Lando Norris is prepared for a “battle” with Max Verstappen in the Las Vegas Grand Prix after claiming a third consecutive pole position.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Norris mastered wet conditions to secure pole in Sin City, while Verstappen secured a front row start alongside the championship leader.\u00a0<\/p>\n
McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri could only salvage fifth, opening the door for Norris to take a huge step towards becoming world champion on Saturday night.\u00a0<\/p>\n
If the drivers finish where they are starting, Piastri will fall 39 points behind Norris in the F1 drivers’ title and Verstappen’s deficit will increase to 56.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It will put Verstappen almost out of mathematical title contention, with him simply needing to beat Norris in Las Vegas.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The championship leader knows he will have to fight Verstappen opn Saturday night to claim victory, something he insists he is ready for.<\/p>\n
Discussing Verstappen often being aggressive into the first corner, Norris said: “Yeah, but I look forward to it. I’m excited for it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“He\u2019s been quick and if you expect anything less, then you don\u2019t know what he\u2019s capable of. So yeah, I expect a battle. I expect a battle through the whole race.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“But at the same time, I\u2019m here to win. I\u2019m not here to not take risks. I still want to go out and win tomorrow. So I\u2019ll be making sure I can do everything that I can.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“But it\u2019s still one step at a time\u2014get a good start, good opening lap, that kind of thing\u2014and just go from there.”<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tLas Vegas tyre performance unknown<\/p>\n
Despite Norris expecting a scrap with Verstappen, there is actually a huge amount unknown heading into the grand prix.\u00a0<\/p>\n
No long run data in the dry has been gathered by any team due to the mixed conditions across the practice sessions, adding an additional challenge to the race.<\/p>\n
Asked if the race is an unknown given the minimal dry running, Norris replied: “Yeah, quite a bit. I don’t think I’ve done more than four laps in a row. So I’ve got no idea on stints and things like that.<\/p>\n
“Many questions, probably for everyone. I’m sure not many people have run the hard tyre, that kind of thing. I don’t really know. The pace has been strong\u2014has been better than it was last year, that’s for sure.<\/p>\n
“So I expect to be fighting up there, but with Max, with Carlos\u2014you know, they could both be pushing as good opportunities for them. So yeah, it’s going to be a long race.<\/p>\n
“Many things can happen. Obviously, if it’s dry, a bit more simple for everyone, I think. But I’m in the best position I can be, so happy for now.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lando Norris is prepared for a “battle” with Max Verstappen in the Las Vegas Grand Prix after claiming…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":302112,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,827,830,828,831,829,826,813,823,825,806,805,824,803,804,822,85],"class_list":["post-302111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-daniel-ricciardo","tag-f1-calendar","tag-f1-live","tag-f1-results","tag-f1-standings","tag-ferrari","tag-formula-1","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-max-verstappen","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motorsport","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-racing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302111","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=302111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}