Formula One Season Bingo 2024

Having bingo cards to complete as you watch Formula 1 with friends or family can really add to the entertainment value, whether it’s the whole season card or our Formula 1 Race Weekend bingo card (which is updated with fresh items for each circuit).  Not only can it help to liven up a boring race, it can make late season races much more exciting to watch even if – as has happened for the last two years – Max Verstappen runs away with the title with several races still to go, because there’s still bingo card events to look out for.

Hopefully there will be a much closer title battle in the 2024 season, but going by what happened on the first day of testing that is looking a bit of a forlorn hope. As Jeff Dodds, the CEO of Formula E said on Instagram “The F1 title is 99% done.  Max could put the trophy in his cabinet right now”.  He followed up with a pledge to give $250K to the winning driver if it’s someone else, to be donated to a charity of their choice.

Seriously though, with no driver changes and no major rule changes the 2024 Formula 1 season wasn’t looking like it was going to be a particularly exciting one.  In fact there are at least two other things going on that we thought were going to be much more exciting than the Formula 1 races.

• The 2024 silly season as so many driver contracts are up.  And boom! it’s all kicked off before the 2024 season has even started, with Mclaren and Ferrari acting to tie down their star drivers with long term contracts plus Lewis Hamilton’s shock move to Ferrari for 2025!
• Formula 2.  It’s a must-watch in 2024 because of the combination of a new car design and a very strong field including two incredibly promising young drivers (Ferrari junior Oliver Bearman and Mercedes junior Kimi Antonelli) duking it out at Prema for who’s going to be the Next Big Thing.  And just two grand prix weekends into the season, this got even more exciting as Bearman made a surprise step up to Formula 1 to substitute for the unwell Carlos Sainz.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating, however, and somehow the season took a turn for the better after just a few races! Suddenly it’s looking VERY much closer with SEVEN different race winners so far!

F1 returns from the summer break for Zandvoort on 23rd – 25th August followed by Monza on 30th August – 1st September, but we’re off on a summer break of your own and will see you when the autumn run of flyaway races begins at Baku on 13th – 15th September.

What’s On The Formula 1 2024 Season Bingo Card?

Most of the items from last year have been kept but some have been adjusted.  For example, crash or failure on way to or on grid becomes crash or failure before lights out to include anything that happens during the formation lap, and crash out from the lead was just a bit too unlikely so it becomes crash out from podium position (which did happen last year).

Some of the new items for 2024 are:

• Grid sandwich – when teammates come first and last in qualy and/or line up first and last on the grid (as Red Bull did more than once last year).  Either will do but pitlane starts don’t count.
• Lando Slam – assuming McLaren’s resurgence in form continues we could see quite a few instances of this podium celebration (which works best with a real bottle of champagne rather than the rosewater substitute that’s used in dry countries).  Let’s hope no trophies are damaged this time round.
• Sprint and GP have different winners – with 6 Sprint weekends, there’s a decent chance of this happening at least once.
• Maiden win (GP or Sprint) – to be clear, this means a driver who has not previously won a GP, winning a GP OR a driver who has not previously won a Sprint, winning a Sprint.  Since only 5 drivers (Verstappen, Bottas, Russell, Perez and Piastri) have won Sprints this not quite the long shot it would have been were it the GP only.
• Formula 1 record broken –  though you might want to exclude driver or constructor breaks own record, which happens every time Lewis Hamilton gets a pole position, win or podium.

The two super-unlikely items all British podium and Hülkenberg podium are staying because one can dream – and if you don’t want them, just remove those items before you generate your cards.

If you think there’s anything that should be on the 2024 card but isn’t, you can always add your own items before generating your cards.

Events That Definitely Weren’t On Last Year’s Bingo Card

One of the wonderful things about Formula One is that occasionally, really crazy stuff happens.  Here’s just a few of the wild things that happened during the 2023 season that no-one would ever have thought to put on the bingo card!

Track Limits Mayhem

• Driver gets multiple track limits penalties in one race
• Driver has all laps in a qualy session deleted because of track limits
• 2 or more drivers get post race time penalties
• Driver gets multiple post race time penalties

…all of which happened in the SAME race, Austria!

Make Your Mind Up

• Penalty applied then reversed – that was Fernando Alonso at Jeddah
• Race cancelled – two races (China and Imola) were cancelled in 2023
• Weekend format or rules changed with less than a week to go – this happened with the sprint format at Baku and the tyre rules at Qatar
• Car rejoins race after retiring – that was Sergio Perez at Suzuka

Demolition Derby

• Crash out from podium position on last lap – oh dear, George Russell
• Teammates collide during qualy – oh dear, Mercedes
• Car too damaged to start race – that was Lance Stroll in Singapore
• 2 x Safety Car or VSC in 1st 10 laps – you’d normally only expect to see this in the lower formulas, but it happened in Vegas
• Trophy damaged in post race celebrations – or how about two trophies damaged, in Hungary and Belgium?

Super Sub

I see your substitute driver scores points and I raise you driver substituting for a substitute scores points, overtaking both the original driver and the original substitute in the championship standings.  Surely we will see the clearly very talented Liam Lawson back on the grid in 2025, if not later in 2024!

What Happens If I Miss A Race?

If you miss a race – or indeed any part of a race weekend – check back here a couple of days after the race to catch up with what needs to be marked off.  You can also start playing part way though the season – either mark off all of the things that have already happened straight away or remove from the list before generating your cards.

Pre Season Testing – Bahrain February 21st – February 23rd

Red Bull dominance seems set to continue but with Ferrari a lot closer than last year.  The Mercedes looks much more driveable than in the last two years.  And there’s a whisper in the paddocok that Alpine might have dropped the ball and be slowest.  But it’s only testing and any or all teams could have been sandbagging.

Round 1 – Bahrain February 29th – March 2nd

Verstappen dominance seems set for the season, but Red Bull dominance, maybe not.  Yes they scored a 1-2 but Perez was a very distant second and both Mercedes and one Ferrari had mechanical issues slowing them down.

• 1-2 any team – Red Bull, right out of the box
• Race has 0 retirements – whoever would have thought this could happen in the very first race of the season?
• Driver argues about team orders – in the first race of the season, and over a non points paying position, really VCARB?  Many commenters on social media thought Yuki Tsunoda was robbed while others thought his post chequered flag antics immature.

As for what should have been on the card and got left off, how about pit stop fiasco?  A wheel nut got stuck on Valtteri Bottas’ car resulting in a pit stop lasting almost a minute.

Round 2 – Saudi Arabia March 7th – 9th

Jeddah would have been quite a boring race if it weren’t for the surprise debut of 18 year old Ferrari junior Oliver Bearman and the antics of Kevin Magnussen who held up the cars behind him to such an extent that an entire pit stop window opened in front of him allowing teammate Nico Hülkenberg to take the final points paying position.

• Substitute driver in race – and what a super sub, doing the most overtakes of anyone (4), keeping it clean and finishing 7th
• Driver gets 2 time penalties in same weekend – two 10 second penalties for Kevin Magnussen for a collision with Alex Albon and an off track overtake of Yuki Tsunoda
• Driver fails to set timed lap in qualy – Nico Hülkenberg had a power unit issue which prevented him completing a lap in Q2

Debatable are crash or failure before lights out (Gasly reported his gearbox issue on the formation lap but took the start then retired on lap 1) and double stack success (the teams who pitted both their drivers were able to do so easily because they weren’t close enough together on track for the second driver to have to wait, and McLaren and Mercedes didn’t pit both drivers to avoid losing time with a double stack)

Round 3 – Australia March 22nd – 24th

Last year’s Australian Grand Prix was an absolute shitshow that was the ONLY race in F1 history to be red flagged (and then restarted) three times.  The only way was up, and due to Max Verstappen’s brake fire the 2024 race was NOT the display of Red Bull dominance everyone was resigned to, but instead a display of Ferrari dominance as the Scuderia scored their first 1-2 for a very long time.  It doesn’t count as a championship leader nightmare weekend though, as Verstappen did take pole position.  And whatever happened to the Lando Slam?  Perhaps Lando Norris was too surprised at there being no Red Bull drivers on the podium with him to remember his trademark celebration?  Or maybe he’s saving it for his first win?

• Race ends under safety car – the VSC counts.  Normally George Russell’s last lap crash (not on the bingo card!) would have resulted in a red flag or at least a full safety car but it was too late to deploy either of those.
• Airborne accident – quite a spectacular crash it was too, with the car landing on its side right in the middle of the track
• Double DNF any team – quite the nightmare weekend for Mercedes, with their other car suffering a mechanical failure.

And another thing that wasn’t on the bingo card but perhaps should have been (although it’s rare in F1) – car too damaged to start race.  You have to feel for Logan Sargeant who had to relinquish his car to teammate Alex Albon after the latter crashed heavily in free practice.

Round 4 – Japan April 5th – 7th

Back to business as usual for Red Bull, but it was nice to see Yuki Tsunoda score a point at his home race.

• 3+ cars fail to cross the start finish line at the end of lap 1 – due to the red flag, no-one did
• Both drivers from a team cause red flag or SC in same weekend – adding to their chassis woes, Williams had to cope with a big crash by Sargeant in FP1 and Albon’s first lap collision with Ricciardo in the Grand Prix.  Both incidents caused red flags.
• Front row lockout any team – the only surprise is that it took Red Bull 4 races to manage it.

Round 5 – China April 19th -21st (Sprint)

After 4 years of the Chinese Grand Prix being cancelled, the 2024 grand prix weekend had easily enough incidents and excitement to make up for the missing races! And it was lovely to see Zhou Guanyu race in front of his home crowd even though he didn’t score any points.

• Wets/inters used qualy – inters were used in SQ3, which counts
• Pitlane start – by Logan Sargeant
• Pitlane crash, collision or near miss – take your pick of whether you want to mark this off for Zhou Guanyu and Yuki Tsunoda’ very close shave or for Pierre Gasly knocking down one of his mechanics
• Spin, crash or collision under safety car – Lance Stroll driving into the back of Danny Ric counts; it was during preparation for a SC restart but the restart hadn’t yet happened
• Lando Slam – splitting the Red Bulls was an achievement that deserved, and got, the signature move

As for weird shit that no-one could have predicted should be on the bingo card – how about trackside fire (as seen during sprint qualy)?

Round 6  – Miami May 3rd – 5th (Sprint)

Well that was eventful!

• Speeding in the pit lane – OK, so it was behind the safety car, but it got Lewis Hamilton a massive 20 second penalty in the Sprint
• Last lap overtake – Lewis Hamilton again, passing Yuki Tsunoda for what would have been the final point were it not for that post race penalty
• Teammate collision – the Aston Martins off the line in the Sprint
• Penalty for not serving a penalty correctly – Kevin Magnusson in the Grand Prix.  His antics throughout the weekend put him on 10 penalty points, and none of them expire this season, so a race ban is a real threat.
• Sub 2 second pitstop – astonishingly, both Red Bull and Ferrari managed this during the Grand Prix.
• Sprint and GP have different winners – which means…(we saved the best for last)
• Maiden win (GP or Sprint) – Lando Norris WINS the Miami Grand Prix!

Round 7 – Imola May 17th – 19th

Even without rain Imola cemented its position as a classic of the modern calendar. What looked like yet another Verstappen runaway became a very close finish with less than a second in it.

As for the bingo card, there’s nothing to mark off but there were 3 near misses. Rain is forecast but doesn’t happen can’t really be satisfied given the chance of rain was less than 10%.  Not getting a wheel on properly on Alex Albon’s car and rendering the only set of hards unusable is certainly a comedy blunder, but not really a comedy tyre strategy blunder.  And while Mercedes did bring George Russell in for a extra stop quite late, and he did go on to get fastest lap, it was because his tyres weren’t going to last till the end of the race so doesn’t count for late pit stop for fastest lap.

Round 8 – Monaco May 24th -26th

2024 turned out to be the year Charles Leclerc finally broke the curse and performed well at his home race!  Apart from that, if you dozed off in the middle of this race and missed all but the first and last few laps you honestly wouldn’t have missed anything important.  There were literally about 3 overtakes in the whole race and all for cars out of the points.  If you’ve played our bingo cards in previous years you will know that top 4 finish in their grid positions was an item that was dumped because it turned out to be so surprisingly rare; this year’s Monaco race saw the top 10 finish in their grid positions. Lap 1 was exciting for all the wrong reasons with three different accidents on track, but after that only the desire of most watching to see the home hero win plus the skilful defending towards the end of the race on very tired old tyres by both Oscar Piastri and George Russell was at all interesting.

• Win home grand prix – a very popular victory for Charles Leclerc, the only Monégasque driver ever to win the Monaco Grand Prix
• Championship leader nightmare weekend – he did score points, but qualifying 6th and spending the entire race “pootling around” as the filling in a Mercedes sandwich is surely the stuff of nightmares for Max Verstappen.

And another near miss for comedy tyre strategy blunder – Russell and Gasly both made the medium tyre last the whole 77 laps after changing off the hard during the red flag, to score points.

Round 9 – Canada June 7th – 9th

You can always rely on Canada to produce an exciting race and this year’s did not disappoint – unless you’re Ferrari. Or Williams.

• Wets/inters used race
• 2 or more (SC or red flag) restarts in one race – in the event, both safety car restarts.
• Comedy tyre strategy blunder – oh dear, Ferrari, sending Charles Leclerc out on slicks just as it started to rain again! He lost an entire pit stop worth of time in just one lap.
• Trackside despair! – Made all the more poignant by not being broadcast, the photos of Logan Sargeant sitting despondently in a camping chair after crashing out would fit right in at the “Imola picnic”.  Surely he has now blown his last chance of being on the grid next year.
• F1 record broken – Fernando Alonso is now the record holder for the longest time between first and last points scored – a whopping 21 years, 2 months and 17 days. The record was previously held by Michael Schumacher, and Alonso will now be breaking it again at every race he scores points.  Also, Nico Hülkenberg is now equal with Andrea de Cesaris at 214 race entries without a win, but has 211 starts to 208. He’ll be breaking that record again every race for the rest of the season.

And something that should have been on the card that wasn’t – animal on track.  Although you were probably too busy watching the Leclerc tyre fiasco to spot Max Verstappen vs a groundhog on lap 31.

Round 10 – Spain June 21st – 23rd

Spain is generally considered to be one of the less exciting races on the calendar but this year saw many exciting moves on track, from George Russell’s striking move at the start to Lando Norris chasing Max Verstappen down in the closing stages and finishing just a couple of seconds behind him. The rest of the season is looking so much more competitive than we thought back in March.

• Rain is forecast but doesn’t happen – in the event, only F3 got rained on
• FP or qualy collision – Lance Stroll’s collision with Lewis Hamilton in FP3 was generally considered to be deliberate and earned him a reprimand from the stewards

Spain was the second race of the season to have 0 retirements, and all British podium is not looking like a ridiculous idea any more – either of the last two races would have delivered just that in the event of a Red Bull mishap or mechanical failure.

Round 11 – Austria June 28th – 30th (Sprint)

“If there’s anything to do with track limits left on your bingo card, expect to mark it off during this round” we said.  And then they mostly fixed the track limits issues with tiny gravel traps, and the excitement turned out to be something else entirely.

• Crash out from podium position – the collision that left Lando Norris unable to continue and dropped Max Vertappen to 5th certainly qualifies!
• Late pit stop for fastest lap – Alonso finished a lap down in 18th so no point for this

We were just one Oscar Piastri overtake away from none of top 3 on the grid finish on the podium.  And Sergios Perez was lucky not to be lapped by team mate (on track).

Round 12 – Great Britain July 5th – 7th

“This weekend is probably the best shot at an all British podium (but still a long one)” we said – and indeed it was, and not such a long one after all, with a British 1-2-3 in qualy.  And before we go on to what you can daub this week, let’s just revisit F1 record broken and revel in Lewis Hamilton becoming the only F1 driver with more than 300 starts to win a race, the only driver to win 9 times at the same track, the oldest race winner of the 21st century, the driver with the longest time span (17 years and one month) between first and last wins and of course breaking his own record for the most wins and the most podiums.

• Driver gets 2+ grid penalties in same weekend – adding up to 50 places of penalties for Pierre Gasly, only for him to suffer a mechanical failure before the race even got going
• Win teammate home grand prix – Lewis Hamilton again, in the unusual position of being able to win both his home grand prix and his teammate’s at the same time
• Lapped by teammate (on track) – another shocker from Sergio Perez who actually ended the race two laps down on Max Verstappen
• Double stack success – Mercedes showed how it should be done – if only McLaren had followed suit instead of leaving Oscar Piastri out in the rain

Round 13 – Hungary July 19th – 21st

Lewis Hamilton reached the landmark of 200 podiums but that went almost under the radar due to the radio antics of Lando Norris (who was unhappy with team orders) and Max Verstappen (who was unhappy with just about everything).  Netflix must be loving it.

• 2 or more red flags in qualy – caused by Sergio Perez crashing in Q1 and Yuki Tsunoda crashing in Q3

There was a near miss for driver makes up 10+ places from grid position – Perez and Russell each made up 9 places after being eliminated in Q1 (Perez because of his crash, Russell because he didn’t have enough fuel to complete a final flying lap).

Round 14 – Belgium July 26th – 28th

Spa is another one of the absolute all time classic tracks.  It’s very susceptible to bad weather and the last few years have seen the race all but cancelled (2021) and the start delayed (2023 Sprint) because of torrential rain.  This year, rain only affected qualy but even without any weather issues the race was a nail biter.  And how could we have left disqualification for tech infringement off the bingo card?

• Weather related red flag – in FP3 rather than race or qualy, but that will do

Round 15 – The Netherlands August 23rd – 25th

More of a party than a serious grand prix, this is the home race of Max Verstappen so expect to see the orange army out in force!

Round 16 – Italy (Monza) August 30th – September 1st

Last year’s Monza race was a disappointing and boring display of Red Bull dominance.  Let’s hope that the 2024 event is a return to the kind of form that throws us exciting curveballs like Pierre Gasly’s 2020 win and McLaren’s 2021 1-2 finish.

Round 17 – Baku September 13th – 15th

The Azerbaijani Grand Prix has moved from its usual early season slot which means car development trajectories will be much better known.  It should still be a super exciting race though, right?  And let’s hope it’s for the right reasons this time – Esteban Ocon pitting at the end of lap 50 to find the pitlane full of people was definitely the wrong kind of excitement. Expect to cross off several items involving red flags if you haven’t already done so.

Round 18 – Singapore September 20th – 22nd

Every year has its crazy race, and in 2023 it was Singapore.  Red Bull’s dominance going AWOL, George Russell crashing out on the last lap from a podium position, supersub Liam Lawson scoring points and the EXTRAORDINARY spectacle of the first four cars in the race line astern in a DRS train, with less than 2 seconds between 1st and 4th and just a few laps left to go made it so very much more gripping than the rest of the season.  It’s going to be hard to top that in 2024!

You may have heard that there are corruption allegations regarding the funding of this race.  A former transport minister who was involved with the deal has indeed been charged with 27 corruption counts and this has led to a government review of the contract, but they remain committed to hosting the race.

Round 19 – USA (COTA) October 18th – 20th (Sprint)

Still considered by many to be the US Grand Prix (with the other two tracks as upstarts), COTA has issues with the bumpiness of the track which last year caused DSQs because of the plank being too worn.  Logan Sargeant is the only driver to have three opportunities to score points at home and last year, COTA was where he scored his first points.

Round 20 – Mexico October 25th – 27th

Home for Sergio Perez, but if his erratic form from last year continues, will he even make it this far?  The Mexico race can also be somewhat unpredictable (though not last year!) due to the high altitude affecting car aerodynamics.

Round 21 – Brazil November 1st – 3rd (Sprint)

Interlagos can ALWAYS be relied upon to produce a thrilling race weekend and last year was no exception. Fernando Alonso’s perfectly set up last lap overtake of Sergio Perez for the final podium position in the Grand Prix, beating him to the line by just 0.053 of a second, was an absolute masterclass in how to work magic against a rival in a superior car.

Round 22 – Las Vegas November 21st – 2rd

The inaugural Las Vegas event in 2023 was a much more interesting and entertaining Grand Prix than anyone expected, with a thrilling conclusion as Sergio Perez was again overtaken on the last lap, by Charles Leclerc this time.

Round 23 – Qatar November 29th – December 1st (Sprint)

The Qatar race will take place 6 weeks later in the season in 2024 than it did in 2023, to avoid the crippling heat and humidity that poleaxed so many of the drivers.  It’s to be hoped that the tyre allocations will be a bit better thought out this year as well.

Round 23 – Abu Dhabi December 6th – 8th

Yas Marina is no longer quite the snorefest it used to be since track changes improved the racing.  And maybe, like last year, some important driver and constructor fights will go right down to the wire. But unless Red Bull have had a major upset, the most exciting part of this last weekend of the season may very well be the Formula 2 finale.

How To Use the 2024 F1 Season Bingo Cards

1. Tap To Start
2. Add any extra events you want to appear on your cards to the list and remove any you don’t like or don’t want.
3. We suggest keeping the grid size at 5×5 to ensure there’s enough items to hold everyone’s interest all the way through the season, but you can reduce to 4×4 or 3×3 if you like.
4. Generate Bingo Cards
5. To play for the entire season, it’s probaby easiest to use printed cards.  You can generate a set to print by entering the number you want in the Custom Number To Print box.  It’s best to print several more than you need in case your watch party grows as the season progresses, and also so that people can pick a card they think will be fun to play (e.g. Hülkenberg podium in the centre square if you like a challenge, driver argues about team orders if you don’t!)
6. Generate Printable Cards; this takes you to a page with all your cards on which you can print right away, or save the URL for later use when you are near a printer.
7. Alternatively you can invite through email; this sends each of your chosen recipients a link to their own unique card. The cards persist, so you can mark off a square and see it change colour, and find it still marked off the next time you visit.  This might not work for the entire season (because of phone or browser software updates etc) so we suggest taking a screenshot after each weekend just in case.
8. Watch and enjoy!  The winner is the first to mark everything off on their card, or if no-one manages to do that, the person with the most lines completed when the season ends on December 8th with the Abu Dhabi race.