Lando Norris has only got three Grand Prix wins to his name but he’s already been paid the ultimate compliment by a former F1 star. The 24-year-old is fresh off the back of his most dominant display yet in Singapore, finishing more than 20 seconds clear of Max Verstappen.
The McLaren man is now just 42 points off the championship leader with six Grand Prix races to go.
Regardless of whether he manages to breach the gap, Norris is being widely tipped to challenge at the top end of the sport for years to come having committed his long term future to the English team.
And now David Coulthard has heaped praise on the 24-year-old for his performance of Marina Bay, comparing him to the all-time greats of the sport. “What a performance. Human and machine in perfect harmony,” he said on Channel 4.
“Lando is so humble and so approachable, he doesn’t realise how great and significant his performances are right now. “I want to put him in the sort of Senna, Schumacher, Hamilton at his best, type performances. We can all win a Grand Prix by getting a bit lucky, but this was exceptional.”
Despite his searing form, Norris still has some way to go before truly matching the icons mentioned by Coulthard. The trio have 17 world title wins between them, and are all considered legendary figures within the sport.
His potential has long been talked up though.And in January, he underlined his ambition to win a championship with his current team having signed a two-year extension to his current deal that will take him until the end of the 2027 season.
McLaren now lead Red Bull in the Constructors’ race by 41 points, with Oscar Piastri also impressing having moved up to fourth in the standings. And after his win in Singapore, Norris was full of praise for the work of team principal Zak Brown and co.
“We are doing a better job as a team right now because my car and our car is quicker than theirs (Red Bull),” he said. “But that’s just credit to the team doing an amazing job and being smarter and doing cooler things and creating mini DRS flaps and stuff.
“I still have a lot of points I’ve got to catch up though and it’s not going to be easy to do it. It’s against Red Bull and it’s against Max, the most dominant pairing you’ve ever seen in Formula 1.”
Norris’ bid to hunt down Verstappen will continue in Texas from the weekend of October 18-20. That will be the first of three consecutive weeks of racing, with further events coming in Mexico and Brazil.
