Norris: “You all talk about Verstappen, but there are many who want to come to McLaren. Home race? Now I have less pressure than 2025”

Norris towards Silverstone 2025 was a fundamental year for Lando Norris, who entered the F1 roll of honor by winning the World Championship in Abu Dhabi. But the Brit will always carry last season close to his heart for another reason: he achieved his first success at Silverstone, driving the amazing MCL39. The 2026 car is not giving him the same joy, and Norris finds himself chasing in the standings. In front of his audience, the world champion will however want to straighten out his season. This is how he presented the Silverstone event during the press conference on Thursday. Norris’s words “Racing at home as a world champion is cool – declared Norris in front of the journalists – competing in front of our fans, friends, family is always special, I have always loved it. After winning the 2025 race and the title I come here more relaxed, I feel less pressure. But there is the desire to win it for the second time. The grandstand dedicated to me is fantastic, it will be bigger and even more beautiful than last season, I hope it distracts the opponents”, he added with a joke. “Seeing the amount of people who support me is incredible – Norris explained again, who then spoke about McLaren’s performance at this stage of the season – I don’t think that the race in Austria was worse than the one in Spain for us, only the cars in front of us have changed: in Spain there was Ferrari, in Austria it was Red Bull. Things change from race to race, we are simply not yet at the level we would like. I don’t think we can get here with the optimism of last year but we are still aiming for the podium. Give a Has it happened to all these fans? I would like to say yes, but we have to be realistic: we are not in the same position as last year, it’s clear that having the confidence to repeat a result like this is difficult, but in your home race you always want to do the best you can. The fans give me a special energy and motivate me to put on a show.” Norris then did not ignore the questions on the market, also addressing the thorny rumors referring to Max Verstappen’s possible arrival at McLaren. From this point of view, Norris even raised the issue, underlining that among the drivers present on the grid it is not only the Dutchman who is interested in wearing papaya in the future: “Verstappen in McLaren? There are many drivers who want to come to McLaren, I don’t know why you only talk about Max – observed the reigning world champion – from what I know there are several others too. But I think it’s positive, it’s nice that a four-time champion wants to come to us or in any case potentially wants to join the team, why not I know how true this is. It’s not something that concerns the present, nor a serious issue for now. I’m excited to be able to stay in the team for many more years.”

Automobile Magazine – Formula1 English, News

2026-07-02 13:02:00