Max Verstappen is not optimistic about his chances of winning the 2024 World championship because of McLaren’s improvement in performance led by Lando Norris, and also Red Bull’s downfall.
Last year, Verstappen won 19 of the 22 races on the calendar on his way to winning his third title. This year, he started on a strong note but the RB20 soon developed issues with balance, that the team has not been able to find a solution to as of yet. Therefore, Verstappen became less and less hopeful of making it four championship wins in a row, with each passing weekend.
Ahead of the Italian GP, the 26-year-old insisted that he would give his best for the remainder of the season. However, even that may not be enough for him to stand tall. “Whether I win [the driver’s championship] or not, it won’t change my life,” Verstappen said to Motorsport.
️ “I would like to win races. Otherwise, it’s still nine races, some sprint races… these kinds of things can easily be overturned.”
Max Verstappen admits his 70-point #F1 lead over Lando Norris can be overturned – but that possibility isn’t eating away at him. pic.twitter.com/Ld4mpM84bv
— The Race (@wearetherace) August 29, 2024
“Would I like to win it? Yes, of course,” he added. “But it is not in my hands with the performance of the car.”
Verstappen finished 22 seconds behind Norris at his home race last weekend, which cut down his lead to the Briton to just 70 points.
With nine Grand Prix weekends remaining, Norris can catch Verstappen if he continues to perform as he did at Zandvoort, and the Dutchman knows it. McLaren’s CEO, Zak Brown also believes that everything is still to play for between the two drivers.
The fight between Norris and Verstappen is on
In an interview with SiriusXM, Brown admitted that the Dutch GP was a ‘good day in the office’ for his team. In addition to Norris’ gap to Verstappen decreasing, McLaren also made strides as a team and is now just 30 points behind Red Bull in the Constructors’ championship.
“An impressive performance by everybody,” said Brown. “Lando was perfect, team strategy, pace of the car.”
Brown added that the battle between Verstappen and Norris would be tight and that he didn’t expect his driver’s pace to be as strong as it was in the Netherlands. However, he firmly believed in Norris’ title hopes. “We’ve got to keep doing what we’re doing, and it’s going to be tight, but it’s game on.”
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Verstappen last won an F1 race on 23rd June, more than two months ago. This is his longest winless streak since the 2020 season when Red Bull was not a strong team and Mercedes was dominating F1.
