Lando Norris, very hard with Checo Pérez in Qatar

The Englishman was consulted about Max Verstappen’s work and found points for and against having a partner “who does not pressure him; “He has no one to beat on his own team.”

Formula 1 arrives in Qatar, home of the 23rd and penultimate round of the 2024 season, with the drivers’ title already defined in favor of Max Verstappen. The Dutchman based his conquest on the great start to the year, in which he achieved seven hits in the first ten dates. From there, two combinations occurred: a great drop in the performance of Red Bull’s RB20 with a huge rebound in McLaren’s MCL38. That scenario put Lando Norris as a contender for the title, however, he could do little against the Dutchman. Because Max was remarkable, maximizing everything he could get out of his car and achieving memorable success in Brazil. While the Englishman was weighed down by the possibility of fighting for the title and made many mistakes. Nor can it be overlooked that the Woking team had a hard time posing the battle and took an enormous amount of time to give priority to Norris over his teammate Oscar Piastri. Consulted in Losail about the definition, Lando explained the difference between McLaren and Red Bull and threw everything at Checo Pérez.

The thing is that Norris had one more rival in his own box. Piastri beat his teammate in Hungary and took the lead in the race and put up a fight at the start of Monza and it all ended in victory for Charles Leclerc. At the Qatar press conference, The Englishman from McLaren was forceful when commenting on the little internal competition that Verstappen had.

“There are pros and cons. The downside is that you have to do all the work yourself and that’s a head start, for sure. But he doesn’t have anyone pushing him, he doesn’t have anyone testing other things with the car, you can’t do AB testing and things like that because the data isn’t as valuable. when you don’t have someone who is performing at the same level. There are a lot of things Max can do that are phenomenal. Driving at the level he does consistently without a teammate who can push him in any way makes life harder from that perspective. Also from the team’s perspective,” said Norris, in a shower of darts at Checo Pérez.

Of course, there are also things in its favor. “If there is no pressure, at the same time you don’t have to beat anyone on your own team and that creates comfort. I like having a little pressure because it forces me to do a better job. I hope that at some point Max has one that can challenge him a little more,” he concluded.

After his consecration, Verstappen said that he could have been champion this year with a McLaren and a Ferrari. Arrogance or reality? In any case, for Norris it has no basis in his analysis: “I should start doing comedy. You can say whatever you want, of course I disagree.”