Max Verstappen and Lando Norris data revealed ahead of 10-race showdown

Max Verstappen and Lando Norris are starring alongside their respective Red Bull and McLaren teams as they reignite their title battle this week.

After an unchallenged start to the season, only diminished by an unexpected retirement in Australia, Verstappen took five wins in the first seven races at the start of the year. Since then, he has only managed two more victories in the wake of McLaren’s renaissance and Mercedes’ green shoots.

The 2024 F1 battle resumes this week in Zandvoort

The truth is that despite having the strongest car since the Miami GP, Lando Norris and McLaren have not taken their chances to cut more points from Max Verstappen. On the contrary to the Dutchman, who despite being on the tightrope on many occasions, has taken the maximum out of the RB20.

However, we have seen him fail under pressure in Austria and then in Hungary, where he lost patience with a Red Bull strategy that aimed to allow him to fight for the victory and not just settle for a podium in P3.

Despite these mistakes by Verstappen, Norris has made much more notable errors – especially when it was his turn to lead and maintain the ‘number one’ status ahead of Max.

Lando is the driver in the ‘Big Four’ teams who has lost the most positions on the opening lap of the first 14 races this year.

His most costly mistakes came at the Spanish and Hungarian GPs where he had everything in hand to go through Turn 1 in P1 and fight for victory with the strongest car on the grid.

So what can we expect in the second half of the season? The last 10 races on the calendar are of a ‘faster’ nature than the circuits F1 has already visited this year, with the exception of the Singapore GP at the end of September.

In this sense, this must be to Red Bull’s advantage even though McLaren remains the strongest car at the moment and the favourite to maintain this status until the end of the season.

This, of course, unless Red Bull, Mercedes or Ferrari are able to introduce a radical upgrade that makes one of them stand out above the rest, which is hard to imagine at this stage.

The future is uncertain, but surely Lando Norris‘ best chance of closing the gap to Max Verstappen in the Drivers’ Championship fight is already gone.

There are many races to go, yes, but the gap between the two is too wide to close in 10 races unless McLaren can pull off another successful upgrade of its MCL38 as it did in Miami. This, undoubtedly, marked a before and after in the first half of the season.

And while this may sound harsh and difficult to take, it must surely be a great lesson for Norris because in the 2025 season where everything will be much tighter, making the mistakes he has made this year will be much more costly.

But there are still races left to try to reverse the situation and put Max Verstappen in trouble – although it won’t be easy.

The Dutchman can be rest assured that he is still 78 points ahead of Norris. In other words, to overtake him, Norris would have to cut an average of 7.8 points per race.

It would be enough for Max to finish second in all the remaining races even if Lando wins them all – not counting the bonus points for fastest lap.

In that scenario, Verstappen would be champion, but Red Bull would finish second in the Constructors’ Championship assuming Sergio Perez maintains the same negative trend as in the last seven races.

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