Why Norris must fight Verstappen harder if he’s going to break his F1 win duck

Can racing drivers ever truly be good friends?

There’s so much on the line. Points, glory, money. Futures. Whatever happens, finishing in front of your team-mate is the first goal. But how to avoid things getting sour in a battle to be the best?

Lando Norris knows quite a bit about this. His friendship with Carlos Sainz, which endures even as they race now for McLaren and Ferrari respectively, was one of the defining features on his first years racing in Formula 1. They’re not alone in being close. Of the current crop, look and George Russell and Alex Albon. Or Daniel Ricciardo and anyone.

The younger generation share a firm bond – they’ve risen through the ranks as F1’s first real social media generation, with all the trappings and danger that brings. Their fame as been turbocharged and amplified by Drive to Survive. And the positivity that pervades boosts F1 overall.

It’s a stark difference to the ‘lad mag’ culture that rang through sports coverage in, say, the nineties and noughties, which in motorsport shaped how certain stars were perceived.

Plenty of streaks of harder attitudes remain – and to many people they remain vital given this is brutal, top level sport. And given they’re doing battle at over 200mph, tempers boil and fray. Drivers clashing and falling out – recent examples include Esteban Ocon and Max Verstappen, or Russell and Valtteri Bottas – is always going to be a story worth following.

It was absorbing to watch Verstappen and Hamilton sit together before the post-race press conference after the United States GP last Sunday – Norris followed them in much later as his TV interviews dragged on.

There was initially an icy silence. Hamilton broke it eventually, asking about Verstappen’s post-Austin travel plans. The reply was polite enough, pleasant even, from a delighted race winner. But there was a distinct lack of eye contact on either side.

Photo by: Alex Kalinauckas

Verstappen considers Norris his best friend on the F1 grid - an ideal relationship for future team-mates?

Finally, Norris arrived. As press conference host Tom Clarkson conducted last-minute discussions with F1TV directors, Verstappen and Norris discussed the latter’s travel-sticker-livery for last weekend’s event. This extended to his race boots. Hamilton returned to his iPhone.

The different narratives of the two relationships have long been established. It’s going to take lots of time for the bruises of the 2021 title fight to heal, if they ever do. Meanwhile, Verstappen has previously discussed being good friends with Norris off-track, even calling him his "best friend" in the racing community.

It’s hard to imagine many other drivers being able to help personally deliver a broken Hungarian GP trophy to Verstappen’s Monaco apartment.

Verstappen and Norris have discussed the idea of one day being F1 team-mates. And what a line-up that would be – at a stroke forming a super-team with possibly the best combined driving talent level of any squad.

Norris is still Norris – refreshingly honest. He’s adamant McLaren has missed its “best chance” to win a GP in 2023

If that ever does happen, it wouldn’t be for a very long time. And the only logical place to state it could take place given the current contractual situations of each driver, plus looking at historical car formbook, is Red Bull.

Verstappen is set to stay there until the end of 2028, assuming of course his team maintains its place at the head of the pack through the 2026 rules reset, where if it doesn’t the topic of performance clauses will surely swiftly be raised.

Norris is contracted to race for McLaren until the end of 2025, with Red Bull also unlikely to look outside Sergio Perez and its current driver pool until that campaign is in full view. If it did want Norris then, it would have to pay to sign the driver it has courted twice in the past.

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Norris has turned down Red Bull's advances already in his career but he never seems far off its radar

So, until that hypothetical point is reached, if it ever is, Norris’s best hope of finally breaking his F1 win duck will be with his current team.

In taking a third second place in four races, in the aftermath of Hamilton’s disqualification at Austin, Norris is now one podium finish short of equalling Nick Heidfeld’s record of most F1 rostrum visits without winning. But even if he takes that mantle for himself in 2023, chances are he won’t hold it for too long…

PLUS: The possible outcomes of Hamilton and Leclerc's Austin F1 DSQ

Thanks to its impressive efforts to rework the MCL60 into a race winner with Oscar Piastri (albeit just in a sprint event), McLaren can lean on the pedigree of making the best gains of any team behind Red Bull so far in 2023.

Now, no more “magic” updates that will “add lap time or add the improvement from a tyre degradation point of view that will change things around significantly”, per team boss Andrea Stella, are coming in 2023. Therefore, it must make an even bigger step next year if it’s to challenge Red Bull for race wins.

That will be quite a challenge. Hamilton, having pushed hard to follow Verstappen early in last weekend’s dull sprint race and watched how his rival’s car performed, insisted afterwards “everyone behind these guys have a lot of work to do”.

Indeed, the RB19’s pace was still mighty on a weekend where its ride height had to be raised to traverse many bumps at Austin – bigger rear wings used to make up for the loss of underfloor downforce the car usually generates from its typically very slunk ride settings.

But Norris is clearly encouraged by his team’s work on car development this year. The rather cutting examples of him talking down McLaren’s chances – such as, “we're slow, we have been all year” at the Spanish GP – are gone.

In the post-Austin press conference, he turned scorn on Aston Martin, saying “they seem to have managed to make the car slower and slower with every upgrade that they’ve bought” and then insisting “they have!” when surprised at the laughter this remark drew.

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Despite his run of podiums over the second half of the season, Norris doesn't expect McLaren to fight for a win this year

But Norris is still Norris – refreshingly honest. He’s adamant McLaren has missed its “best chance” to win a GP in 2023 that was the Qatar GP.

That does gloss over the fact he insisted pre-weekend in Texas that he said was “not so confident” of glittering success, then was the second quickest driver in the sprint and led the GP commandingly until tyre degradation experts Verstappen and Hamilton got by later on.

And there’s a distinct possibility the unique challenge of the upcoming Las Vegas race and F1’s third visit to America this year will provide a shock different winner.

F1’s history is on the side of Norris’s blend of positive pessimism. Realistically, McLaren needs another off-season to make further changes to finally recover into regular win-challenging mode. But, if that does come in 2024, Norris is going to have to operate differently.

Norris can race very hard. His defence against Hamilton was inch-perfect but that was a far cry from not making any move to cover against Verstappen

At Austin, just as at Silverstone eight rounds ago, his defences from a surprise early lead once Verstappen raced up behind and made a move was on the tame side.

They were firmly pragmatic – Norris aware in both instances that a podium was still so valuable to rebuilding McLaren. But wins are even more so, and the chances of finally taking one after his Monza and Sochi 2021 near misses just go up in both these instances if Verstappen has to work harder to get by.

Norris can race very hard. His defence against Hamilton was inch-perfect – the pair lunging to Turn 1’s inside in unison, before the Mercedes backed out, headed wide and surged ahead on the exit anyway. But that was a far cry from Norris’s not making any move to cover against Verstappen at Turn 12, the Circuit of the Americas’ other main passing spot – where Charles Leclerc had gamely tried to thwart Verstappen’s advances much earlier.

Photo by: Mark Sutton

Norris's defence against Hamilton was far stronger than his Verstappen resistance in the US GP

Norris was thinking that McLaren’s tyre degradation “biggest weakness at this current point in time” meant he was always going to be overcome at Austin.

But this somewhat clashes with Stella insisting McLaren “wanted to go for the victory” and “we tried to go as fast as possible, [even though] we knew that Hamilton would’ve been a problem at the end”. There was a fighting spirit within the orange team, one that Mercedes’ decision to initially try the one-stopper showed wasn’t completely the case there. Toto Wolff even said as much.

Hamilton likely wasn’t going to be denied at a track he performs at so well and his tyre offset advantage was a big factor in how easy it ended up being in blasting by Norris. But, at Silverstone, which suited the MCL60 so well with its high-speed turns, a fierce battle with Verstappen might’ve secured an even better result for the young home hero.

PLUS: Why Mercedes could have won the F1 US GP from which Hamilton was disqualified

The world champion has a track record of clashes – mainly with Hamilton – when he’s given as good as he gets. That’s what made 2021 so compelling, because of what each driver was willing to do to win.

So, if these racing situations repeat in 2024, Norris must put glory above friendship if he’s to have the best chance of ever prevailing.

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

Would a title fight between Norris and Verstappen end their friendship?