Lando Norris is in a difficult position heading into the final five races of the season as title rival Max Verstappen ’s ‘only job is to beat him’ each weekend. The Dutchman finished ahead in both the sprint and Grand Prix in Austin last time out. The United States Grand Prix was far from ideal from Norris’ perspective.
The Brit could only manage a P3 finish in the sprint before a controversial five-second time penalty relegated him behind championship rival Verstappen in the classification. Norris now faces a significant uphill battle if he is to claim a maiden world title . The 24-year-old trails Verstappen by 57 points with five races remaining, meaning he needs to outscore the Dutchman by an average of over 11 points per weekend.
Making life even easier for Verstappen is the luxury of only needing to fight one man. With Ferrari trending upwards and Mercedes capable of putting together strong weekends, Norris needs to be at his absolute best to maximise points from a weekend, whereas his title rival can, to an extent, ignore the distractions from other drivers. Discussing the awkward position in which his championship hopes sit, Norris explained: "We saw Max didn’t care if he won or was second or third, his only job was to beat me and he did that - so he did a good job from that side.
"I had a lot of fun and I respected the battle that we had. He still ended up on top and I need to be beating him. So some little things I need to change but I don’t need to chang.