F1 title permutation: What Lando Norris needs to do to overhaul Max Verstappen for 2024 championship | F1 News

The Formula 1 season is unpredictable now with just five race weekends to go, Max Verstappen is still on course for a fourth consecutive world title, although Red Bull has been overtaken as F1’s fastest team – but McLaren’s rival, Lando Norris didn’t give up. not yet.

Ahead of the second leg of F1’s triple-header race in the Americas at the Mexico City Grand Prix, Norris needs a big weekend if he really burns the chase after failing to maintain the new momentum by taking points from Verstappen’s once-strong points lead through the weekend of the US GP.

Here’s a look at everything you need to know about what’s going on in the Verstappen-Norris battle and what it means for the title to go right now…

How is it playing in the championship?

Champion of the championship Verstappen leads 57 pwt over Norris with five rounds of the season remaining.

In what could be the last weekend of the season last season in Austin, Verstappen increased his advantage by five points by finishing Norris in two Sprints – which he won with the McLaren driver three times – and then took over. The final podium place in the Grand Prix after the British rival lost third through a controversial five-second time penalty imposed by the stewards’ after an investigation into the late-race overtake.

Verstappen’s lead is now more than equal to the maximum of 26 points a driver can claim over two non-Sprint race weekends – 25 for the win and one for the fastest lap in each GP – and at this stage it certainly represents a commanding cushion with so. few races left.

How many points are left to play for?

There remains a maximum 146 points to earn for drivers over the last five race weekends of the season.

That’s 130 in five grand prix (25 for wins and one for fastest lap in each race) and 16 in the two Sprint races still to come (eight points for wins) in Brazil and Qatar.

What rate does Norris need to beat Verstappen?

On top of the challenge he now faces after the Austin event to pull off what has been considered a miraculous championship turnaround, the level of advantage Norris needs over Verstappen has now increased significantly. an average of more than 11 points per race weekend.

The average gain can be achieved in each race by Norris, for example, by finishing first and Verstappen fourth (13 points difference), for example.

More precisely, it works as an average weekend gain of 11.6 points so that Norris could complete the championship by one point from Verstappen.

An average advantage of 11.4 points from the McLaren driver will finish the campaign in points, while the title will be determined in the countback results between the pair during the season (with the win counted first). But Verstappen now has seven wins to Norris’s three and the latter can, at best, only now get the maximum of eight wins for the year if he doesn’t lose until the end of the campaign.

Will Norris do enough before Verstappen returns in the US?

Norris arrives in Austin having taken points from Verstappen in all four races since the August summer break (a total of 26 points in the Netherlands, Italy, Azerbaijan, Singapore) but even that level of advantage (6.5 points per weekend) will not prove enough though has been done during other campaigns.

The fact Verstappen went on to beat him by five points in the United States and the level of advantage Norris needed was now in double figures clearly illustrates the scale of the title challenger’s efforts.

Indeed, the only time this season Norris beat Verstappen by the average points margin now needed until the end of the season to wrestle the title fight was back at the Australian GP in April when Verstappen retired and finished third (15). point).

Norris’ efforts are still being helped by the fact that two of the five weekends still have Sprint races – Brazil and Qatar – but see the section below for what is now needed…

Is Norris the winner if he wins every race with Verstappen second?

Not.

Astonishingly, perhaps after Singapore in the last six rounds in mid-September, Norris clung to the bonus point for the fastest lap of the race with a dominant win.

However, Daniel Ricciardo, somewhat controversially, took the distance from Norris at RB, the sister team of Red Bull, with new tires when running 17th at the end of the race and improved McLaren’s benchmark time in what proved to be the last act in the seat.

How quickly can the title be theoretically won?

Whatever happens over the next few weeks, the earliest the title could be won with Verstappen theorizing that a fantastic result would be the Sao Paulo GP weekend on November 1-3.

But such a prospect is unlikely given that to win in Brazil, Verstappen will need to finish the weekend at least 86 points clear at the top – 29 more than his current lead over two race weekends.

But if Norris does not make more serious places in Mexico and Brazil, then the coronation under the lights of Las Vegas on November 24 can be imagined, when Verstappen should end the event 61 (or 60 in the countdown) points in front, just a few more. than now.

Norris, of course, will have other ideas and aims to take the challenge all the way to the two-round finale in the Middle East, Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

How costly is a DNF to a driver?

For Verstappen the retirement of the race will damage it but it can still be restored; for Norris it will effectively prove the game over.

The risk of a 25/26-point swing in the championship in this decisive final stage will have major consequences for the rest of the title fight, especially if challengers McLaren fail to see the flag in the race.

But when the DNF one-off, or no-point finish after the late-race drama, certainly cannot be excluded for one of the drivers given the variables at play in F1, the chance for some car problems intervene in this battle over his season. a closing week seems unlikely.

Verstappen has failed to finish just once in the last 69 races – when his brakes failed at this year’s Australian GP – since the start of 2022, while Norris’ last mechanical-related DNF was in November 2022 at that year’s Sao Paulo GP. The McLaren driver has only retired since then at this year’s Austrian GP in June due to damage he suffered in a collision with rival Red Bull during a battle for the race leaders.

Is Leclerc still in contention?

Mathematics-speaking onlywith 146 points still to play for in F1 2024 the top five drivers in the championship (Verstappen, Norris, Charles Leclerc, Oscar Piastri and Carlos Sainz) are not officially it’s out yet.

Of course, the ranking of points makes a different reading in reality and if the right context is applied. So the reality is that even the prospect of Leclerc finishing third – a stunning winner in the US – is extremely slim.

Leclerc’s deficit to Verstappen is 79 points – more than three race wins – so he needs to beat the Red Bull driver by 16 race points until the end of the year. Highly, highly unlikely. Then he had to fix Norris as well.

However, thanks to recent victories in Monza and Austin, Leclerc can still run clear of the McLaren driver for second place with the Briton just 22 points ahead of him. And Ferrari too, 48 points behind McLaren, who are eyeing up late on the constructors’ title for the first time in 16 years.

Who has the faster car to run?

It’s an increasingly difficult question to answer, especially after Ferrari’s impressive reign to claim a comfortable one-two result at the Circuit of the Americas ahead of title contenders Verstappen and Norris.

Before and after almost a month’s rest this season, a resurgent McLaren had won four of the previous six races – two for Norris and two for Piastri – with Red Bull and Verstappen without a Grand Prix win since June’s Spanish round.

Verstappen won the Sprint in Austin, but Red Bull failed to show that form during the longer distance Grand Prix, meaning the title leader has now gone nine races and four months without standing on Sunday’s podium.

With the Mercedes upgrade also showed random flashes of impressive speed last time out, only to fall flat when it really mattered, the competitive image from session-to-session, let alone track-to-track, remains very hard to read heading to a Circuit Autodromo Hermanos Rodríguez in Mexico where the high ground makes it a unique challenge and can often create a surprise pecking order.

America’s Formula 1 triple header continues this weekend with the Mexico City Grand Prix, with every session live on Sky Sports F1. Stream every F1 race and more with Sports Month Membership NOW – No contract, cancel anytime