Lando Norris’s fifth Grand Prix victory in Australia marked the end of Max Verstappen’s reign in the drivers’ championship. After leading the championship for 1029 days, the McLaren driver now replaces the Dutchman at the top. However, this is not the only remarkable streak of Verstappen’s that came to an end in Melbourne thanks to Norris.
Over the past few years, Max Verstappen has broken one record after another during Red Bull’s dominance. For instance, the Dutchman holds the record for the most consecutive Grand Prix victories – ten, from the Miami GP 2023 to the Italy GP 2023 – as well as the record for the most wins in a single season – nineteen victories in 2023.
However, Verstappen’s reign has definitively ended with Lando Norris’s victory in Melbourne, which also brought an end to another remarkable streak of the Dutchman’s. Norris became the first Formula 1 driver, not named Verstappen, to win more than one race in a row since Lewis Hamilton in 2021.
Norris notably won the Australian Grand Prix after claiming victory in the final race of 2024, the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Lewis Hamilton had a streak of victories in 2021, winning the Brazilian, Qatari, and Saudi Arabian Grands Prix consecutively. Since Hamilton’s last three consecutive wins, no other driver on the grid has been able to win more than one Grand Prix in a row, except for Max Verstappen.
Next Record?
It seems that Norris has developed a taste for breaking remarkable streaks and records. It will likely take some time before the McLaren driver can shatter another one of Verstappen’s statistics. The Dutchman currently ranks third on the list of most victories by a driver ever, with 63 wins, while Norris is in 51st place. However, the British driver has moved up a spot on the list of victories by drivers on the current grid. Norris now holds the fifth spot, leaving Carlos Sainz behind.
