Lando Norris held back by key McLaren figure ‘not strong enough’ to fight Max Verstappen

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Ralf Schumacher has now claimed that a key McLaren figure is holding Lando Norris back from truly driving at the levels of Max Verstappen as he is ‘not strong enough’.

The McLaren driver spurned a great chance to win the British Grand Prix last week as Norris settled for third place. Instead, Mercedes racer Lewis Hamilton returned to the top step of a podium for the first time since 2021 after weathering a late-race challenge from Verstappen.

Norris led at Silverstone after the conditions took a turn for the worse with McLaren able to generate more heat in their tyres than Mercedes could. But mismanagement by the Woking team later saw the 24-year-old fall back following a return to slick tyres at the final pit stops.

Ralf Schumacher questions if Lando Norris’ engineer Will Joseph is ‘strong enough’

Hamilton and Verstappen both stopped one lap before Norris, who also overshot his pit box to lose further time. The additional lap on slick tyres meant Hamilton grabbed the lead from Norris and McLaren fitting the soft tyres also gave Verstappen a further advantage on hards.

Verstappen relished the hardest compound Pirelli rubber available at Silverstone to push in the closing laps. But as McLaren put the softest compound on Norris’ car to cover Hamilton also taking the soft tyres, the Bristol-born racer could not attack as much as his competitors.

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McLaren were undecided on what tyres were best at the end of the British GP as Will Joseph asked Norris over the team’s radio if he wanted softs to cover Hamilton or mediums to cover Verstappen. And Schumacher says this is a sign Joseph may actually be holding Norris back.

“Norris is not ready yet [to compete at the levels of Verstappen and Hamilton],” Schumacher said, via quotes by Marca. “But that could also be due to the structure.

“It could be that his engineer is not strong enough. He is always a very important reference person. You realise that [Norris] is now upset with himself, with the wrong decisions and he wants to grow from that. It is a learning process.”

McLaren’s tyre indecision likely cost Lando Norris the win at the British GP

Joseph has been Norris’ race engineer since the Briton debuted in Formula 1 with McLaren in 2019. He has also worked for McLaren since 2010 and held the same role with Hamilton, Sergio Perez, Kevin Magnussen and Fernando Alonso during their spells at the papaya team.

But Joseph left scope for Schumacher to feel he is ‘not strong enough’ to fight at the front of F1 in the British GP after giving Norris the choice of which driver to cover, rather than taking control of the situation like Tom Stallard did for teammate Oscar Piastri at the final pit stops.

Stallard gave Piastri a clear message that the mediums were the best tyres as McLaren kept an extra new set, unlike Red Bull and Mercedes. The medium compound tyres also let Piastri prove McLaren still had the faster car in the late laps while on the right tyres with rapid laps.

Had Joseph taken control of the situation and given Norris the same message that Stallard gave Piastri, then McLaren might have won the British GP. The initial open-ended question allowed Norris to initially decide to just cover Hamilton rather than react to the conditions.