Max Verstappen confesses virtually no room to make ‘mistakes’ in title fight against Lando Norris
The stakes of the 2024 championship have risen tremendously, as the battle between Max Verstappen and Lando Norris heats up.
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Max Verstappen and Lando Norris (via IMAGO)
Red Bull began the 2024 season as the benchmark and Max Verstappen was tipped to continue his reign in the driver’s championship. However, as the season has progressed, the Austrian giant has slumped in performance, helping Lando Norris to mount a title challenge. This led the Dutchman to admit that there was no scope for a mistake in the upcoming race weekends.
Max Verstappen has won the most races (seven) this year, by a decent margin. This has aided him in having a huge points advantage heading into the final five rounds of the championship. On the other hand, even with this delta, Verstappen’s 57-point lead is not safe keeping in view the unpredictable nature of F1.
This made Verstappen glance over how mistakes and close incidents could tilt the balance in either driver’s favor.
Although I also think back quickly to Austria. A crash like that is always painful and otherwise the championship would have looked even better. But if you are fighting for the title, you always have to be on top of it. Even when things are going well. At that time, everyone still thought I would win easily, and look where we are now. You can hardly afford mistakes.
Max Verstappen said in an interview with De Telegraaf
On the contrary, Norris has lacked consistency in the recent few races. This could come to bite him back if he loses the championship to the 27-year-old as even a solitary point is known to decide the outcome of championship tussles in F1.
Max Verstappen has been troubled by engine woes during Mexican GP weekend
However, the current trends point towards Red Bull having a tough weekend in Mexico. The reigning world champion had a woeful Friday afternoon in Mexico City as his RB20 lost power on multiple occasions. This intrigued the Red Bull garage to get on top of the issues as it is a high-pressure weekend in the South American nation.
Subsequently, Red Bull consultant Helmut Marko, jumped in to claim that team would get the issue sorted soon.
It is the same problem. We are now figuring out why it has reappeared, although it has been fixed. It is not a serious problem. It just needs to be solved. There is a leak somewhere.
Helmut Marko said in an interview with ORF
Despite the worrying outcome of the practice sessions, the team was not hampered much by the engine problems as FP2 was a Pirelli-directed session. Thus, FP3 would hold a lot more value in the Red Bull garage. They would be aiming to extend Verstappen’s championship advantage over Norris in the upcoming 71-lap race.
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Geetansh Pasricha
(772 Articles Published)