Lando Norris aims dig at 24-year-old F1 rival amid assertive McLaren prediction

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Lando Norris has just aimed a sly dig at Formula 1 rival Lance Stroll while now backing McLaren to overtake Aston Martin for fourth in the 2023 constructors’ championship.

A double-podium finish at last Sunday’s Japanese Grand Prix saw McLaren slash their deficit to Aston Martin to 49 points. Norris brought his car home in P2 with teammate Oscar Piastri scoring his maiden Formula 1 podium in third place. It was also Piastri’s first visit to Suzuka.

The 22-year-old rookie had never driven around Suzuka in any series throughout his still-raw racing career. Yet Piastri pushed the limits from his first few laps of the celebrated circuit and qualified in P2. The Australian edged Norris to claim his first front-row start for a Grand Prix.

Norris and Piastri have catapulted McLaren up the constructors’ championship

While Red Bull’s Verstappen had the pace to cover off Norris and Piastri to win the Japanese GP, their results continued McLaren’s excellent record since introducing a B-spec car for the Austrian GP in July. The Woking squad have now scored 155 points in the eight rounds since.

McLaren had only scored 17 points from just three of the first eight weekends of the season before giving Norris their first major upgrade package in Spielberg. In the same races, Aston Martin scored 154, meanwhile. Yet the Silverstone-based outfit have only achieved 67 since.

Aston Martin started this season looking like Red Bull’s closest challenger at the front of the F1 grid. Fernando Alonso claimed podium finishes in six of the first eight rounds, including a second-place finish at the Canadian GP. Yet he has only taken one rostrum in the eight since.

While McLaren have made seismic gains after starting the year with one of the slowest cars, Aston Martin lost ground in the development race. Now, while the Papaya team are fighting for podiums with Norris also taking P2 in Singapore, Aston Martin are fighting for just scraps.

Norris hints Aston Martin’s reliance on Alonso over Stroll will cost them P4

Aston Martin’s hopes of holding onto P4 in the constructors’ championship are also hanging by threads with McLaren’s resurgence. And Norris believes McLaren have made vast inroads into the gap as Piastri is also scoring. But Aston Martin rely largely on Alonso and not Stroll.

Stroll claimed his best Grand Prix finish of the year with P4 at the Australian GP in April. The 24-year-old has not finished higher than P9 during the past eight rounds, either. He has also failed to score a single point in the last four, including in Singapore where Stroll did not race.

Norris has implied that Aston Martin’s reliance on Alonso scoring the team’s points without much support from Stroll will now see McLaren finish P4 in the constructors’ championship.

“I didn’t think [McLaren’s deficit to Aston Martin] was that close. But yeah, if it’s 49, then I definitely think so,” Norris said, via quotes by RaceFans. He continued: “There’s not many races left. I’m sure there’s going to be a couple where Aston are going to be a bit stronger.

“But I think our advantage at the minute compared to almost every team, bar a couple, is we have two drivers who are up there fighting for these positions and fighting for these points. Not every team has that at the minute. So, I think that’s helping us.”