24 January 2024 , 06:00
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Jenson Button has shared his insight into Lando Norris's "painful" ongoing wait for a Formula 1 victory.
The Brit has now started 104 F1 races and came close to breaking his duck on several occasions. But he has yet to get over the line - though he does have 13 podiums and an eve-growing reputation to show for his efforts.
Last season, it began to look as though Norris would get his chance with McLaren making rapid progress to the point he was a serial podium contender. But Max Verstappen and the dominant Red Bull team simply proved too powerful to stop.
In the final weeks of the campaign, he began to show more obvious signs of his frustration. A handful of underwhelming qualifying performances led to no small amount of self-deprecation from the 24-year-old.
Button knows Norris well from his many years driving and working for McLaren. He was still on the grid as the younger Brit was rising through the ranks and it was reserve driver role which was filled when it was deemed that the teenager was ready for it at the end of 2017.
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Using his knowledge of both Norris and the F1 world, Button explained the predicament the McLaren star currently finds himself in. "It's tough but, with the way that it is, having such a dominant driver, team, only one guy can win, so if you can be second to that it's a good starting point," said the Sky Sports pundit.
"But you hope it doesn't go on forever. [Norris] not going to leave the sport because he's not won a race, so he's going to stay there and he's going to keep fighting for those victories. That want isn't going to go away and that drive isn't going to go either.
"He's still got to beat his team-mate, he's still got to beat all the other guys on the grid, so no. It's painful when there is such a dominant team for so many years, but it changes. We've seen it change. Mercedes... I didn't think anyone was going to beat Mercedes in the next 10 years, but they did. Red Bull came in and they've beaten them.
"So it happens, and Lando is an extreme talent, he really is. I've watched him since the first time he turned an F1 steering wheel, which was in Hungary as I was racing for the team at the time - McLaren. It's amazing how quickly he got to grips with it.
"But, also, he's a real thinker and sometimes that hurts him, because he looks at himself too much and worries that he's not good enough. But he is - he's exceptional. I can't wait to see him in equipment that can fight for victories. But yeah, I don't know when that is going to come."