Former F1 team owner Eddie Jordan believes Lando Norris needs to have a ‘long, hard look at himself’ this winter if he is to challenge Max Verstappen for world titles.
McLaren star Norris has been given a faster car than Verstappen during the second half of this season. And while he was steadily closing the gap until the Brazilian Grand Prix last weekend, a stunning race in Sao Paulo saw Verstappen win from 17th on the grid.
For all Norris’ talent, Jordan is yet to see anything from the 24-year-old which suggests he could pull a similar performance out of the bag.
Speaking on the Formula for Success podcast, Jordan even apologised to Norris before dishing out a cold dose of reality. “Lando hasn’t quite got there yet,” said the Irishman. “He hasn’t got there on the start. He hasn’t got there on the pole position run to the corner.
“He has the speed, beyond any doubt, he’s got the speed. But there’s nothing in me that tells me that I’ve seen in Lando something that I saw Max do on Sunday. Nothing. I’m sorry, it’s just not there.
“So Lando has to look at himself long and hard this winter into the mirror and say to himself, ‘If I’m going to be a great world champion, I have a lot to learn here and I need to start replaying those videos about what it really is like to be hard, tough and victorious’. And I’m sorry, at this moment in time, he hasn’t got it.”
Norris will have fancied his chances of putting serious pressure on Verstappen over the Brazilian Grand Prix weekend. He started two places ahead of his title rival on the sprint grid and a full 16 places ahead of him for the race, only to drop down to sixth on a sobering afternoon.
Verstappen is now 62 points ahead in his hunt for a fourth consecutive Drivers’ Championship, and there are only 86 points left to fight for over the final three Grands Prix of the season, starting in Las Vegas later this month.
If the gap stands at 60 points or more after the next race, Verstappen will be mathematically out of reach and crowned champion. The Red Bull star therefore only needs to match or better Norris’ result in order to end the title race for another season.