Carlos Sainz has praised Lando Norris for blocking out the “noise” during his title challenge and believes his former team-mate receives unfair criticism.
The British driver is locked in a championship battle with McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri, trailing by nine points heading into this weekend’s Dutch Grand Prix.
Norris has publicly questioned himself at various stages of the season, bemoaning poor qualifying performances and mistakes in races that allowed Piastri to take an early title lead.
Sainz, who was team-mates with Norris at McLaren when the British driver made his Formula One debut in 2019, has been impressed with the way the 25-year-old has handled the scrutiny that has come his way.
“In a championship fight there’s always going to be ups and downs,” Sainz told the PA news agency in Zandvoort.
“He’s had his downs and he’s recovered well from them. He gets a lot of criticism for them also.
“The British media are tough on him with how he handles himself mentally and all this and he’s managed to block all the noise and put himself back in the championship fight now, so let’s see where it goes.”
Sainz is in his debut campaign at Williams having left Ferrari at the end of the 2024 season, after the Scuderia signed seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton.
The Spaniard helped Ferrari to second in the constructors’ championship, only losing out to McLaren at the final race, but the Italian team have been unable to launch the tilt on both titles that many expected this season.
Ferrari are yet to win a race and are a whopping 299 points adrift of McLaren.
“Honestly when I left Ferrari last year I saw a team ready to win a world championship and yes, it did surprise me at the beginning of the season,” Sainz added.
“Not so much maybe Ferrari not being there but how competitive McLaren were.
“What no one expected was McLaren to come up with a car that is blowing the competition away.”
Hamilton in particular has struggled to get to grips with his new car, culminating in describing himself as “useless” after starting and finishing 12th at the Hungarian Grand Prix last time out – even suggesting Ferrari should change their driver.
Sainz has also needed time to adjust to his new car at Williams and admits he is “disappointed” with his tally of 16 points from the first 14 races.
He understands why Hamilton has struggled and believes it is underestimated how challenging it is to adapt to driving a different car.
“It’s probably one of the most underrated things about Formula One,” Sainz added.
“Our sport is completely about a feeling, a feeling that you need to have with a car in order to be brave and to push flat out and get the lap time together at the right time.
“We’re fighting against guys – in this case I’ll use Alex (Albon), Charles (Leclerc), Lando, as examples of guys that have been in the team for a very long time that are at the top of their level plus they know the team forever.
“I think it’s underestimated and the fact that the greatest of all time is taking his time to adapt and struggling just tells you how difficult the challenge is.”
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