Lando Norris still has hopes of challenging Max Verstappen for the Formula 1 title despite losing out to the Dutchman in the Spanish Grand Prix.
Lando Norris still has hopes of challenging Max Verstappen for the Formula 1 title this year despite losing out to the Red Bull driver in a grand prix he felt he should have won for a second consecutive time.
"But Max needs to stop winning. He is still extending it at the minute but we cannot afford to let him run away with it. If I made some better decisions in Canada and had made a better start today, we would have won two races.The result leaves Norris 69 points behind Verstappen. But there are 14 races still to go in this, the longest F1 season in history. A fourth title is Verstappen’s to lose, but if anyone is going to challenge him this year, it looks like being Norris.
Four seconds - Verstappen’s advantage when Russell pitted out of Norris’ way - is not a big lead. But around the Spanish Grand Prix track, it was enough. McLaren were forced on to an off-set strategy, losing ground by running long before coming back at Verstappen late on in stints. "Two metres I lost out in the beginning and this was enough for Max to be on the inside. If George wasn’t on the outside I could have covered him, but George got a good start and got a perfect slipstream, nothing I can do about that."I got a bad start, simple as that, and then I just couldn’t get past George. The car was incredible and we were for sure the quickest, I just lost it at the beginning. Lots of positives, one negative and I know that. I can work on it for next time.
Instead, Verstappen has that record. And that’s because of his consistent excellence. The move with which he took the lead from Russell was a perfect microcosm of his driving in general - aggressive, assertive, decisive, clean, perfect. Norris and Verstappen spent the weekend arguing over who had the fastest car. After qualifying, Verstappen said Norris did, Norris said it was Verstappen. After the race, both felt it was the McLaren."I think the race pace was very similar," Stella said. "The fact we were faster at the end is because we had fresher tyres. He was faster at the start because we were behind Russell. It looked like parity of performance in qualifying carried over into the race.
"The fact he is self-critical is a style," Stella said. "And sometimes we react on the style and not on the content.
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