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Lando Norris has ruled out the prospect of a McLaren victory over the final four races of this F1 season, believing the team’s best chances “have gone”.
Not for the first time this season, Norris saw an opportunity to end his personal drought culminate in him finishing second in the United States Grand Prix – following Lewis Hamilton’s disqualification – despite leading through the opening stint and the early laps of the second before being reeled in by the dominant Max Verstappen in his Red Bull.
After 100 grands prix, Norris has still to savour the feeling of being a race winner, with this season seeing him finish as runner-up on five occasions, and third once.
The Briton was certainly not expecting to perform as well as he did at the Circuit of The Americas, believing its characteristics would not suit the MCL60.
With races remaining in Mexico, Brazil, Las Vegas, and Abu Dhabi, Norris offered an equally downbeat assessment, certainly with regard to capturing that elusive race win.
“Do I think our best chances have gone? I would say yes,” said Norris, when asked as to his prospects for the remainder of this year.
“I think Qatar was our best chance of winning a race, and I missed out on that one.
“I don’t want to say no (to a race win), I don’t say never, but there are no super-high speed Suzuka- or Qatar-style circuits left, which is where we’re strong.
“And if you looked at the GPS and the overlays of how bad we are in the slow speed, I’m not looking forward to Brazil. I think we’re going to be pretty shocking there.”
Sat alongside Verstappen at the time of the question, the three-time F1 champion suggested Abu Dhabi might provide a chance as Norris is “always quick there”, and that he is an “Abu Dhabi specialist”.
The comment left Norris surprised, before adding: “Maybe Abu Dhabi, you never know. We’ll see”, before again underlining his initial comments.
“I don’t think there any good ones for us coming up,” insisted Norris. “I think our best have gone.
“I just want to be hopeful that we can do good results, and I think we can still fight for podiums, but these guys (Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton in his Mercedes) are too quick for me.
“I would say they were quicker all weekend (in Austin) on average. We just about keep up in qualifying when we have that new rubber and super-low fuel and things like that. We can look decent.
“But I think realistically we’re not at that level as a general package with these guys. So yeah, not great ones coming up but Vegas, Abu Dhabi are probably the better ones.”
