Norris, according to his own admission, did not have the speed to match Verstappen on Sunday at the Red Bull Ring. Despite securing his second consecutive front-row start of the Formula 1 Austrian Grand Prix weekend, Lando Norris believes that McLaren’s pace was simply insufficient to challenge Max Verstappen, who took pole position. Norris was less than a tenth of a second behind Verstappen during Friday’s Sprint qualifying and initially challenged him for victory during Saturday morning’s Sprint. However, Verstappen increased his pace during GP qualifying. The margin by which Verstappen out-qualified Norris, over four-tenths of a second on a 64-second lap, is significant. Norris hinted that his laps on Saturday were lacking something compared to the previous day, as he tried to explain why his McLaren was lagging behind Verstappen’s dominant performance. “It was a bit more difficult today than yesterday due to wind and conditions,” Norris said. “But in comparison to Max, we are much further back, closer to the Mercedes and Ferraris. So some of it is on me. Yesterday, I probably did a better lap and made up for some of it, but today there was at least one or two-tenths that could have been gained by doing a very good lap from my side, but it still wouldn’t have been enough to beat Max. He did a good job, and Red Bull made a significant improvement from yesterday, clearly showing that they were much faster than what we could achieve today. So we’re still in P2, still on the front row, and hopefully, we can convert that into a positive outcome tomorrow.” During Saturday morning’s Sprint, Norris had the opportunity to challenge Verstappen for a race victory, but he fell short. He briefly took the lead with a daring move into Turn 3 on Lap 5 but lost it to Verstappen and dropped to third place behind his McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri after leaving the door open.
However, apart from that mistake, Norris is uncertain if he would have had the speed in racing conditions to challenge Verstappen for the checkered flag and predicts another tough competitor for Sunday’s Grand Prix considering the Dutchman’s speed in qualifying.
“I am aware of my error,” Norris mentioned regarding the Sprint.
“It was clearly evident. But based on the advantage in speed that Max had today, it will likely carry over into tomorrow as well.
“So even today, I’m not sure if I would have been able to keep up with what Max was capable of if it was just between him and me.
“Then in today’s qualifying, it became apparent that they were significantly ahead of us. So we will see.”
However, Norris wasn’t entirely pessimistic, stating, “It’s a new day. Circumstances can change, and the weather is expected to be very warm again. Lately, the races have been favorable for us.
“It has been one of our strengths compared to qualifying. So I am excited to see what we can achieve.”