McLaren took the lead of the constructors’ championship two races ago. Do they therefore have the best combination of car, team and drivers in Formula 1 at the moment?
Arguably not. On pure single-lap pace, Red Bull’s RB20 has been closer to the best across the 18 rounds so far on average. But that is likely to change over the coming races: The MCL38 is now only slightly slower on average for the whole season and the orange team have been quicker across all of the last seven events.
So as it stands, Red Bull are no longer leading the constructors’ championship but Max Verstappen has a healthy lead in the drivers’ standings. It therefore follows that his team mate Sergio Perez is conspicuously underperforming. Sure enough, he has fallen to eighth, with every driver from the team’s rivals McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes separating them.
Lando Norris, the winner of the last race in Singapore, is leading the charge against Verstappen. But with 52 points between them his chances of taking the title are remote.
Should Norris be closer? He emerged from the summer break 78 points behind Verstappen. Facing a crucial run of four races in which he had a clear opportunity to out-score his rival, Norris did exactly that, taking points off Verstappen every time.
But he could have done more. Points went begging at Baku, due to reasons beyond his control, and Monza, where team mate Oscar Piastri finished ahead of him in second place, and either McLaren driver could have won.
How many points could Norris have scored prior to then? He has clearly missed opportunities on earlier occasions. But unpicking the consequences of, for example, dropping a wheel into a gravel trap on lap one at Spa, and determining where he would have finished 44 laps later, is always going to be subjective.
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A more robust figure can be reached by looking at the maximum score each team’s car took at each race. In Verstappen’s case he had little room for improvement: The only occasion his team mate out-scored him was when his car broke down in Australia.
Norris, however, has been out-scored by Piastri in nine of the 21 races so far (18 grands prix plus three sprint races). If Norris had consistently scored the best result of each McLaren driver as Verstappen did at Red Bull, would his deficit be much less than the 52 points it is today?
Yes. In fact, there would be no deficit:…
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