Did Lando Norris claim that Max Verstappen had the fastest car in Saudi Arabian GP? All about the controversy around the McLaren driver's remark
McLaren driver Oscar Piastri claimed that the Woking-based outfit was the "quicker" team after his teammate Lando Norris reportedly mentioned that Max Verstappen was the "quickest" driver in the 2025 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. The British driver had a tough night at Jeddah Corniche Circuit, as he made his way through the grid to finish P4 in the main race after starting from P10 due to his crash in qualifying.
The MCL39 has been the car to beat in the 2025 season as they won four of the first five races in the campaign. However, the reigning world champions have been closely followed by the likes of Mercedes and Max Verstappen's Red Bull thus far.
Lando Norris, who lost his championship lead to his teammate after Jeddah, had reportedly insinuated that Verstappen had the fastest car during the weekend in his post-race comments.
Norris' comments caused some controversy online as many of his fans pointed out that he had given his views on the Red Bull driver's pace over 50 laps and believed the four-time F1 world champion could have potentially won the race if not for his penalty.
Several fans on X had commented about Oscar Piastri contradicting Lando Norris' claims of Red Bull being the fastest car in Jeddah in the post-race press conference. However, Norris fans refuted the claims made online and staunchly defended their driver after one fan praised Piastri for contradicting his teammate:
"It seems to me that it would be good to first find out and confirm that Lando Norris never said that Red Bull was the fastest. In fact, he said that they were, only that Max Verstappen was quite fast... Stop falling into sensationalism and copying everything. It becomes a bunch of lies that you replicate."
While another fan put the blame on the media for twisting Lando Norris' comments, as they shared his comments.
In his interview with Sky Sports, Lando Norris stated that he was not surprised by the pace of Max Verstappen and Ferrari and said:
"I don't know why people are so surprised, they're just as quick in most sessions, they're just as quick as us in the race. Just because we're quick in practice, people just keep coming up with all this c**p. We don't believe we're much ahead, as showed. I think probably Max was the quickest out there today if he didn't have that five-second penalty, so we have work to do."
Norris further added:
"People keep saying that we're the best, we're the quickest, blah, blah, blah, but it's just because we show a bit more pace in practice and then we don't have anything left when it gets to qualy, but that's our way of doing things. People just need to recalibrate that we're not… we have a great car and probably the quickest on average for sure, but clearly not enough."
Lando Norris sits just two points ahead of Max Verstappen in their battle for P2 in the Drivers' standings, with Oscar Piastri a further 10 points ahead of his teammate.
Max Verstappen on being closer than expected to Lando Norris' team in Jeddah
Red Bull driver Max Verstappen stated that he was "positively surprised" by RB21's turnaround in performance in comparison to McLaren in Saudi Arabia.
In his post-race press conference, the Dutch driver reflected on the deficit to Lando Norris' MCL39 in Jeddah and said:
"I was very positively surprised, to be honest, because on Friday, it was very, very tough. And it didn't matter what I was doing in terms of driving, management, the tires would just fall off. The car was a lot nicer. Still limitations, but it was much more promising. And actually, at one point when I started to pull away again, I was quite surprised, positively surprised."
Red Bull still has a deficit of 99 points in the Constructors' Championship to McLaren after five races and one Sprint in the 2025 season.