F1 2024 teams ranked: Who’s hot and who’s not at the summer break stage?

While the Constructors’ table does a good job of ranking the teams, we are going to give it our own spin based on the momentum of each outfit.

Sure, points is an easy way to define how good a team is but what about how good they could be? What about their potential? Their promise? Or in some teams’ cases, lack of it? That’s where we come in.

F1 teams ranked at the halfway stage of the 2024 season

10.) Stake F1

Coming in stone cold last is Stake F1 whose position on this list matches that of the Constructors’.

All the talk of Audi has somewhat masked the fact that Sauber are awful right now.

They started the year with new branding, a new look and talk of being ‘unleashed’ which was convincing, so much so that I rather foolishly predicted them not to be last.

Six months later and that prediction could not look more wrong.

They have yet to score a point. Their best result is a solitary P11 earned at the first race of the season and beating last year’s tally of 16 is already looking like a tall order.

Their most recent news saw former McLaren boss Andreas Seidl, who had been recruited to oversee the Audi transition, sacked and replaced by Mattia Binotto, which was seen as a sign of hope, but Binotto is not exactly Ross Brawn is he? His CV crescendoed with the top job at Ferrari but he, like so many before him, was unable to bring silverware back to Maranello.

But even Binotto’s arrival is a year and a half away and we have potentially have 34 more races of turgid performance until then. At a time when Andretti are being accused of not adding value, what value is there exactly to a team dead last named after a crypto-betting company?

9.) Alpine

Chaotic would perhaps be the best way to describe Alpine over the last 12 months. Two team principals have lost their job while a 34-year veteran was let go and duly snapped up by a rival.

A controversial figure in Flavio Briatore has returned to right the good ship and his first move has been to tie down Pierre Gasly before appointing Oliver Oakes as the new team leader, the second youngest in F1 history.

But the questions remain of what this team is and it appears even owners Renault do not have an answer for that. Talk that they will abandon their own engine department to become a Mercedes customer for 2026 will bring a shot of performance – but it is a damning indictment of the Viry team.

They also started the year horribly and although they have recovered somewhat, their form fluctuates more widely than any other team on the grid.

Oakes has an almighty task next season with a driver lineup of Gasly, and most likely Jack Doohan, but what made Christian Horner successful at a young age was he had a board fully behind him. It remains to be seen if Oakes will be given the same luxury.

8.) Williams

Personnel wise, Williams has been making a lot of smart moves. James Vowles’ revolution has secured Carlos Sainz as its most high-profile name but away from the drivers, there are plenty more smart minds being added to the Williams ranks.

But the problem is the car. In 2023, Williams had one of the worst all-rounders but a car that was very quick on the straights. What this allowed was Williams to score points on high-power tracks and their return of 28 points was their best in six years.

Having a car with one very strong aspect is a development cul-de-sac though and in an attempt to move further up the grid, Williams opted to go for more of an all-rounder and while that is better for long-term gains, in the short-term it means you have a car that is not one of the strongest in any aspect.

Alex Albon has scored four points this year, 17 fewer than the same point last year, and Williams are far off their P7 placing of 2023.

It is perhaps this lack of performance that made Sainz need some convincing but with the Spaniard now signed, Vowles has to show next year that the current Ferrari driver made the right call.

7.) Aston Martin

You need only to look at the number of upgrades this season to realise Aston Martin are a confused team right now.

Their blistering start to 2023 captured them into the top tier of F1 but they have found it difficult to meet the expectations that came with that.

The first signs of trouble were in 2023 when upgrades placed on the car did not make it slower, but did not improve it as much as their rivals’ own alterations did, pushing them down the order.

This year has been a continuation of that theme with the team still not seeming to trust what their supercomputers at Silverstone are telling them.

The result is they find themselves in a Formula 1 no man’s land. Up ahead, Red Bull, Ferrari, Mercedes and McLaren fight for the spots Aston Martin want to be in, while behind the likes of VCARB and Haas are making ground.

6.) Haas

While some, including myself, predicted the post-Guenther Steiner Haas to be bottom of the standings, Ayao Komatsu has proven that wrong with an encouraging start to the year.

The main problem was fixing their inability to preserve tyres in 2023 meaning that regardless of how well Nico Hulkenberg did in qualifying, they would leave the circuit with nothing to show for it.

This time they have regularly managed to get – and stay – in the points and their slow and steady gains have seen them move comfortably clear of the backmarkers.

There will be much change next year as both drivers depart but Komatsu has earned the trust to suggest he will continue their upward momentum.

5.) VCARB

One of the more up and down teams in F1 as some races they look capable of challenging for points and others they seem rooted to the back.

A run of point scores in the middle portion of the first half of the season suggested VCARB had turned a corner, but it was followed by some difficult races out of the top 10.

The talk of the team has often been about the drivers, and that is a question to answer, but there is also work to be done with the car to move up the order and attack Aston Martin.

4.) Ferrari

Last month it was announced that Ferrari’s chassis technical director Enrico Cardile will leave Maranello to move to Aston Martin but when he arrives at Silverstone, he will find a situation very similar to the one he just left.

Having started the season within the top two cars on the grid, Ferrari have regressed to being fourth best and are in a similar situation to Aston in that nothing they do seems to fully work.

Charles Leclerc’s Monaco demons were finally thwarted but it seems to have come at the cost of anything else going the team’s way. Two races later in Spain marked the beginning of the team’s downfall with upgrades not producing the desired effect and now they have been leapfrogged by both McLaren and Ferrari.

Ferrari has the luxury of a quick car, which will keep them in the points, but if they want to break into the top three once again then they need to get their development back on track.

3.) Red Bull

At the start of the year, suggesting Red Bull would be third on this list by the summer break would have seemed insane.

They scored more points than any other team in five of the opening six races and retaining both titles seemed a matter of when, not if.

But how quickly things have changed. The investigation into Christian Horner was the catalyst for some unrest behind the scenes that has ultimately seen high profile figures Adrian Newey and Jonathan Wheatley both opt for pastures new.

There is a problem with drivers as well with Sergio Perez continuing to disappoint and yet Red Bull’s decision to retain him has left them vulnerable in the Constructors’ race.

But most concerning, perhaps, is that Max Verstappen is not happy with the car. A big upgrade package brought to Hungary was billed as crucial by the Dutchman and yet they found themselves still behind McLaren.

Verstappen is also wrestling with the car as some unhelpful characteristics prevent him from having the pace to catch the surging Mercedes and the all-rounder McLaren. Perhaps these flaws were always there but with the grid tightened up now, Red Bull do not have the supremacy they need to paper over the cracks.

2.) Mercedes

Just as putting Red Bull third would have seemed odd, placing Mercedes second on this list would also have seemed an incorrect call at the start of the year.

While their performance at the start of the season looked familiar, their mid-season turnaround reminded us of some of their greatest hits and although there was an element of fortune, they entered the summer break having won three of the last four races.

The car is also quick, perhaps for the first time since 2021. Their front row lockout at Silverstone showed it was no fluke and Lewis Hamilton in particular has managed to pull performance out of this better-behaved W15.

Their slow start means a Constructors’ tilt looks unlikely but there is every possibility that they will win more races in the second half of the season than any other team and enter the final year of this regulation cycle on a high. The only team that currently look likely to stop that is one Hamilton is very familiar with.

1.) McLaren

The best car on the grid, the most in-form driver pairing and arguably the best leadership team. Everything’s coming up papaya at the moment.

Like Mercedes, they had a slow start to the year but have since kicked on to become the quickest car on the grid.

The only thing that has hampered them is their own mistakes. Their strategy has been put under the microscope after incidents at Silverstone and in Hungary but if McLaren are able to iron those fine margins, the 42-point gap to leaders Red Bull looks eminently catchable.

The MCL38 is one of the least developed cars on the grid and if it is this quick without upgrades, there is every suggestion it will only improve as the year goes on.

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