Good month, bad month - August 2024

Good Month

Flav’s back

Controversial playboy team boss Flavio Briatore has returned to Alpine as a special adviser – and is already rumoured to be engineering a final-hour Carlos Sainz move to the team.

VeR-tuoso display

Even when struggling with a tricky car – and his Red Bull team-mate is knocking corners off his own RB20 – Verstappen still schooled the rest of the field in Canada and Spain.

Pit straight talking

In contrast to most bland pundits Jacques Villeneuve asserted in Canada that Ricciardo is slow, living off his reputation and others could do better.Here’s to more opinions.

Rocketman russell

Fabulous start by our George in Spain. How often do you see a car go from fourth to first on a start these days?

Pipe Down

Scuderia sniping as Sainz told his Ferrari team-mate Leclerc to shut it after whingeing about an optimistic overtake in Barcelona: “Too many times he complains.”

Bad Month

Out of the Grove?

Logan Sargeant crashed not once, but twice, during the Canadian GP. Will he even last the season?

Big short

F1 announced its 2026 car will be lighter and shorter than the current one in a bid to improve racing. Just what fans have been calling for. How much lighter and shorter: erm, a mere 30kg and 20cm.

RB hopeless

“If you perform well here, your aerodynamics are good,” said Tsunoda before he and RB team-mate Ricciardo finished 19th and 15th respectively in the ‘upgraded’ car at Barcelona.

Nearly Nico

Five P11s in 2024 for Nico Hülkenberg, F1’s record non-podium finisher. That man sure knows how to nearly do something.

Misplaced Optimism?

Sauber F1 described 13th and 16th in Spain for Zhou Guanyu and Valtteri Bottas as “good progress”. Would hate to know what a bad race looks like for them.