Six races to go: the calendar's final quarter. The business end of the year. The last push. That bit of the year where all the races turn into an amalgamated blob of half-remembered overtakes at weird times of the day, before finally concluding in an Abu Dhabi encounter that will either be saturated in tedium, or offer a masterclass in how to put on a championship finale. And never the twain shall meet.
Thankfully, unlike 2024, the final run-in of flyaways is not a series of dead-rubber races; millions of pounds are not being expended for little material yield. This time there's a championship battle on the cards, at least only notionally unless the gap between Max Verstappen and Lando Norris comes down to a tangible range in the final couple of races. There's a lot left to play for, which means the usual winding-down period in development to focus on 2025 is a much more precarious situation to manage.
