Lando Norris explains why he wanted Max Verstappen to get blue flags during 2023 F1 Monaco GP

Lando Norris recently joked about how he wanted Max Verstappen to see blue flags during the 2023 F1 Monaco GP. Though the McLaren MCL60 was not the quickest in the race on dry tires, on wet tires, it was surprisingly better than the rest of the field, so much so that Lando Norris was able to clock lap times closer to the reigning world champion who was leading the race.

Speaking to Sky Sports, Lando Norris initially stated how quick his car was in the wet conditions with intermediate tires. Furthermore, he humorously mentioned how he wanted Max Verstappen to see blue flags for the first time just because he was quicker than the Dutchman and could have unlapped himself by overtaking the leader.

Although he did not bug Verstappen that much, simply because he was leading the race, the McLaren driver said:

“In the end, yeah, the intermediate pace was probably…I don’t know how true it is, I’d say the quickest on track. Even quicker than Max, I wanted Max to get blue flags, probably the first time in his life he would have had blue flags, it would have been amazing.

"So I was really hoping to pass him just because he would have hated it and I would have loved it and it would have just been funny, but he was leading the Monaco Grand Prix, so I also didn’t really want to intrude too much.”

Though Norris was happy with the pace of the car on intermediate tires, he was not too pleased with the overall result of the Monaco GP. He finished ninth, while his teammate Oscar Piastri was right behind him in 10th.

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Lando Norris dead set on closing the gap and winning with McLaren

Lando Norris was clear in explaining how McLaren simply wants to win races and eventually championships, regardless of their position on the grid. He explained how the lap time gap matters more than the grid gap. When asked by Sportskeeda about whether a tight midfield is making it difficult to move up, he said:

“No. Because it doesn’t matter where we are, we just want to win. So we understand we are one-and-a-half seconds off in terms of pace to the top. It doesn’t matter whether we are fourth and one-and-a-half seconds off or 20th and one-and-a-half seconds off. I guess maybe it makes a small difference, but we try and beat everyone we can and we do the most we can.”

Currently, McLaren is in sixth place in the constructors' championship with only 17 points. They are chasing Alpine, who are in fourth place with 35 points. McLaren has taken a huge step back and is gradually trying to improve its car with major upgrades.