Max Verstappen<\/a> from taking his fourth consecutive championship last year, but such is McLaren\u2019s superiority, it is team-mate Piastri who has emerged as his sole rival for this season\u2019s crown.<\/p>\nPiastri has six wins to Norris\u2019 four but when asked if he needs to get under the Australian\u2019s skin to land his maiden F1 title, Norris replied: \u201cI don\u2019t enjoy that. In 200 years no one is going to care. We\u2019ll all be dead.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am trying to have a good time. I still care about it, and that\u2019s why I get upset sometimes and I get disappointed and I get angry at myself. And I think that shows just how much I care about winning and losing.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut that doesn\u2019t mean I need to take it out on Oscar. I just don\u2019t get into those kind of things.\u201d<\/p>\n
Historically, intra-team title battles rarely end well in F1, but Norris continued: \u201cYes, he (Piastri) is the guy I want to beat more than anyone else.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut if I don\u2019t beat him, then that\u2019s just because he has done a better job. I will do it the way I believe is best for me, and just because one person did it a few years ago, it doesn\u2019t mean you have to do that, too. I don\u2019t really care about those things.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the Hungaroring on Friday, Norris completed an impressive practice double \u2013 beating Piastri by just 0.019 seconds in the first session before extending his advantage to nearly three tenths later in the day.<\/p>\n
Norris has never been out-qualified by a team-mate on his six previous visits here, and he will be encouraged by his showing in practice.<\/p>\n
Over at Ferrari, Lewis Hamilton has won a record eight times in Hungary and has secured nine pole positions. But the 40-year-old, who remains without a podium in Ferrari colours, struggled for pace on Friday.<\/p>\n
In the first session, he complained his car didn\u2019t \u201cfeel good\u201d and ran off the road at the first corner following a major lock-up. He ended the day in sixth, three tenths and as many places behind team-mate Charles Leclerc.<\/p>\n
Verstappen ended speculation he could leave Red Bull at the end of the year by committing his future there for at least another season. However, he finished a distant 14th in practice, 1.1 seconds slower than Norris.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know what is going on,\u201d said Verstappen over the radio. \u201cIt is just undriveable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Verstappen is also facing a stewards\u2019 investigation after he threw a towel \u2013 seemingly left in the Dutchman\u2019s cockpit by accident \u2013 out of his car.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38649,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[1687,372,6537,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-38648","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-f1","9":"tag-formula-1","10":"tag-formula1","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38648\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}