Lando Norris moved up to second in the championship yesterday but knows he can’t entertain thoughts of challenging the runaway leader at the moment.
Max Verstappen extended his championship lead with his seventh win in the 10th grand prix of the year. The Red Bull driver holds a 69-point lead with 396 available over the remaining races.
Norris, who lost his advantage over Verstappen from pole position at the start of yesterday’s race, said he needs to eliminate mistakes to have a chance of beating his rival.
“Max is not making any mistakes, really,” said Norris after yesterday’s race. “So I think as soon as you make one little mistake, they’re going to be ahead.
“Honestly, if you look at it yesterday, they probably had a slightly quicker car, in my opinion. I could be wrong, but in my opinion I think they had a slightly quicker car.
“Today, we had the quicker car. But obviously, I still managed to finish second. So it’s about the smaller things at the minute.
“But every track is a bit different. We’ve seen Red Bull struggle a little bit more a few races ago. I think we’re still proving to be one of the most consistent teams at every track that we’ve been to. Mercedes were quick as last weekend in Canada, and now probably a little bit behind here.
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“So it’s a little bit up and down. I think we just need to stay doing what we’re doing, because it’s good enough for the time being. But it’s just trying to eliminate a couple of those small, little mistakes.”
The McLaren driver admitted yesterday’s race wasn’t the first time he’d missed a chance to beat Verstappen. However he believes he can challenge Verstappen for the championship if they can eliminate errors over the remaining races.
“We should have done better today. We should have got some points back on Max. Potentially, there was a chance to beat him in Canada. So two races that I finished second and he’s won.
“But Max needs to stop winning in order [for us] to achieve that. Even though I moved into second in the championship, that doesn’t matter. I couldn’t care if I was second or tenth, it’s more about the gap to what Max is and he’s still extending it at the minute and that’s something we can’t afford to let him run away with it at this point of the season.
“But we can do [it]. If I just made [a] better decision in Canada and if I had a better start today, we could have won…
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