Lando Norris came off second best against Max Verstappen in Las Vegas, and David Coulthard reckons he has only himself to blame.
Norris lined up on pole position for the third grand prix in a row, having beaten Verstappen by three-tenths of a second in Friday night’s wet qualifying.
Lando Norris ‘doesn’t know the rules’ in the Max Verstappen game
The driver to beat in recent races as he surged to a 24-point lead in the Drivers’ Championship over his McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri, a victory for Norris under the lights on Saturday would’ve all but seen off Verstappen’s championship challenge as even a P2 for the Red Bull driver would’ve only kept his hopes alive by two points.
Norris, in his own words, “f***ed up”.
The Briton got the better start off the line but veered sharply to the left to block Verstappen in an aggressive move.
Overly so as his lunge to the left squeezed Verstappen against the wall and saw the championship leader on the dirtiest part of the track approaching Turn 1.
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Norris paid the price as he went into the left-hander too hot and went off the track. Verstappen, keeping his line, gained the lead with George Russell also passing Norris.
The McLaren driver was eventually able to overtake Russell with 15 laps to go in the 50-lap grand prix, five seconds down on Verstappen at the time he was told “we want to go get Max”, but that was a leap too far.
He finished the race 20 seconds behind the Red Bull driver, who remains in the title fight as he trails Norris by 42 points with 58 still in play.
But it could have been a 56-point advantage for Norris and former F1 driver Coulthard reckons the McLaren driver has only himself to blame.
“Lando Norris tried to play Max Verstappen at his own game, the problem is that he doesn’t know the rules of that game,” said the former McLaren driver.
But while Coulthard was harsh on Norris, 2009 World Champion Jenson Button applauded the aggressive approach even if it didn’t pay off.
Speaking to McLaren CEO Zak Brown on Sky, the Brawn GP champion said: “The start was obviously very aggressive by Lando, it was lovely to see that aggression but it looked like he just went a little bit deep into Turn 1.”
Brown replied: “Yeah, exactly.
“Max got a little bit better jump and Lando went to protect and just cooked it a little bit. But good to see he wasn’t going to make it easy.”
Norris heads into the final two races of the championship with a 30-point lead over Piastri with Verstappen a further 12 off the pace.
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