RaceFans Round-up: Being ill not slowing me down

In brief

Being ill not slowing me down – Norris

Lando Norris insists he is still able to race at 100% in Austria, despite being under the weather all weekend.

“I can’t say how much it’s affecting me,” Norris said. “It’s not helping, that’s probably the main thing. But I wouldn’t say anything that’s changing my performance on track. It’s not to that level.

“Small things away from the track and just being tired and not sleeping good and that kind of stuff. So I’m sure [it’s affecting me] a little bit, but nothing that I would use as an excuse to help me on track.”

Aston Martin skipped lunch to make set-up changes

Fernando Alonso says his Aston Martin mechanics skipped their lunch break to make drastic changes to his car’s set-up between the sprint race, where he finished 16th, and grand prix qualifying, where he took 15th on the grid.

“Tough qualifying, tough weekend so far for us,” Alonso told the official F1 channel. “We are not fast enough to fight for higher positions.

“But the team are still trying everything they can. They didn’t even have time to eat today, to have lunch, because we changed the car completely form the sprint race to qualifying.

“We changed completely the whole set-up, trying something different. We’re still more or less in the same positions. So it’s not a problem with set-up – we fundamentally don’t have the pace.”

Aron content with being winless

Formula 2 championship leader Paul Aron says he is not concerned by not yet having won a race this season despite continuing to grow his lead in the drivers’ championship with another podium finish in yesterday’s sprint race.

“In Formula 2 and Formula 3, consistency is more important than race wins,” Aron told media including RaceFans. “We can see it here, I’m leading the championship and I haven’t got any wins.

“I think the reason is because there’s so many things that are out of your control that can go wrong. Obviously all the drivers are young and optimistic, so going all out in the races is always very risky. Sometimes it rewards you with wins, but often it can also reward no points at all. I would much rather be the championship leader with no wins than a person with two or three race wins but further down the order.”