Brutal Lando Norris comment at Austrian GP won't have impressed Nico Rosberg
Lando Norris admitted he was unhappy with his performance after losing out to Max Verstappen and teammate Oscar Piastri in the Austrian GP Sprint
Lando Norris’s latest brutal piece of self-analysis won’t have gone down well with Nico Rosberg. The British driver has emerged as the biggest threat to Max Verstappen this season, winning in Miami and finishing a close second to the Dutchman in the last two grands prix in Canada and Spain.
Despite that, Norris is notoriously hard on himself, regularly chastising his performance if he doesn’t believe it meets his high standards. He was at it again following the Austrian Grand Prix Sprint, where he and McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri took the fight to Verstappen in the early part of the race.
On lap five, Norris dived down the inside of the Red Bull going into turn three. Verstappen fought back on the run down to turn four and squeezed back through.
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The repass forced Norris wide, allowing Piastri to take second spot, and that was how the top three places stayed. Pressed on the move, the 24-year-old didn't hold back: “I think once things settle in too much, once the tyres get too hot, it’s difficult to do too much, so I had to make the most of my opportunity.
“Then I messed it up and left the door open like an amateur. Like I said, some things to improve, but we’re there and we can definitely give them a fight tomorrow.”
Norris’s damning verdict on his own move goes against what 2016 world champion Nico Rosberg wants to see. Speaking earlier this season, Lewis Hamilton’s former foe urged him to be less hard on himself.
Rosberg wasn’t impressed to hear that Norris had had a bet with his race engineer over how he would fare against the Ferraris in China. The McLaren star expected to finish well behind the red cars, only to beat both and finish second behind Verstappen.
"He's a little bit of a 'glass half empty' guy, you know?” said Rosberg on Sky Sports. “Pre-race betting that Ferrari are going to beat them... well I don't know. I don't think that's the best approach in general. I think more positivity would be helpful."
Following the Spielberg Sprint, Norris qualified second for Sunday’s race, albeit it 0.4 seconds behind Verstappen. Asked if he can challenge for victory in the 71-lap race, he was again less-than-upbeat, saying: “It wasn’t amazing today.
“We are going to need something extra to go our way in order to beat Max. I will try, and I will do a better job than I did this morning. It is a long race and anything can happen, so let’s see.”
