McLaren boss Andrea Stella insists his team and Lando Norris can fight on equal footing with Max Verstappen in a year’s time.
Verstappen and his Red Bull team currently have a stranglehold on the sport. The Dutchman has won four of the five races so far this season and, if his brakes hadn’t jammed in Australia, he would have had a blank slate.
Last year, Red Bull managed to win only one of the 22 races held. Despite promises that the functionality gap would narrow over time, we have yet to see any hard evidence that other teams will succeed anytime soon.
But McLaren team principal Stella is still hopeful. After Norris took second place with Verstappen at the Chinese Grand Prix on Sunday, the Italian told reporters he still believes his team will soon be able to fight the Dutchman.
He said: “We lost ground because we had gained a lot of ground before, when they were growing. That’s why we have to look at things through a long era and during that long era we’re on a forged trajectory. If we keep this on a trajectory forged for the next 12 months, why?
Norris is yet to win an F1 race, but he now has 15 podiums thanks to his efforts. She spent much of last year keeping Verstappen right at the level of her abilities and Stella saw the progress the Briton made, all while waiting for McLaren to provide her with a winning car.
Of the 24-year-old, he said: “In the race, he turns out to be more and more consistent and more and more able to perceive what’s going on. What we call the raceship turns out to be getting bigger and bigger. . and increasingly accurate.
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“He has done a very clever job taking the opportunities with his engineers and the factory staff to make some small adaptations to be able to further exploit the car’s prospects. It’s all his merit. “
Meanwhile, in Shanghai, Norris said Verstappen’s continued dominance risked spooking F1 fans. He said: “It’s never going to be the most productive thing to watch and the only exciting races are the ones Max doesn’t take part in. Of course, it is. ” It’s going to be [a hurdle for the fans], there’s no way you can do it. Say that may not be the case.
“If you see the same driving force winning each and every time without fighting, then of course it starts to get boring and that’s obvious. You have one of the most productive driving forces in Formula 1, in one of the most dominant cars. And it’s a mixture that’s deadly. If Max wasn’t there and you had two Perezes, that wouldn’t be the case. “
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