Formula 1 2024 has been dominated by a duel for weeks: Max Verstappen against Lando Norris. With the exception of Monaco, McLaren has been giving the F1 world champion a run for his money in all races since the Miami GP, and Norris has often shown even greater pace than his Dutch rival. The two also duelled for victory in the sprint in Austria. It is all the more surprising how easily Verstappen was able to pull away from Norris and the rest of the field in qualifying a few hours later.
Three-time champion Norris burned through 0.404 seconds in Q3. In modern Formula 1, this is an almost unbelievable lead, especially on the shortest track of the year in terms of lap times. Norris was therefore pensive after qualifying and buried his hopes of victory in Sunday’s Grand Prix.
Lando Norris: Verstappen’s dominance will carry over into the race
“With the pace advantage that Max had today, that will probably carry over into the race tomorrow,” Norris reflected. His theory is that Red Bull had even more development potential when the parc ferme opened after qualifying, which the Milton Keynes team was able to exploit.
Norris did not want to talk about a perfect lap in qualifying, although he described his lap as “pretty good”. “It was a bit trickier today with the wind conditions than yesterday. Relatively speaking, we are much closer to Mercedes and the Ferraris than to Max,” Norris stated.
“Yesterday I probably drove a better lap and got something out of it. Today I was at least one or two tenths short of a very good lap,” explained Norris. Given the big gap to Verstappen, this means in plain language: Even with an optimal lap, pole position was probably not possible.