Has the momentum swung in the F1 title race. The Norris comeback is on!

The Mercedes driver is still in a commanding statistical position. Antonelli has 242 points after 12 rounds, with six wins, six poles and 10 podium finishes. George Russell and Lewis Hamilton are tied on 183 points, 59 behind their Mercedes team-mate, while Lando Norris has climbed to 159 points following his second consecutive victory. That leaves the McLaren driver 83 points adrift of Antonelli.

Those figures make one point clear: Antonelli remains the favourite. But another is becoming harder to ignore: the championship is no longer progressing on the trajectory it appeared to be before the summer break.

Norris was 91 points behind Antonelli before Zandvoort. The fact that he has reduced the deficit to 83 while winning in Hungary and the Netherlands is an important correction to the dramatic comeback narrative. He has not yet closed the gap into a close contest. Yet the back-to-back victories have provided something perhaps more valuable at this stage: momentum, belief and a clear warning to Mercedes that their lead cannot simply be managed to the finish.

Norris, of course, knows what it is like. He had first hand experience last year of being hunted down by Max Verstappen, who was over 100 points adrift after the Dutch GP last year only to miss out on the title by two points in what was a stunning comeback.

To his credit, Antonelli has been notably measured when discussing his situation in the title race. Ahead of the Dutch Grand Prix, he said his approach was to “drive as free as possible,” a mindset that has helped him avoid being consumed by the championship picture.

That will be increasingly difficult now. Antonelli described the Zandvoort weekend as a “wake-up call,” with the team admitting that McLaren now had the quickest car on the grid.

Mercedes also has a potentially delicate internal dynamic to manage. Russell and Hamilton are both 59 points behind Antonelli and level on points with one another, although Russell is ahead on countback due to having more victories. That means the team does not have one pursuer to control; it has two elite drivers whose interests may not always align neatly with Antonelli’s.

Team orders at Zandvoort, where Russell yielded position late in the race, illustrated how rapidly that issue can become uncomfortable in the sense that the team dynamic will be viewed through a lens of fair and equal treatment.

Meanwhile, at McLaren, the Papaya Rules that complicated their season in 2025 does not appear to be much of an issue in 2026, for Oscar Piastri's own title fight has failed to ignite and it would seem logical - and fair - for McLaren to prioritise Norris' title defence in the remainder of the season.

Can he pull off a Verstappen-style comeback? Mathematically, yes. Realistically, he needs much more than a couple of strong weekends. An 83-point deficit demands a sustained run of victories, regular trouble for Antonelli and likely some separation between Mercedes’ three drivers. The calendar may still provide volatility, but Norris cannot rely on chaos alone.

The more plausible immediate outcome is that Norris becomes the driver who changes the pressure around Antonelli. Every McLaren win forces Mercedes to make faster, more politically fraught decisions. Every mistake by Antonelli will attract greater scrutiny. And every strong result for Russell could complicate the team’s preferred championship strategy.

Antonelli, who is set for a grid penalty in Monza, is still the favourite but Norris has turned a distant pursuit into a storyline with genuine tension. The next few rounds will determine whether Zandvoort was simply another good weekend for McLaren or the point at which Antonelli’s seemingly comfortable grip on the F1 championship had become weaker.