Sky Sports' Croft saw a less joyful Verstappen: 'I think he realised that'
F1 News
After the exciting second half of the 2024 season, not much less is expected from 2025 as well in Formula 1. Sky Sports lead commentator David Croft wondered about why Max Verstappen was not that oppimistic about the upcoming year in London, while he also praised Lando Norris for his 'mature' answer about being a favourite.
David Croft believes defending champion Max Verstappen "wasn't full of optimism and joy" at the press conference hosted before the F1 75 Live event last Tuesday in London, at the O2 Arena. Entering the second half of the previous year, the Dutch driver had to defend his lead against McLaren driver Lando Norris, but managed to bring the drivers' championship home.
He began: "He was like, 'I haven't driven the car yet. No one else has driven their cars, so who knows, there's no point speculating.' Is that the voice of a man who thinks maybe I might be on the back foot at the start here? Maybe we haven't hit the targets in the winter that we want? Or is that just Max Verstappen being Max Verstappen, not wanting to get involved in what he calls a waste of breath speculation?" the lead commentator listed his options for why that would be the case.
The Briton agreed with the four-time world champion, although he does see that Verstappen now clearly has more challengers, who would like to prevent him from winning his fifth title in a row in F1. "He's right, no one knows how he's going to get on. But I think what he does realise is based on the end of last season, there are way more competitors to him in each and every race than it was at the start of last year."
'Mature response' from Norris
While it was confirmed after the 2024 Las Vegas GP that Norris won't be crowned champion that season, given McLaren's performance, many believe he could be the favourite to win it all in '25. Croft appreciated the British drivers answer to his question, where the Briton explained he is happy to have the pressure of being the favourite. "I think that's a really mature response that you might have got three or four years ago. Lando knows how not to compete and how to make mistakes that cost you in a championship battle. And as he said last year, put those right, he'll come back a much better driver and he'll be competing week after week," he concluded.
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