2024-09-01 06:44:14
Max Verstappen seemed to have secured the next world championship title. His lead is large. Nevertheless, an exciting scenario looms.
“It’s alarming. The team has to work harder or both world championships are in danger”: With these words, Red Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko finally declares the situation serious. At the beginning of the season, no fan, journalist or participant would have expected to hear such concerned statements from the Red Bull team, the dominant force in Formula 1.
But the tide finally turned in the premier class with the Dutch Grand Prix last week. The reigning world champion Max Verstappen suffered a thrashing at his home race. Verstappen finished a full 23 seconds behind race winner Lando Norris in his McLaren. Although he won the start of the race and initially overtook Norris, he had to let the Brit overtake and then pull away just a few laps later. A scenario that would have been unthinkable at the start of the season. The battle for the world championship has now finally begun – and it promises to be extremely exciting.
Verstappen has now been waiting for a win for five races – a streak that has not been seen since 2020. Verstappen still has an impressive 70-point lead over pursuer Norris in the drivers’ championship. However, things are looking much more explosive for Red Bull in the team standings: only 30 points separate them from McLaren.
The trend at Red Bull, which at the beginning of the season seemed to be continuing its successful years and won four of the first five races, is going in the wrong direction. The updates with which the Austrian racing team wanted to make its car even faster seem to have had the opposite effect. Verstappen repeatedly complained in recent races about the poor drivability of his car.
At the next race in Monza this weekend, Red Bull will therefore pull the emergency brake and wants to use older parts that have performed well in the past.
McLaren is completely different. The traditional British racing team started the season with a considerable gap to Red Bull. Norris only finished eighth in the first race in Bahrain – a good 48 seconds behind race winner Verstappen.
The turning point came in Miami: For the sixth race of the season, McLaren had brought a comprehensive update. From the front wing to parts of the rear wing: the team had revised its car in a total of eleven places, essentially building a B version of the car – and hit the nail on the head.
In Miami, Norris was able to make direct use of the new speed of his McLaren – and achieved his first career success. Since then, the British racing team has been at least on a par with Red Bull, but has lost several more victories due to driving and strategy errors.
Norris also gave up his pole position at the start of the race in Zandvoort, but was later able to correct his mistake. However, due to the many mistakes, Norris is still skeptical about his chances of winning the World Championship: “I have to get better. I’ve worked hard all year and I’m still 70 points behind Max. So it’s pretty stupid to think about anything at the moment,” said Norris. “I’m going to take one race at a time and carry on as I have been, because there’s no point in thinking about the rest. I don’t care about that at the moment,” continued the 24-year-old.
His team boss Andrea Stella took on the part of self-confidence. Norris “definitely has the potential to be a world champion,” he said. “He can win world championships. That’s a statement in capital letters,” Stella continued.
In order to actually achieve this goal, given the still considerable gap, McLaren wants to take inspiration from the German four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel. In 2013, after the summer break – although he was already leading the world championship – he won all nine remaining races and thus secured his fourth title in dominant fashion.