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Norris claims he knows Verstappen's driving style after sim race battles

10:36, 31 May 2019

byMatt

If Lando Norris ever gets to move up the grid, he should be well prepared when fighting Max Verstappen. The young Brit claims he has learnt Verstappen's driving style after having many battles in their sim races.

Norris has shown good standards during his first six Formula 1 Grands Prix. Many people suggest he's a Lewis Hamilton 2.0 and expect to see him challenge for titles in the future. Those will likely be against Verstappen and it sounds like the rookie is ready.

"Racing with other people, such as Max, I can already learn things coming into this season," Norris said during the launch of the second edition of the McLaren Shadow eSports contest.

“I am not really racing Max on track here [in F1], so maybe later on this season or next year we can have some more battles, but I already learned about him when I raced Max and we had some fun races together. I can learn how he would drive on the track. I already learned how he would defend, because he is very good at that, and he can be very aggressive at times with his overtakes, and everything.

“Maybe you push a bit more in the sim because you can get away with it, but there are a lot of things I take away from that which I then learned about and knew about Max coming into this season. So if I was to race him – and I am sure he learned things from me about what I am good and bad at – but if I was racing him, I would know how he would race if I never saw him on TV before. I know how he would race me just from driving on the sim.”

If this sort of thing carries on, the quality of the next generation of drivers could well be reaching new highs.

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