Few words and eloquent glances
“How much did Norris beat you by?“. “20-22 seconds and something“. Eyes wide open, hand on face. “Yes…“. The dialogue between Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen – while both await the arrival of Lando Norris on the back podium – and their exchange of glances before climbing onto the podium for the 2024 Dutch Grand Prix awards seems to be the perfect synthesis of the current moment in Formula 1. McLaren is flying, unapproachable for its opponents, and they – the opponents – have no choice but to rack your brains to figure out how to reduce the gap.
Both the Dutchman and the Monegasque drove a perfect race in Zandvoort and their faces, which appear somewhere between astonished and disheartened when they talk about the McLaren’s performance, are the mirror of a tangible concern: that of a technical gap that is anything but easy to mend. Non-verbal language is even more eloquent and can be perceived in Max Verstappen’s long silencesusually very talkative at the end of the races. The Dutchman also made it clear in interviews: the 70-point margin over Norris, seeing the performance of the MCL38, no longer seems so much.
McLaren is really scary
After talking about the huge gap gained by the #4 of the Woking team, Verstappen and Leclerc also chatted about the upgrades brought to the track in Holland by the team directed by Andrea Stella: “They used the updates in the race? – asks Leclerc – because I saw that they mounted them in FP1, then they removed them in FP2…“. “Yes but then they used them in the end…or not?“, the Red Bull standard-bearer replies, speechless. “I do not know“, concludes the red #16.
With the arrival of Norris the discussion shifts to the departure, on fastest lap achieved at the end of the race again by the young McLaren star – with Leclerc interested in understanding the time set by his colleague – and finally on the fluctuating performances of Mercedes, the real disappointment of the day. It is not difficult, however notice a certain coldness, especially between Verstappen and Norriswhich suggests that the battle for the championship is now really coming to the fore. And this McLaren scares everyone.
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