Montoya on Norris vs Verstappen: stop blaming the car, look at the scoreboard
Juan Pablo Montoya has weighed in on Formula 1’s oldest pub argument and taken a clear side: Lando Norris isn’t leading this title by luck or by McLaren alone. He’s leading it because he’s beating Max Verstappen right now — and yes, Max’s greatest days were also in the quickest car.
With three race weekends to go and 83 points left on the table, the picture got sharp in São Paulo. Norris ripped through Mexico and Brazil with a sprint–grand prix double at Interlagos, flipping a 34-point deficit after Zandvoort into a 24-point cushion over Oscar Piastri, and a 49-point gap to Verstappen. Verstappen, to his credit, was box-office in Brazil: pit lane to the podium in a Red Bull that finally looked more alive on Sunday than it had on Saturday. The memes had him starting the Las Vegas Grand Prix from a casino parking structure just to keep things interesting.
But the “put Max in the McLaren and it’s over” chorus? Montoya’s not buying it.
“Whether you like it or not, Norris is still beating Verstappen,” he told PokerStrategy. “Yes, he drove a great race, but was still beaten. And you can’t throw everything at the fact that Norris has a better car. Verstappen had the better car when he won those other races.”
It’s not exactly controversial — it’s reality. F1 has never been driver or car; it’s always driver and car, plus a cold streak of reliability and the tiny margins born from pit stops, tyre calls and race craft. That’s as true now as it was when Williams swung a hammer in the ’90s, when Michael Schumacher turned Ferrari into a metronome, when Damon Hill went from title winner to wrestling an Arrows, or when Jenson Button vaulted from the doldrums to Brawn glory. Even Lewis Hamilton, a seven-time champion, found the ground-effect era a grind before Mercedes recalibrated. The machinery matters. So does what you do with it.
Norris is doing plenty. Since the summer he’s been relentlessly tidy on Saturdays and razor-sharp on Sundays. McLaren’s MCL39 looks like the class of the field in clean air, and Norris has wrung the big points out of it. Piastri, for his part, has stayed close enough to keep this a team affair, even if the pendulum has swung towards No. 4.
Montoya doesn’t see much room left for Verstappen to muscle his way back into this fight. “Verstappen still has a chance mathematically, but it is not realistic to think that he will overtake Norris,” he said, adding that Norris could even seal this before Abu Dhabi if the current form holds. Piastri? Still alive, just. “He can win in Las Vegas and if Lando retires, he will take over the lead in the world championship again. It’s not over for him yet. For Verstappen, yes. That difference is far too big with three races to go.”
That’ll sting the Verstappen camp, though Montoya’s take isn’t a swipe at Max so much as a reminder that eras ebb. The Dutchman remains “the champion of the people,” as Montoya put it — the uncompromising force who doesn’t ask permission to pass. Brazil showed there’s still plenty of menace in his Sundays. But championships aren’t built on vibes; they’re built on runs like the one Norris is stringing together now, built on a car that fires up across a range of circuits and conditions, built on weekends where the bad becomes a salvage operation and the good becomes a 1–2.
The next stop is Las Vegas, where the neon is loud, the grip is low and the strategy teams will dread the temperature drop. It’s exactly the kind of place that can turn a title race twitchy. Norris has the momentum and, crucially, a buffer. Piastri has a shot and nothing to lose. Verstappen, improbably cast as chaser rather than hammer, has to swing big and hope the orange dominoes fall his way.
The debate over “car vs driver” will rage on because it’s fun and because no one ever wins it. But this season has offered a neat little case study: put a top-tier driver in a top-tier car and watch the scoreboard do the talking. Montoya’s right — Verstappen’s dynastic run came with the best package. Right now, McLaren has built a weapon, and Norris is using it with ruthless efficiency.
If he keeps this line and length, Abu Dhabi might be a formality rather than a decider. And if it is, we’ll arrive to crown a different world champion — one who didn’t win because the car is magic, but because he made the most of a magic car when it mattered.
