McLaren is leading the championship by a huge margin of over 100 points to Mercedes in second place, as F1 is arriving at the Imola GP. In the Drivers’ Championship, he is 16 points adrift of Oscar Piastri following the Miami GP.
For Lando Norris, the gap in the championship is not relevant at this moment until the summer break as he looked ahead to the F1 Imola GP.
“I think I said it before, I probably won’t care about it, I don’t care about it, I won’t think about it, I probably until more like the summer. Easy for things to change very quickly, no is the answer, that’s it.“
Every race is important for the championship fight, says Norris
“Every race, really there is not any race that’s more important than the other, I think every race we take one at a time,” Norris says, when asked if the incoming triple header will be important due to the fact that Red Bull and Mercedes have had their moments of very strong speed.
”We’ve seen since the beginning of the season that Red Bull are not far behind, Mercedes cannot be far behind, both teams have outqualified us several times, they’re doing a good job, I think it’s clear that we’re doing a better job at the end of the day, because all the points do not just come on a Saturday, which is where they’ve done a better job at times.
”But every race is important, and we know, they have upgrades and they talk a lot, and at the end of the day we need to just do a good job on Sunday, and that’s where our focus is, so we keep focussing on ourselves and we’ll be fine.“
Lando Norris on McLaren teammate Oscar Piatsri ahead of F1 Imola GP
Oscar Piastri has won the last three Grands Prix and is leading the drivers standings with 131 points to his name. Norris is 16 points behind and believes that he is not getting the maximum out of himself.
”I mean always good, I think it makes for a better team, it makes for a better teamwork, you’re always going to do a better job as a driver if you have a good teammate,” he explains.
”Oscar’s done a good job, but at the same time a lot of it is just focussing on myself, like Oscar’s doing a good job, but in the end of the day I don’t feel like I’ve been getting the maximum out of myself, so even if I was on my own I would still not be happy.
”So yeah, it’s good, we push each other every practise, every qualifying, every race, we have a good competition between us, we both acknowledge that, that we want to beat one another, but I think that’s what makes us good team-mates.”
Norris was criticised by Ralf Schumacher for his “lack of overtaking skills” after the Miami Grand Prix.
Lando Norris: Current cars are fast, but previous generation was still quicker
In Japan it was said that the current cars are probably too fast for thinking when driving. Asked, if he would agree to this statement, Norris agreed but adds that the previous generation was quicker.
”I mean these cars are quick, but I think the cars a few years ago were still even quicker. Maybe a little bit less predictable than a few years ago, I mean they’re just heavier and maybe a little bit trickier to drive, I think the ones a few years ago were nicer, especially if you had a good car, but I mean they’re still close to being some of the quickest cars ever in Formula 1, and they’re always fun to drive because of that.”
