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Red Bulls' Downfall and the Rise of McLaren: A Championship Battle

Regina Salinas

StraightTimes

The 2024 formula one season has become one of the most interesting and competitive we have seen in a long time. What we expected to be another Red Bull and Verstappen dominated season has turned into multiple race winners. There have already been seven different winners with four of those winning more than just one race.


The season began with Verstappen easily winning three of the first four races of the season, only not winning in Australia because of an issue with his car. This gave a foreshadowing of what we expected to be an easy fourth championship win for Max Verstappen. 


However, Mclaren began their ride to dominance when Lando Norris won his first race at the 2024 Miami Grand Prix, which was the sixth race of the year. In that race Mclaren showed how strong they could be when they had a good strategy mixed with the upgrades they were making on their car. Having young and strong drivers like Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri also benefited them a lot because they had the strongest and most complete team on the grid. After that Mclaren went to win the Hungarian Grand Prix with Piastri, the Netherlands grand prix with Norris, the Azerbaijan grand prix with Piastri and the Singapore grand prix with Norris. 


The Singapore Grand Prix was significantly important because Norris led every lap of the race and finished more than 20 seconds ahead of Verstappen showing complete dominance over Redbull. This gave a great preview of the fight that is to come in the next few races before the ending of the season when the drivers championship is decided. 


Relative to Mclarens improvement Redbull has also been having a lot of trouble with their car which has made it even easier for Mclaren to show their dominance. Red Bull has appeared to not be making great upgrades as the rest of the teams on the grid have. Max Verstappen has not won a race in the past 8 races when we were used to seeing him easily win every race. 


The constructors championship battle officially started in the Azerbaijan grand prix when Mclaren finally passed Red Bull in terms of points. With Mclaren’s strong team and multiple race wins it was suspected that they would be able to reach redbull in the championship sooner or later. Right now Mclaren is beating Red Bull in the championship by 41 points with a total of 516 points compared to Red Bull's 475. Even though there are still six races left in the season with how strong the Mclaren team is it will be hard for Red Bull to fight to claim the 2024 constructors title. 


Besides the fight for the constructors title a fight for the drivers championship has begun. Lando Norris is currently 52 points behind Max Verstappen in the Championship with Verstappen having 331 points and Norris 279. With the support of his team Lando Norris could leave the 2024 season as the world champion. He would need to win most of the races to come and Verstappen would need to have some bad races but it is possible. This would be Mclaren's first constructors championship since 1998 and drivers championship since 2008.

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