McLaren’s Lando Norris rued being “pretty stupid” during a battle with Max Verstappen which cost him a chance to win the Formula 1 Austrian Grand Prix Sprint race.
The Briton retained pace with polesitter Verstappen across the nascent stages and utilised the slipstream and DRS to lunge down his rival’s inside at Turn 3 on Lap 4.
But although Norris grasped the upper hand on the exit and had DRS to protect his position, Verstappen came back at the McLaren as he dived to the inside at Turn 4.
The Dutchman’s bold braking manoeuvre to reclaim a lead which he wouldn’t relinquish compromised Norris’ line and allowed McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri past.
Norris bemoaned not covering the inside line on the run to Turn 4 as he could not dispatch Piastri in the closing laps and ended up 5.3s behind Verstappen’s Red Bull.
“Yeah, I mean, it was a good battle,” Norris reflected. “I knew there were not going to be too many opportunities to try and do it.
“So yeah, I had to go for a bit of a move into Turn 3 and then I was just pretty stupid into Turn 4 and left the door open. So yeah, not a lot, to be honest.
“It was two corners we battled and that was it. And then Oscar managed to come past. So I tried.
“Obviously, it didn’t go to plan, but the pace in the car was pretty good and I think we gave it a good shot, but it wasn’t quite enough today.
“So nice to have two cars up there, nice to have two cars trying to fight against Max and that’s what we need on Sunday.”
Norris lamented letting a probable win slip in Spain last weekend with the “quickest car” and he’s admitted that squandering opportunities is starting to get tiresome.
“I mean, we’re saying this every weekend now, so I’m not going to say it again, but I could have just said I should have done,” he added.
“I’m not going to say I should have done, but I needed to do a better job and I just did something pretty stupid and silly, which was not very smart of me.
“So no, I think a good amount of points could have been a lot worse and for a team was a good result and the result we wanted.
“So I’m happy. But yeah, I need to do things better.”
While Norris is adamant that Red Bull still possesses an outright car advantage over McLaren in race conditions, he insisted that would not vindicate his minor slip-up.
Asked what he needs to overturn those small margins to turn the tide in his favour, Norris replied: “Not much. Yeah, it’s tiny things.
“But it’s, I think as a race car, we’re still missing a tiny bit, but that’s not my excuse.
“Yeah, like for today, I think nothing more than Turn 4. I think if I just defended and didn’t leave the door open, a different story would have happened.
“But yeah, that might have been just one corner and Max probably would have attacked me in the next lap. So I don’t know. There’s nothing in particular.
“I’m not, I’m just, yeah, I mean, I’m not feeling great [with illness]. And there’s still those little opportunities that I feel like I just miss out on.
“And in hindsight, I think, well, how stupid was I to do some of the things that I’ve done?
“But at the same time, I’m doing the best I can when I’m on the track. So I don’t necessarily think from what people are thinking on the outside.
“I know I’ve done things that aren’t good enough and things that aren’t at the level that they need to be. And I’m doing my best to improve on them. And that’s all I can do for now.”
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