The McLaren F1 team has evolved a lot since Lewis Hamilton’s glorious championship-winning days 16 years ago. At the start of last season when McLaren had one of their worst starts, Lando Norris almost contemplated leaving the iconic Woking-based team. Back at the 2023 Bahrain GP, Norris contrasted his struggles with Hamilton’s glorious first few years with McLaren.
The 24-year-old’s comments from then have resurfaced lately on Twitter (now X), causing a lot of uproar. However, to understand the context behind it, Norris was only putting Hamilton in his shoes and explaining how different of a place McLaren was in 2023 relative to 2007-08.
Per GP Blog, Norris said, “Lewis Hamilton came into McLaren when they were winning championships and winning races, and from the beginning, that makes you look good. If he came into McLaren now, he wouldn’t have won a race and he wouldn’t have been anywhere near the driver he is today or achieved what he has today”.
Now, Norris has not had the luxury of a race-winning car as Hamilton had from the outset. Since his debut season in 2019, the #4 driver has been getting podiums on the odd occasion but never had the chance to consistently be in the fight for the win.
On top of that, McLaren’s abysmal form in the first half of 2023 was anything but like Hamilton’s glorious days at the Woking outfit from 2007 to 2012. While Hamilton struggled in some seasons, his debut year of almost winning the title and finally clinching it in 2008 is something Norris is only dreaming to achieve so far.
The 2024 season could yield him that opportunity and even Hamilton is hopeful of the same. Norris is currently 78 points behind championship leader Max Verstappen.
Hamilton says it will be tough but not “impossible” for Norris to win the 2024 title
After sharing the podium with Norris and his teammate Oscar Piastri, Hamilton was in quite a good mood to appreciate McLaren‘s improvement in performance. While Norris had some banter with the Mercedes maestro, Hamilton stuck to his stance of feeling happy to see his former team do well.
The seven-time champion also stated that Norris will face a steep challenge to beat Verstappen for the drivers’ championship. Before the Belgian GP, the #4 driver was 76 points behind the Dutchman. Hamilton deemed that it would be tough for Norris to overturn this big lead.
However, Hamilton also stated that despite it being challenging, it is not “impossible”. Even Norris asserted confidence in his abilities to overturn a lead of over 70 points with 10 races to go. But, the 24-year-old needs to start making inroads and win races consistently to outscore Verstappen, starting from the next race in Zandvoort.
