Norris does not want to think of championship fight
Despite having taken a dominant victory at last weekend's Dutch Grand Prix, McLaren driver Lando Norris does not consider himself as a contender for the championship title given the big deficit to Max Verstappen.
Having started the Zandvoort round from pole position, Lando Norris was unable to hang on to the first position at the start. However, he picked off Max Verstappen on the track to secure his second victory with the biggest winning margin of the year and fastest lap to boot for an emphatic victory.
Asked after the race whether he is now considering himself as championship contender, Norris stated that it would be “stupid” to think about the title given the enormous gap to Verstappen.
"I mean, I've been fighting for the championship since the first race of the year. There's no sudden decision of now. I need to do better. 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. 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.
“I don't care about it at the minute. I'm just... Yeah, focused on one race at a time. So it's not a question that I need to get asked every single weekend.
Q: (Taylor Powling – Motorsport Monday) Lando, congratulations on your win. You and the team have been reluctant to say you have the fastest car at points this season, but after today with how dominant the drive was and with the upgrades, do you feel more confident to say that you do now have the fastest package?
Recent rounds have prompted many tu suggest McLaren has currently the quickest car. Although the Woking-based outfit has denied such claims recently, Norris acknowledged that the papaya squad had the best machine at Zandvoort.
"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've not had a dominant car at any point this season, I would say. Even if you go back to Hungary, as much as people hate me to say it, Max was still very quick in Hungary.
"He just didn't have a great race, but his pace was still very, very strong. And obviously we see, we know more information than people do on the outside, so we can comment in much more factual ways than people can who are just watching on TV and taking their picks and guesses. We've had, on average, the best car.”
Having missed out on a few potential victories, the British driver said that the team has not done a good enough job on several occasions.
"You know, we probably should have won two, three more races as a team, but we didn't. And we're not saying anything more than that.
“You know, 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. And 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. This was, like I said earlier, our first time we bought some good upgrades to the car since Miami. They worked very well then. They've worked once again now.
“It is still a long way to go. So we still have to keep working hard because this is just Zandvoort. Monza is a completely different circuit. So we'll keep our heads down and keep chipping away,” concluded Norris.
