F1 title maths: How difficult has task now become for Norris vs Verstappen?

The Formula 1 season no one predicted now has just five race weekends left to run with Max Verstappen still on course for his fourth consecutive world title, despite Red Bull being usurped as F1’s fastest team – but McLaren rival Lando Norris is not giving up the fight yet.

Ahead of the second leg of F1’s triple-header of races in the Americas at the Mexico City Grand Prix, Norris needs a big weekend if he is to truly ignite his hunt after failing to maintain recent momentum by taking any points out of Verstappen’s once-mighty points lead over the US GP weekend.

Here’s a look at everything you need to know about how things stand in the Verstappen-Norris battle and what it all means with the title run-in now properly under way…

• Stream every F1 race with NOW Sports Month Membership
• Sky Sports F1’s full live Mexico City GP schedule
• Max Verstappen vs Lando Norris: How F1 title fight has developed into a thriller
• How it standings in the F1 world championship tables

What’s the state of play in the championship?

Reigning champion Verstappen holds a lead of 57 points over Norris with five rounds of the season remaining.

In what could ultimately have proven to be a defining late-season weekend in Austin last time out, Verstappen increased his advantage by five points by finishing ahead of Norris in both the Sprint – which he won with the McLaren driver third – and then by taking the final podium place in the Grand Prix after his British rival lost third through a contentious five-second time penalty imposed by stewards’ after an investigation into a late-race overtake.

Verstappen’s lead is now more than the equivalent of the maximum 26 points a driver can claim over two non-Sprint race weekends – 25 for the win and one for the fastest lap in each GP – and at this stage certainly represents a commanding cushion with so few races left.

How many points are left to play for?

There remains a maximum of 146 points up for grabs for a driver across the final five race weekends of the season.

That breaks down as 130 in the five grands prix (25 for a win and one for the fastest lap in each race) and 16 across the two Sprint races still to come (eight points for a win) in Brazil and Qatar.

What rate does Norris need to outscore Verstappen by?

Underlining the challenge he now faces after the events of Austin to pull off what would already have been considered a miraculous championship turnaround, Norris’ required rate of gains over Verstappen has now increased to an average of more than 11 points per race weekend.

That average gain could be achieved per race by Norris, for example, by finishing first and Verstappen fourth (13 points difference), for example.

More precisely, it works out as an average weekend gain of 11.6 points in order for Norris to finish the championship one point clear of Verstappen.

An average gain of 11.4 points from the McLaren driver would see them finish the campaign tied on points, when the title would then be determined on results countback between the pair through the season (with respective wins counted first). But Verstappen currently has seven wins to Norris’ three and the latter can, at best, only now get to a maximum eight wins for the year if he goes undefeated to the end of the campaign.

Was Norris doing enough before Verstappen struck back in USA?

Norris arrived in Austin having taken points out of Verstappen’s lead at all the four races since the August summer break (a total of 26 points across the Netherlands, Italy, Azerbaijan, Singapore) but even that rate of gains (6.5 points per weekend) was not going to prove enough even if it had been sustained over the rest of the campaign.

The fact Verstappen then outscored him by five points in the USA and Norris’ required rate of gains has now gone into double-digits clearly underlines the huge scale of the title challenger’s pursuit.

Indeed, the only time this season that Norris has outscored Verstappen by the average points margin he now requires to the end of the season to wrestle the title fight his way was back at the Australian GP in April when Verstappen retired and he finished third (15 points).

Norris’ quest is still be aided by the fact two of remaining five weekends feature a Sprint race – Brazil and Qatar – but see further below section for what he may now urgently require…

Is Norris champion if he wins every race with Verstappen second?

No.

Incredibly, that could have actually been the case after Singapore for the then-final six rounds in mid-September had Norris clung on to the bonus point for fastest lap in that race to go with his dominant victory.

Instead, Daniel Ricciardo, somewhat controversially, took it away from Norris in his RB, Red Bull’s sister team, by pitting for new tyres when running 17th late in the race and bettering the McLaren’s benchmark time in what proved his final act in the seat.

How soon could the title theoretically be won?

Whatever happens over the next few weeks, the absolute earliest the title could theoretically be won by Verstappen if results stunningly went his way is the Sao Paulo GP weekend of November 1-3.

But such a prospect seems unlikely given that to be in that position to be champion in Brazil, Verstappen needs to finish that weekend at least 86 points clear at the top – 29 more than his lead now in the space of just two race weekends.

But if Norris makes no further serious ground across Mexico and Brazil, then a coronation under the lights of Las Vegas on November 24 is conceivable, when Verstappen would need to end the event 61 (or 60 on countback) points ahead, just a handful more than now.

Norris, of course, will have other ideas and be aiming take his challenge all the way to the final two rounds in the Middle East, Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

How costly would a DNF be for either driver?

For Verstappen a race retirement would be damaging but still recoverable; for Norris it would effectively prove game over.

The risk of a 25/26-point swing in the championship at this late decisive stage would naturally have major consequences for the rest of the title fight, particularly if it was the McLaren challenger who failed to see the chequered flag in a race.

But while a one-off DNF, or no-points finish after a late-race drama, can certainly not be ruled out for either driver given the variables at play in F1, the chance of multiple car problems intervening in this battle over the season’s closing weeks appears unlikely.

Verstappen has only failed to finish once in the last 69 races – when his brakes failed at this year’s Australian GP – dating back to early 2022, while Norris’ last mechanical-related DNF was in November 2022 at that year’s Sao Paulo GP. The McLaren driver’s only retirement since then was in this year’s Austrian GP in June due to damage sustained in his collision with his Red Bull rival when fighting over the race lead.

Is Leclerc still in contention?

Mathematically-speaking only, with 146 points still to play for in F1 2024 the top five drivers in the championship (Verstappen, Norris, Charles Leclerc, Oscar Piastri and Carlos Sainz) are not officially out it yet.

Of course, the points standings make rather different reading in reality and once correct context is applied. So that reality is that even the prospects of third-placed Leclerc – the impressive winner in the USA – are extraordinarily slim.

Leclerc’s deficit to Verstappen is 79 points – more than three race wins – and so he would need to outscore the Red Bull driver by a whopping 16 points a race to the end of the year. Highly, highly unlikely. Then he’d also need to overhaul Norris too.

Buoyed by his recent wins at Monza and Austin, though, Leclerc could still fancy a run at the McLaren driver for second place with the Briton only 22 points ahead of him. And Ferrari too, 48 points behind McLaren, are eyeing up a late run at a first constructors’ title in 16 years.

Who’s got the quicker car for the run-in?

A question that has become increasingly difficult to answer, particularly after Ferrari’s eye-catching show of force to claim a comfortable one-two result at the Circuit of the Americas ahead of title contenders Verstappen and Norris.

Before then and the season’s second near-month-long break, resurgent McLaren had won four of the previous six races – two for Norris and two for Piastri – with Red Bull and Verstappen winless in a Grand Prix since June’s Spanish round.

Verstappen did win the Sprint in Austin but then Red Bull failed to show that form over the longer-distance Grand Prix, meaning the title leader has now gone nine races and four months without standing atop a Sunday podium.

With an upgraded Mercedes also showing random flashes of impressive speed last time out, only to fall flat when it really mattered, the competitive picture from session-to-session, let alone track-to-track, remains very hard to read heading to a Autodromo Hermanos Rodríguez circuit in Mexico where high altitude poses a unique challenge and can often make for a surprise pecking order.

Formula 1’s Americas triple header continues next weekend with the Mexico City Grand Prix, with every session live on Sky Sports F1. Stream every F1 race and more with a NOW Sports Month Membership – No contract, cancel anytime