Now that Max Verstappen can win the title of Formula 1 driver of 2024 this weekend in Las Vegas, the constructors’ championship will probably go to the last race of the season. And Red Bull has very little chance of winning it.
Thanks to a strong summer from both drivers, McLaren leads the constructors’ standings by 36 points over Ferrari with three races remaining. The Scuderia are 13 points ahead of Red Bull in third place.
Red Bull entered the season as the prohibitive favorite for the constructors’ title. And with good reason. Verstappen and teammate Sergio Perez won 21 of the 22 races in 2023, as Red Bull’s cars were miles better than anyone else.
That advantage seemed to continue in 2024. Verstappen won four of the first five races of the season. Carols Sainz’s victory at the Australian Grand Prix came after Verstappen had to stop the car in the opening laps due to a brake fire.
But McLaren’s upgrades in Miami in May set the stage for a summer in which Red Bull fell behind. Lando Norris took victory in South Florida, although Verstappen won three of the next four races.
Since then, however, Mercedes-powered cars have been on the run. McLaren and Mercedes drivers won five consecutive races and seven out of eight this summer. Ferrari, meanwhile, won three races before Versrappen finally returned to victory lane in Brazil on November 3.
If and when Verstappen wins the championship for the fourth time in a row, and unless Red Bull can stage a miraculous comeback in the final three races, the 2024 season will be only the third since the turn of the century in which the champion driver’s team has won the constructor’s title didn’t win. title. And if Red Bull cannot pass both McLaren and Ferrari, the team’s third place in the constructors’ standings will be the lowest finish for a team with the champion driver since Williams finished fourth in 1982.
To be fair, Red Bull can blame its manufacturer’s poor performance directly on Perez. Verstappen has scored 393 of the team’s 544 points so far this season. He is in fourth place ahead of Mercedes on his own strength.
Perez is eighth in the standings and 39 points behind seventh place. He has the fewest points of any driver in the top four teams and has borne the brunt of the Red Bull car’s lack of superiority. Perez had three seconds and a third over the first five races of the season. He has not finished on the podium since and has finished outside the points five times in the last 16 races.
Ferrari, meanwhile, is keeping pace with McLaren. Charles Leclerc has two wins and has not finished lower than fifth in the past nine races. Sainz won two races ago in Mexico City and finished in the top seven in all but three races this season.
However, McLaren is still the deserved favorite. The team is -700 to take the drivers’ title at BetMGM as both Norris and Oscar Piastri continue to score points regularly. Both drivers have finished in the points in the last ten races, with Norris’ only non-points finish of the season coming in Austria, when he collided with Verstappen in the waning laps while racing for the lead.
If McLaren wins the constructors’ title, it will be the team’s first in 26 seasons. Although Mika Hakkinen won the drivers’ title in 1999 and Lewis Hamilton scored the championship in 2008 while driving for McLaren, the team has not won the constructors’ crown since Hakkinen scored his first title in 1998. A ninth constructors’ title will move McLaren from a draw. with Mercedes in third place and tied with Williams for the second most team championships in F1 history. If Ferrari can overcome that 36-point deficit in three races, the Scuderia will add a 17th title to their resume.
