Lando Norris says it is “stupid” to talk about winning the world championship, either fooling yourself or failing to appreciate recent history.

If it is the latter, he might want to talk to Lewis Hamilton.

That is because there is an encouraging parallel between Norris, who won the race in the Netherlands on Sunday, and Max Verstappen, who was the unbeaten champion in 2007, when Hamilton was enjoying the most brilliant debut season Formula 1 has ever known.

The Briton led Kimi Raikkonen by 17 points going into the final two rounds. Under the old scoring system, the maximum points awarded was 20.

Despite facing a tough equation like the Eiger, the Finn won the final races in China and Brazil, taking all the points to Hamilton’s two. Raikkonen won the championship by a single point.

Yes, you could say Hamilton was a victim of extraordinary circumstances: McLaren was in complete disarray, torn apart by both the Spygate scandal and the bitterness bordering on enmity between Fernando Alonso and owner Ron Dennis.

Hamilton was also inexperienced in a way that Verstappen was not; he and Alonso took points from each other because Sergio Perez could not get past Verstappen; and, incredibly, Hamilton crashed on the way into the pits in the penultimate race.

For all that, Norris had a less demanding task than Raikkonen had. For starters, there were nine races and 258 points left to make up for a deficit of 70, which would have been around 25 under the previous system. Bonus points for fastest laps and two sprint races, in Austin and Qatar, made the race even longer.

Another advantage, never given by Raikkonen, was the sheer dominance of Norris’s car. He won by 23 seconds at Zandvoort, a bigger margin between first and second than any driver this season.

If McLaren had been a winning machine for weeks, a major upgrade at the weekend – the team’s first such improvement since Norris’ maiden win in Miami two months ago – took them to new heights.

Verstappen could do no more than finish second to limit the damage. Norris’s task, in brackets, would have been helped if team-mate Oscar Piastri could have squeezed in ahead of Verstappen.

While Norris was doing his post-race interviews with a beaming smile, Red Bull boss Christian Horner sat on the first floor of the Energy Station, holding A4 sheets of paper recounting the story of the race. ‘If it continues like that for the next nine races, it will be very difficult for Max to win the championship,’ he admitted.

‘We are lucky that McLaren did not do well at the beginning of the year and we have a buffer, but that buffer can be lost very quickly. McLaren has been the benchmark car for the last few races.

‘There is no absolute solution in this area. It is a matter of understanding the problem, solving it and then implementing the remedies.’

Their ability, or conversely, to do this in a timely manner brings us to another echo of 2007, when McLaren illegally obtained 780 pages of Ferrari technical secrets. That was because Red Bull spent much of the season in their own turmoil.

Although Horner was cleared of misconduct with a female employee, the lava flow burned a path through the factory.

For example, what price would Red Bull pay for the expertise of Adrian Newey, Formula One’s most respected designer ever? The team insists his departure is not directly linked to the Horner scandal, but the manner and timing of his departure are undeniably abrupt.

In any case, how could he not be remembered if a close observer I spoke to believed him when he said after Sunday’s race: ‘They know they have to do something to raise the game, but they don’t know what.’

Verstappen’s future remains uncertain in the wake of the scandal, with his father Jos keen to see the three-time world champion move on. Mercedes are the favourites to sign him for 2026 and the channels between Verstappen’s camp and Toto Wolff remain open, although Italian teenager Kimi Antonelli will replace Hamilton next year. Confirmation is expected this week.

Horner, who has kept his cool throughout the biggest upset of his life, summed up the state of the championship perfectly when he said: ‘It’s remarkable that it’s only Lando’s second win in that car. But he’s driving well, he’s finding confidence and we’re under pressure to respond.’

So, whatever Lando says, talk of him taking the title isn’t entirely unfounded.