Lando Norris will now believe he has what it takes to defeat Max Verstappen, but must capitalise on the opportunity to start F1 2025 strong to have a chance.
That is the claim made by FIA steward Johnny Herbert, who has tipped Norris to bounce back next season after his F1 2024 title hopes effectively came to an end in Brazil.
Johnny Herbert: Lando Norris ‘knows he can beat Max Verstappen’
Initially the odds were in Norris’ favour at the Brazilian Grand Prix with Verstappen P17 on the grid, but the Dutchman would deliver an iconic performance to win the race and stretch his lead over Norris to 62 points with three rounds of the season to go.
After Verstappen’s dominant start to the season, McLaren and Norris emerged as a threat to his pursuit of a fourth successive title, but if Norris can ensure that Verstappen does not get another head start in F1 2025, Herbert reckons it could be game on.
“Lando has had to play catch up and that is very difficult to do,” Herbert told Safest Betting Sites. “He has been chipping away at Max’s lead but the points lead now means the title is out of reach unless Max has a dreadful run of bad luck, which won’t happen.
“Lando has to take the positives of what has happened this year. He has driven so well, got poles and improved massively. He has a great chance of starting next year very strongly and if he can capitalise on that as Max did this year, then who knows what could happen. He will keep on learning. We haven’t seen the best of Lando yet nor for that matter Max.
“McLaren will learn for next year and have a stronger mindset. Lando will go into 2025 knowing he can beat Max. There are others too, such as Oscar [Piastri] and George [Russell] who are only going to get stronger.”
In the opinion of ex-F1 team boss Eddie Jordan, Norris has been “too nice” in F1 2024 and did not inflict maximum damage on Verstappen’s Championship lead when he had the chance in a superior McLaren.
“Lando Norris has been brought up by an amazing, lovely, beautiful, caring family. And is there an argument to say that he’s too nice? Yes, possibly,” said Jordan on a recent episode of the Formula For Success podcast.
“The fact is that Lando Norris will go down in the history books as being one of the most incredibly fastest drivers, possibly, not to have won a World Championship – and the reason being, he should have been out of sight on several races this year where there is not a chance Max had the car that he had.”
Jordan’s podcast co-star, 13-time race winner David Coulthard, expressed his belief in Norris, who he feels just has one final step forward to make in on-track combat.
Coulthard responded to Jordan: “I know you weren’t saying he’ll never be a World Champion, but you’re throwing out there that he might not have all the ingredients to win a World Championship, going toe to toe with the likes of a Max.
“But I actually take the view that McLaren entered this year as part of their rebuilding working their way towards challenging for World Championships, and it came as a bit of a surprise to them when they were in that position, and it’s taken them a little while to adapt and really believe that they can win the Constructors’ Championship and the could win the Drivers’ Championship.
“I think they are almost there in their mind, where they’ve got that attacking mentality that I believe that they’ve had in the past and they’re certainly getting there now.
“But I think maybe Lando is the same. He’s still maturing into this complete grand prix driver.
“He’s got all the speed, we love how open he is – everything is there. I think that he’s still maturing into that person and I believe in Lando.
“But at a certain point he’s got to go: ‘Max, you think I’m going to leave the door open and you can send the car. Well, actually, the door’s closed – and if we crash, we crash.’
“It almost needs to be one of those situations, because you race different drivers in a different way.
“I think Lando is just that one step away from fully understanding how to race his competitors.”