Max Verstappen warns Lando Norris’ title recovery harder due to F1 teammate rivalry

Max Verstappen has admitted Lando Norris’ chances of recovering in the F1 title race are more “complicated” than he faced due to his teammate being his main rival.

Norris’ F1 title chances took a major hit after he failed to finish the Dutch Grand Prix.

Norris’ deficit to Oscar Piastri is now 34 points - the largest it’s been all season.

McLaren suggested that a chassis-related problem led to Norris’ second DNF of the year.

It was initially thought Norris’ failure was due to an engine issue.

Mercedes and their customer teams have faced reliability issues throughout the season.

With nine races to go, Norris has a mountain to climb to win his first F1 world title.

Verstappen was in a similar position after a tough double-header in 2021.

Verstappen had a 32-point lead over Lewis Hamilton heading into the 2021 British Grand Prix.

His title rival at Silverstone crashed him out, and he sustained significant damage at the Hungaroring due to Hamilton’s teammate, Valtteri Bottas.

It meant that Hamilton led the championship heading into the summer break, overturning a significant deficit.

Similarly, at the start of the 2022 season, Verstappen failed to finish the Bahrain and Australian GPs.

Verstappen was 46 points behind championship leader Charles Leclerc, but overturned it to claim his second title in Japan.

“As simple as that”

Verstappen conceded that unlike his title battles, where he had external competition, it will be more difficult for Norris to recover.

Speaking in the post-race FIA press conference, Verstappen said: “I mean, it’s out of your control. So, you just need to keep working hard, keep trying to win. As simple as that. Especially when you are teammates, you have the same car, same opportunities. It’s probably a little bit more complicated than when it’s two different teams, but still a lot of races and you can see things can swing.

“Like Oscar said, you don’t know if you get a mechanical failure or not, it’s out of your control.

“So yes, it’s not ideal, but there are enough races to either turn it around or not, and time will tell.”

Verstappen ultimately finished second at Zandvoort thanks to Norris’ DNF.

The four-time world champion moved ahead of Norris at the start but couldn’t keep the faster McLaren driver for long.

Reflecting on his battle with Norris, Verstappen said: “Not at all. But I still wanted to have a bit of fun out there. When I got ahead, I just followed my pace and that meant at one point Lando got ahead again.

“You could see, I mean, it’s a different league. There’s no point trying to ruin your own race defending really hard or losing two, three laps defending for your life. Unfortunately, there’s no point in that.”