Norris satisfied with second at imola after surprising Red Bull pace

Lando Norris admits he didn’t expect Max Verstappen and Red Bull to be too quick for McLaren in the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.

Verstappen started from second on the grid but overtook polesitter Oscar Piastri into the opening chicane and pulled away to take a comfortable victory, despite a late safety car interruption. Norris climbed from fourth to finish second as he took advantage of a different strategy compared to his teammate, but despite largely matching Verstappen’s approach he was unable to trouble the Red Bull driver pace-wise.

“It's probably the best result I thought we could really achieve,” Norris said. “I probably just didn't expect the Red Bull to be quite as quick as they were. I'm happy with second. From fourth, it was a good race. But Max was too fast. It was a fun one.

“[The car] didn’t really feel great anywhere, to be honest. It didn’t feel wonderful to drive. But sometimes it doesn’t, and you're just quick. So it's a little bit difficult to say. It's just a very bumpy track. A lot of these high-speed corners, where we seem to maybe struggle a bit comparing to the Red Bulls. That’s where we’ve suffered the whole season so far, the high-speed corners. So we have to work in that area, and maybe that’s proved to hurt us a little bit more this weekend.

“But we said it from the beginning that we have to keep working hard. Max has outqualified us several times, and their pace just converted [in Imola] onto Sunday. Sometimes they've been ahead, but their pace on Sunday has not been too strong. They've maybe worked on some things, and their pace was better. That’s the price we pay for not being quick enough.”

Norris had to overtake Piastri around the outside into the Tamburello chicane late in the race, and says it was a fight he enjoyed to be able to race against his team-mate.

“It was a good battle between us. I was just on the fresher tires, so I was always going to have that slight advantage on him. And just with the DRS, I managed to have a good last couple corners. I knew that was going to be probably my, not my one chance - you saw once I passed him how easy it was to pull away. It was clear he was just struggling with the tires, which I think everyone did quite a lot of.

“It was a close one. I don’t know how close we got into Turn 1, but we’re both racing, we both want to beat one another, and it was good that we could race close like that.