Peter Windsor: "Norris looked a lot like Verstappen"

Lando Norris' Friday in Imola attracted high praise from F1 analyst Peter Windsor. In the video on his YouTube channel, Windsor compares Norris to reigning world champion Max Verstappen.

After winning his maiden Grand Prix at Miami, McLaren's Lando Norris still looks competitive heading into the first European race of the season. It was his FP2 session particularly, that caught the eye of Winsdor.

"Lando Norris on the medium," Winsdor said in his YouTube analysis: "He did the longest runs of all, so probably had the most fuel and had to do the most management of his tyres, so a very good run by Lando Norris."

During the session, Norris completed his long runs on the medium tyres, with only his teammate Oscar Piastri and the two Mercedes drivers using the hard tyres.

"It shows how competitive he has been." Winsdor continued, "They were running flow-vis on the car in FP1, a little bit in FP2, he's been doing his homework. He looked a lot like Verstappen, this is how they used to be when everything was running perfectly. Norris seems to have adopted this mantel, for now anyway."

Winsdor did, however, point out some struggles for the Mercedes drivers. "Lewis Hamilton didn't look quite as good as George Russell overall, he seems to be a bit more ragged in the car." Winsdor did compare Mercedes to Aston Martin, stressing that they have done some good work to be quicker than the Aston Martins.