Lando Norris blasts "stupid" questions after Dutch GP win - "There's no point"
Lando Norris won the Dutch Grand Prix but was in no mood to entertain title talk as he faced the press, despite getting the better of Max Verstappen and closing the points gap
Lando Norris insists it would be "pretty stupid" to think he is in a title race with Max Verstappen this year.
The Briton secured his second career Formula 1 victory with a commanding performance at Zandvoort. He was nearly 23 seconds ahead of home favourite Verstappen when he took the chequered flag. But he remains 70 points adrift of the Dutchman in the drivers' standings even after that dominant showing and, with nine races left this year, Norris is not willing to entertain title talk.
He said: "I need to do better - I've been working hard the whole year and I'm still 70 points behind Max. So it's pretty stupid to think of anything at the minute. I just take one race at a time and just keep doing what I'm doing now because there's no point to think ahead and think of the rest. I don't care about it at the minute. I'm just focused on one race at a time. So it's not a question that I need to get asked every single weekend."
McLaren have consistently been piling the pressure on Red Bull this season. But they're not the only ones who have smelled blood in the water as both Ferrari and Mercedes also have multiple wins under their belts.
The latter were surprisingly off the pace at Zandvoort as George Russell limped home in seventh, one place ahead of team-mate Lewis Hamilton. In contrast, the Italians were stronger than expected and Charles Leclerc was as shocked as anyone to be standing on the podium having finished third, while Carlos Sainz was fifth.
Like most, Norris is finding it tough to get a read on the grid's current balance of power and made that clear when asked what his expectations are for next weekend's Italian Grand Prix. He replied: "I have no idea. You ask us questions like we're meant to know! I've got no idea.
"Anyone could be on top. Ferrari, Mercedes, Red Bull, us. Ferrari were quite quick today. We probably didn't expect them to be as good as they were. Maybe Red Bull struggled a bit more. I think that was probably more the factor that the Red Bull struggled a bit more today than we were expecting.
"We just keep our heads down. There's no point thinking how we're going to do next weekend. We'll just get there and work hard and wait till we get there. There's no point thinking ahead."
There is good news on the horizon for the Briton, though, as boss Andrea Stella confirmed more car upgrades are in the pipeline at McLaren. He said: "Thanks to the upgrades now, we will be more competitive even where Red Bull were faster than us, potentially.
"It's not easy to see... But we think that the car in the current configuration is possibly not enough in terms of the performance required to be the best car at every single event. That's why we plan to deliver more upgrades before the end of the season."
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