Norris isn’t surprised by Red Bull’s resurgence and anticipates a Verstappen challenge
Lando Norris has expressed that Red Bull’s recent resurgence in the last two races should not be a surprise, as he prepares to face Max Verstappen as a strong competitor in the fight for the championship. After Verstappen’s consecutive victories in Azerbaijan and Italy, the Dutch driver was 69 points behind the championship leader, Oscar Piastri, and 44 points behind Norris, who is in second place. Verstappen’s victory at Monza ended a streak of eight races without a win, in which he only managed two podium finishes, because Red Bull had difficulties performing at its best.Norris also pointed out that the recent victories of the defending champion are in line with Red Bull’s performance at the beginning of the season. The British driver, who has been in an intense battle for the title with his teammate Piastri during the 2025 season, is 25 points behind the Australian in the overall standings. Norris admitted that McLaren struggled in the last two races in Baku and Monza, circuits that seemed to favor Red Bull’s strengths. “They are going to make our lives difficult, I think, for the rest of the season, but we also know on our part that we have had some problems here (in Baku), Monza clearly wasn’t fast enough”, added Norris. “We’ve made improvements, but the things that Red Bull has been so good and dominant at in the past, they still have and we don’t.” Norris commented that his weekend at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix was affected by the chaotic qualifying session on Saturday. After Piastri’s accident at the start of Q3, Norris was the first driver to return to the track and encountered the end of a downpour, which made the fast lap difficult. “I think in terms of the final pace we weren’t bad this weekend (in Baku),” said Norris. “I was still fast in Free Practice 1, Free Practice 2, Free Practice 3 and so on.” “If it had been a normal classification… I think the difficult conditions, the light rain, going out first on the track, everything added up to it being the worst weekend.” “Our position in the race, I think if I had started second, I think I would have finished second. Honestly, I don’t think we had the pace of Red Bull. That was very, very clear. I think on the tracks with less downforce, we still seem to suffer.” “We still don’t have the confidence we need. It can be fast, we just can’t repeat it as often as we need and as often as Red Bull, for example. We’ve had an incredible season, don’t get me wrong, but we clearly have things that aren’t good enough and we have to keep working on them.”It’s not often that they’re slow, so I think people should stop being surprised that they’re fast.
Lando Norris
