Behold! The new season is upon us. Time for GP Racing to deploy well-honed analytical skills, scrutinise driver moves, evaluate rookies’ junior records and prognosticate on the risks teams are taking with new hires. Only we can’t. Conservatism has swept the paddock, with every team retaining the pairing that finished 2023.
Remarkably this is the first time these circumstances have come about since the world championship began in 1950.
Were F1 powered by rainbows and fairy dust, one might assume a joyful inertia had taken hold: 20 drivers doing a bang-up job, teams thrilled to have them. The realities are a little more complex. Not everyone covered themselves in glory during 2023, and some movement was to be expected – but nothing happened. Musical chairs without the music. Just one of those things? A statistical fluke? Well, no, not really.
