Norris left in awe of Verstappen: 'He has no negatives'

Since the Miami Grand Prix, Verstappen has not had the quickest car in the Formula 1 field. For most of the time, that was in Norris' hands. The McLaren driver often failed to maximise, while Verstappen managed to limit the damage. Verstappen went months without a race win, yet his World Championship lead was never really eaten into.

How Norris reacted to Verstappen's 2024 F1 title win

"Massive congrats to him. He's deserved it. He's not put a foot wrong really the whole year. That's a strength of his. He has no downsides. He has no negatives. When he's had the quickest car, he dominated races. When he's not in the quickest car, he's still been just behind us and almost winning the races anyway. He's just not had a bad side to him. He's not had any bad races the whole year. He's just drove as Max has always driven, which is perfectly, and can't fault him anyway," Norris told GPblog and others in Las Vegas.

It's the first time Norris has battled for the World Championship, while Verstappen has now won four in a row. "Some of it's experience. I think he's still had a relatively easy season. I think if we had a better car at the beginning of the year, we would have been fighting him a lot more. He would have been under pressure a lot more pressure than he's ever been," Norris added.

"As soon as we did [add pressure], he made mistakes. The team made mistakes, but over the course of the season that's very few in terms of what he's done and that's what makes him so good. He's not had a bad qualifying, he's not at a bad race. I think his worst race was probably Budapest. He still finished fifth. He just gets everything out of the car every time. It's always impressive to see. There's always things to learn," Norris concluded.