Return of the Max: Verstappen gives performance of the season in push for a fourth title

In Mexico Max Verstappen earned censure for his style of racing against title rival Lando Norris. In the rain of Brazil a week later he produced a virtuoso masterclass to win from 17th on the grid, with a drive which has all but ensured there is no longer a title fight.

The championship ‘contest’ between Verstappen and Norris had never really taken off, Verstappen’s early lead too great and Norris’s results too inconsistent.

So even as the championship reached the 20th of 24 rounds, in Mexico, Verstappen was 57 points clear. The odds of Norris winning the remaining five rounds in his McLaren were slim based on his form to date and considering also the recent winning resurgence of Ferrari. Realistically, Verstappen did not need to fight his rival with the sort of wheel-banging intensity he had displayed in Austin the week before F1 decamped to Mexico City. Yet if anything, he stepped up the level of aggression, creating even greater controversy with moves against the McLaren driver which earned him two 10sec penalties.

Qualifying had revealed the Ferrari to be the fastest car in Mexico’s thin air and Carlos Sainz took a great pole position, almost a quarter-second clear of Verstappen, this representing a great pressure lap from the Red Bull driver after his first Q3 lap had been deleted for exceeding track limits. Either of Sainz’s Q3 laps were good for pole, the Spaniard on a mission to win another race before surrendering his seat to Lewis Hamilton. Around here, the Ferrari’s great slow corner performance and its compliance over the kerbs was very valuable, but Charles Leclerc was unable to exploit it as well as Sainz, admitting after qualifying only fourth (behind Norris’s McLaren) that his attacking style does not seem to work as well as Sainz’s more measured approach on low-downforce tracks such as this.

Norris had looked like a real threat to Ferrari after heading Q1 and Q2, but he could find only 0.1sec more than his Q2 best in Q3. Sainz by contrast found 0.6sec as he finessed his tyre preparation. Regarding his prospects for the race, Sainz emphasised how important it was to be in clear air, “for the management of the temperatures of the car”. This is always the case here but was particularly true of the Ferrari, given the racy choices the team had made on brake cooling. This may have helped Sainz to pole but it would mean he could not really afford to be running behind other cars.

Yet, that’s exactly where he was after Verstappen out-accelerated him off the grid. Sainz took to the grass run-off after entering Turn 1 side-by-side with the Red Bull, rejoining ahead but immediately surrendering the lead back to Verstappen. This at least ensured Norris didn’t also jump the Ferrari, but Sainz was determined not to be sitting behind the Red Bull for too long. He knew he had greater pace. It was just a question of how to pass.

“Verstappen immediately came under attack from Norris”

That question was delayed for a few laps as the safety car was almost immediately deployed to clear up an Alex Albon/Yuki Tsunoda collision off the startline, but as racing got underway again Sainz concentrated on pressuring Verstappen hard enough to force him to deplete his battery over the next couple of laps. That accomplished, and with Verstappen slow at the end of the pitstraight as his battery stopped deploying, the DRS-assisted Sainz was able to out-brake him from a long way back. It seemed to catch Verstappen unawares – but now the Ferrari was in the clear air it badly needed to exploit its full performance. Verstappen immediately came under attack from Norris who went for the outside of Turn 4. Running deliberately aggressively into the corner so as to be ahead at the apex, and with Verstappen boxed in by Sainz ahead, the Red Bull and McLaren were pretty much level at that crucial point. As Norris hung on, Verstappen ran him out beyond the track, Norris rejoining after the corner in a temporary lead but taking care to give Sainz the place back – but not Verstappen.

“He forced me off the track,” Norris radioed in, as he justified why he was not giving up the place. Verstappen, with the luxury in hand of knowing any contact between them would favour him by freezing his points advantage, then made no attempt to take the fifth-gear Turn 7 within the track limits, scorching down Norris’s inside there, forcing him to take to the run-off too in avoidance. As they did this Leclerc’s Ferrari passed them both to put Ferrari 1-2. As Verstappen showed no signs of surrendering the place back to Norris, the stewards issued two 10sec penalties, one for each incident. These would be taken at his pitstop.

This damaged his race, but he’d seriously compromised Norris’s. Running behind Verstappen throughout the first stint left Norris 15sec behind Sainz by the time Verstappen finally pitted. In his subsequent charge after switching to the hard tyres for the second stint, Norris was able to catch and pass Leclerc and get to within less than 5sec of the victorious Sainz. It suggested that without Verstappen’s illegitimate pass, Norris could have challenged Sainz for the win. Especially as the McLaren was nowhere near as marginal on brake cooling as the Ferrari.

A long way behind the top four, Lewis Hamilton came out on top of a long-running in-team Mercedes dice with George Russell. Verstappen was sixth, 14sec behind Hamilton despite the 20sec penalty in the pits. Norris had reduced his points deficit by 10, but without the Verstappen Turn 7 foul, it might have been 17. Norris was running out of races to get his challenge properly going, and Verstappen had a lot to do with that.

Brazil was a sprint weekend, with the short race held on Saturday morning when the weather was dry. McLaren, having locked-out the front row, took a 1-2 in the race, Norris ahead after being allowed past by team-mate Oscar Piastri. Grand prix qualifying later that day was rained off – and was eventually run in the still-wet conditions of Sunday morning. The competitive picture was quite different in these conditions, with Verstappen’s Red Bull looking a much closer match to the McLaren and going fastest in Q1. But a red flag at an inopportune moment meant Verstappen did not get to graduate from Q2, leaving him only 12th-fastest. As he was taking a five-place grid penalty for a new power unit, it put him 16 places behind pole-sitter Norris. Thus were the pieces in place for a mesmerising Verstappen performance in the race a few hours later.

The race was wet throughout and got underway with everyone on intermediate tyres. Norris lost out at the start to the Mercedes of Russell, who had qualified a great second, only 0.1sec off the McLaren. Without DRS (because of the wet conditions) and with Russell’s smart defence, Norris was unable to put a pass on the Mercedes. Verstappen meanwhile had steadily picked off the slower cars ahead of him and by lap 13 was up to sixth and on the back of a train headed by the third place RB of Tsunoda from Esteban Ocon’s Alpine and Leclerc’s Ferrari. But that looked like as far as he was going to be progressing for the time being – the double tow Leclerc was receiving made him too fast at the end of the straight for Verstappen to be able to pass and for the next 10 laps he was stuck there, his deficit to Russell and Norris steadily growing.

As the pitstop window was opening, the rain was increasing. Norris was campaigning hard to be brought in so as to undercut himself past Russell. McLaren was resisting, pointing out that there wasn’t yet a gap to drop him into and that he’d be delayed by traffic. This much was given credence when Leclerc stopped, trying for the undercut on Ocon – and got caught behind much slower cars as he rejoined. Tsunoda had also stopped – and gambled on full wets. With two of the cars which had been holding him up now out of the way Verstappen’s prospects had suddenly improved, as he sat in the wheeltracks of Ocon, both resisting the temptation to pit.

A VSC (for a Nico Hülkenberg incident) led Mercedes to call Russell in but his response was that the track was now so dangerous with standing water that a red flag was surely imminent and he should therefore stay out. He was overruled in this – and he was followed into the pits by Norris, at just the moment the VSC was ending, so negating the usual time gain of a VSC pitstop. This left Ocon and Verstappen first and second, with the second Alpine of Pierre Gasly up to third (and with Norris finally getting by Russell amid the blinding spray to go fourth). The top three were staying out in the expectation of a red flag, which would mean they’d get to make their tyre changes without the time loss of a pitstop.

But the red flag didn’t come. Not initially, anyway. Instead, with the cars reduced to a crawl over the standing water, a safety car was put out. This was a potential problem for the top three as it closed the gaps up and meant that if there was no red flag they would lose many places when they pitted. Luckily for them, Franco Colapinto – the Argentinian a wild favourite of the crowd in the absence of a Brazilian – lost control of his Williams on the water and crashed heavily, bringing out the red flag.

After a wait for the worst of the rain to subside, the race got underway again after a single lap behind the safety car. Ocon judged things perfectly and pulled out a big gap on the spray-blinded Verstappen. Norris ran wide at Turn 4, putting himself back behind Russell and three laps later came another safety car after Sainz crashed out of a lowly 13th place through getting a wheel on the slippery white line under braking for Turn 7.

Upon this restart, Verstappen was able to anticipate Ocon more effectively – and burst through into the lead. A few cars behind, Norris locked up and ran onto the run-off, rejoining behind Leclerc and Piastri. Piastri allowed his team-mate to re-pass but there was no getting by the Ferrari. Held to Leclerc’s pace for the rest of the race, Norris would later trail home a distant sixth.

“Held to Leclerc’s pace, Norris would trail home a distant sixth”

Verstappen meanwhile reeled off a scintillating sequence of laps and as the track improved he set and re-set the fastest lap of the race almost every time, pulling out 20sec on Ocon in 26 laps. The Alpines held on for a great second and third, Gasly fending off Russell to the flag. Sixty-two points clear of Norris with just three races to go, Verstappen had all but secured the drivers’ world title – and in the most resounding way possible.