The “calm” and mature Max Verstappen should be able to hold off a charging Lando Norris for the 2024 world championship, according to former F1 driver Jarno Trulli.
Although the ‘T-tray’ scandal is unfolding around Red Bull in Austin, the good news for championship leader Verstappen’s team is that new upgrades appear to be working.
“After practice we knew for sure that we could compete at the front in a single lap,” advisor Dr Helmut Marko told Servus TV.
Indeed, Verstappen put his revised Red Bull on pole for the sprint race, declaring afterwards: “The car felt good. It’s been a while since I was at the front.”
McLaren and Norris had a much trickier day, although how the papaya-coloured team shapes up against Red Bull over longer runs is still unclear. “We don’t have any comparable times,” Red Bull’s Marko said.
“But this is a positive start,” he added. “The new parts worked straight away.”
With only six races left in 2024, McLaren almost always faster recently, and the technical and psychological needle with Red Bull now ramping up, a hot topic in the paddock is whether Verstappen or Norris will emerge with the title.
“We still have six races and three sprints,” Trulli told La Gazzetta dello Sport. “That’s not a small amount.
“But Max still has a sizeable lead and you can rely on him to get the best out of every race too,” the 50-year-old added. “I think it will be very difficult for Norris to be world champion this year.
“Lando has to be perfect and hope something unexpected happens to his opponent. But Max is full of maturity, with the calm of a three-time world champion. And while Lando is fast, he is not as complete a driver as Verstappen.
“He has failed to win a few times in the best car. He makes too many mistakes at the start or on the first lap. If he wants to steal the title from Verstappen, he has to change that,” Trulli said.
Just before the US GP weekend, Marko also questioned Norris’ “mental strength”, and pointed out that he has to do various “rituals” before each race.
“I read Helmut’s comments,” McLaren CEO Zak Brown said in Austin, “which I thought were disappointing, but not surprising. Lando has been a kind of ambassador for mental health.
“So to choose to kind of poke at that situation is pretty inappropriate and sets us back maybe 10, 20 years.”
Brown, however, said he has less of an issue with Verstappen advising Oscar Piastri to perhaps think twice about obeying any McLaren ‘team orders’ in the run to the chequered flag.
“I saw Max’s comments,” he said. “I like Max. I like Max a lot.
“We’ve had some good chats this year, so I think that’s all part of the sport. Lando doesn’t have any issue with it. I didn’t have any issue with it.”
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