{"id":10182,"date":"2025-04-11T07:23:11","date_gmt":"2025-04-11T07:23:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/10182\/"},"modified":"2025-04-11T07:23:11","modified_gmt":"2025-04-11T07:23:11","slug":"lando-norris-offers-mclaren-test-to-verstappen-to-see-disappointment-on-his-face","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/10182\/","title":{"rendered":"Lando Norris offers McLaren test to Verstappen to \u2018see disappointment on his face’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lando Norris has invited Max Verstappen to test the MCL39, but has warned him that he\u2019ll be disappointed as the McLaren is not the rocket ship that he claims it is.<\/strong><\/p>\n

After back-to-back Grand Prix victories for the McLaren driver line-up of Norris and Oscar Piastri, Verstappen pulled one back at the Japanese Grand Prix.<\/p>\n

Lando Norris: I\u2019ll be excited to see the disappointment on his face<\/p>\n

The Red Bull driver beat the McLaren<\/a> team-mates to pole position, taking the coveted grid slot by 0.012s ahead of Norris, before managing the race to cross the line 1.4s ahead of the championship leader.<\/p>\n

In doing so, Verstappen slashed Norris\u2019 lead in the standings to a solitary point at the start of a season in which rivals have talked up McLaren\u2019s on-track advantage.<\/p>\n

Verstappen did that after Suzuka, claiming that if he was behind the wheel of the MCL39, he\u2019d be out of sight<\/a>.<\/p>\n

More on the 2025 Bahrain Grand Prix<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc49 Our bold predictions for the Bahrain Grand Prix<\/a><\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc49 Bahrain Grand Prix: How to watch the race in the UK <\/a><\/p>\n

Speaking afterward about his pride at how Red Bull has dug deep to help him deliver the result, the four-time F1 World Champion jokingly told Viaplay that, if he was driving the faster McLaren, things could be very different.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very happy with what I\u2019m doing right now,\u201d he told Viaplay<\/strong>. \u201cBut I could think what would happen when I would be in that other car.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked \u201cthe McLaren?\u201d, he replied: \u201cYes, you wouldn\u2019t see me anymore!\u201d<\/p>\n

The journalist joked, \u201cYou would have been in Tokyo already!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cExactly!\u201d was Verstappen\u2019s response.<\/p>\n

But when Verstappen\u2019s claim that he could get more out of the McLaren than the current team-mates was put to Norris, the Briton rejected that.<\/p>\n

He even went as far as to say Verstappen would likely be disappointed as the car is not the rocket ship he claims it is.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t mind, he can say what he wants,\u201d said the McLaren driver. \u201cI don\u2019t care, honestly.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone can say what they want and believe what they want.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe both Oscar and myself are good drivers. I don\u2019t believe he is, he\u2019s maybe better at some things, but he is not better in every area.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a lot of respect for Max, but I also know some things are not true.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would love, he can come and test our car any day that he wants, and I\u2019ll be excited to see the disappointment on his face after he gets out.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for his expectations for the Bahrain weekend, Norris believes it could be a tricky weekend for the Woking team as the characteristics of the circuit do not suit the MCL39.<\/p>\n

\u201cI go in with no expectations whatsoever,\u201d he told the media, including PlanetF1.com. \u201cI don\u2019t need that weight on my shoulders. I don\u2019t care about any of these things.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me at the minute, I care about my preparation to go into Practice One and figure out what\u2019s the best tyres, or what feels good, what feels bad. Some of the things that we\u2019re trying on the car to kind of get my feelings back into a better position. That\u2019s also a priority for me.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have no expectations of, I don\u2019t need any expectations of what to expect going into a weekend, I just have my general expectations, which I don\u2019t think we\u2019ll have a big advantage here.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think our advantage will be lessened compared to previous weekends, a trickier track, a slower speed circuit, which has not been as favourable for us, and it\u2019s where the car is in a trickier state compared to what we had potentially last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I still just expect a good competition from Ferrari, Mercedes, and I even think the midfield pack will probably be a bit closer than to us this weekend. So I expect a difficult weekend. I don\u2019t expect any easy ones.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, the car is good, and yes, the team are doing an amazing job, but it\u2019s close, like you seen the past few weekends, and Red Bull also a good car, and Max is Max, and we saw Charles and Lewis and the other guys around. So I still expect tough competition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read next: Max Verstappen responds to McLaren rear wing footage reposted by father Jos<\/strong><\/a><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lando Norris has invited Max Verstappen to test the MCL39, but has warned him that he\u2019ll be disappointed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10183,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4103],"tags":[4199,707,4200,225,1711,1073,1710,12,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-10182","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-f1","9":"tag-formula-1","10":"tag-formula1","11":"tag-home-page","12":"tag-lando-norris","13":"tag-max-verstappen","14":"tag-mclaren","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114318134786975320","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10182\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}