Former Haas team principal Guenther Steiner predicts Lando Norris will come second in the Formula 1 Drivers’ Championship this year despite challenges from Ferrari and Mercedes.
The reigning World Champion currently sits fourth in the standings with 186 points following a points surge driven by impressive performances at the last four Grands Prix, including wins in both Hungary and the Netherlands.
Having qualified on pole for the Spanish Grand Prix at the new Madring, Norris looked set to take a third win of the season until a poorly-timed virtual safety car saw him miss out on a cheap pit stop, and he eventually finished third behind Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.
Antonelli currently leads the drivers’ standings with 292 points – 106 ahead of Norris. Antonelli’s teammate George Russell (211 points) and seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton (191 points) make up the rest of the top three.
Speaking on The Red Flags podcast, Steiner argued Norris’s recent boost in performance could allow him to go ahead of Russell in the standings by the end of the season.
“He will be second if he continues like this. Look how happy the Lando boy is,” he said.
Norris praised for “career-best” performance in Madrid
Norris’s team also believes his current run of form is showcasing some of the strongest driving of his career – even compared with his title-winning season last year.
Speaking about the British driver’s pole lap in Madrid, McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said: “It was a consequence of pushing to the level that Lando managed to push to, and when you look at the telemetry, it is the precision, the braking, the speed carried on entry, the striking of the kerb, the going on power.
“Everything was executed with a pretty unique level of precision, and for me, the main attribute that would be associated with this lap was just incredible precision in the metre-by-metre execution.
“I think Lando offered one of the best performances of his career.”
Norris shared the sentiment, stating his pole lap at the Madring was “probably one of the best laps I’ve done ever in my career”.
“One of those laps when everything came together,” he added. “I had a good idea of what I wanted to do, it was whether it came together but my brain let me do it almost perfect.
“It’s one of those laps when you look at the time and go: ‘Oh, that was pretty good.’”
Norris will no doubt be aiming for a similar performance in Azerbaijan, where McLaren is set to reintroduce its iteration of the ‘Macarena’ wing as part of a major upgrade.
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