Norris wants to prevent Verstappen 'sacrificing himself': 'He benefited'
Red Bull Contentpool
F1 News
Lando Norris is aware that he will have to take a different approach if he wants to beat Max Verstappen in the F1 championship in 2025. To do so, he says he must ensure that the Red Bull Racing driver cannot sacrifice himself to gain an advantage, something Norris says he did "willingly" in 2024.
Norris wants to prevent Verstappen 'sacrificing himself'
Norris admits he did not handle certain things well in his battle with Verstappen last year. "I wasn't simply quite at the level that I need to be to race against Max. But when we're talking about that, we're talking about probably going up against one of the hardest attacking-defence guys you can ever go up against," he begins in conversation with Sky Sports.
"Like we saw in Mexico, and I don't want to go through all these things again, but like we saw in Mexico, very willingly sacrificed himself for the benefit of the overall outcome. And when that's the mentality of a driver, whether it's Max or any driver, that's a very difficult one to ever come on top of when you're 50 or 40 points behind in the championship, because it's never going to be a win for me," the McLaren driver continued.
The solution, according to Norris: turning the tables. "I just need more points from the beginning, and hopefully it's the other way around. Being in his position you can always see as the vulnerable position, and me being kind of the chaser and the guy trying to attack can also be seen as a positive and negative. But with how he drives and the risks that he takes and the aggressiveness that he has, there was almost no way that I could come back from the deficit that I had," he explained.
"There would have been too many scenarios that replicated Mexico or replicated Red Bull Ring, that kind of thing, where we were both out in the way. That probably benefited him more than it did me," Norris continued.
"I don't think you have to do anything special to try and beat Max. He's quick, he's aggressive, he's one of the best ever. The easy way is just going out and being a bit quicker than him and staying ahead. That's the obvious plan. You've just got to be smart. That's the answer to it all," last year's runner-up in the drivers' championship concluded.
This article was written in collaboration with Norberto Mujica.
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