Lewis Hamilton, Oliver Bearman and the FIA president all win big in our F1 2024 awards

Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen are among the F1 stars who win big in our totally (un)serious 2024 end-of-season awards which may or may not mean anything at all

The FIA holds its 2024 Prize Giving gala in Rwanda on Friday.

As usual, it’ll be a very long and thoroughly dull ceremony with nothing of any real interest going on, and then Max Verstappen will pick up his trophy for winning his fourth Formula 1 title. Luckily, we can spare you the trouble of watching all that through glazed-over eyes.

Because Mirror Sport‘s 2024 F1 end-of-season awards are here! From the top driver and team, to the best radio messages, press conference moment and TV blooper of the year, we’ve recalled some of the biggest moments of 2024 – and the sarcasm is absolutely free.

So, let’s begin, shall we? Starting with…

Driver of the year – Max Verstappen

Only NINE race wins, Max? Were you even trying this year? Fair enough, it was still a total which won him a fourth consecutive drivers’ championship by 63 points. Even when his Red Bull was a bit naff he was still in regular contention for race wins. And that drive to victory at Interlagos was up there with some of the best individual race performances in recent memory. A worthy champion and winner of this award, even if he did feel the need to go all Wacky Races on Lando Norris at times.

Team of the year – McLaren

It’s amazing what two top drivers, competent management, a hard-working and high-morale group of workers and zero trips to photocopier shops in Woking can do, isn’t it? McLaren finally won the constructors’ title for the first time since 1998, though they might have done it in 2007 had they not been excluded from the championship over Spygate. But this year their car was the most consistently good of all the top teams and both Norris and Oscar Piastri were in great form. Hats off to all at the MTC.

Rookie of the year – Oliver Bearman

Anyone else think of the old Batman theme music and just replace the words with “BEARMAN” any time they hear his name? No? Just me? Welcome to inner workings of my brain in December. He only raced three times this year, did young Oli, but scored points in the first two and got us all very excited about what he can achieve in the future. Bearman also finished the season as the rookie with the most points, above several others who raced a lot more than he did. Still, I look forward to the furious accusations of ‘British bias’.

Race of the year – Brazilian Grand Prix

There have been a few corkers this year to be honest, but Interlagos always delivers – especially when there’s rain of biblical proportions like there was this year. There were about a million crashes (give or take), a qualifying session held at daft o’clock on Sunday morning and a race director who was presumably awoken from his nap so that he could order red flags just the 44 seconds after someone had smashed up their car. Plus, Verstappen’s win from 17th and Lewis Hamilton driving an Ayrton Senna McLaren. What a weekend.

Racing moment of the year – Lewis Hamilton wins the British GP

Where else was Hamilton going to end that long wait for a win? It had got to the point where it became a real possibility that the seven-time champ may never stand on the top step of a podium again. And then he did, in front of his home fans after a thrilling wet-dry British Grand Prix to complete one of Britain’s finest moments of the year across all sports. There I go again with the jingoism, eh?

Non-racing moment of the year – Zhou Guanyu’s tears in Shanghai

Poor Zhou didn’t have a lot to smile about this year, saddled with a rubbish Sauber car and spending most of his time qualifying in 20th – and then not making much progress the following day. But before he finally scored points in Qatar, there was a lovely moment when, after racing in front of his home fans for the first time, F1’s first Chinese racer broke down into tears in front of a massive stand full of fans cheering his name over the emotion of it all. Warmed the cockles, it did.

Underrated performer of the year – Pierre Gasly

There were a few strong contenders for this award but Gasly edges it for not only finishing the year 10th in the championship, but for managing it while representing the absolute s***show that has been the Alpine team this year. Amid all the nonsense going on behind the scenes, the Frenchman has shown again that he deserves another crack at a top team having been too young and raw when he got his Red Bull chance back in 2019. If any of the big four find themselves in need of a new racer next year, they should call the Gas man.

Villain of the year – Mohammed ben Sulayem

Just like in a blockbuster film, we can’t have heroes if we don’t have someone doing everything they can to make things harder for them at every turn. Truly in his ‘I don’t give a f***’ era, the FIA president wins this award having demonstrated impressive commitment to firing absolutely everyone within the organisation who he doesn’t like the look of, emboldened by the fact the way presidential elections work makes it virtually impossible to remove him. I would go on, but Mr Ben Sulayem just texted me to say I’m sacked.

Strategy decision of the year – Red Bull/Alpine in Brazil

As mentioned earlier, things at Alpine have been quite messy this year. One thing they did nail, though, was their approach to the Brazil race and that gutsy decision to keep both their drivers out on track with Verstappen before the red flag for Franco Colapinto’s crash earned them a double podium no-one saw coming. So both those two teams scoop this one for those decisions which effectively guaranteed Verstappen the drivers’ title and Alpine sixth place in the constructors’ championship.

Radio message of the year – Lewis Hamilton at Silverstone

“Thank you so much guys. It means a lot to get this one. Big thanks to all the fans here, I love you guys. I love you Bono.” Those words were choked out through the tears as Hamilton let his feelings get to him after that first win since 2021. We could easily have gone for a funny one here but the emotions of this moment just had to take top spot. Plus, he won’t be able to get a word in edgeways next year with his new Ferrari race engineer constantly offering him different strategy options. “How do you feel about Plan Q, Lewis? Question.”

Press conference moment of the year – Max Verstappen’s protest

Refusing to properly answer questions in an FIA press conference in protest at being treated like a child because he had sworn in a previous one is a level of pettiness we should all aspire to. Bonus points for then holding his own impromptu media session outside the room so that journalists could still get quotes, just not through the governing body. Glorious. The community service Verstappen conducted in Rwanda this week was definitely worth it.

TV blooper of the year – Ted Kravitz’s slip of the tongue

Ahh Ted, provider of plenty of glorious TV moments over the year, and even more frankly weird ones. It’s been a long year with 24 races and by the Singapore Grand Prix in September, one poor Sky Sports producer was tired enough to accidentally air a failed take of Kravitz messing up a line and muttering: “Oh f***ing hell”, into his microphone. In their defence, it was already the 18th round of the season and we were all running on fumes by that point.

Commitment to media duties award – Lance Stroll

The Canadian is famed among F1 media for just LOVING his obligations to speak to the media. No, I mean it. Seriously, stop laughing. Okay yeah, fine. Anything more than three words to answer a question and a total time spent in the media pen of over 60 seconds is a win when it comes to Lance. But on the Thursday before the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix he spoke to us for almost THREE minutes! Blimey. We were honoured.