Formula 1 2024: The predicted pecking order ahead of the season opener

Testing is officially finished, and each manufacturer has displayed an early glimpse of their 2024 challenger.

Max Verstappen during F1 Testing(Photo by Clive Mason/Getty Images)

While the grid is expected to close nearer together ahead of this season, the pecking order is not expected to dramatically have changed from the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix at the end of last year.

Although testing is not a perfect read on the ability of each car and neither should the timing screens be entirely focused on, the pecking order can be roughly predicted with just a week until qualifying.

This will be a list predicting last to first based purely on the car's ability and pace.

10th – Haas

New team principal Ayao Komatsu has already predicted that his team will be likely the weakest team to begin with but has ambitions to catch teams ahead as the season progresses.

An experienced driver line-up of Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen will have to be resilient with an unsettled, undeveloped car to begin with that might be a guaranteed bottom two come to the Bahrain race.

If the characteristics of a strong qualifying car remain, however, the potential to challenge for Q2 could be the early ambition for both drivers while they look to sort the car out and gain time up.

9th – Williams

The ambition of the Williams team has improved under James Vowles but the ability to out-develop their competitors does not look to have worked out for the British outfit.

Though things are expected to be close between the surrounding teams. If Alex Albon can extract all of the potential of the FW46 points are always there to be taken.

The development of Williams will be vital, but they seem to have sat still and not taken advantage of extra wind tunnel time and close the gap to the midfield pack.

8th – Kick Sauber

Minor changes have been made to the previously named Alfa Romeo, the fluorescent green car looks more stable and lighter than last year, where the car was consistent but not always consistently good.

The roll hoop is one of those, which is now more traditional compared to other cars and is now deemed lighter, helping the overall weight reduction which is famously crucial in these regulations.

Sauber must start to develop well this year ahead of the Audi takeover as they typically fall behind the curve and have poor finishes at the business end of the season.

7th – Alpine

Not what the French team and French drivers would want but fairly unsurprising after the fallout of the team mid-season last year which saw a host of key figures depart the team, such as ex-team principal Otmar Szafnauer.

After a comfortable sixth-place finish last season, the ambition was surely to close the gap to Aston Martin who finished 160 points ahead rather than fall to the clutches of Williams who finished 92 points behind.

Now it is likely that they are no longer in no-mans-land. However, with a competitive driver lineup, point-scoring will not be too much of an issue.

6th – Visa Cash App RB

No longer AlphaTauri and more blatantly a sister team of Red Bull, the outlier of pre-season testing is the newly branded RB.

Rumours circulated after a weak end to the season that the team were throwing all their eggs in a 2024 car with particular inspiration to the Red Bull team set to influence the new car.

With the car appearing simply pacier and more stable and two drivers who will be competing for a seat in 2024, RB are looking pretty.

5th – Aston Martin

It starts to close now as the summit nears. Aston Martin went backwards as the season progressed following a few upgrades which did not improve the car and de-stabled both understanding and track performance.

The AMR24 looks like a racy qualifying car based on evidence and might be better than a few competitors ahead as Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso put down times near the top of the leaderboard.

The long stint times were also competitive, but the package still has work needed to return to the amazing beginning of last season when Fernando Alonso scored podium after podium.

4th – Mercedes

Lewis Hamilton might have known something which pre-empted his move to Ferrari because Mercedes had not made a glorious step forward. Yet again.

The one crucial part for Mercedes is that for the first time since the beginning of these regulations, this car begins a stable one. Both drivers have credited the driveability and suspension of the W15 already which must be encouraging for the development of the car.

Their driver pairing is blatantly strong which led to an impressive second last year, but they have not improved on the car relative to their competitors and will lean on their drivers again at the beginning of this season.

3rd – McLaren

Now the Papaya can start a season well. The last two seasons were punishing and had tough moments, but the car is notably set to start the season strong with competitive times in testing.

Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri are a promising duo and can extract the most out of the car every week, and the strong rear end of the McLaren will be a huge caveat and advantage at a lot of rear-limited circuits.

Challenging for second best will be an ambition but there is no doubt the positioning of the car in the pecking order will ebb and flow, race to race.

2nd – Ferrari

The top of the front-running non-title challenging cars is the scarlet red Ferrari. Fred Vasseur has looked to have fronted an improvement and development of the SF-24 which might steer it initially clear of the likes of McLaren, Mercedes, and Aston Martin.

The evidence of a good car is when the drivers and team principals downplay the car with a subtle grin or suggest that it is just testing. Body language has become a crucial element in suggesting the feeling of this Ferrari car.

Cutting out mistakes and creating a more consistent car is the key and that looks to have occurred. There would be times when Ferrari would be challenging Red Bull and then immediately become fourth or fifth fastest, so improving elements such as high-speed corners and gathering as much data as possible to develop.

1st – Red Bull

That is hardly surprising, but what is surprising is the aggressive nature of development which Red Bull has taken in the new season.

It is no secret that the work on this car began remarkably early due to the dominance of last year’s car which won all but one race in Singapore. With Max Verstappen and Adrian Newey at the helm in Milton Keynes, that is a duo which will be extremely difficult to dethrone.

They previewed a no-side-pod concept in the car reveal but the car has advanced in every department and looks set to dominate even more, unfortunately for the 18 other drivers and nine other teams.