It has been a crazy couple of races, hasn’t it? The season appeared to be an absolute walkover at the start when Verstappen won four out of the first five races, and that fifth one was a throwaway for him because of a mechanical failure. But then Lando Norris won in Miami and almost overtook Verstappen in Imola, Charles Leclerc broke the curse and won in Monaco, and George Russell took pole in Canada and almost challenged for the win!
Here’s the problem though: none of those races really were all that representative of where the grid is at right now. Yes, it does prove that things are more competitive than last year, when Verstappen could just win every race with both hands tied behind his back. But it still doesn’t really tell us what the true balance of power is right now. The Spanish Grand Prix this weekend will most likely change that.
The last races haven't been decisive
Let’s go through them chronologically. Norris’ Miami victory was a little bit of a lucky shot. That doesn’t take anything away from his win, because if I may borrow a phrase: that’s racing. Every driver gets lucky sometimes, just like how they all get unlucky. In Miami, Verstappen got a bit of damage from the bollard that he hit which caused him to lose speed. The Safety Car then came out at a very opportune moment for Norris, which only helped him more when it failed to pick him up properly. It still was a great victory from Norris, but it didn’t really show us what a true face-off between McLaren and Red Bull looks like this year.
Imola was quite a bit more representative, but also not really. Red Bull had brought a whole bunch of upgrades to that race and they didn’t appear to have that much of an impact. The first half of the race, Verstappen seemed untouchable. But then he seemed very much touchable when Norris rapidly closed the gap in the end with no real factors changed compared to the first half. It was pretty unclear after that whether that was the maximum pace of the Red Bull or if the McLaren needed a bit to come alive. What also plays a role here is that Imola proved very difficult to overtake. So perhaps Verstappen knew that he didn’t really have to go all out because he could quite easily keep Norris behind him.
| Verstappen's results since Miami | |
|---|---|
| Miami | 2nd |
| Imola | 1st |
| Monaco | 6th |
| Canada | 1st |
| Closest challengers to Verstappen | |
|---|---|
| Bahrain | Perez* |
| Saudi Arabia | Perez* |
| Australia ** | Sainz |
| Japan | Perez* |
| China | Norris* |
| Miami ** | Norris |
| Imola | Norris |
| Monaco ** | Leclerc |
| Canada | Russell/Norris |
*Gap bigger than 10 seconds.
** Race not won by Verstappen
Monaco… well, it’s Monaco. You know how this works: the starting grid is most likely the same as the final result. Especially this time with the red flag that allowed everyone to get their pitstops out of the way, there was not a single bit of action on the track. And also no chance of overtaking or actual battling. Just look at Verstappen and Russell for that: despite Verstappen pitting for fresh tires and being much, much faster than Russell, he couldn’t overtake the dreadfully slow Mercedes. Again: not a real comparison.
Speaking of Verstappen and Russell: Canada. Both of them set the exact same pole time, which was amazing to see. In the first part of the race, the battle was on between them two and Norris, until a Safety Car once again influenced the race. Though once again: that’s racing. But the weather conditions in Canada were mixed at best, turning the race more into a tactical jousting match than a contest of speed.
Verstappen won that, because we know the Red Bull team is pretty much infallible when it comes to strategy, but it still didn’t give us a proper insight into the speed of the Red Bull compared to the others. Before that Safety Car came out, Verstappen was actually well behind Norris and struggling to stay ahead of Russell.
Spain will finally give us a clear image
So the past four races didn’t give us any real insight into the balance of power right now. Due to upgrades, weather conditions, Safety Cars and track characteristics we don’t really know how the cars compare to each other right now. But it looks like the Spanish Grand Prix might change that.
Red Bull is bringing along some upgrades to counter the new package that Mercedes brought to Canada, but it’s nothing major. The track of Barcelona Catalunya lends itself well enough for overtaking that we could see some nice battles. The characteristics of the track also don’t really strongly favor any of the teams. Rain is a bit of a toss-up right now, as recent weather predictions have it at a 50/50 chance, though most of the rain on Sunday will most likely happen before the race itself. That means that as long as the drivers can resist the urge to damage each other and bring out a Safety Car, we can finally see whether the others got lucky the last few times and Verstappen is just back to demolishing everyone else, or if we really do have a title fight on our hands for the rest of 2024.