Norris vs Verstappen
With 52 points to recover on Max VerstappenLando Norris can ignite the fight for the title in the last six GPs of the season. Of course, the gap is still large and can still allow the Dutchman to sleep relatively peacefully, but the performance advantage shown by McLaren and the possibility that Ferrari, Mercedes and obviously Oscar Piastri are also there – “Papaya rules” permitting – in the contention at the top, these are aspects that can work in favor of the 25-year-old Englishman.
Maybe that’s also why Norris doesn’t seem to want to think too much about wasted points during the season, between Budapest and Monza with the missing team orders, but also with the wrong strategy of Montreal and above all with Spielberg’s bumper car.
Lando and the accident with Max in the Austrian GP
As for the Red Bull Ring contact, in fact, it is Lando himself who crowns himself the winner of the rustic duel with Max.”He is probably the toughest driver to face on the track – said Norris in a long interview with The Athletic – because he is very aware of what is happening around him. He certainly has an advantage in having been in this position for the last four or five years. For me, however, everything is still new. Austria? Things didn’t end the way I wanted, but I still feel like I was probably the one who won that battle that Sunday. At least in the sense of having led him to fight, even if I wasn’t the one who came out the winner”.
Friendship in F1
Norris then denied that his friendship with Verstappen – who, in fact, wavered for a few days after the contact that decided the Austrian GP – could influence the rivalry on the track: “When I wear a helmet, I hate everyone. And this doesn’t change. Many people think that two people are best friends in life because they get along in the paddock or because, I don’t know, they play a video game together. It’s nonsense. We play padel together, I like Max as a person and I think he’s a genuine guy, but this doesn’t change my approach to competitions. On the contrary, I think the people you get along best with off the track are the ones you want to beat the most when you’re on the track”.
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