Lando Norris teases Austrian GP plan to beat Max Verstappen after ‘very clear’ error

Lando Norris of McLaren at the 2024 Austrian Grand Prix PlanetF1

Lando Norris will get a second shot at beating Max Verstappen off the line in Austria — and he’s already planning to amend his “very clear” error.

It’s not often a driver get a re-do on a race start, but with Lando Norris lining up beside polesitter Max Verstappen in both the sprint race and the Austrian Grand Prix, he’ll get just that. But don’t worry; Norris has a plan.

‘I know what I did wrong’

Lando Norris was quite harsh on himself as he reflected on his Austrian sprint race, saying he “left the door open like an amateur” in the post-sprint interview.

Norris doubled down on that sentiment in the top-three press conference after Grand Prix qualifying.

Looking ahead to the race, he’s stated that he’s “just tidying up a few things from before.

“Yeah, I know what I did wrong, it was obviously very clear.”

The McLaren racer sounded confident in McLaren’s performance, though he did admit that the competition also seemed to improve throughout the weekend.

However, he knows it’s going to be tough to bring the challenge to Red Bull Racing and Max Verstappen.

“From the pace advantage Max had today, that’s probably going to carry into something tomorrow as well.

“So I’m not sure even today if I had a perfect run of things and if it was just between Max and myself, I’m not sure I probably would have had the pace to quite keep up with what Max was able to do.

“Then into quali today, it showed that they were just a pretty good step ahead of us. So we’ll see. It’s another day.”

The good news? “Races have been good to us lately,” Norris said.

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In the top-three press conference, Norris admitted that conditions were “tricky” and “felt a bit more difficult than it was yesterday, a lot closer, so more difficult to get the laps in and to kind of perfect the laps.”

It’s also going to be a tough one tomorrow for the McLaren driver; he knows “we’re going to have to give it a lot.”

Luck will likely come into play as well.

“We’re going to need something extra to kind of go our way in order to beat the pace of Max and the Red Bulls,” Norris said.

But when it comes to lights-out tomorrow, Norris is “excited.”

“I’ll do a better job than I did this morning, that’s for sure.”