The key ‘five races’ that really cost Lando Norris the World title

Although Brazil 2024 will go down in F1’s annals as the day Lando Norris lost the World title, Karun Chandhok says one has to look at the first five races of the season and McLaren’s deficit for the real cause.

Having taken points out of Max Verstappen’s lead in five of the six races leading up to the Brazilian Grand Prix, and another three in the Sprint, Norris lined up on pole position for the Brazilian Grand Prix dreaming of a maiden World title.

Brazil was the death knell but it wasn’t the cause

And then it imploded.

Despite starting P1 to Verstappen’s P17, it was the Red Bull driver who blitzed the competition as he raced his way to the victory with a little bit of help from the timing of a red flag for Franco Colapinto’s crashed Williams.

Verstappen went from 17th to second at the red flag, second to first, and then still took the win by almost 20 seconds in arguably one of the best wet-weather displays seen in Formula 1.

As for Norris, he went from first to fourth as he had already pitted when the race was red-flagged, and then from fourth to sixth as two mistakes cost him positions.

He also went from 44 points behind Verstappen to 62, the title fight over bar the shouting – or disaster for Verstappen – as all the Dutchman needs is to score three points more than Norris at the next race in Las Vegas and he’ll be a four-times World Champion.

Brazil may go down as the day Norris lost the title, but when all the analysis is done, former F1 driver Chandhok says McLaren should look to their early-season form to find the catalyst.

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“I don’t think they could put that down to bad luck, honestly, on the Sunday,” he told the Sky F1 podcast. “Okay the red flag but if he had the same pace as Verstappen, he would have passed the Alpines and passed George.

“And frankly, if he had the same pace as Verstappen, he would have passed George in the first stint after losing the start. But we saw him go off the road, I think two or three different times. At the end, they didn’t have the pace to fight against his championship rival.

“So, yeah, I think realistically, they could be proud of the season he’s put together.

“The championship battle wasn’t lost on Sunday in Brazil, it was lost in the first five races. If you rewind the clock to the opening five races of the season, that’s where Verstappen really got this big advantage, very reminiscent of what we’ve seen from Jenson Button back in 2009.

“I think on the whole they can be pleased with the season they’ve had. They can be pleased with the points they scored. But when you start 52 points behind coming into Miami, that’s where the championship was lost, not on not on Sunday in Brazil.”

McLaren admitted before the start of the 2024 championship that some of 2023’s weaknesses remained, team principal Andrea Stella saying: “There were a few projects that we had started, that had potential, but just we couldn’t finalise them in time to have it on the launch car, so they will very likely become updates for the early part of the season.”

But while the team nailed those with their Miami Grand Prix upgrades as the MCL38 emerged as the car to beat, by then Norris was 62 points off Verstappen’s lead. It’s a deficit that at its highest grew to 81 points and at its lowest dropped to 44.

McLaren may have lost the World title but they are still on track for the Constructors’, up on Ferrari by 36 points with Red Bull a further 13 off the pace.

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