Lando Norris has taken a jab at Max Verstappen and his other rivals over comments about the speed McLaren possess. The Brit, who finished second behind the reigning world champion at the Italian Grand Prix, caveated his words about missing out on victory by jabbing: “As much as they want to complain every single weekend.”
Verstappen, as well as the likes of George Russell and Charles Leclerc, have been vocal about the pace advantage held by McLaren in 2025. During the second half of the 2024 title fight, Norris maintained that the Woking squad were not the fastest team, but this became harder to deny this year, when the two orange cars started to set a blistering pace. With eight rounds of the season remaining, Zak Brown’s squad have 617 points, while nearest rivals Ferrari have 280.
Speaking to Sky Sports F1 after the Italian GP, Norris was asked whether Verstappen’s presence at the front of the field would be a hindrance in his title fight with team-mate Oscar Piastri. “No, I wouldn’t say so,” he replied. “In a way, it’s probably a good thing; I need to try and use it to my advantage.
“But certainly today was not to my advantage, just because he took a lot of points away from if it was a first and second [finish]. And the main thing is, we were just too slow today. We couldn’t fight for a win – he was just way too quick for us.
“So we have things we need to improve, things we have to work on. It’s disappointing. It’s not often we’ve been able to say that this year, but it says that others are there. As much as they want to complain every single weekend, we get beaten still quite a lot. More than we would like. As much as we are dominant, in many cases, we’re still beatable, and we don’t like that.
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“Of course, maybe others do. It shows we are beatable and we have things we have to work on. We can’t be too satisfied with our job, because we wanted to win today – it is a cool place to win – and we didn’t. I wanted to stand on that top step [of the podium] in front of the Tifosi, and today was not the day, so we’ll have to wait another year.”
Norris’ second-place finish means that he now trails team-mate Piastri by 31 points in the Drivers’ Championship standings heading into the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. The 25-year-old has eight races left to undo the damage inflicted by a mechanical DNF at the Dutch Grand Prix last weekend.
Verstappen’s third race win of the year keeps Red Bull in play in the battle for third in the Constructors’ Championship, too, although the Milton Keynes squad are being hamstrung by Yuki Tsunoda’s miserable run of form. The under-fire Japanese star qualified better on Saturday in Monza, but dropped to 13th in the race. He is now last in the standings among the drivers to have completed all 16 Grands Prix in 2025.