the dominant force in recent F1 seasons, looked set to power away once more when he put himself on pole position for the first seven races and won four of the first five.

Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz interrupted that run in Australia and McLaren’s Lando Norris earned his maiden grand prix win in Miami. Sainz’s team-mate Charles Leclerc became the first Monegasque winner of the Monaco Grand Prix since 1931, with Verstappen’s early-season form extending to seven wins out of 10 by the time the Spanish Grand Prix was complete.

Since then there have been three new names added to the list in successive races. George Russell won in Austria before Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton earned his first win in nearly three years and his ninth at the British Grand Prix.

Hungary saw Piastri become the 115th different winner in Formula One history and the fifth Australian, after Jack Brabham, Alan Jones, Mark Webber and Daniel Ricciardo. Norris was second and Hamilton third, his 200th F1 podium finish.

Infographic showing Oscar Piastri's Hungarian Grand Prix win with the top 10 finishers, and the top six drivers (Max Verstappen 265 points, Lando Norris 189, Charles Leclerc 162, Carlos Sainz Jr 154, Piastri 149, Lewis Hamilton 125) and teams (Red Bull 389 pts, McLaren 338, Ferrari 322, Mercedes 241, Aston Martin 69, RB 33) in the season standings
Hungarian Grand Prix result and season standings (PA graphic)

Verstappen has led the championship throughout but, whereas last season he finished with over twice as many points as team-mate and runner-up Sergio Perez, 575 to 285, this year his lead stands at 76 over Norris, having peaked at 84 after the British Grand Prix.

Perez was the nearest challenger through the first six races before the rest of the field caught up to Red Bull’s mechanical wizardry, with Leclerc briefly second in the standings before Norris came to the fore.

Wide open

Fernando Alonso, left, Sebastian Vettel, second right, and Mark Webber, right, with Red Bull chief technical officer Adrian Newey, second left, on the podium after the 2013 Italian Grand Prix
Fernando Alonso, left, Sebastian Vettel, second right, and Mark Webber, right, all enjoyed wins in 2012 (David Davies/PA)

Eventual champion Sebastian Vettel got in the win column for the first time in the fourth race in Bahrain. Red Bull team-mate Webber won the sixth at Monaco, the pair sandwiching the only win of Williams driver Pastor Maldonado’s career.

Hamilton, then driving alongside Button for McLaren, added his name to the list in Canada before Alonso and Webber became the first repeat winners. Kimi Raikkonen, in a Lotus, was the eighth different winner at round 18 in Abu Dhabi – his first win since 2009 and Lotus’ first since Ayrton Senna in 1987 in Detroit.

Vettel ended the season with five wins to Hamilton’s four, with three apiece for Button and Alonso. Webber won twice with a solitary win each for Rosberg, Maldonado and Raikkonen.

Vettel held off the consistent Alonso, who had 13 podium finishes including the last five races, by just three points to win the title.

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