Lando Norris pinpoints three F1 2024 regrets he would change in Verstappen title battle

Lando Norris has felt the strain at times in F1 2024

Lando Norris has highlighted the Canadian, British and Hungarian grands prix as wins that got away in his F1 2024 title battle with Max Verstappen.

With McLaren emerging as Red Bull’s greatest threat, Norris has enjoyed his most productive season yet in F1 2024.

Lando Norris reflects on F1 2024 missed opportunities

Yet despite claiming his maiden F1 victory at the Miami Grand Prix in early May, the British driver has struggled to add more to his tally with a number of mistakes costing him points to Verstappen.

While McLaren remain hopeful of beating Red Bull to the Constructors’ Championship, trailing their rivals by just 42 points with 10 races remaining, Norris’ hopes of challenging for the Drivers’ title fading as he trails Verstappen by 78 points.

Norris cut a frustrated figure at the end of the recent Belgian Grand Prix, the last race before F1’s summer break, telling media including PlanetF1.com that “stupid stuff and mistakes” like bad starts have cost him a lot of points in the title race.

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McLaren and Norris have both been criticised for losing out on potential victories, with the driver’s poor start from pole position in Spain considered the most glaring missed opportunity.

However, Norris has highlighted the races in Canada, Britain and Hungary as ones he would like to go back in time to change.

He told the Dutch edition of RN365: “From the racing point of view, there have definitely been moments that I would like to reverse, where I wanted to do a little bit better.

“Probably not as many as you would think, but definitely certain ones. Probably Hungary, Canada and Silverstone.

“In Canada, I had a chance to win, but people don’t understand how fast Mercedes was that weekend. They should have taken the easiest one-two of the whole year, but they didn’t.

“We missed the chance to fight for the win, instead of saying we lost the win.

“[At Silverstone] too, I lost the chance to fight for victory because I was much slower than Lewis Hamilton.

“As I said then, even if I had come on track [after the final pit stops] ahead of Lewis I still wouldn’t have won the race.

“That’s a pretty important point that not many people know. He was much faster and the tyre wear was much better than ours on the soft tyre.

“Lewis and George Russell were just a bit more out of the way of Oscar Piastri and myself. It looked like they were a little bit ahead of us.”

Norris acknowledged that his poor starts in Spain and Hungary, where he lost the lead to Piastri at the first corner, cost him two victories, yet insisted that his improved performance level from 2023 is more important than his results in F1 2024.

He said: “With my starts in Barcelona and Hungary, I potentially lost two wins. That’s a bigger loss than in Canada or Silverstone.

“There I was fast enough to win. We were faster than Max in the race and I lost the position to do that from my side.

“There have been a few instances, but fewer than people would think from the outside.

“But overall, I feel I have been a much better driver this year than last year. That is the most important thing for me.”

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