Formula One News — January 2024

Fernando Alonso

The unexpected departure of Gunther Steiner from Haas F1 Team caught everyone by surprise and coming immediately after it was revealed Simone Resta had also left the American team, vaccating the position of Technical Director, indicates quite a lot was going on under the surface in Gene Haas’ team.

Lewis Hamilton

Mike Krack is now the third longest serving Formula 1 Team Principal! Now, that’s a sentence that makes you go back and read again, but you read it right, the Aston Martin man has now moved into that position following the sensational departure of Gunther Steiner from the role he fulfilled at Haas F1 Team since its creation.

In a surprise move, the highly rated Simone Resta has decided to leave his position as Technical Director of Haas, just one monthe before the launch of this year’s VF-24. Resta had been leading the technical department the American team put together in Maranello, with 80 other engineers that moved from Ferrari, and a few dozen others that had previously been with other teams, at the start of 2021 but has now opted to leave at the end of what was a very disappointing season for Haas.

Helmut Marko will remain with Red Bull until the end of 2026, after signing a new two-years deal with the company’s new managament. The veteran Austrian’s current contract, still signed with his old friend Dietrich Mateschitz, expires at the end of this year and with the billionaire gone there were indications Marko wouldn’t have his deal renewed by Oliver Mintzlaff, the man who’s now in charge of running the company’s sporting programs.

With just seven weeks to go before the start of the 2024 Formula 1 World Championship, there’s yet to be a consensus on the format that will be used in the six sprint events that will be part of this year’s season, with the promoters of those Grand Prix unable to set their own schedules and, of course, let the fans know the sequence of sessions before they make their final decision about buying tickets and for what days.

Charles Leclerc

Haas F1 Team has announced that Guenther Steiner has left the team, after having been Team Principal since the team's inception. In his place Ayao Komatsu has been appointed new team principal, being promoted from his role as Director of Engineering.

The announcement Mercedes will continue to supply Power Units to Williams until the end of 2030 has shut the door for other manufacturers to try and get costumers for their own products from the start of 2026. With McLaren already committed to keep working with the German manufacturer until the end of the next cycle of technical regulations, only Haas has yet to confirm which Power Units it will be using after the end of 2025, but given the very close links the American team has with Ferrari – to the extent it has placed its own design group in a building adjacent to the Scuderia’s factory! – there’s little doubt this relationship will carry on beyond the end of the current deal.

The 21 million Euros investment the Italian government, the Lombardia region and the ACI are making on the modernization of the Autodromo Nazionale di Monza is mainly aimed at bringing the infrastructure up to the most recent Formula 1 standards, especially in the topic of providing a better experience for the paying fans, but will also focus on improving the racing conditions, as the changes made to the cars in the last change of regulations made this high-speed track less of a challenge than it was before.

FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem has claimed he knows “who attacks me”, in a recent interview with German publication Motorsport-Magazin, explaining that, “the paddock is a very small habitat, everybody knows everybody," he added. "You know, whoever leaked or made up something about me, I know. And what do I do? I smile at them. I know who is behind it and then I smile at them. I only ask for sincerity. I am not interested in the share price or ticket sales. We just need honesty. That is my mission."

Almost four months after initially scheduled, the much needed upgrade of the Autodromo Nazionale di Monza has started on Monday, being kicked off in a lengthy ceremony presided by Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, with the Automobilie Club d’Italia president, Angelo Sticchi Damiani, as master of ceremonies.

Highly experienced Formula 1 man Tim Goss has left the FIA at the start of this year, extending the talent exodus that has been hitting the Federation’s sporting department, just weeks after Steve Nielsen gave his notice and will leave his role as Sporting Director at the end of this month. Goss has now left his position as Single-seater Technical Director and is believed to be on the verge of returning to the competitive side of Grand Prix racing, joining one of the Formula 1 teams in the next couple of weeks.

Red Bull’s advisor Helmut Marko has confirmed the first monocoque of the new RB20 failed the FIA-mandatory frontal crash test as we wrote last week. While the team is always tremendously protective of all its internal information and almost never reacts to media reports, the 80-years old Austrian seems unable to resist commenting on every single detail and has now confirmed to a German website this story.

Lando Norris

Mercedes Benz and Williams has announced that they will continue to use Mercedes engines for the 2026 season and beyond.

Carlos Sainz

There has been a change of guard at the Ferrari Driver Academy, with the departure of Marco Matassa, who had been leading the young drivers’ program since the start of 2018, the Italian expected to return to his previous team, Faenza-based AlphaTauri – racing under a new name this year – with his position in Maranello being taken over by the highly experienced Jock Clear.

McLaren’s impressive recovery during the 2023 season, with two major upgrades – the first introduced in Austria, the second one in Singapore – transforming the MCL60 into the second quickest car in the field after starting the year at the back of the grid – has given reason to optimism inside the Woking-based team now looking ahead at the 2024 Formula 1 World Championship.

One year after Pierre Gasly and Lance Stroll started the 2023 season under the threat of immediate race bans, as they were close to reaching the dreaded 12 penalty points that come with a one race ban, only Sérgio Pérez and Logan Sargeant will have to be a little bit carefull with their track manners in the first two thirds of the season, as they’re the two drivers who have accumulated the most penalty points during the last championship.

With just over seven weeks to go before the start of testing in Bahrain, half the Formula 1 teams have already confirmed the launch dates of their 2024 cars with the other five teams yet to announce when their new machinery – or at least their new colours - will first be shown to the fans and the media.

George Russell

Alex Albon

Better late than never, as they say, as the urgent upgrades Monza needed tlo complete in order to negotiate a new deal to keep the Italian Grand Prix beyond the end of its current contract with Formula 1, are finally set to start on Monday, January 8th.