Max Verstappen is bearing down on the McLaren drivers with what seems to be an increasingly irresistible momentum.
He has out-scored both of the two orange cars in each of the last five races. First came back-to-back wins in Monza and Baku, then he followed George Russell home in Singapore with the McLarens in his mirrors. He won the sprint race in Austin, where the McLarens didn’t make it as far as lap two, and notched up another win in the grand prix.
McLaren’s fortunes have reversed with dizzying speed. Over the first 15 grands prix they won 12 times. Their margin over the competition appeared to be growing, not diminishing: they would have scored one-two finishes in the last five of those races if Norris’s car hadn’t broken down eight laps from home at Zandvoort.
But McLaren hasn’t won any of the four grands prix since then. While they collected the constructors’ championship in Singapore their drivers have been unable to stop Verstappen eroding their lead. Since the Dutch Grand Prix championship leader Oscar Piastri has lost 64 points to the Red Bull driver, Norris 44.
Piastri and Norris therefore find themselves in a similar situation to that which Verstappen faced in the second half of last season. He built up a healthy lead over Norris in the opening half but McLaren’s superior speed made Norris a clear threat over the remainder of the season.
The seven-point gap between first and second place in F1 is much larger than the three-point gap between any other consecutive positions. Indeed, it’s more than the gap between second and fourth (six points).
This has an obvious implication for any driver who is leading a championship and being caught by a faster rival: if you’re going to finish behind them, it is worse to finish second to them than it is to finish one or two places behind if they don’t win. In short: the goal becomes to stop your rival from winning.
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There is another dimension to this. In any championship fight the driver who is ahead in the points has more to gain by risking contact, because if both cars retire they keep their lead and the chasing driver has one fewer race to make up the difference.
Verstappen’s tactics in the second half of last season showed he understands all this perfectly. Were the McLaren drivers paying attention?
Norris certainly should have been, as he was the one on the receiving end of it. When the United States Grand Prix began Verstappen got down the inside of him at turn one. What he did next was revealing: he could have simply taken the lead with Norris falling in behind him. Instead he made sure Norris would not win the race even if it meant compromising his own: he ran wide, forcing Norris to go with him and allowing the Ferrari drivers past them.
Verstappen used the same tactics when Norris tried to pass him for second place behind Carlos Sainz Jnr in Mexico. Norris got fully alongside the Red Bull driver on the approach to turn four, so Verstappen dived deep into the corner, giving Norris the option of colliding or going off the track.
Norris went off and rejoined the track ahead of Verstappen. From this position, with 68 laps remaining, even if the stewards had chosen to give him a 10-second time penalty, Norris would likely still have beaten Verstappen and potentially even won the race.
Verstappen couldn’t risk that, so he grabbed his last chance to force Norris off the track again when they reached turn seven. This was a risky, high-speed move and if Norris hadn’t seen it coming and dived onto the run-off the resulting crash could have been huge.
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However it paid off for Verstappen: he got back ahead of Norris, while Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari also slipped past them. While Verstappen later copped penalties for both incidents, Norris was so badly delayed he was unable to catch Sainz and win the race.
The McLaren drivers can afford to take more risks in combat with Verstappen not only because they have more points in the championship, but fewer penalty points on their licences. Verstappen is still just three penalty points away from the 12 which trigger an automatic race ban. Norris is in a much safer situation on three, while Piastri has six.
Of course it took more than just uncompromising tactics for Verstappen to clinch the title, as demonstrated by his excellent drive at the next round in Brazil. But if the McLaren drivers have the opportunity to minimise his points-scoring as well as maximising their own, they would be fools not to take it.
We have often seen Verstappen’s belligerence in battle but other drivers are already exploiting his need to score every point available. This was why George Russell launched such an ambitious dive down the inside of Verstappen at turn 12 during the sprint race last weekend: he knew Verstappen had to make sure he avoided contact, which he did by going off the track, and had Russell managed to avoid going off he could have legitimately argued he deserved the position.
Whether the McLaren drivers have the opportunity to demonstrate the ruthlessness which proved so effective for Verstappen last year will ultimately come down to the circumstances of the final races. Whether they choose to grab any such opportunities which come their way will be up to them.
It could be a busy final few races for the FIA stewards.
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Formula 1
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