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Max Verstappen and Red Bull have gone into Formula 1’s summer break on their worst run since 2020, which means there is a new championship favourite.
A season that started with Verstappen-led Red Bull domination has evolved into at least one surprise title fight - two, if you share Verstappen’s concern that he could be caught in the drivers’ championship by Lando Norris as well.
McLaren couldn’t quite win the final race before the August break in Belgium but it did take advantage of Verstappen’s grid penalty and Sergio Perez’s slump to further reduce the gap in the constructors’ points.
And with Red Bull on a four-race winless run - Verstappen’s longest spell without victory since before he was a world champion - the momentum is with the chaser. Even though Red Bull's technically in control, McLaren will be disappointed if it fails to take advantage of this opportunity to steal the constructors' crown.
Constructors' championship
1 Red Bull 408 points
2 McLaren -42
3 Ferrari -63
4 Mercedes -142
Verstappen believes McLaren has “for sure been the best” over the last five or six races. And his words carried a clear warning into the summer break, even if it was all a little more measured in Spa than the more furious wake-up call he’d delivered to Red Bull in Hungary.
Neither Red Bull drivers sounded like they felt their team was in control. They spoke like a team on the back foot and knew that McLaren’s got the advantage.
Verstappen said Red Bull had to analyse everything “from race one all the way to here”, needed to try to “fight back” after the summer break, and “see if we can actually improve the situation” and “turn it around”. Perez said the summer break was coming at a good time for Red Bull because it has been “a bit lost” recently.
And team boss Christian Horner, who has opted not to replace Perez after the summer break, said: "If you reflect on the first part of the year now, we're over half-distance, we've won seven grands prix, we've won three sprint races, we're leading both championships.
"But over recent weeks that constructors' [points advantage] has diminished somewhat, and that's where our focus is."
It is well-documented that McLaren’s outscored Red Bull significantly over the last eight events. The gap is now the smallest it’s been since the first round in Bahrain and if McLaren keeps gaining on Red Bull at the current rate, it will win the championship.
With that in mind, there’s a very strong case that McLaren is actually the favourite - even though it’s coming from behind.
Verstappen said that Red Bull’s got a race-pace deficit that means every race is about "limiting the damage and trying to be as close as I can". So unless Red Bull either addresses its car limitations or Perez starts scoring big points again (ideally both), it will be nervously looking over its shoulder after the break.
It means McLaren has a great chance, if nothing else. But do the two trajectories leave Verstappen vulnerable in the drivers’ championship too?
That would be a stretch. One of the reasons Red Bull's exposed in the constructors' is that Perez is out of the picture and so the Norris/Oscar Piastri combination is too much for Verstappen to defeat solo.
But on the drivers' side, Verstappen is still the most consistent of the frontrunners, and keeping his pursuers at bay.
Norris is Verstappen’s closest challenger, and though Verstappen believes that Norris can beat him to the title this year it will be a very tall order.
Norris is still a long way behind and managed to lose ground in Belgium despite starting seven places higher than his Red Bull rival. It was a scrappy weekend with too many rough edges and Norris can’t beat a driver like Verstappen with these performances.
Even if he eradicates the errors, to make up 78 points in the remaining 10 races is a huge challenge.
There are factors on Norris’s side. This is the longest season in F1 history, so it is easier for someone to build up a large lead then lose it. There’s also three more sprint races and an extra point for fastest lap in each grand prix.
But if Norris comes back to win this world championship it will be one of the biggest turnarounds in history.
On a pro-rata basis - adjusting past seasons to take into account the fact that, since 2010, there have been 25 points for a victory rather than 10, nine or even eight in earlier years - it would be the second-biggest points deficit ever overcome, seeing as Norris was actually 84 points behind Verstappen at one stage.
The biggest turnaround came in exceptional circumstances, with James Hunt overturning a 35-point advantage - around 97 points in today’s money - to take the 1976 title. But rival Niki Lauda’s horrific crash in the German Grand Prix kept him on the sidelines for two races, he was not fully recovered when he returned, and he withdrew from the terribly wet title decider at Fuji.
You have to look to the miracle of Kimi Raikkonen in 2007 for a massive comeback in a straight fight. He was 26 points behind Lewis Hamilton at worst - 65 points based on the current system - and had to overturn an improbable 17-point deficit with 20 points available in the final two races.
The odds are clearly against Norris. Especially against such formidable opposition - Verstappen's reaping the rewards from a very strong start, and has had generally good consistency since.
And unlike Verstappen, Norris is not a clear number one because McLaren’s got two strong drivers it is backing equally. Some feel that needs to change, but McLaren strongly disagrees - at least for now.
While Norris might come to rue sharing points with Piastri in the unlikely event he scrapes back into title contention, having two drivers in the mix is precisely why McLaren’s now breathing down Red Bull’s neck in the championship it is much more likely to win.
