One day Lando Norris and McLaren will get it 100 per cent right rather than between 98pc and 99pc, and a world championship fight will burst into life.
They are so agonisingly close to getting there that Norris is currently berating himself through long days and restless nights.
‘I should have won, I f***ed up the start,’ he bemoaned after finishing the Spanish Grand Prix second to Max You Know Who, with Lewis Hamilton taking his first podium of the season in third place.
Norris is now second in the championship for the first time, 69 behind Verstappen, but he added: ‘Car was amazing. Deserved more.’
He learned, as if he needed any prompting, the truth that if you are hellbent on winning the title that you can’t give Verstappen the slightest sniff. The Dutchman is too good for that, and he proved it again.
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen won the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona on Sunday afternoon
Reigning world champion Verstappen has now won seven of the first 10 Grand Prix of 2024
Verstappen fended off the challenge of Lando Norris (right) with Lewis Hamilton (left) in third
Only 2.2seconds separated the pair at the end of 66 laps, and Norris was looking at the fractions of difference that made it so. He started on pole – a brilliantly achieved one – and the critical requirement was to exit the first corner in front.
He didn’t manage that. He got off cleanly enough in the initial phase but perhaps lost a little ground in the next, Verstappen pulling alongside him. He kept his elbows out. So much so that Verstappen was briefly pushed on to the grass. A puff of dust.
It was a little aggressive by Norris. Verstappen asked about it afterwards was sanguine, well sort of. ‘I know what to get him for his birthday,’ he said. ‘Either a big mirror or a pair of glasses.’
Anyway, Norris’s birth eyes were no doubt focused on Verstappen, just as a gunslinger’s shot fizzed on the outside in the form of George Russell’s Mercedes. Russell took the tow from both cars in front. Norris braked too early, and Russell was through.
Norris was lying third, his race compromised beyond repair, however hard he and his strategists toiled. Twice in a fortnight, after a bad call while he led in Montreal, this was a win that got away.
But Norris ranked Sunday’s miss worse than the Canadian disappointment, for he was driving the fastest car out there, a point acknowledged by its driver and accepted by most – a remarkable statement given the untouchable might of Red Bull down the past few seasons of stupendously impressive monotony. They have been reeled in.
Fans gathered on track to watch the podium ceremony after Verstappen’s latest victory
Verstappen crossed the finish line 2.219 seconds ahead of his nearest rival in Barcelona
That rival was McLaren driver Norris – who had dropped from pole position to third at the first corner
Speaking afterwards, Norris said: ‘We could easily have won. Not could have but should have. The car was incredible.’
His extent of his impressive machinery was emphasised after he was twice left out longer than Verstappen so he could charge down the Red Bull on fresher rubber. He closed a gap of 11 to four and then one of eight into that 2.2 (to be exact). But the point is he would never been at those disadvantages other than for the dodgy start.
In case we are too generous to Norris, it should be noted that Verstappen cleared Russell at the first opportunity offered by DRS, yet Norris did not.
Whatever, Russell delayed Norris’s passage, and McLaren might have attempted a brave undercut on Russell, rather than go long. A bit meek of them not to do so.
Once the first stops had played out, the two Englishmen duelled on lap 35, dicing thrillingly for five corners until Norris pushed past Russell for second place.
Hamilton later overtook Russell, on ineffective hard tyres, for third.
George Russell (right) went from fourth to first by the first corner, but the Mercedes driver ultimately dropped back to fourth by the end of the race
Charles Leclerc (right) beat Carlos Sainz to fifth after they squabbled at the start of the race
The Ferrari drivers were seen deep in conversation after the race had come to a finish
Two ironies to consider. First, Mercedes were accused in an anonymous email ‘sabotaging’ Hamilton, yet not so here. He was handed the better strategy – as if to prove a point?
Secondly, Mercedes are coming into form, at last, and a win is within reach, just as the Ferrari team Hamilton is joining next year are faltering. Charles Leclerc finished fifth and Carlos Sainz sixth.
So does 39-year-old Hamilton harbour any regrets about casting away the late autumn of his career to the Scuderia?
‘No, not at all,’ he said, smiling at his upturn in fortunes.
‘I love Mercedes. I have been with then since I was 13 and will always be a fan. But my job next year is with the other team, and they are doing a great job.
‘They have had a difficult couple of races, but let’s not forget they had a win in Monaco last month.’
Fine, but on Sunday the car you’d want was a McLaren. And Lando knew it.