McLaren and Dutch Grand Prix winner Lando Norris have blown the Formula One constructors’ championship wide open with Red Bull in danger of being overhauled, according to Mercedes boss Toto Wolff.
Norris took the chequered flag 22.8 seconds clear of Red Bull’s home hero Max Verstappen at a windy Zandvoort on Sunday, finishing with a fastest lap flourish to secure an additional point.
While the Briton is a massive 70 points behind Verstappen in the drivers’ standings with nine races remaining, McLaren are now only 30 behind reigning champions Red Bull in the constructors’ battle.
“He (Norris) has basically annihilated all of the competition with that fastest lap at the end, with a 42-lap old hard tyre and a 20-second gap,” Wolff told reporters after the race.
“So I think the constructors’ championship is wide open and that’s good for Formula One in my opinion.”
With sprint races inflating the available points tally at some weekends to come, the gap is one that could be closed relatively quickly.
Red Bull scored 54 points from the China sprint weekend alone in April while McLaren scored 27 points more than Red Bull in Hungary last month.
McLaren have outscored once-dominant Red Bull in eight of the last nine races while Mercedes, fourth overall, have done so in four of the last five.
There have been seven different race winners so far, the most since 2012, and while McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes have triumphed with both their drivers, Sergio Perez has become Red Bull’s Achilles heel.
The Mexican has scored just 36 points in his last nine races but his team have stuck with him in the hope his contribution will pick up again - and the absence of a clearly better alternative.
While Mercedes are 158 points off the top, they have won three races this season - the same as McLaren and one more than third-placed Ferrari who are 34 points behind Norris’ team and have their home Italian Grand Prix next up on Sunday. Red Bull boss Christian Horner pointed out that Sunday was still only the fourth time this season that triple world champion Verstappen had come away from a race weekend with his points lead reduced.
He recognised, however, that Red Bull - who started the season with Verstappen taking seven successive poles and winning seven of the first 10 races - had issues to resolve and McLaren currently had the quicker car.
“It can change very quickly, and that means it can change back the other way as well,” he said after the race on Sunday.
“McLaren has been the benchmark car over the last few races, we’re very acutely aware that we need to respond to that.
“We’re used to being in championship fights over the years. We’ll dig deep and we’re going to fight with everything we’ve got over the remaining nine races.”
Norris, the British driver two years Verstappen’s junior, is seen as the most likely pretender to the Dutch crown, helming an upgraded McLaren finally as competitive as any car on the grid. For Norris, it was premature to talk about possibly preventing Verstappen from cruising to a fourth straight world championship.
Verstappen still enjoys a 70-point lead over the chasing pack, thanks to a typical dominant start of the season that saw him win seven out of the first 10 races.
“It’s a lot of points, and it’s Max,” said Norris when asked if he could close the gap.
Overhauling Verstappen would likely require not only a sustained period of McLaren wins but also slip-ups from the Red Bull man he is not prone to offering. If anything, it’s the less experienced Norris that is more likely to lack consistency.
