Lando Norris ‘laughs’ at what he said about Formula 1 title rival Max Verstappen earlier this year

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Lando Norris sits 52 points behind Max Verstappen with six Grands Prix and three Sprint races remaining. That gives him an outside chance of winning his first Formula 1 world championship.

Realistically, Norris may require one huge points swing to snatch the title. That could come about if he wins and Verstappen retires or finishes in the lower reaches of the top 10.

The Red Bull driver only has one DNF to his name this season, and that was due to a visor tear-off lodging in his brake duct at the Australian GP in March. Every time he’s finished, he’s been in the top six.

If Norris takes maximum points for the remainder of the season, and Verstappen finishes second, the latter will be champion by one point. He may need help from teammate Oscar Piastri as well as Ferrari and Mercedes in that regard.

McLaren’s run of four victories in six suggests they could win most, if not all, of the remaining 2024 events. Perhaps the bigger question is whether Norris can beat Piastri and execute his weekends at the level of a champion, something he’s failed to do too often in 2024.

Still, the Briton would point out that he never expected to win the title this year. Verstappen was coming off the most dominant season in F1 history and won seven of the first 10 races, which seemed to preclude any talk of a title fight.

Lando Norris lets out ‘resigned laugh’ as he revisits comments about racing Max Verstappen

During an interview with The Athletic in April, Norris insisted that he’d fight Verstappen ‘100%’ when he deemed it worthwhile. Critics argued that he’d put up too little resistance in their previous encounters.

At that stage, Verstappen had two of three and the unanimous verdict in the F1 paddock was that he’d stroll towards another title. No team was in a position to compete with Red Bull.

“When I need to, and the time comes to race, I 100% will,” Norris said.

Reflecting on those remarks nearly six months later, he noted that they’d aged somewhat poorly. The two drivers contested one of their first wheel-to-wheel battles at the Austrian GP in June, coming together on lap 64.

That incident saw Norris retire and Verstappen fall from the lead of the race to fifth. Letting out a ‘resigned laugh’, the McLaren star said: “That didn’t end very well.”

The Lando Norris radio message one year ago that predicted the future

Norris sent a warning to Red Bull after his win in Singapore. He believes he can dominate in a similar fashion in the coming races so long as he gets a clean start.

McLaren boast the fastest car in F1 at the moment – they lead the constructors’ championship by 41 points – and they have contended for victory regardless of the circuit profile. Singapore marked the first time Norris had held the lead after starting a race from the front.

The pace of McLaren’s progress since the start of 2023 has been remarkable. Paired with Red Bull’s regression, it has injected jeopardy into the season.

Norris told Red Bull McLaren were ‘coming’ for them following last year’s Japanese GP. They celebrated their first double podium of the year at Suzuka, having begun the campaign at the back of the field.