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| Max Verstappen has found Lando Norris to be a much closer title challenger than expected at the start of the season. Clive Mason - Formula 1/Formula 1 via Getty Images |
Out of nowhere, the 2024 Formula One season has turned into one of the most competitive in a long while. What looked set to be a dominant year for Max Verstappen and Red Bull has produced different race winners from three different teams, including two drivers claiming their first F1 victories.
Wind the clock back to the end of April, after Verstappen's fourth comfortable win in five races, and that scenario would have seemed farfetched. So how did the season flip around so dramatically?
Red Bull dominates as tension simmers
The start to Red Bull's season was bizarre. Off track, the team and -- and the series -- was consumed by the controversy around the Christian Horner misconduct investigation, but on track, Red Bull's early performance was ominous.
The reigning champions looked comfortably clear of the rest in Bahrain's preseason tests and the run of easy wins that followed suggested a one-sided season would follow. Verstappen was not only comfortably beating teammate Sergio Pérez, Red Bull seemed to be a clear step ahead of its nearest rivals.
Verstappen seemed on pace to match or beat his record-shattering form of 2023. He might have won five straight to kick off the season were it not for a brake fire at the Australian Grand Prix, which forced him to retire from the race. Ferrari's Carlos Sainz, fresh off the back of having his appendix removed, claimed a memorable win in Verstappen's absence.
Verstappen's victories either side of Australia were significant in winning margin. His advantage over the next non-Red Bull car was 25 seconds in Bahrain, 18 seconds in Saudi Arabia, 20 seconds in Japan and 13 seconds in China.
It wasn't all plain sailing for the world champions, though, as tensions escalated amid reports of internal power struggles within Red Bull GmbH. The team spent much of the Saudi Arabian GP weekend denying reports Verstappen was set for a blockbuster move to Mercedes in either 2025 or 2026, with the Dutchman saying he would not remain at the team if long-time racing adviser Helmut Marko was forced out. While having no bearing on the team's on-track form, it has been hard to escape the feeling Red Bull's dominant dynasty was creaking, and the months that followed the Chinese Grand Prix have proven that to be the case.
Norris' breakthrough win
Everything changed at the Miami Grand Prix. The compelling off-track drama around Red Bull's season had continued on the eve of the Florida race, with the team confirming technical director Adrian Newey would leave in early 2025. While the media focused on the next step for F1's greatest car designer, McLaren arrived with an upgrade package aimed at making its car more of an all-rounder, trading off some of its high-speed prowess for some gains in slow- and medium-speed corners. The team was quietly confident it would become more competitive in the long run.
The first signs were not convincing, with McLaren underwhelming in the sprint race and qualifying, but then came Sunday. On a day that bizarrely started with a visit from former President Donald Trump to the team's garage a few hours before lights out, victory had not looked likely in the opening laps. Verstappen had been leading, with the only jeopardy early on being a collision with the bollard at the chicane under the interstate.
Lando Norris started to move up the field as Verstappen and his other rivals pitted around him, and the Englishman's patient approach was rewarded on lap 29, when a safety car came out for a collision between Logan Sargeant and Kevin Magnussen. That triggered the safety car at the perfect moment for Norris, allowing him to pit and remain in the lead, one he would not relinquish until the finish, with impressive pace allowing him to keep Verstappen at arm's length.
While there was a fortuitous element to Norris' first F1 victory, there was no denying the potential of McLaren's new upgraded package. The team left the U.S. buoyed by the win and excited by the prospect of what was to come.
The talk of the paddock going to Imola was simple: was McLaren's Miami win a one-off, or did it now have a car that could challenge Red Bull on pure pace? The next race, Imola's Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, would provide a clue. Red Bull brought an upgrade of its own, hoping to reestablish the gap of the opening rounds, but McLaren stayed close. Verstappen and Norris locked out the front row together and raced off into the distance in a contest of their own.
Verstappen appeared to have the win locked up until the closing laps, when a warning flag for track-limits violations for the Dutchman coincided with Norris' car coming alive in the final stint. Verstappen's cautious drive to the flag allowed Norris to close right up, but the latter never quite got close enough to make a pass, crossing 0.7 seconds behind -- Norris would later say he would have won if the race was one lap longer. It was an agonising second place for the McLaren star, but F1 appeared to have an answer to that question: McLaren was now in the fight and Red Bull had been pegged back.
Reversing the curse
It wasn't just McLaren who Red Bull had to keep an eye on. Ferrari had started the season as its strongest rival. The Italian team had been disappointed that its own upgrade for Imola had not delivered the same gains McLaren had discovered one race earlier, but coming to Monaco, a place where hometown hero Charles Leclerc had never won, Ferrari's car appeared to be the one to beat. The narrow and bumpy streets suited the SF-24 better than any others, and after years of heartbreaking setbacks, Leclerc finally got it done, claiming a popular and emotional victory. Crucially, the day earlier Leclerc had broken Verstappen's run of eight consecutive pole positions, which stretched back to last year's season finale in Abu Dhabi, and was able to control the race out in front as a result.
Red Bull's car was in a really bad place all weekend and Verstappen could only qualify sixth, where he would finish. Both Ferraris and McLarens would finish ahead of him, while Verstappen's fight in the race was with the Mercedes cars of George Russell and Lewis Hamilton. No one knew it then, but that was foreshadowing what was to come just a few races later.
Verstappen wins as rivals fluff their lines
While Ferrari left Monaco on a high, the Italian team would fade over the two months that followed. Mercedes would move into Ferrari's spot in the pecking order, while McLaren continued its rise, although more agonising results were on the horizon.
A surprising pole position followed in Canada for Russell. Mercedes had introduced a new front wing in Monaco, but it had little noticeable impact on the performance. The Montreal race was a major breakthrough in Mercedes' season. Technical director James Allison later said Canada was "more of an 'Oh God, how could we have been so dumb?!' type moment," as the team realised a clear development path forward for the team.
Russell could have won the race, too, but made a key mistake while leading. Norris might also have won, but found himself on the other side of the safety car luck he had in Miami when the race was neutralised too late for McLaren to react appropriately. Verstappen dutifully won with a superb drive in a car that was no longer the clear favourite.
Verstappen would continue to show his championship credentials in Spain. Norris had beaten him to pole position on Saturday but a sluggish getaway let Verstappen lead into Turn 1. Norris reeled in the Dutchman over the closing laps but the three-time world champion turned in a faultless drive to win again, extending his title lead to 69 points.
Mercedes back in business
While Verstappen's comfortable points lead meant talk of a title fight with Norris felt a little forced, a major flashpoint then happened in Austria. Since its Miami upgrade, McLaren had continually refined its package and seemed to be finding more performance with each passing week. Norris, especially, was stung by the growing focus on the victories he had let slip through his fingers, was fired up, and as he had done in Imola and Montreal, slashed away at a comfortable Verstappen lead over the final laps.
Verstappen, who never properly shook the label of being a driver who blurs the line of what is acceptable in wheel-to-wheel battles, held his ground as Norris made several optimistic lunges down the inside of Turn 3. Then came the collision two laps from the end -- Norris tried to go around the outside, but the pair made contact. Norris would retire from the race, sacrificing a big chunk of points in the process, as Verstappen recovered to fifth. The biggest benefactor was Russell in third, who claimed Mercedes' first win since November 2022.
While Mercedes had inherited a win in Austria, a memorable win on merit came at the British Grand Prix a week later. Russell had beaten fellow countrymen Norris and Hamilton to pole on Saturday, as Verstappen settled for fourth. Sunday's contest at Silverstone was captivating. As had become a theme of their season since Miami, McLaren threw away a win for both Norris and Oscar Piastri, with two questionable strategy calls either side of the race. Hamilton would win, his first since late 2021, confirming the progress Mercedes had finally made with its most recent upgrade.
Verstappen had recovered well to third position, minimising the championship damage done by Norris in second, but Mercedes now looked like a legitimate contender for victories along with McLaren.
Pressure builds on Pérez
The alarm bells at Red Bull were ringing loudly by this point in the season. While Verstappen had raced admirably as the car had become more difficult to drive, Pérez was in a startling spiral of form. He had crashed out of qualifying at Silverstone and would do so again ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix.
The Budapest race would be a difficult one for the world champions, with Verstappen spending much of the contest arguing with the Red Bull pit wall over the radio. A late clash with Hamilton saw him finish fifth.
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| Sergio Pérez's dour form has made Red Bull's hopes of a third straight constructors' championship increasingly slim. Photo by Jayce Illman/Getty Images |
Up ahead, McLaren finally got it right, albeit with a bit of a mess. Piastri claimed his first F1 win, but only after Norris obeyed a team order (after a great deal of pleading and cajoling from the McLaren pit wall) to hand back the position. McLaren had given Norris a much more favourable strategy to fend off the threat of Hamilton behind, which wound up allowing him to leapfrog Piastri.
Going to Belgium, Red Bull knew Pérez needed to up his game. Verstappen would qualify quickest but dropped to 11th after an engine change penalty. Pérez qualified second in the rain, but faded disappointingly in the race. A thrilling finish saw Russell do one stop fewer than his rivals and win, holding off teammate Hamilton and Piastri in the closing stages, only to lose the win hours later because of a technical infringement. The trophy stayed with Mercedes, with Hamilton moving up into first, helping to underline the remarkable turnaround the team had in the races leading into August's summer break.
Russell's disqualification moved Leclerc up on to the podium, only Ferrari's second since Monaco. Of the top four teams, Ferrari went into the summer break with the biggest questions, having seen McLaren and Mercedes emerge as genuine victory contenders at most circuits.
Who wins from here?
Verstappen's 79-point lead in the drivers' championship is pretty strong; only some dramatic setbacks on his side, and a run of corresponding wins for Norris, would make that a real fight. Despite his frustrations over the past few races, Verstappen should wrap up the championship before the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix at the end of the season.
The constructors' championship is a completely different story. Red Bull's surprising call to stick with Pérez beyond the summer break -- sources had suggested he could have been replaced by either Daniel Ricciardo or Liam Lawson before the Dutch Grand Prix -- was a big show of support for the struggling Mexican driver, but would have been music to the ears of its rivals.
It is Pérez who has allowed the contractors' championship to look so competitive. For all the talk of Red Bull's struggles, the team has effectively been fighting against the rest with one car; Pérez's contribution since his podium at the Chinese Grand Prix has been a paltry 45 points, compared with 151 for Verstappen, 134 for Norris, 126 for Hamilton, 119 for Piastri, 84 for Sainz, 82 for Leclerc and 76 for Russell.
As McLaren CEO Zak Brown told the BBC this week: "It's gonna come down to: How does Sergio Pérez perform? If he can perform as he's capable of performing, it's going to be a hard fight. If he continues to perform as he has this year, we have a pretty good chance."
- Nate Saunders, General Editor, F1
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