Sebastian Vettel on why Max Verstappen is the favorite for the title this season over Lando Norris

Former four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel picked Max Verstappen as his favorite for the championship over Lando Norris, claiming that the Dutch driver was "so tough." The Red Bull driver has racked up almost the same amount of points as the McLaren driver since the Miami GP, despite having an inferior car to the British driver in terms of performance.

The reigning three-time world champion has failed to win a main race ever since the Spanish Grand Prix in late June but has been incredibly consistent in collecting points in his RB20.

Speaking with Sky Germany in Brazil, Sebastian Vettel believed that the gap of 47 points between Max Verstappen and Lando Norris would be too big for the latter to close, citing:

“I think that Max is so tough right now, he drives so well. We rarely see mistakes from his side, and even though his car may not be as strong now as at the beginning of the year, I still see him as the favorite [to win the championship].

"I think he is still strong enough to get enough points and Lando is no longer in a position to win every race so easily. So I would say the favorite role is clearly distributed and lies with Max. But yes, if I look at it from an independent perspective, it would get even tighter."

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Max Verstappen analyzes his P4 finish at sprint shootout in Brazil

Red Bull driver Max Verstappen stated that he was off the timings as soon as the sprint shootout began and as his RB20 was struggling with the bumps in the track.

As per F1.com, the 27-year-old spoke about the work in front of the team as he hinted that they might struggle with the race pace as well, saying:

“As soon as we went into Sprint qualifying it looked like we were off. It was a bit difficult with the bumps and I feel like the resurfacing has made it more difficult to drive. It was extremely bumpy which isn’t great for our car as it was jumping around a lot and unfortunately costing us quite a bit of lap time.

He added,

"For tomorrow, I don’t think we are the strongest in the race, so will have to see how that goes in the Sprint. Of course, the weather might have an impact, but we will have to wait and see. We have a bit more work to do.”

Max Verstappen has won every single Sprint race in the 2024 season on four previous occasions. He would hope to minimize the points loss to a minimum in the Sprint race on Saturday, given he would take a five-place grid penalty for the main race, citing a new ICE change in his power unit.