No 'Ifs' or buts for Norris in Zandvoort: Up/Down Dutch GP

Everyone’s a semi-misinformed critic. No more so than in the press, where balanced, well-thought out-arguments are often totally ignored.

So, opinions it is – and lots of them. Whatever people say, polemic frequently gets pole for readers. It’s lapped up.

Lando Norris has felt the full force of this – not just from the scribes and plodcasters, but also fans on social media. The accusations have flown – sometimes justified, sometimes not – that he isn’t getting the most out of the McLaren he’s in this season, which has often looked the best.

The Brit has previously admitted indifference to Lewis Hamilton’s success (when questioned by journalists) on a number of occasions, pointing to the seven-time world champion’s car performance advantage meaning he’s not that impressed.

How dare he?! said some on social media, a few of them relentlessly, ever since – and have come back for revenge whenever Norris apparently underperforms now he’s in the choice machine.

But yesterday was a Norris banner day. The McLaren man might have made a customary slow start, but he was so fast it didn’t actually matter…

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Goin’ Up

Pettiness prevails

The Norris camp has remained silent on the criticism until yesterday, with his official cheer leading account LN4 responding mid-race with said tweet:

Where all these meme accounts at now 😮‍💨

— LN⁴ (@LN4) August 25, 2024

It continued to ram home the point by alerting people to each time Norris pulled out another second on Verstappen – which happened quite a lot.

Even the official F1 account seemed to acknowledge the recent social media climate with its ‘Statement made’ post after the McLaren driver’s resounding win, and Norris topped it off by imitating Verstappen’s “Simply lovely” catchphrase on the radio.

Pettiness rules in the world championship. Brilliant.

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Relative difference

You have to hand it to Red Bull that Verstappen finishing second is being treated as an apparent crisis. His championship margin still tells the story.

The only real crisis going on is in the second car and constructors’, but we’ve said enough about that already.

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Youth over experience

With old-timers of varying ability clogging up the grid, a number of exciting talents from F2 have had to look elsewhere recently – Callum Ilott, Marcus Armstrong, Christian Lundgaard and Felipe Drugovich to name a few.

So it’s refreshing that one of the lucky few has now got a chance – step forward Jack Doohan at Alpine (after Carlos Sainz lost interest). Let’s hope it just doesn’t go the way of Sargeant or Schumacher.

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Footing the bill

Haas finally rounded off former team boss Guenther Steiner’s statement two years ago that he was “Done with Russians” (there was probably a ‘Fok’ in there too), by paying off $9m owed its previous title sponsor Uralkali, the potash fertiliser firm owned by former race brat Nikita Mazepin’s father Dmitri.

Sure the oligarch really missed those nine million bigs ones.

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Goin’ Down

Total Wipeout

Seems like Logan Sergeant is on a mission to write off as many Williams cars as possible. Judging by Zandvoort, he’s doing a good job so far.

Will he last 2024?

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Silverstone obscurity

Alonso’s solitary point showed Team Silverstone has rightfully reclaimed its place as midfielder place holder that punches above its weight every few years. It remains to be seen how long old man Fernando can hang on.

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Washed up

Zandvoort’s relatively brief F1 return could soon be over in an argument over unsold tickets. Shame the world championship doesn’t appear interested in keeping its classic tracks…

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A new low

The ‘X’ says it all.

Checkered flag on the #DutchGP race weekend 🏁

High tyre degradation and the track conditions made progress in today’s race impossible. pic.twitter.com/DJORt43jF8

— Stake F1 Team KICK Sauber (@stakef1team_ks) August 25, 2024