Lewis Hamilton weighs in on Lando Norris' chances of beating Max Verstappen to F1 title

Seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton believes Lando Norris will need “some fortune” if he’s to beat Max Verstappen to this year’s F1 world championship.

After his victory last time out at the Dutch Grand Prix, Norris sits 70 points behind Verstappen with nine rounds remaining.

Hamilton is the last driver to win the title for McLaren back in 2008.

Speaking to media including Crash.net at Monza on Thursday, Hamilton weighed in on this year’s title race - and whether Norris still has a chance.

“I mean, there’s a lot of points on the table, so I think it’s definitely... it’s not impossible. I think, ultimately, Max probably only needs to finish second every race to win at this point, and he would have to win every single race, and that still wouldn’t be enough, so then there’ll need to be some fortune in it, I do think,” he said.

McLaren’s chances in the constructors’ championship are considerably more favourable though with just 30 points between the two teams.

McLaren last won the constructors’ back in 1998.

Technically, they scored the most points in 2007 with Hamilton and Fernando Alonso but were disqualified from the constructors’ amid the spy-gate scandal.

Hamilton added: “And what’s really exciting is I think there’s a real chance that McLaren could win the constructors title. I think that’s really, really exciting, because obviously I was there when we did win the last constructors’. 

“Obviously, it got taken away from us, but we won it in terms of performance that year, and I don’t think there has been one since.”

If Norris is able to continue to cut into Verstappen’s lead, it would give F1 its fight genuine title fight since 2021.

Hamilton is hopeful the battle between the pair “goes down to the wire”.

“So I think that could be really exciting, I think not only for them, but also for the sport,” he added.

“I hope that it goes down to the wire because I think that would be great for the fans. But with their performance they showed last weekend, maybe they could.”