What Lando Norris Needs to Do to Win His First Championship

Bringing effective upgrades that turn a season around is not an easy task for F1 teams, but McLaren nailed things on that front midway into 2024. After a quiet start, the Woking-based team gradually became the fastest team on the grid, which has put Lando Norris as the frontrunner to dethrone Max Verstappen as world champion. However, he will have his work cut out for the remainder of the campaign. Even then it may not be enough.

Norris is currently 52 points behind championship leader Verstappen, which is not a huge gap. But it appears to be larger when the number of Grand Prix remaining — six — is taken into consideration.

It goes without saying that Norris has to aim for P1 in each of the races. However, to finish ahead of Verstappen, he will have to outscore the Dutchman by an average of 8.67 points (take 9) per race. This means that not everything will be in his control.

Even if Norris wins, Verstappen finishing second would mean that Norris gains only seven points. Ideally, Verstappen needs to finish third at most, as that would allow Norris’ win to keep the gap at around 10 points.

Norris has to step up

Norris has been getting the better of Verstappen of late, largely due to the RB20 underperforming. In the last four race weekends, the Briton has scored 26 points more than his title rival, which although good, is not enough. In terms of points gained per race, that was a rate of just 6.5.

Norris’ main problem has been inconsistency. In the Netherlands, he outscored Verstappen by eight points when he won the Dutch GP by also getting the fastest lap of the race, finishing one place ahead of the hometown hero. But just a few weeks later in Azerbaijan, that number went down to just three.

Interestingly enough, the only race where Norris outscored Verstappen by more than nine points came at the Australian GP — the third race of the season — when the British driver wasn’t even in the title picture, and the Red Bull man had to retire.

What could help Norris?

The advantage Verstappen built in the opening stages of the season was not solely due to his brilliance in the Grand Prix races; he was excelling in the sprint events as well. At Shanghai, Miami, and Spielberg — the three venues for the shorter format races so far this season — Verstappen emerged victorious at each one.

Thankfully for Norris, he will get a chance to emulate Verstappen’s early season success in the closing stages now. There are three more sprint weekends in 2024 — Austin, Brazil, and Qatar. If Norris manages to win these and Verstappen doesn’t get close to him, the extra 24 points could come in handy.

To sum up what Norris has to do to win the world championship would be difficult, especially since this is F1, which is as unpredictable a sport as it comes. One thing is certain, however, finishing anywhere short of the first step of the podium could prove to be catastrophic to his title chances.