What Martin Brundle loved about Lando Norris’s win that was ‘more important’ than his Dutch Grand Prix start

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Lando Norris will know he’s still got a few things to work on despite a dominant victory at Zandvoort over rival Max Verstappen.

His lap in qualifying to secure pole position was incredible, not only defeating Verstappen but posting a time half a second faster than teammate Oscar Piastri.

However, Lando Norris once again struggled off the line and that aspect of his racing will need to be addressed soon.

Norris once again lost the lead of the race going into turn one and catching Max Verstappen was then on the agenda once again this season.

On this occasion, the 24-year-old didn’t have too much trouble and once he got within DRS range of the Dutchman, he had little trouble flying past Verstappen’s Red Bull.

After the first round of pit stops, Norris took full advantage of having clear air and opened up a significant advantage at the front of the race.

Martin Brundle was really impressed with what he witnessed from Norris and explained why on commentary for Sky Sports F1.

The British driver was on another level at Zandvoort and is driving like someone who believes they have an opportunity to win a world championship.

Although he has a slight advantage over Verstappen at the moment given how dominant McLaren’s car currently is, Piastri’s performance showcased that individual talent was equally important on Sunday.

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Martin Brundle shares what was ‘more important’ than Lando Norris’s poor start at the Dutch Grand Prix

With Norris leading by more than seven seconds at the end of lap 34, Brundle said: “Norris is metronomic, has been in both phases.

“He didn’t lose his head, he lost the start but kept his head and that was probably more important than the start given the pace he’s got.”

Co-commentator David Croft added: “He knew the performance is there from this car maybe that helped him keep his head just a little bit.

“He knew or he thought from all the data he was studying and from all the practice that was performed on FP2 mainly because it was the only dry session we had, that Verstappen could be vulnerable towards the end of what should be the only stint and need to pit in this race.”

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Damon Hill lauds Lando Norris for achieving second Formula 1 victory

Ultimately – as Brundle suggests – Norris’s starts aren’t a problem if he’s fast enough to overtake Verstappen on the track.

Not only that, but he was so consistent once he was in the lead of the race that he never looked in danger of relinquishing his second win of the career.

Damon Hill was very impressed with Norris during the race and thought he was phenomenal all weekend.

The challenge for Norris is to replicate this performance over the final nine race weekends of the season.

If he can do that, then the Drivers’ Championship could go down to the wire and McLaren should wrap up the Constructors’ Championship for the first time since 1998.

There will be plenty more twists and turns before then with a three-week break after the Singapore Grand Prix likely to give teams one final chance to deliver key updates for the home stretch of the season.

Every time McLaren make a change to their car it goes quicker and Red Bull need to replicate that success to their streak of titles coming to an end.