Max Verstappen: ‘Nothing I lied about’ in assessing Norris title potential

Max Verstappen has doubled down on the ‘your time will come’ message he gave to Lando Norris last season, adding there was “nothing I lied about” in that statement.

Verstappen offered Norris that message when he beat the McLaren driver to last season’s Drivers’ title, having been effusive in his praise of his friend and Formula 1 rival.

Max Verstappen sees ‘definitely a bit different’ Lando Norris this season

After Verstappen wrapped up his fourth title in Las Vegas last year, the two shared an embrace and an exchange in the media pen, despite Norris’ disappointment at missing out.

Explaining what he said to Norris at the time, Verstappen replied: “I told him ‘Your time will come one day’. Be patient. Even at McLaren when it was not going that well, I said ‘I know you are capable of winning titles’.”

While Verstappen took a significant slice out of Norris’ lead in the standings when he and Oscar Piastri were both disqualified at the weekend, Norris still leads the championship by 24 points heading into the final two rounds of the season.

With Norris now firm favourite for the title, the Red Bull driver feels there is something different in the way Norris has been this year, as a result of experience and performance.

When asked if he had noticed a change in Norris this season, Verstappen replied ahead of the weekend in Las Vegas: “Lately, I think, the weekends seem to be really coming together very nicely. So yeah, in that sense, definitely a bit different.

“But I mean, every year you also grow from past mistakes, or weekends where you think you could have done a better job. And that goes for everyone, it’s not particularly Lando in this case.

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“What I said last year, I meant, simple as that. I mean, there’s nothing that I lied about, it’s quite clear this season, so sometimes, you just need to be a bit patient and wait for your moment.”

Norris himself expanded on the topic in Las Vegas, believing there to be multiple reasons why he has been able to put himself into a championship-leading position at this stage of the year.

Should he outscore Verstappen and Piastri by two points in Qatar, he will take an unassailable lead and win his first title with one race to spare.

Asked about how he’s approached this season and improved, Norris replied: “Two reasons I’ve done well is, one, I’ve done better jobs, so I’m performing better more often. Two, I’m more positive and less negative about when I have bad days and bad sessions, and believe in myself a bit more that I can turn it around.

“There’s been a lot of races this year when I get post-qualifying even, and I’m a bit lost. Especially the beginning of the year, just off the pace. Don’t have an answer. Don’t have a clear, ‘Okay, tomorrow I need to do this, and I’ll be fine’, but then I turn it around, either into qualifying from practice or I turn it around onto Sunday.

“I’ve done that a good amount of times where I got to the point where, even if I have a bad weekend now, I’m like, ‘Well, I’ve done it before, against all the best drivers, I’ve been off and I turned it around come the time it matters’ – and that’s a very reassuring feeling that I need.”

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