Lando Norris joked Max Verstappen ought to “begin doing comedy” as he refuted his F1 rival’s declare that he would have received the world championship for McLaren.
After clinching his fourth consecutive world championship in Las Vegas final weekend, Verstappen asserted he would have additionally taken the title had he been driving Norris’s McLaren – and far sooner.
Purple Bull began the season in dominant style however McLaren have been the crew to beat for a lot of the yr. Regardless of that, Verstappen’s eight wins are 5 greater than what Norris has racked up for McLaren.
“He ought to begin doing comedy or one thing,” Norris advised media together with Crash.web on the Qatar Grand Prix. “He can say no matter he needs.
“After all, I fully disagree, as I’d. He’s good, however, yeah, it’s not true.”
McLaren are bidding to win their first constructors’ world title since 1998 and are 24 factors away from Ferrari within the standings with two races remaining.
Purple Bull are 53 factors again, largely attributable to Sergio Perez’s continued struggles alongside Verstappen, who has been accountable for a whopping 403 factors of the 555 Purple Bull have scored this yr.
After being pushed onerous by Oscar Piastri, Norris mentioned there are “execs and cons” to having a teammate who offers competitors.
“There’s execs however he has to do all his work on his personal, which is hats off to him,” Norris mentioned.
“He doesn’t have somebody who’s pushing him, he doesn’t have somebody who’s attempting different issues with the automobile and you may’t do A to B checks and issues like that, as a result of the info’s not as beneficial whenever you don’t have somebody performing on the similar stage.
“There’s loads of issues that Max can do which might be phenomenal, driving on the stage he does persistently and not using a teammate that may push him in any method definitely doesn’t makes his life more durable from that perspective, or from a crew perspective.
“However on the similar time there is no such thing as a strain, he doesn’t need to cope with attempting to beat somebody in his personal crew and that comes with some consolation. However they go collectively and in some methods I like having a little bit of strain as a result of it makes me do a greater job.
“I’m positive he’s going to say he doesn’t care, whoever his teammate is he doesn’t thoughts. There’s execs and cons of getting a string teammate and I hope in some unspecified time in the future he has one that may problem him a bit extra.”
Norris added that Purple Bull would have received the constructors’ championship “if they’d two drivers nearly as good as Max”.
