Norris’ win in Monaco has reset F1, McLaren title fight
After hitting reset on the title fight with his win in Monaco, Lando Norris has the chance to show whether Formula 1’s preseason favorite is back for good at the Spanish Grand Prix.
Norris’s performance around the Monte Carlo streets he now calls home was an emphatic riposte to the criticism that has mounted since he won the Australian Grand Prix at the start of the season. Once again he looked like the driver who started the campaign as the obvious choice for a first drivers’ championship.
In the rounds between Melbourne and Monaco, the preseason title favorite had neither been on pole position nor stood to the top step of the podium. McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri had won four of the six races since to romp into the championship lead and to flip the narrative about which of Zak Brown’s drivers appeared to be more ready to seize the opportunity and become world champion. Worse still, Max Verstappen — winner of the other two grands prix — has continued to be a thorn in Norris’ side.
He trailed Piastri by as many as 16 points, but Norris’ win in Monaco closed that gap back to just three. It’s game on, and the smart money says the dynamic between the two McLaren drivers will ebb and flow as the season unfolds.
Norris has taken his licks this year but came out swinging in the news conference that followed his overdue win, one that McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said “required cold blood” to pull off in excruciatingly tense circumstances.
“It’s all crap,” Norris said on Sunday evening. “People can write what they want. It’s not up to me. People have their own opinions, they can do all of those things. Thing is, none of them are true, 99% of the time.”
Contrasted to the cool and measured Piastri, Norris’ irritation — with himself and certain aspects of McLaren’s car he has struggled to master — has been clear to see for some time.
Before last weekend, qualifying had been the big kicker. Until this year, Norris’ strong Saturday form had contrasted starkly to Piastri, whose first two seasons in F1 had been inconsistent, something the Australian worked on solving in the offseason. This year things have swung 180 degrees. McLaren’s aggressive development of its class-leading MCL39 has created a car that can be erratic when on the knife edge of performance, and on numerous occasions that has caught Norris out — Saudi Arabia’s qualifying crash the worst example. While Piastri looked like the picture of consistency in April and most of May, it was Norris’ form that was zig-zagging.
That explains why Norris was so pleased with his record-setting lap around Monaco’s streets, the quickest ever set at the circuit. He later said he was proud that his kids will be able to say he won the Monaco Grand Prix, and it was a victory set in motion by the hat he was able to do the day before.
“I’m very proud of [pole],” Norris said. “I’m happier with [that] result than I am of [the win]. That’s how much yesterday meant to me, to kind of get my groove back in qualifying, because it’s something I’ve just had my whole life. It’s just always been good, until this year. And I’ve had to work hard to try and get it back. For no other reason apart from a couple of things that I’ve clearly struggled with and also just having tough competition.”
Monaco was the second of three straight F1 races. This weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix will be a great test of whether the Norris we saw in Monte Carlo has turned a corner, or whether the yo-yoing form will come back. It remains to be seen whether McLaren’s usual advantage is diminished by the more stringent tests around flexi front wings this weekend, but even if it is, it’s hard to imagine the papaya colors not being in the fight for pole and victory.
Norris himself admitted last weekend he is not convinced he is back to 100%. His relationship with the MCL39 is a tricky one, he’s been vocal about his frustrations with it since Day 1.
“I’ve been working hard over the last few months to get back to having that momentum that I had in Australia, that confidence,” he said. “What I felt [in Monaco] was a small step forward, but it’s not it. It’s not like I’ve nailed it now and everything’s back. There are still things that I need to work on, there are still things that — as a team, them giving me the equipment, and I don’t mean just making a quicker car, because the car’s quick enough, but giving me the things I need from the car in order to excel and maximize results, and the differences from last year to this year.”
These are critical races for Norris and Piastri. Their intra-team title battle has had obvious comparisons to 2007 — two McLaren drivers in the fastest car with Verstappen playing the role of Kimi Räikkönen as the wildcard in a rival team — but so far it has lacked any of the venom that season is so famous for. Instead, both have had moments of looking like “the guy,” while the other has looked uncomfortable with the car.
Spain feels important for both from a statement point of view. Win and Norris takes the title lead back from his teammate, right in time for Canada and the flurry of European rounds that follow. Find himself back to being second best to his exciting teammate and that nagging narrative will quickly be dragged back out again.
Source: espn.com