UNPREDICTABLE THRILLER: Verstappen brilliance, Red Bull turmoil hog 2024 limelight

PARIS, France (AFP) — Max Verstappen may have clinched his fourth straight world drivers’ title but the 2024 Formula One season proved, against all the odds, a refreshingly unpredictable thriller.

AFP Sport reviews a year that began in Bahrain in March and culminated on Sunday with a record 24th race in Abu Dhabi.

Max rises above Red Bull turbulence

After coasting to the past two world titles Max Verstappen was seen as a shoo-in for a fourth consecutive title, a sequence begun with his controversial defeat of Lewis Hamilton on the last lap of the season in 2021.

After winning seven of the first 10 races it appeared plain sailing again for the uncompromising Dutch driver. Those wins proved the 27-year-old’s steely ability to cancel out all the off-track noise swirling around his team since before pre-season testing when the Christian Horner affair hit the headlines.

The team principal’s days appeared numbered as he fought off accusations of inappropriate behavior towards a female colleague.

A secret inquiry cleared the beleaguered Briton and Horner was on the pitlane for the season opener. An internal power struggle at the Austrian giants simmered away though, then came the bombshell that their technical genius Adrian Newey was quitting to join Aston Martin from 2025.

None of this appeared to faze Verstappen. It was business as usual — at least up to his win in Spain in June.

Little did he know then but that was to be the last time he was to climb to the top of the podium until last month, when he ended an 11-race losing run in Brazil.

He then extinguished Lando Norris’ slim chances of seizing his crown under the lights of Las Vegas with two races to spare.

As he leaves Abu Dhabi his thoughts will already be on a fifth title on the trot — a feat only achieved by one other driver in the history of F1 — Michael Schumacher.