Lando Norris is at the peak of his powers after his win at the Hungarian Grand Prix demonstrated the world champion has a stronger psychological approach to driving, according to the McLaren team principal, Andrea Stella.
Norris took his team’s first win of the season on Sunday with a commanding drive at the Hungaroring after Mercedes dominance for much of the campaign. The Briton has always maintained his team would come back into contention and duly did so, beating the Red Bull of Max Verstappen into second and the Mercedes of Kimi Antonelli into third.
McLaren brought more upgrades to Hungary, which proved effective on a track that is dominated by relentless cornering, but Stella pointedly noted how much Norris had developed since taking his first title last year. “He hasn’t really had the machinery to show it so far, but he showed it today,” he said. “Lando is much more confident. He’s much more aware of his tools he has in his driving, how to deploy these tools. He’s also more in control of his emotions.”
Norris had been very quick in the race, despite dropping a place to his McLaren teammate, Oscar Piastri, on the opening corners. Having regained the lead, Stella admired how well Norris had handled the situation. “When he was behind Oscar, he said a couple of times that he had pace in hand, but he didn’t get frustrated. “The fact he wasn’t overly frustrated then allowed him to use the pace at the right time and lead him to the victory. We’ve seen a great trajectory of development for Lando.”
Mercedes’ George Russell, who is now trailing his teammate, the championship leader, Antonelli, by 59 points, finished in seventh place after a technical problem on the grid left him with a slow start. He dropped to 20th before rallying back to seventh, but after a series of problems with his car this season, he has all but lost patience with the repeated problems that had cost him so many points.
“I’m past the point of disappointment now, because if I’m continuing to be disappointed with everything that goes on, I’ll just be disappointed every day of the week,” he said.
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“It’s just unbelievable, the list of things that’s happened this season. It does feel like it is happening substantially more to me than others and hopefully it swings around. I don’t wish any bad luck on anyone, but I’ve never had a season like this in my whole career, let alone my F1 career.”
