Max Verstappen’s Formula 1 title defence was, statistically, rather straightforward. He led the championship from start to finish.
Verstappen won four of the first five races to open up a 25-point lead over teammate Sergio Perez. Five rounds later, he’d picked up seven from 10, leaving him 69 points ahead of nearest challenger Lando Norris.
By the end of the season, Norris had only managed to trim six points from that advantage. And even then, the Englishman made significant inroads at the Abu Dhabi GP by winning the race while his former title rival finished sixth after first-corner contact with Oscar Piastri and a 10-second penalty.
In terms of the drivers’ championship fight, that race was a dead rubber. Verstappen had sealed the crown in Las Vegas with two races still to go.
But the experience inside the Red Bull team was far from serene. Christian Horner’s disastrous attempt at a power grab threatened to sew permanent divisions behind the scenes.
And even when that crisis eased, Red Bull’s worsening performance on track – McLaren, Ferrari and occasionally Mercedes moved ahead – created tension. Verstappen angrily clashed with race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase at the Hungarian GP, the most visible flashpoint.
Max Verstappen doesn’t want to ‘relive’ the build-up to the Sao Paulo Grand Prix
Between round 10 in Spain and the finale in Abu Dhabi, the closest Norris got was 44 points. This was during the Sao Paulo GP weekend, when Oscar Piastri moved over to hand him victory in the Sprint race.
Verstappen, penalised for a restart infringement, ended up fourth. But more significantly, he suffered a first Q2 exit of the season in a soaking and controversial qualifying session.
After an engine penalty was applied, he started down in 17th, with Norris on pole. Speaking on the Talking Bull podcast, Verstappen admitted that he felt unusual pre-race nerves.
“Honestly, I wouldn’t want to relive Brazil,” he said. “It was so emotionally draining, that day. I cannot do that again.
“It’s the same as, for me, reliving my first title. That day – I think honestly I would die [from] a heart attack.
“I remember people that saw me that day, especially my girlfriend Kelly. She came into my room before the race.
“Normally, before a race, I’m not really that nervous. You’re just well-prepared, and there might be some nerves because you want to do well.
“But she said my hands were ice-cold. Again, you really don’t want to relive these kind of moments.”
Verstappen would, of course, go on to produce one of F1’s all-time great drives. He scythed his way through the pack from 17th to win the race, aided by errors from McLaren and Norris.
The one 2024 performance that was even better than Max Verstappen’s Brazil comeback drive
There’s no question that Sao Paulo was the key weekend in the 2024 title fight. Had Norris won, and Verstappen finished outside the top four – an entirely plausible outcome before the race – then the lead would have fallen below 30 points with three events (four including the Qatar Sprint) remaining.
Instead, as Norris slipped to sixth, Verstappen left Brazil with a 62-point lead. Both competitors knew the race had effectively been settled.
One Red Bull employee thinks McLaren made too many mistakes to capitalise on the pace of their package. But that shouldn’t detract from the masterful nature of Verstappen’s Brazil comeback.
Still, Jolyon Palmer thinks Carlos Sainz outdid Verstappen at the Australian GP. Palmer named Sainz’s victory, which came two weeks after an appendectomy, as the best comeback drive of 2024.
