Twenty races and still not decided 🏎️🏆

Verstappen has a big lead, but no longer has the fastest car, so can he hang on and be champion, or will Norris overhaul him?

=> Will the line on this graph get below the x axis?

It's a big task for Norris. He has to solidly outscore Verstappen in all of the last four races. And if either fails to finish a race, it might be all over. Complicating the outcome is that there are three teams who can win races now, and occasionally four. In Mexico, Norris didn't win, but Verstappen did worse.

There's been a lot of talk about Verstappen's blocking tactics. If one driver is ahead at the apex of a corner, the other is supposed to give space. Seems reasonable. Verstappen steams in to get to the apex first, knowing that he can't stay on the track, but meaning that the other driver has to stay out of the way because look who got to the apex first. Sainz made a clean, uncontroversial pass on Verstappen for the lead, but Sainz isn't a championship contender. Often Verstappen seems to get away with bending the rules, but this time he got a 20 second time penalty and had no chance to recover.

Everyone agrees that the lack of dominance makes the races more interesting. It's boring to know beforehand who's going to win. Next year should be entertaining because the cars will remain pretty much unchanged. In 2026, the rules will change and we can expect that whichever team gets it right will dominate as Mercedes did from 2014 and Red Bull did from 2022.

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