Lando Norris is not disappointed about not winning the world championship this year. The McLaren F1 driver did not think at the start of the season that he would be able to compete with Max Verstappen, and he never imagined that he would be able to catch up after several races.
“I'm very proud of the whole team who fought for so long, started to catch up and caught up as much as we did. We were the fourth best team at the start of the year” Norris said.
“Red Bull has never been the fourth best team or the worst, let's say, ever. We had too much catching up to do since the start of the season, and we couldn't, because they were too strong.”
“Next year we will start the season with a car with which we believe we can win the championship on the first lap, something we have not managed to do in the last six years, and so I am delighted about that . But I'm proud of what we accomplished.”
“My first win in Formula 1, my first three wins, no one else fought against him. It's me and it's McLaren. Could we have done better? Absolutely. Do I think that We could have won the championship even with a perfect season? I don't think so, so I'm happy to finish second.”
Norris says he is proud to have been able to fight against Verstappen during this season, and that the defeat does not prevent him from being happy with what he has accomplished and experienced: “I feel like I can compete for a championship, I'm happy and I can confidently say that I have what it takes, and I know deep down that I have what it takes.”
“I have things to work on, for sure, but I can fight against Max, and I'm happy to say that because I think Max is the best driver in the world, and probably one of the best drivers “There has ever been in F1. A lot of people might agree, but I'm pretty confident when I say that, which is rare.”
“Fighting against him, going wheel to wheel, it's something I love and in 20-30 years I will be able to look back and say I fought such a driver. I'm happy for him, he deserves the championship, but I hope I can upset him more next week and next year.”
The Briton is disappointed with his sixth place in Las Vegas and worried about the lack of performance of the MCL38 in Las Vegas: “I'm not thinking about Mercedes beating Ferrari, I'm thinking about how bad our car was today.”
“That's what worries me, not the fact that Mercedes are strong. It's how bad we were throughout the weekend. It's clear we have a lot of work to do with our car . It's too difficult to drive. It doesn't work in these conditions.”
“It doesn't work at a lot of other tracks where we've had similar conditions, but we've been able to squeeze everything out of it sometimes, even when people think we had the best car, is absolutely not the case.”
“We still won some of those races, and they were the best weekends. But this weekend, even though I feel like I drove well, I couldn't do anything any more, and if I had tried, I probably would have ended up in the wall somewhere.”
