Beating your team-mate is vital in race trim, and in F1
2024, as with every season, doing so in qualifying is also extremely important.
Qualifying sets up any driver’s race and, if a driver can
show their quality when they are on low fuel and the pressure is on over one
lap, it can be a massive psychological boost within the garage as a crucial
battle unfolds between team-mates. Here’s a look at how each F1 2024 team-mate
battle is unfolding in qualifying so far.
F1 2024: Qualifying head-to-head by team
F1 2024 head-to-head qualifying stats: Red Bull
Max Verstappen 19-1 Sergio Perez
Sprint qualifying: Max Verstappen 5-0 Sergio Perez
After a hugely one-sided 20-2 qualifying record in
Verstappen’s favour last season, that was matched on the track in races as he
romped home to a third consecutive Drivers’ Championship.
While Perez was able to take a career-best P2 finish come
season’s end, Verstappen finished with more than double the points tally of his
team-mate, and in qualifying in particular he held his team-mate at arm’s
length.
In 2024, Verstappen appeared to tighten his grip on
qualifying in particular – becoming the first driver since Alain Prost in 1993
to take pole at each of the first six rounds of the season, meaning Perez would
have needed to set a pole-worthy time to beat him. He added to that by
whitewashing his team-mate at every opportunity in the first half of the season
in both qualifying and the Sprints.
Perez finally got one on the board against Verstappen at
Baku, a specialist circuit for the Mexican.
F1 2024 head-to-head qualifying record: Mercedes
Lewis Hamilton 5-15 George Russell
Sprint qualifying: Lewis Hamilton 1-4 George Russell
Having been dubbed ‘Mr Saturday’ for his performances in
qualifying with Williams, George Russell has shown himself to be more than a
match for Hamilton on the other side of the Mercedes garage.
In fact, their qualifying record was the closest on the
entire grid in 2023, with an 11-11 draw in who was faster come the end of the
season.
Russell had gone 5-0 up on Hamilton in the early stages of
2024 before Hamilton pulled one back in Miami, getting off the mark for the
season, but Russell opened up an impressive 10-2 advantage by the halfway mark.
F1 2024 head-to-head qualifying record: Ferrari
Charles Leclerc 12-7 Carlos Sainz
Sprint qualifying: Charles Leclerc 3-2 Carlos Sainz
Charles Leclerc 1-0 Oliver Bearman
Charles Leclerc has long been seen as one of the best
drivers in Formula 1 over one lap, and despite the Ferrari drivers only being
separated by six points at the end of 2023, Leclerc beat Carlos Sainz 15-7 in
the qualifying head-to-head last time out.
Sainz will look to turn that record on its head in his final season with Ferrari, before he makes way for Lewis Hamilton in 2025, but missed the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix with appendicitis – with British teenager Oliver Bearman stepping in for his Formula 1 debut
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