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What are the 2024 season highlights? These drivers reflect
The 2024 season was Formula 1’s longest ever, and it was certainly full of highs and lows for every driver on the grid. At the final race of the season in Abu Dhabi, the drivers reviewed and shared their best performances.
There were battles up and down the grid in 2024 with the midfield hvaing tough competitons all season long. Speaking to GPblog and other media at the season’s conclusion in Abu Dhabi, these drivers shared their personal highlights and rated their best performances.
Magnussen
As the 2024 season will conclude Magnussen’s Formula 1 career, the Danish driver chose his P9 in Mexico as the highlight of his final season. “I think Mexico was super strong. It was kind of a bit of an outlier. We were just really really quick in the race, had fantastic tyre degradation and it was like a bit of an odd one in terms of how quick we were.”
Albon
Albon reflected more positively on his qualifying performances than on his race performances, highlighting the qualifying sessions in Brazil and Monaco.
The Williams of Albon looked strong in qualifying until a crash in Q3 that was so severe that he could not start the race. He stated that Brazil would have been his season highlight if he did not have that crash, “Brazil was going to be that in qualifying until the issue.”
Instead, the Thai driver chose his P9 in Monaco qualifying as a highlight. “I can tell you as a feeling, Monaco qualifying. I think that that weekend generally coming from a car that was really struggling around Monaco and we've made all these changes to this year's car and the laps that I did, the feeling of the car at that time, we were still overweight at that point in the year but being Monaco we were hidden with the overweight car. That weekend stood out.”
Lawson
After a mid-season swap with Daniel Ricciardo in Singapore, Lawson reflected on his favourite moments from his six races in 2024.
The driver from New Zealand recognised his two ninth place points finishes in Austin and Sao Paulo as his favourite moments from his short season. He stated, “Well mine's only just started. Austin was a highlight coming in. It was my first race as a full-time driver and it was obviously a really good weekend as well. There's been highlights over it. We had a strong weekend in Brazil as well. Favorite moment would be Austin but I also do feel like I've only just really started”
Gasly
Gasly chose his podium in Sao Paulo as his season highlight. After a slower start to the season, both Alpines thrived in the wet in Brazil and managed to secure a surprise double podium.
“Best moment was Brazil. As a team, that was spectacular, unexpected, emotional and well rewarded for the efforts of the team,” Gasly reflected.
Zhou
Zhou managed to achieve Sauber’s only points in 2024 with his eight place finish in Qatar. After a season of struggles, Zhou chose this race as his season highlight, “Honestly, where we were, Qatar was definitely by far not just myself the best result in terms of getting the maximum out of the car, the package but also I think after such a difficult, let's say, week after week races.”
Zhou went on to share his perspective on the difficulties hs team faced throughout the season, “We were like half second off the next best team, so that would just seems to be very far for us to grab these points, and then we come from a long way, but we, everyone was still working very hard in team.”
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