Again, Lando Norris has to give up in a duel with Max Verstappen at the race in Miami. His statements afterwards let a deep look.
It was scenes that Lando Norris unfortunately liked to do far too well. When the McLaren pilot tried an overtaking maneuver against world champion Max Verstappen at the Miami Grand Prix last Sunday, he was again left behind. Norris started on the outdoor trial of the second curve immediately after the start, but Verstappen used his better position on the inside ice cold and pushed Norris off the track without further ado. Instead of taking the lead, the Brit fell back to sixth place. The racing victory was out of reach after two curves.
Norris could have known that Verstappen would act in the same way. After all, he already had such maneuvers from the world champion. As an ex-champion Jenson Button Norris asked about the maneuver’s meaningfulness, Norris only said: “If I try to complain, if I don’t try, people complain, you can’t win.”
It is precisely these sentences that Lando Norris reveal the biggest problem in the fight for the World Cup: he lets criticism too close to himself.
With his statements, Norris almost admitted that at the moment he makes a decision in the car on the route, he is already thinking about whether he could be criticized later. There are no statements that a racing driver hits who has confidence in his own skills and instincts. Instead, Norris seems to live in permanent fear of the next criticism.
The fact that he is standing in the way of it once again became clear on Sunday. Better would have just positioned himself in the first corners to overtake the route at a cheaper point. Instead, Norris was obviously forced to try it straight away so that it might not be a coward afterwards who does not dare to go into the duel with Verstappen.
In fact, Norris has been criticized more often in the past for his too passive approach in duels, especially with Verstappen. The criticism also stems that Norris deals openly with his mental problems, finally admitted great nervousness, which even makes it difficult for him to eat and drink before the races. In Formula 1, which is still considered a shark tank and is still shaped by a rather archaic image of men, such statements are often equated with weakness.
At this point it should be clearly said: to put Norris in a “wimp corner” because of his open handling of his mental problems is completely out of date. Nevertheless – or maybe even because of it – he has to find a way to let such criticism be bounced down, even if it is easier said than done.
Because his competitors for the World Cup title, especially Max Verstappen and team-mate Oscar Piatri, do not stay with their critics for long. Verstappen, his sign of four world champions, expressed several times that the opinion of others was not particularly interested. When, for example, when the fans in the stands in the grandstands were booed about the British to the British Lewis Hamilton as part of the England race, he only said: “Maybe some of them don’t like me. They are all of their own opinion. I am not interested.” On another point, he said about criticism of one of his famous outbreaks of anger on the box radio: “They can all piss off.”
Norris’ teammate and competitor in the World Cup fight Oscar Piatri is back with such verbal all-rounds, but shows on the route that it is fundamentally similar. So Piatri drove against his teammate last year, which cost this important points when only Norris still had realistic chances of the World Cup title. That he even dealt with criticism of fans of his own racing team with this lack of teamwork? He didn’t care. He preferred to win races.