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When will McLaren admit they are pushing for F1 world title with Norris?
- Nicole Mulder
McLaren clearly has the fastest Formula 1 car at the moment, and Lando Norris is in the form of his life, yet the Woking-based outfit remains coy in its statements about its chances of winning the world title. This is especially true in the drivers' championship, and GPblog asked team principal Andrea Stella when the time will come for this to change.
When does McLaren dare reveal Norris has a serious title chance?
The drivers' world title still seems a long way off - Norris is currently 70 points behind Verstappen - but if Red Bull Racing performs as well at Monza on Sunday as it did on Saturday, the papaya team could cut into Verstappen and Red Bull's in both world titles significantly. When will the moment come that McLaren dares to say that the team are pushing for both world titles?
"That's not the way I look at things," Stella answered GPblog's question. "I think our two drivers were in condition to push today and get a relatively consistent response from the car. That's why I think actually we are P1 and P2. But the lap time that Max did in Q2 tells me that their performance is there."
The Italian continued: "For some reason, they just couldn't maximise in this qualifying session. And even for the rest of the practice sessions, I think Red Bull has been pretty competitive. I also see that here they needed, or they might have needed to make some compromises with their rear wing to achieve low enough drag. So I don't think they are necessarily in their ideal configuration at this track," Stella revealed.
Stella: 'No championship fight if you don't maximise every weekend'
"So Red Bull, we have a lot of respect. They are very strong. We just go on a weekend-by-weekend approach. Every weekend we assess the situation. We assess the situation internally in terms of where we are with the championship. But there's no championship fight if you don't maximise every single weekend. And that's our approach." McLaren's team boss concluded in his analysis.
This article was written in collaboration with Toby Nixon
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