Even through 14 rounds of the 2024 season, there is no question as to who the most outstanding, fastest and most consistent driver in the field is so far this year.
To the surprise of no one, it is the same driver who has been clearly the best on the grid over the last few seasons. And the driver who will very likely claim this year’s world championship title.
Max Verstappen enjoyed a dominant two-year stretch over the first two seasons of F1’s ground effect regulations that even Michael Schumacher, Sebastian Vettel or Lewis Hamilton could not match. And in the early phase of the 2024 season, it looked like it was going to be business as usual for the reigning three-times world champion.
Despite some dramatic stories coming out about the team over the opening months of the year, Verstappen ensured that his team were a picture of professional perfectionism out on track. Two rounds, two poles, two victories to start the season in Bahrain and Jeddah. Although he secured a third-straight pole in Australia, Verstappen would suffer only his first failure to finish for two years when his right-rear brake jammed on at the start, forcing him to pull into retirement as his brake temperatures skyrocketed.
If Red Bull’s rivals were under the illusion that they were now vulnerable after that setback, Verstappen soon gave them a hefty dose of reality with a crushing performance in Suzuka that gave him another dominant victory. China was more of the same. Despite missing out on pole for the sprint race in a wet qualifying session, he rose up from fourth methodically to win before securing pole for the grand prix and never looking under threat of being beaten in the race.
But after the first five rounds of the season were completed, it was as if Verstappen was hit by an adaptive difficulty spike. From this point on, he would never have things quite so straightforward at the front over the rest of the season. Although he took another sprint pole and win Miami, he lost his lead in the grand prix after a Safety Car came at the perfect time for Norris. At the restart, Verstappen could not match the McLaren’s pace after suffering minor damage from hitting a bollard at the chicane and was forced to settle for second place for the first time in what felt like forever.
McLaren’s pace was far from a one-off, however, as Red Bull soon discovered. It took a slipstream from Nico Hulkenberg’s Haas at the end of Q3 for Verstappen to just beat Norris and Oscar Piastri to pole position at Imola, then he had to hold off Norris over some tense final laps in the race to secure victory number five of the season.
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Red Bull arrived at Monaco to find that the RB20 had no love for the bumpy Monte Carlo streets. Sixth place was the best that he could manage in qualifying after brushing the barrier on his final Q3 lap and he finished in that same position after a long and boring race. But the reality was that Red Bull just did not have the performance of their rivals around the street circuit.
Max Verstappen
| Best | Worst | |
|---|---|---|
| GP start | 1 (x8) | 11 |
| GP finish | 1 (x7) | 6 |
| Points | 277 | |
By Canada, it was more than just McLaren who had joined the party at the front of the field. Now Verstappen was facing competition from Mercedes too, with George Russell beating him to pole position in Montreal with an identical lap time. But over a challenging race in changeable conditions, Verstappen showed how great his skills are, keeping calm and collected throughout the race while those around him faltered to secure yet another victory. The next time out in Spain, he would again triumph by taking advantage of others failing to make the most of their opportunities, getting ahead of Norris at the start and passing Russell for the lead soon after and controlling the race from there.
That would be Verstappen’s most recent victory to date, however. At this point, Red Bull had been truly caught by their rivals and were arguably no longer the team to beat. But Verstappen continued to battle for the win, even managing to win his third sprint race out of three at the Red Bull Ring. He found himself under intense pressure from Norris in the grand prix, however, leading to an intense multi-lap battle for the win between the pair that ended in disaster when they clashed at turn three, leaving both crawling back to the pits with damaged cars. While Verstappen was blamed by the stewards, opinion varied among the grid. But while Norris retired, Verstappen still came home in fifth to extend his championship lead.
Life got no easier for Verstappen at Silverstone, where he compromised his qualifying by running off track at Copse on a damp track, damaging his floor. However, despite this setback, he still managed to salvage fourth on the grid. He struggled for race pace early compared to the Mercedes and McLarens around him, but in the later laps with hard tyres, he put Hamilton under intense pressure and was just seconds away from snatching yet another victory.
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Red Bull slipped away from the front of the field in Hungary, with Verstappen making little effort to conceal his frustrations at his car’s lack of competitiveness compared to McLaren. But although he produced another excellent qualifying performance to line up third behind Norris and Piastri, his race was uncharacteristically ragged. He swore up a storm over the radio waves and clashed with Hamilton while battling over third, costing him a potential podium finish and dropping him to fifth in a rare instance of Verstappen not maximising his result.
Although he was not in contention for victory in the latest round in Belgium, he could at least be comfortable in the knowledge he had a power unit grid penalty to blame for that. He was almost certainly the best driver on the track at Spa over the weekend, setting the fastest time in qualifying by a significant margin to line up 11th on the grid, then climbing six places in the race to finish fifth on track, which became fourth after Russell’s post-race disqualification.
With 277 points, seven grand prix victories, three sprint race wins, eight pole positions and nine podium finishes, Verstappen comfortably sits atop the championship standings even having not won a grand prix in four rounds. Through all his achievements so far, it’s easy to overlook the fact that he is currently whitewashing team mate Sergio Perez on both Saturdays and Sundays in 2024 – although that says a lot more about Perez than Verstappen.
Although he is facing more competition now than he has for the last two years, there’s still little reason to doubt he will take title number four by the end of the season. Only an unprecedented collapse is likely to deny him.
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