Norris says talk of an F1 title challenge is "stupid"

Lando Norris is still not looking ahead to potentially winning the Formula 1 title this season and labelled it "stupid" to aim for the crown despite a dominant display at the Dutch Grand Prix.

The McLaren driver once again struggled off the line from pole position and fell behind reigning champion and local favourite Max Verstappen into the first corner.

However, Norris recovered in style, keeping tabs on Verstappen before passing the Red Bull with ease on lap 18, never looking back as he stormed to a comfortable win.

He still had enough in his used hard tyres to set the fastest lap on his final tour, the winning margin of 22.896 seconds the biggest in a race not won by Verstappen since Lewis Hamilton's impressive victory at the 2021 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

But despite coming back from the summer break in scintillating form, as another upgrade proved to bring instant improvement, Norris offered a bullish response when asked by Motorsport.com if he was confident he has a shot at the title.

"I've been fighting for the championship since the first race of the year. There's no sudden decision now," he said.

"I need to do better. I've been working hard the whole year and I'm still 70 points behind Max. So it's pretty stupid to think of anything at the minute. I just take one race at a time and just keep doing what I'm doing now because there's no point in thinking ahead and thinking of the rest.

Photo by: Andrew Ferraro / Motorsport Images

"I don't care about it at the minute. I'm just... yeah, focused on one race at a time, so it's not a question that I need to get asked every single weekend."

Whether Norris will be good enough over the course of the season to close the 70-point gap to Verstappen remains to be seen.

McLaren, though, was a class ahead of anyone else in Zandvoort as Mercedes boss Toto Wolff conceded they "annihilated" the rest of the pack.

With the Italian Grand Prix a week away, Norris refused to offer a positive take on whether he could make it back-to-back victories.

"Anyone could be on top," he insisted. "Ferrari, Mercedes, Red Bull, us. Ferrari was quite quick. We probably didn't expect them to be as good as they were. Maybe Red Bull struggled a bit more.

"I think that was probably more the factor that the Red Bull struggled a bit more than we were expecting. We just keep our heads down.

"There's no point thinking how we're going to do next weekend. We'll just get there and work hard and wait till we get there. There's no point thinking ahead."