3 F1 teams that appear to be completely out of sorts ahead of the 2024 season

The countdown to the 2024 F1 season has begun with less than 50 days left for the first race. Well, even before the season begins, there appears to be a lot of movement within teams. While the 2024 grid would be the same as the grid that last raced in 2023, we cannot say the same about the team principals.

Guenther Steiner, a name that was one of the more recognized personas on the grid, won't be there in 2024 as Gene Haas decided against renewing the American's contract.

Heading into the 2024 F1 season while some teams would be hoping for a better run this season compared to last, others are probably not in the best shape.

In this feature, we will take a look at three teams on the F1 grid that are completely out of sorts at the moment.

#1 Haas

Amongst all the breaking news and sensationalism, there's just one detail that many have forgotten. That detail is the very fact that Haas does not have a technical director at the moment and the last one to leave the team was because he wanted the team owner to make more investments, which was declined.

To add to this, the man who has led the team since its inception and has been synonymous with the name of the team has also left. Last season, there was one thing that became quite clear about Haas - the team had no clue or understanding about its car behavior as well.

This wasn't the first time in the last few years and it was a sign of a gap in technical know-how. Haas is a team in dire need of investment, something that the boss is adamant he won't do.

In all of this, the team's future looks vulnerable at best and out of sorts at worst.

#2 Alpine

Just like Haas, Alpine went through a senior management purge that left a lot of people surprised. The surprise turned into disappointment followed by indifference from the fans as even they slowly turned on the team.

Just like Haas, Alpine opted against replacing Otmar Szafneur and promoting Bruno Famin instead. Is Bruno the right person to lead the team? Who knows. For now, though, the team seems to be struggling with a real lack of purpose and direction.

For a long time, Bruno was considered to be an intermediate team principal. Now it appears that he'll be keeping the position until Alpine finds someone else more suitable or Bruno fits the purpose.

The team getting rid of experienced personnel like Otmar Szafneur was supposed to be due to a disagreement when it came to when Alpine could be a frontrunner.

The timeline Otmar set was just too long for the French squad so he was shown the door. Unfortunately for the F1 team, after Otmar's departure, the team took a step back last season instead of going forward.

There are a lot of question marks around Alpine at this stage, and it does appear that the team is not entirely sure what direction it wants to take.

#3 Stake F1 team

It's hard to deny that the entire 'Audi to F1' experience has been a bit underwhelming. The German squad will take over Sauber eventually and is already a minority shareholder in the team. But if you look at the team and other overall structure it does not inspire much confidence.

Be it the overall setup, the on-track performance, the most basic level, or the drivers, none of it seems attractive enough for a giant German to come and take over.

Other than Andreas Seidl who took over as CEO of the operation last season, there haven't been that many bright spots and you have to wonder if everything is proceeding as planned within the F1 team.