Naming aromatic compounds

Why is 4-methyl-1,3-dinitrobenzene named like that and it’s not 1-methyl-2,4-dinitrobenzene?? I thought it had to be the smallest possible numbers used so the second one makes more sense to me.

By iupac rules you want to minimise the numbering of the functional group,in this case the functional group is nitro (NO2) therefore you’ll try have 1-nitro whereas the methyl group is just the prefix group so it’ll have a lesser priority

So say it was a Br group and a NO2 group, which one gets priority then?

Halo groups aren’t used as functional groups,they’re prefix’s such as chloromethane so in your case NO2 will be the functional group however answering your question about priority groups presuming you study aqa personally I haven’t come across any questions where they have like multiple functional groups and asking you to name them but you just need to remember that the only functional groups that can become prefix’s are alcohols and amines therefore if you have a molecule with NH2 (amine) and OH the NH2 will take priority giving something like hydroxylpropylamine.

I study ocr, in my textbook the NO2 group is also a prefix (the prefix “nitro”), and I’m pretty sure we’ve learnt that halogen groups are also functional groups as well as being prefixes. What is it about NO2 that gives it priority over Br?