After the F1 summer break, Verstappen and his Red Bull car couldn’t regain their speed, but Norris hasn’t managed to close the gap as fast as he wishes. McLaren has yet to officially designate Norris as their number one driver, and they are wasting time.
It’s no longer a secret that Verstappen and Red Bull have lost their advantage. Although Red Bull made some upgrades recently, their performance hasn’t improved. Verstappen finished second in the Dutch Grand Prix and only sixth in Italy.
Despite this, Norris only managed to close the points gap from 78 to 62. He won the Dutch Grand Prix, but had a nightmare start in Italy, where he was overtaken by his teammate Piastri in the first lap. He was later overtaken by Ferrari’s Leclerc due to a strategic mistake by the team, finishing third.
If Norris had won both races, he could have gained an additional 10 points, reducing the gap to just 52 points. Even if he had still been overtaken by Leclerc in the Dutch Grand Prix but managed to finish ahead of his teammate, the gap would now be only 59 points.
Considering the Hungarian Grand Prix before the summer break, if Norris hadn’t given up his lead to allow his teammate Piastri to secure his first career win, the gap to Verstappen would have been even smaller.
In summary, despite having the fastest car, McLaren seems uninterested in pursuing the drivers’ championship by allowing one driver to score as many points as possible, instead opting to let both drivers compete fairly.
McLaren is now only eight points behind in the Constructors’ Championship, making it just a matter of time before they catch up to Red Bull and claim the title. However, they have only now realized that the Drivers’ Championship is also within their grasp. After the Dutch Grand Prix, McLaren Principal Andrea Stella finally acknowledged that they might consider adjusting their strategy.
“It now looks like the drivers’ championship is definitely a possibility,” said Stella. “We were a little cautious before Monza, but now we can see that McLaren can compete at circuits where last year we were not competitive.”
“Lando is obviously in the best position from a numbers point of view. We are fighting Max Verstappen so I think if we want to give support to one driver we certainly have to pick the one who is in the best position, and Lando has been doing very well.”
With eight races remaining in the F1 season, Norris and the McLaren team still have time to catch up to Verstappen. However, if Norris ultimately loses to Verstappen by a margin of fewer than 10 points and finishes as the runner-up, I wonder whether McLaren will regret the choices they made at the Dutch Grand Prix.
