By many metrics, Max Verstappen’s 2024 championship victory falls behind his earlier three titles. It lacks the stress, drama and controversy of his first in 2021. It struggles to match the relentless high quality of each 2022 and 2023, when he gained 34 of 44 races.
Verstappen himself described his fourth crown as difficult, whereas Pink Bull staff principal Christian Horner mentioned it was the Dutchman’s “finest and hardest championship”. It’s onerous to disagree and the dearth of victories and pole positions since late spring bear that out.
After seven wins within the first 10 rounds, Verstappen has taken only one extra victory. He has usually had the third or fourth-quickest automobile, but has seen off a problem from a resurgent, if flawed, McLaren and Lando Norris.
Digging a bit deeper into numbers, although, offers a better appreciation for Verstappen’s achievement, in addition to how uncommon Method One has been previously eight months.
41 years
The final time a driver gained the championship with a automobile that didn’t end within the prime two within the constructors’ standings was in 1983, when Nelson Piquet gained for Brabham, who completed third total.
Pink Bull path Ferrari by 29 factors and sit in third. With Sergio Perez’s dire kind, overhauling them within the last two rounds in Qatar and Abu Dhabi seems to be unlikely. This might make Verstappen solely the third man in F1 historical past to take the crown in a machine that completed third or worse, after Piquet 41 years in the past and Williams’s Keke Rosberg in 1982.
A lot of it’s because Perez has been virtually ineffective to Pink Bull, however there’s little doubt that Verstappen has needed to deal with usually the third and, sometimes, the fourth-fastest automobile.
“That could be a MONSTER of an accident!” 😲
A have a look at the massive crash between Perez and each Haas drivers which induced a purple flag – fortunately all three drivers are out of the vehicles and are effective ✅
Six factors per race
Verstappen has had a drop-off in outcomes because the Miami Grand Prix in Might, when McLaren’s improve bundle remodeled their automobile right into a race winner. As much as and together with Miami, the points-per-round determine was 22.67, but it surely has since dropped to 16.67.
Regardless of this, Verstappen nonetheless scored greater than Norris after this level, getting essentially the most from his automobile when Norris too incessantly didn’t. Regardless of McLaren’s fast progress Norris improved his points-per-round determine after Miami by 2.23 – from 13.83 factors to 16.06.
5.44 occasions
While Verstappen’s outcomes dropped off after Miami, Perez’s decline ruined Pink Bull’s hopes of a double championship. After a robust begin to the season with 103 factors within the first 5 rounds, the Mexican not solely failed to complete on the rostrum within the following 16 occasions, however his highest factors haul over a weekend was his eight at Zandvoort.
Verstappen’s factors complete from Imola to Las Vegas is 267, whereas Perez’s is a measly 49. For comparability, Haas’s Nico Hulkenberg scored 29 factors in the identical interval. In different phrases, in that point Verstappen has scored 5.44 occasions as many factors as his beleaguered team-mate.
Not since 1983 has a team-mate of a title-winning driver completed as little as eighth on the finish of the season, when Riccardo Patrese was ninth to championship-winning Piquet at Brabham. That was, nonetheless, in a time of far greater attrition, with the Italian retiring from 9 of the 15 rounds that yr, in comparison with Piquet’s 4 non-finishes.
After successful seven of the primary 10 rounds and stretching his championship result in 69 factors over Norris, Verstappen has completed on common off the rostrum because the Austrian Grand Prix in June. Within the first 10 rounds, his common ending place was 1.67 however within the subsequent 12 that dropped to three.8 – solely barely worse than Norris (3.36).
His complete of two podiums in seven grand prix finishes between Austria and Azerbaijan can also be his worst run over any comparable interval since 2017, his first full season at Pink Bull.
10 in a row
In 2023, Verstappen broke the file for essentially the most consecutive grand prix victories with an ideal run from Miami to Monza. In 2024, although, he endured a winless run of 10 grands prix, stretching from Austria till his excellent victory within the rain at Interlagos.
Earlier than that, the final time he went with out standing on the highest step of the rostrum for thus lengthy was an 11-race run in 2020 – a yr when he gained simply two races.
52 factors
What Verstappen wants to attain within the last two rounds (two grands prix and one dash race) to overtake his 2022 championship-winning rating.
That season was over two fewer rounds (22 to 24), so the points-per-round variations are 18.31 this yr in comparison with 20.6 in 2022. The record-breaking days of 2023 when Verstappen scored 575 factors (26.13 per spherical) and gained 19 of twenty-two grands prix are a distant reminiscence now.
