Norris urged to find 'own punchline' after Verstappen impression

Lando Norris has been urged to find his "own punchline" after humorously mimicking Max Verstappen at the end of the Dutch Grand Prix.

McLaren driver Norris cantered to his second career F1 win at Zandvoort, beating Red Bull's Verstappen by 22.9s, the largest margin of victory this year.

To rub salt into Verstappen's wounds, Norris underlined the pace of his upgraded McLaren by adding the extra point for the fastest lap on the final tour to close the gap at the top of the standings between himself and the Dutchman to 70 points.

On the cool-down lap after the chequered flag, and after being congratulated by race engineer Will Joseph, Norris delivered a nonchalant message in response, echoing many of Verstappen's remarks following comfortable successes.

'Uh-huh...simply lovely," said Norris over the radio.

Reflecting on Norris' latest success, writing in his latest column on Sky Sports, former driver and co-commentator Martin Brundle said that after the first round of pit stops, the Briton "kept advantage over Verstappen but on those tyres then proceeded to basically check out and win the race at will".

He added: "He was blisteringly fast and underlined this by setting the fastest lap of the race on the final tour to take an extra world championship point and win by a massive 22.9 seconds.

"To make that even more 'Verstappen like', on the slow down lap on the radio he mimicked his mate Max by saying 'simply lovely'.

"If Lando keeps performing like that he's going to need his own punchline."

In the constructors' championship, McLaren has eroded Red Bull's lead to just 30 points and would now appear favourites to clinch a title it has not won since 1998.

After dominating F1 since the introduction of the current ground-effect aerodynamic era at the start of 2022, Red Bull is now on the back foot, leading Brundle to state: "What a turnaround this is from what we've witnessed these past two and a half years."

The latest McLaren upgrades, the first on the car since Miami, which was the scene of Norris' maiden F1 triumph, have clearly made the MCL38 the car to beat.

They resulted in Norris beating Verstappen in qualifying by a third of a second, a staggering gap given the shortness of the lap at Zandvoort.

"We were told this upgrade was worth about 30 per cent of the improvement they [McLaren] made back in Miami, which changed the game for the team at the time," said Brundle.

"So not only theoretically worthwhile, but unlike some teams, also positively measurable on the stopwatch."