Lando Norris felt another move on Max Verstappen during the opening
stages of the São Paulo Grand Prix was “not worth” a second
attempt. Verstappen got a better start than Norris during the
second standing restart following a red flag, with the McLaren
driver settling into second behind the Red Bull. Seven laps into
the race, Norris managed to close in on Verstappen and had an
opportunity to pass him into the first corner using DRS. The Red
Bull driver defended as Norris took to the outside, and proceeded
to take a defensive line into Turn 4 to maintain the lead. It was
the only attempt from Norris to challenge for the lead, as
Verstappen stretched the gap out to five seconds before the first
round of pit stops. While there was another opportunity to
challenge of the lead, Norris felt it was better to consolidate due
to the impending threat behind. Norris: Keeping Verstappen behind a
whole new challenge “The opportunity to race against Max was only
going to be for a few laps,” Norris told media including
RacingNews365. “We weren’t going to find, all of a sudden, the pace
we needed to compete against him for a whole race, and Fernando was
behind me. “We knew that their race pace, especially when the
majority of the time when it’s high degradation and certain things
that they can have very good race pace. “He didn’t have clean air
and he was going to be in an opportunity, in a position to
potentially just achieve a lot more and I didn’t want to compromise
my own race by having one more attempt.” Norris believes that even
if he managed to make a move on Verstappen, maintaining the lead
would have been a tough challenge against the dominant car and
driver duo. “At the same time, I was low on the battery and those
types of things,” he said. “If you overheat the tyres too much too
early you can pay the price quite heavily. “I tried. It wasn’t
worth a second attempt as much as I would have loved to and I think
potentially could have done. Just it wasn’t worth the risk and
potential consequences of then being in the hands of Fernando and
the people behind. “If there was a little bit more space, or if I
was literally a couple metres further down, things could have been
a little bit different. “But at the same time, to then try to keep
Max behind for the rest of the race would have been a whole new
challenge.”
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