Lando Norris claims it would be ‘stupid’ to think he can win the world championship despite seeing off Max Verstappen to win Dutch Grand Prix
- Lando Norris says it would be foolish to think he can win the world championship
- Norris reduces gap to Max Verstappen to 70 points after winning Dutch Grand Prix
Lando Norris played down his chances of winning the world title despite his convincing victory in the Netherlands. He called it ‘stupid’ to think about overtaking Max Verstappen.
The 24-year-old Briton reduced his deficit in the standings from 78 to 70 points with nine races to go, but Verstappen was shocked and said the drop would not cause him to panic.
Norris tried to ease the growing pressure on himself, saying: ‘I’ve been fighting for the championship since the first race of the year and there’s no need to make a sudden decision now to do better.
“It’s pretty stupid to think about that (the championship) at the moment. There’s no point in thinking ahead. I’m focused on one race at a time, so it’s not a question I need to be asked every weekend.”
Norris beat Verstappen to second place after recovering from a poor start to overtake the Dutchman on lap 18, eventually winning by almost 23 seconds in a dominant McLaren.
Lando Norris says it would be ‘stupid’ to think about winning the world championship at this time
Norris won the Dutch Grand Prix and reduced his deficit to Max Verstappen to 70 points
Norris described his car’s speed as ‘unbelievable’ and says he would still have won without upgrades
“A win is always satisfying,” Norris reflected. “The speed of the car was unbelievable. I felt like I would have won without the upgrades that came this weekend.
‘It’s not often that I’m leading and controlling the race in clean air. I didn’t expect it to go so well, but after I got off the line and went into turn one I was surprisingly calm, maybe because I’m used to backing off at the start. I was looking at my tires and thinking, “What can I do now?”
‘On lap 10, 12 or 13 I managed to overtake Max and I got optimistic that I could pass him on the track. I had two chances. The first time I wasn’t close enough and the next lap I did. From there I was able to keep my head.’
After failing to win his home race, Verstappen said: ‘Something went wrong with the car and we need to understand and improve that quickly. We know we still have a lot of work to do.
“This weekend was a bad weekend overall and we need to understand why that is. The last few races have not been great but we don’t need to panic.
‘We are working on it, but Formula 1 is very complicated. There are still many races left.’