After a well-timed safety car, Norris inherited the race lead from Verstappen and went on to claim his first career win — narrowing his gap to the Dutchman in the drivers’ standings to 53 points after a slow start to the season.

But in the 15 race weekends since then — still behind the wheel of a car that has had race-winning pace at the majority of grands prix, while Red Bull‘s own performance has deteriorated and Ferrari and Mercedes’ front-running form has fluctuated — Norris hasn’t managed to seriously challenge Verstapen’s lead.

From pole position starts in Spain, Hungary, Zandvoort, Monza, Singapore, Austin and Sao Paulo, Norris has led on the opening lap only once (Singapore) and has converted just two pole starts into race victories (Zandvoort and Singapore).

Many of the dropped points opportunities can be attributed to his team, and others due to the unusual competitiveness of the current season, where Oscar Piastri, Charles Leclerc, Carlos Sainz, Lewis Hamilton and George Russell have won, in addition to Verstappen and Norris.

We take a look below at where it went wrong for Norris in 2024, and then at previous seasons where the driver with the fastest car has fallen short in the title race.

Norris’s missed chances in 2024

Emilia Romagna GP

Norris took the fight to Verstappen in Imola, but ran out of laps to pass him. On fresher rubber after the final stops, the McLaren driver rapidly caught the leading Red Bull, but saw the flag before having the chance to overtake.

Monaco GP

Norris qualified fourth behind Sainz, Piastri and Leclerc. Due to the very few overtaking opportunities and the pace set by both Ferraris, he was unable to make any moves up the running order.

Canadian GP

From third on the grid, Norris showed unmatched pace to take the lead early in a rain-plagued race in Montreal. But after pitting later than Verstappen, he dropped behind the reigning champion to finish second.

Spanish GP

In Spain, Norris qualified on pole but was beaten into Turn 1 by both Verstappen and Russell. Yet again he showed leading pace and was able to repass Russell for second, but ran out of laps before he could catch his title rival, ultimately finishing just two seconds behind the Dutchman.

Austrian GP

The Austrian Grand Prix produced one of the most controversial moments of Norris’s 2024 campaign. Trying to pass Verstappen for the lead, he made contact with the Red Bull and picked up a puncture. He sustained further damage in his limp back to the pits and retired from the race.

British GP

A strategy error cost Norris another victory at a drying Silverstone circuit. He was switched from intermediate tyres to slicks a lap too late, and lost the lead to Lewis Hamilton who had pitted a lap earlier. Norris was later pushed down to third by a charging Verstappen on longer-lasting hard tyres.

Hungarian GP

In Hungary, McLaren intervened: asking Norris to slow down and give up the lead to Piastri who had led most of the race but had been given a sub-optimal strategy.

Belgian GP

Mercedes was the team to beat at Spa, leaving Norris to battle it out with Red Bull and Ferrari for the final podium place. He started fourth but ran wide at the first corner and lost two places. He then dropped behind Verstappen at the first round of pitstops and was unable to find a way past. He finished fifth.

Dutch GP

The Dutch GP saw perhaps Norris’s best performance of the season. Despite losing out to Verstappen at Turn 1, he soon set an unbeatable pace: passing the Dutchman on lap 18 before streaking off into the distance.

Italian GP

A lap one scrap with his own team-mate dropped polesitter Norris to third behind Piastri and Leclerc. Ferrari then seized the lead with a bold one-stop strategy. Third place for Norris was the result.

Azerbaijan GP

A yellow flag during the first Q1 qualifying segment meant Norris lost his flying lap and started the race in 15th. He only recovered to fourth, while Piastri demonstrated what could have been for his team-mate, as he bested Leclerc to the top step.

Singapore GP 

Norris pulled off another masterclass in Marina Bay: leading from pole to claim a dominant victory.

US GP

Ferrari was in a class of its own in the US, but Norris had the pace to challenge for the podium. However, he couldn’t find a way past Verstappen in the final stages, and a late-race penalty after being forced off the track and going past Verstappen meant he finished fourth.

Mexico City GP

Ferrari once again led the way in Mexico City, but Norris had the pace to challenge — had Verstappen not delayed him by again forcing the Briton off track, twice on the same lap. Norris remained behind his title rival until he made his first pitstop, losing so much time that he could only catch Leclerc, leaving Sainz to take victory.

Sao Paulo GP

Norris again failed to convert a pole position start as he lost out to Russell into Turn 1. He was then caught out by an ill-timed red flag and then made a mistake at the restart which dropped him from fifth to seventh.

Norris has only managed to score 273 points since F1 left Miami, while Verstappen has scored 283 — meaning the Briton now trails his title rival with three rounds to go by 62 points — ten points more than he did in May.

All in all, Norris’ first genuine title challenge has been a bitter pill to swallow, but he shouldn’t shoulder most of the blame, and may well use the experience for a more committed attempt in 2025. In the meantime, he can console himself in the knowledge that many others have been in a similar situation to him.

Eddie Irvine — 1999

Eddie Irvine was thrust into a lead role at Ferrari midway through the 1999 campaign after the team’s main championship contender Michael Schumacher broke his leg in a heavy crash at Silverstone, forcing him out for six races.

The car underneath him, Ferrari’s F399, was well capable of the title battle — as Irvine proved himself at the season-opening Australian GP, which he won sixth on the grid. It was also more than a match for the rival McLarens of Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard.

But, even with all the tools and without a title-winning team-mate to compete against, Irvine fell short. After race wins in Austria and Germany, he led Hakkinen by eight points in the drivers’ standings with six rounds remaining. A podium finish in Hungary behind the victorious Hakkinen reduced the gap to just two points heading into Belgium — where Irvine seemingly began to feel the pressure of title contention, as he qualified sixth and finished fourth.

From there results worsened, as he was out-qualified and out-raced by temporary team-mate Mika Salo at Monza (who finished on the podium while Irvine finished sixth) and then qualified ninth and finished seventh at the Nürburgring.

Hakkinen was also experiencing his fair share of troubles, as he failed to finish in Germany and Italy. Had Irvine capitalised, he could have secured the title before the penultimate race in Malaysia.

But with just two points separating the pair as they arrived in Asia, Irvine began to crumble.

He won at Sepang, thanks to the heroic efforts of the returning Schumacher, who held up both McLarens during the opening laps and allowed his team-mate to build up a sizeable lead. However, unable to match the pace set by the cars behind him, Irvine dropped down into second — behind Schumacher — during the second round of pitstops and only regained the lead when Schumacher let him through.

Heading into the season finale in Japan, Irvine led the drivers’ standings by four points — meaning a race win would seal the deal. But he seemingly lost his head, as he qualified fifth — while his team-mate secured pole — could only recover to third, and finished some 95sec behind race-winner Hakkinen, who claimed the title.

Nigel Mansell — 1991

1991 was meant to be Nigel Mansell‘s big year.

After a disappointing stint in Maranello, he’d moved back to a renewed Williams, alongside technical director Patrick Head and Adrian Newey as its chief designer.

With Mansell now back on board, the team was poised for title contention, and its creation for ’91, the FW14, should have been the class of the field. In fact it was so good that in every race that Mansell saw the chequered flag, he never finished lower than second.

But, similarly to Norris in 2024, a slow start to the season combined with the overwhelming consistency of a racing great put the title out of reach.

Mansell retired from three out of the first four races he entered in 1991 — in US, Brazil and Canada due to gearbox and/or ignition failures. He did manage a second-place finish in Monte Carlo, but was unable to find a way past Ayrton Senna — who also won the three other races in which Mansell failed to finish.

As soon as Williams sorted its reliability issues, the Briton flew: picking up podium finishes in Mexico and Hungary, as well as race wins in France, Great Britain, Germany and Italy.

Entering the final four races of the season, Mansell trailed Senna by just 18 points and was aboard the quickest car in the field.

In Portugal, Mansell qualified fourth — six-tenths behind the pole time set by his team-mate Riccardo Patrese. He spectacularly recovered to second by the exit of Turn 1, and then assumed the lead from Patrese from lap 18.

But it would all be for nothing.

As Mansell pitted on the 30th lap, three out of four fresh Goodyear tyres were bolted on — but there was a problem on the rear right. As the gunman tightened it, it cross-threaded — leaving the tyre loose. Unaware of the issue, Mansell sped away from his pitbox as soon as he could, but was forced to stop just metres later as his Williams became a tricycle. Mechanics attempted to fix the issue and sent Mansell back out on track — now a distant 15th — but a handful of laps later he was black flagged, as work had been completed on the FW14 outside its pitbox.

It dropped Mansell 24 points behind Senna in the drivers’ standings, and although a race win in Spain would keep his title hopes alive, a critical spin into the gravel at Suzuka would ultimately hand a third world title to Senna on a silver platter.

It’s probably also worth mentioning that Mansell only just beat his team-mate in Williams’ own intra-team battle. In identical machinery, Patrese out-qualified Mansell nine times across the season, finished ahead of him at seven grands prix and scored wins of his own in Mexico and Portugal.

It would be a very different story in 1992.

Fernando Alonso — 2010

In 2010, the F1 grid looked remarkably similar to one we have in 2024.

Ferrari, McLaren and Red Bull were all capable of race victories and each had a world-class driver leading their drivers’ title hopes.

Maranello’s faith was placed firmly in the hands of Fernando Alonso, who had joined the team from Renault and instantly impressed with a victory on debut in Bahrain.

Even as the season progressed and performance fluctuated — with each front-running constructor having a turn at being the class of the field, as has happened in 2024 — Alonso’s performances remained consistent, as he picked up wins in Germany, Italy, Singapore and South Korea and scored podium finishes in Spain, Canada, Hungary and Japan.

Of course, there were missed opportunities. The Spaniard made a mistake in qualifying in Turkey and as a result started from 12th and could only recover to eighth on a circuit where Ferrari was originally tipped as the favourite.

At Silverstone he qualified third, but after a bad start was demoted to fifth and was unable to make any impression on the cars ahead until the first round of pitstops. Then during a scrap with Robert Kubica, Alonso cut a corner, was handed a hefty time penalty and was demoted to 14th by the time he reached the chequered flag.

Nevertheless with two races to go, Ferrari’s front man still held a 11-point led in the drivers’ standings. However, that was cut to just eight points after Alonso finished third to Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel in Brazil. Still, surely a two-time world champion could muster the metal to finish the job in Abu Dhabi? As it turns out, he couldn’t.

After qualifying third for the season finale, Alonso dropped to fourth at the start and soon fell back from the leading pack composed of Vettel, Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button. A early pitstop on lap 16 hoped to bring him a much-needed boost of pace, but instead Alonso reappeared from the pitlane behind the Renault of Vitaly Petrov — where he stayed for the remainder of the evening.

It was a stunning and shocking end to the championship, given that Petrov had finished outside the points in 82% of all his races prior to Abu Dhabi — yet had seemingly no problem in defending against Alonso for sixth, who ultimately missed out on a third drivers’ world title to Vettel by four points.

Damon Hill 

Damon Hill will be well versed with Norris’s current position in the drivers’ standings, given that he played a similar role from 1994 to 1995.

Although relatively inexperienced, Hill became Williams’ lead driver just three races into 1994, after Ayrton Senna lost his life in a crash at the San Marino Grand Prix. After major regulation changes prior to the season — which stripped down driver aids to a minimum — Williams struggled for performance early on, allowing the Benetton of Michael Schumacher to assume an early lead in the drivers’ standings.

But even when it got its car back on the title-contending track, with its performance now at least level to that of Benetton, Hill struggled to match the pace of Schumacher — and equally had no answer for the German’s aggressive driving style. Remind you of anyone?

Much like Norris and his McLaren, the pace of Hill’s Williams proved even too much for Schumacher in some cases, as the Briton scored key victories in Spain, Great Britain, Belgium, Italy, Portugal and Japan.

But at the season finale in Adelaide, Hill saw his title ambitions disappear as Schumacher pulled off a Verstappen-like defensive manoeuvre.

On lap 32 at Turn 6, Hill attempted to pounce on the leading Schumacher, who had lost his Benetton under braking and understeered into the outer wall — striking it hard. As the German attempted to rejoin the circuit, Hill arrived on the scene and tried to pass down the inside his title rival. But just as he did so, Schumacher moved to block him — causing a collision which launched his own car into the air and bent Hill’s suspension.

Both cars quickly retired and Schumacher celebrated a maiden world title.

Hill’s title campaign was similarly undone in 1995.

Aboard the FW17, Hill once again had all the tools necessary to compete for a drivers’ world title, and after an initial retirement in Brazil, he quickly found form: winning in Argentina and San Marino, before finishing fourth in Spain and second in Monaco.

After another second-place finish in France, Hill only trailed Schumacher by 11 points in the drivers’ standings with ten rounds remaining. But instead of rising to the occasion, Hill instead made a litany of errors: clumsily crashing into Schumacher at Silverstone and Monza and spinning out by his own hand at Hockenheim, the Nürburgring and Suzuka.

He finished second again to Schumacher in the drivers’ standings — some 33 points behind the now two-time world champion.

It was, however, third time lucky for Hill who dominated the field in 1996 to claim his first and only drivers’ world title.

Could Norris follow in his footsteps?