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LAS VEGAS — After Saturday’s Las Vegas Grand Prix, Lando Norris didn’t give the appearance of someone struggling to accept that his chances of winning the Formula One world championship had slipped away. This was no gut punch. Instead, many times he smiled and spoke optimistically about the lessons learned and why he thought he’d be better off for it in the long run.
Of course, Norris’ post-race outlook was aided by the harsh reality that it was always a longshot that he could catch Max Verstappen in the final three races. A lot would have to go in his favor in Las Vegas, then in Qatar and the finale in Abu Dhabi, plus Verstappen would have to stumble in some fashion.
That’s a whole lot that needed to go right. So it wasn’t all that disheartening to Norris that Verstappen was able, in the final hours of Saturday night, to clinch a fourth consecutive world championship. The McLaren driver had essentially accepted his fate well before he arrived in Las Vegas.
And as anticipated, the championship is officially over. Verstappen drove a smart race, minimizing risks and keeping the big picture in mind throughout, an approach that netted him a fifth-place result. Meanwhile, Norris lacked the necessary speed in his McLaren to counter Verstappen. He finished a distant sixth.
“Massive congrats to (Verstappen),” Norris said. “He’s deserved it.”
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In the immediate aftermath of losing a championship, sometimes it takes a prolonged period of dissection to pinpoint what one could have done differently to change the outcome. For Norris and McLaren, little self evaluation is required. The answer is obvious.
Through the first 10 races of the season, Verstappen capitalized on Red Bull having the superior car by winning seven times and amassing 219 points. All the while, Norris and McLaren were good but not good enough, with Norris falling into a 69-point hole. That deficit proved too much to completely overcome — even after McLaren began to regularly outpace Red Bull — as evident by Verstappen leaving Las Vegas just 63 points clear of Norris.
“I’m very proud of the whole team for putting up the fight for so long, for starting to catch up and catching up as much as we did,” Norris said. “We were the fourth-best team at the beginning of the year — Red Bull have never been the fourth-best team or worst, let’s say, ever. We had just too big of a deficit to catch up from the beginning of the season and we could not because they’ve been too strong.”
To beat Verstappen, Norris noted, one must be near perfect. And even that, he explained, still might not be enough. Every possible point within reach must be collected because Verstappen is a grinder who is going to get the most out of his car every weekend. Over the course of a season, this mentality pays dividends.
“(Verstappen) has no downsides, he has no negatives,” Norris said. “When he’s had the quickest car, he dominated races. When he’s not in the quickest car, he’s still been just behind us and almost winning the races anyway.
“He’s not had any bad races the whole year. … He just drove as Max has always driven, which is perfectly.”
But as Norris reflected on his 2024 season, he tended to gravitate toward the positives. There was much to be proud of.
In May, Norris earned his first grand prix victory, a stirring triumph at Miami. He also demonstrated that he could consistently push Verstappen, then outrun him, something few have been able to do over the past four years. It was a breakout campaign consisting of career-high marks across the board, exactly what many have been expecting from the 25-year-old ever since he arrived in F1 six years ago.
“A lot more positives and negatives, that’s for sure,” Norris said. “I feel like I can fight for a championship, and I’m happy. And I can say that confidently. I have what it takes, and I know that deep down that I have what it takes. I have some things to work on still, for sure, but I can fight against Max, and I’ll be happy to say that, because I think Max is the best driver in the world, and probably one of the best drivers that’s ever been in Formula 1.”
A popular racing adage is that a driver must first lose a championship before they can win. Hence why Norris was feeling good about what he’d accomplished, believing that 2024 should be viewed as a stepping stone to an even greater 2025. His first championship battle taught him the kind of lessons that will make him better going forward.
For a driver who’s known to often have a glass-is-half-empty outlook, he was notably able to largely focus on the upside. All he could do at the moment was tip his cap to his championship rival, albeit with the undertone that next year will be his year.
“I’m happy for (Verstappen), he deserves the championship,” Norris said. “But hopefully I can upset him more next year.”
(Top photo of Lando Norris: Kym Illman / Getty Images)
