With Max Verstappen set to clinch the 2024 Formula 1 drivers’ title this weekend in Las Vegas, the constructors’ championship is likely to go to the final race of the season. And Red Bull has very little chance of winning it.
Thanks to a good summer from its two drivers, McLaren leads the constructors’ standings with 36 points over Ferrari with three races remaining. The Scuderia is 13 points ahead of Red Bull in third place.
Red Bull entered the season as the prohibitive favorite for the constructors’ title. And for good reason. Verstappen and teammate Sergio Pérez won 21 of 22 races in 2023, as Red Bull’s cars were much better than everyone else’s.
That lead looked to extend into 2024. Verstappen won four of the first five races of the season. Carols Sainz’s victory at the Australian Grand Prix came after Verstappen was forced to retire the car in the opening laps due to a brake fire.
But McLaren’s improvements in Miami in May set the stage for a summer in which Red Bull found itself on the defensive. Lando Norris took victory in South Florida, although Verstappen won three of the next four races.
Since then, however, Mercedes-powered cars have continued to operate. The McLaren and Mercedes drivers won five consecutive races over the summer and seven of eight. Meanwhile, Ferrari won three races before Versrappen finally returned to victory lane in Brazil on November 3.
If Verstappen wins a fourth consecutive championship and unless Red Bull can pull off 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 did not win the constructors’ championship. qualification. And if Red Bull can’t overtake either McLaren or Ferrari, the team’s third place finish in the constructors’ standings will be the lowest result for a team with the champion driver since Williams was fourth in 1982.
Frankly, Red Bull can blame Perez squarely for its constructor’s poor performance. Verstappen has scored 393 of the team’s 544 points so far this season. He is ahead of Mercedes in fourth place on his own.
Pérez is stuck in eighth place in the standings and 39 points behind seventh. He has the fewest points of any driver from the top four teams and has been the hardest hit by the lack of superiority of the Red Bull cars. Pérez had three seconds and a third in the first five races of the season. He hasn’t been on the podium since and has five non-points finishes in the last 16 races.
Meanwhile, Ferrari has kept pace with McLaren. Charles Leclerc has two wins in the last nine races and has not finished lower than fifth in that span. Sainz won two races ago in Mexico City and has finished in the top seven in all but three races so far this season.
However, McLaren remains the deserved favourite. The team is -700 to take the drivers’ title at BetMGM, as both Norris and Oscar Piastri continue to score points on a regular basis. Both drivers have finished in the points in the last 10 races, and Norris’s only non-points finish to the season came in Austria when he tangled with Verstappen while racing for the lead in the waning laps.
If McLaren wins the constructors’ title, it will be the first for the team in 26 seasons. Although Mika Hakkinen won the drivers’ title in 1999 and Lewis Hamilton took the championship in 2008 while driving for McLaren, the team has not won the constructors’ crown since Hakkinen claimed his first title in 1998. A ninth constructors’ title will take McLaren of the tie. 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 its resume.