F1: Lando Norris 'surprised' McLaren are still in Alpine fight

McLaren driver Lando Norris says that he is surprised that the team still has a really good chance of beating Alpine to fourth place in the Constructors’ standings.

The battle for P4 in the table has been a very intriguing one so far this year and, with four races to go, we’re still really none the wiser as to who is going to claim it.

Certainly, many would say that Alpine are favourites as they seem to have had a stronger car at more venues than McLaren but the team from Woking are sticking in there and when Alpine have faltered they have been able to take advantage this season.

It’s set up for a really nice duel between now and the end of the campaign, then and, with the added dynamic of the Oscar Piastri saga still in the psyche, there’s plenty of pride at stake here.

That said, Lando couldn’t resist having a little dig at Alpine, saying McLaren should not really be close to them in the standings:

“Like I’ve said so many times, they’re so much quicker than us,” Norris said after Alpine jumped back into P4 at the Japanese Grand Prix.

“I have no clue how we’re still fighting them in the championship. They are another league to us at the minute. And yet we were somehow ahead [though] maybe not after today.

“I’m happy we’ve been able to fight them so far into the season, it shows we’ve done a very good job in all other areas, with reliability, with maximising our performances, taking opportunities and not making mistakes.

They must have done a lot worse than us on all of those areas to only just be ahead of us in the championship with the car that they have.

“It’s not really a big fight at the minute, because they’re so much quicker but we’ll keep trying.”

Pretty punchy comments from Norris and this isn’t the first