Lando Norris' pole position at the Dutch Grand Prix appeared to reignite his belief that he can defend his drivers' title this year, despite the McLaren driver delivering a more grim assessment of his chances following Zandvoort's sprint race a few hours earlier.
Ahead of Sunday's Dutch Grand Prix, Norris is 90 points adrift of championship leader Kimi Antonelli in the drivers' standings but has hit a period of strong form with two grand prix pole positions in a row.
Following Saturday's sprint race, in which he dropped from second place on the grid to third at the finish, he said his McLaren's lack of low-speed cornering performance meant he would not be able to fight for the title this year.
But after securing pole position by over a tenth of a second from the two Mercedes drivers in the afternoon, he gave a more optimistic assessment of his chances.
"For me, we're still trying to play catch-up with certain things, but I'm getting everything out of it for now, and that's all I can be pleased about," he said. "So, I'm happy.
"It's still a very long way to go. I'm optimistic, I still believe that it's possible, and that's all I need for now."
Norris left the Dutch Grand Prix last year with a 34-point gap to teammate Oscar Piastri, who was leading the championship at the time.
By the final race of 2025, Norris had overhauled Piastri, with Max Verstappen emerging as his closest rival despite being 104 points behind Piastri after Zandvoort.
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In order to produce a similarly close end to the season this year, Norris joked that Mercedes would need to make as many mistakes as McLaren made at the end of the 2025 campaign.
"Obviously, we were on the not-so-good end of it last year," Norris said. "But there's no point thinking about it.
"It's nice to know that it's a possibility, and of course I'm hoping both Mercedes get a double DSQ [disqualified] in Vegas like we did and decide not to box in Qatar for a free pit stop.
"So as long as they make the same mistakes, it'll probably be just as easy. But yeah, every year is different."