Lando Norris: McLaren driver says he and team were not mentally ready to fight against Max Verstappen for F1 title

Lando Norris says McLaren were not ready to fight for the title this year after Max Verstappen was confirmed as the world champion in Las Vegas.

Norris was unable to keep the championship alive when he finished sixth behind Verstappen in Sunday’s race in Las Vegas.

The McLaren driver was involved in his first title fight this season, in the same year he won his maiden Grand Prix in May in Miami.

“I didn’t even expect to be in the title fight. I think I was happy with just how calm I was, how focused I was,” Norris, who immediately congratulated Verstappen, told Sky Sports F1.

“There’s definitely more pressure. There’s more eyes, there’s more nerves. There’s more demands on me making sure I go out and don’t mess up, don’t make a mistake in the race, stay in the race, don’t get taken out. You have to drive better when you get to that point and I feel like I have.

“Since Zandvoort I feel like I have done close to a perfect job. Always things I could have improved on but I feel like I have done a good job, especially this second half of the season.

“The first half, I don’t think I was, or we were as a team mentally ready to be like ‘oh, now we have to fight against the big boys and execute perfectly.’ And we paid the price a little bit.

“As much as we would like to believe we were ready, we weren’t and we paid the price a little bit – but also it was us that was there fighting Max, no one else.”

Norris: Even with perfect year, I would not have won championship

McLaren started the year with a relatively uncompetitive car before a big upgrade package in Miami saw them suddenly become capable of challenging Red Bull.

Norris was 53 points behind Verstappen after his win at the Miami Grand Prix but has fallen to 63 points behind with two events to go, despite McLaren fighting for victories at most races since then.

During the same 16-race period, Norris has only won two races compared to Verstappen’s four. The pair clashed in Austria, where Norris retired, then again in USA and Mexico City.

“We started the season off the worst of the top four teams and we’ve ended up being the most consistent and probably the best team,” continued Norris.

“I’m more proud than anything else. I don’t regret anything. You always have those things where [you think] maybe I should have done that a bit differently. But not something I regret because I don’t think, even if it was a perfect year on my behalf, we could have won the championship this year.

“I think Max drove too well. Red Bull and the team did too good of a job for us and it was just lost in the first six races.

“We caught up, it fluctuated a bit but we just never clawed it back from there. So still happy that it was us and we put up a good fight. I’m looking forward to next year being in there from the beginning.”

The British driver will now turn his full attention to the Constructors’ Championship as McLaren’s lead was trimmed to 24 points over Ferrari with two races left – in Qatar, which features a Sprint, and Abu Dhabi.

Norris thinks he has what it takes to win a championship but acknowledged he is up against a driver who he regards as one of F1’s greats.

“When he had the quickest car, he dominated, when he didn’t, he was still there and always on my heels,” he explained.

“He made my life tough. We made his tough, I’m sure, at times. But he drove a better season and of course a big congrats to him. That’s the main thing.”

Formula 1’s season-ending triple-header continues next weekend with the Qatar Grand Prix, live on Sky Sports F1. Stream the final two F1 races and more with a NOW Sports Month Membership – No contract, cancel anytime