Norris will never win an F1 title like this – Up/Down in Austin

Aggregate: it’s all you need.

Instead of a heart-warming gravel trap, all run-off does is promote tiresome driving tactics as rivals push each other off the road, tedious stewarding decisions and yawn-inducing post-race analysis. The 2024 US GP showed us as much.

Still, it’s quite clear that Lando Norris will never win an F1 title driving like he has done this year. Nice guys really do finish last (or near enough if you count second as last). As demonstrated in Hungary and Italy, even his own team-mate – essentially a non-factor in the title battle – seizes the initiative more than him.

Norris’s reluctance to cover the inside line lost him the 2024 US GP going into the first corner, and he was never going to snatch third-place from Verstappen while semi-optimistically having a look round the outside.

Lewis Hamilton remains the only F1 driver to demonstrate how you take on Verstappen – fight fire with fire. In this case, the requirement being to stuff it up the inside and block off the defending driver.

Any hope of Norris setting up a grandstand 2024 title shootout looks to have been extinguished by his limp showing in Texas.

There was lots to chew on in Austin:

 

Going Down

F1 2024 title battle

What 2024 has taught us is that it’s going to take a rougher and tougher driver than Lando Norris to take on Verstappen.

Senna, Schumacher, Alonso and Hamilton wouldn’t even dream of letting team-mates drive round the outside of them, or leave a space that might as well come with a ‘Drive Thru’ sign heading into Turn 1, lap one.

The above drivers were/are the meanest, pettiest bastards out there. They didn’t/don’t care about team harmony, or anything else. Apart from winning – that’s everything. And Verstappen is exactly in that mould too.

Before long, a more gung-ho charge will take Norris’s place in future title battles, unless the Brit changes with some serious self-reflection this winter.

 

F1 run-off

Just get rid of it.

 

End of the road?

In a car which was fast enough to win the sprint and looked like it could have taken pole for the race, Sergio Perez only had the pace to battle with Red Bull juniors Tsunoda and Lawson.

Hardly a ringing endorsement to be retained next year.

 

Meat-free cattle grid

Hardly any celeb beef on Brundle’s US F1 Grid Walk this year. Not a Megan Thee Stallion moment or Brad Pitt trip-up in sight. Disappointing.

 

Going Up

Alonso fought the Lawson and…

As Our Lord Brundle above highlighted, if you upset Fernando Alonso, you’re probably doing something right.

Having the temerity to take on the Spaniard in the sprint, Liam Lawson threw off the shackles of predecessor Daniel Ricciardo’s various engine penalties to one-stop himself from to 19th to ninth in the GP, all in his first race back in F1.

Top stuff – get him in the Red Bull quick. We’ve long been overdue someone rattling Max’s cage.

 

Raging bull

Then again, let’s also appreciate Alonso’s completely immature reaction. After not liking Lawson’s sprint antics, the Aston driver then deliberately baulked the RB man in qualifying. An Alonso never forgets.

 

Fezza strat

Ferrari actually aced the strategy. Just like in Monza. Twice in one season. We can’t believe it either.

 

Toto commitment 

Toto Wolff dived straight in with his post-race analysis, telling Formula Partridge on the radio he thought the FIA stewards’ decisions on Verstappen’s driving amounted to ‘biased-decision’ making.

Comparing it to Russell getting a 5sec penalty for overtaking Bottas while apparently pushing the Finn off-track, Wolff later said to Sky’s Ted Kravitz the verdicts were “completely odd and bizarre. We know why […] sometimes there are correlations.”

When Kravitz tried to decode Wolff’s slightly cryptic disgruntlings, the Merc boss then engaged in some brilliant politik-speak by concluding “You said that” to absolve himself of any rock solid opinions.

The F1 soap opera rolls on beautifully…