Norris Insists He 'Played Game Well' To Beat Verstappen In Baku

Tuesday, 17 September 2024 at 19:00

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Lando Norris discussed how he managed to finish ahead of Max Verstappen despite starting the 2024 Azerbaijan Grand Prix from P14.

It looked like the battle for the Drivers' Championship might have been over after Lando Norris was knocked out of qualifying with only the 17th fastest time in Q1.

The McLaren F1 driver knew he had to outperform the Dutchman by more than seven points each weekend if he wanted to win the Drivers' title, so his goal was to minimize the loss coming into the Grand Prix on Sunday.

Little did Norris know that he would manage to finish the race ahead of the triple World Champion despite starting from so far behind.

Thanks to perfect strategy, racecraft and other factors that played in his favor (such as collision between Sainz and Perez), the 24-year-old finshed the Grand prix in P4 (with the fastest lap) with Max Verstappen in P5.

When asked if he was surprised that he was able to beat Verstappen despite starting nine positions further down the grid, Norris told the media at Baku City Circuit:

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"I'm a little bit surprised. When you start 15th, I didn't really expect to beat him, especially because they were boxed and we were behind. So I was about 22 seconds behind on real terms to where they were."

"So to create a gap ahead of him and then to box and still overtake him, I wasn't expecting to do such a thing."

The Papaya driver was lucky that Verstappen struggled as much as he did, but he also drove a perfect race and even managed to help his teammate Oscar Piastri in the meantime. Norris added:

"But that was with Max, and I could defend against Max, because he spent like six laps trying to catch up."

"So I knew his tires were getting to a point where they were too hot, and he couldn't attack me anymore. So I played the game well."

Following the 2024 Azerbaijan Grand Prix, the gap between Norris and Verstappen in the Championship came down to 59 points.

This means the Papaya driver had to outperform the triple World Champion by more than 8,4 points each race weekend in order to win the Championship.