Lando Norris said that he and McLaren won’t take Max Verstappen “out of the equation” of the Formula 1 title race, despite out-qualifying him at the Austrian Grand Prix.
Norris stormed to his 11th career pole position at the Red Bull Ring with a barnstorming lap that he described as “easily the best lap I’ve done for this season”.
Oscar Piastri will line up third, behind Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, having aborted his final run when a brief yellow flag was caused by Pierre Gasly’s spin at the final corner.
This also caused Verstappen to abandon his own challenge, which left him in an unenviable seventh place for the Milton Keynes-based squad’s home race.
The topic of the Dutchman’s realistic place in the title race has lingered for much of the season so far, given the papaya outfit’s significant performance advantage.
But Verstappen has been able to keep one foot in contention throughout the campaign, and enters the race just 21 and 43 points behind Norris and Piastri, respectively.
When asked if the qualifying result can enable them to count Verstappen out further, Norris was quick to be cautious about doing so.
“I mean, Max has been our main contender for every race this season,” Norris told media including Motorsport Week.
“I think just because he’s had a slightly worse qualifying today, definitely not going to count him out of the race tomorrow and definitely not going to count him out for the rest of the season.
“They brought upgrades. Maybe they’ve not worked as well as they wanted or maybe they have. I don’t know.
“But I think we expected them to be quicker here this weekend. They’ve still looked pretty good for the most part this weekend, but I don’t know what happened to Max in Q3.
“So, no. I think, of course, we as team-mates are probably the main rivals of each other at the minute.
“But at the same time, I don’t think we’re ever – until he’s out of the race – I don’t think we’re ever going to take Max out of the equation.
“It’s still a very long season. So, I think people just need to chill out a little bit. And we’ll see tomorrow.”
McLaren expected greater Verstappen threat
Piastri shared Norris’ scepticism about discounting Verstappen this soon into the campaign, particularly as his grid position did not reflect his outright pace.
Both Verstappen and Red Bull boss Christian Horner said that a competitive grid slot was on without the disruption, the latter stating that it would have at least been third.
“I don’t have that much to add, but I think at this point of the year, it’s still too early to rule out Max. I agree,” Piastri said.
“I think we expected more from him this weekend, or in qualifying, because he looked very close in a lot of the practice sessions.
“So, I don’t know if he also got caught out by the yellow flag. It’s too early at the moment.”
READ MORE – How ‘combination of factors’ saw McLaren blitz Austria F1 qualifying
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