(Motorsport-Total.com) – At the start of the Formula 1 race in Austin, Lando Norris was once again unable to defend his pole position on Sunday. After a duel with Max Verstappen in the first corner, the McLaren driver fell back to fourth place behind Verstappen and both Ferrari drivers.
Max Verstappen and Lando Norris fought several Zoom duels in Austin
In the final phase of the race, Verstappen and Norris clashed again on the track in the battle for third place behind the Ferraris. The Brit drove behind the world champion for several laps before he finally dared to attack.
Norris passed, but was subsequently penalized for the overtaking maneuver off the track – and ended up behind Verstappen in the final standings. Expert Ralf Schumacher is of the opinion that Norris “urgently” needs to correct these weaknesses in duels.
At Sky explains the expert: “He has to become a bit more aggressive to hold his own against Max Verstappen. Anything else won’t work.” Because the world champion acts much more aggressively in duels than his World Cup rival, says Schumacher.
Schumacher demands aggressiveness, Stella objects
The six-time Grand Prix winner said specifically about the race in Austin: “The start was [von Norris] Actually he did a great job, but then he brakes too carefully, too timidly, too early because he’s afraid that he’ll overshoot the mark and that [Scheitelpunkt] missed.”
“Lando urgently needs to work on it. He lacks the ultimate consistency,” believes Schumacher, who explains that Verstappen, on the other hand, “was already so uncompromising in the kart.” However, you see things a little differently at McLaren.
Penalty for Norris, none for Verstappen – was that fair?
“I wouldn’t say that Lando has to be more aggressive,” emphasizes Andrea Stella and explains: “Every time you have these duels on the track, you learn a little. But I don’t think that Lando has his basic way, how he performs these types of overtaking or defensive maneuvers should change.”
The team boss doesn’t think Norris “needs to become aggressive at the risk of not finishing the race.” Especially since the Brit can’t afford to miss the World Cup at the moment. He is 57 points behind Verstappen and therefore needs every point.
McLaren too defensive off the track too?
In this context, some are also asking themselves whether McLaren is currently acting too defensively away from the race track? The team in Austin actually wanted to introduce a new subfloor, but ultimately decided against it.
Instead, they only released a smaller update with a few other new parts. Stella explains: “If we had been able to [die weiteren neuen Teile] To produce it and release it in time to have it in Austin, we would have brought it to Austin.”
Photo series: Austin: The driver scores from Marc Surer and the editorial team
“But I’ve said before that we want to make sure that what we put on the track [gut funktioniert]”, recalls the team boss. And this plan has proven successful so far, because the new parts in Austin have worked “as expected”.
“And hopefully that will also be the case with the parts for Mexico and Brazil,” said the team boss. Then the new underbody should actually come onto the car.
