Stupid to think of F1 title, says Lando Norris after second win
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Lando Norris (above) is still a huge distance behind triple world champion Max Verstappen with nine races remaining.
PHOTO: AFP
ZANDVOORT – Lando Norris said it was stupid to talk about winning the Formula One title after his statement Dutch Grand Prix victory on Aug 25, but the McLaren driver’s chances were certainly being discussed by others.
The 24-year-old Briton’s second career triumph, and second of the season, was particularly resonant coming in Max Verstappen’s backyard with more than 100,000 mostly orange-shirted fans cheering for Red Bull’s championship leader.
Norris took the chequered flag
“I’ve been working hard the whole year and I’m still 70 points behind Max. So it’s pretty stupid to think of anything at the minute,” he said when asked about the title.
“I just take one race at a time and just keep doing what I’m doing now because there’s no point to think ahead and think of the rest.”
No Formula One driver has ever overcome a deficit of such a magnitude, but Red Bull’s motorsport adviser Helmut Marko was concerned anyway.
“As Max said before the summer break, the team has to work harder and must find improvements because like that his championship is in threat,” the Austrian told the www.autosport.com website.
Norris clawed back eight points on Aug 25, one for fastest lap, but he will need Verstappen to start squandering many more over the coming months and the Dutch driver does not have a history of doing that.
McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri will also have to take points off Verstappen, to boost Norris’ chances, but the Australian finished fourth in Zandvoort.
It would also help if Mercedes, winner of three races this season, and Ferrari, twice triumphant, pushed the Red Bull further down the field as well.
McLaren are only 30 points adrift of Red Bull in the team battle, however, and looking increasingly like they could win their first constructors’ title since 1998.
The Dutch GP also allowed Norris to slay one particular bugbear, it being the first time he had won a grand prix from pole position after costly mistakes in the past by both driver and team.
He was also willing to concede that his McLaren, upgraded for the first time since Miami in May, was the quickest car out there, adding that he felt the team had left some points out on the track over the season.
“We probably should have won two, three more races as a team, but we didn’t... We should have won and we didn’t, and it’s because we’ve not done a good enough job. I didn’t do a good enough job,” he said.
“Today, this whole weekend, I think we’ve had the best car. I think we’ve, on average, had the best car for sure. We worked hard over the summer break to just try and take a step back and reset and go again. So yes, we’ve had a great car... it’s still a long way to go. So we still have to keep working hard because this is just Zandvoort.
“Monza (next race) is a completely different circuit. So we’ll keep our heads down and keep chipping away.”
As for Verstappen, he is suffering his longest lean spell without a race win since 2020 but said there was still a long way to go despite “not the best weekend” at home.
“That happens, right?“ he quipped to a reporter who asked him whether he was concerned at a winless streak that stretches five races back to June.
“I’ve had a lot of good years. Some people have never won a race in their career, so you can also look at it like that,” he said.
Verstappen started the season the way he finished his utterly dominant 2023 term, winning seven races out of the 10, but his form has since dropped dramatically.
“This weekend was just a bad weekend in general, but the last few races haven’t really been fantastic. So that is in a sense alarming. But we know that we don’t need to panic. We are just trying to improve the situation, and that’s what we are working on,” said the three-time champion.
Meanwhile, the Haas team will not be allowed to move their trucks from the Dutch GP circuit until Aug 26, when money owed to a Russian former sponsor has been confirmed as paid, they said on Aug 25.
A spokesman said the trucks transporting the cars and equipment would have to wait for clearance before departing for Monza, the circuit near Milan which hosts the Italian Grand Prix next weekend.
The payment was sent on Aug 23 and everything would be packed up as usual on Aug 25, he added. REUTERS, AFP
