F1 2024: Bold pre-season predictions revisited, Daniel Ricciardo nearly gets Red Bull drive, Oscar Piastri challenges Lando Norris at McLaren, latest news

With a long and, at times, wildly unpredictable F1 season now in the books, it’s time to see how horribly wrong — or right — we were at the start of the season.

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In February, we made a series of bold predictions for the 2024 season that, despite holding merit at the time, were still more likely to fail than succeed.

And yet, in a twist we largely owe to the bonkers nature of the 2024 season, many actually ended up coming true… sort of.

Scroll down to revisit our 2024 F1 bold predictions!

BOLD PREDICTION: Daniel Ricciardo will be confirmed for Red Bull by mid-season

VERDICT: So close, yet, so far

We’ll start off with where things didn’t go so well — and this one still hurts.

Not only is Daniel Ricciardo not driving for Red Bull, but he’s not on the F1 grid altogether, and likely never will be again.

Repeated misfortunes since he initially walked out the door at Milton Keynes ultimately led to one last chance at VCARB. And despite some impressive flashes, like his fourth-place in the Miami sprint, he was unable to show with regularity that he was quick enough for a Red Bull promotion, or even a stay with VCARB.

But he so nearly did win that promotion. It’s what makes this one sting that bit more.

If you read the tea leaves after the Belgian Grand Prix, they undeniably said that Ricciardo was going to replace Sergio Perez, whose struggles were the most significant of any driver’s.

No young driver within the Red Bull stable appeared ready for the role alongside Max Verstappen, while Ricciardo — even if he still looked far from his best years — would surely perform better than the Mexican.

With the constructors’ championship slipping away, it was a call Red Bull had to make then and there.

Ricciardo was then all smiles in a not-so-private chat with Christian Horner and Laurent Mekies after the Belgian GP, before he hopped into a helicopter with Max Verstappen. An announcement was thought to be imminent.

What happened over the next 24 hours will be left for Ricciardo, and Aussie F1 fans, to lament for years to come.

Red Bull got cold feet, and pushed on with Perez — a decision that may have cost the team the constructors’ title.

It also meant Ricciardo was suddenly on borrowed time given Liam Lawson’s contract guaranteed him a number of races for VCARB in 2024.

How and why the change of heart was so swift, and drastic, is unclear.

Either way, it meant that this prediction was a swing and a miss… just.

Ricciardo was replaced after the Singapore Grand Prix and is now in the F1 wilderness.

BOLD PREDICTION: There will be SIX different race winners… including a wild bolter

VERDICT: Almost…

“Six might even prove to be conservative but…”

Well, we should’ve backed out gut here because as it turns out, no, this one wasn’t bold enough.

This year saw a whopping seven drivers win a race. That’s four more than 2023 when only Verstappen, Perez, and Carlos Sainz won races.

Furthermore, four different teams claimed a win in 2024 compared to just two the year before.

In reality, eight drivers should’ve won a race with Perez somehow failing to clinch one despite driving the same car that comfortably took Verstappen to this year’s drivers’ title.

Perez is the only driver from McLaren, Ferrari, Red Bull and Mercedes who didn’t win.

That means Verstappen (nine), Lando Norris (four), Charles Leclerc (three), Oscar Piastri (two), Sainz (two), George Russell (two) and Lewis Hamilton (two) shared the race wins for 2024.

The biggest criticism you could probably level at this prediction is that there was no victory for a wild bolter in the end, a la Esteban Ocon in Hungary or Daniel Ricciardo at Monza in 2021.

That said, Ocon did come second at the Brazil Grand Prix having spent all but a few races to that stage outside of the points, so we were close…

As for why there was such a massive spread of winners this year, it’s due to the wild fluctuations in the constructors battle with teams combating failed upgrades at various stages.

Ferrari started the year strongly, only to shoot itself in the foot by Spain before a late-season redemption. Meanwhile, Red Bull started well and largely bled out as McLaren headed in the other direction.

Throw in a brief, mid-season Mercedes resurgence, and we’re left with a rollercoaster year that many consider to have been the most open in F1’s history.

BOLD PREDICTION: A THIRD Australian will get on the grid

VERDICT: Correct… sort of

Three Australians did compete in a F1 race this season, so we are claiming this one.

Where this prediction arguably comes unstuck is that we didn’t see three Australians compete in the same F1 race.

Piastri, Ricciardo, and Australia’s newest F1 star, Jack Doohan, all took part in the 2024 championship.

It’s an incredible achievement for our distant nation that long-fought simply to have one driver on the grid.

Doohan, the son of MotoGP legend Mick, was in August announced as Ocon’s Alpine replacement for 2025.

Having already let one-time Alpine academy product Piastri slip through its fingers, the team was eager to reward his fellow Australian prodigy Doohan with a full-time drive.

Ocon, meanwhile, was snapped up by Haas before he and Alpine mutually agreed to allow Doohan to race in the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

This was several races after Ricciardo bowed out in Singapore, meaning we still only saw two Australians race at any given time.

Next year will see two Australians still in F1, although it would be remiss to not mention the bizarre rumour before Doohan’s debut that Alpine was already considering dumping him for Franco Colapinto.

Given the many management missteps at Alpine, which has undergone significant upheaval, dumping Doohan before he even got in the cockpit at a race was not out of the realm of possibility.

Nonetheless, Colapinto’s messy end to the season has seen interest in him cool, leaving Doohan in the box seat to start next season. Although, he’ll have one eye looking over his shoulder at all times.

BOLD PREDICTION: Motor giants are heading for a stunning exit

VERDICT: Correct

At last, there’s no grey area in this one.

As boldly predicted before the season, motor giants Renault are bowing out of Formula One, nearly 20 years after it propelled Fernando Alonso to the first of his two world titles, and nearly 15 since Sebastian Vettel was first triumphant for Red Bull.

Renault’s return to F1 as a works team never even got close to reaching its former heights, and 2024 proved to be the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Frustrated by longstanding under performance amid hefty operational costs, Renault decided to shutter its in-house power-unit program, ending all production after the 2025 season.

The decision came with Alpine — the only team still using Renault power units — ninth in the constructors standings, though it did recover to sixth by season’s end.

Nonetheless, Renault baulked at tackling 2026’s new regulations, opting to down-tools on a program it had already begun.

The decision came with the view that the power unit program was too expensive to persevere with given its lack of return in the turbo-hybrid era.

Alpine later brokered a deal with Mercedes to purchase its engine and gearbox for the new era of regulations.

BOLD PREDICTION: Norris vs Piastri will become the hottest battle on the grid

VERDICT: Correct

Okay, maybe not completely. But there was certainly a large portion of the season in which this battle was the talk of the paddock.

2024 started off as another development year for Piastri, but he closed the gap to his more senior teammate Lando Norris significantly — and even became F1’s lead driver for a several weeks.

Between the Miami Grand Prix and Azerbaijan, Piastri amassed 181 points, four more than Verstappen, and 10 more than Norris.

“He’s arrived,” former driver and Piastri’s manager, Mark Webber, said at the time. “But (he’s) keeping his feet on the ground and keeping working hard.”

Piastri claimed his maiden F1 race win in Hungary, and backed it up with another in Baku, matching Norris’ career tally at the time.

What threatened to ignite the fuse in the McLaren garage was that then, despite Piastri’s trajectory, he was cast in a support role for Norris, who had a narrow window towards 2024’s drivers’ title.

The decision came with tensions already rising as a result of late drama at the Hungarian Grand Prix, in which Norris long refused to obey team orders in allowing Piastri through.

Norris burst into the lead having been given pit stop priority to defend against a potential undercut from behind, but was asked to give the spot back to Piastri late in the race.

Norris only did so after McLaren desperately pleaded with him in a series of increasingly embarrassing team radio messages.

However, there could be no overshadowing Piastri’s win in Baku which came after a brilliant defensive drive.

The stretch of races had all eyes on McLaren and how they would deal with the combustible situation between its drivers.

It’s here that the McLaren hierarchy deserve immense credit. Whatever was said, Norris and Piastri were kept on the same page and things remained outwardly harmonious for the season’s remainder.

Piastri’s own cooling — he only claimed two more podium finishes — contributed to this duel falling flat late in the season.

But make no mistake, for a large portion, this was F1’s hottest battle.