Lando Norris admits to McLaren departure thoughts and tough words from Ferrari boss – F1 news round up

Sam Cooper 03 Aug 2023 11:00 PM

McLaren's Lando Norris and Ferrari's Fred Vasseur both looking sad.

Lando Norris and Fred Vasseur both looking sad.

Missed any of the Formula 1 news? PlanetF1.com has got you covered with a round up of all the big talking points going on in the F1 world today.

With just a few days since the Belgian Grand Prix, Formula 1 is starting to wind down in preparation for the summer shutdown but in the meantime, there are still plenty of things to talk about.

In today’s round up, we hear of Lando Norris’ thoughts of a move away from McLaren and why Fred Vasseuer believes the Ferrari structure is still far from ideal.

Lando Norris admits thoughts of a move away from McLaren

Norris and McLaren seem like the kind of partnership that is meant to go on forever, so much so that it can be hard to picture the young Brit in anything but the famous papaya.

But that could have been a reality with Norris admitting that when the team was underperforming, he thought about a potential move away from Woking.

“In the back of my mind, there’s that impatient game of, ‘do I stick it out for another few years, or is it time to look at something different?’” he said.

“But the more we achieve things as we have done over the past few weeks, the more I’m very confident with the decision I made to stay until 2025, and the more confident I am that we can achieve our goals together in the future.”

A look into why Red Bull can be so divisive

Our writer Michelle Foster decided to stick her head above the parapet and contemplate just why Red Bull are the marmite team of Formula 1.

With fans and detractors in equal measure, it is rare to find an F1 fan who does not have an opinion when it comes to Christian Hroner and his team.

Have a read of Michelle’s list and see if there are any you disagree with.

Fred Vasseur says Ferrari are still “miles away” from their best

Things are not all well at Ferrari with the Italian outfit struggling to not only match the pace of Red Bull but also the likes of Mercedes, Aston Martin and McLaren.

As is often the case with Ferrari, it can seem they are never too far away from a crisis and the man who has been in charge of keeping that particular genie in its bottle since January has been Fred Vasseur.

The former Sauber man is not one to mince his words and said Ferrari was still “miles away” from his ideal.

“We are miles away, because when you are doing my job, you don’t have to imagine that there is a perfect structure,” he said.

“You always need to improve, and always need to change things. If you stay with the same structure two years in a row then you are dead, because all the others will improve.

“It means that I don’t have a clear picture to say ‘I have to do this’, and full stop, it will work. It would be stupid.

“We will make some changes in the coming weeks, in the coming months, in the coming years, because some topics are a bit longer than some others. But it’s a permanent evolution and permanent improvement.”

Renault bosses accused of not putting their money where their mouth is

It has been a difficult week for Renault and their Alpine brand with the team making the surprise decision to sack both Otmar Szafnauer and Alan Permane ahead of the Belgian Grand Prix.

The move, made on the Friday before the race weekend, sparked wide-spread criticism of the French outfit but perhaps the most cutting has come from former executive director of the Alpine F1 team Marcin Budkowski.

He accused Renault of not stumping up the cash to back up their ambitions plan and said that pleas often fell of deaf ears.

“The problem with Renault in Formula 1 has always been that the ambitions are very high, but the financial resources are insufficient,” he said.

“Every year the ambitions got higher and higher, but the resources that are put into it do not. But the Renault board never wanted to hear that.”