The 2024 Formula 1 season might have been and gone, but it shouldn’t be forgotten how exciting it was.
On paper, Max Verstappen winning a fourth world championship doesn’t seem very exciting, but McLaren securing the Constructors’ Championship immediately catches the eye.
Verstappen’s seven victories in the first 10 races of the season built him enough of a lead that he could afford for Red Bull’s car to fall down the pecking order.
However, the campaign ended with Ferrari and McLaren still in contention to win the championship and seven different drivers coming away with multiple race wins.
Every driver within the top four teams aside from Sergio Perez stood on the top step of the podium at least twice, highlighting how competitive the season was.
Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri were brilliant, almost taking turns at being the dominant driver on the grid.
Norris was Verstappen’s main competitor but Piastri showed glimpses of being on his level in Hungary and Azerbaijan where he managed to win both races.
Piastri was forced to abide by papaya rules to try and help his teammate win the championship but will be hoping that’s not the case in 2025.
Speaking to F1 Maximaal, Le Mans legend Tom Kristensen believes the £4.5m-a-year Australian also pulled off the best overtake of the season to add to his list of growing accolades.
F1 star Oscar Piastri’s move on Charles Leclerc the ‘overtake of the year’ in 2024
The Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku is arguably Piastri’s best performance to date in Formula 1.
He started on the front row alongside Charles Leclerc and the pair followed each other extremely closely for much of the race.
Piastri then dived down the inside heading into turn one to take the lead at extremely high speed, before completing a faultless final stint to take the chequered flag.
READ MORE: Damon Hill ‘loved’ Oscar Piastri and Charles Leclerc in sync moment during the Azerbaijan Grand Prix
Speaking about last season, Kristensen said: “The overtake of the year for me is the one Piastri made on Leclerc in Baku.
“That was really good. I think Silverstone was also a fantastic Grand Prix, where you had a bit of rain, so again a lot of changing conditions.
“That’s what you want to see: drivers being challenged by unforeseen circumstances, and the teams having to adapt in terms of strategy.”
Charles Leclerc regretted Oscar Piastri fight after losing victory in Baku
For Piastri to pull off that move, he needed Leclerc to show him enough respect to not make a high-speed situation very dangerous.
The Azerbaijan street circuit punishes small mistakes as Carlos Sainz and Perez highlighted with their collision during the final laps.
Talking about losing out on victory during his official press conference, Leclerc said: “We lost the victory based on two factors today. The first was tyre management on our out-lap from the pits.
“We expected it to take a long time for everyone to warm up their tyres, which was the case for our car, but not at all for McLaren, who got their tyres up to temperature immediately and gained a big amount of time there.
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“The second was not fighting Oscar harder when he overtook. I knew we had a long race ahead and my target was to look after my tyres, stay within DRS range and overtake him later down the line.
“However, we underestimated the speed they had on the straights today, running a lower downforce package than us, which made them too fast to attempt to overtake them.”
Piastri will hope he doesn’t need to pull off any daring overtakes to win Grand Prix in 2025, but Formula 1 is never quite as straightforward as that.
