Sky F1 pundit Martin Brundle believes Lando Norris’s
“lack of experience” of competing for World Championships has cost him in his
title battle against Max Verstappen in F1 2024.
And he fears the McLaren star
“lacks the killer instinct” required to take on the “pretty brutal” Verstappen
and win.
Martin Brundle questions Lando Norris’s ‘killer instinct’
Norris seemed
set to take a large chunk out of Verstappen’s F1 2024 points lead in Sunday’s
Brazilian Grand Prix, having stormed to an assured pole position at Interlagos
as his title rival could only manage 17th on the grid.
However, Norris slid to a distant sixth in the race as
Verstappen charged up the order to collect one of the most impressive victories
of his F1 career.
Verstappen’s first grand prix victory since the Spanish
GP on June 23 means he holds a huge 62-point advantage ahead of the final three
races in Las Vegas, Qatar and Abu Dhabi.
With Verstappen potentially set to be crowned World Champion
for the fourth time when the season resumed in Vegas later this month, Brundle
is convinced that Norris – with three victories to his name in Miami, the
Netherlands and Singapore – will learn a lot from his first experience of
competing for major honours this season.
He told Sky Sports News: “”It’s [about
improving] everything at the level he’s at.
“He’s had some amazing victories and not least in Zandvoort
and Singapore where he just ran off and hid, a little bit like Max [dominates
sometimes].
“But he lacks the experience of challenging for a World
Championship and I think that’s a whole new set of challenges and rules – and
that’s what he will learn from this year.
“Sometimes you wonder if he lacks the killer instinct up
against Max, who we know can be pretty brutal in combat.
“But I think Lando will learn a lot from this season. And
Max winning seven of the first 10 races pretty much put him out of reach
really.”
Although McLaren have possessed the fastest car for much of
this season, Norris has struggled to consistently close the gap to Verstappen.
Brundle feels that in hindsight that it was too big an ask
for Norris to catch Verstappen, who started the season with seven victories
from the first 10 races despite Red Bull’s waning form.
And he believes that Verstappen is now almost certain to secure a fourth consecutive crown in the coming weeks, with Norris now relying on an almost unprecedented series of events.
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