Mexican Grand Prix: Lando Norris, « I knew what to expect with Max »

Lando Norris finished second in the Mexico Grand Prix, behind Carlos Sainz after a tumultuous race marked by incidents with Max Verstappen.

« It was a very difficult race. The first few laps were mostly about trying to stay in the race and avoid accidents, Norris said after the race.

Thirdly, he quickly found himself in the middle of a fierce battle with the Dutchman. Indeed, on the tenth lap, when Norris tried to overtake on the outside at turn 4, but the Red Bull driver pushed him off the track. This caused an immediate reaction from the British driver on his team radio, “I was in front throughout the whole turn. This guy is dangerous. It’s the same as last time. I’m going to end up in the wall in a minute.” The stewards will rule in his favor and, following an investigation, will impose a first penalty of 10 seconds on the Red Bull driver, followed by a second one for leaving the track and gaining an advantage at turn 8.

Looking back on his incidents with Max Verstappen, the McLaren driver stated, “I knew what to expect. I didn’t want to expect this kind of thing because I have a lot of respect for Max as a driver, but I was ready to expect something like this. It’s not a very clean driving, in my opinion, but I avoided it and it was a good race.”

After these eventful moments, Norris focused on his race and showed a solid pace in his final stint. He managed to overtake Charles Leclerc for the second place on the 63rd lap, taking advantage of a mistake made by the Ferrari driver in the final corner. Although he managed to reduce the gap with the leader Sainz in the final laps, Norris couldn’t catch up with the Spaniard and finished 5 seconds behind him.

The McLaren driver also highlighted his team’s progress, « I just keep my head down. I’m doing my best, we are doing a really good job as a team and today we were probably the fastest in the end. We will continue to push.

This performance allows Norris to reduce the gap in the championship with Verstappen to 47 points, with four races remaining. A reduction that keeps his hopes of a title mathematically alive.