Max Verstappen cruised to a fourth world championship, which he wrapped up at the Las Vegas Grand Prix after finishing fifth.
The Red Bull driver won the title in a very different way to his previous two successes as he often minimised the damage with a lacklustre car.
Verstappen managed the situation perfectly and made very few errors as Lando Norris continued to make mistakes over the season.
He wasn’t overly aggressive at times which allowed him to score points while the four-time world champion turned up the aggression levels when needed.
The fourth title puts Verstappen among the very top drivers with the most success to have raced in Formula 1 but he’s been told another driver will change the Dutchman’s approach.
Lawrence Barretto told the F1 Nation podcast that one driver in particular may change the way Verstappen approaches wheel-to-wheel combat.
Lando Norris may be the one to ‘change the way’ Max Verstappen drives
Norris, who has scored 973 points in his career, was Verstappen’s closest rival throughout the season. He came off worse most of the time when battling in wheel-to-wheel combat.
The British driver had the opportunity to win at the Austrian Grand Prix but collided with Verstappen at Turn 3 in a needless incident.
They also battled at Circuit of the Americas, which saw Norris receive a five-second time penalty after he passed Verstappen off the track.
There is a chance Norris and Verstappen could be fighting for another championship next season. The McLaren driver is yet to consistently outperform his rival in a battle.
Barretto explained Norris would have learned a lot from this season as he has a lot more knowledge about Verstappen heading into 2025.
He said: “What I am fascinated to see is now that Lando has built up this bank of knowledge, what is going to happen next year when we’re reset at zero.
“And they are going into a chicane side by side again, what is going to happen? Is Max going to act differently? Is Lando going to act differently? Because I think all of the learnings from this year, Lando is going to be a different driver because he’s going to have that bank of data in his head.
“And that is when it’s going to get spicy, I think, because Max is probably going to have to change the way he works.”
Max Verstappen has usually delivered in wheel-to-wheel combat
Verstappen has been hugely aggressive on the circuit throughout his career since making his debut in the 2015 season.
The Dutchman was error-prone in his early years, making errors that cost him potential race wins such as at Monaco in 2018.
He has since toned down his driving slightly when on the absolute limit but has still raced drivers such as Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc aggressively.
Next season could be tricky for Verstappen as he looks to win his fifth consecutive title. Ferrari and McLaren have improved drastically, while Mercedes welcomes Italian youngster Andrea Kimi Antonelli.
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