Lando Norris says that the recent victories of Max Verstappen should not surprise people and that Red Bull has areas where it is at “a different level” compared to McLaren.
Verstappen won back-to-back races in Monza and Baku to double his count for the season after he had not won before Imola. McLaren has meanwhile endured a tough weekend in Azerbaijan, and Norris said that Red Bull Circuits that fit his car are not unexpected, even if he has seen a further step forward in the performance.
“It’s not often that they are slow, so I think people should stop being so surprised that they are fast,” Norris said. “Max won races at the beginning of the year, he could have won the first round, I think he was pretty close to winning [other races]. They have been quickly throughout the season.
“The Red Bull has been good; they brought some upgrades to Monza who seem to have helped them to improve even more. So no surprise, I think we know they are an incredibly strong team and one of the best drivers ever in Formula 1, so we expect nothing less.
“They are going to make our lives difficult for the rest of the season, but we also know it from our side, we struggled a bit [in Baku]; Monza was clearly not fast enough. We have made improvements, but things where the Red Bull has been so good and dominant in the past, they still have and we don’t do that, and when I followed the Red Bull [in Baku]There were clearly some areas where they were just a different level for us and we must understand why. “
Norris is expanding where the Red Bull has an advantage over the McLaren and said it comes down to how difficult his car is to drive in a low-downforce configuration.
“I don’t think we honestly had Red Bull’s pace,” he said. “That was very, very clear. I think only the lower downforce tracks, we still seem to be struggling.
“We still don’t have the confidence that we need. It can be fast, we just can’t repeat it as often as needed and as often as the Red Bull, for example. We have a great season, I don’t measure me wrong, but we clearly have things that are not good enough and we have to keep working on it.”
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