Lando Norris believes his McLaren team were simply “not ready” to win an F1 drivers’ championship this year after Max Verstappen sealed the title in Las Vegas.
Verstappen finished fifth, a spot above Norris, in Sin City and now has an unassailable lead in the drivers’ championship with two races left.
Norris has, since his first F1 win in Miami in May, been armed with the fastest car but despite two more victories, the Brit experienced a number of missed opportunities throughout what was his first championship challenge.
Norris admitted it “hurt” to lose out this year, but paid tribute to Verstappen as he joined an elite list of drivers to win at least four titles.
“I’ll start by saying congrats to Max, as much as it hurts,” Norris told Sky Sports F1.
“He drove an incredible season, when he had the quickest car he dominated, when he didn’t he was there. He made my life tough, he drove a better season so big congrats to him.
“I didn’t even expect to be in a title fight. I was happy with how calm I was and focused I was. There’s definitely more pressure, more eyes, more nerves. You have to drive better and I feel like I have. Since Zandvoort, I think I’ve done close to a perfect job, I need to improve of course.
“I don’t think we as a team were ready to fight against the big boys. As much as I’d like to believe we were ready, we weren’t. But we were there fighting Max, no one else.”
Norris added that he feels the title was lost early on in the season, when Verstappen won four out of the first five races and built up a points lead which Norris was ultimately unable to diminish.
“I’m more proud than anything else, I don’t regret anything,” he added.
“But not something I regret… Max drove too well. It was lost in the first six races. We never clawed it back from there, we put up a good fight and look forward to next year, being there from the beginning.”
As for the race, Norris finished where he started in sixth on a weekend where McLaren were lacking pure pace.
“The race was pretty bad, bad day,” he said. “A poor weekend for us.”
Norris now has a fight on his hands to finish in second place, with just 21 points separating him and third-placed Charles Leclerc.
The battle is also on in the constructors’ championship, as McLaren eye a first teams’ title in 26 years. The papaya are 24 points ahead of Ferrari, ahead of next week’s Qatar Grand Prix.
