F1 News

Norris predicts Austrian Grand Prix Verstappen would have to make a mistake

Norris calls Verstappen the favourite: 'Unless he makes a mistake'

29 June at 13:57
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  • Kada Sarkozi
  • Editor

Lando Norris finished in third position at the Sprint Race of the Austrian Grand Prix. The Briton did engage in a close battle with Max Verstappen, but the Dutchman got the better of him: The Dutchman could then disappear into the distance, while Norris had to settle for P3 behind his teammate, Oscar Piastri. However, with a P2 and P3 finish for McLaren, the Briton is positive in terms of the rest of the weekend.

"I mean, it was a good battle. I knew there were not going to be too many opportunities to try do it, so, yes, I had to go for a bit of a move into Turn 3 and then I was just pretty stupid into Turn 4 and left the door open. So, yes, not a lot, to be honest, was two corners we battled and that was it," Norris further explained his battle with Max Verstappen, as the two competitiors both dived down the inside of each other in back-to-back corners.

Norris believes however that this was good practice for Sunday's race. "Obviously it [the overtake on Verstappen] didn't go to plan, but the pace in the car was pretty good and I think we gave it a good shot, but it wasn't quite enough today. Nice to have two cars up there. Nice to have two cars trying to fight against Max. That's what we need on Sunday."

'Can win if Max makes a mistake'

Norris thinks the three-time world champion is still the favourite during the rest of the weekend. "I think we're in good shape, we're good form. It's clear that Max is still just a bit ahead of us. So, unless he doesn't make any mistakes, he's kind of got it for the time being."

Yet, the Briton is hopeful McLaren could find that extra bit of pace to try and challenge Verstappen once again. "So we just need to execute what we're doing and do what we have been doing, which is a good job, but we need a little bit more and we're going to try to find that over lunch time into qualifying to try and give ourselves one step better position than what I had today. But otherwise, yes, we're just missing that little bit and we'll do as much as we can to try and find it," Norris concluded.