The combination of Red Bull and Max Verstappen has been almost unbeatable at times. And it appears to have left rival drivers demoralised.
Verstappen has won four out of five Grands Prix this year, all by a margin of at least 12 seconds. It might well have been a clean sweep had he not retired with a brake issue in Australia.
Going back to the start of last year, when he put together the most dominant season F1 has ever seen, he’s won 23 of the last 27. And if we take it back even further to the beginning of 2022, it’s 38 of the last 49.
This era of F1 has truly belonged to him. We’ve seen plenty of drivers run away with the championship before, but few have looked as invulnerable when doing so.
Indeed, Verstappen has only been overtaken on track six times since the 2023 season-opener in Bahrain. Four of those came at the Singapore GP last autumn, which was an aberration for Red Bull, and another was in Australia when Carlos Sainz took advantage of his problems.
Sainz has been the man to prosper from the Bulls’ rare failures of late, but McLaren and Lando Norris will hope they’re in that position next time. Since last summer’s British GP, Norris has finished second to Verstappen six times, most recently at the last race in China.
As you can see in the table above, no driver has been runner-up to Verstappen more often in that period. Even his Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez has only managed it five times.
But following the Dutchman home is one thing. Beating him is quite another.
Lando Norris mounts firm defence of Max Verstappen tactics
In an interview with The Athletic, Norris reflected on two races last year where he lost out to Verstappen. In Silverstone, the home favourite grabbed the lead at the start but then the world champion sailed through on lap five.
Then, in Interlagos, he started on pole position for the Sprint race, only for Verstappen to ease by when the lights went out. In the main Grand Prix, he briefly put the Red Bull under pressure but couldn’t find a way past.
Norris, however, rejects any notion that he should have put up more of a fight. He says his ‘clueless’ critics don’t understand that Verstappen’s pace advantage makes it futile to resist.
He would merely cost himself time before the 27-year-old inevitably made the move, and that could hurt him against closer rivals. When he believes he has a chance of beating the 58-time race-winner, he’s vowed to get his elbows out.
“I don’t get it. They’re not the ones driving. Those are the not-smart comments which I found very funny, because they’re clueless, the people who are saying these types of things.
“Any time I’ve not raced Max, it’s because he’s half a second a lap quicker, and he’s going to come by at some point, and I don’t want to ruin my own race. When I need to, and the time comes to race him, I 100 percent will. But I think one of my good points [is] I’m smart with who and when I choose to race people.”
What Lando Norris has said about his search for a first F1 win
Virtually everybody in the F1 paddock regards Norris as one of the sport’s elite drivers alongside Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso and Charles Leclerc. But he’s still waiting for a first victory.
In fact, Norris now holds the unfortunate record for the most podium finishes (15) without a race win. One fan at the Australian GP heckled him over this statistic, but he insists he took it in good humour.
Looking back, there’s only one race the 24-year-old feels he could have won. He finished third at the 2023 Qatar GP but says he was fast enough to beat Verstappen in the Grand Prix had he not made a mistake in qualifying.
Can he break his duck this year? Well, McLaren are bringing to an upgrade to Miami after exceeding their own expectations in China by beating Ferrari.
The likelihood is that they’ll still need Red Bull to fall victim to unreliability or general chaos to win, certainly in the first half of the season. But Norris must feel as if his moment is on the horizon.
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