{"id":21811,"date":"2025-07-25T19:12:07","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T19:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/21811\/"},"modified":"2025-07-25T19:12:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T19:12:07","slug":"lando-norris-told-what-his-biggest-concern-should-be-its-not-max-verstappen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/21811\/","title":{"rendered":"Lando Norris told what his “biggest concern” should be – it’s not Max Verstappen"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lando Norris has been pointed towards his “biggest concern” after sprint qualifying at the Belgian Grand Prix.<\/p>\n

McLaren <\/a>driver Norris <\/a>arrived at Spa riding high on the momentum of back-to-back victories in Austria and Britain. But he faltered at the first opportunity, ending Friday\u2019s session not only behind Red Bull\u2019s Max Verstappen<\/a> but also significantly adrift of Piastri, who secured pole for Saturday\u2019s sprint.<\/p>\n

While Norris not matching the upgraded Red Bull of Verstappen was a cause of worry, the 25-year-old\u2019s final lap was also 0.618s down on Piastri\u2019s pole-setting effort.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lando Norris trailing Oscar Piastri at Spa<\/p>\n

This represented the widest gap between the McLaren pair this year, excluding the Saudi Arabian GP qualifying in which Norris couldn\u2019t set a timed lap after crashing in Q3.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Verstappen being ahead of Norris] is a detail,\u201d said Sky Sports’ Naomi Schiff. \u201cHis bigger concern is that his teammate is six tenths up the road.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s been doing hard work in the background. But while maybe on the surface he appears calm, I think no driver in this situation would be calm. They could be running something slightly different and he may be hopeful that, after the sprint, he can change the car\u2019s set-up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Norris is known for being too hard on himself, but has shown more maturity in recent races as part of his effort to hunt down championship leader Piastri<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Former F1 <\/a>driver Anthony Davidson believes Norris now has what it takes to bounce back strongly from the disappointment of Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cLando has the skillset to dig deeper and find more pace,\u201d Davidson said. \u201cThe Lando of the past probably would have beaten himself up more. Maybe he has done some work in that regard, and he\u2019s batting it aside.\u201d<\/p>\n

Norris himself admitted he simply lacked the pace to compete on Friday, having also trailed Piastri by half a second in the sole practice session of the weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot quick enough, I guess. That\u2019s the only thing,\u201d he said. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t the cleanest of laps, but still quite a big gap to the top. I am not too disappointed\u2014it\u2019s not the biggest worry. I still have things to work on.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just Friday so I am not too fussed. I\u2019m not the happiest. I\u2019d like to be quicker. I have to do some work tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sky commentator Martin Brundle suggested that Norris may have pushed too hard on his out-lap, compromising his tyres for the final run. But Norris was uncertain whether that theory held weight.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was impossible to say. Maybe it made my tyres better. You don\u2019t know these things. We\u2019ll look at it overnight,” he said.<\/p>\n

Subscribe to our F1 Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lando Norris has been pointed towards his “biggest concern” after sprint qualifying at the Belgian Grand Prix. McLaren…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21812,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,1737,913,806,805,803,804,2333,85],"class_list":["post-21811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-lando-norris","tag-mclaren","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-oscar-piastri","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}