Lando Norris backed by Lewis Hamilton as F1 Brits unite against Max Verstappen
Max Verstappen is 79 points clear of Lando Norris and remains the favourite to retain his F1 drivers' crown, but Lewis Hamilton certainly isn't ruling his fellow Briton out of a title charge
Lewis Hamilton has backed his fellow Brit Lando Norris to push rival Max Verstappen all the way for this year's title.
Norris is second in the championship but 79 points adrift of the Dutchman. That gap would have been closer had McLaren not ordered him to let Oscar Piastri win in Budapest last weekend, after the 24-year-old inherited the lead only because he got the better tyre strategy.
But even despite losing those seven points, seven-time champion Hamilton still thinks Norris can get within striking distance of Verstappen. The 39-year-old said: "It's not impossible, but it is a very high, huge challenge and task - but absolutely not impossible.
"They've got two very strong drivers that are able to compete against ultimately, currently in the championship, one car that's really up there doing the point-scoring. So they've got something they can work with there, for sure."
But Hamilton went on to add that Norris cannot afford to give away any more points if he is to have a chance of title glory, and doesn't believe Verstappen would have been as willing to follow team orders. He pointed out: "If that was Max he wouldn't have let him past..."
Norris said at Spa that he does not expect his team to give him preferential treatment - even if he needs it for a title charge. McLaren will, though. discuss over the break whether to make the Briton their number one for the rest of the year.
Piastri said it is "super early" for the team to start giving out preferential treatment. But he went on to say that: "If Lando was in a position to win the championship, and they asked me to help, then I will."
He added: "I think the decisions we made in Budapest showed that in the team's view, it's important about keeping the relationship strong, keeping building the team and ultimately scoring as many points for the constructors' as we can. I think halfway through the season with so many points still on offer, for myself as well, I think it's still super early for that."
Meanwhile, McLaren chief executive Zak Brown confirmed that team principal Andrea Stella will be the one who has the final say on whether Norris' title bid will get priority. The American said: "That's ultimately going to be Andrea's call. We want to get through the first half of the season, and see where we end up this weekend.
"I think the constructors' championship, while it's definitely not going to be easy, is well within reach. I think the challenge on the drivers' front is that Max's bad days are second and third places, so [it's hard] to make those clawbacks that we're making on the constructors' that we can do because Sergio Perez is struggling at the moment, [but] we also know he's capable of turning it on at any moment."
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