The 2024 Miami Grand Prix has been credited as the race that marked McLaren’s turnaround this season. Lando Norris’ victory that afternoon demonstrated that the Woking-based outfit was ready to compete for the championship. Since then, Norris has been driving the fastest car on the grid, at least on paper. Despite this, Max Verstappen of Red Bull has remained the most dominant driver, according to the statistics.
Since the Miami GP, Norris has secured three wins and scored a total of 227 points, per F1 analyst Daniel Valente. Verstappen has also claimed three victories since Miami, but his total has come up to 229 points.
Before the United States GP sprint race, which took place on Saturday, the two drivers were level on points from the Miami race onward. However, Verstappen finished first in the sprint, two places ahead of Norris, gaining two points on his title rival.
Norris did look like he had the fastest car throughout this period of eleven races. In fact, there were races where Mercedes and Ferrari too, outperformed Red Bull in terms of performance. But Verstappen was incredibly consistent, which allowed him to score big points on an almost regular basis.
After Saturday’s sprint race, Max Verstappen has now scored more points than any other driver since Miami.
1. Max Verstappen – 229 pts
2. Lando Norris – 227 pts
3. Oscar Piastri – 199 pts pic.twitter.com/O8634a3TE5— Daniel Valente ️ (@F1GuyDan) October 20, 2024
Third on the list for most points from the Miami to Austin period is Oscar Piastri, with 199, followed by Charles Leclerc with 174 and Lewis Hamilton with 158.
The battles have been close on the track, which explains why there isn’t a huge gap between the ones competing at the front. Maybe the gap won’t matter much to the ones in P3 and below, but for Verstappen and Norris, eyes would be on the bigger picture.
After Verstappen’s sprint victory on Saturday, his overall lead in the Drivers’ Championship standings went up to 54. But following it up and increasing his lead even more would be slightly more difficult for him in Sunday’s Grand Prix.
That’s because Norris took pole, and has the chance to get off to a better start to fight for the win at the Circuit of the Americas. The Dutchman would be wary of not losing out on too many points at the US GP, as Norris will be keen on outscoring him.
