McLaren: No Title Chance Despite Perfection

Norris Too Much Ground to Catch Verstappen

Lando Norris admits McLaren’s early-season deficit made catching Verstappen impossible, even with flawless execution, underscoring Red Bull’s dominance.

Lando Norris is not disappointed about not winning the world championship this year. The McLaren F1 driver did not expect at the start of the season to compete with Max Verstappen, nor did he ever imagine he could close the gap after the first few races.

“I’m very proud of the whole team that fought for so long, that started closing the gap and caught up as much as we did. We were the fourth-best team at the start of the year,” said Norris.

“Red Bull was never the fourth-best team or worse, let’s say, ever. We had too much ground to make up from the start of the season, and we couldn’t, because they were too strong.”

“Next year, we’ll begin the season with a car we believe can win the championship from the very first race, which is something we haven’t managed to do over the past six years, and I’m looking forward to that. But I’m proud of what we’ve achieved.”

“My first F1 win, my first three wins—no one else fought against him. It’s me, and it’s McLaren. Could we have done better? Absolutely. Do I think we could have won the championship even with a perfect season? I don’t think so. So I’m happy to finish second.”

Norris expressed pride in having competed against Verstappen this season, emphasizing that the defeat does not overshadow his happiness with what he has achieved and experienced: “I feel capable of fighting for a championship, I’m happy, and I can confidently say I have what it takes, and I know deep down I have what it takes.”

“I have things to work on, that’s for sure, but I can fight against Max, and I’m happy to say it because I think Max is the best driver in the world and probably one of the best there has ever been in F1. Many people might agree, but I’m quite confident when I say this, which is rare.”

“Fighting against him, going wheel-to-wheel, is something I enjoy, and in 20-30 years, I’ll be able to look back and say I battled such a driver. I’m happy for him; he deserves the championship, but I hope I can challenge him more next week and next year.”

The Briton was disappointed with his sixth-place finish in Las Vegas and concerned about the lack of performance from the MCL38 at the event: “I’m not thinking about Mercedes beating Ferrari; I’m thinking about how poor our car was today.”

“That’s what worries me, not the fact that Mercedes is strong. It’s how bad we’ve been throughout the weekend. It’s clear we have a lot of work to do on our car. It’s too hard to drive. It doesn’t work in these conditions.”

“It doesn’t work on many other circuits where we’ve faced similar conditions, but sometimes we’ve been able to extract everything possible, even when people think we had the best car, which is absolutely not the case.”

“We still managed to win some of those races, and those were the best weekends. But this weekend, even though I feel I drove well, there was nothing more I could do, and if I’d pushed harder, I’d probably have ended up in the wall somewhere.”