Here's the story of how the Dutchman won the 2024 driver's championship.
Starting in style
In the early stages of the season, it looked like Verstappen was going to win the title without too much trouble as was the case as he did in 2022 and 2023.
The Red Bull man won the first two rounds of the season from pole position with no other driver getting anywhere near him, and while a mechanical failure in Australia ended his run of nine victories in a row dating back to the summer of 2023, he immediately returned to the top step of the podium at the next round in Japan and stayed there for the Chinese Grand Prix that followed.
A badly timed Safety Car for Verstappen in Miami caused him to lose the lead and the eventual win to Norris, and the McLaren remained a real threat to him after that. However, while the Brit was all over him in Imola, Montreal and Barcelona, the reigning champion kept his cool to claim three victories that gave him a huge 69-point lead in the standings after 10 rounds.
While Red Bull were in turmoil off the track with team boss Christian Horner being accused of harassment by a female colleague and Verstappen's father publicly criticising as reports emerged of a civil war within the team, their lead driver seemed to have a remarkable ability to block out all the noise and deliver on race-day regardless.
With the Dutchman so bulletproof, what could possibly go wrong?
A dangerous drought
Verstappen had managed to keep Norris at arm's length without too much trouble in the first 10 races of the campaign but that changed at his team's home race in Austria, where the two collided while battling for the lead and dropped down the field as a result with the championship leader also handed a time penalty.
That wasn't a disaster for him given he only fell down to fifth whereas Norris wasn't able to finish the race, and he extended his lead further at the British Grand Prix by finishing second behind Lewis Hamilton and a place ahead of his main rival, but alarm bells really began to ring in Hungary.
He could only claim fifth there while the McLarens dominated at the front, and even finishing on the podium became a tall order after that with Ferrari also surpassing Red Bull in the development race.
Some solace could be taken in the fact that the Italian team were taking points from Norris as well as him, but by the time the sport headed to Sao Paulo for the Brazilian Grand Prix, Verstappen was on his longest winless run in four years and his lead over the Brit had shrunk from 69 to 47 points.
The pressure was beginning to get to him too as was abundantly clear in Mexico, where he was handed two deserved penalties for driving dangerously when battling with Norris.
Were the wheels about to come off on his quest to win title number four?
Brilliance in Brazil seals the deal
Verstappen has produced a number of truly great drives since joining the F1 grid in 2015, but the 2024 Brazilian Grand Prix was perhaps the best of the lot.
At the start of the weekend, it looked like Norris would close the gap in the standings further and really ramp up the pressure when the Dutchman was knocked out in Q2 before the Brit secured pole position, but the Red Bull man had other ideas.
He went from 17th to seventh in a stunning opening 10 laps thanks to his remarkable ability to find far more pace than the rest of the field in tricky conditions and was given a richly deserved slice of luck after that in the form of a Safety Car that was perfectly timed for him. So much faster than the rest of the field was he after that that Norris admitted that the reigning champion would have lapped him if he'd started on pole rather than at the back of the field.
Whether he liked it or not, Norris also had to admit defeat in the title fight at the end of the race with Verstappen's win giving him an all but unassailable lead, and the 27-year-old sealed his fourth world championship a round later by comfortably finishing a place ahead of his rival in Las Vegas.
Verstappen's superior car rather than his own talent was undoubtedly the main reason he won the 2022 and 2023 titles but even his biggest critics won't be able to say the same this time around, with the four-time world champion holding off a man with superior machinery for the majority of the campaign and showing that he remains the best driver in the world.
