F1’s unsung heroes of 2024

Flavio Briatore

A few eyebrows were raised when in June it was confirmed that Flavio Briatore was returning not just to Formula 1, but to the team he left so abruptly in the wake of the Nelson Piquet Jr Crashgate scandal in 2009, and amid a ban by the FIA on having any involvement in the sport. However he was always engaged in the background thanks to his long association with Fernando Alonso, and he also had a hand in the birth of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. More recently his close friendship with F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali saw him bringing sponsors to the organisation. He then landed a role as executive adviser to Renault Group boss Luca de Meo and returned to Enstone and what is now the Alpine team.

A revolving door of team principals and the departures of key technical figures had rocked the team. He brought back trusted past cohorts, but also looked to the future by hiring Oliver Oakes as team principal. Crucially he brought with him the big-picture vision and political savvy that helped to win four world championships, and his almost talismanic presence gave the team a sort of collective self-confidence that was lacking before – and it paid off.

Rob Marshall

Hundreds of people contributed to McLaren’s title success in 2024, and the leadership team of Zak Brown and Andrea Stella provided the perfect balance, with one dealing with the politics and commercial aspects and the other so brilliantly managing both the drivers and the technical team. However, if another individual deserves to be highlighted it is perhaps chief designer Rob Marshall.

The Woking team had undergone a series of technical restructurings in recent seasons as it tried to find the magic ingredient, but headhunting Marshall from Red Bull was a genius move. The 56-year-old had worked at Benetton and Renault for a decade when he went to Milton Keynes in 2006 in the chief designer job, effectively as the practical mechanical foil to Adrian Newey. As such he played a huge role in the team’s success before joining McLaren in January 2024.

Obviously the MCL38 was designed, but there’s no doubt Marshall played a key role in its development through the season, while also looking to the 2025 and ’26 projects. And he proved to be a great motivator. “Rob brings fantastic human qualities,” said Stella. “He’s a positive person. Everyone enjoys working with him. He is full of energy.”

James Vowles

Having landed the job as Williams team principal shortly before the start of the 2023 season former Mercedes man James Vowles faced a steep learning curve as he adjusted to a different level of resources. Thanks to Alex Albon’s heroic efforts the team finished seventh in that year’s world championship.

In 2024 the Grove outfit slipped back to ninth, but if anything Vowles impressed even more in the way he kept things together while reminding everyone that the real focus is on the future. He was perhaps too honest with the media when outlining the failings of the team, specifically in terms of the weight of the FW46 launch car and the slow progress of parts through the system.

He did a brilliant job to entice Carlos Sainz to join, and made a big call in dropping Logan Sargeant, who had been signed under the Jost Capito regime. He spotted something special in Franco Colapinto and promoted him on the basis of a strong FP1 session at Silverstone, and was soon repaid. And he kept the team’s spirits up through the nightmare sequence of crashes that left it on the edge in terms of spares.

With Sainz now on board the team has to start to deliver in 2025.

Valtteri Bottas

On paper 2024 was a disaster for a man who has 10 wins on his CV, and who on his day could beat Lewis Hamilton. In his third year at Sauber he failed to score a point and ended the season without a drive. The reality is that the C44 was the worst car on the grid, and reliability issues and pitstop dramas made things even worse. The team lagged far behind rivals in the development battle, leaving the drivers struggling to save their reputations, and only in the last few races did parts arrive that seemed to make a difference.

In the background there was turbulence amid preparations for Audi’s arrival in 2026. Even after Nico Hülkenberg was signed Bottas was led to believe that he was going to stay, but Audi wanted youth and went for Gabriel Bortoleto. However, Bottas never gave up, outperforming the underrated Zhou Guanyu. At the same time he used social media to show a fun side that wasn’t visible in his earlier career. That led some to believe he was no longer serious about his job – but the reality is he would have been an ideal replacement for Sergio Pérez. In Abu Dhabi, Bottas made a point by being second fastest in Q1, and ninth on the final grid. Sadly any chance of scoring points was lost to first lap contact.

Ayao Komatsu

The F1 world was taken by surprise when Gene Haas dropped team principal Guenther Steiner just before the season, given the attention that the Netflix star brought to sponsors. Even more surprising perhaps was that Haas chose to ignore ostensibly more qualified outsiders to promote Ayao Komatsu, previously the trackside engineering director. It proved to be an inspired move. A key member of the organisation since its inception, the former Enstone veteran had the full respect of the race team, the technical department and the drivers. He adapted to his new role with aplomb, proving to be  a strong-willed leader who could also deal with the Piranha Club manoeuvring that comes with the job. He might not have Steiner’s TV charisma, but he is always very honest and straightforward in explaining any weaknesses.

Most importantly the results were seen on track. Tenth and last the previous year with a car that was too hard on its tyres, the team was a points contender for most of the season, with Nico Hülkenberg particularly impressing with his pace. Crucially a good development pace was maintained until the end of the year – and it was only Alpine’s Interlagos windfall that bumped Haas back to seventh.

Yuki Tsunoda

In his fourth year with the Faenza team – now known as RB rather than AlphaTauri – Yuki Tsunoda continued to be among the group leading the chase of the top runners, along with Pierre Gasly, Fernando Alonso and Nico Hülkenberg. He regularly qualified in the top 10, securing an impressive P3 in the tricky wet session at Interlagos. Over the course of the year he earned three seventh places, and made the points on a total of nine occasions. He outperformed Daniel Ricciardo in the first part of the year, effectively ending the career of the man who had been tipped to return to RBR. He was then up against Liam Lawson, and again proved the dominant force over one lap. However he remained typecast as the flaky individual best known for his radio rants, although at season’s end he was keen to point out that he’d been calmer in 2024.

Convincing Red Bull’s management that he should be promoted to the senior team was an ongoing battle, with Lawson inevitably having momentum on his side. His RB colleagues, meanwhile, know what a great talent he is.