McLaren team boss Stella says Norris showing more self-confidence

McLaren team boss Andrea Stella said that Lando Norris is expressing more self-confidence after winning two races in a row.

McLaren's reigning champion Norris has now won two races in a row after Sunday's Dutch Grand Prix victory from pole position. It was his career 13th win, but he had to earn it by passing Mercedes' championship leader Kimi Antonelli after losing the lead at a restart.

The Briton is still 83 points behind the Italian but is whittling away at the deficit.

"I would say that definitely he is now expressing a higher level of assertiveness," Stella told reporters at Zandvoort.

"The manoeuvre to pass Antonelli I think is a really good demonstration of that. He is demonstrating more self-confidence.

"This is interesting and I quite like it, sometimes it is not demonstrated by being the most aggressive. Sometimes you are self-confident when you think like 'you know what, I'm not going to have a fight now because I may lose in this fight. It's a very long race, see you at the end',

"I think assertiveness and confidence are probably the two characteristics that he has improved the most from a non-technical, non-operational point of view."

Norris has said the new generation of cars are not easy to drive and he has had to make changes to his style to accommodate that. He also gave himself credit for Sunday's victory, saying a driver could still make the difference.

His Australian teammate Oscar Piastri has meanwhile gone a year without a win; his last win came from pole at Zandvoort last August. He finished sixth on Sunday, 32 seconds behind Norris.